Prognostic value of plasma Aß1-40 for Alzheimer's disease.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinical significance of plasma p-amyloid 1-40 (Aß1-40) in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). METHODS: In this retrospective study, the clinical data of 305 patients, with or without Alzheimer's disease (AD), who were treated at the Affiliated Hospital of Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities and the People's Hospital of Baise between January 2018 and December 2021 were analyzed. Patients were divided into two groups: an AD group (n=147) and a non-AD group (without AD, n=158 cases). Blood test indices, including serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), creatinine (CRE), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), and plasma ß-amyloid 1-40 were collected and compared between the two groups. RESULTS: The plasma ß-amyloid 1-40 in the AD group was (3.71±3.45) mol/L, which was significantly higher than (2.8±1.35) mmol/L in the non-AD group (P<0.05). Similarly, hsCRP expression was significantly higher in the AD group than that in the non-AD group (P<0.05). There were no significant differences in AST, ALT, UA, T-tau, NFL or Cr levels between the two groups (all P>0.05). Moreover, univariate regression analysis showed that plasma ß-amyloid 1-40 and hsCRP were significantly correlated with AD. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that plasma p-amyloid 1-40 (P<0.0001) and hsCRP (P=0.002) were independent predictors of AD. CONCLUSION: Plasma p-amyloid 1-40 and hsCRP are closely related to AD, and may serve as important clinical predictors of AD.

Rain Classroom and PAD class blended learning mode effectively improves teaching quality in a surgical nursing course.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the effect of Rain Classroom and Presentation-Assimilation-Discussion (PAD) class blended learning mode on a surgical nursing course. METHODS: In this retrospective study, a total of 212 nursing undergraduates of Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities were selected as the research objects. There were 102 participants taking the traditional teaching model, assigned into the control group. The remaining 110 participants taking Rain Classroom and PAD class blended learning mode were assigned into the observation group. A questionnaire survey was conducted after the intervention. RESULTS: After the intervention, the comprehensive assessment score of the observation group was higher than the control group ((83.8 ± 2.64) vs. (81.71 ± 3.74), P = 0.01). The independent learning ability ((81.61 ± 12.04) vs. (77.46 ± 4.23), P = 0.001), and self-efficacy ((27.78 ± 4.18) vs. (26.39 ± 4.67), P = 0.023) were higher in the observation group than those in the control group. The course satisfaction of the observation group was higher than that in the control group (79.09% and 65.69%, P = 0.029). CONCLUSIONS: The blended mode of Rain Classroom with PAD class effectively improves teaching quality, academic performance, self-learning ability, self-efficacy of students, and increased students' satisfaction with teaching methods.

Factors affecting medical students' intention to use Rain Classroom: a cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND: Rain Classroom was one of the most popular online learning platforms in Chinese higher education during the pandemic. However, there is little research on user intention under the guidance of technology acceptance and unified theory (UTAUT). OBJECTIVE: This research aims to determine factors influencing students' behavioural intention to use Rain Classroom. METHODS: In this cross-sectional and correlational investigation, 1138 medical students from five medical universities in Guangxi Province, China, made up the sample. This study added self-efficacy (SE), motivation (MO), stress (ST), and anxiety (AN) to the UTAUT framework. This study modified the framework by excluding actual usage variables and focusing only on intention determinants. SPSS-26 and AMOS-26 were used to analyze the data. The structural equation modelling technique was chosen to confirm the hypotheses. RESULTS: Except for facilitating conditions (FC), all proposed factors, including performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), self-efficacy (SE), motivation (MO), anxiety (AN), and stress (ST), had a significant effect on students' behavioural intentions to use Rain Classroom. CONCLUSIONS: The research revealed that the proposed model, which was based on the UTAUT, is excellent at identifying the variables that influence students' behavioural intentions in the Rain Classroom. Higher education institutions can plan and implement productive classrooms.

Intranasal insulin administration may be highly effective in improving cognitive function in mice with cognitive dysfunction by reversing brain insulin resistance.

It is well known in clinical practice that Alzheimer's disease (AD) is closely associated with brain insulin resistance, and the cerebral insulin pathway has been proven to play a critical role in the pathogenesis of AD. However, finding the most efficient way to improve brain insulin resistance remains challenging. Peripheral administration of insulin does not have the desired therapeutic effect and may induce adverse reactions, such as hyperinsulinemia, but intranasal administration may be an efficient way. In the present study, we established a brain insulin resistance model through an intraventricular injection of streptozotocin, accompanied by cognitive impairment. Following intranasal insulin treatment, the learning and memory functions of mice were significantly restored, the neurogenesis in the hippocampus was improved, the level of insulin in the brain increased, and the activation of the IRS-1-PI3K-Akt-GSK3ß insulin signal pathway, but not the Ras-Raf-MEK-MAPK pathway, was markedly increased. The olfactory bulb-subventricular zone-subgranular zone (OB-SVZ-SGZ) axis might be the mechanism through which intranasal insulin regulates cognition in brain-insulin-resistant mice. Thus, intranasal insulin administration may be a highly efficient way to improve cognitive function by increasing cerebral insulin levels and reversing insulin resistance.

An efficient high-throughput screening assay for rapid directed evolution of halohydrin dehalogenase for preparation of ß-substituted alcohols.

Halohydrin dehalogenases (HHDHs) are an important class of enzymes for preparing optically active haloalcohols, epoxides, and ß-substituted alcohols. However, natural HHDHs rarely meet the requirements of industrial applications. Here, a novel high-throughput screening (HTS) methodology for directed evolution of HHDH was developed based on the colorimetric determination of azide. In this method, azide was involved in the HHDH-catalyzed ring-opening process and the decrease of azide was used to quantitatively evaluate HHDH activity. The HTS methodology was simple and sensitive (ε460 = 1.2173 × 10(4) L mol(-1) cm(-1)) and could be performed in a microplate format using whole cells. To verify the efficiency of the HTS methodology, it was adopted to engineer a HHDH (HHDH-PL) from Parvibaculum lavamentivorans DS-1, which was applied in the process for ethyl (R)-4-cyano-3-hydroxybutanoate (HN) by the conversion of ethyl (S)-4-chloro-3-hydroxybutanoate ((S)-CHBE)). A random mutant library containing 2500 colonies was screened using the HTS methodology, and three beneficial mutants F176M, A187R, and A187S were obtained. By combining the beneficial mutated residues, the variant F176M/A187R was identified with 2.8-fold higher catalytic efficiency for preparation of HN. The high-throughput colorimetric assay would be very useful for directed evolution of HHDH for preparing ß-substituted alcohols.