Real-world data of 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy for Bowen's disease: A 10-year retrospective study in the skin of color patients (2011-2021).

BACKGROUND: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been strongly recommended as an excellent alternative treatment for Bowen's disease (BD). However, reported data on 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated PDT (ALA-PDT) with red light irradiation are limited and the long-term effectiveness remains to be determined, especially in dark-skinned populations. METHODS: Medical records of BD patients who received ALA-PDT with red light irradiation between February 2011 and June 2021 were reviewed and summarized. Univariate and multivariate analyses of clinically relevant variables that may affect treatment outcomes were performed to identify risk predictors. RESULTS: The overall clearance rate of 122 BD lesions was 89.3% with a median follow-up time of 36 months. The correlation between the effectiveness and fluorescence intensity of pre-PDT or PDT sessions was statistically significant after eliminating the interference of confounding factors. All recurrences occurred in the first two years following ALA-PDT. CONCLUSION: ALA-PDT is an effective treatment for BD in the skin of color patients. Well-executed operation and effective pre-treatment are the determinants of effectiveness. Fluorescence intensity of pre-PDT appeared to be a significant predictor of final effectiveness. In addition, two years of follow-up is necessary following ALA-PDT.

Clinical Comparison between HD-tDCS and tDCS for Improving Upper Limb Motor Function: A Randomized, Double-Blinded, Sham-Controlled Trial.

Background: Stroke is a common and frequently occurring disease among middle-aged and elderly people, with approximately 55%-75% of patients remaining with upper limb dysfunction. How to promote the recovery of motor function at an early stage is crucial to the life of the patient. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate whether high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) of the primary motor cortex (M1) functional area in poststroke patients in the subacute phase is more effective in improving upper limb function than conventional tDCS. Methods: This randomized, sham-controlled clinical trial included 69 patients with subcortical stroke. They were randomly divided into the HD-tDCS, anodal tDCS (a-tDCS), and sham groups. Each group received 20 sessions of stimulation. The patients were assessed using the Action Research Arm Test, Fugl-Meyer score for upper extremities, Motor Function Assessment Scale, and modified Barthel index (MBI) pretreatment and posttreatment. Results: The intragroup comparison scores improved after 4 weeks of treatment. The HD-tDCS group showed a slightly greater, but nonsignificant improvement as compared to a-tDCS group in terms of mean change observed in function of trained items. The MBI score of the HD-tDCS group was maintained up to 8 weeks of follow-up and was higher than that in the a-tDCS group. Conclusion: Both HD-tDCS and a-tDCS can improve upper limb motor function and daily activities of poststroke patients in the subacute stage. This trial is registered with ChiCTR2000031314.

In Situ Formation of Heterojunction in Composite Lithium Anode Facilitates Fast and Uniform Interfacial Ion Transport.

Lithium metal is a highly promising anode for next-generation high-energy-density rechargeable batteries. Nevertheless, its practical application faces challenges due to the uncontrolled lithium dendrites growth and infinite volumetric expansion during repetitive cycling. Herein, a composite lithium anode is designed by mechanically rolling and pressing a cerium oxide-coated carbon textile with lithium foil (Li@CeO2/CT). The in situ generated cerium dioxide (CeO2) and cerium trioxide (Ce2O3) form a heterojunction with a reduced lithium-ion migration barrier, facilitating the rapid lithium ions migration. Additionally, both CeO2 and Ce2O3 exhibit higher adsorbed energy with lithium, enabling faster and more distributed interfacial transport of lithium ions. Furthermore, the high specific surface area of 3D skeleton can effectively reduce local current density, and alleviate the lithium volumetric changes upon plating/stripping. Benefiting from this unique structure, the highly compact and uniform lithium deposition is constructed, allowing the Li@CeO2/CT symmetric cells to maintain a stable cycling for over 500 cycles at an exceptional high current density of 100 mA cm-2. When paired with LiNi0.91Co0.06Mn0.03O2 (NCM91) cathode, the cell achieves 74.3% capacity retention after 800 cycles at 1 C, and a remarkable capacity retention of 81.1% after 500 cycles even at a high rate of 4  C.

Effects of dietary supplementation of postbiotic derived from Bacillus subtilis ACCC 11025 on growth performance, meat yield, meat quality, excreta bacteria, and excreta ammonia emission of broiler chicks.

The primary aim of this study was to explore the impact of dietary supplementation with a postbiotic derived from Bacillus subtilis ACCC 11025 on growth performance, meat yield, meat quality, excreta bacterial populations, and excreta ammonia emissions of broiler chicks. A total of 480 day-old Arbor Acre broiler chicks, initially weighing 52.83 ± 1.38 g, were randomly allocated into 4 distinct groups. Each group was housed in 6 separate cages, each containing 20 birds. The experimental phase spanned 42 d, divided into 2 periods (d 1-21 and d 22-42). Dietary interventions were based on a basal diet, with postbiotic supplementation at levels of 0.000, 0.015, 0.030, or 0.045%. Our findings indicate that dietary supplementation with postbiotic had a positive influence on body weight gain (BWG) and feed efficiency. The most substantial improvements in BWG and feed efficiency were observed in the group of broiler chicks fed a diet containing 0.015% postbiotic. Furthermore, the inclusion of postbiotic in the diet led to an increase in the yield of breast and leg muscles, with a significant difference in meat yields observed between the control group and the group receiving 0.015% postbiotic supplementation. It's noteworthy that dietary manipulation did not exert any discernible impact on the quality of breast and leg muscle samples. Concurrently, we observed an elevation in serum albumin and total protein contents corresponding to the increasing postbiotic dosage in the diet. Additionally, dietary supplementation with postbiotic effectively controlled the emission of ammonia from excreta and reduced the abundance of Salmonella in excreta while enhancing the presence of Lactobacillus bacteria. The group receiving 0.015% postbiotic supplementation displayed the lowest levels of ammonia emission and the highest counts of Lactobacillus bacteria in excreta. In light of these results, we conclude that dietary supplementation with 0.015% postbiotic represents an efficacious strategy for increasing BWG and meat yield of broiler chicks by enhancing feed efficiency as well as mitigating ammonia emissions from excreta by modulating the composition of excreta bacterial communities.

Si@Fe3O4/AC composite with interconnected carbon nano-ribbons network for high-performance lithium-ion battery anodes.

Si-based anode materials have a relatively high theoretical specific capacity and low operating voltage, greatly enhancing the energy density of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, their practical application is seriously hindered by the instability of active particles and anode electrodes caused by the huge swelling during cycling. How to maintain the stability of the charge transfer network and interface structure of Si particles is full of challenges. To address this issue, we have developed a novel Si@Fe3O4/AC/CNR anode by in-situ growing one-dimensional high elastic carbon nano-ribbons to wrap Si nanoparticles. This special structure can construct fast channels of electron transport and lithium ion diffusion, and stabilize the surface structure of Si nanoparticles during cycling. With these promising architectural features, the Si@Fe3O4/AC/CNR composite possesses a high specific capacity of 1279.4 mAh/g at 0.5 A/g, and a superior cycling life with 80 % capacity retention after 700 cycles. Even at a high current density of 20.0 A/g, the composite still delivers a capacity of 621.2 mAh/g. The facile synthetic approach and high performance of Si@Fe3O4/AC/CNR anodes provide practical insight into advanced anode materials with large volume expansion for high-energy-density LIBs.

A real-world clinicopathological model for predicting pathological complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer.

Purpose: This study aimed to develop and validate a clinicopathological model to predict pathological complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in breast cancer patients and identify key prognostic factors. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed data from 279 breast cancer patients who received NAC at Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital from 2011 to 2021. Additionally, an external validation dataset, comprising 50 patients from Lanxi People's Hospital and Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine from 2022 to 2023 was utilized for model verification. A multivariate logistic regression model was established incorporating clinical, ultrasound features, circulating tumor cells (CTCs), and pathology variables at baseline and post-NAC. Model performance for predicting pCR was evaluated. Prognostic factors were identified using survival analysis. Results: In the 279 patients enrolled, a pathologic complete response (pCR) rate of 27.96% (78 out of 279) was achieved. The predictive model incorporated independent predictors such as stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (sTIL) levels, Ki-67 expression, molecular subtype, and ultrasound echo features. The model demonstrated strong predictive accuracy for pCR (C-statistics/AUC 0.874), especially in human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-enriched (C-statistics/AUC 0.878) and triple-negative (C-statistics/AUC 0.870) subtypes, and the model performed well in external validation data set (C-statistics/AUC 0.836). Incorporating circulating tumor cell (CTC) changes post-NAC and tumor size changes further improved predictive performance (C-statistics/AUC 0.945) in the CTC detection subgroup. Key prognostic factors included tumor size >5cm, lymph node metastasis, sTIL levels, estrogen receptor (ER) status and pCR. Despite varied pCR rates, overall prognosis after standard systemic therapy was consistent across molecular subtypes. Conclusion: The developed predictive model showcases robust performance in forecasting pCR in NAC-treated breast cancer patients, marking a step toward more personalized therapeutic strategies in breast cancer.

Preparation of carbon-coated Fe2 O3 @Ti3 C2 Tx composites by mussel-like modifications as high-performance anodes for lithium-ion batteries.

Fe2 O3 with high theoretical capacity (1007 mA h g-1 ) and low cost is a potential anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), but its practical application is restricted by its low electrical conductivity and large volume changes during lithiation/delithiation. To solve these problems, Fe2 O3 @Ti3 C2 Tx composites were synthesized by a mussel-like modification method, which relies on the self-polymerization of dopamine under mild conditions. During polymerization, the electronegative group (-OH) on dopamine can easily coordinate with Fe3+ ions as well as form hydrogen bonds with the -OH terminal group on the surface of Ti3 C2 Tx , which induces a uniform distribution of Fe2 O3 on the Ti3 C2 Tx surface and mitigates self-accumulation of MXene nanosheets. In addition, the polydopamine-derived carbon layer protects Ti3 C2 Tx from oxidation during the hydrothermal process, which can further improve the electrical conductivity of the composites and buffer the volume expansion and particle agglomeration of Fe2 O3 . As a result, Fe2 O3 @Ti3 C2 Tx anodes exhibit ~100 % capacity retention with almost no capacity loss at 0.5 A g-1 after 250 cycles, and a stable capacity of 430 mA h g-1 at 2 A g-1 after 500 cycles. The unique structural design of this work provides new ideas for the development of MXene-based composites in energy storage applications.

Chemotherapy-induced exosomal circBACH1 promotes breast cancer resistance and stemness via miR-217/G3BP2 signaling pathway.

BACKGROUND: Chemoresistance involves metastasis and aggressiveness of breast cancer (BC). Chemotherapy-elicited exosomes have been reported to be associated with drug resistance and pro-metastatic capacity of BC cells. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are enriched in exosomes, which participated in generation, progression, and resistance of BC. However, the mechanism underlying the chemoresistance and metastasis in BC cells mediated by the BC-derived exosomal ncRNAs remained to be elucidated. METHODS: The effects of PTX-induced exosomal circBACH1 on BC cell function were assessed using RNA Binding Protein Immunoprecipitation (RIP), dual luciferase reporter gene, tube formation, CCK-8, and Western Blot assays. The circBACH1 and miR-217 expression levels were detected using quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) and Immunohistochemistry (IHC) assays in BC tissues and precancerous tissues of BC patients. RESULTS: CircBACH1 expression was increased in paclitaxel-treated BC-derived exosomes (PTX-EXO) and BC tissue. PTX-EXO was shown to promote PTX-resistance and angiogenesis through upregulation circBACH1. Downregulation of circBACH1 improved PTX-sensitiveness by suppressing the cell viability, stemness, migration, and angiogenesis of BC cells. Moreover, we found that miR-217 interacted with circBACH1 and targeted GTPase-activating SH3 domain-binding protein 2 (G3BP2) in BC cells. CircBACH1 combined miR-217 cotransfection suppressed the expression of G3BP2 proteins compared with circBACH1 treatment in MCF-7 cells. In addition, downregulation of G3BP2 suppressed BC cell migration. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrated that PTX-induced exosomal circBACH1 promoted stemness and migration of BC cells by sponging miR-217 to upregulate the expression of G3BP2, which provided a new therapeutic target for PTX-resistance and progression of BC via circBACH1/miR-217/G3BP2 axis.

Differences of semen microbiota among breeding boars with different reproductive ages.

In this study, we investigated 18 healthy and fertile Duroc boars, dividing them into two groups based on their reproductive age: 9 boars aged 18 mo and 9 boars aged 36 mo. Prior to semen sampling, all boars were raised together under identical management conditions for a period of 3 mo. Our findings revealed that older boars exhibited lower sperm motility and a higher proportion of abnormal sperm morphology compared to younger boars. Furthermore, older boars demonstrated lower anti-oxidant capacity in their semen, as indicated by elevated levels of malondialdehyde and decreased levels of superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase. Microbiota analysis utilizing the 16S rRNA technique showed that the semen microbiota of older boars had reduced alpha-diversity and beta-diversity in comparison to younger boars. We identified the Streptococcus genus and Streptococcus gallolyticus subsp macedonicus species served as biomarkers for semen from younger breeding boars, while the Bacteroides pyogenes species as a biomarker for semen from older breeding boars. Additionally, the semen from older boars exhibited a higher abundance of Aerococcus, Gallicola, Ulvibacter, and Proteiniphilum compared to younger boars. Spearman correlation analysis showed that these four bacteria were negatively correlated with semen quality. The abundance of Gallicola and Proteiniphilum were negatively correlated with semen anti-oxidant capacity. Additionally, the reduction of semen anti-oxidant capacity was correlated to the decrease of semen quality. Based on these findings, we concluded that the semen of older boars contains a higher abundance of harmful bacteria, which contributes to the observed reduction in semen anti-oxidant capacity and overall semen quality in this group.

In modern swine husbandry, the culling of breeding boars with low semen quality is a common practice to ensure high reproductive performance. It is widely acknowledged that semen quality tends to decline as boars age. Moreover, recent advances in microbiota analysis have provided evidence that semen is not sterile, suggesting that the composition of semen microbiota may vary among boars of different reproductive ages. These variations in microbiota have the potential to impact semen anti-oxidant capacity and therefore affect semen quality. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to compare the differences in semen quality, semen anti-oxidant capacity, and semen microbiota among boars at various stages of reproductive age. The findings of this study demonstrated an increased abundance of harmful bacteria in the semen of older boars, which is responsible for the observed reduction in semen anti-oxidant capacity and overall semen quality.

Data-mining-based of ancient traditional Chinese medicine records from 475 BC to 1949 to potentially treat COVID-19.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) plays a role in preventing and treating COVID-19 in China. Based on the manifestations and symptoms of COVID-19, our study used the data mining method to summarize related therapeutic experience left by predecessors who used TCM to treat epidemics in their eras. Initially, we collected abundant medical records with similar manifestations of COVID-19 in Chinese ancient times. The key words including wen (), yi (), li (), and zhang () were searched in ZhongyiZhiku (https://www.zk120.com/) from Warring States Period (475 BC-221 BC) to the Republic of China era (1912-1949) to locate ancient medical records according to inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria. Moreover, COVID-19-related manifestations and corresponding medications in those records were categorized. Eventually, Traditional Chinese Medicine Inheritance Support System version 2.5 was used to build a medical record database of TCM treating COVID-19. Our study collected 263 epidemic medical records comprising COVID-19 related manifestations and found that Chinese Materia Medica (CMM) combinations excavated from ancient medical records included Ren Shen Bai Du San, Wu Ling San, Xiao Chai Hu Tang, Da Cheng Qi Tang, Da Chai Hu Tang, Ling Gui Zhu Gan Tang, and Qing Wen Bai Du Yin. The recurrent CMMs with a high frequency for treating COVID-19 manifestations were Scutellariae Radix (Huang Qin), Paeoniae Alba Radix (Bai Shao), Poria (Fu Ling), and Bupleuri Radix (Chai Hu). Our study suggests that TCM might offer new therapeutic strategies for COVID-19.

Case report: Individualized treatment of advanced breast cancer with the use of the patient-derived tumor-like cell cluster model.

Breast cancer is one of the most common tumors in women. Despite various treatments, the survival of patients with advanced breast cancer is still disappointing. Furthermore, finding an effective individualized treatment for different kinds of patients is a thorny problem. Patient-derived tumor-like cell clusters were reported to be used for personalized drug testing in cancer therapy and had a prediction accuracy of 93%. However, there is still a lack of case reports about its application in the individualized treatment of breast cancer patients. Here, we described four cases of individualized treatment for advanced breast cancer using the patient-derived tumor-like cell cluster model (PTC model). In these four cases, the PTC model showed a good predictive effect. The tumor size was reduced significantly or even disappeared completely through clinical, radiological, or pathological evaluation with the help of the PTC model for selecting an individualized therapy regimen. Furthermore, the drug sensitivity test results of the PTC model were consistent with pathological molecular typing and the actual clinical drug resistance of the patients. In summary, our case report first evaluated the application value of the PTC model in advanced breast cancer, and the PTC model might be used as an efficient tool for drug resistance screening and for selecting a better personalized treatment, although further study is needed to prove the validity and stability of the PTC model in drug screening.

Enabling High-Stability of Aqueous-Processed Nickel-Rich Positive Electrodes in Lithium Metal Batteries.

Lithium batteries occupy the large-scale electric mobility market raising concerns about the environmental impact of cell production, especially regarding the use of poly(vinylidene difluoride) (teratogenic) and N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP, harmful). To avoid their use, an aqueous electrode processing route is utilized in which a water-soluble hybrid acrylic-fluoropolymer together with sodium carboxymethyl cellulose is used as binder, and a thin phosphate coating layer is in situ formed on the surface of the nickel-rich cathode during electrode processing. The resulting electrodes achieve a comparable performance to that of NMP-based electrodes in conventional organic carbonate-based electrolyte (LP30). Subsequently, an ionic liquid electrolyte (ILE) is employed to replace the organic electrolyte, building stable electrode/electrolyte interphases on the surface of the nickel-rich positive electrode (cathode) and metallic lithium negative electrode (anode). In such ILE, the aqueously processed electrodes achieve high cycling stability with a capacity retention of 91% after 1000 cycles (20 °C). In addition, a high capacity of more than 2.5 mAh cm-2 is achieved for high loading electrodes (≈15 mg cm-2 ) by using a modified ILE with 5% vinylene carbonate additive. A path to achieve environmentally friendly electrode manufacturing while maintaining their outstanding performance and structural integrity is demonstrated.

Important Impact of the Slurry Mixing Speed on Water-Processed Li4Ti5O12 Lithium-Ion Anodes in the Presence of H3PO4 as the Processing Additive.

The aqueous processing of lithium transition metal oxides into battery electrodes is attracting a lot of attention as it would allow for avoiding the use of harmful N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) from the cell fabrication process and, thus, render it more sustainable. The addition of slurry additives, for instance phosphoric acid (PA), has been proven to be highly effective for overcoming the corresponding challenges such as aluminum current collector corrosion and stabilization of the active material particle. Herein, a comprehensive investigation of the effect of the ball-milling speed on the effectiveness of PA as a slurry additive is reported using Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) as an exemplary lithium transition metal oxide. Interestingly, at elevated ball-milling speeds, rod-shaped lithium phosphate particles are formed, which remain absent at lower ball-milling speeds. A detailed surface characterization by means of SEM, EDX, HRTEM, STEM-EDX, XPS, and EIS revealed that in the latter case, a thin protective phosphate layer is formed on the LTO particles, leading to an improved electrochemical performance. As a result, the corresponding lithium-ion cells comprising LTO anodes and LiNi0.5Mn0.3Co0.2O2 (NMC532) cathodes reveal greater long-term cycling stability and higher capacity retention after more than 800 cycles. This superior performance originates from the less resistive electrode-electrolyte interphase evolving upon cycling, owing to the interface-stabilizing effect of the lithium phosphate coating formed during electrode preparation. The results highlight the importance of commonly neglected─frequently not even reported─electrode preparation parameters.

Three-dimensional porous structured germanium anode materials for high-performance lithium-ion full-cells.

Germanium (Ge) has a high specific capacity when used as an alloying anode in lithium-ion batteries. However, a large volume of expansion that occurs during charging and discharging hampers its practical applications. In order to improve the stability of the alloying anode, a three-dimensional (3D) germanium/carbon porous composite was produced. In situ X-ray diffraction and electrochemical dilatometry are used to study the alloying electrode's structural evolution during cycling, revealing that the carbon matrix and the linked porosity structure provide a high reversible lithiation and delithiation, resulting in limited electrode volume expansion and high stability. Moreover, combined with a high nickel content cathode, i.e., LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2, the composite achieved a specific energy density of 396 W h kg-1 and stable cycling performance, which show potential for its application in lithium-ion full cells.

An Improved Image Classification Method for Cervical Precancerous Lesions Based on ShuffleNet.

With the rapid development of deep learning, automatic lesion detection is used widely in clinical screening. To solve the problem that existing deep learning-based cervical precancerous lesion detection algorithms cannot meet high classification accuracy and fast running speed at the same time, a ShuffleNet-based cervical precancerous lesion classification method is proposed. By adding channel attention to the ShuffleNet, the network performance is improved. In this study, the image dataset is classified into five categories: normal, cervical cancer, LSIL (CIN1), HSIL (CIN2/CIN3), and cervical neoplasm. The colposcopy images are expanded to solve the problems of the lack of colposcopy images and the uneven distribution of images from each category. For the test dataset, the accuracy of the proposed CNN models is 81.23% and 81.38%. Our classifier achieved an AUC score of 0.99. The experimental results show that the colposcopy image classification network based on artificial intelligence has good performance in classification accuracy and model size, and it has high clinical applicability.

[The measurements of the similarity of dynamic brain functional network].

Brain functional network changes over time along with the process of brain development, disease, and aging. However, most of the available measurements for evaluation of the difference (or similarity) between the individual brain functional networks are for charactering static networks, which do not work with the dynamic characteristics of the brain networks that typically involve a long-span and large-scale evolution over the time. The current study proposes an index for measuring the similarity of dynamic brain networks, named as dynamic network similarity (DNS). It measures the similarity by combining the "evolutional" and "structural" properties of the dynamic network. Four sets of simulated dynamic networks with different evolutional and structural properties (varying amplitude of changes, trend of changes, distribution of connectivity strength, range of connectivity strength) were generated to validate the performance of DNS. In addition, real world imaging datasets, acquired from 13 stroke patients who were treated by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), were used to further validate the proposed method and compared with the traditional similarity measurements that were developed for static network similarity. The results showed that DNS was significantly correlated with the varying amplitude of changes, trend of changes, distribution of connectivity strength and range of connectivity strength of the dynamic networks. DNS was able to appropriately measure the significant similarity of the dynamics of network changes over the time for the patients before and after the tDCS treatments. However, the traditional methods failed, which showed significantly differences between the data before and after the tDCS treatments. The experiment results demonstrate that DNS may robustly measure the similarity of evolutional and structural properties of dynamic networks. The new method appears to be superior to the traditional methods in that the new one is capable of assessing the temporal similarity of dynamic functional imaging data.

Molecular characterization of gene expression changes in murine cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma after 5-aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy.

5-Aminolevulinic acid-based photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) is an effective therapy in treating inoperable cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) in China. However, its exact mechanism in treating cSCC is still unclear. Here, we analyzed expression profiles of lncRNAs and mRNAs of cSCC after ALA-PDT in a mouse model using Mouse Transcriptome Assay 1.0 chip. A total of 592 and 828 differentially expressed genes were identified in comparisons of ALA-PDT after 3 h vs. control, ALA-PDT after 6 h vs. control respectively. Regarding the lncRNAs analysis, a total of 185 and 410 differentially expressed lncRNAs were sought out. Bioinformatics analyses including Gene Ontology, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway, pathway relation network, and gene set enrichment analysis revealed that the pathways of ALA-PDT in treating cSCC were mainly associated with immune regulation, NF-κB signaling pathway, TLR signaling pathway, PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, TNF signaling pathway, and MAPK signaling pathway, which was validated by western blot analysis. Furthermore, a lncRNA-mRNA co-expression network revealed 118 network pairs comprising 36 lncRNAs and 68 mRNAs. These findings provide a basis for investigations into the treatment mechanisms of ALA-PDT in treating cSCC.

The complete chloroplast genome of Bothriochloa ischaemum.

Bothriochloa ischaemum (Linn.) 1936 is a high-quality perennial forage in Loess Plateau of China. In this study, we sequenced and characterized the complete chloroplast genome of B. ischaemum, which was a circular DNA of 138,316 bp in length, including a large single copy (LSC) region of 80,226 bp, a small single copy (SSC) region of 12,526 bp, and the circular DNA was separated by a pair of identical inverted repeat regions (IRs) of 22,782 bp each. A total of 134 genes were identified, including 87 protein-coding genes, 39 tRNA genes, and eight rRNA genes. Phylogenetic tree showed that B. ischaemum was closer to B. decipiens and B. alta, genus Bothriochloa was closely related to genus Pseudanthistiria. Our findings will be helpful for better understanding of genetic diversity of Bothriochloa plants.

[Effects of GLAST gene knockout on phenotype and hearing in mice].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of glutamate aspartate transporter (GLAST)deletion on the normal auditory function of mice. METHODS: We hybridized GLAST+/- mice with C57BL/6J background and identified the genotypes of their offspring by agarose gel electrophoresis. 9-10-week-old mice were selected to detect the expression of GLAST protein in the cochlea by immunofluorescence staining and to verify the knockout results(n=3). The changes in weight from 7 days to 30 days after birth and the 30-day body length of male and female mice were compared(n=8). The auditory brainstem response(ABR) was used to detect the auditory threshold and the amplitude of wave I in 9-10-week-old male and female mice(n=5). RESULTS: Male GLAST-/- mice had shown significantly lower weight and body length compared to male GLAST+/+ and GLAST+/- mice(P＜0.01), and male GLAST-/- mice showed significant differences compared to GLAST+/+ from P7 to P30 statistical time. Male GLAST-/- mice exhibited a significant reduction in weight after P15 compared to male GLAST+/- mice. In contrast, no significant differences in weight and body length were observed in female GLAST-/- mice compared with female GLAST+/+ and GLAST+/- mice. There was no difference in the hearing threshold detected by ABR between the three genotypes in both male and female mice, but the amplitude of wave I in GLAST-/- mice was significantly lower than that in male GLAST+/+ mice(P＜0.01). In contrast, the amplitude of wave I in females was reduced throughout the stimulus intensity but was most significant only at high-intensity stimulation (e.g.80 dB, 90 dB) (P＜0.05). CONCLUSION: GLAST knockout affects the normal growth and development of male mice, and decreases the amplitude of wave I, but do not change the threshold, suggesting that GLAST knockout may lead to synaptic pathological changes, and there are gender differences in this effect.