Identification of the ferroptosis-related gene signature and the associated regulation axis in lung cancer and rheumatoid arthritis.

Patients with Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have an elevated risk of lung cancer compared to the healthy population. However, there are few studies on the relationship between RA and lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), especially the mechanisms at the genetic level. In this study, we investigated the link between RA and LUAD regarding Ferroptosis-Related Genes. The RNA-seq data of RA (GSE77298 and GSE 82107) and LUAD(GSE75037) in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database were obtained. 259 ferroptosis-related genes were obtained from the website ( http://www.zhounan.org/ferrdb/ ).The differential genes obtained from the RA and LUAD datasets were intersected with ferroptosis-related genes to obtain the ferroptosis-related differentially expressed genes (FRDEGs). Next, the mRNA-miRNA network was constructed, then Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) for target genes were performed. The CIBERSORT algorithm was used to analyze the immune infiltration. Finally, the results were validated using external datasets (GSE89408 and GSE48780) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. We obtained FRDEGs common to LUAD and RA: FANCD2, HELLS, RRM2, G6PD, VLDLR. These five genes play important roles in the progression of RA and LUAD. They also hold great diagnostic value for both diseases. Also, we found that LUAD and RA share common signaling pathways and similar immune mechanisms.

Interfacial phenomenon and Marangoni convection of Fe-C melt on coke substrate under in situ observation.

The interfacial phenomenon between liqiuid iron and coke is important for determining the melting efficiency in the blast furnace iron-making process. In this study, the interaction observed in the case of the iron-carbon (Fe-C) melt on coke substrate was investigated using a high-temperature vacuum wettability test equipment. The Fe-C melt did not wet and spread on the coke substrate with different graphitization degrees (r0) at a high temperature of 1450 °C. The contact angles changed from 124.5° to 105.3°, and the r0 increased from 9.30 to 50.00%, thus indicating a nonwetting state. The deepening of graphitization decreased the contact angle. Thereby, increasing the contact area between liquid iron and the carbonaceous material, which facilitated carbon dissolution. The irregular movements of Fe-C melt were observed in situ during the wetting process. The horizontal force of the droplet caused by interfacial tension and the contact angle; the Marangoni convection owing to the gradient of carbon concentration; and the impulse force caused by the generation, aggregation, and release of SiO bubbles at the interface were attributed to the driving force.

Adding functional properties to beer with jasmine tea extract.

Hops provide the characteristic bitter taste and attractive aroma to beer; in this study, hops were replaced by jasmine tea extract (JTE) during late-hopping. The addition of JTE improved the beer foam stability 1.52-fold, and increased the polyphenol and organic acid contents. Linalool was the most important aroma compound in hopped (HOPB) and jasmine tea beer (JTB), but other flavor components were markedly different, including dimeric catechins, flavone/flavonol glycosides, and bitter acids and derivatives. Sensory evaluation indicated that addition of JTE increased the floral and fresh-scent aromas, reduced bitterness and improved the organoleptic quality of the beer. The antioxidant capacity of JTB was much higher than that of HOPB. The inhibition of amylase activity by JTB was 30.5% higher than that of HOPB. Functional properties to beer were added by substituting jasmine tea extract for hops during late hopping.

Impact of tea leaves categories on physicochemical, antioxidant, and sensorial profiles of tea wine.

Introduction: Tea is the main raw material for preparing tea wine. Methods: In this research, four types of tea wine were prepared using different categories of tea leaves, including green tea, oolong tea, black tea, and dark tea, and the comparative study looking their physicochemical, sensorial, and antioxidant profiles were carried out. Results: The dynamic changes of total soluble solids, amino acids and ethanol concentrations, and pH were similar in four tea wines. The green tea wine (GTW) showed the highest consumption of total soluble solids and amino acids, and produced the highest concentrations of alcohol, malic, succinic, and lactic acid among all tea wines. The analysis of volatile components indicated the number and concentration of esters and alcohols increased significantly after fermentation of tea wines. GTW presented the highest volatile concentration, while oolong tea wine (OTW) showed the highest number of volatile compounds. GTW had the highest total catechins concentration of 404 mg/L and the highest ABTS value (1.63 mmol TEAC/mL), while OTW showed the highest DPPH value (1.00 mmol TEAC/mL). Moreover, OTW showed the highest score of sensory properties. Discussion: Therefore, the types of tea leaves used in the tea wine production interfere in its bioactive composition, sensorial, and antioxidant properties.

Feature pyramid self-attention network for respiratory motion prediction in ultrasound image guided surgery.

PURPOSE: The robot-assisted automated puncture system under ultrasound guidance can well improve the puncture accuracy in ablation surgery. The automated puncture system requires advanced definition of the puncture location, while the displacement of thoracic-abdominal tumors caused by respiratory motion makes it difficult for the system to locate the best puncture position. Predicting tumor motion is an effective way to help the automated puncture system output a more accurate puncture position. METHODS: In this paper, we propose a self-attention-based feature pyramid algorithm FPSANet for time-series forecasting, which can extract both linear and nonlinear dependencies of time series. Firstly, we use the temporal convolutional network as the backbone to extract different scale time-series features, and the self-attention module is followed to weigh more significant features to improve nonlinear prediction. Secondly, we use autoregressive models to perform linear prediction. Finally, we directly combine the above two kinds of predictions as the final prediction. RESULTS: FPSANet is trained and tested on our private datasets captured from clinical individuals, and we predict the target position after 50 ms, 150 ms, 300 ms and 400 ms. The result shows the evaluation criteria of the MAE is less than 1 mm at 50 ms and 150 ms, and less than 2 mm at 300 ms. Compared with the AR model, bidirectional LSTM and RVM, our method not only outperforms both models in accuracy (AR: ~ 7.7%; bidirectional LSTM: ~ 75.9%; RVM: ~ 76.5%) but is also more stable on different types of respiratory curves. CONCLUSION: Respiratory motion in the liver in actual clinical practice vary widely from person to person, while sometimes having less distinct periodic patterns. Under these conditions, our algorithm has the advantage of excellent stability for prediction on various sequences, and its running time of performing single sequence prediction can meet clinical requirements.

PM2.5 induces pulmonary microvascular injury in COPD via METTL16-mediated m6A modification.

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure is a significant cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but the detailed mechanisms involved in COPD remain unclear. In this study, we established PM2.5-induced COPD rat models and showed that PM2.5 induced pulmonary microvascular injury via accelerating vascular endothelial apoptosis, increasing vascular permeability, and reducing angiogenesis, thereby contributing to COPD development. Moreover, microvascular injury in COPD was validated by measurements of plasma endothelial microparticles (EMPs) and serum VEGF in COPD patients. We then performed m6A sequencing, which confirmed that altered N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification was induced by PM2.5 exposure. The results of a series of experiments demonstrated that the expression of methyltransferase-like protein 16 (METTL16), an m6A regulator, was upregulated in PM2.5-induced COPD rats, while the expression of other regulators did not differ upon PM2.5-induction. To clarify the regulatory effect of METTL16-mediated m6A modification induced by PM2.5 on pulmonary microvascular injury, cell apoptosis, permeability, and tube formation, the m6A level in METTL16-knockdown pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells (PMVECs) was evaluated, and the target genes of METTL16 were identified from a set of the differentially expressed and m6A-methylated genes associated with vascular injury and containing predicted sites of METTL16 methylation. The results showed that Sulfatase 2 (Sulf2) and Cytohesin-1 (Cyth1) containing the predicted METTL16 methylation sites, exhibited higher m6A methylation and were downregulated after PM2.5 exposure. Further studies demonstrated that METTL16 may regulate Sulf2 expression via m6A modification and thereby contribute to PM2.5-induced microvascular injury. These findings not only provide a better understanding of the role played by m6A modification in PM2.5-induced microvascular injury, but also identify a new therapeutic target for COPD.

FPSN-FNCC: an accurate and fast motion tracking algorithm in 3D ultrasound for image-guided interventions.

The uncertain motions of a target caused by the breath, heartbeat and body drift of a patient can increase the target locating error during image-guided interventions, and that may cause additional surgery trauma. A surgery navigation system with accurate motion tracking is important for improving the operation accuracy and reducing trauma. In this work, we propose an accurate and fast tracking algorithm in three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound (US) sequences for US-guided surgery to achieve moving object tracking. The idea of this algorithm is as follows. Firstly, feature pyramid architecture is introduced into a Siamese network to extract multiscale convolutional features. Secondly, to improve the network discriminative power and the robustness to ultrasonic noise and gain variation, we use the normalized cross correlation (NCC) to calculate the similarity between template block and search block. Thirdly, a fast NCC (FNCC) is proposed, which can perform the real-time tracking. Finally, a density peaks clustering approach is used to compensate the motion of the target and further improve the tracking accuracy. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on a CLUST dataset that includes 22 sets of 3D US sequences, and the mean error of 1.60±0.97 mm compared with manual annotations is obtained. After comparing with other published works, the results show that our algorithm achieves the comparable performance. The ablation study proves that the results benefit from the feature pyramid architecture and FNCC. These findings show that our algorithm may improve the motion tracking accuracy in image-guided interventions.

A pressor dose of angiotensin II has no influence on the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 and other molecules associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in mice.

In the early phase of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it was postulated that the renin-angiotensin-system inhibitors (RASi) increase the infection risk. This was primarily based on numerous reports, which stated that the RASi could increase the organ Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the receptor of Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), in rodents. RASi can theoretically antagonize the potential influence of angiotensin II (Ang II) on ACE2. However, while Ang II decreases the ACE2 levels in cultured cells, there is little evidence that supports this phenomenon in living animals. In this study, we tested whether Ang II or Ang II combined with its antagonist would alter the ACE2 and other molecules associated with the infection of SARS-CoV-2. Male C57BL6/J mice were administered vehicle, Ang II (400 ng/kg/min), or Ang II with losartan (10 mg/kg/min) for 2 weeks. ACE2 knockout mice were used as a negative control for the ACE2 assay. We found that both Ang II, which elevated blood pressure by 30 mm Hg, and Ang II with losartan, had no effect on the expression or protein activity of ACE2 in the lung, left ventricle, kidney, and ileum. Likewise, these interventions had no effect on the expression of Transmembrane Protease Serine 2 (TMPRSS2) and Furin, proteases that facilitate the virus-cell fusion, and the expression or activity of Tumor Necrosis Factor α-Convertase (TACE) that cleaves cell-surface ACE2. Collectively, physiological concentrations of Ang II do not modulate the molecules associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. These results support the recent observational studies suggesting that the use of RASi is not a risk factor for COVID-19.

Methane and Nitrous Oxide Flux after Biochar Application in Subtropical Acidic Paddy Soils under Tobacco-Rice Rotation.

Biochar amendment is a good means of mitigating methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. However, the effects of biochar amendment on N2O and CH4 reduction in soil under rotation with different soil moisture contents is not well understood. To understand CH4 and N2O flux from soil with biochar amendment under water-unsaturated and water-saturated conditions, a field experiment was conducted in a tobacco-rice rotation field in subtropical China to investigate N2O and CH4 emissions following soil amendment with tobacco straw biochar at rates of 0, 10, 40 and 80 t·ha-1 (B0, B10, B40 and B80, respectively). N2O and CH4 emissions were monitored by a closed-chamber method in the water-unsaturated tobacco (UT) and water-saturated rice (SR) seasons during the 2015 planting season. The soil pH increased from 5.4 in the control to 6.1 in the soil amended with biochar at 80 t·ha-1 in the UT season. During both the UT and SR seasons, with biochar amendment at 40 and 80 t·ha-1, the soil bulk density (BD) decreased, while the soil organic matter (SOM) and available potassium (Av. K) contents increased. N2O flux was significantly greater in UT than in SR in the controls but decreased with the application of biochar during both the UT and SR seasons. The cumulative CH4 emission decreased with the rate of biochar application and the methanotroph pmoA gene copy number in soils and increased with the methanogenic archaea 16Sr DNA gene copy number in soils during the rice-cropping season. These results indicated that biochar amendment could decrease methanogenic archaea and increase of methanotroph pmoA gene, which are the mechanistic origin for CH4 reduction.

Chondrogenic potential of stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth in vitro and in vivo.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the chondrogenic potential of stem cells from human exfoliated teeth (SHED). MATERIALS AND METHODS: SHED cultures were isolated from human exfoliated deciduous teeth. Colony-forming capacity, odonto/osteogenic and adipogenic potential were measured. SHED were cultured for 2 weeks in chondrogenic differentiation medium containing dexamethasone, insulin, ascorbate phosphate, TGF-ß3 and bFGF. Toluidine blue staining and safranin O staining were used for chondrogenesis analysis. The related markers, type II collagen and aggrecan, were also investigated using immunohistochemistry. SHED were seeded onto the ß-TCP scaffolds and transplanted into the subcutaneous space on the back of nude mice. The transplants were recovered at 2, 4 and 8 weeks post-transplantation for analysis. RESULTS: SHED showed colony-forming capacity, odonto/osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation capacity. Chondrogenic differentiation was confirmed by toluidine blue staining, safranin O staining, type II collagen and aggrecan immunostaining. After in vivo transplantation, SHED recombined with ß-TCP scaffolds were able to generate new cartilage-like tissues. CONCLUSIONS: The findings demonstrate the chondrogenic differentiation capacity of SHED both in vitro and in vivo models, suggesting the potential of SHED in cartilage tissue engineering.

Method for location of puncture point guided by digital mammography image.

The main purpose of this study was to develop a method that can optimize the algorithm for puncture point calculation, and therefore improve the accuracy of X-ray guided breast biopsy. The proposed method is: first, select two guiding points; then, use the guiding points to construct X-ray cone-beams, so the joining section of the cone-beams can be used to determine the puncture target point. The method was verified by a phantom emulation, in which the calculated target-points were all found within the central part of the target lesion, and far away from the boarder of the lesion (change the x-ray tube angle by 15° would only cause a slight deviation no more than 1.4 mm), the accuracy is enough to fulfill the needs of biopsy operation. This study also found out that, the shorter the distance between the guiding point and the center of the lesion's project, the nearer the calculated biopsy-point will be to the actual lesion center.

[Effect of revascularization treatment of immature permanent teeth with endodontic infection].

OBJECTIVE: To observe the effect of revascularization for treatment of immature teeth with endodontic infection mediated by calcium hydroxide. METHODS: Seventeen pediatric patients with endodontic infections of the permanent teeth were treated with routine root canal and pulp cavity irrigation and disinfection followed by application of calcium hydroxide paste to the root canal orifice to induce revascularization. Another 17 patients received conventional apexification procedures to serve as the control group. The patients were followed up to observe the therapeutic effect of the treatments. RESULTS: In the revascularization treatment group, 4 cases showed healed periapical lesions 6 to 18 months after the surgery with thickened root canal walls and closure of the apical foramen; in 10 cases, the periapical lesions healed 12 to 18 months postoperatively with lengthened root, thickened root canal wall, and narrowed apical foramen. One patient reported pain and swelling at 2 months, and 2 patients showed the formation of gum fistula and ceased development of the roots at 7 and 8 months. In the control group, the periapical lesions healed in 1 cases at 12 months postoperatively with apical foramen closure; in 11 cases, hard tissues formed in the root apex without obviously lengthened roots 6 to 8 months after the surgery; in 5 cases, no apical barrier formed even 12 to 18 months after the surgery. The overall effective rates were similar between the two groups (P>0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Revascularization by calcium hydroxide sealing can promote root development of immature permanent teeth with pulpitis or periradicular periodontitis.

[Sailing kilometers for success means a heavy responsibility to bear and a long way to go].

Reviewing the 60-year history of Chinese Journal of Ophthalmology, we realise that it is now a tough period for journals and find the proper measure to deal with it. With the periodical achievements acknowledged, we focus more on the historical mission and responsibility of the future development as the publishers of Chinese Journal of Ophthalmology.

[A citation analysis of Chinese Journal of Ophthalmology from 2005 to 2009].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the academic level and the quality of Chinese Journal of Ophthalmology (CJO) by analyzing its citation status. METHODS: Bibliometrics was used to analyze and evaluate the distribution of original papers in CJO in 2005-2009 based on the data of Chinese Medical Citation Index (CMCI). RESULTS: A total of 1358 papers were published in CJO between 2005 and 2009. Among them, 695 were cited for 2333 times, with an average of 3.36 times per cited paper. The papers were cited by authors from 26 provinces or municipalities or autonomous regions, Hongkong and Macao, China, as well as 2 from United States. The regions from where the papers had the highest citation were Beijing (202 times), Shanghai (93), Guangdong (82) and Shandong (69). The institutions with the highest citation rates were Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center of Sun Yat-Sen University (349 times) and Beijing Tongren Eye Center (265). CJO had been cited by more than 300 other journals in the past 5 years, such as International Ophthalmology, Ophthalmology and Chinese Journal of Practical Ophthalmology. CONCLUSIONS: CJO, which is the journal with the high quality and citation rate, is one of the resources with important information in ophthalmology. It is one of the prestigious medical journals in China.