Self-Supervised 3D Scene Flow Estimation and Motion Prediction using Local Rigidity Prior.

In this article, we investigate self-supervised 3D scene flow estimation and class-agnostic motion prediction on point clouds. A realistic scene can be well modeled as a collection of rigidly moving parts, therefore its scene flow can be represented as a combination of rigid motion of these individual parts. Building upon this observation, we propose to generate pseudo scene flow labels for self-supervised learning through piecewise rigid motion estimation, in which the source point cloud is decomposed into local regions and each region is treated as rigid. By rigidly aligning each region with its potential counterpart in the target point cloud, we obtain a region-specific rigid transformation to generate its pseudo flow labels. To mitigate the impact of potential outliers on label generation, when solving the rigid registration for each region, we alternately perform three steps: establishing point correspondences, measuring the confidence for the correspondences, and updating the rigid transformation based on the correspondences and their confidence. As a result, confident correspondences will dominate label generation, and a validity mask will be derived for the generated pseudo labels. By using the pseudo labels together with their validity mask for supervision, models can be trained in a self-supervised manner. Extensive experiments on FlyingThings3D and KITTI datasets demonstrate that our method achieves new state-of-the-art performance in self-supervised scene flow learning, without any ground truth scene flow for supervision, even performing better than some supervised counterparts. Additionally, our method is further extended to class-agnostic motion prediction and significantly outperforms previous state-of-the-art self-supervised methods on nuScenes dataset.

Global burden of rheumatoid arthritis among adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years: A trend analysis study from 1990 to 2019.

BACKGROUND: In recent decades, there has been a global increase in the burden of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) among adolescents and young adults (AYAs), making it a significant public health issue. However, our understanding of the disease burden, harm, and influencing factors of RA in this population remains insufficient. This study aimed to assess the trends in RA burden among AYAs aged 10-24 years from 1990 to 2019 at the global, regional, and national levels. METHODS: Incidence, prevalence, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) rate per 100,000 population, as well as average annual percentage changes (AAPCs), of RA among individuals aged 10-24 years were reported globally, regionally, and nationally based on the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2019 (GBD 2019). These global trends were further analyzed by age, sex, and Sociodemographic index (SDI). Joinpoint regression analysis was used to determine the year in which the most significant changes in global trends occurred. RESULTS: Globally, the incidence of RA among AYAs increased from 4.98 per 100,000 population in 1990 to 5.41 per 100,000 population in 2019, with an AAPCs of 0.29 (95%CI: 0.26, 0.32, p < 0.001). The most significant increase occurred in 2000, while the most significant decrease occurred in 2014. The prevalence increased from 34.11 per 100,000 population in 1990 to 36.34 per 100,000 population in 2019, with an AAPCs of 0.22 (95%CI: 0.19, 0.24, p<0.001); The most significant increase was observed in 2000, and the most significant decrease occurred in 2014. DALYs rate with RA were 5.96 per 100,000 population in 1990 and 5.79 per 100,000 population in 2019 for AYAs, with an average decrease of 0.1 years per year (AAPCs = -0.1, 95%CI: -0.2, -0.01, p = 0.04). In terms of gender, the incidence, prevalence, and DALYs rate were higher for females compared to males during the same period. Regarding age, the incidence, prevalence, and DALYs rate increased with increasing age. Based on the SDI quintile, the incidence, prevalence, and DALYs rate of RA were highest in countries with high SDI and lowest in countries with low SDI from 1990 to 2019. However, the relationship between incidence and SDI is non-linear. In terms of regions, Tropical Latin America exhibited the highest incidence, prevalence, and DALYs rate, while Andean Latin America experienced the most rapid increase in incidence and prevalence. Southern Latin America saw the fastest growth in DALYs rate, whereas Southern Sub-Saharan Africa witnessed the most significant decline. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, the study revealed an overall increase in the incidence and prevalence of RA among adolescents and young adults (AYAs) over the past three decades, while DALYs rate remained relatively stable. Furthermore, the incidence, prevalence, and DALYs rate of RA were found to increase with age. Fortunately, recent proactive preventive measures and treatment methods have shown promising results. Moving forward, it is crucial to prioritize the female population and AYAs patients in order to further alleviate the global burden of RA.

Hyperoside inhibits EHV-8 infection via alleviating oxidative stress and IFN production through activating JNK/Keap1/Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathways.

Equine herpesvirus type 8 (EHV-8) causes abortion and respiratory disease in horses and donkeys, leading to serious economic losses in the global equine industry. Currently, there is no effective vaccine or drug against EHV-8 infection, underscoring the need for a novel antiviral drug to prevent EHV-8-induced latent infection and decrease the pathogenicity of this virus. The present study demonstrated that hyperoside can exert antiviral effects against EHV-8 infection in RK-13 (rabbit kidney cells), MDBK (Madin-Darby bovine kidney), and NBL-6 cells (E. Derm cells). Mechanistic investigations revealed that hyperoside induces heme oxygenase-1 expression by activating the c-Jun N-terminal kinase/nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2/Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 axis, alleviating oxidative stress and triggering a downstream antiviral interferon response. Accordingly, hyperoside inhibits EHV-8 infection. Meanwhile, hyperoside can also mitigate EHV-8-induced injury in the lungs of infected mice. These results indicate that hyperoside may serve as a novel antiviral agent against EHV-8 infection.IMPORTANCEHyperoside has been reported to suppress viral infections, including herpesvirus, hepatitis B virus, infectious bronchitis virus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection. However, its mechanism of action against equine herpesvirus type 8 (EHV-8) is currently unknown. Here, we demonstrated that hyperoside significantly inhibits EHV-8 adsorption and internalization in susceptible cells. This process induces HO-1 expression via c-Jun N-terminal kinase/nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2/Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 axis activation, alleviating oxidative stress and triggering an antiviral interferon response. These findings indicate that hyperoside could be very effective as a drug against EHV-8.

Additive Manufacturing for Terahertz Metamaterials on the Dielectric Surface based on Optimized Electrohydrodynamic Drop-on-demand Printing Technology.

The conventional techniques used to fabricate terahertz metamaterials, such as photolithography and etching, face hindrances in the form of high costs, lengthy processing cycles, and environmental pollution. In contrast, electrohydrodynamic (EHD) drop-on-demand (DOD) printing technology holds promise as an additive manufacturing method capable of producing micrometer- and nanometer-scale patterns rapidly and cost-effectively. However, achieving stable large-area printing proves challenging due to issues related to charge accumulation in insulated substrates and inconsistent meniscus vibration. In this paper, a smooth bipolar waveform driving method is proposed aimed at solving the problems of charge accumulation on insulated substrates and poor print consistency. The method involves utilizing driving waveforms with opposite polarities for neighboring droplets, allowing the charges carried by the printed droplets to neutralize each other. Moreover, extending the duration of the high voltage rise and fall times enhances the consistency of meniscus motion, thereby improving the stability of printing. Through optimization of the printing parameters, droplets with a diameter of 1.37 µm and straight lines with a width of 3 µm were printed. Furthermore, this approach was employed to print terahertz metamaterial surface devices, and the performance of the metamaterial is in good agreement with the simulation results. These findings demonstrate that the method greatly improves the stability of EHD DOD printing, thereby advancing the application of the technology in additive processing at the micro- and nanoscale.

VCAM-1 Promotes Angiogenesis of Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells Derived from Patients with Trauma-Induced Osteonecrosis of the Femoral Head by Regulating the Apelin/CCN2 Pathway.

Trauma-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head (TI-ONFH) is a pathological process in which the destruction of blood vessels supplying blood to the femoral head causes the death of bone tissue cells. Vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1) has been shown to have potent proangiogenic activity, but the role in angiogenesis of TI-ONFH is unclear. In this work, we discovered that VCAM-1 was significantly downregulated in the bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) derived from patients with TI-ONFH. Subsequently, we constructed BMSCs overexpressing VCAM-1 using a lentiviral vector. VCAM-1 enhances the migration and angiogenesis of BMSCs. We further performed mRNA transcriptome sequencing to explore the mechanisms by which VCAM-1 promotes angiogenesis. Gene ontology biological process enrichment analysis demonstrated that upregulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were related to blood vessel development. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analysis revealed that upregulated DEGs were engaged in the Apelin signaling pathway. Apelin-13 is the endogenous ligand of the APJ receptor and activates this G protein-coupled receptor. Treatment with Apelin-13 activated the Apelin signaling pathway and suppressed the expression of cellular communication network factor 2 in BMSCs. Furthermore, Apelin-13 also inhibits the migration and angiogenesis of VCAM-1-BMSCs. In summary, VCAM-1 plays an important role in vascular microcirculation disorders of TI-ONFH, which provides a new direction for the molecular mechanism and treatment of TI-ONFH.

Unsupervised 3D Pose Transfer With Cross Consistency and Dual Reconstruction.

The goal of 3D pose transfer is to transfer the pose from the source mesh to the target mesh while preserving the identity information (e.g., face, body shape) of the target mesh. Deep learning-based methods improved the efficiency and performance of 3D pose transfer. However, most of them are trained under the supervision of the ground truth, whose availability is limited in real-world scenarios. In this work, we present X-DualNet, a simple yet effective approach that enables unsupervised 3D pose transfer. In X-DualNet, we introduce a generator G which contains correspondence learning and pose transfer modules to achieve 3D pose transfer. We learn the shape correspondence by solving an optimal transport problem without any key point annotations and generate high-quality meshes with our elastic instance normalization (ElaIN) in the pose transfer module. With G as the basic component, we propose a cross consistency learning scheme and a dual reconstruction objective to learn the pose transfer without supervision. Besides that, we also adopt an as-rigid-as-possible deformer in the training process to fine-tune the body shape of the generated results. Extensive experiments on human and animal data demonstrate that our framework can successfully achieve comparable performance as the state-of-the-art supervised approaches.

Design of Wideband High-Gain Patch Antenna Array for High-Temperature Applications.

A low-profile, wideband, and high-gain antenna array, based on a novel double-H-shaped slot microstrip patch radiating element and robust against high temperature variations, is proposed in this work. The antenna element was designed to operate in the frequency range between 12 GHz and 18.25 GHz, with a 41.3% fractional bandwidth (FBW) and an obtained peak gain equal to 10.2 dBi. The planar array, characterized by a feed network with a flexible 1 to 16 power divider, comprised 4 × 4 antenna elements and generated a pattern with a peak gain of 19.1 dBi at 15.5 GHz. An antenna array prototype was fabricated, and the measurements showed good agreement with the numerical simulations as the manufactured antenna operated in the range of 11.4-17 GHz, with a 39.4% FBW, and the peak gain at 15.5 GHz was 18.7 dBi. The high-temperature simulated and experimental results, performed in a temperature chamber, demonstrated that the array performance was stable in a wide temperature range, from -50 °C to 150 °C.

Salmonella Phage CKT1 Effectively Controls the Vertical Transmission of Salmonella Pullorum in Adult Broiler Breeders.

Phage therapy is widely being reconsidered as an alternative to antibiotics for the treatment of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, including salmonellosis caused by Salmonella. As facultative intracellular parasites, Salmonella could spread by vertical transmission and pose a great threat to both human and animal health; however, whether phage treatment might provide an optional strategy for controlling bacterial vertical infection remains unknown. Herein, we explored the effect of phage therapy on controlling the vertical transmission of Salmonella enterica serovar Gallinarum biovar Pullorum (S. Pullorum), a poultry pathogen that causes economic losses worldwide due to high mortality and morbidity. A Salmonella phage CKT1 with lysis ability against several S. enterica serovars was isolated and showed that it could inhibit the proliferation of S. Pullorum in vitro efficiently. We then evaluated the effect of phage CKT1 on controlling the vertical transmission of S. Pullorum in an adult broiler breeder model. The results demonstrated that phage CKT1 significantly alleviated hepatic injury and decreased bacterial load in the liver, spleen, heart, ovary, and oviduct of hens, implying that phage CKT1 played an active role in the elimination of Salmonella colonization in adult chickens. Additionally, phage CKT1 enabled a reduction in the Salmonella-specific IgG level in the serum of infected chickens. More importantly, the decrease in the S. Pullorum load on eggshells and in liquid whole eggs revealed that phage CKT1 effectively controlled the vertical transmission of S. Pullorum from hens to laid eggs, indicating the potential ability of phages to control bacterial vertical transmission.

Coronal tibiofemoral subluxation in patients with osteoarthritis was corrected after total knee arthroplasty.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of preoperative coronal tibiofemoral subluxation (CTFS) on postoperative mechanical alignment in patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA) for primary knee osteoarthritis (OA) and to investigate whether TKA can correct preoperative CTFS. We hypothesized that TKA would correct CTFS in patients with knee OA. A retrospective analysis of 102 patients with knee OA who underwent TKA was performed. The preoperative and postoperative CTFS and mechanical alignment were measured and compared. At the same time, the baseline values of CTFS and mechanical alignment in "normal" patients were measured and compared with those in the operation group. Eighty patients were eventually enrolled in the study. Mechanical alignment was corrected from 7.3 ± 5.2°, preoperatively, to 1.6 ± 2.3° postoperatively, while the tibiofemoral subluxation was corrected from 5.3 ± 2.6 mm, preoperatively, to 2.3 ± 2.7 mm postoperatively. There was no significant correlation between preoperative CTFS and gender (r = 0.03), BMI (r = -0.09), age (r = 0.05), or preoperative mechanical alignment (r = 0.09). In addition, there was no correlation between the degree of correction of CTFS and the degree of correction of overall mechanical alignment (r = 0.14). The difference between the value for CTFS in the "normal" patients and the preoperative value for arthritis cohorts were statistically significant (P = .004). However, no significant difference was appreciated between the value for CTFS in the "normal" patients and the postoperative value for TKA cohorts (P = .25). Preoperative CTFS does not affect postoperative mechanical alignment. Excellent TKA can correct preoperative CTFS in OA patients to reduce prosthesis wear and improve postoperative patient satisfaction.

Companion Animals as Potential Reservoirs of Antibiotic Resistant Diarrheagenic Escherichia coli in Shandong, China.

Antibiotic resistance genes of Escherichia coli (E. coli) from companion animals were still poorly understood. Here, we investigated the extended-spectrum ß-lactamases (ESBLs) resistance genes of E. coli from companion animals in Shandong, China. A total of 79 isolates (80.6%) were recovered from 98 healthy or diarrheal companion animals in 2021, among which ESBLs-producing isolates accounted for 43.0% (34/79), and more than half of ESBL E. coli (ESBL-EC) strains (n = 19) were isolated from healthy companion animals. Diarrheagenic E. coli isolates (45.6%, n = 36) were represented by enterotoxigenic (ETEC) (32.9%), enteropathogenic (EPEC) (10.1%) and enteroinvasive (EIEC) (2.6%), 20 isolates of which were from healthy pets. Among tested antibiotics, resistance to tetracycline (64.6%) was the most commonly observed, followed by doxycycline (59.5%) and ampicillin (53.2%). Notably, all isolates were susceptible to meropenem. The multidrug-resistant (MDR) rate was 49.4%, 20 isolates of which were ESBLs producers; moreover, 23.4%, 16.4% of ESBL-EC strains were resistant to 5 or more, 7 or more antibiotics, respectively. Among the 5 ß-lactamase resistance genes, the most frequent gene was blaCTX-M (60.76%), followed by blaSHV (40.51%). The plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance (PMQR) gene aac(6')-Ib-cr was detected in 35 isolates. Additionally, ESBL-associated genes (i.e., blaCTX-M, blaSHV) were found in 76.5% ESBL-EC strains, with six isolates carrying blaCTX-M and blaSHV. The marker gene of high-pathogenicity island gene irp2 (encoding iron capture systems) was the most frequency virulence gene. Our results showed that ESBL-EC were widespread in healthy or diarrhea companion animals, especially healthy pets, which may be a potential reservoir of antibiotic resistance, therefore, enhancing a risk to public and animal health.

The Relationship Between Lateral Femoral Condyle Index and Noncontact Anterior Cruciate Ligament Rupture.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between distal femoral morphology and noncontact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture and the differences between digital X-ray imaging systems (DR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to evaluate distal femoral morphology. METHODS: A retrospective case-control study was performed on 120 patients. Two age- and sex-matched cohorts (each n = 60) were analyzed: primary ACL ruptures and a control group consisting of isolated meniscal tears. The lateral femoral condyle index (LFCI) was measured by DR and by MRI to quantify femoral sphericity. Differences among two groups were compared, and diagnostic performance of the risk factors was assessed. In addition, differences between DR and MRI to evaluate LFCI were examined. RESULTS: The LFCI by MRI was smaller in the knees with primary ACL rupture (median, 0.71; range, 0.62-0.78) than that of the control group (median, 0.77; range, 0.66-0.85) (p < 0.01). The LFCI was also significantly smaller in the knees with primary ACL rupture (median, 0.72; range, 0.63-0.77) than that of the control group (median, 0.79; range, 0.65-0.84) (p < 0.01) by DR. A cutoff of 0.74 of MRI yielded a sensitivity of 77% and a specificity of 78% to predict an ACL rupture, and of 0.75 of DR yield a sensitivity of 87% and a specificity of 77% to predict an ACL rupture. CONCLUSION: This study showed that a decreased LFCI is associated with an ACL rupture, and both DR and MRI measurements can effectively predict the risk of ACL rupture. This helps expand the scope of the application of the LFCI and helps clinicians identify susceptible individuals who may benefit from targeted ACL rupture prevention counseling and intervention.

Efficient Few-Shot Object Detection via Knowledge Inheritance.

Few-shot object detection (FSOD), which aims at learning a generic detector that can adapt to unseen tasks with scarce training samples, has witnessed consistent improvement recently. However, most existing methods ignore the efficiency issues, e.g., high computational complexity and slow adaptation speed. Notably, efficiency has become an increasingly important evaluation metric for few-shot techniques due to an emerging trend toward embedded AI. To this end, we present an efficient pretrain-transfer framework (PTF) baseline with no computational increment, which achieves comparable results with previous state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods. Upon this baseline, we devise an initializer named knowledge inheritance (KI) to reliably initialize the novel weights for the box classifier, which effectively facilitates the knowledge transfer process and boosts the adaptation speed. Within the KI initializer, we propose an adaptive length re-scaling (ALR) strategy to alleviate the vector length inconsistency between the predicted novel weights and the pretrained base weights. Finally, our approach not only achieves the SOTA results across three public benchmarks, i.e., PASCAL VOC, COCO and LVIS, but also exhibits high efficiency with 1.8-100× faster adaptation speed against the other methods on COCO/LVIS benchmark during few-shot transfer. To our best knowledge, this is the first work to consider the efficiency problem in FSOD. We hope to motivate a trend toward powerful yet efficient few-shot technique development. The codes are publicly available at https://github.com/Ze-Yang/Efficient-FSOD.

Coronal subluxation of the tibiofemoral joint before and after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction.

BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that medial subluxation of the tibia occurs after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture. However, it is unclear whether anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) can correct tibial coronal subluxation. PURPOSE: To determine whether the tibia is medially subluxated after ACL rupture, and whether ACLR can correct medial subluxation of the tibia. STUDY DESIGN: Case series; Level of evidence, 4, Retrospective clinical study. METHODS: The distance of tibial coronal subluxation before and after ACLR surgery was measured in 48 patients with ACL rupture and meniscus injury. Tibiofemoral subluxation was defined as the perpendicular distance between the long axis of the tibia and a second parallel line originating at the most proximal aspect of the femoral intercondylar notch. To determine the long axis of the tibia, two circles separated by 5 cm were centered on the proximal tibia. The proximal circle is 5 cm from the tibial plateau, and the distal circle is 5 cm from the proximal circle. The line passing through the center of the two circles was considered the long axis of the proximal tibia. Care was taken to ensure that each patient lied on the back with their patellae facing upward, to minimize rotational variation among the radiographs. At the same time, 30 patients with simple meniscus injury who underwent arthroscopy during the same period were selected to determine the degree of tibiofemoral coronal subluxation as the baseline value. The changes before and after operation were compared, as well as the differences with the baseline data. RESULT: The average follow-up period was 21.2 ± 5.8 months. The average distance of tibial coronal subluxation before ACLR was 5.5 ± 2.1 mm, which was significantly different from that of baseline group (7.3 ± 2.1 mm) (P < 0.001). The tibial subluxation after ACLR was 7.7 ± 2.6 mm, which was significantly different from that before operation (P < 0.001). There was no significant difference in the distance between postoperative tibial subluxation and baseline group (P = 0.472). CONCLUSION: The tibia was coronally medially subluxated after ACL rupture. ACLR can correct the medial subluxation of tibia. This finding is helpful in the diagnosis of ACL rupture, and can be used to assess the imaging status of the tibiofemoral joint on the coronal plane during or after ACLR.

Palladium-Catalyzed Allenamide Carbopalladation/Allylation with Active Methine Compounds.

A palladium-catalyzed allenamide carbopalladation/allylation with active methine compounds has been developed. Various indoles and isoquinolinones bearing a quaternary carbon center were achieved with good efficiency, a broad substrate scope and good functional group tolerance. This reaction underwent cascade oxidative addition, carbopalladation, and allylic alkylation, and two new C-C bonds were formed in one pot.

A decreased ratio of height of lateral femoral condyle to anteroposterior diameter is a risk factor for anterior cruciate ligament rupture.

BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that the spherical shape of the lateral femoral condyle has a clear relationship with the relative axial movement of tibiofemoral joint and the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture. The purpose of this study was to describe the distal curvature of the lateral femoral condyle by ratio of height of lateral femoral condyle to anteroposterior diameter (HAPR), and evaluate its correlation with ACL rupture. METHODS: A retrospective case-control study of 64 patients was conducted. Two age-and sex-matched cohorts (each n = 32) were analyzed: primary ACL ruptures, and a control group consisting of isolated meniscal tears. On the radiograph, the distance from the intersection of the axis of the distal femur and the anteriorly diameter of the lateral femoral condyle to the lower point of the lateral femoral condyle divided by the anteriorly diameter of the lateral femoral condyle is HAPR. The HAPR was measured by digital radiograph imaging systems (DR) to quantify femoral sphericity. Cutoff values were defined; and diagnostic performance of the risk factors was assessed. Meanwhile, we measured the posterior tibial slope (PTS) on radiograph and compared the two methods to evaluate the significance of HAPR in predicting ACL rupture. RESULTS: A total of sixty-four patients who met the inclusion criteria were included in the final analysis (32 with primary ACL rupture, 32 controls). The HAPR was smaller in the knees with primary ACL rupture (0.31 ± 0.02) than that of the control group (0.33 ± 0.02) (p < 0.01). The PTS was bigger in the knees with primary ACL rupture (8.18 ± 2.77) than that of the control group (6.61 ± 2.85) (p = 0.036). The AUC of HAPR was bigger (0.825; 95% CI, 0.72-0.93) than that of PTS (0.675; 95%CI, 0.85-0.81). The calculated cutoff of HAPR of 0.32 (Youden index, 0.56) was associated with an increased risk for ACL rupture, with sensitivity of 75% and specificity of 81% to predict an ACL rupture. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that a decreased HAPR is associated with an ACL rupture, and the decrease of HAPR was more significant in predicting ACL ruptures than the PTS. This helps clinicians identify susceptible individuals who may benefit from targeted ACL rupture prevention counseling and intervention.

Production of Antiviral Substance from Sugarcane Bagasse by Chemical Alteration of its Native Lignin Structure through Microwave Solvolysis.

The production of bioactive agents from lignocelluloses has received limited attention because plant cell walls are essentially non-bioactive. In this study, a chemical reaction is reported, which produces a lignin-derived antiviral substance from sugarcane bagasse by microwave heating at 200 °C in aqueous glycerol containing 0.5 % H2 SO4 . The purified fraction, designated as FR200 , strongly inhibited the replication of encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV) in L929 cells without cytotoxicity. HSQC NMR spectra demonstrated that the principal interunit linkages in the native lignin were cleaved by the reaction. Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and pyrolysis-GCMS revealed that FR200 is composed of oligomeric lignin with a weight average molecular weight of approximately 2000. When the bagasse was reacted at lower temperatures, 140 °C and 160 °C, the native lignin substructures were partially retained and the antiviral activity significantly decreased. The results thus indicate that the antiviral activity emerged through severe alteration of the native lignin structure. Furthermore, it was revealed that the antiviral lignin inactivated the EMCV virions through direct contact, as the innate immune system of L929 was not activated by FR200 treatment, and no antiviral activity was found when L929 was pre-treated with the lignin before viral infection.

Is serum complement C1q related to major depressive disorder?

BACKGROUND: Major depressive disorder (MDD) has a high global incidence. While the pathogenesis of depression remains unknown, accumulating evidence has implicated inflammatory changes. AIM: The aim of the study is to compare the serum complement C1q levels in patients with MDD and healthy controls. SETTING AND DESIGN: The design was a case-control study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Blood samples were collected from the patients with MDD and healthy controls to assess the serum C1q levels using an immunotransmission turbidimetric method. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Differences in complement C1q levels between patients with MDD and the controls, as well as between sexes among patients with MDD and the controls, were assessed using Mann-Whitney U-test. Spearman correlations were obtained between complement C1q levels and age. RESULTS: In total, 1016 participants (508 MDD and 508 controls) were recruited. Differences in the sex ratio (male/female among controls, 181/327; and MDD, 178/330) and age (controls, 47.0 ± 14.9 years; MDD, 46.5 ± 16.5 years) were not significant. The C1q level in the patients with MDD was significantly higher than that in the healthy controls (P < 0.05). In the MDD group, C1q level correlated significantly with age. CONCLUSION: Elevation of the serum complement C1q levels in MDD may support the use of C1q as a potential biomarker for diagnosing depression, but further research is needed.

Astaxanthin ameliorates experimental diabetes-induced renal oxidative stress and fibronectin by upregulating connexin43 in glomerular mesangial cells and diabetic mice.

Oxidative stress is the major cause of renal fibrosis in the progression of DN. Connexin43 (Cx43) exerts an anti-fibrosis effect on diabetic kidneys. The current study aimed to investigate whether astaxanthin (AST) could ameliorate the pathological progression of DN by upregulating Cx43 and activating the Nrf2/ARE signaling, which is a pivotal anti-oxidative stress system, to strengthen the cellular anti-oxidative capacity and diminish fibronectin (FN) accumulation in HG-induced glomerular mesangial cells (GMCs). Our hypothesis was verified in GMCs and the kidneys from db/db mice by western blot, immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry, immunoprecipitation, dual luciferase reporter assay and reactive oxygen related detection kits. Results showed that AST simultaneously upregulated the Cx43 protein level and promoted the Nrf2/ARE signaling activity in the kidney of db/db mice and HG-treated GMCs. However, Cx43 depletion abrogated the Nrf2/ARE signaling activation induced by AST. AST reduced the interaction between c-Src and Nrf2 in the nuclei of GMCs cultured with HG, thereby enhancing the Nrf2 accumulation in the nuclei of GMCs. Our data suggested that AST promoted the Nrf2/ARE signaling by upregulating the Cx43 protein level to prevent renal fibrosis triggered by HG in GMCs and db/db mice. c-Src acted as a mediator in these processes.