Establishment of an immortalized yak granulosa cell line: in vitro tool for understanding the molecular processes of ovarian follicle development.

The yak, a unique species of cattle found exclusively on the western plateau of China, is a valuable source of livelihood for local residents. However, their low fecundity restricts the expansion of yak farming, whereas regional factors limit studies on yak breeding. Granulosa cells (GCs), which provide essential steroid hormones and growth factors for oocytes, have been the focus of many studies on the mechanisms of follicular growth and atresia. This study aimed to establish an immortalized cell line model that could serve as a tool for future studies on the mechanisms of ovarian follicle development in yaks. First, we isolated primary yak granulosa cells (yGCs) and evaluated their replicative senescence after continuous in vitro subculturing. Subsequently, an immortalized culture method for primary yGC was explored, and a new cell line model was established to study the mechanism of follicular development in vitro. We used a mammalian gene expression lentivirus vector to transfer the simian virus 40 large T antigen (SV40T) into primary yGC to obtain an immortalized cell line. The immortalized yGCs were morphologically identical to the primary yGCs, and cell proliferation and growth were normal within a limited number of generations. Follicle-stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR), a specific marker for GCs, was positively expressed in immortalized yGCs. Furthermore, the immortalized yGCs retained the ability of GCs to synthesize estradiol and progesterone and expressed genes related to steroid synthesis. The establishment of immortalized yGC opens up a myriad of possibilities for advancing our understanding of yak reproductive biology and improving yak breeding strategies.

Using heart rate variability to develop a predictive model for post-operative cardiovascular complications following major abdominal surgery: A pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a dynamic reflection of heart rhythm regulation by various physiological inputs. HRV deviations have been found to correlate with clinical outcomes in patients under physiological stresses. Perioperative cardiovascular complications occur in up to 5% of adult patients undergoing abdominal surgery and are associated with significantly increased mortality. This pilot study aimed to develop a predictive model for post-operative cardiovascular complications using HRV parameters for early risk stratification and aid post-operative clinical decision-making. METHODS: Adult patients admitted to High Dependency Units after elective major abdominal surgery were recruited. The primary composite outcome was defined as cardiovascular complications within 7 days post-operatively. ECG monitoring for HRV parameters was conducted at three time points (pre-operative, immediately post-operative, and post-operative day 1) and analyzed based on outcome group and time interactions. Candidate HRV predictors were included in a multivariable logistic regression analysis incorporating a stepwise selection algorithm. RESULTS: 89 patients were included in the analysis, with 8 experiencing cardiovascular complications. Three HRV parameters, when measured immediately post-operatively and composited with patient age, provided the basis for a predictive model with AUC of 0.980 (95% CI: 0.953, 1.00). The negative predictive value was 1.00 at a statistically optimal predicted probability cut-off point of 0.16. CONCLUSION: Our model holds potential for accelerating clinical decision-making and aiding in patient triaging post-operatively, using easily acquired HRV parameters. Risk stratification with our model may enable safe early step-down care in patients assessed to have a low risk profile of post-operative cardiovascular complications.

Spray-Printed Flexible Li2S Cathode with Inorganic Ion-Conductive Binder Nano-Li3PS4.

Flexible solid-state batteries fabricated by printing techniques are promising integrated power supplies for miniaturized and customized electronic devices. While typically these batteries use polymer solid electrolytes, a flexible Li2S cathode with sulfide solid electrolyte is spray-printed in this work, by using solvated Li3PS4 nanoparticles as inorganic ion-conductive binder. This benefits from a novel low-temperature-sintering property of these nanoparticles, which can be pressure-free densified, along with the desolvation process, and thus bind the cathode at 250 °C. The battery can be stably charged and discharged for 300 cycles with no stacking pressure, and the capacity maintains at 840 mA h gLi2 S-1. We believe this low-temperature-sintering phenomenon of solid electrolyte nanoparticles will open a new path toward the application of sulfide solid electrolytes in printed solid-state batteries.

Relation between neuroticism and tendency of mobile phone addiction among nursing undergraduates： the mediating role of perceived stress and self-control / 四川精神卫生

BackgroundNegative effects of mobile phone addiction on undergraduate students have led to several health problems including depression， anxiety， attention deficit disorder， cognitive impairment and sleep disturbance. The undergraduate nursing students serve as an important reserve force of the clinical nursing work， and their poor psychological health would have a non-ignorable impact on the quality of the nursing work and the nurse-patient relationship in the future. ObjectiveTo investigate the relation between neuroticism and tendency of mobile phone addiction among undergraduate nursing students， and to examine the pathways through which perceived stress and self-control play a role in the relation by constructing a chain-mediated model. MethodsFrom February to March 2023， a total of 900 undergraduate nursing students across 10 universities in Xi'an， Shaanxi Province were selected through convenient sampling method. Several scales were adopted to assess undergraduate nursing students respectively， including the neuroticism subscale of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised Short Scale for Chines （EPQ-RSC）， Perceived Stress Scale （PSS）， Self-Control Scale （SCS） and Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale （MPATS）. The assessment were conducted on multiple aspects of these students including neurotic personality， subjective stress， self-control and mobile phone addiction tendency. Model 6 in the SPSS Macro Process 4.1 was used to examine the mediating effect of perceived stress and self-control between neuroticism and mobile phone addiction tendency among undergraduate nursing students. Results① Among the 900 students， 314 cases （34.89%） were found to be addicted to mobile phones. ② The score of neuroticism subscale in EPQ-RSC of nursing undergraduates was positively correlated with the total scores of PSS and MPATS （r=0.400， 0.287， P<0.01）， and negatively correlated with score of SCS （r=-0.364， P<0.01）. The total score of MPATS was positively correlated with the total score of PSS （r=0.362， P<0.01）， and negatively correlated with the total score of SCS （r=-0.468， P<0.01）. The total score of SCS was negatively correlated with the total score of PSS （r=-0.515， P<0.01）. ③ Perceived stress and self-control performed partial mediation between neuroticism personality and mobile phone addiction tendency （with indirect effect values of 0.056 and 0.065， respectively， accounting for 19.72% and 22.89% of the total effect）. Perceived stress and self-control played a chain mediating role between neuroticism personality and mobile phone addiction tendency （with an indirect effect value of 0.064， accounting for 22.54% of the total effect）. ConclusionNeuroticism personality， perceived stress and self-control are confirmed to play important roles in mobile phone addiction tendency among undergraduate nursing students. Neuroticism personality not only directly affects the tendency of mobile phone addiction， but also affects their mobile phone addiction tendency through the chain mediating effect of perceived stress and self-control.［Funded by The 2020 Annual Project of the 13th Five-Year Plan of Education Science in Shaanxi Province （number， SGH20Y1386）］

Development and Comprehensive Benchmark of a High-Quality AMBER-Consistent Small Molecule Force Field with Broad Chemical Space Coverage for Molecular Modeling and Free Energy Calculation.

Biomolecular simulations have become an essential tool in contemporary drug discovery, and molecular mechanics force fields (FFs) constitute its cornerstone. Developing a high quality and broad coverage general FF is a significant undertaking that requires substantial expert knowledge and computing resources, which is beyond the scope of general practitioners. Existing FFs originate from only a limited number of groups and organizations, and they either suffer from limited numbers of training sets, lower than desired quality because of oversimplified representations, or are costly for the molecular modeling community to access. To address these issues, in this work, we developed an AMBER-consistent small molecule FF with extensive chemical space coverage, and we provide Open Access parameters for the entire modeling community. To validate our FF, we carried out benchmarks of quantum mechanics (QM)/molecular mechanics conformer comparison and free energy perturbation calculations on several benchmark data sets. Our FF achieves a higher level of performance at reproducing QM energies and geometries than two popular open-source FFs, OpenFF2 and GAFF2. In relative binding free energy calculations for 31 protein-ligand data sets, comprising 1079 pairs of ligands, the new FF achieves an overall root-mean-square error of 1.19 kcal/mol for ΔΔG and 0.92 kcal/mol for ΔG on a subset of 463 ligands without bespoke fitting to the data sets. The results are on par with those of the leading commercial series of OPLS FFs.

Relationship between ß1-AA and AT1-AA and Cardiac Function in Patients with Hypertension Complicated with Left Ventricular Diastolic Function Limitation.

Objective: To investigate the association between ß1 adrenergic receptor autoantibodies (ß1-AA) and angiotensin II type-1 receptor autoantibodies (AT1-AA) and cardiac function in patients with hypertension complicated with left ventricular diastolic function limitation. Methods: A total of 120 patients with essential hypertension who were not taking drug treatment and were hospitalised in the Department of Cardiology at the authors' hospital from April 2018 to December 2018 were enrolled in this study and divided into a diastolic dysfunction group (65 cases) and a normal diastolic group (55 cases) according to their left ventricular diastolic function. The levels of cardiac parameters, ß1-AA, AT1-AA, and other indicators were compared. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyse the related factors affecting left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD). The diagnostic efficacy of related factors in the diagnosis of diastolic dysfunction was evaluated. Results: Univariate analysis demonstrated that the left ventricular posterior wall diameter (10.29 ± 1.23 vs. 9.12 ± 1.53), left ventricular systolic dysfunction (10.56 ± 1.37 vs. 9.43 ± 1.44), systolic blood pressure (152.37 ± 10.24 vs. 140.33 ± 5.99), diastolic blood pressure (95.66 ± 6.34 vs. 87.33 ± 7.28), ß1-AA (33 vs. 9 cases), and AT1-AA (35 cases vs. 12 cases) were higher in the dysfunction group than in the control group (all P < 0.05). Multivariate regression analysis showed that ß1-AA (odds ratio (OR) = 1.96, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.369-4.345) and AT1-AA (OR = 2.02, 95% CI: 1.332-6.720) were independent risk factors for cardiac diastolic dysfunction (P < 0.05). Both autoimmune antibodies had a certain predictive value, and the combined prediction value of the two was the highest, with an area under the curve of 0.942 (95% CI: 0.881~0.985). Conclusion: The positive rate of ß1-AA and AT1-AA in essential hypertension patients with LVDD was higher than that in the normal group. Both ß1-AA and AT1-AA could be used as early markers of LVDD in essential hypertension patients.

Analysis of Synergism between Extracellular Polysaccharide from Bacillus thuringensis subsp. kurstaki HD270 and Insecticidal Proteins.

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is the most widely used biopesticide worldwide and can produce several insecticidal crystal proteins and vegetative insecticidal proteins (Vips) at different growth stages. In our previous study, extracellular polysaccharides (EPSs) of Bt strain HD270 were found to enhance the insecticidal activity of Cry1Ac protoxin against Plutella xylostella (L.) and promote the binding of Cry1Ac to the intestinal brush border membrane vesicles (BBMVs). Whether the synergistic activity of Bt EPSs is common to other Cry1-type or Vip proteins is unclear, as is the potential synergistic mechanism. In this study, crude EPS-HD270 was found to increase the toxicity of Cry1-type toxins and Vip3Aa11 against different lepidopteran pests by approximately 2-fold. The purified EPS-HD270 also possessed synergistic activity against the toxicity of Cry1Ac and Vip3Aa11 against Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith) and Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner). Furthermore, we found that EPS-HD270 had a strong binding ability with Vip3Aa11 and promoted the binding of Vip3Aa11 to the BBMVs of H. armigera and S. frugiperda. Bt EPS-HD270 also protected Vip3Aa11 from proteolytic processing in larval midgut juice. Bt EPSs had universal synergistic effects on Cry1-type or Vip toxins against S. frugiperda and H. armigera. Bt EPS-HD270 exhibited synergistic activity with Vip3Aa through promotion of binding to BBMVs and protection from digestion by midgut protease. The results indicated that synergistic activity with Bt toxins was an important function of Bt EPSs, which was very different from other Bacillus spp.

circ_0000337 Promotes the Progression of Cervical Cancer by miR-155-5p/RAB3B Axis.

Current study aims to investigate the biological function of circular RNA (circRNA, circ_0000337) in cervical cancer (CC). Bioinformatic analyses were used to predict targets for circ_0000337 and miR-155-5p, and analyze the gene expression differences between cervical squamous cell carcinoma and endocervical adenocarcinoma (CESC) tissues and normal tissues. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and Western blot were applied to assess mRNA and protein expressions of circ_0000337, microRNA-155-5p (miR-155-5p) and member RAS oncogene family (RAB3B), respectively. Following the establishment of gain/loss-of-function models, CCK-8 was performed to evaluate cell proliferation. Bioinformatics analysis, dual-luciferase reporter assay and RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) were used to identify the interaction in circ_0000337, miR-155-5p, and RAB3B. Circ_0000337 and RAB3B were upregulated, while miR-155-5p was downregulated in CC tissues and cell lines. circ_0000337 overexpression promoted cell proliferation, circ_0000337 knock down inhibited cell proliferation by sponging miR-155-5p. RAB3B was a target of miR-155-5p which was positively regulated by circ_0000337. In the collected CC tissues, there was a negative correlation between miR-155-5p and circ_0000337 or RAB3B, and a positive correlation between circ_0000337 and RAB3B. miR-155-5p was positively, while RAB3B was negatively correlated with OS in patients with CC, and they were negatively correlated. In conclusion, circ_0000337 upregulates RAB3B by sponging miR-155-5p to promote CC cell proliferation.

Primary motor hand area corticospinal excitability indicates overall functional recovery after spinal cord injury.

Background: After spinal cord injury (SCI), the excitability of the primary motor cortex (M1) lower extremity area decreases or disappears. A recent study reported that the M1 hand area of the SCI patient encodes the activity information of both the upper and lower extremities. However, the characteristics of the M1 hand area corticospinal excitability (CSE) changes after SCI and its correlation with extremities motor function are still unknown. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on the data of 347 SCI patients and 80 healthy controls on motor evoked potentials (MEP, reflection of CSE), extremity motor function, and activities of daily living (ADL) ability. Correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were conducted to analyze the relationship between the degree of MEP hemispheric conversion and extremity motor function/ADL ability. Results: The CSE of the dominant hemisphere M1 hand area decreased in SCI patients. In 0-6 m, AIS A grade, or non-cervical injury SCI patients, the degree of M1 hand area MEP hemispheric conversion was positively correlated with total motor score, lower extremity motor score (LEMS), and ADL ability. Multiple linear regression analysis further confirmed the contribution of MEP hemispheric conversion degree in ADL changes as an independent factor. Conclusion: The closer the degree of M1 hand area MEP hemispheric conversion is to that of healthy controls, the better the extremity motor function/ADL ability patients achieve. Based on the law of this phenomenon, targeted intervention to regulate the excitability of bilateral M1 hand areas might be a novel strategy for SCI overall functional recovery.

New clinical application of digital intraoral scanning technology in occlusal reconstruction: A case report.

BACKGROUND: Digital intraoral scanning, although developing rapidly, is rarely used in occlusal reconstruction. To compensate for the technical drawbacks of current occlusal reconstruction techniques, such as time consumption and high technical requirements, digital intraoral scanning can be used in clinics. This report aims to provide a way of selecting the most suitable maxillo-mandibular relationship (MMR) during recovery. CASE SUMMARY: A 68-year-old man with severely worn posterior teeth underwent occlusal reconstruction with fixed prosthesis using digital intraoral scanning. A series of digital models in different stages of treatment were obtained, subsequently compared, and selected using digital intraoral scanning together with traditional measurements, such as cone beam computed tomography, joint imaging, and clinical examination. Using digital intraoral scanning, the MMR in different stages of treatment was accurately recorded, which provided feasibility for deciding the best occlusal reconstruction treatment, made the treatment process easier, and improved patient satisfaction. CONCLUSION: This case report highlights the clarity, recordability, repeatability, and selectivity of digital intraoral scanning to replicate and transfer the MMR during occlusal reconstruction, expanding new perspectives for its design, fabrication, and postoperative evaluation.