SPATS2L is a positive feedback regulator of the type I interferon signaling pathway and plays a vital role in lupus.

Through genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and integrated expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analyses, numerous susceptibility genes ("eGenes", whose expressions are significantly associated with common variants) associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have been identified. Notably, a subset of these eGenes is correlated with disease activity. However, the precise mechanisms through which these genes contribute to the initiation and progression of the disease remain to be fully elucidated. In this investigation, we initially identify SPATS2L as an SLE eGene correlated with disease activity. eSignaling and transcriptomic analyses suggest its involvement in the type I interferon (IFN) pathway. We observe a significant increase in SPATS2L expression following type I IFN stimulation, and the expression levels are dependent on both the concentration and duration of stimulation. Furthermore, through dual-luciferase reporter assays, western blot analysis, and imaging flow cytometry, we confirm that SPATS2L positively modulates the type I IFN pathway, acting as a positive feedback regulator. Notably, siRNA-mediated intervention targeting SPATS2L, an interferon-inducible gene, in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients with SLE reverses the activation of the interferon pathway. In conclusion, our research highlights the pivotal role of SPATS2L as a positive-feedback regulatory molecule within the type I IFN pathway. Our findings suggest that SPATS2L plays a critical role in the onset and progression of SLE and may serve as a promising target for disease activity assessment and intervention strategies.

Adversarial Infrared Curves: An attack on infrared pedestrian detectors in the physical world.

Deep neural network security is a persistent concern, with considerable research on visible light physical attacks but limited exploration in the infrared domain. Existing approaches, like white-box infrared attacks using bulb boards and QR suits, lack realism and stealthiness. Meanwhile, black-box methods with cold and hot patches often struggle to ensure robustness. To bridge these gaps, we propose Adversarial Infrared Curves (AdvIC). Using Particle Swarm Optimization, we optimize two Bezier curves and employ cold patches in the physical realm to introduce perturbations, creating infrared curve patterns for physical sample generation. Our extensive experiments confirm AdvIC's effectiveness, achieving 94.8% and 67.2% attack success rates for digital and physical attacks, respectively. Stealthiness is demonstrated through a comparative analysis, and robustness assessments reveal AdvIC's superiority over baseline methods. When deployed against diverse advanced detectors, AdvIC achieves an average attack success rate of 76.2%, emphasizing its robust nature. We conduct thorough experimental analyses, including ablation experiments, transfer attacks, adversarial defense investigations, etc. Given AdvIC's substantial security implications for real-world vision-based applications, urgent attention and mitigation efforts are warranted.

Adversarial infrared blocks: A multi-view black-box attack to thermal infrared detectors in physical world.

Thermal infrared detectors have a vast array of potential applications in pedestrian detection and autonomous driving, and their safety performance is of great concern. Recent works use bulb plate, "QR" suit, and infrared patches as physical perturbations to perform white-box attacks on thermal infrared detectors, which are effective but not practical for real-world scenarios. Some researchers have tried to utilize hot and cold blocks as physical perturbations for black-box attacks on thermal infrared detectors. However, this attempts has not yielded robust and multi-view physical attacks, indicating limitations in the approach. To overcome the limitations of existing approaches, we introduce a novel black-box physical attack method, called adversarial infrared blocks (AdvIB). By optimizing the physical parameters of the infrared blocks and deploying them to pedestrians from multiple views, including the front, side, and back, AdvIB can execute robust and multi-view attacks on thermal infrared detectors. Our physical tests show that the proposed method achieves a success rate of over 80% under most distance and view conditions, validating its effectiveness. For stealthiness, our method involves attaching the adversarial infrared block to the inside of clothing, enhancing its stealthiness. Additionally, we perform comprehensive experiments and compare the experimental results with baseline to verify the robustness of our method. In summary, AdvIB allows for potent multi-view black-box attacks, profoundly influencing ethical considerations in today's society. Potential consequences, including disasters from technology misuse and attackers' legal liability, highlight crucial ethical and security issues associated with AdvIB. Considering these concerns, we urge heightened attention to the proposed AdvIB. Our code can be accessed from the following link: https://github.com/ChengYinHu/AdvIB.git.

Syphilitic proctitis: review of the literature.

Syphilitic proctitis is a rare sexually transmitted disease caused by spirochete pallidum infecting the rectal mucosa. It usually has no specific clinical manifestations and is easily misdiagnosed with other rectal and anal diseases such as rectal cancer, malignant lymphoma, inflammatory bowel disease, etc.. Therefore, diagnosis of the disease is difficult and treatment options are often unreasonable. A case of syphilitic proctitis in our hospital with "rectal mass" as the main manifestation is reported as follows and relevant literature is reviewed. At the same time, we studied and analyzed the clinical and histological characteristics and differential diagnosis of syphilitic proctitis to further deepen the understanding of this disease.

Integration of risk variants from GWAS with SARS-CoV-2 RNA interactome prioritizes FUBP1 and RAB2A as risk genes for COVID-19.

The role of host genetic factors in COVID-19 outcomes remains unclear despite various genome-wide association studies (GWAS). We annotate all significant variants and those variants in high LD (R2 > 0.8) from the COVID-19 host genetics initiative (HGI) and identify risk genes by recognizing genes intolerant nonsynonymous mutations in coding regions and genes associated with cis-expression quantitative trait loci (cis-eQTL) in non-coding regions. These genes are enriched in the immune response pathway and viral life cycle. It has been found that host RNA binding proteins (RBPs) participate in different phases of the SARS-CoV-2 life cycle. We collect 503 RBPs that interact with SARS-CoV-2 RNA concluded from in vitro studies. Combining risk genes from the HGI with RBPs, we identify two COVID-19 risk loci that regulate the expression levels of FUBP1 and RAB2A in the lung. Due to the risk allele, COVID-19 patients show downregulation of FUBP1 and upregulation of RAB2A. Using single-cell RNA sequencing data, we show that FUBP1 and RAB2A are expressed in SARS-CoV-2-infected upper respiratory tract epithelial cells. We further identify NC_000001.11:g.77984833C>A and NC_000008.11:g.60559280T>C as functional variants by surveying allele-specific transcription factor sites and cis-regulatory elements and performing motif analysis. To sum up, our research, which associates human genetics with expression levels of RBPs, identifies FUBP1 and RAB2A as two risk genes for COVID-19 and reveals the anti-viral role of FUBP1 and the pro-viral role of RAB2A in the infection of SARS-CoV-2.

Baicalein attenuates vinorelbine-induced vascular endothelial cell injury and chemotherapeutic phlebitis in rabbits.

Chemotherapy is one of the major strategies for cancer treatment. Several antineoplastic drugs including vinorelbine (VRB) are commonly intravenously infused and liable to cause serious phlebitis. The therapeutic drugs for preventing this complication are limited. In this study, the mechanism of baicalein (BCN) was investigated on VRB-induced phlebitis in vivo and vascular endothelial cell injury in vitro. Treatment with BCN obviously attenuated vascular endothelial cell loss, edema, inflammatory cell infiltration and blood clots, and reduced the serum levels of TNF-α, IL-1ß, IL-6 and ICAM-1 in the rabbit model of phlebitis induced by intravenous injection of VRB compared with vehicle. Further tests in vitro demonstrated that BCN lessened VRB-induced endothelial cell apoptosis, decreased intracellular ROS levels, suppressed phosphorylation of p38 and eventually inhibited activation of NF-κB signaling pathway. And these effects could be reversed by p38 agonist P79350. These results suggested that BCN exerted the protective effects against VRB-induced endothelial disruption in the rabbit model of phlebitis via inhibition of intracellular ROS generation and inactivation of p38/NF-κB pathway, leading to the decreased production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Thus, BCN could be used as a potential agent for the treatment of phlebitis.