[Corrigendum] Alcohol extracts from Anemone flaccida Fr. Schmidt treat rheumatoid arthritis via inhibition of synovial hyperplasia and angiogenesis.

Subsequently to the publication of the above paper, the authors drew to the attention of the Editorial Office that they had assembled the data shown for the cell migration assay experiments in Fig. 4F (on p. 8), incorrectly; essentially, the 'Control' data panel had inadvertently been copied across for the '10 µg/ml' data panel. The revised version of Fig. 4, showing the correct data panel for the '10 µg/ml' experiment in Fig. 4F,  is shown on the next page. Note that the replacement of the erroneous data does not affect either the results or the conclusions reported in this paper, and all the authors agree to the publication of this Corrigendum. The authors are grateful to the Editor of Molecular Medicine Reports for granting them this opportunity to publish a Corrigendum, and apologize to the readership for any inconvenience caused. [Molecular Medicine Reports 27: 88, 2023; DOI: 10.3892/mmr.2023.12975].

Heterosis formation mechanism, prediction methods, and their application and prospect in pig production.

Heterosis is the phenomenon that the hybrid offspring outperform two-parent population. Hybridisation has been widely used in plant and animal production as it effectively improves the growth and developmental performance, reproductive performance and disease resistance of the offspring. Hybridization can effectively improve the growth and development performance, reproductive performance and disease resistance of offspring, so it is widely used in animal and plant production. Researchers have used cross-breeding techniques to cultivate excellent new agricultural and animal husbandry strains and supporting lines such as super-excellent Chaoyou 1000 hybrid rice, Xiaoyan No.6 hybrid wheat, Dumeng sheep, and Shanxia black pigs. However, there are still some urgent problems in the current hybrid dominance research: the existing hybrid dominance theory can only partially explain the phenomenon of plant and animal hybrid dominance, and the theory of animal hybrid dominance is less researched, and the accuracy of the existing hybrid dominance prediction methods is limited. China is the world's largest pork production and consumption country. Heterosis can effectively improve the production performance of pigs, and its application in the pig industry has important economic and research value. However, the existing research on pig hybrid production is in its infancy and needs to be further studied. In this review, we summarize the existing heterosis theory, heterosis prediction methods, and their application in pig production, to provide a reference for the application of heterosis in pig breeding.

SFPL: Sample-specific fine-grained prototype learning for imbalanced medical image classification.

Imbalanced classification is a common and difficult task in many medical image analysis applications. However, most existing approaches focus on balancing feature distribution and classifier weights between classes, while ignoring the inner-class heterogeneity and the individuality of each sample. In this paper, we proposed a sample-specific fine-grained prototype learning (SFPL) method to learn the fine-grained representation of the majority class and learn a cosine classifier specifically for each sample such that the classification model is highly tuned to the individual's characteristic. SFPL first builds multiple prototypes to represent the majority class, and then updates the prototypes through a mixture weighting strategy. Moreover, we proposed a uniform loss based on set representations to make the fine-grained prototypes distribute uniformly. To establish associations between fine-grained prototypes and cosine classifier, we propose a selective attention aggregation module to select the effective fine-grained prototypes for final classification. Extensive experiments on three different tasks demonstrate that SFPL outperforms the state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods. Importantly, as the imbalance ratio increases from 10 to 100, the improvement of SFPL over SOTA methods increases from 2.2% to 2.4%; as the training data decreases from 800 to 100, the improvement of SFPL over SOTA methods increases from 2.2% to 3.8%.

Superhydrophobic, Anti-Freezing and Multi-Cross-Linked Wearable Hydrogel Strain Sensor for Underwater Gesture Recognition.

Conductive hydrogel is considered to be one of the most potential sensing materials for wearable strain sensors. However, both the hydrophilicity of polymer chains and high water content severely inhibit the potential applications of hydrogel-based sensors in extreme conditions. In this study, a multicross-linked hydrogel was prepared by simultaneously introducing a double-network matrix, multiple conductive fillers, and free-moving ions, which can withstand an ultralow temperature below -80 °C. A superhydrophobic Ecoflex layer with a water contact angle of 159.1° was coated on the hydrogel using simple spraying and laser engraving methods. Additionally, the smart glove integrating five hydrogel strain sensors with a microprocessor was developed to recognize 12 types of diving gestures and synchronously transmit recognition results to smartphones. The superhydrophobic and antifreezing hydrogel strain sensor proposed in this study emerges promising potentials in wearable electronics, human-machine interfaces, and underwater applications.

Dialdehyde starch cross-linked aminated gelatin sponges with excellent hemostatic performance and biocompatibility.

Developing a hemostatic material suitable for rapid hemostasis remains a challenge. This study presents a novel aminated gelatin sponge cross-linked with dialdehyde starch, exhibiting excellent biocompatibility and hemostatic ability. This aminated gelatin sponge features hydrophilic surface and rich porous structure with a porosity of up to 80 %. The results show that the aminated gelatin sponges exhibit superior liquid absorption capacity and can absorb up to 30-50 times their own mass of simulated body fluid within 5 min. Compared with the commercial gelatin hemostatic sponge and non-aminated gelatin hemostatic sponge, the aminated gelatin hemostatic sponge can accelerate the hemostatic process through electrostatic interactions, demonstrating superior hemostatic performance in both in vitro and in vivo hemostasis tests. The aminated gelatin sponge can effectively control the hemostatic time within 80 s in the in vivo rat femoral artery injury model, significantly outperforming both commercial and non-aminated gelatin sponges. In addition, the aminated gelatin sponge also exhibits good biocompatibility and certain antibacterial properties. The proposed aminated gelatin sponge has very good application prospects for the management of massive hemorrhage.

Intracapsular Enucleation of Cervical Sympathetic Chain Schwannoma: Improved Strategy of Intraoperative Hemostasis and Better Outcome.

Objective: Intracapsular enucleation (ICE) of cervical sympathetic chain schwannoma (CSCS) is associated with technical difficulties, with diffuse hemorrhage being the main challenge in our previous attempts. This article presents our new strategy for achieving better hemostasis during ICE procedures in CSCS cases. Methods: A retrospective review of CSCS cases treated at our tertiary medical institution was undertaken between April 2018 and February 2024. Only cases with successful ICE were included. Results: A total of 8 cases were included, with 4 male and 4 female patients and an age range of 23 to 77 (average and median ages were 48.5 and 49.5 years, respectively). The presenting symptom was a neck mass for all the patients, with 4 masses on the left and 4 on the right sides. Enucleation was first undertaken for the first 3 cases (before March 2022), followed by hemostasis; this strategy was quite difficult and time-consuming. For the remaining 5 cases, a new strategy was developed to preemptively manage any potential nourishing vessel between the capsule and tumor parenchyma, which significantly decreased operation time (P = .0155) and facilitated hemorrhage control. First bite syndrome (FBS) was avoided in all cases. Postoperative Horner's syndrome (HS) was avoided in 1 patient (Case 6, new strategy) but occurred in 7 patients, taking 8 days to 1 month to recover with the new strategy (4 patients), significantly shorter (P = .0364) than before (3 patients, 1-3 months). The median duration of follow-up was 20 months. No recurrence was documented. Conclusions: ICE was achieved for CSCS cases, especially with our newly developed strategy, by preemptively and securely managing potential nourishing vessels. Operation time and duration of recovery of postoperative HS could both be shortened. Moreover, FBS could be avoided.

Effect of negative remodeling of the side branch ostium on the efficacy of a two-stent strategy for distal left main bifurcation lesions: an intravascular ultrasound study.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether negative remodeling (NR) detected by intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) of the side branch ostium (SBO) would affect in-stent neointimal hyperplasia (NIH) at the one-year follow-up and the clinical outcome of target lesion failure (TLF) at the long-term follow-up for patients with left main bifurcation (LMb) lesions treated with a two-stent strategy. METHODS: A total of 328 patients with de novo true complex LMb lesions who underwent a 2-stent strategy of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) treatment guided by IVUS were enrolled in this study. We divided the study into two phases. Of all the patients, 48 patients who had complete IVUS detection pre- and post-PCI and at the 1-year follow-up were enrolled in phase I analysis, which aimed to analyze the correlation between NR and in-stent NIH at SBO at the 1-year follow-up. If the correlation was confirmed, the cutoff value of the remodeling index (RI) for predicting NIH ≥ 50% was analyzed next. The phase II analysis focused on the incidence of TLF as the primary endpoint at the 1- to 5-year follow-up for all 328 patients by grouping based on the cutoff value of RI. RESULTS: In phase I: according to the results of a binary logistic regression analysis and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, the RI cutoff value predicting percent NIH ≥ 50% was 0.85 based on the ROC curve analysis, with a sensitivity of 85.7%, a specificity of 88.3%, and an AUC of 0.893 (0.778, 1.000), P = 0.002. In phase II: the TLR rate (35.8% vs. 5.3%, P < 0.0001) was significantly higher in the several NR (sNR, defined as RI ≤ 0.85) group than in the non-sNR group. CONCLUSION: The NR of LCxO is associated with more in-stent NIH post-PCI for distal LMb lesions with a 2-stent strategy, and NR with RI ≤ 0.85 is linked to percent NIH area ≥ 50% at the 1-year follow-up and more TLF at the 5-year follow-up.

Nanosecond-pulsed plasma protects against bacterial fruit blotch and promotes melon seedling growth.

BACKGROUND: Bacterial fruit blotch (BFB), known as the 'cancer' of cucurbits, is a seed-borne disease of melons caused by Acidovorax citrulli. Traditional chemical treatments for BFB are ineffective and adversely affect the environment. Using dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) nanosecond-pulsed plasma technology, melon seeds were treated to promote germination and growth and to control BFB. RESULTS: Based on the evaluation parameters of seed germination, seedling growth, leaf yellowing and bacterial infection after seed plasma treatments, 9 min at 20 kV was selected as the optimal plasma discharge parameter. In this study, seedling growth was significantly improved after treating melon seeds carrying A. citrulli using this discharge parameter. The number of first true leaves measured on the eighth day was 2.3 times higher and the disease index was reduced by 60.5% compared to the control group. Attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared measurements show that plasma treatments penetrate the seed coat and denature polysaccharides and proteins in the seed kernel, affecting their growth and sterilization properties. CONCLUSION: Pre-sowing treatment of melon seeds carrying A. citrulli using nanosecond-pulsed plasma technology can effectively control seedling BFB disease and promote melon seedling growth by optimizing DBD parameters. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.

Identification of porcine fast/slow myogenic exosomes and their regulatory effects on lipid accumulation in intramuscular adipocytes.

BACKGROUND: Pork quality is affected by the type of muscle fibers, which is closely related to meat color, tenderness and juiciness. Exosomes are tiny vesicles with a diameter of approximately 30-150 nm that are secreted by cells and taken up by recipient cells to mediate communication. Exosome-mediated muscle-fat tissue crosstalk is a newly discovered mechanism that may have an important effect on intramuscular fat deposition and with that on meat quality. Various of adipose tissue-derived exosomes have been discovered and identified, but the identification and function of muscle exosomes, especially porcine fast/slow myotube exosomes, remain unclear. Here, we first isolated and identified exosomes secreted from porcine extensor digitorum longus (EDL) and soleus (SOL), which represent fast and slow muscle, respectively, and further explored their effects on lipid accumulation in longissimus dorsi adipocytes. RESULTS: Porcine SOL-derived exosomes (SOL-EXO) and EDL-derived exosomes (EDL-EXO) were first identified and their average particle sizes were approximately 84 nm with double-membrane disc- shapes as observed via transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Moreover, the intramuscular fat content of the SOL was greater than that of the EDL at 180 days of age, because SOL intramuscular adipocytes had a stronger lipid-accumulating capacity than those of the EDL. Raman spectral analysis revealed that SOL-EXO protein content was much greater than that of EDL-EXO. Proteomic sequencing identified 72 proteins that were significantly differentially expressed between SOL-EXO and EDL-EXO, 31 of which were downregulated and 41 of which were upregulated in SOL-EXO. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that muscle-fat tissue interactions occur partly via SOL-EXO promoting adipogenic activity of intramuscular adipocytes.

What is the impact of microbiota on dry eye: a literature review of the gut-eye axis.

BACKGROUND: Dry eye is a chronic and multifactorial ocular surface disease caused by tear film instability or imbalance in the microenvironment of the ocular surface. It can lead to various discomforts such as inflammation of the ocular surface and visual issues. However, the mechanism of dry eye is not clear, which results in dry eye being only relieved but not cured in clinical practice. Finding multiple environmental pathways for dry eye and exploring the pathogenesis of dry eye have become the focus of research. Studies have found that changes in microbiota may be related to the occurrence and development of dry eye disease. METHODS: Entered the keywords "Dry eye", "Microbiota", "Bacteria" through PUBMED, summarised the articles that meet the inclusion criteria and then filtered them while the publication time range of the literature was defined in the past 5 years, with a deadline of 2023.A total of 13 clinical and 1 animal-related research articles were screened out and included in the summary. RESULTS: Study found that different components of bacteria can induce ocular immune responses through different receptors present on the ocular surface, thereby leading to an imbalance in the ocular surface microenvironment. Changes in the ocular surface microbiota and gut microbiota were also found when dry eye syndrome occurs, including changes in diversity, an increase in pro-inflammatory bacteria, and a decrease in short-chain fatty acid-related bacterial genera that produce anti-inflammatory effects. Fecal microbiota transplantation or probiotic intervention can alleviate signs of inflammation on the ocular surface of dry eye animal models. CONCLUSIONS: By summarizing the changes in the ocular surface and intestinal microbiota when dry eye occurs, it is speculated and concluded that the intestine may affect the occurrence of eye diseases such as dry eye through several pathways and mechanisms, such as the occurrence of abnormal immune responses, microbiota metabolites- intervention of short-chain fatty acids, imbalance of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory factors, and release of neurotransmitters, etc. Analyzing the correlation between the intestinal tract and the eyes from the perspective of microbiota can provide a theoretical basis and a new idea for relieving dry eyes in multiple ways in the future.

Impact of perceived value in virtual brand communities on purchase intention of domestic electric vehicles.

The consumption value seems to be insufficient to explain consumers' domestic electric vehicle purchase behaviour, especially in a highly competitive global environment. This study aims to investigate how consumer ethnocentrism and perceived interactivity influence consumption value and pro-environmental value, subsequently affecting attitude and intention. A total of 353 valid questionnaires were collected through convenience sampling in Xuzhou, China, and the partial least square (PLS) path modelling approach was performed to test the hypotheses. The results show that consumer ethnocentrism and perceived interactivity positively influence function value, emotional value, and social value; perceived interactivity also positively influences altruistic value, biospheric value, and collectivistic value. Function value, social value, and collectivistic value positively influence attitude; however, emotional value, altruistic value and biospheric value did not find a correlation with attitude. Furthermore, attitude positively influences intention to adopt domestic electric vehicles. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications, as well as limitations were discussed accordingly.

Expression of GPR56 reflects a hypoactivated state of circulating B cells and is downregulated in B cell subsets in patients with early-stage lung adenocarcinoma.

Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most prevalent subtype of lung cancer, and the early detection and diagnosis of this disease are crucial in reducing mortality rates. The timely diagnosis of LUAD is essential for controlling tumour development and enabling early surgical treatment. GPR56 is a vital G protein-coupled receptor and its role in T lymphocytes has received considerable attention. However, its function in B cells remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the significance of GPR56 in LUAD. We found that GPR56 exhibited a significant increase in circulating plasmablasts and a decrease in new memory B cells. GPR56 expression in B cells was significantly reduced after LPS stimulation and the proportion of HLA-DR+ and CD40+ proportions were also decreased in GPR56+ B cells after stimulation. Additionally, GPR56 exhibited significant down-regulation in circulating B cell subsets of early-stage LUAD patients, and there were significant correlations between GPR56+ B cell subsets and tumour markers. In conclusion, GPR56 could reflect the hypoactivation state of B cells and the decreased proportion of GPR56+ B cell subset in LUAD patients can signify the active humoral immunity in vivo. The expression of GPR56 in B cells could potentially hold value in the early diagnosis of LUAD.

Slit2-Robo4 signal pathway and tight junction in intestine mediate LPS-induced inflammation in mice.

BACKGROUND: Sepsis is one of the most common clinical diseases, which is characterized by a serious and uncontrollable inflammatory response. LPS-induced inflammation is a critical pathological event in sepsis, but the underlying mechanism has not yet been fully elucidated. METHODS: The animal model was established for two batches. In the first batch of experiments, Adult C57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into control group and LPS (5 mg/kg, i.p.)group . In the second batch of experiments, mice were randomly divided into control group, LPS group, and LPS+VX765(10 mg/kg, i.p., an inhibitor of NLRP3 inflammasome) group. After 24 hours, mice were anesthetized with isoflurane, blood and intestinal tissue were collected for tissue immunohistochemistry, Western blot analysis and ELISA assays. RESULTS: The C57BL/6J mice injected with LPS for twenty-four hours could exhibit severe inflammatory reaction including an increased IL-1ß, IL-18 in serum and activation of NLRP3 inflammasome in intestine. The injection of VX765 could reverse these effects induced by LPS. These results indicated that the increased level of IL-1ß and IL-18 in serum induced by LPS is related to the increased intestinal permeability and activation of NLRP3 inflammasome. In the second batch of experiments, results of western blot and immunohistochemistry showed that Slit2 and Robo4 were significant decreased in intestine of LPS group, while the expression of VEGF was significant increased. Meanwhile, the protein level of tight junction protein ZO-1, occludin, and claudin-5 were significantly lower than in control group, which could also be reversed by VX765 injection. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, we revealed that Slit2-Robo4 signaling pathway and tight junction in intestine may be involved in LPS-induced inflammation in mice, which may account for the molecular mechanism of sepsis.

Assembly of Heterocyclic C-Glycosides by Ru-Catalyzed C-H Activation/Cyclization with Carbonyl Sulfoxonium Ylide Glyco-Reagents.

New carbonyl sulfoxonium ylide glyco-reagents have been developed, enabling the synthesis of versatile heteroarene C-glycosides through a Ru-catalyzed C-H activation/annulation strategy. These reactions tolerate various saccharide donors and represent a significant advance in the stereoselective synthesis of heterocyclic C-glycosides. Furthermore, the strategy and methods could be applied to large-scale reactions and late-stage modifications of some structurally complex natural products or drugs.

Association of Human Whole-blood NAD + Levels with Nabothian Cyst.

Objective: Little is known about the association between whole-blood nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD +) levels and nabothian cysts. This study aimed to assess the association between NAD + levels and nabothian cysts in healthy Chinese women. Methods: Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to analyze the association between NAD + levels and nabothian cysts. Results: The mean age was 43.0 ± 11.5 years, and the mean level of NAD + was 31.3 ± 5.3 µmol/L. Nabothian cysts occurred in 184 (27.7%) participants, with single and multiple cysts in 100 (15.0%) and 84 (12.6%) participants, respectively. The total nabothian cyst prevalence gradually decreased from 37.4% to 21.6% from Q1 to Q4 of NAD + and the prevalence of single and multiple nabothian cysts also decreased across the NAD + quartiles. As compared with the highest NAD + quartile (≥ 34.4 µmol/L), the adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence interval of the NAD + Q1 was 1.89 (1.14-3.14) for total nabothian cysts. The risk of total and single nabothian cysts linearly decreased with increasing NAD + levels, while the risk of multiple nabothian cysts decreased more rapidly at NAD + levels of 28.0 to 35.0 µmol/L. Conclusion: Low NAD + levels were associated with an increased risk of total and multiple nabothian cysts.

Adipocyte Progenitor Pools Composition and Cellular Niches Affect Adipogenesis Divergence in Porcine Subcutaneous and Intramuscular Fat.

Intramuscular fat (IMF) contributed positively to pork quality, whereas subcutaneous fat (SCF) was often considered to be a detrimental factor impacting growth and carcass traits. Reducing SCF while maintaining optimal IMF levels requires a thorough understanding of the adipogenic differences between these two adipose depots. Our study explored the differences in adipogenesis between porcine IMF and SCF, and the results showed that subcutaneous adipocytes (SCAs) demonstrate a greater potential for adipogenic differentiation, both in vivo and in vitro. Lipidomic and transcriptomic analyses suggested that intramuscular adipocytes (IMAs) are more inclined to biosynthesize unsaturated fatty acids. Furthermore, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) was employed to dissect the intrinsic and microenvironmental discrepancies in adipogenesis between porcine IMF and SCF. Comparative analysis indicated that SCF was enriched with preadipocytes, exhibiting an enhanced adipogenic potential, while IMF was characterized by a higher abundance of stem cells. Furthermore, coculture analyses of porcine intramuscular adipogenic cells and myogenetic cells indicated that the niche of IMAs inhibited its adipogenic differentiation. Cell communication analysis identified 160 ligand-receptor pairs and channels between adipogenic and myogenetic cells in IMF. Collectively, our study elucidated two intrinsic and microenvironmental novel mechanisms underpinning the divergence in adipogenesis between porcine SCF and IMF.

Scriptaid is a prospective agent for improving human asthenozoospermic sample quality and fertilization rate in vitro.

ABSTRACT: Male infertility is a global issue caused by poor sperm quality, particularly motility. Enhancement of the sperm quality may improve the fertilization rate in assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment. Scriptaid, with a novel human sperm motility-stimulating activity, has been investigated as a prospective agent for improving sperm quality and fertilization rate in ART. We evaluated the effects of Scriptaid on asthenozoospermic (AZS) semen, including its impact on motility stimulation and protective effects on cryopreservation and duration of motility, by computer-aided sperm analysis (CASA). Sperm quality improvement by Scriptaid was characterized by increased hyaluronan-binding activity, tyrosine phosphorylation, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) concentration, mitochondrial membrane potential, and an ameliorated AZS fertilization rate in clinical intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) experiments. Furthermore, our identification of active Scriptaid analogs and different metabolites induced by Scriptaid in spermatozoa lays a solid foundation for the future biomechanical exploration of sperm function. In summary, Scriptaid is a potential candidate for the treatment of male infertility in vitro as it improves sperm quality, prolongs sperm viability, and increases the fertilization rate.

Endoscopic Dyeing and Plasma Coblation-Assisted Open Neck Surgery for Pyriform Fossa Branchial Apparatus Anomalies in Adults.

Objective: Pyriform fossa (PF) branchial apparatus anomalies (PFBAA) are rare congenital third or fourth branchial apparatus anomalies (TBAA or FBAA). This article summarizes our paradigm in managing this condition by combining endoscopic procedures and open neck surgery. Methods: A retrospective review was undertaken concerning PFBAA cases treated at our tertiary medical institution between July 2020 and November 2023. Data were collected from case records. Three sequential steps were implemented: (1) direct laryngoscopy to identify internal orifice (IO), with injection of methylene blue into it; (2) open neck surgery to resect all inflammatory tissues, focusing on the ligation of the sinus tract out of PF; and (3) plasma coblation of IO mucosa. Results: In total, 7 cases (4 men and 3 women) were included (28-67 years old, median age 53). Presenting symptoms were various, with 6 lesions on the left and 1 on the right side. Preoperative (PO) fiberoptic laryngoscopy identified IO in 6 patients, while PO barium esophageal study identified outflow from PF in 4 patients. A preliminary diagnosis of PFBAA could be established in all cases (2 TBAA and 5 FBAA cases). Direct laryngoscopy after general anesthesia identified IO in all cases (2 on the base of PF and 5 on the apex of PF). All the surgical procedures were successful, with uneventful recovery in all the patients. No postoperative complications were observed. All the patients resumed oral fluid intake after confirmation of no pharyngeal fistula by barium esophageal study on the seventh postoperative day. The duration of follow-up was between 6 and 40 months (with a median duration of 27 months). No recurrence was observed. Conclusion: Open neck surgery, assisted by endoscopic dyeing of sinus tracts and plasma coblation of IO mucosa, is a suitable treatment for PFBAA in adults. This paradigm is effective and safe for senior surgeons.