[A survey of parents of preschool children on their perception of bad oral habits].

PURPOSE: Through questionnaire survey, parents' cognition of children's bad oral habits and their related influencing factors were explored, in order to provide a reference for science popularization and education in future work. METHODS: With a self-designed questionnaire, 247 parents of children at first visit were surveyed on basic information and problems related to bad oral habits. Descriptive statistics were used for the counting data. Logistic regression analysis was used for the relevant factors affecting the parents' cognition of children's bad oral habits with SPSS 26.0 software package. RESULTS: Among 247 parents of preschool children, 17.4% of the parents took their children to the hospital for treatment because of bad oral habits. The prevalence of oral unhealthy habits was 44%. Parents' knowledge of bad oral habits was not high, less than half of the parents (46.6%) knew about bad oral habits, of which 82.6% of the parents thought that bad oral habits would affect the development of children's teeth, jaws, face and mental health, including facial contour (62.1%), dentition (34.7%), masticatory function (48.4%), and mental health (21.1%). 78.3% of the parents thought that bad oral habits needed to be corrected; 69.6% of the parents thought that they needed to go to the hospital for treatment, and 30.4% of the parents thought that it was ok as long as their children giving up bad oral habits. 61.7% of the parents would seek medical treatment in time when their children had bad oral habits. The ways for parents to obtain knowledge about bad oral habits were hospital education (61.5%). Parents with different characteristics had different cognition of bad oral habits. Logistic regression analysis showed that parents' education background was a risk factor affecting parents' cognition of bad oral habits(P=0.009). CONCLUSIONS: Parents' awareness of bad oral habits is not high, and parents' educational background is a risk factor for parents' awareness of bad oral habits. It is necessary to improve parents' awareness of oral habits, strengthen health education of bad oral habits, especially for parents with special signs, and improve the attention to oral health care, to achieve early detection, early prevention, early treatment and timely treatment, so as to prevent the occurrence and development of malocclusion.

An innovative permeable reactive bio-barrier to remediate trichloroethene-contaminated groundwater: A field study.

Permeable reactive bio-barrier (PRBB), an innovative technology, could treat many contaminants via the natural gradient flow of groundwater based on immobilization or transformation of pollutants into less toxic and harmful forms. In this field study, we developed an innovative PRBB system comprising immobilized Dehalococcoides mccartyi (Dhc) and Clostridium butyricum embedded into the silica gel for long-term treatment of trichloroethene (TCE) polluted groundwater. Four injection wells and two monitoring wells were installed at the downstream of the TCE plume. Without PRBB, results showed that the TCE (6.23 ± 0.43 µmole/L) was converted to cis-dichloroethene (0.52 ± 0.63 µmole/L), and ethene was not detected, whereas TCE was completely converted to ethene (3.31 µmole/L) with PRBB treatment, indicating that PRBB could promote complete dechlorination of TCE. Noticeably, PRBB showed the long-term capability to maintain a high dechlorinating efficiency for TCE removal during the 300-day operational period. Furthermore, with qPCR analysis, the PRBB application could stably maintain the populations of Dhc and functional genes (bvcA, tceA, and vcrA) at >108 copies/L within the remediation course and change the bacterial communities in the contaminated groundwater. We concluded that our PRBB was first set up for cleaning up TCE-contaminated groundwater in a field trial.

Selective targeting of dipeptidyl-peptidase 4 (DPP-4) positive senescent chondrocyte ameliorates osteoarthritis progression.

Senescent cells increase in many tissues with age and induce age-related pathologies, including osteoarthritis (OA). Senescent chondrocytes (SnCs) are found in OA cartilage, and the clearance of those chondrocytes prevents OA progression. However, targeting SnCs is challenging due to the absence of a senescent chondrocyte-specific marker. Therefore, we used flow cytometry to screen and select senescent chondrocyte surface markers and cross-validated with published transcriptomic data. Chondrocytes expressing dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4), the selected senescent chondrocyte-specific marker, had multiple senescence phenotypes, such as increased senescence-associated-galactosidase, p16, p21, and senescence-associated secretory phenotype expression, and showed OA chondrocyte phenotypes. To examine the effects of DPP-4 inhibition on DPP-4+ SnCs, sitagliptin, a DPP-4 inhibitor, was treated in vitro. As a result, DPP-4 inhibition selectively eliminates DPP-4+ SnCs without affecting DPP-4- chondrocytes. To assess in vivo therapeutic efficacy of targeting DPP-4+ SnCs, three known senolytics (ABT263, 17DMAG, and metformin) and sitagliptin were comparatively verified in a DMM-induced rat OA model. Sitagliptin treatment specifically and effectively eliminated DPP-4+ SnCs, compared to the other three senolytics. Furthermore, Intra-articular sitagliptin injection to the rat OA model increased collagen type II and proteoglycan expression and physical functions and decreased cartilage destruction, subchondral bone plate thickness and MMP13 expression, leading to the amelioration of OA phenotypes. Collectively, OARSI score was lowest in the sitagliptin treatment group. Taken together, we verified DPP-4 as a surface marker for SnCs and suggested that the selective targeting of DPP-4+ chondrocytes could be a promising strategy to prevent OA progression.