Coixol mitigates Toxoplasma gondii infection-induced liver injury by inhibiting the Toxoplasma gondii HSP70/TLR4/NF-κB signaling pathway in hepatic macrophages.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Coix seed, the dry mature seed kernel of the gramineous plant coix (Coix lacryma-jobi L. var. ma-yuen Stapf), is widely consumed as a traditional Chinese medicine and functional food in China and South Korea. We have previously demonstrated the protective effect of coixol, a polyphenolic compound extracted from coix, against Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) infection-induced lung injury. However, the protective effect of coixol on hepatic injury induced by T. gondii infection have not yet been elucidated. AIM OF THE STUDY: This study explores the impact of coixol on T. gondii infection-induced liver injury and elucidates the underlying molecular mechanisms. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Female BALB/c mice and Kupffer cells (KCs) were employed to establish an acute T. gondii infection model in vivo and an inflammation model in vitro. The study examined coixol's influence on the T. gondii-derived heat shock protein 70 (T.g.HSP70)/toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)/nuclear factor (NF)-κB signaling pathway in T. gondii-infected liver macrophages. Furthermore, a co-culture system of KCs and NCTC-1469 hepatocytes was developed to observe the impact of liver macrophages infected with T. gondii on hepatocyte injury. RESULTS: Coixol notably inhibited the proliferation of tachyzoites and the expression of T.g.HSP70 in mouse liver and KCs, and attenuated pathological liver injury. Moreover, coixol decreased the production of high mobility group box 1, tumor necrosis factor-α, and inducible nitric oxide synthase by suppressing the TLR4/NF-κB signaling pathway in vitro and in vivo. Coixol also mitigated KCs-mediated hepatocyte injury. CONCLUSIONS: Coixol protects against liver injury caused by T. gondii infection, potentially by diminishing hepatocyte injury through the suppression of the inflammatory cascade mediated by the T.g.HSP70/TLR4/NF-κB signaling pathway in KCs. These findings offer new perspectives for developing coixol as a lead compound for anti-T. gondii drugs.

Efficient leather spreading operations by dual-arm robotic systems.

To achieve precise grasping and spreading of irregular sheet-like soft objects (such as leather) by robots, this study addresses several challenges, including the irregularity of leather edges and the ambiguity of feature recognition points. To tackle these issues, this paper proposes an innovative method that involves alternately grasping the lowest point twice and using planar techniques to effectively spread the leather. We improved the YOLOV8 algorithm by incorporating the BIFPN network structure and the WIOU loss function, and trained a dedicated dataset for the lowest grasping points and planar grasping points, thereby achieving high-precision recognition. Additionally, we determined the optimal posture for grasping the lowest point and constructed an experimental platform, successfully conducting multiple rounds of leather grasping and spreading experiments with a success rate of 72%. Through an in-depth analysis of the failed experiments, this study reveals the limitations of the current methods and provides valuable guidance for future research.

A novel mechanism of resveratrol alleviates Toxoplasma gondii infection-induced pulmonary inflammation via inhibiting inflammasome activation.

BACKGROUND: Infection by Toxoplasma gondii can lead to severe pneumonia, with current treatments being highly inadequate. The NLRP3 inflammasome is one member of the NOD-like receptor family with a pyrin domain, which is crucial in the innate immune defense against T. gondii. Research has shown that resveratrol (RSV) prevents lung damage caused by this infection by inhibiting the T. gondii-derived heat shock protein 70/TLR4/NF-κB pathway, thus reducing the macrophage-driven inflammatory response. However, it should be mentioned that the participation of NLRP3 inflammasome in the immune response to the lung injuries caused by T. gondii infections is not entirely clear. PURPOSE: This study aims to clarify how RSV ameliorates lung damage triggered by Toxoplasma gondii infection, with a particular focus on the pathway involving TLR4, NF-κB, and the NLRP3 inflammasome. METHODS: Both in vitro and in vivo models of infection were developed by employing the RH strain of T. gondii in BALB/c mice and RAW 264.7 macrophage cell lines. The action mechanism of RSV was explored using techniques such as molecular docking, surface plasmon resonance, ELISA, Western blot, co-immunoprecipitation, and immunofluorescence staining. RESULTS: Findings indicate that the suppression of TLR4 or NF-κB impacts the levels of proteins associated with the NLRP3 inflammasome pathway. Additionally, a significant affinity for binding between RSV and NLRP3 was observed. Treatment with RSV led to a marked reduction in the activation and formation of the NLRP3 inflammasome within lung tissues and RAW 264.7 cells, alongside a decrease in IL-1ß concentrations in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. These outcomes align with those seen when using the NLRP3 inhibitor CY-09. Moreover, the application of CY-09 prior to RSV negated the latter's anti-inflammatory properties. CONCLUSION: Considering insights from previous research alongside the outcomes of the current investigation, it appears that the TLR4/NF-κB/NLRP3 signaling pathway emerges as a promising target for immunomodulation to alleviate lung injury from T. gondii infection. The evidence gathered in this study lays the groundwork for the continued exploration and potential future clinical deployment of RSV as a therapeutic agent with anti-Toxoplasma properties and the capability to modulate the inflammatory response.

A long non-coding RNA functions as a competitive endogenous RNA to modulate TaNAC018 by acting as a decoy for tae-miR6206.

Increasing evidence indicates a strong correlation between the deposition of cuticular waxes and drought tolerance. However, the precise regulatory mechanism remains elusive. Here, we conducted a comprehensive transcriptome analysis of two wheat (Triticum aestivum) near-isogenic lines, the glaucous line G-JM38 rich in cuticular waxes and the non-glaucous line NG-JM31. We identified 85,143 protein-coding mRNAs, 4,485 lncRNAs, and 1,130 miRNAs. Using the lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA network and endogenous target mimic (eTM) prediction, we discovered that lncRNA35557 acted as an eTM for the miRNA tae-miR6206, effectively preventing tae-miR6206 from cleaving the NAC transcription factor gene TaNAC018. This lncRNA-miRNA interaction led to higher transcript abundance for TaNAC018 and enhanced drought-stress tolerance. Additionally, treatment with mannitol and abscisic acid (ABA) each influenced the levels of tae-miR6206, lncRNA35557, and TaNAC018 transcript. The ectopic expression of TaNAC018 in Arabidopsis also improved tolerance toward mannitol and ABA treatment, whereas knocking down TaNAC018 transcript levels via virus-induced gene silencing in wheat rendered seedlings more sensitive to mannitol stress. Our results indicate that lncRNA35557 functions as a competing endogenous RNA to modulate TaNAC018 expression by acting as a decoy target for tae-miR6206 in glaucous wheat, suggesting that non-coding RNA has important roles in the regulatory mechanisms responsible for wheat stress tolerance.

Development of an Injectable Biphasic Hyaluronic Acid-Based Hydrogel With Stress Relaxation Properties for Cartilage Regeneration.

Biomimetic stress-relaxing hydrogels with reversible crosslinks attract significant attention for stem cell tissue regeneration compared with elastic hydrogels. However, stress-relaxing hyaluronic acid (HA)-based hydrogels fabricated using conventional technologies lack stability, biocompatibility, and mechanical tunability. Here, it is aimed to address these challenges by incorporating calcium or phosphate components into the HA backbone, which allows reversible crosslinking of HA with alginate to form interpenetrating networks, offering stability and mechanical tunability for mimicking cartilage. Diverse stress-relaxing hydrogels (τ1/2; SR50, 60-2000 s) are successfully prepared at ≈3 kPa stiffness with self-healing and shear-thinning abilities, favoring hydrogel injection. In vitro cell experiments with RNA sequencing analysis demonstrate that hydrogels tune chondrogenesis in a biphasic manner (hyaline or calcified) depending on the stress-relaxation properties and phosphate components. In vivo studies confirm the potential for biphasic chondrogenesis. These results indicate that the proposed stress-relaxing HA-based hydrogel with biphasic chondrogenesis (hyaline or calcified) is a promising material for cartilage regeneration.

An Innovative Preauricular Free Flap Pedicled with Retrograde Vascular (PFFPRV) for Pediatric Nasal Reconstruction.

SUMMARY: Nasal reconstruction in pediatric patient is very challenging and it requires consideration of later nasal development. Herein, we introduce an innovative preauricular free flap pedicled with retrograde vascular (PFFPRV) for pediatric nasal reconstruction. In this PFFPRV technique, the retrograde superficial temporal vessels were used as the flap pedicle. The lateral alar artery and angular vein were used as vessels of the nasal recipient zone. The flap vessels were anastomosed directly to the recipient area vessels without additional vessel transplantation. Eight pediatric patients with nasal defects underwent this operation. All patients were followed up for more than 2 years. Patients' medical history data were retrospectively analyzed. Preoperative and postoperative facial photos were compared and analyzed. The satisfaction of patient's parents with the aesthetic results was assessed. All patients were successfully operated without intraoperative complications. None of the procedures required additional blood vessel grafts. One patient developed a vascular crisis the next day after the surgery and underwent vascular exploration operation. The free flaps of all patients survived without wound infection or necrosis. The color difference of flap gradually became unobvious. The transplanted flap did not show obvious contracture or retraction, and the nose was symmetrical and developed well. The parents of all patients were satisfied with the surgical results. We think this PFFPRV technique can be a reasonable alternative strategy for reconstruction of pediatric nasal defect, with no adverse effect on nasal development and no need of vascular transplantation. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level IV, therapeutic study.

THE NEUROENDOTHELIAL AXIS IN TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY: MECHANISMS OF MULTIORGAN DYSFUNCTION, NOVEL THERAPIES, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS.

ABSTRACT: Severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) often initiates a systemic inflammatory response syndrome, which can potentially culminate into multiorgan dysfunction. A central player in this cascade is endotheliopathy, caused by perturbations in homeostatic mechanisms governed by endothelial cells due to injury-induced coagulopathy, heightened sympathoadrenal response, complement activation, and proinflammatory cytokine release. Unique to TBI is the potential disruption of the blood-brain barrier, which may expose neuronal antigens to the peripheral immune system and permit neuroinflammatory mediators to enter systemic circulation, propagating endotheliopathy systemically. This review aims to provide comprehensive insights into the "neuroendothelial axis" underlying endothelial dysfunction after TBI, identify potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers, and explore therapeutic strategies targeting these interactions, with the ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes after severe TBI.

Clinical significance of ribosome production factor 2 homolog in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Dysregulation of ribosome biogenesis increases the risk of cancer. RPF2 (ribosome production factor 2 homolog), a member of the BRIX family, is involved in ribosome biogenesis. However, the biological functions of RPF2 in HCC remain unclear. This study aims to evaluate the function of RPF2 and its clinical significance in HCC. We collected 45 pairs of HCC/adjacent samples and 291 HCC samples. These samples were used to perform immunohistochemical analysis and western blot. Six cell lines were used to perform western blot, and two of cell lines, SMCC-7721 and SNU449, were subjected to CCK-8, wound healing and transwell assays. Immunofluorescence staining was executed in SMCC-7721 cells. The protein levels of RPF2 were higher in HCC tissues than in adjacent tissues. Immunofluorescence staining showed that the RPF2 protein was located in the nucleuses, especially the nucleolus. Furthermore, the immunohistochemical analysis showed that high expression levels of nuclear RPF2 correlated with poor prognosis, vascular invasion, liver cirrhosis and tumor size. Cell experiments showed that overexpression of RPF2 promoted cell proliferation, migration and invasion, while knockdown of RPF2 tended to show the opposite effect. This is the first report that RPF2 is involved in HCC progression. The levels of RPF2 were significantly high in HCC tumors and had a side effect on prognosis in HCC patients. RPF2 has the potential to be a useful marker for HCC.

Tunable positions of Weyl nodes via magnetism and pressure in the ferromagnetic Weyl semimetal CeAlSi.

The noncentrosymmetric ferromagnetic Weyl semimetal CeAlSi with simultaneous space-inversion and time-reversal symmetry breaking provides a unique platform for exploring novel topological states. Here, by employing multiple experimental techniques, we demonstrate that ferromagnetism and pressure can serve as efficient parameters to tune the positions of Weyl nodes in CeAlSi. At ambient pressure, a magnetism-facilitated anomalous Hall/Nernst effect (AHE/ANE) is uncovered. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements demonstrated that the Weyl nodes with opposite chirality are moving away from each other upon entering the ferromagnetic phase. Under pressure, by tracing the pressure evolution of AHE and band structure, we demonstrate that pressure could also serve as a pivotal knob to tune the positions of Weyl nodes. Moreover, multiple pressure-induced phase transitions are also revealed. These findings indicate that CeAlSi provides a unique and tunable platform for exploring exotic topological physics and electron correlations, as well as catering to potential applications, such as spintronics.

The novel selective TLR7 agonist GY101 suppresses colon cancer growth by stimulating immune cells.

Toll-like receptor (TLR) 7, a transmembrane signal transduction receptor expressed on the surface of endosomes, has become an attractive target for antiviral and cancer immunotherapies. TLR7 can induce signal transduction by recognizing single-stranded RNA or its analogs, leading to the release of cytokines such as IL-6, IL-12, TNF-α and type-I IFN. Activation of TLR7 helps to enhance immunogenicity and immune memory by stimulating immune cells. Herein, we identified a novel selective TLR7 agonist, GY101, and determined its ability to activate TLR7. In summary, in vitro, compound GY101 significantly induced the secretion of IL-6, IL-12, TNF-α and IFN-γ in mouse splenic lymphocytes; in vivo, peritumoral injection of GY101 significantly suppressed colon cancer CT26, as well as poorly immunogenic B16-F10 and 4T1 cancer cell-derived tumor growth by activating the infiltration of lymphocytes and polarization of M2-like macrophages into M1-like macrophages. These results demonstrate that GY101, as a potent TLR7 agonist, holds great potential for cancer immunotherapy.

Combination Therapy with a TLR7 Agonist and a BRD4 Inhibitor Suppresses Tumor Growth via Enhanced Immunomodulation.

JQ-1 is a typical BRD4 inhibitor with the ability to directly fight tumor cells and evoke antitumor immunity via reducing the expression of PD-L1. However, problems arise with the development of JQ-1 in clinical trials, such as marked lymphoid and hematopoietic toxicity, leading to the investigation of combination therapy. SZU-101 is a TLR7 agonist designed and synthesized by our group with potent immunostimulatory activity. Therefore, we hypothesized that combination therapy of SZU-101 and JQ-1 would target innate immunity and adaptive immunity simultaneously, to achieve a better antitumor efficacy than monotherapy. In this study, the repressive effects of the combination administration on tumor growth and metastasis were demonstrated in both murine breast cancer and melanoma models. In 4T1 tumor-bearing mice, i.t. treatment with SZU-101 in combination with i.p. treatment with JQ-1 suppressed the growth of tumors at both injected and uninjected sites. Combination therapy increased M1/M2 ratio in TAMs, decreased PD-L1 expression and promoted the recruitment of activated CD8+ T cells in the TME. In summary, the improved therapeutic efficacy of the novel combination therapy appears to be feasible for the treatment of a diversity of cancers.

[Mechanism of Shikonin on spinal cord injury in rats based on TNFR/RIPK1 pathway].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effect of shikonin on the recovery of nerve function after acute spinal cord injury(SCI) in rats. METHODS: 96 male Sprague-Dawley(SD)rats were divided into 4 groups randomly:sham operation group (Group A), sham operation+shikonin group (Group B), SCI+ DMSO(Group C), SCI+shikonin group (Group D).The acute SCI model of rats was made by clamp method in groups C and D . After subdural catheterization, no drug was given in group A. rats in groups B and D were injected with 100 mg·kg-1 of shikonin through catheter 30 min after modeling, and rats in group C were given with the same amount of DMSO, once a day until the time point of collection tissue. Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan(BBB) scores were performed on 8 rats in each group at 6, 12, and 3 d after moneling, and oblique plate tests were performed on 1, 3, 7 and 14 d after modeling, and then spinal cord tissues were collected. Eight rats were intraperitoneally injected with propidine iodide(PI) 1 h before sacrificed to detection PI positive cells at 24 h in each group. Eight rats were sacrificed in each group at 24 h after modeling, the spinal cord injury was observed by HE staining.The Nissl staining was used to observe survivor number of nerve cells. Western-blot technique was used to detect the expression levels of Bcl-2 protein and apoptosis related protein RIPK1. RESULTS: After modeling, BBB scores were normal in group A and B, but in group C and D were significantly higher than those in group A and B. And the scores in group D were higher than those in group C in each time point (P<0.05). At 12 h after modeling, the PI red stained cells in group D were significantly reduced compared with that in group C, and the disintegration of neurons was alleviated(P<0.05). HE and Nissl staining showed nerve cells with normal morphology in group A and B at 24h after operation. The degree of SCI and the number of neuronal survival in group D were better than those in group C, the difference was statistically significant at 24h (P<0.05). The expression of Bcl-2 and RIPK1 proteins was very low in group A and B;The expression of RIPK1 was significantly increased in Group C and decreased in Group D, with a statistically significant difference (P<0.05);The expression of Bcl-2 protein in group D was significantly higher than that in group C (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: Shikonin can alleviate the pathological changes after acute SCI in rats, improve the behavioral score, and promote the recovery of spinal nerve function. The specific mechanism may be related to the inhibition of TNFR/RIPK1 signaling pathway mediated necrotic apoptosis.

Novel quantitative immunohistochemistry method using histone H3, family 3B as the internal reference standard for measuring human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 expression in breast cancer.

BACKGROUND: Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is an essential technique in surgical and clinical pathology for detecting diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers for personalized cancer therapy. However, the lack of standardization and reference controls results in poor reproducibility, and a reliable tool for IHC quantification is urgently required. The objective of this study was to describe a novel approach in which H3F3B (histone H3, family 3B) can be used as an internal reference standard to quantify protein expression levels using IHC. METHODS: The authors enrolled 89 patients who had human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer (BC). They used a novel IHC-based assay to measure protein expression using H3F3B as the internal reference standard. H3F3B was uniformly expressed at the protein level in all tumor regions in cancer tissues. HER2 expression levels were measured with the H-score using HALO software. RESULTS: Kaplan-Meier analysis indicated that, among patients who had HER2-positive BC in The Cancer Genome Atlas data set and the authors' data set, the subgroup with low HER2 expression had a significantly better prognosis than the subgroup with high HER2 expression. Furthermore, the authors observed that HER2 expression levels were precisely evaluated using the proposed method, which can classify patients who are at higher risk of HER2-positive BC to receive trastuzumab-based adjuvant therapy. Dual-color IHC with H3F3B is an excellent tool for internal and external quality control of HER2 expression assays. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed IHC-based quantification method accurately assesses HER2 expression levels and provides insights for predicting clinical prognosis in patients with HER2-positive BC who receive trastuzumab-based adjuvant therapy.

Finding the Right Balance: Partial REBOA in a Swine Model of Uncontrolled Vascular Injury.

BACKGROUND: We have previously shown that partial REBOA (pREBOA) deployment in the thoracic aorta is safe for 2 to 4 hours, but it is unclear whether the distal blood flow after partial aortic occlusion would lead to ongoing hemorrhage. The objective of this study was to evaluate the hemostatic efficacy of pREBOA in a model of uncontrolled vascular injury. STUDY DESIGN: Female Yorkshire swine (n = 10, 40 to 45 kg) were anesthetized and instrumented. A through-and-through injury was created in the common iliac artery. The animals were randomly assigned to: (1) pREBOA-PRO deployment after 3 minutes and (2) control. Both groups were given normal saline resuscitation for hypotension. The pREBOA was adjusted to partial occlusion (distal mean arterial pressure of 30 mmHg), and then left without titration for 2 hours. Then, fresh frozen plasma was transfused and the vessel repaired. The balloon was deflated and the animals were monitored for 2 hours. In the critical care period, 2 L of normal saline was infused, norepinephrine was given for mean arterial pressure ≤55, and electrolytes and acidosis were corrected. Organs were examined for gross and histologic evidence of ischemic injuries. The primary endpoint was post-inflation blood loss. RESULTS: All the pREBOA animals survived until the end, whereas control animals had a mean survival time of 38.2 minutes (p < 0.05). The pREBOA group showed significantly less bleeding after balloon deployment (93.8 vs 1,980.0 mL, p < 0.05), and had appropriate lactate clearance, with minimal histologic distal organ ischemia. CONCLUSIONS: Partial aortic occlusion with the newly designed balloon can achieve the desired balance between effective hemorrhage control and adequate distal flow, without a need for ongoing balloon titration.

Genome sequencing revealed the red-flower trait candidate gene of a peach landrace.

Peach (Prunus persica) is an economically important fruit crop globally and an excellent material for genomic studies. While considerable progress has been made in unveiling trait-associated genes within cultivars and wild relatives, certain novel genes controlling valuable traits in peach landraces, such as the red-flowering gene, remained unclear. In this study, we sequenced and assembled the diploid genome of the red-flower landrace 'Yingzui' (abbreviated as 'RedY'). Multi-omics profiling of red petals of 'RedY' revealed the intensified red coloration associated with anthocyanins accumulation and concurrent decline in flavonols. This phenomenon is likely attributed to a natural variant of Flavonol Synthase (FLS) harboring a 9-bp exonic insertion. Intriguingly, the homozygous allelic configurations of this FLS variant were only observed in red-flowered peaches. Furthermore, the 9-bp sequence variation tightly associated with pink/red petal color in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of collected peach germplasm resources. Functional analyses of the FLS variant, purified from procaryotic expression system, demonstrated its diminished enzymatic activity in flavonols biosynthesis, impeccably aligning with the cardinal trait of red flowers. Therefore, the natural FLS variant was proposed as the best candidate gene for red-flowering trait in peach. The pioneering unveiling of the red-flowered peach genome, coupled with the identification of the candidate gene, expanded the knowledge boundaries of the genetic basis of peach traits and provided valuable insights for future peach breeding efforts.

Hotspots and frontiers of genetic research on pediatric cataracts from 2013 to 2022: a scientometric analysis.

AIM: To explore the hotspots and frontiers of genetic research on pediatric cataracts. METHODS: Global publications from 2013 to 2022 related to genes in pediatric cataracts were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection, and were analyzed in terms of the publication counts, countries, journals, authors, keywords, cited references, subject categories, and the underlying hotspots and frontiers. RESULTS: Totally 699 publications were included in the final analysis. The predominant actors were identified, with China (n=240) and PLoS One (n=33) being the most productive country and journal respectively. The research hotspots extracted from keywords were crystallin gene mutations, pathogenicity evaluation, phenotypes of ocular and neurodevelopmental abnormalities, genes encoding membrane proteins, and diagnosis of multisystemic disorders. The co-cited articles formed 10 clusters of research topics, including FYCO1 (56 items), mutation screening (43 items), gap junction (29 items), the Warburg Micro syndrome (29 items), ephrin-A5 (28 items), novel mutation (24 items), eye development and function (22 items), cholestanol (7 items), OCRL (6 items), and pathogenicity prediction (3 items). The research frontiers were FYCO1, ephrin-A5, and cholestanol. Cell biology showed the strongest bridging effects among different disciplines in the field (betweenness centrality=0.44). CONCLUSION: With the progress in next-generation sequencing and multidisciplinary collaboration, genetic research on pediatric cataracts broadens the knowledge scope of the crystalline lens, as well as other organs and systems, shedding light on the molecular mechanisms of systemic diseases. Cell biology may integrate multidisciplinary content to address cutting-edge issues in the field.

DAUF: A disease-related attentional UNet framework for progressive and stable mild cognitive impairment identification.

Identifying progressive mild cognitive impairment (pMCI) and stable mild cognitive impairment (sMCI) plays a significant role in early Alzheimer's disease (AD) diagnosis, which can effectively boost the life quality of patients. Recently, convolutional neural network (CNN)- based methods using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) images have shown effective for AD identification. However, these CNN-based methods fail to effectively explore the feature extraction of disease-related multi-scale tissues, such as ventricles, hippocampi and cerebral cortex. To address this issue, we propose an end-to-end disease-related attentional UNet framework (DAUF) for identifying pMCI and sMCI, by embedding a devised dual disease-related attention module (D2AM) and a novel tree-structured feature fusion classifier (TFFC). Specifically, D2AM leverages the complementarity between feature maps and attention maps and the complementary features from the encoder and decoder, so as to highlight discriminative semantic and detailed features. Additionally, TFFC is a powerfully joint multi-scale feature fusion and classification head, by employing the homogeneity among multi-scale features, so that the discriminative features of the multi-scale tissues are adequately fused for enhancing classification performance. Finally, extensive experiments demonstrate the superior performance of DAUF, with the effectiveness of D2AM and TFFC on identifying pMCI and sMCI subjects.

Artemisiaqingheensis (Asteraceae, Anthemideae), a new species from Xinjiang, China.

Artemisiaqingheensis (Asteraceae, Anthemideae), a new species from Qinghe County, Xinjiang, China, is described and illustrated. We investigated its phylogenetic position and relationships with 35 other species of Artemisia using whole chloroplast DNA sequence data. The molecular phylogenetic results and morphological evidence (multi-layered involucral bracts and homogamous capitula with bisexual flowers) showed that the new species belongs to ArtemisiasubgenusSeriphidium. A diagnostic table and discussion of morphological characters are provided to distinguish the new species from A.amoena, A.gracilescens, A.lessingiana and A.terrae-albae.

Exosome-derived long noncoding RNAs: Mediators of host-Plasmodium parasite communication.

Overcoming challenges associated with malaria eradication proves to be a formidable task due to the complicated life cycle exhibited by the malaria parasite and the lack of safe and enduring vaccines against malaria. Investigating the interplay between Plasmodium parasites and their mammalian hosts is crucial for the development of novel vaccines. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) derived from Plasmodium parasites or host cells have emerged as potential signaling molecules involved in the trafficking of proteins, RNA (mRNAs, miRNAs, and ncRNAs), and DNA. These lncRNAs facilitate the interaction between hosts and parasites, impacting normal physiology or pathology in malaria-infected individuals. Moreover, they possess the capacity to regulate immune responses and associated signaling pathways, thus potentially influencing chromatin organization, epigenetic modifications, mRNA processing, splicing, and translation. However, the functional role of exosomal lncRNAs in malaria remains poorly understood. This review offers a comprehensive analysis of lncRNA and exosomal lncRNA profiles during malaria infection. It presents an overview of recent progress in elucidating the involvement of exosomal lncRNAs in host-parasite interactions. Additionally, potential exosomal lncRNAs linked to the domains of innate and adaptive immunity in the context of malaria are proposed. These findings may contribute to the discovery of new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for malaria. Furthermore, the need for additional research was highlighted that aimed to elucidate the mechanisms underlying lncRNA transportation into host cells and their targeting of specific genes to regulate the host's immune response. This knowledge gap presents an opportunity for future investigations, offering innovative approaches to enhance malarial control. This article is categorized under: RNA Interactions with Proteins and Other Molecules > Small Molecule-RNA Interactions RNA Interactions with Proteins and Other Molecules > Protein-RNA Interactions: Functional Implications RNA in Disease and Development > RNA in Disease.