Two new oleanane triterpenes from Maytenus hookeri.

Two new triterpenes mayteneri A (1), mayteneri B (2), and seven known compounds (3-9) were isolated from stems of Maytenus hookeri Loes. The chemical structures of compounds 1 and 2 were established by 1D, 2D NMR, HRESIMS analysis, and calculating electronic circular dichroism (ECD). The structures of known compounds 3-9 were determined by comparison of their spectral with those reported. Compounds 4-7 showed significant inhibitory activity for NLRP3 inflammasome, with the IC50 values of 2.36-3.44 µM.

Investigation of the pan-cancer property of FNDC1 and its molecular mechanism to promote lung adenocarcinoma metastasis.

BACKGROUND: Fibronectin type III domain containing 1 (FNDC1) has been associated with the metastasis of many tumors, but its function in lung cancer remains uncertain. METHODS: FNDC1 expression was analyzed in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx), evaluate its prognostic value. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) enrichment analysis of differential expression of FNDC1 in lung cancer. The expression of FNDC1 was detected in five types of lung cancer cells, and screened to establish FNDC1 stable knockdown cell strains. To observe the migration and invasion ability of lung cancer cells after FNDC1 knockdown. Finally, we used rhIL-6 to interfere with the stable knockdown of FNDC1 in A549 cells and observed the recovery of migration and invasion. RESULT: Our results showed that FNDC1 expression was increased in 21 tumor tissues, including lung cancer, and was associated with poor prognosis in five cancers, including lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) (P < 0.05). GSEA enrichment analysis showed that FNDC1 was related to the pathways involved the JAK-STAT signaling pathway. Stable knockdown of FNDC1 in A549 and H292 cells resulted in decreased migration and invasion ability of both cells, accompanied by decreased expression of MMP-2 and Snail, and a significant decline in the expression of p-JAK2 and p-STAT3. The suppressive effect of FNDC1 knockdown on lung cancer cell metastasis counteracted by the JAK-STAT agonist rhIL-6 were presented in the nude mouse metastatic tumor model. CONCLUSION: FNDC1 is implicated in poor prognosis of a diverse range of malignant tumors, which can promote metastasis and invasion of lung cancer through the JAK2-STAT3 signaling pathway.

Outcomes of ankle arthrodesis in adult patients with ankle osteoarthritis in Kashin-Beck disease.

PURPOSE: We retrospectively evaluated the characteristics of these patients and the effectiveness of ankle arthrodesis in the treatment of ankle arthritis caused by Kashin-Beck disease (KBD). METHODS: A retrospective study of KBD patients with ankle osteoarthritis who underwent ankle arthrodesis between December 2012 and January 2022 was performed. A total of 46 patients were included. The general characteristics, clinical manifestations and imaging features of the patients were recorded and summarized. measured using the VAS score, and ankle function was assessed by the AOFAS ankle-hindfoot score. RESULTS: Multiple subchondral cystic changes were found in 42(91.3%) patients. The VAS scores for both resting and weight-bearing conditions were 6.28 ± 1.30 vs. 2.09 ± 1.12 (P < .001) and 6.87 ± 1.01 vs. 2.17 ± 0.98 (P < .001), respectively. The AOFAS scores were 59.17 ± 5.50 and 88.39 ± 1.42, respectively (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: The subchondral multiple cystic transformation of the ankle KBD has a certain suggestive role.Arthrodesis is an effective method to reduce ankle pain and improve ankle function in KBD patients with ankle osteoarthritis.

Lycium barbarum polysaccharide promotes the immunoprotective effects of a recombinant Lactobacillus plantarum vaccine expressing the Trichinella spiralis cathepsin F-like protease 1 gene.

Trichinellosis caused by Trichinella spiralis (T. spiralis) is a zoonotic disease that poses a substantial risk to human health. At present, vaccines used to prevent trichinellosis are effective, but the production of antibody levels and immunogenicity are low. Adjuvants can increase antibody levels and vaccine immunogenicity. As a result, it is critical to develop an effective adjuvant for the T. spiralis vaccine. Recent research has shown that traditional Chinese medicine polysaccharides with low-toxicity and biodegradability can act as adjuvants in vaccines. In this study, BALB/c mice were orally inoculated with a recombinant Lactobacillus plantarum (L. plantarum) vaccine expressing the T. spiralis cathepsin F-like protease 1 gene (rTs-CPF1), which was given three times at 10-day intervals. Lycium barbarum polysaccharide (LBP) was administered orally for 37 days. At 37 days after the first immunization, mice were infected with 350 T. spiralis muscle larvae (ML). Specific IgG and sIgA antibody levels against the T. spiralis CPF1 protein were increased in mice immunized with rTs-CPF1+LBP compared to those immunized with rTs-CPF1 alone. Furthermore, LBP increased IFN-γ and IL-4 expression levels, and the number of intestinal and intramuscular worms was significantly reduced in the rTs-CPF1+LBP group compared to that in the rTs-CPF1 group. In the rTs-CPF1+LBP group, the reduction rates of adult worms and muscle larvae were 47.31 % and 68.88 %, respectively. To summarize, LBP promotes the immunoprotective effects of the T. spiralis vaccine and may be considered as a novel adjuvant in parasitic vaccines.

Three new diterpenoids isolated from Euphorbia nematocypha Hand.-Mazz and their anti-fungal activity.

Three new diterpenoids, named nematocynine A-C (1-3), together with twelve known compounds (4-15) were isolated from the aerial part of Euphorbia nematocypha Hand.-Mazz (Hereinafter referred to E. nematocypha). Their structures were elucidated by detailed spectroscopic analysis and comparison with literature data. In addition, all the compounds were tested for their anti-candida albicans activities used alone or in combination with fluconazole against sensitive strain and resistant strain in vitro. Wherein only compound 11 shows weak activity against candida albicans resistant strain (MIC50 = 128.15 µg/mL) when used alone. Compounds 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15 in combination with fluconazole showed potent anti-fungal activities (MIC50 = 15 ± 5 µg/mL, FICI = 0.05 ± 0.04) against the Candida albicans resistant strain SC5314-FR. The synergistic effects were weaker against the Candida albicans resistant strain SC5314-FR when the compounds 2, 3, 5 and 14 were combined with fluconazole (FICI = 0.16 ± 0.06).

Sugarcane: an unexpected habitat for black yeasts in Chaetothyriales.

Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum, Poaceae) is cultivated on a large scale in (sub)tropical regions such as Brazil and has considerable economic value for sugar and biofuel production. The plant is a rich substrate for endo- and epiphytic fungi. Black yeasts in the family Herpotrichiellaceae (Chaetothyriales) are colonizers of human-dominated habitats, particularly those rich in toxins and hydrocarbon pollutants, and may cause severe infections in susceptible human hosts. The present study assessed the diversity of Herpotrichiellaceae associated with sugarcane, using in silico identification and selective isolation. Using metagenomics, we identified 5833 fungal sequences, while 639 black yeast-like isolates were recovered in vitro. In both strategies, the latter fungi were identified as members of the genera Cladophialophora, Exophiala, and Rhinocladiella (Herpotrichiellaceae), Cyphellophora (Cyphellophoraceae), and Knufia (Trichomeriaceae). In addition, we discovered new species of Cladophialophora and Exophiala from sugarcane and its rhizosphere. The first environmental isolation of Cladophialophora bantiana is particularly noteworthy, because this species up to now is exclusively known from the human host where it mostly causes fatal brain disease in otherwise healthy patients.

Wulfenioidins D-N, Structurally Diverse Diterpenoids with Anti-Zika Virus Activity Isolated from Orthosiphon wulfenioides.

Eleven diterpenoids, wulfenioidins D-N (1-11), classified into five distinct carbon skeletons with one unreported framework, and four modified abietane diterpenoids were isolated from the whole plant of Orthosiphon wulfenioides. The structures and absolute configurations were characterized by spectroscopic methods, single-crystal X-ray diffraction, and electronic circular dichroism analyses. Compounds 3 and 5 exhibited activity against Zika virus (ZIKV) with EC50 values of 8.07 and 8.50 µM, respectively, and showed no significant cytotoxicity toward Vero cells at 100 µM. Western blot and immunofluorescence experiments showed that compounds 3 and 5 interfered with the replication of the ZIKV by inhibiting the expression of the ZIKV envelope (E) protein.

Effectiveness of vagus nerve stimulation for drug-resistant generalized epilepsy in children aged six and younger.

BACKGROUND: To explore a novel scoring system to evaluate the efficacy of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) in children with drug-resistant generalized epilepsy (DRGE) aged six and younger. BASIC PROCEDURES: The data of twelve children with DRGE under the age of 6 years who accepted VNS and have been followed up for at least 3 years were retrospectively reviewed. The outcome was evaluated with the McHugh Classification System and a novel scoring system we proposed. MAIN FINDINGS: Based on the McHugh Classification System, the total response rate was 91.67% (11/12) and the rate of Grade I was 41.67% (5/12). A novel scoring system involving seizure frequency, seizure duration and quality of life (QOL) was proposed, by which the outcome was scored from -3 to 11 and graded from IV to I. Based on the novel scoring system, the total response rate was 91.67% (11/12) and the rate of Grade I was 33.33% (4/12). The incidence of complication was 16.67% (2/12). The efficacy of VNS appeared a gradually improving trend with plateau or fluctuation over time. Shorter course of epilepsy prior to VNS may be related to better outcome. PRINCIPAL CONCLUSIONS: VNS could effectively reduce the seizure frequency and improve the QOL of children with DRGE aged six and younger. The novel scoring system was comprehensive and feasible to evaluate the efficacy of VNS. The time pattern of the long-term efficacy of VNS requires further investigation.

Centralized Feature Pyramid for Object Detection.

The visual feature pyramid has shown its superiority in both effectiveness and efficiency in a variety of applications. However, current methods overly focus on inter-layer feature interactions while disregarding the importance of intra-layer feature regulation. Despite some attempts to learn a compact intra-layer feature representation with the use of attention mechanisms or vision transformers, they overlook the crucial corner regions that are essential for dense prediction tasks. To address this problem, we propose a Centralized Feature Pyramid (CFP) network for object detection, which is based on a globally explicit centralized feature regulation. Specifically, we first propose a spatial explicit visual center scheme, where a lightweight MLP is used to capture the globally long-range dependencies, and a parallel learnable visual center mechanism is used to capture the local corner regions of the input images. Based on this, we then propose a globally centralized regulation for the commonly-used feature pyramid in a top-down fashion, where the explicit visual center information obtained from the deepest intra-layer feature is used to regulate frontal shallow features. Compared to the existing feature pyramids, CFP not only has the ability to capture the global long-range dependencies but also efficiently obtain an all-round yet discriminative feature representation. Experimental results on the challenging MS-COCO validate that our proposed CFP can achieve consistent performance gains on the state-of-the-art YOLOv5 and YOLOX object detection baselines.

The association of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 response with radiologic response and survival in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: A prospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: The role of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA 19-9) in response assessment among patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (iCCA) remains unknown. The authors studied the association of the CA 19-9 response (defined as a reduction >50% from baseline) with the radiologic response and the outcome in patients with unresectable iCCA. METHODS: A prospective cohort of 422 patients who were initially diagnosed with unresectable iCCA, had baseline CA 19-9 levels ≥100 U/mL, and received treatment with systemic therapies at the authors' institution between January 2017 and December 2021 were enrolled in this study. The radiologic response was assessed using the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors version 1.1. A landmark assessment of the CA 19-9 response and the radiologic response was performed. The associations between CA 19-9 response and imaging response, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS) were analyzed. RESULTS: Two hundred sixty-seven patients (63.3%) had a CA 19-9 response. A CA 19-9 response was observed in 123 of 132 (93.2%) radiologic responders and in 144 of 290 (49.7%) radiologic nonresponders (p < .001). CA 19-9 responders outperformed nonresponders in median PFS (10.6 vs. 3.6 months; hazard ratio [HR], 4.8 months; 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.8-6.0 months; p < .001) and OS (21.4 vs. 6.3 months; HR, 5.3 months; 95% CI, 4.2-6.7 months; p < .001). The common independent predictors of both OS and PFS included metastasis, CA 19-9 nonresponder status, and radiologic nonresponder status in multivariable analysis. CONCLUSIONS: CA 19-9 response is a valuable addition to assess tumor response and is associated with improved outcomes in patients with iCCA. Achieving a CA 19-9 response should be one of the therapeutic objectives of patients with iCCA after systemic therapies. PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY: A decline in carbohydrate antigen 19-9 levels from elevated baseline levels should be one of the therapeutic aims of patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma who are managed with systemic therapies.

Efficacy and Safety of Moderate-Intensity Continuous Training on the Improvement of Cardiopulmonary Function in Patients After Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (ENERGY): A Randomized Controlled Trial.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the effect of moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) on the improvement of cardiopulmonary function for patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). DESIGN: Randomized controlled study. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Between August 20, 2021, and February 28, 2022, a total of 66 patients after TAVR were screened for inclusion and randomly divided into the MICT and control groups at a ratio of 1:1. MICT was scheduled 3 times per week for 3 months in the intervention group. Patients in the control group received one-time advice on physical activity according to the current guideline. METHODS: The primary endpoint was the 3-month change in peak oxygen consumption (peak VO2) assessed by cardiopulmonary exercise testing. The secondary endpoints included the 3-month change in 6-minute walk test (6MWT), the 12-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12), New York Heart Association (NYHA) class, echocardiographic parameters, and laboratory parameters. RESULTS: After 3 months, the change in peak VO2 was higher in the MICT group than that in the control group (1.63 mL/kg/min, 95% CI 0.58-2.67, P = .003). Change in 6MWT (21.55 m, 95% CI 0.38-42.71, P = .046) was higher in the MICT group compared with the control group. A significant change in favor of MICT was also observed for low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (-0.62 mmol/L, 95% CI -1.00 to -0.23, P = .002). However, there were no significant changes in other echocardiographic indices, laboratory parameters, and SF-12 between the 2 groups (all P > .05). CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: MICT had a positive effect on the cardiopulmonary function and physical capacity of patients after TAVR.

A Novel Flexible Fixation Method for Syndesmotic Injury.

BACKGROUND: This study aims to evaluate the results and the safety of a novel fixation method we developed for syndesmosis injuries that we call the "embrace" technique. METHODS: Between March 2018 and October 2020, a total of 67 patients with ankle fractures and syndesmotic injuries underwent syndesmosis fixation with the embrace technique at our institute. Plain radiographs and computed tomographic (CT) scans were obtained preoperatively. Postoperative radiographic assessment included anteroposterior (AP) and lateral radiographs and CT scans of both ankles. Additionally, the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (AOFAS) Ankle-Hindfoot Score, Olerud-Molander Ankle Score, and visual analog scale (VAS) score were used for postoperative assessment. RESULTS: The mean age was 27.6 ± 10.9 (range, 14-56) years. The mean follow-up time was 30.3 ± 6.2 (range, 24-48) months. There were no malreductions indicated by any CT parameter except fibular rotation in a postoperative comparison between 2 sides. We found significant preoperative-postoperative changes in anterior difference, posterior difference, and fibular rotation but no significant preoperative-postoperative difference in fibular translation. There was no significant postoperative difference between the affected-side and normal-side measurements of any parameter. Complications included delayed wound healing, lateral pain because of wire knot irritation (11.9%), and medial fiber wire irritation (7.5%). The mean AOFAS, Olerud-Molander, and VAS scores at the last follow-up were 94.4 ± 6.8 (range, 84-100), 95.4 ± 6.1 (range, 80-100), and 0.68 ± 1.0 (range, 0-3) points, respectively. CONCLUSION: In our cohort, this novel technique proved to be an effective method for syndesmosis fixation in patients with ankle fractures associated with very good radiologic and patient-reported outcomes. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level IV, case series.

Treatment of pregnant mice with ABZ had no effect on the immune response of their offspring infected with Trichinella spiralis.

Trichinellosis is a food-borne parasitic disease with a worldwide distribution that not only endangers human health but also leads to economic loss. Infection of pregnant animals with Trichinella spiralis (T. spiralis) may lead to abortion and other adverse consequences, so it is necessary to treat the infection during pregnancy. Albendazole (ABZ) is an effective therapeutic drug for adult T. spiralis worms. The safety of this drug during pregnancy, especially whether it has any effect on offspring, should be fully evaluated. A change in the immune response to T. spiralis in the offspring of pregnant mice treated with ABZ may lead to a difference in susceptibility to T. spiralis compared to that of the offspring of normal mice. However, the safety of ABZ treatment in pregnant mice and the effects on the immune response and susceptibility of their offspring to T. spiralis are poorly understood. Therefore, we assessed whether maternal ABZ treatment during pregnancy affects the immune response or susceptibility to T. spiralis in infected offspring. In this study, mice were infected with T. spiralis at 10 days of pregnancy and treated with ABZ at 3 days post infection (dpi), and the specific immune response in the pregnant mice and the survival rate and worm burden of their 6-week-old offspring after T. spiralis infection were examined. The results showed that the antiparasitic immune response in pregnant mice was activated by T. spiralis infection. Treatment of pregnant mice with ABZ increased the percentage of CD4 + T cells. The percentages of Th2 and Treg cells in the PP, MLN and spleen of pregnant mice in the infection group were significantly increased compared with those of normal mice. ABZ treatment during pregnancy promoted the Th2 and Treg immune responses in pregnant mice infected with T. spiralis. The transcriptional levels of the Th2 and Treg cytokines IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, and TGF-ß in the small intestine, MLN and spleen of pregnant mice in the treatment group were significantly higher than those of pregnant mice in the T. spiralis infection only group. The results indicated that ABZ treatment did not cause abortion in pregnant mice or affect the survival rate of their offspring. Furthermore, treatment of pregnant mice with ABZ had no significant effect on the above immune responses in their T. spiralis-infected offspring compared to those of T. spiralis-infected offspring of mice in the normal group. The results also indicated that treatment of pregnant mice infected with T. spiralis with ABZ shifted the immune response to a Th2- and Treg-skewed immune response and that this drug had no effects on the offspring survival rate, immune response or worm burden after T. spiralis infection. This study further indicated that ABZ administration to treat T. spiralis infection in pregnant mice is safe for the select immune response and susceptibility of their offspring.

Daily exercise improves the long-term prognosis of patients with acute coronary syndrome.

Objective: To demonstrate the effect of daily exercise on the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) for patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Methods: A cohort of 9,636 patients with ACS were consecutively enrolled in our retrospective study between November 2015 and September 2017, which were used for model development. 6,745 patients were assigned as the derivation cohort and 2,891 patients were assigned as the validation cohort. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression and COX regression were used to screen out significant variables for the construction of the nomogram. Multivariable COX regression analysis was employed for the development of a model represented by a nomogram. The nomogram was then evaluated for performance traits such as discrimination, calibration, and clinical efficacy. Results: Among 9,636 patients with ACS (mean [SD] age, 60.3 [10.4] years; 7,235 men [75.1%]), the 5-year incidence for MACE was 0.19 at a median follow-up of 1,747 (1,160-1,825) days. Derived from the LASSO regression and COX regression, the nomogram has included 15 factors in total including age, previous myocardial infarction (MI), previous percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), systolic pressure, N-terminal Pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), serum creatinine, left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVEDD), Killip class, the Synergy between Percutaneous Coronary Intervention with Taxus and Cardiac Surgery (SYNTAX) score, left anterior descending (LAD) stenosis (≥50%), circumflex (LCX) stenosis (≥50%), right coronary artery (RCA) stenosis (≥50%), exercise intensity, cumulative time. The 5-year area under the ROC curve (AUC) of derivation and validation cohorts were 0.659 (0.643-0.676) and 0.653 (0.629-0.677), respectively. The calibration plots showed the strong concordance performance of the nomogram model in both two cohorts. Moreover, decision curve analysis (DCA) also showed the usefulness of nomogram in clinical practice. Conclusion: The present work provided a prediction nomogram predicting MACE for patients with ACS after incorporating the already known factors and the daily exercise, which demonstrated the effectiveness of daily exercise on the improvement of prognosis for patients with ACS.

NLRP3 Plays a Key Role in Antihelminth Immunity in the Enteral and Parenteral Stages of Trichinella spiralis-Infected Mice.

Trichinellosis is an important foodborne zoonosis, and no effective treatments are yet available. Nod-like receptor (NLR) plays a critical role in the host response against nematodes. Therefore, we aimed to explore the role of the NLRP3 inflammasome (NLRP3) during the adult, migrating, and encysted stages of Trichinella spiralis infection. The mice were treated with the specific NLRP3 inhibitor MCC950 after inoculation with T. spiralis. Then, the role that NLRP3 plays during T. spiralis infection of mice was evaluated using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), Western blotting, flow cytometry, histopathological evaluation, bone marrow-derived macrophage (BMDM) stimulation, and immunofluorescence. The in vivo results showed that NLRP3 enhanced the Th1 immune response in the adult and migrating stages and weakened the Th2 immune response in the encysted stage. NLRP3 promoted the release of proinflammatory factors (interferon gamma [IFN-γ]) and suppressed the release of anti-inflammatory factors (interleukin 4 [IL-4]). Pathological changes were also improved in the absence of NLRP3 in mice during T. spiralis infection. Importantly, a significant reduction in adult worm burden and muscle larvae burden at 7 and 35 days postinfection was observed in mice treated with the specific NLRP3 inhibitor MCC950. In vitro, we first demonstrated that NLRP3 in macrophages can be activated by T. spiralis proteins and promotes IL-1ß and IL-18 release. This study revealed that NLRP3 is involved in the host response to T. spiralis infection and that targeted inhibition of NLRP3 enhanced the Th2 response and accelerated T. spiralis expulsion. These findings may help in the development of protocols for controlling trichinellosis.

The classification of brain network for major depressive disorder patients based on deep graph convolutional neural network.

Introduction: The early diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) is very important for patients that suffer from severe and irreversible consequences of depression. It has been indicated that functional connectivity (FC) analysis based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data can provide valuable biomarkers for clinical diagnosis. However, previous studies mainly focus on brain disease classification in small sample sizes, which may lead to dramatic divergences in classification accuracy. Methods: This paper attempts to address this limitation by applying the deep graph convolutional neural network (DGCNN) method on a large multi-site MDD dataset. The resting-state fMRI data are acquired from 830 MDD patients and 771 normal controls (NC) shared by the REST-meta-MDD consortium. Results: The DGCNN model trained with the binary network after thresholding, identified MDD patients from normal controls and achieved an accuracy of 72.1% with 10-fold cross-validation, which is 12.4%, 9.8%, and 7.6% higher than SVM, RF, and GCN, respectively. Moreover, the process of dataset reading and model training is faster. Therefore, it demonstrates the advantages of the DGCNN model with low time complexity and sound classification performance. Discussion: Based on a large, multi-site dataset from MDD patients, the results expressed that DGCNN is not an extremely accurate method for MDD diagnosis. However, there is an improvement over previous methods with our goal of better understanding brain function and ultimately providing a biomarker or diagnostic capability for MDD diagnosis.

TRPV4-induced Neurofilament Injury Contributes to Memory Impairment after High Intensity and Low Frequency Noise Exposures.

Objective: Exposure to high intensity, low frequency noise (HI-LFN) causes vibroacoustic disease (VAD), with memory deficit as a primary non-auditory symptomatic effect of VAD. However, the underlying mechanism of the memory deficit is unknown. This study aimed to characterize potential mechanisms involving morphological changes of neurons and nerve fibers in the hippocampus, after exposure to HI-LFN. Methods: Adult wild-type and transient receptor potential vanilloid subtype 4 knockout (TRPV4-/-) mice were used for construction of the HI-LFN injury model. The new object recognition task and the Morris water maze test were used to measure the memory of these animals. Hemoxylin and eosin and immunofluorescence staining were used to examine morphological changes of the hippocampus after exposure to HI-LFN. Results: The expression of TRPV4 was significantly upregulated in the hippocampus after HI-LFN exposure. Furthermore, memory deficits correlated with lower densities of neurons and neurofilament-positive nerve fibers in the cornu ammonis 1 (CA1) and dentate gyrus (DG) hippocampal areas in wild-type mice. However, TRPV4-/- mice showed better performance in memory tests and more integrated neurofilament-positive nerve fibers in the CA1 and DG areas after HI-LFN exposure. Conclusion: TRPV4 up-regulation induced neurofilament positive nerve fiber injury in the hippocampus, which was a possible mechanism for memory impairment and cognitive decline resulting from HI-LFN exposure. Together, these results identified a promising therapeutic target for treating cognitive dysfunction in VAD patients.

Chemical Constituents of the Branches and Leaves of Picrasma chinensis P.Y. Chen and Tyrosinase Inhibiting Activity.

One new alkaloid, picrasine A, two new quassinoids, picralactones A-B, together with eleven known compounds were isolated from Picrasma chinensis P.Y. Chen. The structures of these compounds were determined using 1D and 2D NMR, HR-ESI-MS, and IR spectroscopic data, and by comparison with published data. Some compounds were tested for tyrosinase inhibiting activity, however, none of them exhibited strong inhibitory effects.

A New CPW-Fed Semicircular Inverted Triangular Shaped Antenna Based on Mixed-Alternate Approach for 5G Millimeter-Wave Wireless Applications.

This paper presents the design and development of a new semicircular inverted triangular shaped antenna for 5G millimeter-wave wireless applications. An alternate-mixed approach based on cavity, slots and loaded stubs is employed in the designed antenna lattice. The suggested antenna structure is formed by a radiator, partial defected metal ground plane and a 50 Ω coplanar waveguide. The proposed antenna resonated at multiple frequencies by the setting up of the proper dimensions and locations of the rectangles, elliptical cut slots and cavity stubs. Furthermore, a parametric analysis is carried out to examine the antenna's effectiveness and impedance-matching controls. The proposed structure is realized on the low-cost RT/Duroid Rogers RO3010™ laminate with an overall small size of 1.381λ0 × 1.08λ0 × 0.098λ0, where λ0 represents the wavelength corresponding to the minimum edge frequency of the 23 GHz at 10 dB impedance bandwidth of the antenna. The antenna's key characteristics in terms of bandwidth, gain, radiation patterns and current distribution have been investigated. The antenna exhibits high performance, including an impedance bandwidth of 19 GHz ranging from 23 GHz to 42 GHz, results in 58.46% wider relative bandwidth calculated at 10 dB scaled return loss, a peak realized gain of 6.75 dBi, optimal radiation efficiency of 89%, stable omnidirectional-shaped radiation patterns and robust current distribution across the antenna structure at multiple resonances. The designed antenna has been fabricated and simulation experiments evaluated its performance. The results demonstrate that the antenna is appropriate and can be well integrated into 5G millimeter-wave wireless communication systems.

Triterpene constituents from the fruits of Cyclocarya paliurus and their anti-HIV-1IIIB activity.

Four new norceanothane-type triterpenes, cyclopalin A-D (1-4), and sixteen known compounds (5-20) were obtained from the fruits of Cyclocarya paliurus. Their structures were determined by spectroscopic data, experimental electronic circular dichroism (ECD) and X-ray single crystal analyses. All isolated compounds were assayed for their anti-HIV-1IIIB activity. Compound 18 exhibited potent anti-HIV-1IIIB activity with an EC50 value of 1.32 µM (SI = 151.52).