The Efficacy of Drug-Coated Balloons and Drug-Eluting Stents in Infrapopliteal Revascularization: A Meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to compare the effectiveness of drug-coated balloon (DCB) and drug-eluting stents (DESs) to standard endovascular techniques like percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) and bare metal stent (BMS) for treating infrapopliteal artery disease. METHODS: Including 8 DCB trials and 4 DES trials, this meta-analysis of 12 recent randomized controlled trials (RCTs) is comprehensive. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Science of Web, Cochrane, and PubMed for this meta-analysis. We searched these databases for papers from their inception to February 2023. We also analyzed the references given in the listed studies and any future study that cited them. No language or publication date restrictions were applied to the 12 RCTs. The experimental group includes 8 DCB studies and 4 DES investigations, the DCB group is primarily concerned with the paclitaxel devices, whereas the DES group is preoccupied with the "-limus" devices. Key clinical outcomes in this study were primary patency and binary restenosis rates. This study's secondary outcomes are late lumen loss (LLL), clinically-driven target lesion revascularization (CD-TLR), limb amputation, and all-cause mortality. The evidence quality was assessed using Cochrane risk-of-bias. The PROSPERO registration number for this study is CRD42023462038. FINDINGS: Only 108 of 1152 publications found satisfied qualifying criteria and contained data. All 13 RCTs have low to moderate bias. Drug-coated balloons and DESs were compared in the excluded study. The analysis comprised 2055 participants from 12 RCTs that met the inclusion criteria, including 1417 DCB patients and 638 DES patients. Drug-coated balloons outperform traditional methods in short-term monitoring of primary patency, binary restenosis, and CD-TLR. The benefits fade over time, and the 2 techniques had similar major amputation rates, mortality rates, and LLL. Drug-eluting stents outperform conventional procedures in primary patency, binary restenosis, and CD-TLR during medium-term to short-term follow-up. Comparing the 2 methods, major and minor amputations, death rate, and LLL were similar. CONCLUSION: Comparison of DES and DCB with PTA or BMS shows that DES had better follow-up results. DCB has positive short-term results, but long-term effects differ, however, more research is needed to determine when DES and DCB should be used in medical procedures. CLINICAL IMPACT: The provision of additional evidence to substantiate the advancement of drug-coated balloon (DCB) therapy in the treatment of lower limb arteriosclerosis obliterans, particularly in the below-the-knee area characterized by high calcium load and significant occlusion, is comparable in efficacy to conventional procedures. This finding is advantageous for the progress of interventional revascularization. The advancement and efficacy of DCB have resulted in improved treatment outcomes for medical practitioners in clinical settings. Our research incorporates the most recent randomized experiments.

Proximal right subclavian artery aneurysms: A case report and review of the literature.

BACKGROUND: Subclavian aneurysms are rare in clinic; right subclavian artery aneurysms (SAAs) are more common than left SAAs in clinical practice. Although the causes and methods of treating subclavian aneurysms have been studied, it is still unknown how they form naturally. OBJECTIVE: While describing the uncommon subclavian aneurysm, examine the pertinent literature to discuss its etiology and treatment outcomes, and offer some recommendations for this patient's treatment plan. METHODS: In this case report, we describe a man patient who had a right subclavian proximal aneurysm that was discovered by accident. No clear clinical symptoms or signs were present in the patient. Upon admittance, an examination revealed an aneurysm in the vertebral artery but no peripheral embolization or compression symptoms. The patient refused operation, so we opted for follow-up instead. RESULT: The patient took an ultrasound examination at our first follow-up appointment 3 months after discharge, and the results showed no thrombosis or appreciable aneurysm enlargement. Follow-up appointments for 6 months and a year have begun. CONCLUSION: Follow-up is a good method to monitor the course of subclavian aneurysms without a clear indication for surgery when there is a clear operation mode and risk.

Group-guided individual functional parcellation of the hippocampus and application to normal aging.

Aging is closely associated with cognitive decline affecting attention, memory and executive functions. The hippocampus is the core brain area for human memory, learning, and cognition processing. To delineate the individual functional patterns of hippocampus is pivotal to reveal the neural basis of aging. In this study, we developed a group-guided individual parcellation approach based on semisupervised affinity propagation clustering using the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify individual functional subregions of hippocampus and to identify the functional patterns of each subregion during aging. A three-way group parcellation was yielded and was taken as prior information to guide individual parcellation of hippocampus into head, body, and tail in each subject. The superiority of individual parcellation of hippocampus is validated by higher intraregional functional similarities by compared to group-level parcellation results. The individual variations of hippocampus were associated with coactivation patterns of three typical functions of hippocampus. Moreover, the individual functional connectivities of hippocampus subregions with predefined target regions could better predict age than group-level functional connectivities. Our study provides a novel framework for individual brain functional parcellations, which may facilitate the future individual researches for brain cognitions and brain disorders and directing accurate neuromodulation.

Analysis of the Indicating Value of Cardiac Troponin I, Tumor Necrosis Factor-α, Interleukin-18, Mir-1 and Mir-146b for Viral Myocarditis among Children.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the diagnosis effect of serum protein factors and microRNAs for children suffering from viral myocarditis (VMC). METHODS: The expression levels of serum cardiac troponin I (cTnI), interleukin-18 (IL-18) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in both VMC and control groups were examined by using the Elisa Kit. The expression levels of miR-1 and miR-146b were measured through RT-PCR. Subsequently, the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves were drawn based on the diagnostic results of VMC. Moreover, the Spearman correlation analysis was carried out to unveil the association between the indicator expression levels and the ultrasonic cardiogram results, including the left ventricular fractional shortening (FS) and left ventricular ejection fraction (EF). RESULTS: It is found that the expression levels between the VMC and control group portrait significant differences with respect to cTnI, IL-18, TNF-α, miR-1 and mIR-146b (P < 0.05). The diagnostic thresholds for cTnI, IL-18, TNF-α were 160.00 ng/L, 2.26 ng/L and 1.14ng/L, respectively. The diagnostic thresholds for miR-1 and miR-146b were 0.75 and 1.27, respectively. Results from the Spearman correlation analysis showed that levels of the miR-1 were negatively correlated with FS and EF, while levels of the cTnI, IL-18, TNF-α and miR-146b were positively correlated with FS and EF. CONCLUSIONS: The expression levels of the TNF-α, IL-18 and cTnI and the expression levels of the miR-1 and miR-146b could be used to predict VMC among children and this approach may reinforce the diagnosis of VMC in clinical practices.

FKBP8 interact with classical swine fever virus NS5A protein and promote virus RNA replication.

The non-structural 5A (NS5A) protein of classical swine fever virus (CSFV) is proven to be involved in viral replication and can also modulate cellular signaling and host cellular responses via to its ability to interact with various cellular proteins. FKBP8 is also reported to promote virus replication. Here, we show that NS5A specifically interacts with FKBP8 through coimmunoprecipitation and GST-pulldown studies. Additionally, confocal microscopy study showed that NS5A and FKBP8 colocalized in the cytoplasm. Overexpression of FKBP8 via the eukaryotic expression plasmid pDsRED N1 significantly promoted viral RNA synthesis. The cells knockdown of FKBP8 by lentivirus-mediated shRNA markedly decreased the virus replication when infected with CSFV. These data suggest that FKBP8 plays a critical role in the viral life cycle, particularly during the virus RNA replication period. The investigation of FKBP8 protein functions may be beneficial for developing new strategies to treat CSFV infection.

Micronutrient deficiencies are common in 6- to 8-year-old children of rural Nepal, with prevalence estimates modestly affected by inflammation.

Subclinical micronutrient deficiencies remain a hidden aspect of malnutrition for which comprehensive data are lacking in school-aged children. We assessed the micronutrient status of Nepalese children, aged 6 to 8 y, born to mothers who participated in a community-based antenatal micronutrient supplementation trial from 1999 to 2001. Of 3305 participants, plasma indicators were assessed in a random sample of 1000 children. Results revealed deficiencies of vitamins A (retinol <0.70 µmol/L, 8.5%), D (25-hydroxyvitamin D <50 nmol/L, 17.2%), E (α-tocopherol <9.3 µmol/L, 17.9%), K (decarboxy prothombin >2 µg/L, 20%), B-12 (cobalamin <150 pmol/L, 18.1%), B-6 [pyridoxal-5'-phosphate (PLP) <20 nmol/L, 43.1%], and ß-carotene (41.5% <0.09 µmol/L), with little folate deficiency (6.2% <13.6 nmol/L). Deficiencies of iron [ferritin <15 µg/L, 10.7%; transferrin receptor (TfR) >8.3 mg/L, 40.1%; TfR:ferritin >500 µg/µg, 14.3%], iodine (thyroglobulin >40 µg/L, 11.4%), and selenium (plasma selenium <0.89 µmol/L, 59.0%) were observed, whereas copper deficiency was nearly absent (plasma copper <11.8 µmol/L, 0.7%). Hemoglobin was not assessed. Among all children, 91.7% experienced at least 1 micronutrient deficiency, and 64.7% experienced multiple deficiencies. Inflammation (α-1 acid glycoprotein >1 g/L, C-reactive protein >5 mg/L, or both) was present in 31.6% of children, affecting the prevalence of deficiency as assessed by retinol, ß-carotene, PLP, ferritin, TfR, selenium, copper, or having any or multiple deficiencies. For any nutrient, population deficiency prevalence estimates were altered by ≤5.4% by the presence of inflammation, suggesting that the majority of deficiencies exist regardless of inflammation. Multiple micronutrient deficiencies coexist in school-aged children in rural Nepal, meriting more comprehensive strategies for their assessment and prevention.

Forsythoside A protects against Zearalenone-induced cell damage in chicken embryonic fibroblasts via mitigation of endoplasmic reticulum stress.

Zearalenone (ZEA) is a non-steroidal estrogenic mycotoxin that exerts its toxic effects through various damage mechanisms such as oxidative stress, endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS), mitochondrial damage, cell cycle arrest, and apoptosis. At present, there are few studies on drugs that can rescue ZEA-induced chicken embryonic fibroblasts damage. Forsythoside A (FA) is one of effective ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine that plays a role in various biological functions, but its antitoxin research has not been investigated so far. In this study, in vitro experiments were carried out. Chicken embryo fibroblast (DF-1) cells was used as the research object to select the appropriate treatment concentration of ZEA and examined reactive oxygen species (ROS), mitochondrial membrane potential, ERS and apoptosis to investigate the effects and mechanisms of FA in alleviating ZEA-induced cytotoxicity in DF-1 cells. Our results showed that ZEA induced ERS and activated the unfolded protein response (UPR) leading to apoptosis, an apoptotic pathway characterized by overproduction of Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), Caspase-3, and ROS and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential. We also demonstrated that FA help to prevent ERS and attenuated ZEA-induced apoptosis in DF-1 cells by reducing the level of ROS, downregulating GRP78, PERK, ATF4, ATF6, JNK, IRE1, ASK1, CHOP, BAX expression, and up-regulating Bcl-2 expression. Our results provide a basis for an in-depth study of the mechanism of toxic effects of ZEA on chicken cells and the means of detoxification, which has implications for the treatment of relevant avian diseases.

Individual large-scale functional network mapping for major depressive disorder with electroconvulsive therapy.

Personalized functional connectivity mapping has been demonstrated to be promising in identifying underlying neurophysiological basis for brain disorders and treatment effects. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been proved to be an effective treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD) while its active mechanisms remain unclear. Here, 46 MDD patients before and after ECT as well as 46 demographically matched healthy controls (HC) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scans. A spatially regularized form of non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) was used to accurately identify functional networks (FNs) in individuals to map individual-level static and dynamic functional network connectivity (FNC) to reveal the underlying neurophysiological basis of therepetical effects of ECT for MDD. Moreover, these static and dynamic FNCs were used as features to predict the clinical treatment outcomes for MDD patients. We found that ECT could modulate both static and dynamic large-scale FNCs at individual level in MDD patients, and dynamic FNCs were closely associated with depression and anxiety symptoms. Importantly, we found that individual FNCs, particularly the individual dynamic FNCs could better predict the treatment outcomes of ECT suggesting that dynamic functional connectivity analysis may be better to link brain functional characteristics with clinical symptoms and treatment outcomes. Taken together, our findings provide new evidence for the active mechanisms and biomarkers for ECT to improve diagnostic accuracy and to guide individual treatment selection for MDD patients.

Regulating the electronic structure through charge redistribution in dense single-atom catalysts for enhanced alkene epoxidation.

Inter-site interaction in densely populated single-atom catalysts has been demonstrated to have a crucial role in regulating the electronic structure of metal atoms, and consequently their catalytic performances. We herein report a general and facile strategy for the synthesis of several densely populated single-atom catalysts. Taking cobalt as an example, we further produce a series of Co single-atom catalysts with varying loadings to investigate the influence of density on regulating the electronic structure and catalytic performance in alkene epoxidation with O2. Interestingly, the turnover frequency and mass-specific activity are significantly enhanced by 10 times and 30 times with increasing Co loading from 5.4 wt% to 21.2 wt% in trans-stilbene epoxidation, respectively. Further theoretical studies reveal that the electronic structure of densely populated Co atoms is altered through charge redistribution, resulting in less Bader charger and higher d-band center, which are demonstrated to be more beneficial for the activation of O2 and trans-stilbene. The present study demonstrates a new finding about the site interaction in densely populated single-atom catalysts, shedding insight on how density affects the electronic structure and catalytic performance for alkene epoxidation.

Dynamic changes of large-scale resting-state functional networks in major depressive disorder.

Sliding window method is widely used to study the functional connectivity dynamics in brain networks. A key issue of this method is how to choose the window length and number of clusters across different window length. Here, we introduced a universal method to determine the optimal window length and number of clusters and applied it to study the dynamic functional network connectivity (FNC) in major depressive disorder (MDD). Specifically, we first extracted the resting-state networks (RSNs) in 27 medication-free MDD patients and 54 healthy controls using group independent component analysis (ICA), and constructed the dynamic FNC patterns for each subject in the window range of 10-80 repetition times (TRs) using sliding window method. Then, litekmeans algorithm was utilized to cluster the FNC patterns corresponding to each window length into 2-20 clusters. The optimal number of clusters was determined by voting method and the optimal window length was determined by identifying the most representative window length. Finally, 8 recurring FNC patterns regarded as FNC states were captured for further analyzing the dynamic attributes. Our results revealed that MDD patients showed increased mean dwell time and fraction of time spent in state #5, and the mean dwell time is correlated with depression symptom load. Additionally, compared with healthy controls, MDD patients had significantly reduced FNC within FPN in state #7. Our study reported a new approach to determine the optimal window length and number of clusters, which may facilitate the future study of the functional dynamics. These findings about MDD using dynamic FNC analyses provide new evidence to better understand the neuropathology of MDD.

Establishment and Characterization of an Immortalized Porcine Oral Mucosal Epithelial Cell Line as a Cytopathogenic Model for Porcine Circovirus 2 Infection.

Porcine circovirus 2 (PCV2) is a major etiological agent for porcine circovirus-associated diseases and causes enormous economic losses in domestic and overseas swine production. However, there are currently no suitable cell models to study the cytopathic effects (CPE) of PCV2 in vitro, which severely restricts the study of PCV2 pathogenesis. In the present study, we established an immortalized porcine oral mucosal epithelial cell line (hTERT-POMEC) by introducing the hTERT gene into primary porcine oral mucosal epithelial cells (POMECs) derived from a neonatal, unsuckled piglet. The hTERT-POMEC cells have a homogeneous cobblestone-like morphology and retain the basic physiological properties of primary POMECs. No chromosome abnormality and tumorigenicity transformation was observed in immortalized hTERT-POMECs. Viral infection assays demonstrated that PCV2 propagated and caused CPE in hTERT-POMECs. We conclude that the immortalized cell line hTERT-POMEC is a crucial tool for further research into the pathogenesis of PCV2.

Ultrafast and Stable CO2 Capture Using Alkali Metal Salt-Promoted MgO-CaCO3 Sorbents.

As a potential candidate for precombustion CO2 capture at intermediate temperatures (200-400 °C), MgO-based sorbents usually suffer from low kinetics and poor cyclic stability. Herein, a general and facile approach is proposed for the fabrication of high-performance MgO-based sorbents via incorporation of CaCO3 into MgO followed by deposition of a mixed alkali metal salt (AMS). The AMS-promoted MgO-CaCO3 sorbents are capable of adsorbing CO2 at an ultrafast rate, high capacity, and good stability. The CO2 uptake of sorbent can reach as high as above 0.5 gCO2 gsorbent-1 after only 5 min of sorption at 350 °C, accounting for vast majority of the total uptake. In addition, the sorbents are very stable even under severe but more realistic conditions (desorption in CO2 at 500 °C), where the CO2 uptake of the best sorbent is stabilized at 0.58 gCO2 gsorbent-1 in 20 consecutive cycles. The excellent CO2 capture performance of the sorbent is mainly due to the promoting effect of molten AMS, the rapid formation of CaMg(CO3)2, and the plate-like structure of sorbent. The exceptional ultrafast rate and the good stability of the AMS-promoted MgO-CaCO3 sorbents promise high potential for practical applications, such as precombustion CO2 capture from integrated gasification combined cycle plants and sorption-enhanced water gas shift process.

Heat shock protein 70 is associated with CSFV NS5A protein and enhances viral RNA replication.

The non-structural 5A (NS5A) protein of classical swine fever virus (CSFV) is proven to be involved in viral replication and can also modulate cellular signaling via to its ability to interact with various cellular proteins. Here, HSP70/NS5A complex formation is confirmed by coimmunoprecipitation and GST-pulldown studies. Additionally, the N-terminal amino acids (29-240) of NS5A were identified as the interaction region through in vivo deletion analyses, and confocal microscopy showed that NS5A and HSP70 colocalized in the cytoplasm. Overexpression of HSP70 via the eukaryotic expression plasmid pDsRED N1 or lentivirus significantly promoted viral RNA synthesis. Whereas the knockdown of HSP70 by lentivirus-mediated shRNA or inhibition by quercetin markedly decreased the viral load. These data suggest that HSP70 plays a critical role in the viral life cycle, particularly during the virus RNA replication period. The investigation of HSP70 protein functions may be beneficial for developing new strategies to treat CSFV infection.

[Isolation of a bacterium producing epoxide hydrolase with high enantioselectivity and optimization of fermentation conditions].

A bacterial strain 463# producing epoxide hydrolase was isolated from oil-contaminated soils. It showed high enantioselectivity towards styrene oxide, and also towards glycidates, such as ethyl phenyl glycidate and ethyl benzyl glycidate. The strain was identified as Bacillus sp. The fermentation conditions for this strain were optimized. With 1% glucose as carbon source, 1% (NH4)2SO4 and 0.5% beef extract as nitrogen source, Bacillus sp. 463 grew well and showed high epoxide hydrolase activity. In addition, 2-10 mmol/L styrene oxide could promote the production of epoxide hydrolase.