dynDeepDRIM: a dynamic deep learning model to infer direct regulatory interactions using time-course single-cell gene expression data.

Time-course single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data have been widely used to explore dynamic changes in gene expression of transcription factors (TFs) and their target genes. This information is useful to reconstruct cell-type-specific gene regulatory networks (GRNs). However, the existing tools are commonly designed to analyze either time-course bulk gene expression data or static scRNA-seq data via pseudo-time cell ordering. A few methods successfully utilize the information from multiple time points while also considering the characteristics of scRNA-seq data. We proposed dynDeepDRIM, a novel deep learning model to reconstruct GRNs using time-course scRNA-seq data. It represents the joint expression of a gene pair as an image and utilizes the image of the target TF-gene pair and the ones of the potential neighbors to reconstruct GRNs from time-course scRNA-seq data. dynDeepDRIM can effectively remove the transitive TF-gene interactions by considering neighborhood context and model the gene expression dynamics using high-dimensional tensors. We compared dynDeepDRIM with six GRN reconstruction methods on both simulation and four real time-course scRNA-seq data. dynDeepDRIM achieved substantially better performance than the other methods in inferring TF-gene interactions and eliminated the false positives effectively. We also applied dynDeepDRIM to annotate gene functions and found it achieved evidently better performance than the other tools due to considering the neighbor genes.

A polarization-sensitive, high on/off ratio and self-powered photodetector based on Nb2CTxand Nd2CTx@MoS2.

MXene two-dimensional materials have been widely used in energy storage, catalysis, sensing and other fields, Nb2C as a typical two-dimensional MXene material, its exploration in the field of optoelectronics is still in its infancy, especially Nb2C-based photodetectors are still to be developed. This paper demonstrates that two-dimensional films based on few-layer Nb2C have a photoelectric response in the wavelength range from visible to near-infrared. We have found that the light response performance can be easily adjusted by controlling the thickness of the spin-coated film, and that Nb2C photodetectors show great advantages in terms of wide bandwidth, polarization response, high switching ratio, etc. By adjusting the material concentration and sample thickness, the photocurrent can reach up to 330 nA, the switching ratio can reach 410, and the responsivity can reach 8.3 × 10-4A W-1. In the polarization characteristic test, an extinction ratio of 7.6 can be obtained. By adjusting the content of that doped MoS2quantum dot, the dark current can reach 7.6 × 10-13A, and the switching ratio can reach 3 × 105, which can be increased by 700 times. The above results show that the few-layer Nb2C nanosheets can be used as optoelectronic detectors in the visible to near-infrared bands, which further broadens the application prospects of two-dimensional MXene.

The genome variation and developmental transcriptome maps reveal genetic differentiation of skeletal muscle in pigs.

Natural and artificial directional selections have resulted in significantly genetic and phenotypic differences across breeds in domestic animals. However, the molecular regulation of skeletal muscle diversity remains largely unknown. Here, we conducted transcriptome profiling of skeletal muscle across 27 time points, and performed whole-genome re-sequencing in Landrace (lean-type) and Tongcheng (obese-type) pigs. The transcription activity decreased with development, and the high-resolution transcriptome precisely captured the characterizations of skeletal muscle with distinct biological events in four developmental phases: Embryonic, Fetal, Neonatal, and Adult. A divergence in the developmental timing and asynchronous development between the two breeds was observed; Landrace showed a developmental lag and stronger abilities of myoblast proliferation and cell migration, whereas Tongcheng had higher ATP synthase activity in postnatal periods. The miR-24-3p driven network targeting insulin signaling pathway regulated glucose metabolism. Notably, integrated analysis suggested SATB2 and XLOC_036765 contributed to skeletal muscle diversity via regulating the myoblast migration and proliferation, respectively. Overall, our results provide insights into the molecular regulation of skeletal muscle development and diversity in mammals.

Exploring the causal relationship between antihypertensive drugs and glioblastoma by combining drug target Mendelian randomization study, eQTL colocalization, and single-cell RNA sequencing.

Recent reports indicate a potential oncogenic role of antihypertensive drugs in common cancers. However, it remains uncertain whether this phenomenon influences the risk of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). This study aimed to assess the potential causal effects of blood pressure (BP) and antihypertensive drugs on GBM. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics for systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and GBM in Europeans were downloaded. To represent the effects of antihypertensive drugs, we utilized single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with SBP/DBP adjacent to the coding regions of different antihypertensive drugs as instrumental variables to model five antihypertensive drugs, including angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, calcium channel blockers, ß-receptor blockers (BBs), and thiazide diuretics. Positive control studies were performed using GWAS data in chronic heart failure. The primary method for causality estimation was the inverse-variance-weighted method. Mendelian randomization analysis showed that BBs with the ß1-adrenergic receptor (ADRB1) as a therapeutic target could significantly reduce the risk of GBM by mediating DBP (OR = 0.431, 95% CI: 0.267-0.697, p < .001) and that they could also significantly reduce the risk of GBM by mediating SBP (OR = 0.595, 95% CI: 0.422-0.837, p = .003). Sensitivity analysis and colocalization analysis reinforced the robustness of these findings. Finally, the low expression of the ADRB1 gene in malignant gliomas was found by GBM data from TCGA and single-cell RNA sequencing, which most likely contributed to the poor prognosis of GBM patients. In summary, our study provides preliminary evidence of some causal relationship between ADRB1-targeted BBs and glioblastoma development. However, more studies are needed to validate these findings and further reveal the complex relationship between BP and GBM.

On triangle inequalities of correlation-based distances for gene expression profiles.

BACKGROUND: Distance functions are fundamental for evaluating the differences between gene expression profiles. Such a function would output a low value if the profiles are strongly correlated-either negatively or positively-and vice versa. One popular distance function is the absolute correlation distance, [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] is similarity measure, such as Pearson or Spearman correlation. However, the absolute correlation distance fails to fulfill the triangle inequality, which would have guaranteed better performance at vector quantization, allowed fast data localization, as well as accelerated data clustering. RESULTS: In this work, we propose [Formula: see text] as an alternative. We prove that [Formula: see text] satisfies the triangle inequality when [Formula: see text] represents Pearson correlation, Spearman correlation, or Cosine similarity. We show [Formula: see text] to be better than [Formula: see text], another variant of [Formula: see text] that satisfies the triangle inequality, both analytically as well as experimentally. We empirically compared [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text] in gene clustering and sample clustering experiment by real-world biological data. The two distances performed similarly in both gene clustering and sample clustering in hierarchical clustering and PAM (partitioning around medoids) clustering. However, [Formula: see text] demonstrated more robust clustering. According to the bootstrap experiment, [Formula: see text] generated more robust sample pair partition more frequently (P-value [Formula: see text]). The statistics on the time a class "dissolved" also support the advantage of [Formula: see text] in robustness. CONCLUSION: [Formula: see text], as a variant of absolute correlation distance, satisfies the triangle inequality and is capable for more robust clustering.

Contrasting effects of experiencing temporally heterogeneous light availability versus homogenous shading on plant subsequent responses to light conditions.

Temporally heterogeneous environments is hypothesized to correlate with greater plasticity of plants, which has rarely been supported by direct evidence. To address this issue, we subjected three species from different ranges of habitats to a first round of alternating full light and heavy shading (temporally heterogeneous light experience), constant moderate shading and full light conditions (temporally homogeneous light experiences, control) and a second round of light-gradient treatments. We measured plant performance in a series of morphological, biomass, physiological and biochemical traits at the end of each round. Compared to constant full light experience, temporally heterogeneous light conditions induced immediate active biochemical responses (in the first round) with improved late growth in biomass (during the second round); constant moderate shading experience increased photosynthetic physiological and biomass performances of plants in early response, and decreased their late growth in biomass. The karst endemic species of Kmeria septentrionalis showed greater improvement in late growth of biomass and lower decrease in biochemical performance, due to early heterogeneous experience, compared to the non-karst species of Lithocarpus glaber and the karst adaptable species of Celtis sinensis. Results suggested plants will prefer to produce morphological and physiological responses that are less reversible and more costly in the face of more reliable environmental cues at early stage in spite of decreased future growth potential, but to produce immediate biochemical responses for higher late growth potential when early environmental cues are less reliable, to avoid the loss of high costs and low profits. Typical karst species should be more able to benefit from early temporally heterogeneous experience, due to long-term adaptation to karst habitats of high environmental heterogeneity and low resource availability.

DeepDRIM: a deep neural network to reconstruct cell-type-specific gene regulatory network using single-cell RNA-seq data.

Single-cell RNA sequencing has enabled to capture the gene activities at single-cell resolution, thus allowing reconstruction of cell-type-specific gene regulatory networks (GRNs). The available algorithms for reconstructing GRNs are commonly designed for bulk RNA-seq data, and few of them are applicable to analyze scRNA-seq data by dealing with the dropout events and cellular heterogeneity. In this paper, we represent the joint gene expression distribution of a gene pair as an image and propose a novel supervised deep neural network called DeepDRIM which utilizes the image of the target TF-gene pair and the ones of the potential neighbors to reconstruct GRN from scRNA-seq data. Due to the consideration of TF-gene pair's neighborhood context, DeepDRIM can effectively eliminate the false positives caused by transitive gene-gene interactions. We compared DeepDRIM with nine GRN reconstruction algorithms designed for either bulk or single-cell RNA-seq data. It achieves evidently better performance for the scRNA-seq data collected from eight cell lines. The simulated data show that DeepDRIM is robust to the dropout rate, the cell number and the size of the training data. We further applied DeepDRIM to the scRNA-seq gene expression of B cells from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of the patients with mild and severe coronavirus disease 2019. We focused on the cell-type-specific GRN alteration and observed targets of TFs that were differentially expressed between the two statuses to be enriched in lysosome, apoptosis, response to decreased oxygen level and microtubule, which had been proved to be associated with coronavirus infection.

Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate mediates neuronal injury by inducing neurotoxicity.

PURPOSE: Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is an accepted treatment option for patients with virus infection. Mounting evidence indicated that persistent HAART treatment is implicated with increased morbidity of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) in patients. Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), a novel nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI), was used in patients with HIV co-infected with HBV. And it is still a vital first-line antiretroviral compounds in HAART. However, whether persistent treatment with TDF is involved in HAND development remains to be further elucidated. In this study, we aimed to discuss the neurotoxicity of TDF. METHODS: We used SH-SY5Y cells and primary neuronal cells to evaluate the neurotoxicity of TDF in vitro. The cytotoxicity of TDF on SH-SY5Y cells and primary neuronal cells was evaluated by the cell viability and LDH levels by MTT assay and LDH kit, respectively. Hoechst 33342 staining, TUNEL assay and flow cytometry were performed to evaluate the cells apoptosis. The intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and malondialdehyde (MDA) production were measured by commercial kits. In addition, the activation level of caspase-3 was evaluated using spectrophotometry and western blotting. RESULTS: Our results showed that TDF treatment significantly induced cell viability and induced apoptosis of SH-SY5Y cells and primary neuronal cells. Furthermore, the ROS levels and MDA productions were significantly up-regulated in nerve cells treated with TDF.  CONCLUSION: Our findings indicated that TDF may induce neuronal cell apoptosis through increasing the intracellular ROS and the expression level of caspase-3, which may be related to the increasing prevalence of HAND.

Amyloid Oligomers: A Joint Experimental/Computational Perspective on Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, Type II Diabetes, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Protein misfolding and aggregation is observed in many amyloidogenic diseases affecting either the central nervous system or a variety of peripheral tissues. Structural and dynamic characterization of all species along the pathways from monomers to fibrils is challenging by experimental and computational means because they involve intrinsically disordered proteins in most diseases. Yet understanding how amyloid species become toxic is the challenge in developing a treatment for these diseases. Here we review what computer, in vitro, in vivo, and pharmacological experiments tell us about the accumulation and deposition of the oligomers of the (Aß, tau), α-synuclein, IAPP, and superoxide dismutase 1 proteins, which have been the mainstream concept underlying Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), type II diabetes (T2D), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) research, respectively, for many years.

Femoral anteversion measured by the surgical transepicondylar axis is a reliable parameter for evaluating femoral rotational deformities in patients with patellar dislocation.

PURPOSE: To verify whether femoral anteversion measured by the surgical transepicondylar axis (S-FA) is a reliable parameter for evaluating femoral rotational deformities and to provide an indication for derotational distal femoral osteotomy (DDFO) in patients with patellar dislocation. METHODS: Ninety patients with recurrent patellar dislocation and 90 healthy individuals were enrolled. The S-FA, the femoral anteversion measured by posterior condylar reference line (P-FA), the length of posterior femoral condyles, and the posterior condylar angle (PCA) were assessed by CT images. The unpaired t test and Pearson correlation analysis were conducted. Receiver operating characteristic curves and the area under the curve (AUC) were used to evaluate the diagnostic capacity of the parameters. The pathological value of the measurements was determined, and a binary regression model was established. RESULTS: The S-FA and P-FA were greater in the study group (14.2 ± 7.7° and 19.7 ± 7.3°, respectively) than in the control group (7.2 ± 8.0° and 12.2 ± 8.2°, respectively) (P < 0.001). The lateral/posterior condyle was shorter in patients with patellar dislocation (21.2 ± 2.5 mm) than in healthy individuals (23.5 ± 2.7 mm) (P = 0.001). The P-FA was correlated with PCA in the study group (P < 0.001). The S-FA and P-FA had AUCs of 0.734 and 0.767 for patellar dislocation, respectively. The pathological values of the S-FA and P-FA were 20.4° and 25.8°, respectively. The S-FA revealed a significant OR of 10.47 (P = 0.014) for patellar dislocation. CONCLUSION: The S-FA is a reliable parameter for identifying femoral rotational deformities in patients with patellar dislocation. DDFO is recommended when a pathological S-FA (> 20.4°) is presented. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Retrospective cohort study (diagnostic), level II.

Lateral trochlear inclination measured by the transepicondylar axis holds potential for evaluating trochlear dysplasia in patients with lateral patellar dislocation.

PURPOSE: To verify that lateral trochlear inclination (LTI) measured by the transepicondylar axis can reliably be used to evaluate trochlear dysplasia (TD) on MRI and can serve as an objective indication of trochleoplasty for patients with lateral patellar dislocation (LPD). METHODS: Eighty patients with recurrent LPD and eighty healthy subjects were included. TD, posterior condylar angle (PCA), and LTI measured by the posterior condylar reference line (LTIp), surgical transepicondylar axis (LTIs), and anatomical transepicondylar axis (LTIa) were assessed on MRI. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland-Altman analysis were performed, the correlations and differences amongst the parameters were identified, and a binary logistic regression model was established. RESULTS: Each measurement had excellent inter- and intra-observer agreement. The LTIp, LTIs and LTIa were smaller in the study group than in the control group, with mean differences of 9.0°, 7.2° and 7.0°, respectively (P < 0.001). The PCA was larger in patients with LPD than in the control group (P < 0.001). LTIp was associated with PCA in the study group (r = - 0.41, P < 0.001). The pathological values of LTIp, LTIs and LTIa were 11.7°, 15.3° and 17.4°, respectively. LTIs and LTIa were independent risk factors for LPD, with ORs of 7.33 (95% CI [1.06-52.90], P = 0.048) and 10.29 (95% CI [1.38-76.96], P = 0.023), respectively. CONCLUSION: The LTI can be reliably measured by MRI, but LTIp could potentially decrease the recorded value from the actual inclination angle. LTIs and LTIa are more appropriate to serve as trochleoplasty indications for patients with LPD, which could help orthopedists with surgical decision-making. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level III.

Anterior Screw Insertion Results in Greater Tibial Tunnel Enlargement Rates after Single-Bundle Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction than Posterior Insertion: A Retrospective Study.

Background and Objectives: Tunnel enlargement (TE) is a widely reported phenomenon after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). Given the paucity of knowledge in the literature, it remains unclear whether screw position in the tunnel affects TE. This retrospective cohort study evaluated differences in postoperative tunnel enlargement rates (TER) and clinical results between anterior and posterior tibial interference screw insertion during single-bundle ACLR using autologous hamstring grafts. Materials and Methods: A group of consecutive patients that underwent primary arthroscopic single-bundle ACLR in our hospital were screened and divided into two groups based on the position of the tibial interference screw (determined by Computer Tomography within 3 days after surgery): anterior screw position group (A) and posterior screw position group (B). The bone tunnel size was measured using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) performed 1 year after surgery. International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score and the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) were used for clinical results 1 year postoperatively. Results: 87 patients were included. The TER of Group A is higher than that of Group B (43.17% vs. 33.80%, p = 0.024). Group A showed a significant increase (12.1%) in enlargement rates at the joint line level than group B (43.77% vs. 31.67%, p = 0.004). Moreover, KOOS and IKDC scores improved in both groups. There were no significant differences in clinical outcomes between the two groups. Conclusions: One year after ACLR, patients with posterior screw showed significantly lower TE than patients with anterior screw. However, the position of screw did not lead to differences in clinical results over our follow-up period. Posterior screw position in the tibial tunnel maybe a better choice in terms of reducing TE. Whether the different screw positions affect the long-term TE and long-term clinical outcomes needs to be confirmed by further studies.

Femoral Anteversion Measured by the Surgical Transepicondylar Axis Is Correlated with the Tibial Tubercle-Roman Arch Distance in Patients with Lateral Patellar Dislocation.

Background and Objectives: Various predisposing factors for lateral patellar dislocation (LPD) have been identified, but the relation between femoral rotational deformity and the tibial tubercle-Roman arch (TT-RA) distance remains elusive. Materials and Methods: We conducted this study including 72 consecutive patients with unilateral LPD. Femoral anteversion was measured by the surgical transepicondylar axis (S-tAV), and the posterior condylar reference line (P-tAV), TT-RA distance, trochlear dysplasia, knee joint rotation, patellar height, and hip-knee-ankle angle were measured by CT images or by radiographs. The correlations among these parameters were analyzed, and the parameters were compared between patients with and without a pathological TT-RA distance. Binary regression analysis was performed, and receiver operating characteristic curves were obtained. Results: The TT-RA distance was correlated with S-tAV (r = 0.360, p = 0.002), but the correlation between P-tAV and the TT-RA distance was not significant. S-tAV had an AUC of 0.711 for predicting a pathological TT-RA, with a value of >18.6° indicating 54.8% sensitivity and 82.9% specificity. S-tAV revealed an OR of 1.13 (95% CI [1.04, 1.22], p = 0.003) with regard to the pathological TT-RA distance by an adjusted regression model. Conclusions: S-tAV was significantly correlated with the TT-RA distance, with a correlation coefficient of 0.360, and was identified as an independent risk factor for a pathological TT-RA distance. However, the TT-RA distance was found to be independent of P-tAV.

Tibial tubercle-Roman arch (TT-RA) distance is superior to tibial tubercle-trochlear groove (TT-TG) distance when evaluating coronal malalignment in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

OBJECTIVES: To verify tibial tubercle-Roman arch (TT-RA) distance is superior to tibial tubercle-trochlear groove (TT-TG) distance in preoperative assessment of patellofemoral joints in patients with knee osteoarthritis. METHODS: Patients with knee osteoarthritis from 2016 to 2020 were considered eligible for inclusion in this study. We divided the patients into valgus group and varus group and did 1:1 matching for the two groups. We measured the TT-TG distance, TT-RA distance, patellar height, patella tilt, hip-knee-ankle (HKA) angle, and Iwano's classification of patellofemoral osteoarthritis (PFOA) by computed tomography images or radiographs. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of each measurement, the correlations and differences among the parameters, and binary logistic regression analysis were conducted. RESULTS: Each group in this study included 75 knees. The inter-observer and intra-observer reliability of the TT-TG distance decreased with the increasing degree of PFOA (ICC < 0.75). The reliability of the TT-RA distance showed excellent agreement in different stages of Iwano's classification. The HKA angle was poorly correlated with the TT-TG distance (r = 0.34, p = 0.003) and the TT-RA distance (r = 0.39, p = 0.001) in valgus knees. As the HKA angle increased by 1 degree, the TT-TG and TT-RA distance increased by nearly 0.45 mm and 0.61 mm, respectively. Valgus malalignment and severe PFOA revealed significant ORs of 3.26 (95% CI [1.06-10.03], p = 0.036) and 3.10 (95% CI [1.01-9.54], p = 0.048) with regard to pathological TT-RA distance, respectively. CONCLUSION: The TT-RA distance was more reliable than the TT-TG distance in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Valgus malalignment and severe PFOA were risk factors for pathological TT-RA distance. KEY POINTS: • The TT-RA distance is a reliable and repeatable alternative to the TT-TG distance in evaluating coronal malalignment, especially in patients with severe PFOA. • We validated the significant relationships between TT-TG distance or TT-RA distance and HKA angle in valgus knees, while the correlations among such parameters were not significant in varus knees. • Pathological lateralization of the tibial tubercle was prone to be traced in patients with valgus malalignment or severe PFOA, which could contribute to the patellofemoral malalignment.

Metal Hydrogen-Bonded Organic Framework as a pH Sensor for the Detection of Strong Acids.

pH detection is related to human beings' life closely. Herein, a porous metal hydrogen-bonded organic framework (MHOF) Co-CDI-CO32- was designed and synthesized, which could be utilized to detect the pH values of strong acids. The sensitivity of pH detection was in the range of pH 2.0-2.4 with an accuracy of 0.1, which mainly depended on the different degree of crystal surface damage. The MHOF Co-CDI-CO32- had potential applications with the advantages of low cost, easy storage, and great sensitivity for pH detection as a pH sensor.

Clinical effect of micturition interruption exercise on urinary incontinence after radical prostatectomy.

PURPOSE: To explore the effectiveness of micturition interruption exercise in improving the incidence of urinary incontinence after radical prostatectomy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: With a retrospective case-control study, 96 patients admitted in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University from August 2014 to August 2020 and underwent radical prostatectomy were collected as the subjects. Those patients who used micturition interruption exercise (n = 48) were set as the therapy group, and the control group was collected according to the ratio of 1:1; the patients used Kegel exercise (n = 48) to compare the rehabilitation of urinary incontinence in patients and the effect of training compliance on rehabilitation. RESULTS: The recovery time of urinary incontinence in the therapy group was significantly shorter than that of the control group. In the therapy group, 83.3% of patients with training compliance reached an average or above, while the control group only accounted for 58.3%. International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Short-Form score of the therapy group was lower than that of the control group after surgery. Spearman analysis suggests that there is a negative correlation between the postoperative urinary incontinence recovery time and compliance with the micturition interruption exercise. CONCLUSIONS: Micturition interruption exercise could not only improve the compliance of patients with exercise, but also significantly shorten the recovery time of urinary incontinence after radical prostatectomy.

Decreased lateral posterior tibial slope and medial tibial depth are underlying anatomic risk factors for posterior cruciate ligament injury: a case-control study.

OBJECTIVES: To research whether medial PTS, lateral PTS and MTD were different between the PCL injury group and the PCL intact group. DESIGN: Retrospective case-control study, level of evidence III. METHODS: Fifty patients with PCL rupture from 2015 to 2020 in our hospital, and 50 patients matched by age and sex with intact PCL were enrolled in our study. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to assess the reliability of each parameter. The independent t-test was conducted to identify the differences in tibial morphometric characteristics between the PCL-injured and PCL-intact individuals, including the posterior tibial slope (PTS), meniscal slope (MS), medial tibial depth (MTD). A binary logistic regression model was established to evaluate the roles of those anatomic parameters of interest play in PCL injuries. RESULTS: The interobserver reliability of each parameter showed excellent agreement. Significant differences in the medial (P = .023) and lateral (P = .009) PTS were found between the PCL-injured group (3.68 ± 2.70 and 4.55 ± 3.19, respectively) and the controls (5.00 ± 2.73 and 6.39 ± 3.29, respectively). And the MTD was 1.98 ± 0.64 mm in the PCL-injured group and 2.37 ± 0.55 mm in the control group (P = 0.007). Binary logistic regression analysis showed that smaller lateral PTS and MTD were directly associated with PCL injury, with an OR of 1.17 and OR of 3.14, respectively. The medial PTS was independent to PCL injures. CONCLUSION: Decreased lateral PTS and MTD were underlying anatomic risk factors for PCL injury.

Coevolving spreading dynamics of negative information and epidemic on multiplex networks.

The widespread dissemination of negative information on vaccine may arise people's concern on the safety of vaccine and increase their hesitancy in vaccination, which can seriously impede the progress of epidemic control. Existing works on information-epidemic coupled dynamics focus on the suppression effects of information on epidemic. Here we propose a negative information and epidemic coupled propagation model on two-layer multiplex networks to study the effects of negative information of vaccination on epidemic spreading, where the negative information propagates on the virtual communication layer and the disease spreads on the physical contact layer. In our model, an individual getting an adverse event after vaccination will spread negative information and an individual affected by the negative information will reduce his/her willingness to get vaccinated and spread the negative information. By using the microscopic Markov chain method, we analytically predict the epidemic threshold and final infection density, which agree well with simulation results. We find that the spread of negative information leads to a lower epidemic outbreak threshold and a higher final infection density. However, the individuals' vaccination activities, but not the negative information spreading, has a leading impact on epidemic spreading. Only when the individuals obviously reduce their vaccination willingness due to negative information, the negative information can impact the epidemic spreading significantly.

Ipsilateral patellofemoral morphological abnormalities are more severe than those of contralateral joints in patients with unilateral patellar dislocation.

PURPOSE: To determine the differences in anatomic parameters between ipsilateral dislocated knees and contralateral non-dislocated knees in patients with unilateral patellar dislocation and to identify any variations in ipsilateral knees contributing to contralateral anatomic abnormalities. METHODS: A total of 82 patients with unilateral patellar dislocation from 2016 to 2019 were retrospectively evaluated. Bilateral anatomic factors, including the tibial tubercle to trochlear groove (TT-TG) distance, lower limb rotational deformities, trochlear dysplasia, patella tilt, and patellar height, were assessed by CT. RESULTS: The study included 46 patients (32 females and 14 males, mean age ± SD 20.5 ± 6.8). The interobserver reliability of each parameter showed excellent agreement. The ipsilateral TT-TG distance (P = 0.004), patella tilt (P = 0.001), and patellar height (P = 0.01) were greater in the ipsilateral knees than in the contralateral knees. The lateral trochlea inclination (LTI) in the contralateral knees was larger than that in the ipsilateral knees (P = 0.022). There was a significant difference in the distribution of trochlear dysplasia of Dejour between the ipsilateral knees (dislocated side) and the contralateral knees (P = 0.036). However, bilateral femoral and/or tibial torsion, and bilateral knee joint rotation did not differ significantly. Binary logistic regression showed that only ipsilateral LTI revealed significant ORs of 8.83 (P = 0.016) and 7.64 (P = 0.018) with regard to contralateral abnormal tibial torsion and LTI, respectively. CONCLUSION: In patients with unilateral patellar dislocation, the ipsilateral TT-TG distance, patella tilt, and patellar height values were larger in the ipsilateral knees than in the contralateral knees, and trochlear dysplasia was more severe in the ipsilateral joints. The risks of contralateral pathological tibial torsion and LTI were 8.8- and 7.6-fold higher, respectively, in patients with abnormal ipsilateral LTI. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level IV.

Physical interactions facilitate sex change in the protogynous orange-spotted grouper, Epinephelus coioides.

Sex change in teleost fishes is commonly regulated by social factors. In species that exhibit protogynous sex change, such as the orange-spotted grouper Epinephelus coioides, when the dominant males are removed from the social group, the most dominant female initiates sex change. The aim of this study was to determine the regulatory mechanisms of socially controlled sex change in E. coioides. We investigated the seasonal variation in social behaviours and sex change throughout the reproductive cycle of E. coioides, and defined the behaviour pattern of this fish during the establishment of a dominance hierarchy. The social behaviours and sex change in this fish were affected by season, and only occurred during the prebreeding season and breeding season. Therefore, a series of sensory isolation experiments was conducted during the breeding season to determine the role of physical, visual and olfactory cues in mediating socially controlled sex change. The results demonstrated that physical interactions between individuals in the social groups were crucial for the initiation and completion of sex change, whereas visual and olfactory cues alone were insufficient in stimulating sex change in dominant females. In addition, we propose that the steroid hormones 11-ketotestosterone and cortisol are involved in regulating the initiation of socially controlled sex change.