Diosmin ameliorates inflammation, apoptosis and activates PI3K/AKT pathway in Alzheimer's disease rats.

Alzheimer's disease (AD), a prevalent cognitive disorder among the elderly, is frequently linked to the abnormal accumulation of myloid-ß (Aß), which is mainly as a result of neuronal death and inflammation. Diosmin, a flavonoid, is considered a potential drug for the treatment of AD. Our study aimed to uncover the molecular mechanism of diosmin in AD therapy. Here, rats were randomly divided into three groups: control, Aß25-35, and Aß25-35 + diosmin groups. AD model rats were induced by Aß25-35 intraventricular injection, meanwhile 50 mg/kg diosmin was orally administered for 6-week intervention. Morris water maze test assessed learning and memory abilities. Hippocampal neuronal damage was determined by HE, Nissl, and TUNEL staining. These assays indicate that diosmin improves cognitive dysfunction and reduces hippocampal neuronal loss and apoptosis. Western blot showed that diosmin reduced Bax (1.21 ± 0.12) and cleaved caspase-3 (1.27 ± 0.12) expression, and increased Bcl-2 (0.70 ± 0.06), p-PI3K (0.71 ± 0.08), and p-AKT (0.96 ± 0.10) in the hippocampus. ELISA indicated diosmin reduces IL-1ß, IL-6, and TNF-α levels, suggesting anti-inflammation effect. These results suggest that diosmin inhibits neuronal apoptosis and neuroinflammatory responses to improve cognitive dysfunction in AD rats, possibly related to upregulation of the PI3K/AKT pathway, providing a scientific basis for its use in AD treatment.

Analysis of Factors Influencing the Duration of Early Enteral Nutrition Support in Patients Diagnosed with Acute Pancreatitis.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the current status of early enteral nutrition (EN) support among patients diagnosed with acute pancreatitis (AP) and analyze the factors influencing its duration. The findings aimed to provide guidance for the development of tailored EN support protocols for pancreatitis patients. Methods: A convenience sampling method was employed, and 51 patients diagnosed with acute pancreatitis (AP) were enrolled from the Gastroenterology Department of Zhoushan Hospital between May 2020 and June 2021. Data analysis included the categorization of patients based on their early enteral nutrition (EN) support duration, followed by thorough statistical analysis, including logistic regression, to identify the factors impacting EN duration. Results: The mean duration of early EN support among AP patients was (93.57 ± 43.29) hours. A mere 13.73% of patients initiated EN within 48 hours of admission. Upon categorizing patients by the median duration of EN support, multiple logistic regression analysis revealed several significant risk factors influencing the duration of EN in AP patients, including patient age, underlying medical conditions, severity of pancreatitis, nutritional status, and blood lipase levels (P < .05). Conclusion: The study highlights the significant influence of disease severity and patients' functional status on the duration of early EN support in AP cases. It emphasizes the importance of a comprehensive patient assessment by medical professionals to determine the optimal timing for initiating EN support.

An Improved Instance Segmentation Method for Fast Assessment of Damaged Buildings Based on Post-Earthquake UAV Images.

Quickly and accurately assessing the damage level of buildings is a challenging task for post-disaster emergency response. Most of the existing research mainly adopts semantic segmentation and object detection methods, which have yielded good results. However, for high-resolution Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) imagery, these methods may result in the problem of various damage categories within a building and fail to accurately extract building edges, thus hindering post-disaster rescue and fine-grained assessment. To address this issue, we proposed an improved instance segmentation model that enhances classification accuracy by incorporating a Mixed Local Channel Attention (MLCA) mechanism in the backbone and improving small object segmentation accuracy by refining the Neck part. The method was tested on the Yangbi earthquake UVA images. The experimental results indicated that the modified model outperformed the original model by 1.07% and 1.11% in the two mean Average Precision (mAP) evaluation metrics, mAPbbox50 and mAPseg50, respectively. Importantly, the classification accuracy of the intact category was improved by 2.73% and 2.73%, respectively, while the collapse category saw an improvement of 2.58% and 2.14%. In addition, the proposed method was also compared with state-of-the-art instance segmentation models, e.g., Mask-R-CNN and YOLO V9-Seg. The results demonstrated that the proposed model exhibits advantages in both accuracy and efficiency. Specifically, the efficiency of the proposed model is three times faster than other models with similar accuracy. The proposed method can provide a valuable solution for fine-grained building damage evaluation.

A Bayesian network perspective on neonatal pneumonia in pregnant women with diabetes mellitus.

OBJECTIVE: To predict the influencing factors of neonatal pneumonia in pregnant women with diabetes mellitus using a Bayesian network model. By examining the intricate network connections between the numerous variables given by Bayesian networks (BN), this study aims to compare the prediction effect of the Bayesian network model and to analyze the influencing factors directly associated to neonatal pneumonia. METHOD: Through the structure learning algorithms of BN, Naive Bayesian (NB), Tree Augmented Naive Bayes (TAN), and k-Dependence Bayesian Classifier (KDB), complex networks connecting variables were presented and their predictive abilities were tested. The BN model and three machine learning models computed using the R bnlean package were also compared in the data set. RESULTS: In constraint-based algorithms, three algorithms had different presentation DAGs. KDB had a better prediction effect than NB and TAN, and it achieved higher AUC compared with TAN. Among three machine learning modes, Support Vector Machine showed a accuracy rate of 91.04% and 67.88% of precision, which was lower than TAN (92.70%; 72.10%). CONCLUSION: KDB was applicable, and it can detect the dependencies between variables, identify more potential associations and track changes between variables and outcome.

Red Tide Detection Method Based on Improved U-Net Model-Taking GOCI Data in East China Sea as an Example.

In the coastal areas of China, the eutrophication of seawater leads to the continuous occurrence of red tide, which has caused great damage to Marine fisheries and aquatic resources. Therefore, the detection and prediction of red tide have important research significance. The rapid development of optical remote sensing technology and deep-learning technology provides technical means for realizing large-scale and high-precision red tide detection. However, the difficulty of the accurate detection of red tide edges with complex boundaries limits the further improvement of red tide detection accuracy. In view of the above problems, this paper takes GOCI data in the East China Sea as an example and proposes an improved U-Net red tide detection method. In the improved U-Net method, NDVI was introduced to enhance the characteristic information of the red tide to improve the separability between the red tide and seawater. At the same time, the ECA channel attention mechanism was introduced to give different weights according to the influence of different bands on red tide detection, and the spectral characteristics of different channels were fully mined to further extract red tide characteristics. A shallow feature extraction module based on Atrous Spatial Pyramid Convolution (ASPC) was designed to improve the U-Net model. The red tide feature information in a multi-scale context was fused under multiple sampling rates to enhance the model's ability to extract features at different scales. The problem of limited accuracy improvement in red tide edge detection with complex boundaries is solved via the fusion of deep and shallow features and multi-scale spatial features. Compared with other methods, the method proposed in this paper achieves better results and can detect red tide edges with complex boundaries, and the accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score are 95.90%, 97.15%, 91.53%, and 0.94, respectively. In addition, the red tide detection experiments in other regions with relatively concentrated distribution also prove that the method has good applicability.

Erector spinae plane block for pain control after hip surgeries: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to generate collated evidence on the efficacy of erector spinae plane block (ESPB) for pain control after hip surgeries. METHODS: All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published on the databases of PubMed, CENTRAL, Embase, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and Open Gray up to 4 March 2023 and comparing ESPB with placebo for pain control after hip surgeries were eligible for inclusion. RESULTS: We included five RCTs. Meta-analysis showed that ESPB significantly reduced pain scores at 1 h (mean difference [MD]: -1.04; 95% confidence interval [CI]: -1.69, -0.40; I2 = 35%; p = 0.01), 3 h (MD: -0.95; 95% CI: -1.86, -0.03; I2 = 78%; p = 0.04), and 6 h (MD: -0.94; 95% CI: -1.77, -0.10; I2 = 73%; p = 0.03). However, no difference was noted for 12 h (MD: -0.33; 95% CI: -2.20, 1.53; I2 = 97%; p = 0.73) and 24 h pain scores (MD: 0.05; 95% CI: -0.58, 0.68; I2 = 71%; p = 0.87); 24 h total opioid consumption was not significantly different with ESPB and placebo (MD: -9.26; 95% CI: -24.49, 5.98; I2 = 94%; p = 0.23). CONCLUSION: Scarce evidence shows that ESPB may not provide adequate pain control after hip surgeries. No difference in 24-h pain scores and total opioid consumption was noted between ESPB and placebo. Further RCTs shall strengthen available evidence.

Dimethyl fumarate improves cognitive impairment by enhancing hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels in hypothyroid rats.

BACKGROUND: Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an effective drug for multiple sclerosis and can improve the cognitive dysfunction caused by streptozotocin, but the effect on cognitive dysfunction caused by hypothyroidism is unclear. METHODS: After the hypothyroidism rat model induced by propylthiouracil, we gave rats 25 mg/kg DMF by gavage. The body weight during model building and administration was recorded. The levels of T4 and T3 in serum were detected by an automatic biochemical analyzer. Morris water maze test was used to detect the effect of DMF on cognitive learning ability. The effect of DMF on Nissl bodies in the brain tissue was evaluated by Nissl staining. The mRNA and protein levels of BDNF in brain tissue were detected by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and Western blot. The degrees of p-AKT/AKT and p-CREB/CREB in brain tissue were detected by Western blot. RESULTS: After DMF treatment, the body weight of hypothyroid rats recovered, and the levels of T3 and T4 in the serum were ameliorated. DMF also reduced the escape latency and distance traveled, and increased the swim speed. The number of Nissl bodies and expression of BDNF, p-AKT/AKT, and p-CREB/CREB in the brain tissue were increased after DMF treatment. CONCLUSION: DMF improved the cognitive dysfunction of hypothyroid rats by increasing the level of BDNF in the brain tissue of hypothyroid rats.

Classification of Building Damage Using a Novel Convolutional Neural Network Based on Post-Disaster Aerial Images.

The accurate and timely identification of the degree of building damage is critical for disaster emergency response and loss assessment. Although many methods have been proposed, most of them divide damaged buildings into two categories-intact and damaged-which is insufficient to meet practical needs. To address this issue, we present a novel convolutional neural network-namely, the earthquake building damage classification net (EBDC-Net)-for assessment of building damage based on post-disaster aerial images. The proposed network comprises two components: a feature extraction encoder module, and a damage classification module. The feature extraction encoder module is employed to extract semantic information on building damage and enhance the ability to distinguish between different damage levels, while the classification module improves accuracy by combining global and contextual features. The performance of EBDC-Net was evaluated using a public dataset, and a large-scale damage assessment was performed using a dataset of post-earthquake unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images. The results of the experiments indicate that this approach can accurately classify buildings with different damage levels. The overall classification accuracy was 94.44%, 85.53%, and 77.49% when the damage to the buildings was divided into two, three, and four categories, respectively.

LncRNA LIFR-AS1 promotes proliferation and invasion of gastric cancer cell via miR-29a-3p/COL1A2 axis.

BACKGROUND: LncRNA was known to be closely associated with the progression of human tumors. The role of lncRNA LIFR-AS1 in the pathogenesis and progression of gastric tumor is still unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the function of LIFR-AS1 and the underlying mechanism in the pathogenesis and progression of gastric cancer. METHODS: QRT-PCR was used to evaluate the expression of LIFR-AS1, miR-29a-3p and COL1A2 in gastric tumor tissues and cells. Western blotting was used to evaluate the protein expression of COL1A2 in gastric tumor cells. CCK-8 assay, transwell assay and flow cytometry were used to evaluate the roles of LIFR-AS1, miR-29a-3p and COL1A2 in cell proliferation, invasion, migration and apoptosis. The relationship among LIFR-AS1, miR-29a-3p and COL1A2 was assessed by bioinformatics analyses and luciferase reporter assay. RESULTS: The expression levels of LIFR-AS1 were significantly increased in gastric tumor tissues and cells, while the expression levels of miR-29a-3p were decreased. The expression of miR-29a-3p was negatively correlated with the expression of LIFR-AS1 in gastric cancer tumor tissues. Knocking down of LIFR-AS1 inhibited proliferation, invasion and migration of gastric tumor cells, and induced apoptosis of gastric tumor cells. Bioinformatics analyses and integrated experiments revealed that LIFR-AS1 elevated the expression of COL1A2 through sponging miR-29a-3p, which further resulted in the progression of gastric tumor. CONCLUSION: LIFR-AS1 plays an important role as a competing endogenous RNA in gastric tumor pathogenesis and may be a potential target for the diagnosis and treatment of gastric tumor.

Recommended confidence intervals for the conditional odds ratio in matched-pairs designs.

There has been limited research on the confidence intervals of the conditional odds ratio in matched-pairs design. This article investigates the interval estimation of the conditional odds ratio. We described several confidence intervals, which are available in some situations, and they can produce different results. We tried to determine which method(s) should be recommended for different situations. We derived four confidence intervals from the delta test, the score test, the inferential model test, and the fiducial test, and employed four exact calculation studies to compare the performances of the four methods, in order to make recommendations for small and moderate-to-large sample sizes. All of the methods are illustrated using a real example. And we offered the recommendations for different situations.

The relationship between test anxiety and emotion regulation: the mediating effect of psychological resilience.

BACKGROUND: Test anxiety has been widely found in medical students. Emotion regulation and psychological resilience have been identified as key factors contributing to anxiety. However, studies on relationships were limited. This study investigated the links between psychological resilience, emotion regulation, and test anxiety in addition to exploring the differences about socio-demographic factors. METHODS: A sample of 1266 medical students was selected through cross-sectional survey from a medical university in China during 2019. Data were obtained by network technique using designed questionnaire, which assesses the level of test anxiety, emotion regulation and psychological resilience, respectively. RESULTS: Medical students experienced test anxiety at different levels, 33.7% of these were seriously. It revealed significant effects of the gender and academic performance on test anxiety. Results of logistic regression indicated that test anxiety was significantly associated with emotion regulation and psychological resilience (p < 0.01). Psychological resilience played a mediating role on the relationship between emotion regulation and test anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight the importance of psychological resilience and emotion regulation in understanding how psychological resilience relates to test anxiety in medical students. Resilience-training intervention may be developed to support students encountering anxiety during the exam.

Association of C-reactive protein (CRP) rs1205 and rs2808630 variants and risk of cancer.

The correlation between rs1205, rs2808630 variants of C-reactive protein (CRP) gene and susceptibility of cancer has been assessed previously, but with conflicting results. We adopted odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), in silico tools and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) analysis to evaluate this association. Totally, 10,614 cancer subjects and 33,294 controls were involved in the pooled analysis. When all the studies were pooled, no significant correlation was indicated between the two variants and cancer risk. However, in stratification analysis by ethnicity, we found that CRP rs1205 C>T polymorphism was associated with an elevated risk of cancer in Asians (T-allele vs. C-allele, OR = 1.20, 95% CI = 1.06-1.36, pheterogeneity = .226; TT vs. CC, OR = 1.48, 95% CI = 1.14-1.93, pheterogeneity = .089). Similar findings were observed for rs2808630 variant. In silico tools showed that lung adenocarcinoma participants with high CRP expression may have shorter overall survival time than low expression group. ELISA analysis indicated that CRP expression in prostate adenocarcinoma subjects with TT + TC genotypes was statistically higher than in those with CC genotypes. CRP rs1205 C>T and rs2808630 T>C polymorphism may be associated with cancer risk, especially for Asians.

Expression of ectopic trypsin in atherosclerotic plaques and the effects of aprotinin on plaque stability.

BACKGROUND: Our previous research revealed that trypsin is abundantly expressed in atherosclerotic plaques and its distribution overlaps with that of matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9). This study was performed to explore the possible roles of trypsin in vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque formation. METHODS AND RESULTS: Twenty-four rabbits were randomly assigned to a normal (control) group, an atherosclerosis (experimental) group and a trypsin inhibitor (aprotinin) group. In the 13th feeding week, the aprotinin group was treated with 5 mg/kg/day aprotinin via ear vein for 4 weeks. At the end of the 16th week, coronary arterial and aortic expression of trypsin, proteinase-activated receptor-2 (PAR-2), activated MMP-9, and pro-inflammatory cytokines were significantly greater in the experimental group than in the control group. Aprotinin decreased trypsin expression and activation in plaques, blocked PAR-2 and MMP-9 activation, and decreased cytokine expression; it also increased fibrous cap thickness, decreased the intima-media thickness and intimal/medial ratio, thus significantly ameliorating plaque vulnerability. Upregulated trypsin, MMP-9 and PAR-2 were also found in coronary intimal atherosclerotic plaques of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting. CONCLUSIONS: Ectopic trypsin was significantly upregulated in atherosclerotic plaques, which increased pro-inflammatory cytokine levels by activating PAR-2 and promoted plaque instability by activating proMMP-9, thereby promoting atherosclerosis and plaque vulnerability. In addition, the high trypsin expression in human coronary intimal atherosclerotic plaques suggests that targeting trypsin may be a new strategy for acute coronary syndrome prevention.

Kinetic changes in virology, specific antibody response and imaging during the clinical course of COVID-19: a descriptive study.

BACKGROUND: To explore the kinetic changes in virology, specific antibody response and imaging during the clinical course of COVID-19. METHODS: This observational study enrolled 20 patients with COVID-19, who were hospitalized between January 20-April 6, 2020, in the two COVID-19 designated hospitals of Zhoushan, Zhejiang and Rushan, Shandong, China, The laboratory findings, imaging, serum response to viral infection, and viral RNA level in the throat and stool samples were assessed from onset to recovery phase in patients with COVID-19. RESULTS: SARS-COV-2 RNA was positive as early as day four. It remained positive until day 55 post-onset in the sputum-throat swabs and became negative in most cases (55%) within 14 days after onset. Lymphocytopenia occurred in 40% (8/20) of patients during the peak infection period and returned to normal at week five. The most severe inflammation in the lungs appeared in week 2 or 3 after onset, and this was completely absorbed between week 6 and 8 in 85.7% of patients. All patients had detectable antibodies to the receptor binding domain (RBD), and 95% of these patients had IgG to viral N proteins. The antibody titer peaked at week four. Anti-S IgM was positive in 7 of 20 patients after week three. CONCLUSIONS: All COVID-19 patients in this study were self-limiting and recovered well though it may take as long as 6-8 weeks. Our findings on the kinetic changes in imaging, serum response to viral infection and viral RNA level may help understand pathogenesis and define clinical course of COVID-19.

Comparison of general maternal and neonatal conditions and clinical outcomes between embryo transfer and natural conception.

BACKGROUND: To examine the differences between pregnant women who underwent embryo transfer (ET) and those who conceived naturally, as well as differences in their respective babies, and to determine the causes for these differences, to provide recommendations for women who are planning to undergo ET. METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was performed of women who had received ET and those who had natural conception (NC) who received medical services during pregnancy and had their babies delivered at the Shunde Women and Children's Hospital of Guangdong Medical University, China between January 2016 and December 2018. In line with the requirements of the ethics committee, before the formal investigation, we first explained the content of the informed consent of the patient to the patient, and all the subjects included agreed to the content of the informed consent of the patient. Respondents agreed to visit and analyze their medical records under reasonable conditions. Each case in an ET group of 321 women was randomly matched with three cases of NC (963 cases) who delivered on the same day. The demographic information, past history, pregnancy and delivery history, and maternal and neonatal outcomes of the two groups were compared using univariate analysis. RESULTS: Age, duration of hospitalization, number of pregnancies, number of miscarriages, induced abortion, ectopic pregnancy, gestational diabetes mellitus, preeclampsia, gestational anemia, pregnancy risk, mode of fetal delivery, and number of births were significantly different between the two groups (all P < 0.05). However, there were no significant differences in the disease, allergy, infection and blood transfusion histories of the pregnant women, or differences in prevalence of gestational hypothyroidism, gestational respiratory infection, premature rupture of membrane, placental abruption, fetal death, stillbirth, amniotic fluid volume and amniotic fluid clarity between the two groups (all P > 0.05). The percentages for low birth weight and premature birth were significantly higher in the ET group than in the NC group. In contrast, infant gender and prevalence of fetal macrosomia, fetal anomaly, neonatal asphyxia, and extremely low birth weight were not significantly different between the two groups (all P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The clinical outcomes of mothers and the birth status of infants were better in the NC group than in the ET group. Maternal health must be closely monitored and improved in the ET group to reduce the incidence of gestational comorbidity and enhance the quality of fetal life.

Effects of Polymorphisms in Pre-miRNA on Inflammatory Markers in Atrial Fibrillation in Han Chinese.

BACKGROUND: MicroRNA molecules have been identified to play key roles in a broad range of physiological and pathological processes. Polymorphisms in the corresponding sequence space are likely to make a significant con-tribution to phenotypic variation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the pre-miR-146a C/G (rs2910164) and pre-miR-499 T/C (rs3746444) polymorphisms and their putative association with inflammatory markers in AF in Han Chinese. METHODS: A total of 123 participants were enrolled, 65 AF patients were confirmed with electrocardiogram (ECG) or dynamic electrocardiography, 58 normal individuals were assigned to the control group. RESULTS: Genotypes of the pre-miR-146a C/G (rs2910164) and pre-miR-499 T/C (rs3746444) polymorphisms were distinguished using the method of polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) assay. The distribution of the pre-miR-146a C/G (rs2910164) genotypes CC, CG, and GG was 33.85%, 52.31%, and 13.84% in the AF group and 37.93%, 51.72%, and 10.35% in the controls, respectively. There was no significant difference in either genotype frequency distributions (p = 0.7973) or allele frequency distributions (p = 0.5411) between these two groups. The distribution of the pre-miR-499 T/C (rs3746444) genotypes TT, TC, and CC was 72.41%, 22.41%, and 5.18% in the controls and 49.23%, 38.46%, and 12.31% in AF subjects, respec-tively (p = 0.0296). The frequency of the C allele in the AF group was significantly higher than that in the control group (31.54% vs. 16.38%, p = 0.0057). Compared with the TT genotype, the C allele carriers (TC+CC genotypes) had a 2.7070-fold increased risk of AF. After being adjusted for age, gender, leucocytes, left atrial dimension, left ventricular ejection fraction, serum levels of lipids, and inflammatory markers, the association persisted (adjusted OR = 2.3387, 95% CI =1.1094 - 4.9300, p = 0.0280). Individuals with TC+CC genotype in pre-miR-499 T/C (rs3746444) had greater serum levels of IL-6 and hs-CRP than did patients with the TT genotype. CONCLUSIONS: Our data support that the pre-miR-499 T/C (rs3746444) polymorphism is associated with AF, and the C allele has increased risk for AF in Han Chinese.

Overexpression of Circular RNA ciRS-7 Abrogates the Tumor Suppressive Effect of miR-7 on Gastric Cancer via PTEN/PI3K/AKT Signaling Pathway.

Gastric cancer (GC) has one of the highest mortality rates of malignancies globally. Currently, ciRS-7, a novel circular RNA, has emerged as a potential sponge for miR-7. However, few studies on ciRS-7 in GC have been performed. In this study, we investigated the clinical significance and function of ciRS-7 in GC. First, the expression levels of ciRS-7 in 102 primary GC tissues and the matched para-carcinoma tissues were evaluated and the clinical relevance was confirmed in an independent validation cohort (n = 154). Second, the effects of ciRS-7 on miR-7, PTEN, and PI3K were evaluated. Finally, the function of ciRS-7 in GC was analyzed with cell lines and nude mice. The expression of ciRS-7 was significantly upregulated in GC tissues compared with the matched para-carcinoma tissues (P = 0.0023), and the upregulation of ciRS-7 was linked to poor survival in the testing (P = 0.0143) and validation cohort (P = 0.0061). Multivariate survival analysis revealed that ciRS-7 was probably an independent risk factor of overall survival (P < 0.05). Furthermore, overexpression of ciRS-7 blocked the miR-7-induced tumor suppression in MGC-803 and HGC-27 cells and led to a more aggressive oncogenic phenotype, via antagonizing miR-7-mediated PTEN/PI3K/AKT pathway. ciRS-7 may act as a prospective prognostic biological marker and a promising therapeutic target for GC. J. Cell. Biochem. 119: 440-446, 2018. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Establishing International Blood Pressure References Among Nonoverweight Children and Adolescents Aged 6 to 17 Years.

BACKGROUND: Several distributions of country-specific blood pressure (BP) percentiles by sex, age, and height for children and adolescents have been established worldwide. However, there are no globally unified BP references for defining elevated BP in children and adolescents, which limits international comparisons of the prevalence of pediatric elevated BP. We aimed to establish international BP references for children and adolescents by using 7 nationally representative data sets (China, India, Iran, Korea, Poland, Tunisia, and the United States). METHODS AND RESULTS: Data on BP for 52 636 nonoverweight children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years were obtained from 7 large nationally representative cross-sectional surveys in China, India, Iran, Korea, Poland, Tunisia, and the United States. BP values were obtained with certified mercury sphygmomanometers in all 7 countries by using standard procedures for BP measurement. Smoothed BP percentiles (50th, 90th, 95th, and 99th) by age and height were estimated by using the Generalized Additive Model for Location Scale and Shape model. BP values were similar between males and females until the age of 13 years and were higher in males than females thereafter. In comparison with the BP levels of the 90th and 95th percentiles of the US Fourth Report at median height, systolic BP of the corresponding percentiles of these international references was lower, whereas diastolic BP was similar. CONCLUSIONS: These international BP references will be a useful tool for international comparison of the prevalence of elevated BP in children and adolescents and may help to identify hypertensive youths in diverse populations.

Geminin is Essential to Prevent DNA Re-Replication-Dependent Apoptosis in Pluripotent Cells, but not in Differentiated Cells.

Geminin is a dual-function protein unique to multicellular animals with roles in modulating gene expression and preventing DNA re-replication. Here, we show that geminin is essential at the beginning of mammalian development to prevent DNA re-replication in pluripotent cells, exemplified by embryonic stem cells, as they undergo self-renewal and differentiation. Embryonic stem cells, embryonic fibroblasts, and immortalized fibroblasts were characterized before and after geminin was depleted either by gene ablation or siRNA. Depletion of geminin under conditions that promote either self-renewal or differentiation rapidly induced DNA re-replication, followed by DNA damage, then a DNA damage response, and finally apoptosis. Once differentiation had occurred, geminin was no longer essential for viability, although it continued to contribute to preventing DNA re-replication induced DNA damage. No relationship was detected between expression of geminin and genes associated with either pluripotency or differentiation. Thus, the primary role of geminin at the beginning of mammalian development is to prevent DNA re-replication-dependent apoptosis, a role previously believed essential only in cancer cells. These results suggest that regulation of gene expression by geminin occurs only after pluripotent cells differentiate into cells in which geminin is not essential for viability.

Bacterial translocation and endotoxemia after pringle maneuver in cirrhotic rats.

BACKGROUND: Pringle maneuver (Pm) is advocated for the reduction of blood loss during liver surgery, while postoperative infections continue to be a frequent complication after hepatic resection and liver transplantation. AIM: To investigate the effect of the Pringle maneuver on systemic bacterial translocation and endotoxemia in cirrhotic rats and cirrhotic rats with selective intestinal decontamination. METHODS: A total of 100 male Sprague-Dawley cirrhotic rats were randomly divided into five equal groups: sham operation, Pm of 10 min, Pm of 20 min, Pm of 30 min, and pretreatment. Tissue samples from mesenteric lymph nodes, liver, lungs, portal, and vena cava vein blood were obtained for culture after 30 min and 24 h of the operation. Endotoxin levels were measured in portal vein and vena cava blood. RESULTS: Portal vein and vena cava blood endotoxin concentrations increased significantly after 30 min, especially 24 h of operation in the Pm of 20 min and Pm of 30 min groups. A significant increase in contaminated mesenteric lymph nodes, liver, portal, and vena cava blood was noted 24 h later. The incidence of gut bacterial translocation increased with the duration extension of Pm. Escherichia coli was the most common bacteria isolated from the tissues. There was a significant decrease of portal vein and vena cava blood endotoxin concentrations and the incidence of bacterial translocation by selective intestinal decontamination. CONCLUSIONS: There is endotoxemia immediately after Pringle maneuver and gut bacteria translocation 24 h later. The incidence of gut bacterial translocation increases with the duration extension of Pm. Selective intestinal decontamination can decrease bacteria translocation and endotoxemia.