Immobilizing Redox-Active Tricycloquinazoline into a 2D Conductive Metal-Organic Framework for Lithium Storage.

Heteroaromatic-conjugated aromatic molecules have inspired numerous interests in rechargeable batteries like Li-ion batteries, but were limited by low conductivity and easy dissolution in electrolytes. Herein, we immobilize a nitrogen-rich aromatic molecule tricycloquinazoline (TQ) and CuO4 unit into a two-dimensional (2D) conductive metal-organic framework (MOF) to unlock their potential for Li+ storage. TQ was identified redox activity with Li+ for the first time. With a synergistic effect of TQ and CuO4 unit, the 2D conductive MOF, named Cu-HHTQ (HHTQ=2,3,7,8,12,13-hexahydroxytricycloquinazoline), can facilitate the Li+ /e- transport and ensure a resilient electrode, resulting in a high capacity of 657.6 mAh g-1 at 600 mA g-1 with extraordinary high-rate capability and impressive cyclability. Our findings highlight an efficient strategy of constructing electrode materials for energy storage with combining multiple redox-active moieties into conductive MOFs.

Highly Conductive Cobalt Perthiolated Coronene Complex for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution.

Metal-bis(dithiolene) is one of the most promising structures showing redox activity, excellent electron transport and magnetic properties as well as catalytic activities. Perthiolated coronene (PTC), an emerging highly symmetric ligand containing the smallest graphene nanoplate was employed to manufacture a hybrid material with fused metal-bis(dithiolene) and graphene nanoplate, and it has been demonstrated as an efficient strategy for the construction of multifunctional materials recently. Herein, Co-PTC, a 2D MOF containing Co-bis(dithiolene) and coronene units is prepared via a homogeneous reaction for the first time as powder samples, which are bar-shaped microparticles composed of nanosheets. A neutral formula of [Co3 (C24 S12 )]n is verified for Co-PTC. Co-PTC plays an ultrahigh conductivity of approximately 45 S cm-1 at room temperature as compressed samples, which is among the highest value ever reported for the compressed powder samples of conducting MOFs. Moreover, Co-PTC exhibits good electrocatalytic performance in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with a Tafel slope of 189 mV decade-1 and an operating overpotential of 227 mV at 10 mA cm-1 with pH=0, as well as a remarkable stability in the extremely acidic aqueous solutions, which is the best hydrogen evolution properties among metal-organic compounds.

Highly Conducting Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Copper Sulfides Cux C6 S6 (x=4 or 5.5): Ligand-Based Oxidation-Induced Chemical and Electronic Structure Modulation.

Conductive coordination polymers (CPs) have potential in a wide range of applications because of their inherent structural and functional diversity. Three electrically conductive CPs (Cux C6 S6 , x=3, 4 or 5.5) derived from the same organic linker (benzenehexathiol) and metal node (copper(I)) were synthesized and studied. Cux C6 S6 materials are organic-inorganic hybrid copper sulfides comprising a π-π stacking structure and cooper sulfur networks. Charge-transport pathways within the network facilitate conductivity and offer control of the Fermi level through modulation of the oxidation level of the non-innocent redox-active ligand. Two Cux C6 S6 (x=4 or 5.5) CPs display high electrical conductivity and they feature a tunable structural topology and electronic structure. Cu4 C6 S6 and Cu5.5 C6 S6 act as degenerate semiconductors. Moreover, Cu5.5 C6 S6 is a p-type thermoelectric material with a ZT value of 0.12 at 390 K, which is a record-breaking performance for p-type CPs.

Liver tumor segmentation in CT volumes using an adversarial densely connected network.

BACKGROUND: Malignant liver tumor is one of the main causes of human death. In order to help physician better diagnose and make personalized treatment schemes, in clinical practice, it is often necessary to segment and visualize the liver tumor from abdominal computed tomography images. Due to the large number of slices in computed tomography sequence, developing an automatic and reliable segmentation method is very favored by physicians. However, because of the noise existed in the scan sequence and the similar pixel intensity of liver tumors with their surrounding tissues, besides, the size, position and shape of tumors also vary from one patient to another, automatic liver tumor segmentation is still a difficult task. RESULTS: We perform the proposed algorithm to the Liver Tumor Segmentation Challenge dataset and evaluate the segmentation results. Experimental results reveal that the proposed method achieved an average Dice score of 68.4% for tumor segmentation by using the designed network, and ASD, MSD, VOE and RVD improved from 27.8 to 21, 147 to 124, 0.52 to 0.46 and 0.69 to 0.73, respectively after performing adversarial training strategy, which proved the effectiveness of the proposed method. CONCLUSIONS: The testing results show that the proposed method achieves improved performance, which corroborated the adversarial training based strategy can achieve more accurate and robustness results on liver tumor segmentation task.

Highly Conducting Polythiophene Thin Films with Less Ordered Microstructure Displaying Excellent Thermoelectric Performance.

Polythiophene (PTh) with highly regular molecular structure is synthesized as nearly amorphous thin films by electrochemical methods in a BFEE/DTBP mixed medium (BFEE = boron fluoride ethyl ether; DTBP = 2,6-di-tert-butypyridine). The doping level and film morphology of PTh are modulated through adjusting the current density applied during the polymerization process. A combined analysis with solid-state NMR, FT-IR, and Raman spectra reveals the molecular structural regularity of the resulted PTh films, which leads to the highest electrical conductivity up to 700 S cm-1 for films obtained under an optimized current density of 1 mA cm-2 . By applying the self-heating 3ω-method, thermal conductivities are measured along the in-plane direction. A highly reduced Lorenz number of 6.49 × 10-9 W Ω K-2 and low lattice thermal conductivity of 0.21 W m-1 K-1 were extracted based on the analyses of the electrical and thermal conductivities according to the Wiedemann-Franz Law; the former is about one-third of the Sommerfeld value. Finally, the maximized ZT value can reach up to 0.10 under room temperature, which shows that the highly conducting polymers with less ordered structure is the practical direction for developing organic thermoelectric materials.

Conjugated-Backbone Effect of Organic Small Molecules for n-Type Thermoelectric Materials with ZT over 0.2.

Conjugated backbones play a fundamental role in determining the electronic properties of organic semiconductors. On the basis of two solution-processable dihydropyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4-diylidenebis(thieno[3,2-b]thiophene) derivatives with aromatic and quinoid structures, we have carried out a systematic study of the relationship between the conjugated-backbone structure and the thermoelectric properties. In particular, a combination of UV-vis-NIR spectra, photoemission spectroscopy, and doping optimization are utilized to probe the interplay between energy levels, chemical doping, and thermoelectric performance. We found that a moderate change in the conjugated backbone leads to varied doping mechanisms and contributes to dramatic changes in the thermoelectric performance. Notably, the chemically doped A-DCV-DPPTT, a small molecule with aromatic structure, exhibits an electrical conductivity of 5.3 S cm-1 and a high power factor (PF373 K) up to 236 µW m-1 K-2, which is 50 times higher than that of Q-DCM-DPPTT with a quinoid structure. More importantly, the low thermal conductivity enables A-DCV-DPPTT to possess a figure of merit (ZT) of 0.23 ± 0.03, which is the highest value reported to date for thermoelectric materials based on organic small molecules. These results demonstrate that the modulation of the conjugated backbone represents a powerful strategy for tuning the electronic structure and mobility of organic semiconductors toward a maximum thermoelectric performance.

MixFormer: End-to-End Tracking With Iterative Mixed Attention.

Visual object tracking often employs a multi-stage pipeline of feature extraction, target information integration, and bounding box estimation. To simplify this pipeline and unify the process of feature extraction and target information integration, in this paper, we present a compact tracking framework, termed as MixFormer, built upon transformers. Our core design is to utilize the flexibility of attention operations, and we propose a Mixed Attention Module (MAM) for simultaneous feature extraction and target information integration. This synchronous modeling scheme allows us to extract target-specific discriminative features and perform extensive communication between target and search area. Based on MAM, we build our MixFormer trackers simply by stacking multiple MAMs and placing a localization head on top. Specifically, we instantiate two types of MixFormer trackers, a hierarchical tracker MixCvT, and a non-hierarchical simple tracker MixViT. For these two trackers, we investigate a series of pre-training methods and uncover the different behaviors between supervised pre-training and self-supervised pre-training in our MixFormer trackers. We also extend the masked autoencoder pre-training to our MixFormer trackers and design the new competitive TrackMAE pre-training technique. Finally, to handle multiple target templates during online tracking, we devise an asymmetric attention scheme in MAM to reduce computational cost, and propose an effective score prediction module to select high-quality templates. Our MixFormer trackers set a new state-of-the-art performance on seven tracking benchmarks, including LaSOT, TrackingNet, VOT2020, GOT-10 k, OTB100, TOTB and UAV123. In particular, our MixViT-L achieves AUC scores of 73.3% on LaSOT, 86.1% on TrackingNet and 82.8% on TOTB.

A Novel Navigation Device for Precise Percutaneous Placement of the Guidewire in Femoral Neck Fracture Cannulated Screw Fixation Surgery.

The accuracy of screw placement is a key factor for the stability of the cannulated screws used in the fixation of femoral neck fractures. In this study we designed a navigation device for ensuring the screw reaches the ideal position for optimal fixation. From March 2019 to September 2020, 66 patients with femoral neck fracture were enrolled and divided into 2 groups, one group was treated using the traditional free-hand cannulated screw fixation and the other using the new navigation device with assisted fixation. The effectiveness of the 2 methods was compared based on surgery duration, intraoperative bleeding, number of fluoroscopic examination and guidewire insertion attempts, screw parallelism, and effective fixation area. Fracture healing, complications and hip joint function were assessed after operation. The new navigation device reduced the duration of surgery without causing additional intraoperative bleeding, and significantly reduced number of fluoroscopy examination and guidewire insertion attempts (4.00±1.58 vs. 6.09±1.94 with traditional surgery). The accuracy of screw implantation was improved, as demonstrated by increased screw parallelism (0.71±0.57° vs. 1.66 ±1.01° with traditional surgery) and higher effective fixed area (64.88±10.52 vs. 58.61±9.19 mm2 with traditional surgery). In the postoperative follow-up, except for one case of femoral head necrosis and one case of bone nonunion in the traditional surgical group, the other patients showed fracture healing. There was no significant difference in hip joint function between the 2 groups. The new navigation device enables rapid and accurate guidewire positioning for cannulated screw fixation through simple operation procedures, resulting in good prospect for clinical transformation.

Missing microbes in infants and children in the COVID-19 pandemic: a study of 1,126 participants in Beijing, China.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many fatalities worldwide and continues to affect the health of the recovered patients in the form of long-COVID. In this study, we compared the gut microbiome of uninfected infants and children before the pandemic began (BEFORE cohort, n=906) to that of after the pandemic (AFTER cohort, n=220) to examine the potential impact of social distancing and life habit changes on infant/children gut microbiome. Based on 16S rRNA sequencing, we found a significant change in microbiome composition after the pandemic, with Bacteroides enterotype increasing to 35.45% from 30.46% before the pandemic. qPCR quantification indicated that the bacterial loads of seven keystone taxa decreased by 91.69%-19.58%. Quantitative microbiome profiling, used to enhance the resolution in detecting microbiome differences, revealed a greater explained variance of pandemic on microbiome compared to gender, as well as a significant decrease in bacterial loads in 15 of the 20 major genera. The random forest age-predictor indicated the gut microbiomes were less mature in the after-pandemic cohort than in the before-pandemic cohort in the children group (3-12 years old) and had features of a significantly younger age (average of 1.86 years). Lastly, body weight and height were significantly lower in the after-pandemic cohort than in the before-pandemic cohort in infants (<1 year of age), which was associated with a decrease in bacterial loads in the fecal microbiome.

Nanoparticle-Based Drug Delivery Systems for Enhancing Bone Regeneration.

The treatment of bone defects has been a long-standing challenge in clinical practice. Among the various bone tissue engineering approaches, there has been substantial progress in the development of drug delivery systems based on functional drugs and appropriate carrier materials owing to technological advances in recent years. A large number of materials based on functional nanocarriers have been developed and applied to improve the complex osteogenic microenvironment, including for promoting osteogenic activity, inhibiting osteoclast activity, and exerting certain antibacterial effects. This Review discusses the physicochemical properties, drug loading mechanisms, advantages and disadvantages of nanoparticles (NPs) used for constructing drug delivery systems. In addition, we provide an overview of the osteogenic microenvironment regulation mechanism of drug delivery systems based on nanoparticle (NP) carriers and the construction strategies of drug delivery systems. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of NP carriers are summarized along with their prospects and future research trends in bone tissue engineering. This Review thus provides advanced strategies for the design and application of drug delivery systems based on NPs in the treatment of bone defects.

Is stability of femoral neck fractures in the inverted triangle configuration related to the angle between the fracture line and the cannulated compression screws? A finite element analysis.

PURPOSE: Currently, treating femoral neck fractures (FNFs) with the inverted triangle configuration requires alignment between the femoral neck's long axis and the axis of cannulated compression screws (CCS). To address whether the 'parallel' alignment is the most effective approach for fractures with varying Pauwels angles, we employed finite element analysis (FEA) to investigate how different angles between fracture line and CCS affect stability, based on various Pauwels angles. This study aims to offer improved guidance for treating FNFs with the inverted triangle configuration. METHODS: FNF models with Pauwels angles of 40°, 50°, 60°, and 70° were developed. The CCS were positioned in an inverted triangle configuration based on the angle between the fracture line and CCS. Using FEA, we compared the biomechanical properties of each model to evaluate the stability by evaluating five key parameters: maximal stress in the proximal femoral fracture fragment (MPFS) and implants (MIS), maximal displacement of the bone (MBD) and implants (MID), and maximal relative displacement of the fragments (MRD). RESULTS: For Pauwels angles of 40°, 50°, 60°, and 70° across different FNF models, various parameters exhibited similar results. The MPFS showed an upward trend with a decrease in the angle, whereas the MIS, MBD, MID, and MRD all exhibited downward trends. CONCLUSION: The FEA results suggest that decreasing the angle between the fracture line and the CCS for the treatment of FNF can increase the tension resistance of the model, thus increasing the model's stability.

Engineered three-dimensional bioactive scaffold for enhanced bone regeneration through modulating transplanted adipose derived mesenchymal stem cell and stimulating angiogenesis.

Titanium alloy materials are commonly used in orthopedic clinical treatments. However, conventional titanium implants usually lead to insufficient bone regeneration and integration because of mismatched biomechanics and poor bioactivities. To tackle these challenges, a porous titanium alloy scaffold with suitable mechanical properties was prepared using three-dimensional (3D) printing, and then an adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cell (ADSC) loaded platelet-rich plasma (PRP) gel was placed into the pores of the porous scaffold to construct a bioactive scaffold with dual functions of enhancing angiogenesis and osteogenesis. This bioactive scaffold showed good biocompatibility and supported cell viability proliferation and morphology of encapsulated ADSCs. Osteogenic and angiogenic growth factors in the PRP gel promoted the migration and angiogenesis of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) in vitro and enhanced osteogenic-related gene and protein expression in ADSCs, thus promoting osteogenic differentiation. After implantation into the femoral defects of rabbits, the bioactive scaffold promoted vascular network formation and the expression of osteogenesis-related proteins, thus effectively accelerating bone regeneration. Therefore, the osteogenic and angiogenic bioactive scaffold comprising a 3D printed porous titanium alloy scaffold, PRP, and ADSCs provides a promising design for orthopedic biomaterials with clinical transformation prospects and an effective strategy for bone defect treatment.

Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi alleviates Clostridium difficile associated diarrhea and its modulatory effects on the gut microbiota.

The growing incidence of Clostridium difficile associated diarrhea (CDAD) underscores the urgency for potent treatments. This research delves into the therapeutic potential of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi (Lamiaceae) root (SR) in addressing CDAD and its influence on gut microbiota. Using a CDAD mouse model and fidaxomicin as a control, SR's impact was measured through diarrhea symptoms, colonic histopathology, and C. difficile toxin levels. Employing the PacBio platform, 16S rRNA full-length gene sequencing analyzed the gut microbial composition and the effect of SR. Results revealed SR considerably alleviated diarrhea during treatment and restoration phases, with a marked decrease in colonic inflammation. C. difficile toxin levels dropped significantly with SR treatment (P < 0.001). While SR didn't augment gut microbiota's overall abundance, it enhanced its diversity. It restored levels of Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes, reduced Akkermansia spp. and Enterococcus spp. proportions, and modulated specific bacterial species' abundance. In essence, SR effectively mitigates CDAD symptoms, curtails inflammatory reactions, and beneficially restructures gut microbiota, suggesting its potential in advanced CDAD clinical intervention.

Dual-functional 3D-printed porous bioactive scaffold enhanced bone repair by promoting osteogenesis and angiogenesis.

The treatment of bone defects is a difficult problem in orthopedics. The excessive destruction of local bone tissue at defect sites destroys blood supply and renders bone regeneration insufficient, which further leads to delayed union or even nonunion. To solve this problem, in this study, we incorporated icariin into alginate/mineralized collagen (AMC) hydrogel and then placed the drug-loaded hydrogel into the pores of a 3D-printed porous titanium alloy (AMCI/PTi) scaffold to prepare a bioactive scaffold with the dual functions of promoting angiogenesis and bone regeneration. The experimental results showed that the ACMI/PTi scaffold had suitable mechanical properties, sustained drug release function, and excellent biocompatibility. The released icariin and mineralized collagen (MC) synergistically promoted angiogenesis and osteogenic differentiation in vitro. After implantation into a rabbit radius defect, the composite scaffold showed a satisfactory effect in promoting bone repair. Therefore, this composite dual-functional scaffold could meet the requirements of bone defect treatment and provide a promising strategy for the repair of large segmental bone defects in clinic.

Dual-functional thermosensitive hydrogel for reducing infection and enhancing bone regeneration in infected bone defects.

The contamination of bone defects is a serious therapeutic problem. The treatment of infected bone defects involves rigorous infection control followed by bone reconstruction. Considering these two processes, the development of biomaterials possessing antibacterial and osteogenic properties offers a promising approach for the treatment of infected bone defects. In this study, a dual-functional, thermosensitive, and injectable hydrogel composed of chitosan (CS), quaternized CS (QCS), and nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA) was designed, and the ratio of CS to QCS in the hydrogel was optimized to enhance the antibacterial efficacy of CS while reducing the cytotoxicity of QCS. In vitro studies demonstrated that the hydrogel with an 85 %:15 % ratio of CS to QCS exhibited excellent biocompatibility and antibacterial properties while also possessing suitable mechanical characteristics and degradability. The incorporation of nHA into the hydrogel enhanced MC3T3-E1 proliferation and osteogenic differentiation. Moreover, this hydrogel demonstrated superior in vivo therapeutic effectiveness in a rabbit model of infected bone defect. In summary, this study provides a promising material design and a comprehensive one-step treatment strategy for infected bone defects.

Optimizing the manure substitution rate based on phosphorus fertilizer to enhance soil phosphorus turnover and root uptake in pepper (Capsicum).

Introduction: In contemporary agriculture, the substitution of manure for chemical fertilizer based on phosphorus (P) input in vegetable production has led to a significant reduction in P fertilizer application rates, while, the effect of manure substitution rates on soil P transformation and uptake by root remain unclear. Methods: This research conducts a pot experiment with varying manure substitution rates (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 75% and 100%) based on P nutrient content to elucidate the mechanisms through which manure substitution affects P uptake in pepper. Results and discussion: The result showed that shoot and root biomass of pepper gradually increased as manure substitution rate from 10% to 40%, and then gradually decreased with further increases in the substitution rate. Soil alkaline phosphatase activity and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) colonization gradually increased with manure substitution rates improvement. Specifically, when the substitution rate reached 30%-40%, the alkaline phosphatase activity increased by 24.5%-33.8% compared to the fertilizer treatment. In contrast, phytase activity and the relative expression of phosphate transporter protein genes in the root system was declined after peaking at 30% manure substitution. Additionally, soil available P remained moderate under 30%-40% substitution rate, which was reduced by 8.6%-10.2% compared to that in chemical fertilizer treatment, while microbial biomass P was comparable. In the current study, soil labile P similar to or even higher than that in chemical fertilizer treatment when the substitution rate was ≤40%. Correlation heatmaps demonstrated a significant and positive relationship between soil available P and factors related to labile P and moderately labile P. Conclusion: This finding suggested that substituting 30%-40% of chemical P with manure can effectively enhance root length, AM colonization, soil enzyme activity, soil labile P, and consequently improve P uptake in pepper. These findings provide valuable insights for future organic agricultural practices that prioritize P supply, aiming to standardize organic P management in farmland and achieve high crop yields and maintain soil health.

[Effects of Application of Different Organic Materials on Phosphorus Accumulation and Transformation in Vegetable Fields].

Presently, the improvement of soil organic matter is the basis to ensure food security, but the accumulation and transformation characteristics of soil phosphorus (P) as affected by organic matter remain unclear. The accumulation, transformation, and migration characteristics of soil P in different soil layers of vegetable fields were researched under the application of organic materials. Six treatments were set up in the experiment:control (no fertilization), traditional fertilizer application by farmers, biochar, chicken manure, food waste, and straw application. Available phosphorus (Olsen-P), water-soluble phosphorus (CaCl2-P) content, soil phosphorus forms, soil organic matter (SOM), and pH were determined during the pepper harvest period. In the 0-5 cm and 5-10 cm soil layers, the available phosphorus content of traditional fertilization of farmers was higher, and the available phosphorus content of the four organic materials was in the order of straw > biochar > chicken manure > food waste. Compared to that with food waste, the straw and biochar treatments increased soil available phosphorus by 59.6%-67.3% and 29.1%-36.9%, respectively. The straw treatment could easily enhance the soil labile P pool, and soil labile P in the 0-5 cm soil layer increased by 47.3% and 35.1% compared with that under the chicken manure and food waste treatments, respectively. With the increase in soil depth, the proportion of available phosphorus in the chicken manure treatment decreased the least, and available phosphorus of the 20-30 cm soil layer accounted for 55.9% of the topsoil layer but only accounted for 16.0%-34.0% under treatment with the other three materials. Compared with that under the traditional fertilization of farmers, the pH significantly increased by 0.18-0.36 units after the application of organic fertilizer, and the pH of the chicken manure and food waste treatments was significantly higher than that of biochar and straw (P < 0.05). SOM content under the biochar treatment significantly increased by 7.7%-17.6% compared to that under the other three organic materials. Among the four organic materials, the straw treatment boosted the labile P pool the most, which was conducive to the rapid increase in plant-available P. Phosphorus was most likely to migrate downward under the chicken manure treatment. In the field management based on soil fertility enhancement, the application of biochar could not only improve soil pH and SOM but also avoid excessive accumulation of phosphorus in the surface layer, which decreases environmental risks.

Microbial imbalance in Chinese children with diarrhea or constipation.

Diarrhea and constipation are common health concerns in children. Numerous studies have identified strong association between gut microbiota and digestive-related diseases. But little is known about the gut microbiota that simultaneously affects both diarrhea and constipation or their potential regulatory mechanisms. Stool samples from 618 children (66 diarrhea, 138 constipation, 414 healthy controls) aged 0-3 years were collected to investigate gut microbiota changes using 16S rRNA sequencing. Compared with healthy, children with diarrhea exhibited a significant decrease in microbial diversity, while those with constipation showed a marked increase (p < 0.05). Significantly, our results firstly Ruminococcus increased in constipation (p = 0.03) and decreased in diarrhea (p < 0.01) compared to healthy controls. Pathway analysis revealed that Ruminococcus highly involved in the regulation of five common pathways (membrane transport, nervous system, energy metabolism, signal transduction and endocrine system pathways) between diarrhea and constipation, suggesting a potential shared regulatory mechanism. Our finding firstly reveals one core microorganisms that may affect the steady balance of the gut in children with diarrhea or constipation, providing an important reference for potential diagnosis and treatment of constipation and diarrhea.

Reverse-traction skin-stretching device for primary closure of large skin defects.

The tension in the skin margin of a wound is the major determinant for wound healing. The difficulty of primary closure for large skin defects due to excessive wound tension has long been a clinical challenge. In this study, we designed and fabricated a reverse-traction skin-stretching device (RT-SSD) to relieve the skin tension of a large skin defect and thereby allow primary wound closure. The novel RT-SSD designed in this study drives the fixing device fixed on the skin edge of the wound by rotating the pulling device, thus exerting a reverse tensile force on both sides of the wound, causing creep and stress relaxation, thus reducing the skin tension. Through the tension analyses; microcirculation detection; clinical scores; and a series of histological staining in vivo, it is verified that intraoperative application of RT-SSD can stretch and straighten collagen and fragment elastin, thus effectively reducing skin tension of large skin defect of miniature pigs. In addition, its special linear and planar traction protects the subcutaneous microcirculation of the wound site. The evaluation of wound healing confirmed that RT-SSD had negligible negative impact on wounds, reduced the incidence of complications, and promoted the healing of large skin defects. Therefore, this study provides a new safe and effective device for the primary closure of large skin defects.

Integrated serum pharmacochemistry and metabolomics reveal potential effective components and mechanisms of Shengjiang Xiexin decoction in the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection.

Shengjiang Xiexin Decoction (SXD) is a widely recognized formula in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for treating diarrhea and is commonly used in clinical practice. Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is a type of antibiotic-associated diarrhea with a rising incidence rate that has severe consequences for humans. Recent clinical applications have found significant efficacy in using SXD as an adjunct to CDI treatment. However, the pharmacodynamic substance basis and therapeutic mechanism of SXD remain unclear. This study aimed to systematically analyze the metabolic mechanisms and key pharmacodynamic components of SXD in CDI mice by combining non-targeted metabolomics of Chinese medicine and serum medicinal chemistry. We established a CDI mouse model to observe the therapeutic effect of SXD on CDI. We investigated the mechanism of action and active substance composition of SXD against CDI by analyzing 16S rDNA gut microbiota, untargeted serum metabolomics, and serum pharmacochemistry. We also constructed a multi-scale, multifactorial network for overall visualization and analysis. Our results showed that SXD significantly reduced fecal toxin levels and attenuated colonic injury in CDI model mice. Additionally, SXD partially restored CDI-induced gut microbiota composition. Non-targeted serum metabolomics studies showed that SXD not only regulated Taurine and hypotaurine metabolism but also metabolic energy and amino acid pathways such as Ascorbate and aldarate metabolism, Glycerolipid metabolism, Pentose and glucuronate interconversions, as well as body and other metabolite production in the host. Through the implementation of network analysis methodologies, we have discerned that Panaxadiol, Methoxylutcolin, Ginsenoside-Rf, Suffruticoside A, and 10 other components serve as critical potential pharmacodynamic substance bases of SXD for CDI. This study reveals the metabolic mechanism and active substance components of SXD for the treatment of CDI mice using phenotypic information, gut microbiome, herbal metabolomics, and serum pharmacochemistry. It provides a theoretical basis for SXD quality control studies.