hoxa1a-Null Zebrafish as a Model for Studying HOXA1-Associated Heart Malformation in Bosley-Salih-Alorainy Syndrome.

Mutations in HOXA1 can lead to diseases such as Bosley-Salih-Alorainy syndrome, involving severe cardiovascular malformations. However, the role of HOXA1 in cardiac morphogenesis remains unclear. hoxa1a is a homologous gene to human HOXA1 in zebrafish. We used CRISPR to make hoxa1a-null zebrafish that exhibited multiple heart malformations. In situ hybridization and sections revealed the morphological changes in mutants: enlarged ventricle with thickened myocardium and increased trabeculae, intensified OFT and inadequate heart looping, with electrocardiography supporting these pathological changes. High-speed photography captured cardiac pumping and revealed a significant decrease in cardiac output. Furthermore, lacking hoxa1a led to posterior body abnormality that affected movement ability, corresponding with the motor development delay in patients. Upregulation of hox paralogues in hoxa1a-null fish implied a compensatory mechanism between hox genes. Accordingly, we successfully constructed a hoxa1a-null model with a cardiac disease pattern which occurred in human HOXA1-associated heart malformation. The study of hoxa1a in zebrafish can further promote the understanding of hox genes and related diseases.

Broad-Specificity Aptamer of Sulfonamides: Isolation and Its Application in Simultaneous Detection of Multiple Sulfonamides in Fish Sample.

Sulfonamide antibiotics (SAs) are widely used in animal husbandry and aquaculture, and the excess residues of SAs in animal-derived foods will harm the health of consumers. In reality, various SAs were alternately used in animal husbandry and aquaculture, and thus, it is urgent need to develop simple and high-throughput methods for simultaneously detecting multiple SAs or groups of SAs in order to realize rapid screening of total SAs residues in animal-derived foods. We herein isolated a broad-specificity aptamer for SAs by using a multi-SAs systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) strategy. The isolated broad-specificity aptamer has a higher binding affinity to five different SAs including sulfaquinoxaline (SQ), sulfamethoxypyridazine (SMPZ), sulfametoxydiazine (SMD), sulfachloropyridazine (SCP), and sulfapyridine (SPD) and, thus, can be used as a bioreceptor for developing various high-throughput methods for the simultaneous detection or rapid screening of above five SAs. Based on the isolated broad-specificity aptamer and Cy7 (diethylthiatricarbocyanine) displacement strategy, a colorimetric aptasensor was developed for the simultaneous detection of SQ, SMPZ, SMD, SCP, and SPD with a visual detection limit of 2.0-5.0 µM and a spectrometry detection limit of 0.2-0.5 µM. The colorimetric aptasensor was successfully used to detect SQ, SMPZ, SMD, SCP, and SPD in fish muscle with a recovery of 82%-92% and a RSD (n = 5) < 7%. The success of this study provided a promising bioreceptor for developing various high-throughput methods for on-site rapid screening of multiple SAs residues, as well as a simple method for the rapid and cost-effective screening of total SQ, SMPZ, SMD, SCP, and SPD in seafood.

An Earthquake Emergency Web Data Cleaning and Classification Method Based on Word Frequency and Position Weighting.

The speed of earthquake emergency web document data cleaning is one of the key factors affecting emergency rescue decision-making. Data classification is the core process of data cleaning, and the efficiency of data classification determines the speed of data cleaning. This article is based on earthquake emergency Web document data and HTML structural features, combined with TF-IDF Algorithm and information calculation model, improves the word frequency factor and location factor parameters, and proposes the weighted frequency algorithm P-TF-IDF for earthquake emergency Web documents. To filter out less frequent words and optimize the FastText model, N-gram Feature word vectors effectively improve the efficiency of Web document data classification; for text classification data, use missing data recognition rules, data classification rules, and data repair rules to design an artificial intelligence-based earthquake emergency network information data cleaning framework to detect invalid data sets value, complete data comparison and redundancy judgment, clean up data conflicts and data errors, and generate a complete data set without duplication. The data cleaning framework not only completes the fusion of earthquake emergency network information but also provides a data foundation for the visualization of earthquake emergency data.

Multimodal Bubble Microrobot Near an Air-Water Interface.

The development of multifunctional and robust swimming microrobots working at the free air-liquid interface has encountered challenge as new manipulation strategies are needed to overcome the complicated interfacial restrictions. Here, flexible but reliable mechanisms are shown that achieve a remote-control bubble microrobot with multiple working modes and high maneuverability by the assistance of a soft air-liquid interface. This bubble microrobot is developed from a hollow Janus microsphere (JM) regulated by a magnetic field, which can implement switchable working modes like pusher, gripper, anchor, and sweeper. The collapse of the microbubble and the accompanying directional jet flow play a key role for functioning in these working modes, which is analogous to a "bubble tentacle." Using a simple gamepad, the orientation and the navigation of the bubble microrobot can be easily manipulated. In particular, a speed modulation method is found for the bubble microrobot, which uses vertical magnetic field to control the orientation of the JM and the direction of the bubble-induced jet flow without changing the fuel concentration. The findings demonstrate a substantial advance of the bubble microrobot specifically working at the air-liquid interface and depict some nonintuitive mechanisms that can help develop more complicated microswimmers.

Sensitive detection and intracellular imaging of free copper ions based on DNA-templated silver nanoclusters aggregation-inducing fluorescence enhancement effect.

Free copper ions (Cu+ and Cu2+) have critical toxicity to cells, although copper is an essential element for human body. Hence, sensitive monitoring is crucial to avoid over intake of Cu+/Cu2+. We herein designed a ssDNA sequence (A31) for synthetizing A31-templated silver nanoclusters (AgNCs), and demonstrated that Cu+/Cu2+ can induce the aggregation of A31-templated AgNCs and thus greatly enhanced the fluorescence emission of A31-templated AgNCs. Based on Cu+/Cu2+-induced fluorescence enhancement effect of A31-templated AgNCs, a label-free and signal-on fluorescent sensing platform was developed for the specific and sensitive detection of Cu+/Cu2+ in biological samples and intracellular imaging of Cu+/Cu2+ in cells. The signal-on fluorescent sensing platform could be used to rapidly detect Cu+ and Cu2+ with a detection limit of 0.1 µM within 30 min., and to perform the intracellular imaging of Cu+ and Cu2+ in cells with good cell permeability and biocompatibility. By using the signal-on fluorescent sensing platform, we have successfully detected Cu+ and Cu2+ in cells fluids and human serum with a recovery of 90-104% and a RSD (n = 5) < 5%, and performed the imaging of Cu+/Cu2+ in Hela cells. The developed fluorescent sensing platform has obvious analytical and imaging advantages such as signal-on, simple operation, short analysis time, both Cu+ and Cu2+ detection, similar or higher sensitivity, good cell permeability and biocompatibility, which promising a reliable approach for the rapid and on-site detection or imaging of free copper ions in biological samples in clinical diagnosis.

An atlas-based multimodal registration method for 2D images with discrepancy structures.

An atlas-based multimodal registration method for 2-dimension images with discrepancy structures was proposed in this paper. Atlas was utilized for complementing the discrepancy structure information in multimodal medical images. The scheme includes three steps: floating image to atlas registration, atlas to reference image registration, and field-based deformation. To evaluate the performance, a frame model, a brain model, and clinical images were employed in registration experiments. We measured the registration performance by the squared sum of intensity differences. Results indicate that this method is robust and performs better than the direct registration for multimodal images with discrepancy structures. We conclude that the proposed method is suitable for multimodal images with discrepancy structures. Graphical Abstract An Atlas-based multimodal registration method schematic diagram.

Three-dimensional CBCT images registration method for TMJ based on reconstructed condyle and skull base.

OBJECTIVES: A method was introduced for three-dimensional (3D) cone-beamCT (CBCT) images registration of temporomandibular joint (TMJ). This study aimed to provide quantitative and qualitative analysis of TMJ bone changes in two-dimensional (2D) and 3D and to provide the technique for computer-aided diagnosis of temporomandibular joint disorders in the future. METHODS: 10 TMJ samples of six patients were obtained from Peking University Hospital of Stomatology. Four of the six patients imaged bilateral TMJs and the other two patients only imaged unilateral TMJ. Each sample consisted of two images from the same TMJ taken at different times. First, condyle and skull base were segmented semi-automatically for 3D model reconstruction. Then the segmented condyle and skull base were registered separately. Registration process can be divided into two processes of rough registration and fine registration. Rough registration step was achieved by selecting corresponding points manually and initialized fine registration. Condyle and skull base were fine registered by minimizing mean square error of condyle (MSEcondyle) and skull base (MSEskull) respectively. Qualitative assessment of osseous component changes utilized 2D color-fused model and 3D surface-fused model and quantitative analyses the convergence of this method used the mean square error of the model (MSEmodel). Independent repeated experiments were carried out to test the stability of our 3D registration method. RESULTS: Sufficiently alignment was achieved. Osseous abnormality and morphology changes were displayed using fusion model. MSEmodel of condylar registration and skull base registration declined 51.80% and 64.58% compared with that before registration. Quantitative analysis verified the stability of the method. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed method completed 3D TMJ registration for different physiological structure. The result of this method was accurate, reproducible and not relied on the experience of operators.