Global hotspots and trends in Acanthosis nigricans research: A bibliometric and visualized analysis.

BACKGROUND: Acanthosis nigricans (AN) is a common skin disease characterized by clear pigmented patches on the folds of the skin. However, the AN research field lacks scientific and comprehensive bibliometric analysis. This article aims to use bibliometric methods to summarize and visualize the distribution patterns, research hotspots, and development trends of AN literature. METHODS: Literature from 1900 to 2024 was retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database through AN's thematic search. Using CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Excel 2019, conduct a comprehensive analysis of the number of publications, countries/regions, institutions, authors, journals, highly cited literature, keywords, and so on, and sort out the hotspots and directions of AN. RESULTS: From 1900 to 2024, 1675 publications were included in the bibliometric analysis, showing a steady annual increase in the number of publications. The United States leads in this research field, with the University of Texas System being a key research institution. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism has the highest number of published papers. The most cited article is "Syndromes of Insulin Resistance and Acanthosis Nigricans: Insulin-Receptor Disorders in Man" (1976). The author Taylor, SI, has published the most papers. "Acanthosis nigricans" is the most frequently occurring keyword. The main research hotspots and frontier areas in AN research are as follows: (1) The relationship between AN and other diseases is a popular research topic; (2) The connection between AN and insulin resistance (IR) is a current research focus; (3) Treatment of AN, with an emphasis on addressing the underlying causes and improving local skin conditions, represents the cutting edge of this field. CONCLUSION: This study summarizes the research trends and hotspots in the field of AN, offering valuable information and insights for scholars focused on AN scientific research, and providing a reference for future research directions.

A bibliometric and visual analysis of the research status and hotspots of seborrheic dermatitis based on web of science.

BACKGROUND: Seborrheic dermatitis (SD) is a common chronic inflammatory skin disease. In recent years, significant progress has been made in the field of SD, but there has been no bibliometric research yet. This study aims to use bibliometric methods to analyze the current research status and hot topics of SD, to understand further the research trends and future development prospects in this field. METHODS: Retrieve core literature on SD from the Web of Science database and conduct a detailed analysis using CiteSpace and VOSviewer software based on factors such as publication volume, countries (regions), research institutions, journals, authors, highly-cited papers, and keywords. RESULTS: From 1996 to 2024, a total of 1436 publications were included in the bibliometric analysis. The number of publications has shown an increasing trend year by year. The USA is the leading country in this field of research. The University of California System is the primary research institution. The International Journal of Dermatology is the journal with the highest number of publications. The author Yang Won Lee has the highest number of publications, while the article "Seborrheic Dermatitis" (2004) by Gupta, A.K. has been cited the most. "Seborrheic dermatitis" is the most frequently occurring keyword. The main research hotspots and frontiers in SD are as follows: (1) The relationship between SD and other skin diseases is a popular research topic; (2) Malassezia and inflammation are current research hotspots in SD; and (3) Focusing on antifungal and anti-inflammatory treatments for SD is the current frontier direction in this field. CONCLUSION: This study is a summary of the current status and hot trends of SD research, which helps clinical doctors and researchers quickly understand the insights and valuable information of SD research and provides reference for clinical decision-making and finding future research directions.

Quaternary ammonium grafted chitosan hydrogel with enhanced antibacterial performance as tannin acid and deferoxamine carrier to promote diabetic wound healing.

The delay of diabetic wound healing puts a huge burden on the society. The key factors hindering wound healing include bacterial infection, unresolved inflammation and poorly generated blood vessels. In this paper, glycidyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (GTA) was grafted to chitosan (CS) to obtain quaternary ammonium grafted chitosan (QCS) with enhanced antibacterial performance, and then cross-linked by dialdehyde terminated poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO DA) to construct QCS/PEO DA hydrogel with tissue adhesion, biodegradation and self-healing properties. The QCS/PEO DA hydrogel is loaded with tannin acid (TA) and deferoxamine (DFO) to enhance antioxidant property and angiogenesis. At the same time, the TA and DFO loaded TA@DFO/hydrogel preserved the biocompatibility and biodegradability of chitosan. Moreover, the multifunctional hydrogel behaved excellent hemostatic properties in mice model and significantly promoted the healing efficacy of diabetic wounds. Overall, the TA@DFO/hydrogel is promising anti-infection dressing material for diabetic wound healing.

Self-healing hydrogel from poly(aspartic acid) and dextran with antibacterial property for burn wound healing.

Designing hydrogel dressing with intrinsic antibacterial property to promote skin injury recovery remains a significant challenge. In this research, poly(aspartic hydrazide) with grafted betaine (PAHB) was designed and reacted with oxidized dextran (OD) to fabricate biodegradable PAHB/OD hydrogel and its application as wound dressing was systematically investigated. The PAHB/OD hydrogels exhibited fast gelation, strong tissue adhesion, preferable mechanical properties and biocompatibility. The grafted betaine endowed the hydrogel with antibacterial property and antibacterial rate enhanced through photothermal performance of composited CuS nanoparticles under near infrared (NIR) radiation. The CuS composited PAHB/OD hydrogel (CuS/hydrogel) with microporous morphology was used as burn wound dressing with loaded anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac sodium (DS) in mouse model. The results showed the DS loaded CuS/hydrogel (CuS@DS/hydrogel) promoted the tissue regeneration and suppressed the inflammatory response. The histological analysis and immunohistochemical expression confirmed the CuS@DS/hydrogel promote angiogenesis of the burn wound by regulating the expression of inflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and CD68) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Overall, the CuS@DS/hydrogel hydrogel is a promising candidate as wound dressing due to its tissue adhesive, antioxidant, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory activities.

Developmental biology of Spiralicellula and the Ediacaran origin of crown metazoans.

The early Ediacaran Weng'an biota (Doushantuo Formation, South China) provides a rare window onto the period of Earth history in which molecular timescales have inferred the initial phase of crown-metazoan diversification. Interpretation of the embryo-like fossils that dominate the biota remains contentious because they are morphologically simple and so difficult to constrain phylogenetically. Spiralicellula from the Weng'an biota is distinguished by spiral internal bodies, allied through development to Megasphaera or Helicoforamina and interpreted variously as metazoan embryos, encysting protists, or chlorophycean green algae. Here we show, using X-ray microtomography, that Spiralicellula has a single-layered outer envelope and no more than 32 internal cells, often preserving a nucleus and yolk granules. There is no correlation between the extent of spiral development and the number of component cells; rather, the spiral developed with each palintomic stage, associated with cell disaggregation and reorientation. Evidence for envelope thinning and cell loss was observed in all developmental stages, reflecting non-deterministic shedding of gametes or amoebae. The developmental biology of Spiralicellula is similar to Megasphaera and Helicoforamina, which otherwise exhibit more rounds of palintomy. We reject a crown-metazoan affinity for Spiralicellula and all other components of the Weng'an biota, diminishing the probability of crown-metazoan diversification before the early Ediacaran.

Line Laser Scanning Combined with Machine Learning for Fish Head Cutting Position Identification.

Fish head cutting is one of the most important processes during fish pre-processing. At present, the identification of cutting positions mainly depends on manual experience, which cannot meet the requirements of large-scale production lines. In this paper, a fast and contactless identification method of cutting position was carried out by using a constructed line laser data acquisition system. The fish surface data were collected by a linear laser scanning sensor, and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to reduce the dimensions of the dorsal and abdominal boundary data. Based on the dimension data, Least Squares Support Vector Machines (LS-SVMs), Particle Swarm Optimization-Back Propagation (PSO-BP) networks, and Long and Short Term Memory (LSTM) neural networks were applied for fish head cutting position identification model establishment. According to the results, the LSTM model was considered to be the best prediction model with a determination coefficient (R2) value, root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and residual predictive deviation (RPD) of 0.9480, 0.2957, 0.1933, and 3.1426, respectively. This study demonstrated the reliability of combining line laser scanning techniques with machine learning using LSTM to identify the fish head cutting position accurately and quickly. It can provide a theoretical reference for the development of intelligent processing and intelligent cutting equipment for fish.

Effect of TCM rehabilitation program on activities of daily living in patients with post-stroke limb spasticity: An observational study.

BACKGROUND: Stroke is a neurological disease with many common complications that reduce the activities of daily living and the quality of life of patients. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) rehabilitation techniques, scalp acupuncture, and TCM can relieve spasticity symptoms and recovery from physical obstacles is significant. METHODS: Three hundred twenty-one patients with post-stroke limb spasticity were randomly divided into trial and control groups, with 159 and 162 patients in the trial and control groups, respectively. The control group received basic treatment combined with modern rehabilitation techniques, whereas the trial group received basic treatment combined with TCM, Tuina, and scalp acupuncture with kinesiotherapy. The treatment course in both groups was 4 weeks. The Modified Ashworth Scale, magnetic resonance imaging, and Stroke Specific Quality of Life Scale were used to evaluate limb spasticity, activities of daily living, and quality of life, respectively. PASW 18.0 was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: With a longer treatment period, the improvement in limb spasticity was greater in the trial group than in the control group (P < .05). Similarly, improvements in activities of daily living and quality of life were better in the trial group than in the control group (P < .05). CONCLUSION: The TCM rehabilitation program using Tongjing Tiaoxing combined with scalp acupuncture and kinesiotherapy can effectively treat spasticity symptoms in stroke patients and improve their activities of daily living and quality of life.

Carboxymethylcellulose based self-healing hydrogel with coupled DOX as Camptothecin loading carrier for synergetic colon cancer treatment.

The self-healing hydrogels have important applications in biomedication as drug release carrier. In this research, the Doxorubicin (DOX) was coupled onto oxidized carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) (CMC-Ald) to fabricate self-healing hydrogel with intrinsic antitumor property and loaded with Camptothecin (CPT) for synergetic antitumor treatment. The DOX coupled CMC-Ald (CMC-AD) was reacted with poly(aspartic hydrazide) (PAH) to fabricate injectable self-healing hydrogel. The coupled DOX avoided the burst release of the drug and the 100 % CPT loaded hydrogel could take the advantages of both drugs to enhance the synergetic antitumor therapeutic effect. The in vitro and in vivo results revealed the CPT loaded CMC-AD/PAH hydrogel showed enhanced antitumor property and reduced biotoxicity of the drugs. These properties demonstrate that the CMC-AD/PAH hydrogel has great application prospects in biomedication.

Mussel-inspired self-healing hydrogel form pectin and cellulose for hemostasis and diabetic wound repairing.

Diabetic wound is considered as a kind of chronic wound prone to infection and difficult to repair due to high glucose level in the blood of patients. In this research, a biodegradable self-healing hydrogel with mussel inspired bioadhesion and anti-oxidation properties is fabricated based on Schiff-base cross-linking. The hydrogel was designed from dopamine coupled pectin hydrazide (Pec-DH) and oxidized carboxymethyl cellulose (DCMC) for mEGF loading as a diabetic wound repair dressing. The Pectin and CMC as natural feedstock endowed the hydrogel with biodegradability to avoid possible side effects, while the coupled catechol structure could enhance the tissue adhesion of the hydrogel for hemostasis. The results showed the Pec-DH/DCMC hydrogel formed fast and can cover irregular wounds with good sealing effect. The catechol structure also improved the reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging ability of the hydrogel, which can eliminate the negative effect of ROS during wound healing. The in vivo diabetic wound healing experiment revealed the hydrogel as mEGF loading vehicle greatly enhanced the diabetic wound repairing rate in mice model. As a result, the Pec-DH/DCMC hydrogel could show advantages as EGF carrier in wound healing applications.

Canthin-6-Ones: Potential Drugs for Chronic Inflammatory Diseases by Targeting Multiple Inflammatory Mediators.

Chronic inflammatory disease (CID) is a category of medical conditions that causes recurrent inflammatory attacks in multiple tissues. The occurrence of CID is related to inappropriate immune responses to normal tissue substances and invading microbes due to many factors, such as defects in the immune system and imbalanced regulation of commensal microbes. Thus, effectively keeping the immune-associated cells and their products in check and inhibiting aberrant activation of the immune system is a key strategy for the management of CID. Canthin-6-ones are a subclass of ß-carboline alkaloids isolated from a wide range of species. Several emerging studies based on in vitro and in vivo experiments reveal that canthin-6-ones may have potential therapeutic effects on many inflammatory diseases. However, no study has yet summarized the anti-inflammatory functions and the underlying mechanisms of this class of compounds. This review provides an overview of these studies, focusing on the disease entities and the inflammatory mediators that have been shown to be affected by canthin-6-ones. In particular, the major signaling pathways affected by canthin-6-ones, such as the NLR family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome and the NF-κB signaling pathway, and their roles in several CIDs are discussed. Moreover, we discuss the limitations in studies of canthin-6-ones and provide possible solutions. In addition, a perspective that may suggest possible future research directions is provided. This work may be helpful for further mechanistic studies and possible therapeutic applications of canthin-6-ones in the treatment of CID.

Panax ginseng against myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury: A review of preclinical evidence and potential mechanisms.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer (P. ginseng) is effective in the prevention and treatment of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. The mechanism by which P. ginseng exerts cardioprotective effects is complex. P. ginseng contains many pharmacologically active ingredients, such as molecular glycosides, polyphenols, and polysaccharides. P. ginseng and each of its active components can potentially act against myocardial I/R injury. Myocardial I/R was originally a treatment for myocardial ischemia, but it also induced irreversible damage, including oxygen-containing free radicals, calcium overload, energy metabolism disorder, mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, microvascular injury, autophagy, and apoptosis. AIM OF THE STUDY: This study aimed to clarify the protective effects of P. ginseng and its active ingredients against myocardial I/R injury, so as to provide experimental evidence and new insights for the research and application of P. ginseng in the field of myocardial I/R injury. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This review was based on a search of PubMed, NCBI, Embase, and Web of Science databases from their inception to February 21, 2022, using terms such as "ginseng," "ginsenosides," and "myocardial reperfusion injury." In this review, we first summarized the active ingredients of P. ginseng, including ginsenosides, ginseng polysaccharides, and phytosterols, as well as the pathophysiological mechanisms of myocardial I/R injury. Importantly, preclinical models with myocardial I/R injury and potential mechanisms of these active ingredients of P. ginseng for the prevention and treatment of myocardial disorders were generally summarized. RESULTS: P. ginseng and its active components can regulate oxidative stress related proteins, inflammatory cytokines, and apoptosis factors, while protecting the myocardium and preventing myocardial I/R injury. Therefore, P. ginseng can play a role in the prevention and treatment of myocardial I/R injury. CONCLUSIONS: P. ginseng has a certain curative effect on myocardial I/R injury. It can prevent and treat myocardial I/R injury in several ways. When ginseng exerts its effects, should be based on the theory of traditional Chinese medicine and with the help of modern medicine; the clinical efficacy of P. ginseng in preventing and treating myocardial I/R injury can be improved.

Efficacy and safety of blood-activating herbs combined with edaravone in the treatment of acute ischemic stroke: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Although the combination of blood-activating herbs and western drugs has shown advantages in the treatment of ischemic stroke, there is no consensus on the safety and efficacy. This study aimed to systematically evaluate the safety and efficacy of the combination of blood-activating herbs with edaravone (EDA) in the treatment of acute ischemic stroke (AIS). METHODS: We will implement the search strategy in 8 English and Chinese databases: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, PubMed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, China Science and Technology Journal Database, Wanfang Database, EMBASE and MEDLINE. The search included relevant clinical randomized controlled trials and quasi-randomized controlled trials that had been registered for publication by November 2022. Literature screening, data extraction and quality assessment will be performed by 2 authors. We will assess the risk of bias according to the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) method classification will be used to assess the quality of the literature. Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan V.5.4 and STATA 16 software. RESULTS: This study will provide a comprehensive analysis of the current clinical evidence on the application of blood-activating herbs combined with EDA in the treatment of AIS. CONCLUSION: This study will clarify the safety and efficacy of the combination of blood-activating herbs with EDA in the treatment of AIS.

Microseismic Dynamic Response and Multi-Source Warning during Rockburst Monitoring Based on Weight Decision Analysis.

To prevent rockburst disasters and improve the accuracy of warnings for rockburst, based on the microseismic data of the 1366 working face of Hengda Coal Mine collected by the microseismic monitoring system, Fourier transform, wavelet packet transform, and Hilbert-Huang transform analysis methods are used for time-frequency domain joint analysis. The time-frequency differences of the main frequency, amplitude, frequency band percentage, and instantaneous energy of the high-energy microseismic event and the events before high-energy microseismic event are obtained. The analysis shows that the high-energy event has obvious low frequency characteristics, and when the high-energy event occurs, the instantaneous energy shows an obvious "inverted V" trend. At the same time, it is found that the acoustoelectric indexes show a trend of "rising" or "inverted V" when the high-energy event occurs. On this basis, the unascertained measure comprehensive evaluation model of rock burst hazard is established by analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Based on the analysis of microseismic data and the acoustoelectric index of the 1366 working face in Hengda coal mine, it is of great significance to determine the warning indicators for rockburst, improve the accuracy of uncertainty quantitative analysis for rockburst, and improve the discrimination accuracy of rockburst risk.

Tuina for shoulder pain after stroke: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Post-stroke shoulder pain is a relatively common complication in stroke patients, with an incidence of 16% to 84% and poor outcomes with anti-inflammatory or sedative medications. This study will evaluate the results of a randomized controlled trial to determine the effectiveness and safety of Tuina in the treatment of post-stroke shoulder pain. METHODS: The Chinese and English search strategies were used to search China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PubMed, Wanfang Database, and Web of Science were used to search seven databases. All eligible studies published on or before September 15, 2022, will be selected. To improve the validity of this study, only clinical randomized controlled trials related to the use of Tuina for post-stroke shoulder pain will be included. The screening will be performed by 2 independent reviewers and data synthesis, bias analysis, subgroup analysis, and meta-analysis will be performed using RevMan (V.5.4) software. RESULTS: The study will provide a high-quality evaluation of the effectiveness and safety of Tuina in the treatment of post-stroke shoulder pain. CONCLUSION: This systematic review will provide evidence to determine whether Tuina is an effective and safe intervention for treating patients with post-stroke shoulder pain.PROSPERO registration number: CRD42022360401.

Acupuncture-related techniques for prevention of type 2 diabetes mellitus in people with pre-diabetes: Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: In modern society, the incidence of diabetes is increasing year by year. Most individuals pass through a phase of prediabetes before developing full blown diabetes. Acupuncture-related has been widely used in the treatment of diabetes, but there is no systematic review of acupuncture-related on the control of blood glucose in prediabetes. Therefore, this study aims to conduct a meta-analysis of the clinical efficacy of acupuncutre-related therapy in preventing the development of diabetes in patients with prediabetes. METHODS: We will search Web of Science, The Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wan-Fang Database, Chinese Scientific Journal Database (VIP Database) from their respective inception dates to September 1, 2022 to identify potentially eligible studies. We will use the Review Manager 5.4 software provided by the Cochrane Collaborative Network for statistical analysis. We then assessed the quality and risk of the included studies and observed the outcome measures. RESULTS: This meta-analysis further elucidates the protective effects of acupuncture-related techniques on patients with prediabetes. CONCLUSION: The purpose of this meta-analysis was to investigate the effect of acupuncture- related techniques on blood glucose in patients with prediabetes, and to provide more methods for clinical prevention of conversion from prediabetes to diabetes.

Inflammasome-targeting natural compounds in inflammatory bowel disease: Mechanisms and therapeutic potential.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), mainly including Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, seriously affects human health and causes substantial social and economic burden. The pathogenesis of IBD is still not fully elucidated, whereas recent studies have demonstrated that its development is associated with the dysfunction of intestinal immune system. Accumulating evidence have proven that inflammasomes such as NLRP3 and NLRP6 play a prominent role in the pathogenesis of IBD. Thus, regulating the activation of inflammasomes have been considered to be a promising strategy in IBD treatment. A number of recent studies have provided evidence that blocking inflammasome related cytokine IL-1ß can benefit a group of IBD patients with overactivation of NLRP3 inflammasome. However, therapies for targeting inflammasomes with high efficacy and safety are rare. Traditional medical practice provides numerous medical compounds that may have a role in treatment of various human diseases including IBD. Recent studies demonstrated that numerous medicinal herb derived compounds can efficiently prevent colon inflammation in animal models by targeting inflammasomes. Herein, we summarize the main findings of these studies focusing on the effects of traditional medicine derived compounds on colitis treatment and the underlying mechanisms in regulating the inflammasomes. On this basis, we provide a perspective for future studies regarding strategies to improve the efficacy, specificity and safety of available herbal compounds, and to discover new compounds using the emerging new technologies, which will improve our understanding about the roles and mechanisms of herbal compounds in the regulation of inflammasomes and treatment of IBD.

Ferroptosis in colorectal cancer: Potential mechanisms and effective therapeutic targets.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common malignant tumor characterized by unchecked division and survival of abnormal cells in the colon or rectum with high morbidity and mortality. Despite the rapid development of early screening methods and improved therapies, the prognosis of CRC is not satisfactory. Identification of new biomarkers for early detection and development of more effective therapies are still urgent tasks in current studies to achieve ideal treatment of CRC. Ferroptosis is a recently emerged novel regulated form of cell death characterized by a massive accumulation of iron-dependent lipid peroxidates, making it morphologically and molecularly distinct from apoptosis, cell death, and autophagy. Accumulating studies have shown that induction of ferroptosis in CRC successfully eliminates cancer cells resistant to other modes of cell death. Thus, ferroptosis may become a new direction for the design of CRC therapy. Although many research articles have investigated the possible roles of ferroptosis in CRC, a study that summarizes the main findings, including the regulators and mechanisms of action, of ferroptosis in CRC is not available. Herein, the studies in recent literature regarding the roles of ferroptosis on the progression and treatment of CRC were summarized, mainly focusing on molecular and biological mechanisms in vitro and in vivo. In particular, the roles of numerous ferroptosis regulators, such as SLC7A11, reactive oxygen species (ROS), glutathione (GSH), and iron, in CRC, were discussed and the application of ferroptosis-associated genes for the early diagnosis and prognosis of CRC was explored. In addition, an outlook for future studies of ferroptosis in CRC treatment and the possible barriers and the corresponding solutions were discussed.

Diverse and complex developmental mechanisms of early Ediacaran embryo-like fossils from the Weng'an Biota, southwest China.

The origin and early evolution of animal development remain among the many deep, unresolved problems in evolutionary biology. As a compelling case for the existence of pre-Cambrian animals, the Ediacaran embryo-like fossils (EELFs) from the Weng'an Biota (approx. 609 Myr old, Doushantuo Formation, South China) have great potential to cast light on the origin and early evolution of animal development. However, their biological implications can be fully realized only when their phylogenetic positions are correctly established, and unfortunately, this is the key problem under debate. As a significant feature of developmental biology, the cell division pattern (CDP) characterized by the dynamic spatial arrangement of cells and associated developmental mechanisms is critical to reassess these hypotheses and evaluate the diversity of the EELFs; however, their phylogenetic implications have not been fully realized. Additionally, the scarcity of fossil specimens representing late developmental stages with cell differentiation accounts for much of this debate too. Here, we reconstructed a large number of EELFs using submicron resolution X-ray tomographic microscopy and focused on the CDPs and associated developmental mechanisms as well as features of cell differentiation. Four types of CDPs and specimens with cell differentiation were identified. Contrary to the prevailing view, our results together with recent studies suggest that the diversity and complexity of developmental mechanisms documented by the EELFs are much higher than is often claimed. The diverse CDPs and associated development features including palintomic cleavage, maternal nutrition, asymmetric cell divisions, symmetry breaking, establishment of polarity or axis, spatial cell migration and differentiation constrain some, if not all, EELFs as total-group metazoans. This article is part of the theme issue 'The impact of Chinese palaeontology on evolutionary research'.

Efficacy and safety evaluation of acupuncture in the treatment of impaired glucose regulation: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Impaired of glucose regulation belongs to the stage of prediabetes, which is a state of glucose metabolism between diabetes and normal blood glucose. The prevalence of prediabetes in people over 20 years old in China is significantly higher than that in diabetic patients. If no measures are taken to prevent the transition from prediabetes to diabetes, the number of diabetic patients in China will further increase. This study conducted a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of impaired glucose regulation by collecting relevant literatures. METHODS: Nine electronic databases: PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane library, Web of Science, Google Scholar, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Chinese Scientific and Journal Database, Wan Fang database, and 2 clinical trials register platforms: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, ClinicalTrials.gov (www.ClinicalTrials.gov/) will be searched for randomized clinical trails of acupuncture for impaired glucose regulation. The screening process will be developed by 2 independent reviewers, and meta-analysis will be performed with RevMan (V5.3.5) software. RESULTS: This meta-analysis further confirmed the benefits of acupuncture in the treatment of impaired of glucose regulation. CONCLUSION: This study will provide a high-quality evidence of the efficacy and safety of acupuncture on patients with impaired glucose regulation. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: INPLASY202170058. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This systematics review will evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture in the treatment of impaired of glucose regulation. Since all the data included were published, the systematic review did not require ethical approval.

New Insights into the Role of NLRP3 Inflammasome in Pathogenesis and Treatment of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an inflammatory lung disease characterized by chronic airway obstruction and emphysema. Accumulating studies have shown that the onset and development of COPD are related to an aberrant immune response induced by the dysregulation of a number of genetic and environmental factors, while the exact pathogenesis of this disease is not well defined. Emerging studies based on tests on samples from COPD patients, animal models, pharmacological and genetic data suggest that the NLR family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome activation is required in the lung inflammatory responses in the development of COPD. Although the available clinical studies targeting the inflammasome effector cytokine, IL-1ß, or IL-1 signaling do not show positive outcomes for COPD treatment, many alternative strategies have been proposed by recent emerging studies. Here, we highlight the recent progress in our understanding of the role of the NLRP3 inflammasome in COPD and propose possible future studies that may further elucidate the roles of the inflammasome in the pathogenesis or the intervention of this inflammatory lung disease.