Trends in Number and Appropriateness of Prescription Medication Utilization among Community-Dwelling Older Adults in the US: 2011-2020.

BACKGROUND: Contemporary data on the quantity and quality of medication use among older adults are lacking. This study examined recent trends in number and appropriateness of prescription medication use among older adults in the US. METHOD: Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2011 and March 2020 were used and 6336 adult participants aged 65 and older were included. We examined the number of prescription medication, prevalence of polypharmacy (≥5 prescription drugs), use of potentially inappropriate medication (PIM), and use of recommended medications (ACEI/ARBs plus beta-blockers among patients with heart failure and ACEI/ARBs among patients with albuminuria). RESULTS: There has been a slight increase in the prevalence of polypharmacy (39.3% in 2011-2012 to 43.8% in 2017-2020, p for trend= 0.32). Antihypertensive, antihyperlipidemic, antidiabetic medications, and antidepressants are the most commonly used medications. There was no substantial change in the use of PIM (17.0% to 14.7%). Less than 50% of older adults with heart failure received ACEI/ARBs plus beta-blockers (44.3% in 2017-2020) and approximately 50% patients with albuminuria received ACEI/ARBs (54.0 in 2017-2020), with no improvement over the study period. Polypharmacy, older age, female, and lower socioeconomic status generally were associated with greater use of PIM but lower use of recommended medications. CONCLUSIONS: The medication burden remained high among older adults in the US and the appropriate utilization of medications did not improve in the recent decade. Our results underscore the need for greater attentions and interventions to the quality of medication use among older adults.

MI-MZI based distributed optical fiber sensor for location and pattern recognition.

This research addressed the drawbacks of the conventional hybrid structure and processing technique by presenting a novel distributed fiber optic sensor based on a hybrid Michelson and Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The sensor can achieve blind spot free positioning and has a wide response frequency, additionally its structure is not complex. It can obtain two phase signals from each of the two interferometers by using a demodulation method that uses a 3 × 3 optical coupler. To determine the position of the disturbance, we computed cross-correlations on the two signals following basic mathematical techniques. Markov Transition Field was used to transform the phase signals-which had been filtered by a band pass filter-into two-dimensional images. Tagged photos built a dataset, which is then fed into a neural network to identify patterns. Experiments have shown that the frequency response capacity of the structure was verified, and it was able to achieve location within 0-30 km with location errors of ±85 m. In a six-category pattern recognition, the testing set accuracy was 98.74%.

Research progress of immunotherapy against anaplastic thyroid cancer.

Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is the most aggressive type of thyroid cancer. While ATC is rare, its mortality is high. Standard treatments, such as surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, have demonstrated limited efficacy in managing ATC. However, the advent of immunotherapy has significantly improved the prognosis for patients with ATC. Immunotherapy effectively targets and eliminates tumor cells by using the power of the body's immune cells. The neoantigen is an atypical protein generated by somatic mutation, is exclusively observed in neoplastic cells, and is devoid of central tolerance. Neoantigens exhibit enhanced specificity towards tumor cells and display robust immunogenic properties. Currently, neoantigen therapy is primarily applied in immune checkpoint inhibitors and cellular immunotherapy, encompassing adoptive immunotherapy and tumor vaccines. This study discusses the mechanism, tumor microenvironment, clinical trials, adverse events, limitations and future directions associated with ATC immunotherapy.

Dysregulations of amino acid metabolism and lipid metabolism in urine of children and adolescents with major depressive disorder: a case-control study.

RATIONALE: The mechanisms underlying major depressive disorder (MDD) in children and adolescents are unclear. Metabolomics has been utilized to capture metabolic signatures of various psychiatric disorders; however, urinary metabolic profile of MDD in children and adolescents has not been studied. OBJECTIVES: We analyzed urinary metabolites in children and adolescents with MDD to identify potential biomarkers and metabolic signatures. METHODS: Here, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry was used to profile metabolites in urine samples from 192 subjects, comprising 80 individuals with antidepressant-naïve MDD (AN-MDD), 37 with antidepressant-treated MDD (AT-MDD) and 75 healthy controls (HC). We performed orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis to identify differential metabolites and employed logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic analysis to establish a diagnostic panel. RESULTS: In total, 143 and 71 differential metabolites were identified in AN-MDD and AT-MDD, respectively. These were primarily linked to lipid metabolism, molecular transport, and small molecule biochemistry. AN-MDD additionally exhibited dysregulated amino acid metabolism. Compared to HC, a diagnostic panel of seven metabolites displayed area under the receiver operating characteristic curves of 0.792 for AN-MDD, 0.828 for AT-MDD, and 0.799 for all MDD. Furthermore, the urinary metabolic profiles of children and adolescents with MDD significantly differed from those of adult MDD. CONCLUSIONS: Our research suggests dysregulated amino acid metabolism and lipid metabolism in the urine of children and adolescents with MDD, similar to results in plasma metabolomics studies. This contributes to the comprehension of mechanisms underlying children and adolescents with MDD.

Efficacy and safety evaluation of Ginkgo biloba dropping pill (GBDP) on stable angina pectoris complicated with depression: A placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind, multicenter study.

BACKGROUND: Stable angina pectoris (SAP) is a clinical condition characterized by reversible and temporary myocardial ischemia and hypoxia. A majority of SAP patients also experience depressive disorders, which adversely affect their disease prognosis and overall quality of life. However, the clinical utility of existing antidepressants is constrained by their side effects. Ginkgo biloba dropping pill (GBDP), a Chinese patented medication, has demonstrated efficacy in the treatment of both coronary heart disease and mental disorders. This prospective, randomized, double-blind, multicenter clinical trial aimed to assess the effectiveness and safety of GBDP as an adjuvant therapy for SAP complicated by depression. METHODS: Participants were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive either GBDP or a placebo (5 pills, three times a day) in addition to standard therapy for a duration of 12 weeks. The Seattle Angina Questionnaire (SAQ) was administered every 4 weeks during the treatment, and angina event frequency was assessed weekly. The 36-item Short-Form (SF-36) and Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD) scores were measured both before and after the treatment. RESULTS: Out of the 72 patients, 68 (n = 34 per group) completed the entire study. At the first visit (4 weeks ± 3 days), the SAQ-Angina Stability score in the GBDP group was significantly higher than that in the placebo group (p < 0.05). While the average weekly frequency of angina episodes in the placebo group notably increased after 12 weeks of treatment (p < 0.05), it displayed an improving trend in the GBDP group (p > 0.05). By the endpoint, each subcategory score of SF-36 in the GBDP group exhibited significant improvement compared to baseline (p < 0.05). The comparison of score improvement between the two groups revealed that the SF-PCS score of the GBDP group was higher than that of the placebo group (p < 0.05). HAMD scores in both groups significantly increased after treatment (p < 0.05). No discernible difference in the incidence of adverse reactions was observed between the two groups (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: In patients with SAP complicated by depression, GBDP, when combined with standard treatment, rapidly and safely alleviates angina pectoris symptoms. It demonstrates therapeutic potential in enhancing the quality of life and alleviating depressive symptoms.

Peripheral T cell lymphoma initially presenting in lung biopsies: A diagnostic challenge.

BACKGROUND: Primary or secondary pulmonary involvement by peripheral T cell lymphoma (PTCL) is rare and difficult to diagnose particularly via lung biopsies. METHODS: 22 cases of PTCL diagnosed initially in lung biopsies between January 2006 and November 2020 were retrospectively reviewed followed at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital and the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, respectively, including clinical manifestations, baseline biochemical indexes, images, histological findings and other available ancillary studies such as immunostaining, Epstein-Barr virus encoded RNA (EBER) in situ hybridization and T-cell receptor rearrangement analysis upon diagnosis. RESULTS: The median age of these patients was 59 years old (range: 29-82 years) at diagnosis. The majority of them complained of fever, cough and fatigue. Computed tomography scans mainly revealed multiple ill-defined nodules/masses of various sizes and densities with or without air bronchogram. Microscopically, most lesions showed lymphoid cells with clear cytoplasm and irregular nuclear contours diffusely infiltrating alveolar septa or alveolar spaces in an inflammatory background. Several cases had a predominance of small neoplastic cells (n = 4) with atypical, irregular nuclei. One case showed a diffuse monotonous pattern of growth. Angioinvasion and necrosis were not uncommon findings. The neoplastic cells in all cases were positive for one or more T-cell markers, and negative for B-cell-lineage antigens and EBER. 19 out of 22 patients had complete follow-up information, and 17 patients were dead at the last follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Pulmonary involvement by PTCL is rare with dismal outcome. Aggressive clinical course and several clinicopathologic clues, albeit unspecific, may alert the pathologists of the possibilities of pulmonary PTCLs.

Identifying plasma metabolic characteristics of major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia in adolescents.

Major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar disorder (BD), and schizophrenia (SCZ) are classified as major mental disorders and together account for the second-highest global disease burden, and half of these patients experience symptom onset in adolescence. Several studies have reported both similar and unique features regarding the risk factors and clinical symptoms of these three disorders. However, it is still unclear whether these disorders have similar or unique metabolic characteristics in adolescents. We conducted a metabolomics analysis of plasma samples from adolescent healthy controls (HCs) and patients with MDD, BD, and SCZ. We identified differentially expressed metabolites between patients and HCs. Based on the differentially expressed metabolites, correlation analysis, metabolic pathway analysis, and potential diagnostic biomarker identification were conducted for disorders and HCs. Our results showed significant changes in plasma metabolism between patients with these mental disorders and HCs; the most distinct changes were observed in SCZ patients. Moreover, the metabolic differences in BD patients shared features with those in both MDD and SCZ, although the BD metabolic profile was closer to that of MDD than to SCZ. Additionally, we identified the metabolites responsible for the similar and unique metabolic characteristics in multiple metabolic pathways. The similar significant differences among the three disorders were found in fatty acid, steroid-hormone, purine, nicotinate, glutamate, tryptophan, arginine, and proline metabolism. Interestingly, we found unique characteristics of significantly altered glycolysis, glycerophospholipid, and sphingolipid metabolism in SCZ; lysine, cysteine, and methionine metabolism in MDD and BD; and phenylalanine, tyrosine, and aspartate metabolism in SCZ and BD. Finally, we identified five panels of potential diagnostic biomarkers for MDD-HC, BD-HC, SCZ-HC, MDD-SCZ, and BD-SCZ comparisons. Our findings suggest that metabolic characteristics in plasma vary across psychiatric disorders and that critical metabolites provide new clues regarding molecular mechanisms in these three psychiatric disorders.

Adolescent male rats show altered gut microbiota composition associated with depressive-like behavior after chronic unpredictable mild stress: Differences from adult rats.

Accumulating evidence reveals the metabolism and neurotransmitter systems are different in major depressive disorder (MDD) between adolescent and adult patients; however, much is still unknown from the gut microbiome perspective. To minimize confounding factors such as geographical location, ethnicity, diet, and drugs, we investigated the gut microbial differences between adolescent and adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. We exposed the adolescent rats to chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) for 3 weeks and assessed their behavior using the sucrose preference test (SPT), open field test (OFT), and forced swimming test (FST). We collected and sequenced fecal samples after the behavioral tests and compared them with our previous data on adult rats. Both adolescent and adult CUMS rats exhibited reduced sucrose preference in SPT, reduced total distance in OFT, and increased immobility time in FST. Moreover, compared to their respective controls, the adolescent CUMS rats had distinct amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) mainly in the Muribaculaceae family, Bacteroidetes phylum, while the adult CUMS rats had those in the Lachnospiraceae family, Firmicutes phylum. In the adolescent group, the Muribaculaceae negatively correlated with FST and positively correlated with SPT and OFT. In the adult group, the different genera in the Lachnospiraceae showed opposite correlations with FST. Furthermore, the adolescent CUMS rats showed disrupted microbial functions, such as "Xenobiotics biodegradation and metabolism" and "Immune system", while the adult CUMS rats did not. These results confirmed the gut microbiota differences between adolescent and adult rats after CUMS modeling and provided new insight into the age-related influence on depression models.

Crosstalk between endothelial cells with a non-canonical EndoMT phenotype and cardiomyocytes/fibroblasts via IGFBP5 aggravates TAC-induced cardiac dysfunction.

Heart failure (HF) is a complex chronic condition characterized by structural and functional impairments. The differentiation of endothelial cells into myofibroblasts (EndoMT) in response to cardiac fibrosis is controversial, and the relative contribution of endothelial plasticity remains to be explored. Single-cell RNA sequencing was used to identify endothelial cells undergoing fibrotic differentiation within 2 weeks of transverse aortic constriction (TAC). This subset of endothelial cells transiently expressed fibrotic genes but had low expression of alpha-smooth muscle actin, indicating a non-canonical EndoMT, which we named a transient fibrotic-like phenotype (EndoFP). The role of EndoFP in pathological cardiac remodeling may be correlated with increased levels of osteopontin. Cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts co-cultured with EndoFP exhibited heightened pro-hypertrophic and pro-fibrotic effects. Mechanistically, we found that the upregulated expression of insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 5 may be a key mediator of EndoFP-induced cardiac dysfunction. Furthermore, our findings suggested that Rab5a is a novel regulatory gene involved in the EndoFP process. Our study suggests that the specific endothelial subset identified in TAC-induced pressure overload plays a critical role in the cellular interactions that lead to cardiac fibrosis and hypertrophy. Additionally, our findings provide insight into the mechanisms underlying EndoFP, making it a potential therapeutic target for early heart failure.

Arsenic (As) accumulation in different genotypes of indica rice (Oryza sativa L.) and health risk assessment based on inorganic As.

To reveal differences in arsenic (As) accumulation among indica rice cultivars and assess the human health risks arising from inorganic arsenic (iAs) intake via rice consumption, a total of 320 field indica rice samples and corresponding soil samples were collected from Fujian Province in China. The results showed that available soil As (0.03 to 3.83 mg/kg) showed a statistically significant positive correlation with total soil As (0.10 to 19.45 mg/kg). The inorganic As content in brown rice was between 0.001 and 0.316 mg/kg. Among the cultivars, ten brown rice samples (3.13%) exceeded the maximum contaminant level (MCL) of iAs in food of 0.2 mg/kg in China. The estimated daily intake (EDI) and calculated individual incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR) ranged from 0.337 µg/day to 106.60 µg/day and from 8.18 × 10-6 to 2.59 × 10-3, respectively. Surprisingly, the average EDI and the EDIs of 258 (80.63%) brown rice samples were higher than the maximum daily intake (MDI) of 10 µg/day in drinking water as set by the National Research Council. The mean ILCR associated with iAs was 54.3 per 100,000, which exceeds the acceptable upper limit (AUL) of 10 per 100,000 set by the USEPA. Notably, the cultivars Y-Liang-You 1 and Shi-Ji 137 exhibited significantly higher mean ILCRs compared to the AUL and other cultivars, indicating that they pose more serious cancer risks to the local population. Finally, this study demonstrated that the cultivars Yi-Xiang 2292 and Quan-Zhen 10 were the optimal cultivars to mitigate risks associated with iAs to human health from rice consumption.

Flexible Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Tape Based on Ag Nanostructured Substrate for On-Site Analyte Detection.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has emerged as a powerful surface analytical technique that amplifies Raman scattering signals of molecules adsorbed onto metal nanostructured surfaces. The droplet reaction method has recently been employed to fabricate large-scale microring patterns of silver (Ag) nanostructures on rigid substrates, which enables sensitive detection within the ring area. However, these rigid substrates present limitations for direct on-site detection of analyte residues on irregular sample surfaces. There is a need to develop soft and flexible SERS substrates that can intimately conform to arbitrary surfaces. In this study, we presented a SERS substrate using flexible and adhesive tape as the supporting material. This SERS tape was fabricated by repeatedly transferring presynthesized Ag nanostructures from a rigid substrate to the tape. For a model compound adenine, our SERS tape exhibited a good linear response from 5 × 10-4 M to 5 × 10-5 M with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 5 × 10-7 M and displayed a SERS enhancement factor (EF) of 3.2 × 105. The relative standard deviation (RSD) of SERS intensity achieved was as low as 1.93%, indicating its outstanding uniformity. The as-prepared SERS tape was used for in situ detection of pesticide residue on an apple surface and dye residue on human hair. Leveraging the large surface area of Ag nanostructure patterns from the droplet reaction, the developed SERS tape demonstrates excellent performance in terms of sensitivity and uniformity. The successful detection of analyte residues on arbitrary surfaces of apple and human hair highlights the potential of this flexible SERS tape for real-world applications across various industries for enhanced diagnostic accuracy.

Scope and inclination of voluntary service for urban community-living older adults provided by volunteers with nursing background: A qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: With the growing challenge of an aging population, addressing the needs of elderly individuals who face living difficulties and lack family support becomes increasingly difficult. Volunteer services are crucial in this context, yet their effectiveness is hindered by unclear service scopes and uncertain volunteer inclinations. AIM: To explore the role and specific preference of volunteers with nursing backgrounds in support of older adults living in the urban community. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: A descriptive qualitative study was conducted between September and October 2022. Twenty-three participants (hospital nurses [10], community nurses [4], nursing teachers [4] and nursing students [5]) were selected. Data analysis followed conventional content analysis. RESULTS: Nine major themes were identified based on interview data. Four themes described the service scope of nursing volunteers: (1) environment domain, (2) physiological domain, (3) psychosocial domain and (4) health-related behaviours domain. Another five themes highlighted the service inclination of these volunteers: (1) service frequency, (2) service duration per person/time, (3) service coverage, (4) service place and (5) service object. CONCLUSION: This study clarifies the service focus and scope of necessary support for volunteers, exploring the potential service capabilities of scarce volunteers to the greatest extent. Meanwhile, the results of this study also provide a foundation for stakeholders to fully exploit the synergy. The important findings of this study will help the government and relevant authorities better understand the service attributes of nursing volunteers, allowing them to develop detailed training plans and provide nursing volunteers with targeted support and assistance to meet the health expectations of urban community-living older adults in need. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: Developing research questions, participation and conduct and provision and interpretation of evidence.

UV radiation and temperature increase alter the PSII function and defense mechanisms in a bloom-forming cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa.

The aim was to determine the response of a bloom-forming Microcystis aeruginosa to climatic changes. Cultures of M. aeruginosa FACHB 905 were grown at two temperatures (25°C, 30°C) and exposed to high photosynthetically active radiation (PAR: 400-700 nm) alone or combined with UVR (PAR + UVR: 295-700 nm) for specified times. It was found that increased temperature enhanced M. aeruginosa sensitivity to both PAR and PAR + UVR as shown by reduced PSII quantum yields (Fv/Fm) in comparison with that at growth temperature (25°C), the presence of UVR significantly exacerbated the photoinhibition. M. aeruginosa cells grown at high temperature exhibited lower PSII repair rate (Krec) and sustained nonphotochemical quenching (NPQs) induction during the radiation exposure, particularly for PAR + UVR. Although high temperature alone or worked with UVR induced higher SOD and CAT activity and promoted the removal rate of PsbA, it seemed not enough to prevent the damage effect from them showing by the increased value of photoinactivation rate constant (Kpi). In addition, the energetic cost of microcystin synthesis at high temperature probably led to reduced materials and energy available for PsbA turnover, thus may partly account for the lower Krec and the declination of photosynthetic activity in cells following PAR and PAR + UVR exposure. Our findings suggest that increased temperature modulates the sensitivity of M. aeruginosa to UVR by affecting the PSII repair and defense capacity, thus influencing competitiveness and abundance in the future water environment.

A NiCo2S4 octahedral configuration doped by Mn, Zn and Cu for the oxygen evolution reaction.

Transition metals with similar atomic radius were used for doping spinel NiCo2S4 to adjust the octahedral configuration. Mn dopants adjusted the morphology and surface charge distribution, and optimized the electron transport and catalytic activity of the surface site. Mn-NiCo2S4 showed an OER overpotential of 269 mV and water splitting voltage of 1.59 V.

Macrophages reprogramming improves immunotherapy of IL-33 in peritoneal metastasis of gastric cancer.

Peritoneal metastasis (PM) has a suppressive tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) that limits the effects of immunotherapy. This study aimed to investigate the immunomodulatory effects of intraperitoneal administration of IL-33, a cytokine that is reported to potentiate antitumor immunity and inhibit metastasis. We found survival was significantly prolonged in patients with high IL-33 mRNA expression. In immunocompetent mice, intraperitoneal administration of IL-33 could induce a celiac inflammatory environment, activate immunologic effector cells, and reverse the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, which effectively delayed tumor progression and PM of gastric cancer. Mechanistically, IL-33 could induce M2 polarization by activating p38-GATA-binding protein 3 signaling. IL-33 combined with anti-CSF1R or p38 inhibitor to regulate tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) had a synergistic antitumor effect. Inducing a local inflammatory milieu by IL-33 administration provided a novel approach for treating peritoneal metastasis, which, when combined with TAM reprogramming to reshape TIME, can achieve better treatment efficacy.

Flavor Characteristics of Umami Peptides from Wuding Chicken Revealed by Molecular Dynamics Simulation.

Wuding chicken is famous for its delicious meat, and HLEEEIK, LDDALR, and ELY were jointly extracted from different processing stages of Wuding chicken. However, whether these peptides can be used as umami supplements is unclear. The sensory evaluation tests were used to study the taste characteristics. The secondary structure of the peptides and their interaction with T1R1/T1R3 were predicted by the circular dichroism spectrum and molecular dynamics simulation. The umami threshold was 0.03125 to 0.06250 mg/mL, all of which could increase umami, saltiness, sweetness, and mask bitterness. Compared with HLEEEIK, the frequency of umami active fragments and the improvement rate of the umami score of EEE increased by 133.35% and 40.09%, respectively. Peptides were dominated by umami taste according to sensory analysis, among which EE-3 (3.18) has the highest umami intensity followed by LR-4 (2.58), HK-7 (2.13), and EY-3 (1.82). The main secondary structure of umami peptides was ß-folding, and Tyr74, Arg323, Arg272, and Gln35 were the key amino acid residues for binding of umami peptides to the receptor. This study further elucidated that the umami intensity of the peptides could be altered by changing the sequence composition of the peptides, which enhanced our understanding of the complex flavor properties of umami peptides.

Preparation, properties and in vitro osteogensis of self-reinforcing injectable hydrogel.

As an attractive biomaterial for bone reconstruction, injectable biomaterials have many prominent characteristics such as good biocompatibility and bone-filling ability. However, there are weak as load-bearing scaffolds. In this study, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and bioactive glass (BAG) were interpenetrated into sodium alginate (SA) network to obtain self-enhanced injectable hydrogel. The optimum ratio of PVA/SA/BAG hydrogel was determined based on injectability, gelation time and chemical characterization. Results showed that the selected ratio had the shortest gelation time of 3.5min, and the hydrogel had a rough surface and good coagulation property. The hydrogel was capable of carrying 1kg of weight by mineralization for 14 d The compressive strength, compressive modulus, and fracture energy of the hydrogel reached 0.12MPa, 0.376MPa and 17.750kJ m-2, respectively. Meanwhile, the hydrogel had high moisture content and dissolution rate, and it was sensitive to temperature and ionic strength. Hydroxyapatite was generated on the hydrogel surface, and the hydrogel pores increased, and the pore size enlarged. The biocompatibility of PVA/SA/BAG hydrogel was analyzed using hemolysis and cytotoxicity assays. Results revealed its good biocompatibility with low hemolysis rate and no cytotoxicity to MC3T3-E1 cells. The hydrogel was also found to promote the differentiation of MC3T3-E1 cells with significantly increased in ALP activity and expression of relevant differentiation factors. In vitro mineralization assay showed an increase in calcium nodules and calcification area, indicating the ability of hydrogel to promote mineralization MC3T3-E1 cells. These findings indicated that PVA/SA/BAG hydrogel had potential uses in the field of irregular bone-defect repair due to its injectability, cytocompatibility, and tailorable functionality.

Submucosal gland differentiation and implications in esophageal basaloid squamous cell carcinomas.

Esophageal basaloid squamous cell carcinoma (BSCC) is a heterogenous entity with multilineage differentiation. It lacks systematical analysis on submucosal gland differentiation (SGD) due to the histological diversity and low incidence of esophageal BSCC. This study aims to find the correlation of SGD and clinicopathological features. A total of 152 esophageal BSCCs were separated into three histological groups: pure, mixed, and borderline group. The clinicopathological features were compared between different groups. The prevalence of SGD was also compared between cases of different groups. A panel of antibodies were used to identify SGD. The pure group differed from the mixed and borderline groups in many aspects, lymph node metastasis (LNM), cancer embolus, perineural invasion, and advanced stage occurred less frequently in the pure group (P<0.01). The pure group had a better but statistically insignificant overall survival (P=0.097). The squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) component or focal squamous differentiation was present in metastatic lymph nodes in almost all mixed BSCCs (95.7%, 22/23) with LNM. The LNM rate of superficial (T1b) BSCCs (17.6%, 6/34) was comparable to that of superficial (T1b) SCCs (18.5%, 57/308). However, LNM exclusively occurred in superficial mixed (3/5) and borderline (3/10) BSCCs. The IHC results demonstrated a prevalence of SGD in pure group (77%, 43/56). SGD is considered to be a favorable factor, while the squamous differentiation or invasive SCC component is an adverse factor in esophageal BSCCs. Refinement of classification is a promising way to improve patient management.

Risk assessment of SARS-CoV-2 replicating and evolving in animals.

The retransmissions of SARS-CoV-2 from several mammals - primarily mink and white-tailed deer - to humans have raised concerns for the emergence of a new animal-derived SARS-CoV-2 variant to worsen the pandemic. Here, we discuss animal species that are susceptible to natural or experimental infection with SARS-CoV-2 and can transmit the virus to mates or humans. We describe cutting-edge techniques to assess the impact of a mutation in the viral spike (S) protein on its receptor and on antibody binding. Our review of spike sequences of animal-derived viruses identified nine unique amino acid exchanges in the receptor-binding domain (RBD) that are not present in any variant of concern (VOC). These mutations are present in SARS-CoV-2 found in companion animals such as dogs and cats, and they exhibit a higher frequency in SARS-CoV-2 found in mink and white-tailed deer, suggesting that sustained transmissions may contribute to maintaining novel mutations. Four of these exchanges, such as Leu452Met, could undermine acquired immune protection in humans while maintaining high affinity for the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor. Finally, we discuss important avenues of future research into animal-derived viruses with public health risks.

A Multimodal Deep Learning Framework for Predicting PPI-Modulator Interactions.

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are essential for various biological processes and diseases. However, most existing computational methods for identifying PPI modulators require either target structure or reference modulators, which restricts their applicability to novel PPI targets. To address this challenge, we propose MultiPPIMI, a sequence-based deep learning framework that predicts the interaction between any given PPI target and modulator. MultiPPIMI integrates multimodal representations of PPI targets and modulators and uses a bilinear attention network to capture intermolecular interactions. Experimental results on our curated benchmark data set show that MultiPPIMI achieves an average AUROC of 0.837 in three cold-start scenarios and an AUROC of 0.994 in the random-split scenario. Furthermore, the case study shows that MultiPPIMI can assist molecular docking simulations in screening inhibitors of Keap1/Nrf2 PPI interactions. We believe that the proposed method provides a promising way to screen PPI-targeted modulators.