Efficacy and Safety of Ferric Citrate on Hyperphosphatemia among Chinese Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease Undergoing Hemodialysis: A Phase III Multicenter Randomized Open-Label Active-Drug-Controlled Study.

INTRODUCTION: Hyperphosphatemia in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients is positively associated with mortality. Ferric citrate is a potent phosphorus binder that lowers serum phosphorus level and improves iron metabolism. We compared its efficacy and safety with active drugs in Chinese CKD patients with hemodialysis. METHODS: Chinese patients undergoing hemodialysis were randomized into two treatment groups in a 1:1 ratio, receiving either ferric citrate or sevelamer carbonate, respectively, for 12 weeks. Serum phosphorus levels, calcium concentration, and iron metabolism parameters were evaluated every 2 weeks. Frequency and severity of adverse events were recorded. RESULTS: 217 (90.4%) patients completed the study with balanced demographic and baseline characteristics between two groups. Ferric citrate decreased the serum phosphorus level to 0.59 ± 0.54 mmol/L, comparable to 0.56 ± 0.62 mmol/L by sevelamer carbonate. There was no significant difference between two groups (p > 0.05) in the proportion of patients with serum phosphorus levels reaching the target range, the response rate to the study drug, and the changes of corrected serum calcium concentrations, and intact-PTH levels at the end of treatment. The change of iron metabolism indicators in the ferric citrate group was significantly higher than those in the sevelamer carbonate group. There are 47 (40.5%) patients in the ferric citrate group, and 26 (21.3%) patients in the sevelamer carbonate group experienced drug-related treatment emergent adverse events (TEAEs); most were mild and tolerable. Common drug-related TEAEs were gastrointestinal disorders, including diarrhea (12.9 vs. 2.5%), fecal discoloration (14.7 vs. 0%), and constipation (1.7 vs. 7.4%) in ferric citrate and sevelamer carbonate group. CONCLUSION: Ferric citrate capsules have good efficacy and safety in the control of hyperphosphatemia in adult patients with CKD undergoing hemodialysis. Efficacy is not inferior to sevelamer carbonate. The TEAEs were mostly mild and tolerated by the patients.

Influence of Trapezoidal Cavity on the Wettability of Hydrophobic Surface: A Molecular Dynamics Study.

In this study, the behaviors of water droplets on hydrophobic surfaces with different cavities are studied by molecular dynamics. Hydrophobic surfaces with different cavities are designed and simulated: trapezoidal cavity with the same lower width, upside down trapezoidal cavity with the same lower width, and so on. The results show that the influence of the upper width and the depth of the cavity on the contact state and contact angle is different for different trapezoidal cavities. For example, for the trapezoidal cavity with the same lower width, the upper width decreases with the increase of the cavity depth. In such a scenario, the upper width and depth of the cavity collectively promote the droplet transition into the Cassie state from the Wenzel state, but the effect of the upper width and depth on the contact angle is opposite, and the decrease of the upper width of the cavity is the dominant factor, which leads to a decrease in the contact angle. Then, we have built trapezoidal cavities with different base angles. The influence of different base angles on wettability is also discussed, and it is found that an increase in base angle can significantly delay the transition from Cassie state into the Wenzel state.

Neuritin Attenuates Neuronal Apoptosis Mediated by Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress In Vitro.

Neuritin is an extracellular glycophosphatidylinositol-linked protein that promotes neuronal survival, differentiation, function, and repair, but the exact mechanism of this neuroprotective effect remains unclear. Meanwhile, endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) induced apoptosis is attracting increased attention. In this work, we hypothesized that neuritin inhibited ERS to protect cortical neurons. To check this hypothesis, we exposed primary cultured cortical neurons to oxygen and glucose deprivation (OGD) for 45 min followed by reperfusion (R) to activate ERS. We then performed resuscitation for 6, 12, 24, and 48 h. ERS-related factors such as glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78), caspase-12 and CHOP were detected by Western blotting and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction assay. Apoptosis was assessed by Annexin V binding and propidium iodide staining. Ultrastructural changes of endoplasmic reticulum were observed under a transmission electron microscope. Results showed that GRP78 expression significantly increased at 12, 24, and 48 h and peaked at 24 h. Caspase-12 and CHOP expression significantly increased in a time-dependent manner at 12, 24, and 48 h. GRP78, caspase-12 and CHOP expression as well as apoptosis rate of primary cultured neurons and the ultrastructural changes of endoplasmic reticulum in the OGD/R + neuritin group significantly improved compared with the OGD/R group. In conclusion, the neuroprotection function of neuritin may be involved in ERS pathways.

Neuritin attenuates early brain injury in rats after experimental subarachnoid hemorrhage.

OBJECTIVES: Early brain injury (EBI) is central to the pathological progress of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). In this study, we determined if neuritin protects the brain against EBI in rats and discussed the role of apoptosis pathway mediated by endoplasmic reticulum stress in this neuroprotective route. METHODS: A total of 96 male Sprague Dawley rats were divided into control, sham, SAH and SAH + neuritin groups. The rat SAH model was induced by injection 0.3 mL of nonheparinized arterial blood into the prechiasmatic cistern. Mortality assay, neurological scores, brain water content measurement, Evans blue dye assay, TUNEL stain assay and Western blot analysis were performed. RESULTS: Neuritin significantly improved the neurological scores, brain water content, blood-brain barrier (BBB) and apoptosis compared with the control and sham groups within 24 h after SAH. TUNEL staining assay results demonstrated that apoptosis was ameliorated, MMP-9 expression was reduced, whereas GRP78, CHOP, caspase-12 and ASK1 levels were markedly preserved after neuritin application. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrated that neuritin plays a neuroprotective role on EBI after SAH by attenuating BBB disruption, brain edema and apoptosis.

Learning to Infer Inner-Body Under Clothing From Monocular Video.

Accurately estimating the human inner-body under clothing is very important for body measurement, virtual try-on and VR/AR applications. In this article, we propose the first method to allow everyone to easily reconstruct their own 3D inner-body under daily clothing from a self-captured video with the mean reconstruction error of 0.73cm within 15s. This avoids privacy concerns arising from nudity or minimal clothing. Specifically, we propose a novel two-stage framework with a Semantic-guided Undressing Network (SUNet) and an Intra-Inter Transformer Network (IITNet). SUNet learns semantically related body features to alleviate the complexity and uncertainty of directly estimating 3D inner-bodies under clothing. IITNet reconstructs the 3D inner-body model by making full use of intra-frame and inter-frame information, which addresses the misalignment of inconsistent poses in different frames. Experimental results on both public datasets and our collected dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The code and dataset is available for research purposes at http://cic.tju.edu.cn/faculty/likun/projects/Inner-Body.

[Significance of Peripheral Blood Lymphatic to Monocyte Ratio in the Progress of PGI-DLBCL].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the significance of lymphocyte to monocyte ratio (LMR) in the disease progress of primary gastrointestinal diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (PGI-DLBCL). METHODS: The clinical data of 43 patients diagnosed as PGI-DLBCL in our hospital from January 2011 to December 2015 were collected, and the disease progress was followed up. RESULTS: According to the ROC curve, the threshold value of LMR for 2 years PFS (%) of PGI-DLBCL patients was 2.6. Unvariate analysis showed that LMR (P＜0.05), large enclosed mass lesion (P＜0.01) and IPI (P＜0.05) were prognostic factors affecting PFS, the COX regression model multivariate analysis showed that LMR＜2.6 [ (risk ratio (RR)=3.083, 95%CI 1.828-8.313, P＜0.01], and large enclosed mass lesions (RR=2.718, 95%CI 1.339-6.424, P＜0.05) were the independent adverse prognostic factor for two years PFS. CONCLUSION: Both LMR＜2.6 and large enclosed mass lesions relate with the progress of PGI-DLBCL.

The Influence of Shape Memory Alloy Volume Fraction on the Impact Behavior of Polymer Composites.

The low-velocity impact behavior of Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) reinforced resin matrix polymers is investigated and the influence of the SMA volume fraction on the impact performance of polymer composites is considered for the first time, which are the highlights in this paper. Firstly, 12 kinds of polymer composite specimens with different SMA volume fractions are fabricated in terms of the SMA layup spacing, SMA diameter, and the interaction between the two. Secondly, a low-velocity impact test is carried out in order to study the impact performances of the above polymer composites. Finally, the damage morphology of the specimen after impact is observed by the visualization method and the low-velocity impact performance of the 12 kinds of polymer composites is analyzed on the basis of the force and energy history curve.

[Effect of IKK2 Inhibitor LY2409881 on Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma Cell Apoptosis and Its Mechanism].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects and its potential mechanism of IKK2 inhibitor LY2409881 on proliferation, cell cycle and apoptosis of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) cell lines. METHODS: CCK8 assay was used to detect the effect of LY2409881 on proliferation of DLBCL cell lines; Flow cytometry was used to analyze cell cycle; Western blot was used to analyze apoptosis and its potential mechanism. RESULTS: LY2409881 inhibited the proliferation of multiple DLBCL cell lines obviously, and caused G1 cell arrest. Furtherly, LY2409881 inhibited the expression of c-FLIP, induced the activation of DR4 and caspase 8. Meanwhile, LY2409881 induced the expression of pro-apoptotic protein BAX and inhibited the expression of anti-apoptotic protein MCL-1 and BCL-2. CONCLUSION: LY2409881 inhibits the proliferation of DLBCL cell lines, causes G1 cell arrest and induces apoptosis via the endogenous and exogenous apoptotic pathways.

[Monomer conversion effect of post-cure treatment on light-cured composite resin].

PURPOSE: To study the influence of post-cure treatment on the monomer conversion of 3 light-cured composite resins. METHODS: Three kinds of light-cured composite resin: CHARISMA, DenFilTM Flow and nano-hydroxyapatite composite resin were double-side cured for 40 s. The materials without any secondary treatment were used as control group (group A). Group B were lighted in Translux CU light cure case for 5 min. Group C were subjected to post-cure heat treatment for 7.5 min at 140 degrees centigrade and Group D were post heated in 132 degrees centigrade and pressured 0.2 MPa for 6.5 min. Degree of conversion (DC) of all the samples was measured by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The data was analyzed using SPSS 13.0 software package. RESULTS: The monomer conversion of light-cured composite resins improved at different degree after post-cure treatment, and group C was the most favorable group(P<0.05). Compared with the control group, group B and C had significant differences (P<0.05) except when the DenFilTM Flow and CHARISMA were lighted for 5 minutes (P>0.05). Among the experimental groups, there was no significant difference between each group of DenFilTM Flow groups, CHARISMA illumination and hot-pressing groups, and n-HA composite resin illumination compared with 140 degrees centigrade groups. CONCLUSIONS: Post-cure treatment can increase the monomer conversion of light-cured composite resin so as to improve material performance, particularly for the heat treatment for 7.5 min at 140 degrees centigrade.