Annual antler renewal is a stem cell–based epimorphic process driven by antler stem cells (ASCs) resident in antlerogenic periosteum (AP). Antlerogenic periosteal cells express a high level of ...S100A4, a metastasis-associated protein, which intrigued us to explore what role S100A4 could play in antler regeneration. The present study set out to investigate expression and effects of S100A4 in the ASCs and their progeny. The results showed that not only did cells from the AP express a high level of S100A4, but also the pedicle periosteum and the antler growth center. In the antler growth center, we found S100A4-positive cells were specifically located in blood vessel walls and in vascularized areas. In vitro, recombinant deer S100A4 protein stimulated the proliferation of the AP cells, promoted proliferation, migration and tube formation of human vascular endothelial cells, and enhanced migration of Hela cells, but not AP cells. These findings demonstrated that S100A4 in the ASCs may play a significant role in stimulating angiogenesis, proliferation, but not motility, of ASCs. Deer antlers offer a unique model to explore how rapid cell proliferation with a high level of S100A4 expression is elegantly regulated without becoming cancerous.
Background
Behcet's disease is a vasculitis of unknown origin that can involve multiple organs or tissues. Aneurysm or pseudoaneurysm, also one of the complications of Behcet's disease, is usually ...accompanied by a poor prognosis. Surgery is usually accompanied by a high risk of complications, such as the recurrence of anastomotic pseudoaneurysms and blockage of the target vessel. Using hybrid surgery, we successfully treated a complex and recurrent abdominal aortic pseudoaneurysm in a patient with BD.
Methods
We report a 32-year-old female diagnosed with Behcet's disease with recurrent thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm. Adequate immunotherapy was given during the perioperative period. The splanchnic artery branches were reconstructed, and the aneurysm was sequestered with endovascular repair. The patient recovered uneventfully and was discharged from the hospital 8 days after hybrid surgery. At the 60-month follow-up, no aneurysm was observed, the stent had no displacement or internal leakage, and the reconstructed blood vessels were unobstructed.
Conclusion
Hybrid surgery could be a feasible and effective strategy for BD aneurysms. Adequate preoperative and postoperative immunotherapy with arterial anastomosis away from the diseased artery may be the key to success.
This work investigates the influence of heat treatments on a pseudo-binary Ti30Zr10Hf10Ni35Cu15 high-entropy shape memory alloy. Heat treatments on the alloy resulted in the formation of second ...phases and thus were able to adjust its transformation temperatures. This phenomenon results from the formation of H-phase and (Zr,Hf)7Cu10 phase during low-temperature and high-temperature aging, respectively. The superelasticity of solution-treated, 500 °C-aged and 700 °C-aged samples was tested under compression, and all samples exhibited nearly 5 % recoverable strain and 15 °C elastocaloric cooling capacity. Further cyclic compression tests confirmed their stability, with up to 75 % of the initial cooling capacity retained after 5000 compression cycles. Due to its high yield strength, the Ti30Zr10Hf10Ni35Cu15 high-entropy shape memory alloy showed great superelasticity and elastocaloric performance at various testing temperatures. Furthermore, with heat treatments, the austenitic transformation finishing temperature (Af) of the alloy was tunable to between −10 °C (furnace-cooled) and 60 °C (700 °C-aged) with promising functional performance. These features expand the application range of TiZrHfNiCu high-entropy shape memory alloys as potential superelastic and elastocaloric materials.
Src-homology regions 3 (SH3) domain is essential for the down-regulation of tyrosine kinase activity. Mutation A39V/N53P/V55L of SH3 is found to be relative to the urgent misfolding diseases. To gain ...insight, the human and gallus SH3 domains (PDB ID: 1NYG and 2LP5), including 58 amino acids in each protein, were selected for MD simulations (Amber11, ff99SB force field) and cluster analysis to investigate the influence of mutations on the spatial structure of the SH3 domain. It is found that the large conformational change of mutations mainly exists in three areas in the vicinity of protein core: RT loop, N-src loop, distal β-hairpin to 310 helix. The C-terminus of the mutated gallus SH3 is disordered after simulation, which represents the intermediate state of aggregation. The disappeared strong Hbond net in the mutated human and gallus systems will make these mutated proteins looser than the wild-type proteins. Additionally, by performing the REMD simulations on the gallus SH3 domain, the mutated domain is found to have an obvious effect on the unfolding process. These studies will be helpful for further aggregation mechanisms investigations on SH3 family.
Background: Trauma is a major health burden and a time-dependent critical emergency condition among developing and developed countries. In Asia, trauma has become a rapidly expanding epidemic and has ...spread out to many underdeveloped and developing countries through rapid urbanization and industrialization. Most casualties of severe trauma, which results in significant mortality and disability are assessed and transported by prehospital providers including physicians, professional providers, and volunteer providers. Trauma registries have been developed in mostly developed countries and measure care quality, process, and outcomes. In general, existing registries tend to focus on inhospital care rather than prehospital care. Methods: The Pan-Asia Trauma Outcomes Study (PATOS) was proposed in 2013 and initiated in November, 2015 in order to establish a collaborative standardized study to measure the capabilities, processes and outcomes of trauma care throughout Asia. The PATOS is an international, multicenter, and observational research network to collect trauma cases transported by emergency medical services (EMS) providers. Data are collected from the participating hospital emergency departments in various countries in Asia which receive trauma patients from EMS. Data variables collected include 1) injury epidemiologic factors, 2) EMS factors, 3) emergency department care factors, 4) hospital care factors, and 5) trauma system factors. The authors expect to achieve a sample size of 67,230 cases over the next 2 years of data collection to analyze the association between potential risks and outcomes of trauma. Conclusion: The PATOS network is expected to provide comparison of the trauma EMS systems and to benchmark best practice with participating communities.
Background:
Intravascular fasciitis is a rare disease that is a reactive proliferative lesion of myofibroblasts. There are rare reports that intravascular fasciitis has invaded the jugular vein as ...seen in this case.
Case Presentation:
A 41-year-old female presented with right neck dull pain for 20 days. The appearance of the subcutaneous mass was oval, pink hyaline, well-demarcated, and measuring ~5 mm in diameter. Microscopically, the mass was composed of spindle cells arranged in intersecting fascicles. Immunohistochemical stains showed that the spindle cells were positive for smooth muscle actin and negative for S-100, Desmin, MyoD1, and elastin stains. The nuclei of the spindle cells were relatively uniform, and mitotic activity was observed. The overall morphological and immunohistochemical features are consistent with intravascular fasciitis.
Conclusion:
Due to the rapid growth and vascular invasion, intravascular fasciitis created a high risk of misdiagnosing it as a sarcoma or thrombosis. Reporting this uncommon case, we raise awareness of this non-neoplastic lesion, and careful, light microscopic examination combined with immunohistochemical staining aids in the diagnosis of intravascular fasciitis.
Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are persistent organic pollutants and have therefore drawn much environmental concern. We aimed to compare aerobic degradation of different PBDE congeners under ...various treatments and reveal the bacterial community associated with PBDE degradation in sediment. Results of this study indicate that degradation rates of BDE-15 were enhanced 45.1 and 81.3 % with the addition of suspended and microencapsulated Pseudomonas sp., respectively. However, the degradation rates of BDE-28, BDE-47, BDE-99, and BDE-100 did not differ among experimental treatments. Degradation rates of PBDE congeners were in the order of BDE-15 > BDE-28 > BDE-47 > BDE-99 > BDE-100. Using a pyrosequencing-based metagenomic approach, we found that addition of various treatments altered the microbial community composition in the sediment. Twenty-four bacterial genera associated with degradation of PBDEs; six are the core bacterial genera common among PBDE degraders. The diverse bacterial composition among different PBDE congener degradation indicates different combinations of bacteria involved in degradation of different PBDE congeners.
Intravesical hyaluronic acid (HA) therapy is one of acceptable methods to treat bladder pain and storage symptoms (i.e., urgency, frequency and nocturia) of interstitial cystitis/bladder pain ...syndrome (IC/BPS). We aim to assess the impacts of intravesical HA on bladder pain and storage symptoms, respectively, and to investigate their associated factors in patients with IC/BPS.
In this prospective, multicenter study, 103 women with refractory IC/BPS undergoing a standard protocol of intravesical HA therapy were enrolled. A pain Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and the Interstitial Cystitis Symptom and Problem Index (ICSI & ICPI) were used to assess symptoms and bother associated with IC/BPS. The Scaled Global Response Assessment (GRA) was used to evaluate patients' perception of overall changes in bladder pain and storage symptoms, respectively, after treatment.
Mean age of participants was 43.6 ± 11.8 years. The average duration of symptoms was 5.1 ± 5.0 years. Significant improvements in pain VAS, ICSI and ICPI scores were observed after treatment. However, patients reported significantly different rates of moderate/marked improvement in bladder pain and storage symptoms (73.8% vs. 47.6%; P < 0.001) on the GRA, respectively. “Lower pain VAS score” and “reduced functional bladder capacity” were found to be the factors that adversely affected the treatment responses of bladder pain and storage symptoms, respectively, after repeated statistical analyses.
Bladder instillation of HA seemed more efficient in improving bladder pain than storage symptoms associated with IC/BPS. The persistence of bladder storage symptoms after treatment might result from a reduced functional bladder capacity.
When facing a novel situation, animals can retreat or leave to avoid risks, but will miss potential resources and opportunities. Alternatively they may reduce environmental uncertainty by ...exploration, while risking no energy rewards and exposure to hazards, and use the information retrieved for subsequent decision making. When exploring, however, animals may adopt different tactics according to individual states.
We tested that energy states will affect exploratory behavior by experimenting with wild-caught untrained Eurasian tree sparrows (
) in fasted or fed states exploring in a novel space with hidden food supply in different patch distribution patterns. Our data revealed that fasted sparrows risked being earlier explorers more often, initiated more exploratory bouts before patches were found, and stayed longer on the ground under both patch patterns. Fasted sparrows discovered more patches and consumed more food than fed sparrows in dispersed, but not necessary so in clumped, patch patterns; whereas fed birds also increased patch finding to a certain level in dispersed patterns. Sparrows of both energy states, however, did not differ in feeding rates in either patch pattern.
Exploratory behavior of tree sparrows is state-dependent, which supports our prediction that birds with an energy shortage will be risk-prone and explore more readily. Our study also indicates a game nature of tree sparrow exploratory behavior in a group context when explorers are in different energy states and are exposed to different patch distributions. Birds of lower energy state adopting an active exploring tactic may be favored by obtaining higher energy gains in dispersed patch patterns with lower patch richness. More satiated birds, however, achieved a similar feeding rate by lowered exposure time.
Background. Recent evidence has shown that community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) is less virulent than traditional hospital-associated MRSA. We explored whether ...the antimicrobial susceptibilities of the different strains account for their disparity in clinical virulence. Methods. This 10-year retrospective cohort study enrolled 291 patients with community-onset, healthcareassociated MRSA bacteremia. The vancomycin minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) type were determined for all isolates. CA-MRSA was defined as an isolate possessing the SCCmec type IV or V genes, and hospital-associated MRSA (HA-MRSA) was defined as an isolate possessing SCCmec type I, II, or III genes. Low and high vancomycin MICs were defined as MICs of ≥1 and ≥2 µg/mL, respectively. Patients with bacteremia due to CA-MRSA with a low vancomycin MIC (n = 111), due to HA-MRSA with a low vancomycin MIC (n = 127), or due to HA-MRSA with a high vancomycin MIC (n = 47) entered the outcome analysis. The outcomes of the 2 HA-MRSA bacteremia groups were compared to those of the CA-MRSA bacteremia group. Results. Treatment failure was observed in 35 (31.5%), 59 (46.5%), and 27 (57.4%) of patients with low-vancomycin-MIC CA-MRSA, low-vancomycin-MIC HA-MRSA, and high-vancomycin-MIC HA-MRSA bacteremia, respectively. After adjustment for potential confounding factors, the risk of treatment failure was significantly higher among patients with low-vancomycin-MIC HA-MRSA (adjusted odds ratio aOR, 1.853; 95% confidence interval CI, 1.006–3.413) and high-vancomycin-MIC HA-MRSA (aOR, 2.393; 95% CI, 1.079–5.309), compared with patients with low-vancomycin-MIC CA-MRSA. Conclusions. The higher risk for treatment failure among patients with traditional hospital-associated MRSA infections, compared with patients with CA-MRSA infections, is independent of the vancomycin MIC, suggesting a potential intrinsic strain-specific virulence effect.
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