'Seaweed appearance' in squamous cell carcinoma of the penis: A new dermoscopic finding.

Squamous cell carcinoma of the penis is an uncommon cancer. Vascular feature on dermoscopy is common in all forms of invasive squamous cell carcinoma, and the presence of the specific vascular features is often used to aid diagnosis. Here, we reported a new dermoscopic finding-seaweed-like vascular pattern in squamous cell carcinoma of the penis.

Anemia is associated with long-term exposure to PM2.5 and its components: a large population-based study in Southwest China.

Background: Anemia is linked to PM2.5 (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters of ⩽2.5 µm) exposure, which can increase the risk of various negative health outcomes. It remains unclear which PM2.5 components are associated with anemia and the respective contribution of each component to this association. Objective: This study aimed at investigating the association between PM2.5 and anemia in the general population and to identify the most critical PM2.5 toxic components in this association. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Our study involved a large cohort of 73,511 individuals aged 30-79 from China's multi-ethnic population. We employed satellite observations and the chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem)to estimate the long-term exposure to PM2.5 and its components. Anemia was defined, according to WHO guidelines, as Hb levels below 130 g/L for men and below 120 g/L for women. Through logistic regression, we investigated the association between PM2.5 components and anemia. By utilizing weighted quantile sum (WQS) analysis, we identified key components and gained insights into their combined impact on anemia. Overall, our study sheds light on the relationship between PM2.5 exposure, its constituents, and the risk of anemia in a large cohort. Results: PM2.5 and three components, nitrate (NIT), organic matter (OM), and soil particles (SOIL), were associated with anemia. Per-standard deviation increase in the 3-year average concentrations of PM2.5 [odds ratio (OR): 1.14, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.01, 1.28], NIT (1.20, 1.06, 1.35), OM (1.17, 1.04, 1.32), and SOIL (1.22, 1.11, 1.33) were associated with higher odds of anemia. In WQS regression analysis, the WQS index was associated with anemia (OR: 1.29, 95% CI: 1.13, 1.47). SOIL has the highest weight among all PM2.5 components. Conclusions: Long-term exposure to PM2.5 and its constituents is associated with anemia. Moreover, SOIL might be the most critical component of the relationship between PM2.5 and anemia. Our research increases the evidence of the association between PM2.5 and anemia in the general population, and targeted emission control measures should be taken into consideration to mitigate the adverse effects of PM2.5-related anemia.

Ambient PM2.5 Components Are Associated With Bone Strength: Evidence From a China Multi-Ethnic Study.

CONTEXT: The relationship between the components of particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 or less (PM2.5) and bone strength remains unclear. OBJECTIVE: Based on a large-scale epidemiologic survey, we investigated the individual and combined associations of PM2.5 and its components with bone strength. METHODS: A total of 65 906 individuals aged 30 to 79 years were derived from the China Multi-Ethnic Cohort Annual average concentrations of PM2.5 and its components were estimated using satellite remote sensing and chemical transport models. Bone strength was expressed by the calcaneus quantitative ultrasound index (QUI) measured by quantitative ultrasound. The logistic regression model and weighted quantile sum method were used to estimate the associations of single and joint exposure to PM2.5 and its components with QUI, respectively. RESULTS: Our analysis shows that per-SD increase (µg/m3) in 3-year average concentrations of PM2.5 (mean difference [MD] -7.38; 95% CI, -8.35 to -6.41), black carbon (-7.91; -8.90 to -6.92), ammonium (-8.35; -9.37 to -7.34), nitrate (-8.73; -9.80 to -7.66), organic matter (-4.70; -5.77 to -3.64), and soil particles (-5.12; -6.10 to -4.15) were negatively associated with QUI. In addition, these associations were more pronounced in men, and people older than 65 years with a history of smoking and chronic alcohol consumption. CONCLUSION: We found that long-term exposure to PM2.5 and its components may lead to reduced bone strength, suggesting that PM2.5 and its components may potentially increase the risk of osteoporosis and even fracture. Nitrate may be responsible for increasing its risk to a greater extent.

An Interpretable Multitask Framework BiLAT Enables Accurate Prediction of Cyclin-Dependent Protein Kinase Inhibitors.

The cyclin-dependent protein kinases (CDKs) are protein-serine/threonine kinases with crucial effects on the regulation of cell cycle and transcription. CDKs can be a hallmark of cancer since their excessive expression could lead to impaired cell proliferation. However, the selectivity profile of most developed CDK inhibitors is not enough, which have hindered the therapeutic use of CDK inhibitors. In this study, we propose a multitask deep learning framework called BiLAT based on SMILES representation for the prediction of the inhibitory activity of molecules on eight CDK subtypes (CDK1, 2, 4-9). The framework is mainly composed of an improved bidirectional long short-term memory module BiLSTM and the encode layer of the Transformer framework. Additionally, the data enhancement method of SMILES enumeration is applied to improve the performance of the model. Compared with baseline predictive models based on three conventional machine learning methods and two multitask deep learning algorithms, BiLAT achieves the best performance with the highest average AUC, ACC, F1-score, and MCC values of 0.938, 0.894, 0.911, and 0.715 for the test set. Moreover, we constructed a targeted external data set CDK-Dec for the CDK family, which mainly contains bait values screened by 3D similarity with active compounds. This dataset was utilized in the subsequent evaluation of our model. It is worth mentioning that the BiLAT model is interpretable and can be used by chemists to design and synthesize compounds with improved activity. To further verify the generalization ability of the multitask BiLAT model, we also conducted another evaluation on three public datasets (Tox21, ClinTox, and SIDER). Compared with several currently popular models, BiLAT shows the best performance on two datasets. These results indicate that BiLAT is an effective tool for accelerating drug discovery.

OPN3 Regulates Melanogenesis in Human Congenital Melanocytic Nevus Cells through Functional Interaction with BRAFV600E.

OPN3, as a member of the opsin family, has various nonlight-dependent functions. Congenital melanocytic nevus (CMN) is a skin lesion with dark pigmentation that appears at birth and can be initiated by the BRAFV600E mutation in melanocytes. However, the role of OPN3 in BRAFV600E CMN cell melanogenesis has never been reported. In this study, we show that OPN3 acts as a negative regulator of melanin production by modulating BRAFV600E signaling in BRAFV600E CMN cells. Knocking down OPN3 expression can inhibit the BRAFV600E/extracellular signal‒regulated kinase signaling pathway and upregulate the expression of microcephaly-related transcription factors, tyrosinase, and TRP1 and TRP2, thus increasing melanin levels in BRAFV600E CMN cells. More remarkably, OPN3 and BRAFV600E were found to form a physical complex. Furthermore, a three-dimensional nevus model was used to further prove the negative regulatory effect of OPN3 on BRAFV600E CMN cell melanogenesis. Our study reveals a mechanism for OPN3-mediated melanogenesis in BRAFV600E CMN cells, and these results may lead to a more personalized and economically viable approach to treating BRAFV600E CMN.

Prevalence of depressive disorders and associated demographic characteristics in Shandong: An epidemiological investigation.

BACKGROUND: Depression is characterized by debilitating symptoms and high recurrence rates, and there are relatively few large-scale epidemiological surveys of depressive disorders conducted in Shandong since 2005. Data from the largest Epidemiological Survey of Mental Disorders conducted in 2015 in Shandong were collected to investigate the prevalence of depressive disorders and associated demographic characteristics in general adult population. METHODS: A multi-stage stratified cluster sampling method was adopted to select residents and a two-stage screening and assessment process was used to define the prevalence and characteristics of depressive disorders. Respondents were initially screened using the General Health Questionnaire followed by a structured clinical interview using the DSM-IV criteria. RESULTS: Among 27,489 respondents who completed the survey, 1277 respondents met the diagnostic criteria for depressive disorders. The adjusted prevalence in the last month was 4.86%, among which the prevalence of major depressive disorder, dysthymia, and unspecified depressive disorder were 2.32%, 1.78%, and 0.75%, respectively. 40.35% of depression patients had moderate or severe functional impairment and only 10.65% of patients had visited a psychiatric service. Univariate and multivariate analyses revealed that age, gender, occupation, education, marital status, and urban/rural living were associated with the prevalence. LIMITATIONS: The key limitation is that this is a cross-sectional survey therefore cannot draw any causal relationship between risk factors and disease progression. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this largest epidemiological study reveal current prevalence of depressive disorders and associated demographic factors and offers opportunities for policy makers and health-care professionals to improve mental health provision in Shandong.

A Retrospective Analysis of Death Among Chinese Han Patients with Schizophrenia from Shandong.

Purpose: To describe the mortality rate and cause of death among Han Chinese schizophrenia patients and to explore the risk factors affecting survival. Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of death among patients with schizophrenia from Jan 1, 2012, to Dec 31, 2019, using the Severe Mental Disorders Information System of Shandong Province (henceforth referred to as the SMDI system) in Shandong, China. The cohort included 72,102 patients, and 11,766 patients died during follow-up. The data in this cohort study were derived from the SMDI system. We calculated the crude mortality rate and standardized mortality rate (SMR, standardized according to the sex and age composition of the population in Shandong Province) for patients with schizophrenia. Cox regression analysis was used to analyze the risk factors affecting patient survival, and the statistical index was the hazard ratio (HR). Results: The mean age of the cohort patients was 47.21±14.05 years; 51.79% were males, and 48.21% were females. Among them, 68.98% (49,735) had only a primary education level, 85.36% (61,549) were farmers, 64.37% (46,413) were married, and 94.01% (67,775) received community management. A total of 16.32% of the cohort died. The SMR in patients with schizophrenia was 4.9, and it was higher for males than females (4.99 versus 4.82). Among the 6 registered causes of death, physical illness had the highest SMR (5.15), followed by other causes of death (4.86), mental illness-related complications (4.57), homicide (4.31), accidents (4.13), and suicide (3.87). Higher levels of education, employment (in-service status), marriage, and urban residence were protective factors for survival among patients with schizophrenia. Conclusion: In China, the SMR of schizophrenia is relatively high, and physical diseases are the main cause of death. We suggest that a variety of measures should be taken early to treat somatic diseases and reduce SMR in patients with schizophrenia.

Mental disorders and suicide attempt in rural China.

The prevalence of various mental disorders and their age and gender specific characteristics among suicide attempters remains unclear in rural China. This study using 1:1 paired case-control design included 409 suicide attempters and 409 paired controls matched on age, gender and place of residence. Mental disorders were assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR Axis I Disorders. The prevalence of mental disorders was 32.3% for suicide attempters and 4.9% for paired controls. Mental disorder constituted a significant risk factor for suicide attempt with an adjusted odds ratio of 7.16 (95%CI: 3.65-14.04). The prevalence of mental disorders was higher among male than female suicide attempters. Major depressive disorder was most common in female suicide attempters while alcohol use disorder was most common in the males. The prevalence of mental disorders seemed to increase with age. Suicide attempters of higher ages were more prone to have mood disorders, especially a major depression. Suicide attempters with mental disorders differed from those without mental disorders on a number of socio-economic characteristics and suicidal behavior features. These insights should be taken into account in strategies and efforts to improve mental health care and ultimately to reduce suicidal behavior among residents in rural China.

Depressive symptoms and correlates among village doctors in China.

BACKGROUND: Village doctors are primary care physicians at the grass root-level of rural medical and health institutions in China. Their depression can increase medical errors and affect quality of medical care services. This study aims to examine depressive symptoms and their correlates among Chinese village doctors. METHODS: A total of 616 village doctors were recruited from Zoucheng County of Shandong province. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), the Duke Social Support Index (DSSI) and the Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ) were used to measure depressive symptoms in the last week, social support and coping styles, respectively. Logistic regression model was conducted to identify the associated factors of depressive symptoms among village doctors. RESULTS: The prevalence rate of depressive symptoms was 27.4% (28.54% for males, 24.69% for females). Logistic regression analysis found that body mass index (BMI), poor physical health, low educational level, and negative coping styles were associated with increased risk of depressive symptoms. Positive coping styles were associated with decreased risk of depressive symptoms in village doctors. CONCLUSIONS: Depressive symptoms are prevalent among village doctors in China. They need to adopt more positive coping strategies to respond to negative emotions. More professional and medical trainings may be important to reduce risk of depressive symptoms and improve their quality of healthcare among village doctors in China.