Sodium hyaluronate combined with rhEGF contributes to alleviate clinical symptoms and Inflammation in patients with Xerophthalmia after cataract surgery.

BACKGROUND: To determine the effect of sodium hyaluronate combined with recombinant human epidermal growth factor (rhEGF) on clinical symptoms and inflammation in patients with newly diagnosed xerophthalmia after cataract surgery. METHODS: A total of 106 patients who underwent cataract surgery and were newly diagnosed with xerophthalmia in our hospital between June 2018 and August 2019 were enrolled. Of these, 50 patients who were treated with sodium hyaluronate (0.1%) were assigned to the monotherapy group (MG) and the remaining 56 patients who were treated with sodium hyaluronate (0.1%) combined with rhEGF (20 µg/ml) were assigned to the combination group (CG). The 2 groups were compared based on ocular surface disease index (OSDI) score, break-up time (BUT), fluorescein corneal staining level, Schirmer I test (SI) level, clinical efficacy (disappearance of typical symptoms, including eyes drying, burning sensation, foreign body sensation, etc), and interleukin (IL)-1, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) levels. Spearman correlation analysis was conducted to analyze the relationship between IL-1, IL-6, TNF-α and clinical efficacy. In addition, receiver operating characteristic curves were drawn to analyze the predictive value of IL-1, IL-6, and TNF-α in efficacy on xerophthalmia. RESULTS: After treatment, the CG showed reduced OSDI score compared with the MG. The CG showed increased BUT (s) and SI (mm) levels compared with MG. After treatment, the CG exhibited decreased levels of IL-1(ng/mL), IL-6 (ng/mL), and TNF-α (ng/mL) compared with the MG. Spearman correlation analysis revealed that IL-1, IL-6, and TNF-α were negatively correlated with clinical efficacy. The areas under the curves of IL-1, IL-6, and TNF-α were 0.801, 0.800, and 0.736 respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Sodium hyaluronate combined with rhEGF is helpful to alleviate clinical symptoms and inflammation in patients with xerophthalmia undergoing cataract surgery.

Development of Hydroxyapatite/Polycaprolactone Composite Biomaterials for Laser Powder Bed Fusion: Evaluation of Powder Characteristics, Mechanical Properties and Biocompatibility.

Hydroxyapatite/polycaprolactone (HA/PCL) composites have been extensively explored in laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) for bone tissue engineering. However, conventional mechanical mixing methods for preparing composite powders often yield inhomogeneous compositions and suboptimal flowability. In this study, HA/PCL powders were prepared and optimized for L-PBF using the modified emulsion solvent evaporation method. The morphology, flowability and thermal and rheological properties of the powders were systematically investigated, along with the mechanical and biological properties of the fabricated specimens. The HA/PCL powders exhibited spherical morphologies with a homogeneous distribution of HA within the particles. The addition of small amounts of HA (5 wt% and 10 wt%) enhanced the processability and increased the maximum values of the elastic modulus and yield strength of the specimens from 129.8 MPa to 166.2 MPa and 20.2 MPa to 25.1 MPa, respectively, while also improving their biocompatibility. However, excessive addition resulted in compromised sinterability, thereby affecting both mechanical and biological properties.

A Study on the Correlation Between Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Alzheimer's Disease Based on the Application of Artificial Neural Network.

Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is a kind of irreversible vision loss or disease caused by retinal pigment epithelial cells and neuroretinal degeneration, which has become the main cause of vision loss and blindness of the elderly over 65 years old in developed countries. The main clinical manifestations are cognitive decline, mental symptoms and behavioral disorders, and the gradual decline of daily living ability. In this paper, a feature extraction method of electroencephalogram (EEG) signal based on multi-spectral image fusion of multi-brain regions is proposed based on artificial neural network (ANN). In this method, the brain is divided into several different brain regions, and the EEG signals of different brain regions are transformed into several multispectral images by combining with the multispectral image transformation method. Using Alzheimer's disease (AD) classification algorithm, the depth residual network model pre-trained in ImageNet was transferred to sMRI data set for fine adjustment, instead of training a brand-new model from scratch. The results show that the proposed method solves the problem of few available medical image samples and shortens the training time of ANN model.

Effects of Upregulation of TNFAIP3 on Diabetic Neuropathic Pain in Mice.

Globally, diabetes has assumed epidemic proportions with the neuropathic complications attributed to the malady emerging as a substantial burden on patients and society. DNP has greatly affected the daily life of patients, the effect of traditional treatment methods is not ideal, and it is easy to produce drug resistance. This work is aimed at scrutinizing the effect of upregulating the expression of TNFAIP3 on diabetic neuralgia in mice. This work entailed ascertaining the effects of TNFAIP3 on a murine DNP system. This inspired us to observe the analgesic effect via high expression of lentivirus-mediated TNFAIP3 by intrathecal injection in the animal model to explore its regulatory impacts, symptom relief, and mechanistic role in pain. The results displayed an attenuation of hind paw pain hypersensitivity by LV-TNFAIP3 in the animals. The spinal cord and dorsal root ganglion of mice with neuropathic pain displayed an evident dip in TNFAIP3. Inhibition of the ERK/NF-κB signaling pathway employing LV-TNFAIP3 conspicuously suppressed this pathway while the diabetic pain hypersensitivity was quelled. This effect was also seen with insulin treatment evidently. In conclusion, according to the above analyses, the interaction between DNP and extracellular signal-regulated kinase signal transduction pathway is one of the key factors of pathogenesis.

Characterization of the effects of calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor antagonist for Alzheimer's disease.

Calcitonin gene-related peptide (cGRP) receptor antagonists effectively treat migraine through reducing neuroinflammation, vasoconstriction and possibly neruogenesis. Since neuroinflammation is also involved in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's diseases (AD), we hypothesized and tested if a cGRP receptor antagonist, BIBN 4096 BS (BIBN), has effects on AD pathology. Using an AD mouse model, 5XFAD, with different ages, here we report that the BIBN treatment significantly increased the brain expression of PSD95, a postsynaptic protein, in both young and old AD mice. In parallel, BIBN improved learning and memory in the behavior test in the young, but not old, AD mice. The BIBN treatment reduced α-synuclein aggregation in both young and old AD mice. BIBN significantly decreased neuroinflammatory markers of ionized calcium binding adapter molecules-1 (Iba-1) and the p38 MAPK and NFκB signaling pathways in young, but not old, AD mice. The treatment also reduced the accumulation of amyloid-ß (Aß), and decreased tau phosphorylation through the pathway of CDK5/p25 in young mice only. Our study provides the evidence and suggests that the cGRP antagonists might be a therapeutic target to attenuate the pathological cascade and delay cognitive decline of AD in humans.

Effects of Amylin Against Amyloid-ß-Induced Tauopathy and Synapse Loss in Primary Neurons.

Recent studies demonstrate that peripheral amylin treatment reduces pathology in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, soluble and aggregated amylin are distinct species; while amylin is a physiological neuropeptide, amylin aggregation is a pathological factor for diabetes. We thus hypothesized that because of their similarity in secondary structures, amylin antagonizes amyloid-ß peptide (Aß)-induced AD pathology in neurons with a dose-dependent pattern. To test the hypothesis, we conducted both in vitro and in vivo experiments with different doses of amylin and with its analog, pramlintide. Here we report that a high concentration of either Aß or amylin alone induced tau phosphorylation (pTau) in primary neurons. Interestingly, with a low concentration, amylin had direct effects to reverse the Aß-induced pTau, as well as damaged neuronal synapses and neurite disorganization. However, when the concentration was high (10.24 µM), amylin lost the effects against the Aß-induced cellular AD pathology and, together with Aß, worsened tauopathy in neurons. In the 5XFAD AD mouse model, daily peripheral amylin treatment with a low dose (200 µg/kg) more effectively reduced amyloid burden, and increased synapse, but with a high dose (800 µg/kg), it more effectively reduced tauopathy. Correspondingly, amylin treatment improved learning and memory in these mice. It demonstrates that amylin has a dose-dependent U-shape effect against AD pathogenesis. Within a physiological range, amylin is a neuroprotective hormone against AD in neurons; but when both Aß and amylin concentrations are elevated, imbalance of Aß and amylin may contribute to brain AD pathogenesis.

Aging effect on the leaching behavior of heavy metals (Cu, Zn, and Cd) in red paddy soil.

Aging effect can influence the fractions distribution and mobility of metals after they are added into soil. In this study, incubation and soil column experiments under simulated acid rain condition were conducted to evaluate aging effect on the leaching characteristic of Cu, Zn, and Cd in artificial polluted red paddy soil. Our results showed that aging effect reduced metal contents in exchangeable and HoAc soluble fractions. Power function was the most excellent to describe the variation of exchangeable fraction, while pseudo first- and second-order functions were more successful to describe the leaching characteristic of metals from soil columns. The leaching amount of the metals from the polluted soil only accounted for a small part of their total content in soil, and the leachability of Cu was the weakest. Both the exchangeable and HoAc soluble fraction were available as indicators to evaluate the leachability of metals in red paddy soil. The shorter time the soil was contaminated, the more amounts of metals released from the soil. The reduction of exchangeable fraction caused by aging effect was the main reason for the decrease of metal mobility in soil.