Altered regional brain activity and functional connectivity in primary intravaginal anejaculation patients revealed by resting-state fMRI.

ABSTRACT: Ejaculation is regulated by the central nervous system. However, the central pathophysiology of primary intravaginal anejaculation (PIAJ) is unclear. The present study aimed to examine the changes in regional brain activity and functional connectivity underlying PIAJ. A total of 20 PIAJ patients and 16 healthy controls (HCs) were enrolled from September 2020 to September 2022 in the Department of Andrology, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital (Nanjing, China). Magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired from all participants and then were preprocessed. The measures of fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF), regional homogeneity (ReHo), and functional connectivity (FC) were calculated and compared between the groups. PIAJ patients showed increased fALFF values in the left precuneus compared with HCs. Additionally, PIAJ patients showed increased ReHo values in the left precuneus, left postcentral gyrus, left superior occipital gyrus, left calcarine fissure, right precuneus, and right middle temporal gyrus, and decreased ReHo values in the left inferior parietal gyrus, compared with HCs. Finally, brain regions with altered fALFF and ReHo values in PIAJ patients showed increased FC with widespread cortical regions, which included the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital regions, compared with HCs. In conclusion, increased regional brain activity in the parietal, temporal, and occipital regions, and increased FC between these brain regions, may be associated with PIAJ occurrence.

Intramedullary nailing for irreducible spiral subtrochanteric fractures: A comparison of cerclage and non-cerclage wiring.

PURPOSE: Intramedullary nailing is the preferred internal fixation technique for the treatment of subtrochanteric fractures because of its biomechanical advantages. However, no definitive conclusion has been reached regarding whether combined cable cerclage is required during intramedullary nailing treatment. This study was performed to compare the clinical effects of intramedullary nailing with cerclage and non-cerclage wiring in the treatment of irreducible spiral subtrochanteric fractures. METHODS: Patients with subtrochanteric fractures admitted to our center from January 2013 to December 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were enrolled in the case-control study according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria and divided into the non-cerclage group and the cerclage group. The patients' clinical data, including the operative time, intraoperative blood loss, hospital stay, reoperation rate, fracture union time, and Harris hip score, were compared between these 2 groups. Categorical variables were compared using Chi-square or Fisher's exact test. Continuous variables with normal distribution were presented as mean ± standard deviation and analyzed with Student's t-test. Non-normally distributed variables were expressed as median (Q1, Q3) and assessed using the Mann-Whitney test. A p value < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: In total, 69 patients were included in the study (35 patients in the non-cerclage group and 34 patients in the cerclage group). The baseline data of the 2 groups were comparable. There were no significant difference in the length of hospital stay (z = -0.391, p = 0.696), operative time (z = -1.289, p = 0.197), or intraoperative blood loss (z = -1.321, p = 0.186). However, compared with non-cerclage group, the fracture union time was shorter (z = -5.587, p < 0.001), the rate of nonunion was lower (χ2 = 6.030, p = 0.03), the anatomical reduction rate was higher (χ2 = 5.449, p = 0.03), and the Harris hip score was higher (z = -2.99, p = 0.003) in the cerclage group, all with statistically significant differences. CONCLUSIONS: Intramedullary nailing combined with cable cerclage wiring is a safe and reliable technique for the treatment of irreducible subtrochanteric fractures. This technique can improve the reduction effect, increase the stability of fracture fixation, shorten the fracture union time, reduce the occurrence of nonunion, and contribute to the recovery of hip joint function.

A global perspective: characteristics of infertility-related randomized clinical trials.

BACKGROUND: Infertility is a prevalent global condition, and emerging reproductive technologies may enhance its evaluation and treatment. Understanding the current features of randomized clinical trials in infertility is crucial for improving study design and ensuring the translation of results for patient benefits. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the primary characteristics of randomized clinical trials related to infertility and areas where require improvement. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a search on the International Clinical Trials Registry platform for eligible infertility trials between 2003 and 2022. The distribution ratio of various characteristics uploaded by infertility-related studies on the platform was analyzed and compared according to sex and registration year. RESULTS: Out of the total trials, 85.3% (1,906) included only women, 8.6% (192) included only men, and 6.1% (136) included couples. The majority of retrieved trials followed a parallel arm design (91.0%) and were non-industry-funded (92.2%), with a median planned sample size of 131 patients (interquartile range 75-270). Among these trials, 54.5% (1,217) were conducted in Asia. The most common primary purpose of infertility-related trials was treatment (88.8%), with over half of the investigated interventions focusing on medication (57.9%). DISCUSSION: Asia is the leading region for research, and the drug therapy is still widely used and updated. However, support care for infertile couples has also received some preference. Areas that require improvement and promotion include addressing male infertility and focusing on underserved regions like Africa. The results also highlight deficiencies in trial registration and masking methods, emphasizing the need for better regulation and facilitation of infertility trials in the post-COVID-19 era. CONCLUSION: Based on the current status of infertility RCT studies, greater attention should be paid to infertile men and populations in underdeveloped regions like Africa in future studies, together with a standardized registration and implementation procedures.

High-Capacity Spatial Structured Light for Robust and Accurate Reconstruction.

Spatial structured light (SL) can achieve three-dimensional measurements with a single shot. As an important branch in the field of dynamic reconstruction, its accuracy, robustness, and density are of vital importance. Currently, there is a wide performance gap of spatial SL between dense reconstruction (but less accurate, e.g., speckle-based SL) and accurate reconstruction (but often sparser, e.g., shape-coded SL). The central problem lies in the coding strategy and the designed coding features. This paper aims to improve the density and quantity of reconstructed point clouds by spatial SL whilst also maintaining a high accuracy. Firstly, a new pseudo-2D pattern generation strategy was developed, which can improve the coding capacity of shape-coded SL greatly. Then, to extract the dense feature points robustly and accurately, an end-to-end corner detection method based on deep learning was developed. Finally, the pseudo-2D pattern was decoded with the aid of the epipolar constraint. Experimental results validated the effectiveness of the proposed system.

In vivo study revealed pro-tumorigenic effect of CMTM3 in hepatocellular carcinoma involving the regulation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ).

PURPOSE: To clarify the ambiguity of the function of CMTM3 in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and explore its molecular mechanism. METHODS: The Cmtm3-KO C57BL/6 mouse strain was established using CRISPR-Cas9. Acute liver damage and HCC models were induced by peritoneal injection of 100 or 25 mg/kg.BW N-Nitrosodiethylamine (DEN) to male mice. Liver function and histology were evaluated by blood serum levels of AST and ALT, and HE staining. Gene and protein expression in liver tissues was investigated by RNA-seq, RT-qPCR, Western blotting, immunohistochemistry, and immunofluorescence. Protein-protein interactions were studied by STRING and topological measures. The mRNA expression of CMTM3 and PPARs and patient survival were analyzed using the UALCAN database. RESULTS: Global knockout of Cmtm3 in KO mice was successfully confirmed. Cmtm3 knockout alleviated DEN-induced acute damage to liver histological integrity and liver function, reduced DNA damage and apoptosis, and also caused a significantly reduced number (WT: 8.7 ± 5.5 vs. KO: 2.7 ± 3.1, P = 0.0394) and total size of tumors (WT: 130.9 ± 181.8 mm2 vs. KO: 9.3 ± 11.5 mm2, P = 0.026) in the liver. Mechanistically, Cmtm3 knockout resulted in reduced expression and inactivation of Pparγ and its downstream lipid metabolism genes (e.g. Adipoq) upon DEN intoxication. CMTM3 and PPARγ were both overexpressed in HCC, and higher levels of both genes were associated with worse overall survival of HCC patients. CONCLUSION: This study clarified the pro-tumorigenesis role of CMTM3 in HCC in vivo, possibly through the upregulation of PPARγ and activation of the PPAR pathway.

The effects of metabolic indicators and immune biomarkers on pregnancy outcomes in women with recurrent spontaneous abortion: a retrospective study.

Background: The etiology of recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) remains elusive despite specific investigations affirming the association between RSA and thyroid autoimmunity (TAI). This study explores the immunological and metabolic profiles of RSA patients exhibiting positive thyroid antibodies and their connection with the rates of first-trimester miscarriage and live births. The aim is to provide further guidance for clinical interventions. Methods: A retrospective analysis included 478 women with RSA. Thyroid profile, thyroid peroxidase antibodies, and anti-thyroglobulin antibodies were measured in all participants. The clinical characteristics and pregnancy outcomes of RSA women were compared between thyroid autoimmunity (TAI)-positive and TAI-negative patients. Significant factors associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes and risk prediction models were explored in TAI-positive patients. Correlation analysis was used to identify specific metabolic or immune biomarkers associated with thyroid autoantibodies. Results: The prevalence of TAI was 18.6%. Compared with women without TAI, the thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) concentration of TAI-positive RSA was significantly higher (2.80 ± 2.98 vs 1.89 ± 1.17, p=0.006). After 28 weeks, the live birth rate of the TAI-positive group was lower than that of the TAI-negative group, with statistical significance (p<0.05). The immune biomarkers that differed between RSA women with live births and those with first-trimester miscarriages were complement C4 and interleukin-6, respectively, in TAI-negative and TAI-positive women. Then, a risk prediction model for first-trimester miscarriage was constructed for TAI-positive women with an AUC of 0.81. Finally, some factors related to thyroid peroxidase antibody (TPO-Ab) levels were explored, and it was found that TPO-Ab levels were positively correlated with free thyroxine and negatively correlated with 25 hydroxyvitamin D, interleukin-4, and fasting blood glucose in RSA patients. Conclusion: TAI-positive RSA patients have higher first-trimester miscarriage rates and a lower live birth rate, which may be related to metabolic immune shifts in TAI-positive RSA patients.

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To select the tree species assembly model for improving the productivity in south subtropical plantations, we carried out an experiment following a random block design with eight native tree species across a richness gradient of 1, 2, 4, and 6 species. The effects of tree species diversity and species mixing with different functional identities on the young tree growth were investigated in the 5th year of the experiment. The results showed that tree growth was not positively correlated with tree species richness. The growth of fast-growing tree species (Pinus massoniana and Mytilaria laosensis) in the monoculture was 2.5-4.5 times of the valuable broadleaved tree species (Castanopsis hystrix and Erythrophleum fordii) monoculture. Tree growth was significantly increased by 51.5%-132.8% in the conifer and broadleaved tree species mixing plantations and in the fast-growing and nitrogen fixation tree species mixing plantations, when two tree species or four tree species were mixed. There was no significant difference in tree growth among different tree species mixed types, when six tree species were mixed. The contents of soil nitrogen, phosphorus and organic matter were the main factors affecting tree growth. The results indicated that young tree growth could be improved through the selecting conifer and broadleaved tree species mixing, fast-growing and nitrogen fixation tree species mixing in south subtropical plantations.

The Association Between the Albumin and Viral Negative Conversion Rate in Patients Infected with Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Purpose: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic is the severe global pandemic with large numbers of infected cases and deaths in recent decades. The previous studies were all about the influence of albumin (ALB) for the severity and mortality of in-patients infected with COVID-19. But few studies exist about the influence factors to achieve viral negative conversion. Therefore, this study conducted an exploratory study to investigate the effect of albumin on negative conversion rate. Methods: Among the 190 hospitalized patients with moderate COVID-19 who had a course of disease longer than 30 days, 102 achieved viral negative conversion in 30-45 days and 88 not after 45 days. Taking other variables as concomitant variable, Cox proportional hazard regression model was applied to explore the influence of albumin to negative conversion rate under various factors. Results: By comparing patients who could and could not achieve the finally viral negative conversion, a possible nonlinear relationship between the continuous variables and clinical outcomes was examined by a restricted cubic spline regression model. An association was found between albumin levels and hazard ratio of viral negative conversion rate (P = 0.027). The increase of albumin was accompanied with decreases of hazard ratio of viral negative conversion rate (the value of albumin <38 g/L). But when the value of albumin was higher than 38 g/L, the hazard ratio of viral negative conversion rate approached 1, it means that albumin is not a risk factor for the viral negative conversion rate of COVID-19 disease. Conclusion: For patients with COVID-19, albumin is a common and observed laboratory parameter. It is associated with final viral negative conversion rate although its underlying mechanism and relationship with the viral negative conversion rate still need to be clarified.

Melatonin ameliorates paclitaxel-induced mice spermatogenesis and fertility defects.

Chemotherapeutic drug of paclitaxel (PTX) has been shown to cause reproductive toxicity thus affecting male fertility, but its underlying molecular basis is unclear. Melatonin (MLT) can mitigate the reproductive damage caused by certain chemotherapy drugs. In this study, we aimed to identify impact of PTX on the main biological processes and protective effect of MLT on reproductive damage caused by PTX. Mice exposed to PTX mainly impaired spermatogenesis, such as decreased sperm counts, reduced sperm motility and increased abnormal sperm. Decreased expressions of germ cell proliferation-associated protein PCNA and meiosis-related protein SYCP3 induced by PTX were determined by Western blot, while MLT ameliorated this effect and increased the expressions of PCNA, SYCP3, DMC1, STRA8 and fertility-related protein of HSPA2, resulting in significantly improved spermatogenesis and sperm quality levels. In vitro fertilization experiment showed that PTX significantly decreased blastocyst formation rates, which can be improved by MLT administration, but not two-cell development rates. Taken together, this work demonstrated PTX can adversely affect germ cell proliferation and meiosis, which ultimately influence sperm quality and male fertility, and highlighted the protective ability of MLT on ameliorating the side effects of PTX, especially on sperm quality. The results provide information to further the study on the molecular mechanism of PTX's effects on male reproduction and the protective mechanism of MLT.

Expressions of HSPA1L and HSPA9 are associated with poor sperm quality of low-motility spermatozoa in fertile men.

Human semen is a heterogeneous group containing a portion of low-motility sperm, which may determine the sperm quality evaluation. Abnormally expressed proteins in low-motility spermatozoa will be the candidates for sperm biology research. By comparing proteomes of high- or low-motility spermatozoa from the same semen of normal fertile men, 21 differentially expressed proteins were identified. Proteins with molecular chaperone function were significantly over-represented, of which HSPA1L and HSPA9 significantly decreased in low-motility sperm. Compared with young adult testes with normal spermatogenesis, HSPA1L and HSPA9 had decreased expressions in elderly testis characterised with poor spermatogenesis, suggesting their associations with spermatogenesis. Decreased expressions of HSPA1L and HSPA9 in low-motility spermatozoa were validated by Western Blot and immunofluorescence quantification analysis. HSPA1L was mainly expressed on sperm post-acrosome and midpiece, whilst HSAP9 was mainly expressed on acrosome and sperm tail. HSPA1L antibody could inhibit sperm motility validated by antibody blocking experiment, whilst HSPA9 antibody showed no significant effect on sperm motility. The study demonstrated that low-motility spermatozoa from fertile men had poor sperm quality, in which differential expressed proteins were promising markers for evaluating sperm quality, understanding mechanism of male infertility with unexplained causes, and providing new idea for male infertility research.

Weakly Aligned Feature Fusion for Multimodal Object Detection.

To achieve accurate and robust object detection in the real-world scenario, various forms of images are incorporated, such as color, thermal, and depth. However, multimodal data often suffer from the position shift problem, i.e., the image pair is not strictly aligned, making one object has different positions in different modalities. For the deep learning method, this problem makes it difficult to fuse multimodal features and puzzles the convolutional neural network (CNN) training. In this article, we propose a general multimodal detector named aligned region CNN (AR-CNN) to tackle the position shift problem. First, a region feature (RF) alignment module with adjacent similarity constraint is designed to consistently predict the position shift between two modalities and adaptively align the cross-modal RFs. Second, we propose a novel region of interest (RoI) jitter strategy to improve the robustness to unexpected shift patterns. Third, we present a new multimodal feature fusion method that selects the more reliable feature and suppresses the less useful one via feature reweighting. In addition, by locating bounding boxes in both modalities and building their relationships, we provide novel multimodal labeling named KAIST-Paired. Extensive experiments on 2-D and 3-D object detection, RGB-T, and RGB-D datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our method.

Diagnosis values of IL-6 and IL-8 levels in serum and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid for invasive pulmonary aspergillosis in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Among immunologically normal hosts, patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are considered to be at high risk of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA), and early diagnosis and treatment are the key to improving the prognosis of patients. Here we aimed to evaluate whether interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-8 might be used in the detection and diagnosis of IPA in patients with COPD. We prospectively collected 106 patients with COPD and divided them into non-IPA (n=74), probable/possible IPA (n=26) and proven IPA (n=6). Platelia Aspergillus kit was used to detect galactomannan in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), and serum and ELISA kit was used to detect IL-6 and IL-8 levels. Diagnostic efficiency of IL-6, IL-8 and galactomannan in serum and BALF was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic curve. Compared with the non-IPA group, the proven/probable IPA group showed significantly elevated levels of IL-6 and IL-8 in both serum and BALF, which were positively correlated with galactomannan levels. The sensitivity and specificity of IL-6 for diagnosing IPA were 74.32% and 81.25% (cut-off at 92.82 pg/mL, area under the curve (AUC)=0.8366) in serum and 68.92% and 71.88% (cut-off at 229.4 pg/mL, AUC=0.7694) in BALF. The sensitivity and specificity of IL-8 for diagnosing IPA were 83.78% and 81.25% (cut-off at 93.46 pg/mL, AUC=0.8756) in serum and 85.14% and 75.00% (cut-off at 325.4 pg/mL, AUC=0.8252) in BALF. The elevated levels of IL-6 and IL-8 in patients with IPA with COPD could be used as auxiliary indicators to diagnose IPA in addition to galactomannan.

3D reconstruction of the specular surface using an iterative stereoscopic deflectometry method.

Phase measuring deflectometry (PMD) is an effective technique for three-dimensional measurement of specular surfaces. However, the ambiguity of monoscopic PMD and the time-consuming searching process of stereoscopic PMD are challenges for specular surface reconstruction. To solve it, we propose an iterative reconstruction algorithm for the stereoscopic phase measuring deflectometry system free of the time-consuming searching process for each pixel. An arbitrary seed point on the specular surface is accurately obtained via a coarse-to-fine optimization means without any other expensive and complicate auxiliaries. Then, a plane with the height of seed point is set as the initial surface form for the iteration, in which the pinhole model is used to find the linear relation to update the surface form. The converging height is the output as the final result. Simulations and experiments verify the feasibility and efficiency of our proposed method based on the stereoscopic phase measuring deflectometry system. The accuracy and robustness are comprehensively evaluated as well.

Enhancing the sustainability of KsdD as a biocatalyst for steroid transformation by immobilization on epoxy support.

The Δ1-dehydrogenation of 3-ketosteroid substrates is a crucial reaction in the production of steroids. Although 3-ketosteroid Δ1-dehydrogenase (KsdD) catalyzes this reaction with high efficiency and selectivity, the low stability and high cost of the purified enzyme catalyst have limited its industrial application. In this study, an epoxy support was used to evaluate the covalent immobilization of KsdD from Pimelobacter simplex, and the best androsta-1,4-diene-317-dione (ADD) production was achieved after optimized immobilization of KsdD enzyme in 1.5 M NaH2PO4- Na2HPO4 buffer (pH 6.5) for 12 h at 25 °C. The immobilized KsdD exhibited higher tolerance toward 20 % methanol. The dehydrogenation reaction reached a conversion efficiency of up to 90.0 % in 2 h when using 0.6 mg/mL of 4-androstene-317-dione (AD). The W299A and W299 G mutants of KsdD were also immobilized, and both showed the better catalytic performance with higher kcat/KM values compared with the wild type (WT). The immobilized W299A, W299 G and WT KsdD respectively maintained 70.5, 65.7 and 38.7 % of their initial activity at the end of 15 reaction cycles. Furthermore, the W299A retained 66.3 % of the initial activity after 30 days of incubation at 4 °C, and was more stable than free KsdD, Thus, the immobilized W299A is a promising biocatalyst for steroid dehydrogenation. In this study, we investigated the application of immobilized enzymes for the dehydrogenation of steroids, which will be of great importance for improving the development of green technology and sustainable use of biocatalysts in the steroid manufacturing industry.

Establishment and characterization of a gill cell line from pearl gentian grouper (Epinephelus lanceolatus♂×Epinephelus fuscoguttatus♀) and its application in cadmium toxicology.

A novel gill cell line from pearl gentian grouper (Epinephelus lanceolatus♂×Epinephelus fuscoguttatus♀, PGGG cell line) was established, its application in cadmium (Cd) toxicology was demonstrated in this study. Primary cultures and PGGG subcultures were carried out at 25 °C in Dulbecco's Modified Eagle medium/F12 medium (1:1; pH 7.2) supplemented with 15% fetal bovine serum (FBS). Primary PGGG cells were spindle-shaped, proliferated into a confluent monolayer within two weeks and were continuously subcultured over passage 60. The growth of cells at passages 20, 40, and 60 was examined. Chromosome analysis revealed that the chromosomal number of normal PGGG cells was 48, but the number of cells with the normal chromosomes number decreased during the passaging process. Cadmium is one of the most toxic metals in aquatic systems and has been associated with multiple animal and human health problems. To interpret the cytotoxicity and related mechanisms of cadmium, PGGG cells were used as an in vitro model. After treatment with cadmium at concentrations ranging from 1 µM to 500 µM, PGGG cells demonstrated dose- and time-dependent cytotoxicity, manifested as morphological abnormalities and a viability decline. Further, it was found that the reactive oxygen species (ROS) and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were elevated following cadmium exposure, and related genes involved in the antioxidant system, including those encoding catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione reductase (GR), and Kelch-like- ECH-associated protein 1 (Keap1), were regulated differently. In addition, PGGG cells treated with cadmium had the typical features associated with apoptosis, including phosphatidylserine (PS) externalization; upregulated expression of caspase-3, -8, and -9; and apoptotic body formation. In general, the PGGG cell line may serve as a useful tool for studying the toxic mechanisms of cadmium or other toxicants or for toxicity testing and environment monitoring.

Customized exogenous ferredoxin functions as an efficient electron carrier.

Ferredoxin (Fdx) is regarded as the main electron carrier in biological electron transfer and acts as an electron donor in metabolic pathways of many organisms. Here, we screened a self-sufficient P450-derived reductase PRF with promising production yield of 9OHAD (9α-hydroxy4-androstene-3,17-dione) from AD, and further proved the importance of [2Fe-2S] clusters of ferredoxin-oxidoreductase in transferring electrons in steroidal conversion. The results of truncated Fdx domain in all oxidoreductases and mutagenesis data elucidated the indispensable role of [2Fe-2S] clusters in the electron transfer process. By adding the independent plant-type Fdx to the reaction system, the AD (4-androstene-3,17-dione) conversion rate have been significantly improved. A novel efficient electron transfer pathway of PRF + Fdx + KshA (KshA, Rieske-type oxygenase of 3-ketosteroid-9-hydroxylase) in the reaction system rather than KshAB complex system was proposed based on analysis of protein-protein interactions and redox potential measurement. Adding free Fdx created a new conduit for electrons to travel from reductase to oxygenase. This electron transfer pathway provides new insight for the development of efficient exogenous Fdx as an electron carrier.

Dot-coded structured light for accurate and robust 3D reconstruction.

Speckle dots have the advantage of easy projection, which makes them good candidate features of structured light (SL) cameras, such as Kinect v1. However, they generally yield poor accuracy due to block matching. To improve their accuracy, this paper proposes a dot-coded SL, the coding information of which is added into dot distribution. Some of the dots are arranged regularly to provide easy-to-locate corner features, while others are specially designed to form different shapes of unique identification. A Gaussian-cross module and a simplified ResNet have been proposed to conduct robust decoding. Various experiments are performed to verify the accuracy and robustness of our framework.

Expression, Purification, Refolding, and Characterization of a Neverland Protein From Caenorhabditis elegans.

Steroid hormones that serve as vital compounds are necessary for the development and metabolism of a variety of organisms. The neverland (NVD) family genes encode the conserved Rieske-type oxygenases, which are accountable for the dehydrogenation during the synthesis and regulation of steroid hormones. However, the His-tagged NVD protein from Caenorhabditis elegans expresses as inclusion bodies in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). This bottleneck can be solved through refolding by urea or the introduction of a maltose-binding protein (MBP) tag at the N-terminus. Through further research on purification after the introduction of a MBP tag at the N-terminus, the CD measurement and fluorescence-based thermal shift assay indicated that MBP was favorable for the NVD proteins' solubility and stability, which may be beneficial for the large-scale manufacture of NVD protein for further research. The structural model contained the Rieske [2Fe-2S] domain and non-heme iron-binding motif, which were similar to 3-ketosteroid 9 α-hydroxylase.

Eliminating the Effect of Reflectance Properties on Reconstruction in Stripe Structured Light System.

The acquisition of the geometry of general scenes is related to the interplay of surface geometry, material properties and illumination characteristics. Surface texture and non-Lambertian reflectance properties degrade the reconstruction results by structured light technique. Existing structured light techniques focus on different coding strategy and light sources to improve reconstruction accuracy. The hybrid system consisting of a structured light technique and photometric stereo combines the depth value with normal information to refine the reconstruction results. In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid system consisting of stripe-based structured light and photometric stereo. The effect of surface texture and non-Lambertian reflection on stripe detection is first concluded. Contrary to existing fusion strategy, we propose an improved method for stripe detection to reduce the above factor's effects on accuracy. The reconstruction problem for general scene comes down to using reflectance properties to improve the accuracy of stripe detection. Several objects, including checkerboard, metal-flat plane and free-form objects with complex reflectance properties, were reconstructed to validate our proposed method, which illustrates the effectiveness on improving the reconstruction accuracy of complex objects. The three-step phase-shifting algorithm was implemented and the reconstruction results were given and also compared with ours. In addition, our proposed framework provides a new feasible scheme for solving the ongoing problem of the reconstruction of complex objects with variant reflectance. The problem can be solved by subtracting the non-Lambertian components from the original grey values of stripe to improve the accuracy of stripe detection. In the future, based on stripe structured light technique, more general reflection models can be used to model different types of reflection properties of complex objects.