Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) has a strict cell tropism. In addition to the primary alveolar macrophages, PRRSV is strictly cytotropic to African green monkey kidney ...cells, such as MARC-145 cells; however, MARC-145 cells are not infected by most NADC30-like and NADC34-like PRRSV strains. The essential scavenger receptor CD163 has been proved to mediate productive infection of PRRSV in various non-permissive cell lines. In this study, we systematically tested the porcine CD163 stably expressing 3D4/21 cells for infections with various PRRSV strains. The results showed that the porcine CD163-expressing macrophages support the infections of PRRSV2 of lineages 1, 5, and 8, as evidenced by Western blotting, immunofluorescence assay, quantitative PCR, and virus titration assay. Considering the current prevalence of NADC30-like and NADC34-like PRRSV2 of lineage 1 in China, the CD163-expressing macrophages are very useful for PRRSV research and disease management.
IntroductionPatient-reported outcomes (PROs) are health reports that come directly from the patients themselves and represented the experience and insights of the patient’s perspective on the impact ...of the intervention. PROs were increasingly emphasised in acupuncture randomised controlled trials (RCTs). However, the reporting quality of PROs in acupuncture RCTs has not been investigated to date. Therefore, we constructed this study to reveal the basic characteristics and reporting quality of PROs in acupuncture RCTs, and explore the relationship between concealment, blinding and RROs. We hope our findings can provide guidance for the reporting standards and future development of PROs in acupuncture RCTs in reverse.Methods and analysisRCTs using acupuncture treatment as the intervention and PROs as primary outcomes or secondary outcomes will be systematically searched through seven databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL, CBM, CNKI, Wanfang and VIP between 1 January 2012 and 15 October 2022. The basic characteristics, concealment, blinding design and the characteristics of PROs in included RCTs will be summarised. The reporting quality of PROs will be assessed based on the CONSORT PRO extension. Logistic analysis will be performed to identify the association between concealment, blinding and RROs.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval is not required for this study. This protocol has been registered in Open Science Framework (OSF) Registries. The findings of this study will be submitted to a peer-reviewed academic journal.
Aim
To evaluate the current literature on the effect of ICU diaries on the quality of life of ICU survivors and their relatives.
Design
Systematic review and meta‐analysis.
Methods
We searched the ...online databases Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Library, CNKI and WanFang from inception to April 2021. Cochrane Risk of Bias Assessment Tool and Newcastle–Ottawa Scale (NOS) were used to assess the methodological quality.
Results
Seven studies were identified. ICU diaries improved the QoL of ICU survivors (SMD 0.79, 95% CI 0.24–1.34), and a small study described no benefit of diaries in improving the QoL of relatives.
Conclusion
This meta‐analysis revealed the use of ICU diaries to improve the QoL in survivors, but the ICU diaries do not have a beneficial effect on the QoL in relatives. The evidence summarized in our study is limited and biased, and more research should be carried out to verify it.
Vehicular refueling emission is a potential source of urban atmospheric volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that is not well understood and controlled. China 6 vehicles have been equipped with the ...onboard refueling vapor recovery (ORVR) system to cut down refueling emissions, while the emission characteristics and reduction effectiveness are rarely reported. In this study, we conducted laboratory tests to measure the refueling emissions from ten China 6 vehicles and three China 5 vehicles (refueling-emission-uncontrolled, REU) and developed an inventory in a typical middle-sized Chinese city (Langfang) to explore the emission reduction resulted from relevant policies. Compared with headspace vapor and refueling vapor from REU vehicles, the emission profiles for China 6 vehicles are consist of considerably higher proportions of small alkanes and alkenes (C2-C3) and lower proportions of C6-C8 hydrocarbons. Such differences indicate that the headspace vapor profiles are incapable of representing the refueling emission for China 6 vehicles. The market-share-weighting emission factors (EFs) of total hydrocarbons (THCs) and total VOCs for China 6 vehicles are 11.2 mg/L and 6.4 mg/L, respectively, corresponding to control efficiency of approximately 98.8% compared with the REU vehicles. Based on the real-world EFs and the fuel consumption in Langfang, a refueling emission inventory with high spatiotemporal resolution is developed. The total refueling emission of THCs in Langfang is approximately 190.6 tons in 2018 and will likely decline to 25.0 tons in 2035. The implementation of the ORVR will contribute to 90% of the refueling emission reduction in 2035.
Display omitted
•The refueling emission profiles of China 6 vehicles and headspace vapor are distinct.•The refueling emission of China 6 vehicles is 98.8% lower than China 5 vehicles.•The refueling emission inventory is developed with high spatiotemporal resolution.•Refueling emission declines with the popularity of China 6 vehicle.
The innate immune DNA-sensing cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS)-stimulator of interferon (IFN) gene (STING) pathway exerts strong antiviral activity through downstream IFN production; however, it has ...been recently recognized that an IFN-independent activity of STING also plays an important role in antiviral functions. Nevertheless, the IFN-independent antiviral activity of STING is not fully understood. Here, we showed that porcine STING (pSTING) played a critical role against herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) infections, and IFN-defective mutants, including pSTING pLxIS sub, S365A, and △CTT, all exhibited similar antiviral functions, compared to wild-type (WT) pSTING. Furthermore, all of these IFN-defective pSTING mutants possessed comparable autophagy activity, relative to WT pSTING, as expected. From pSTING WT, S365A, and △CTT, the residues responsible for autophagy, including L333A/R334A, Y167A/L170A, and Y245A/L248A, were mutated. Surprisingly, all of these autophagy-defective pSTING mutants still resisted the two viral infections, demonstrating that the pSTING antiviral function is independent of IFN as well as autophagy. On the other hand, all of the autophagy-defective pSTING mutants triggered cell apoptosis, which was associated with and participated in the antiviral functions. Additionally, pSTING lost its antiviral activity in TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK1)
and IFN regulatory factor 3 (IRF3)
porcine macrophages, indicating the involvement of TBK1 and IRF3 in other STING activities such as apoptosis. Collectively, our results revealed that STING exerts both IFN- and autophagy-independent antiviral activity, and they also suggested that STING-triggered cell apoptosis resists viral infections.
The IFN-independent antiviral function of the cGAS-STING pathway has attracted great attention in recent years; however, the nature of this IFN-independent antiviral function is unknown, although STING-induced autophagy has been shown to mediate the STING antiviral activity. First, we analyzed the antiviral activity through the porcine cGAS-pSTING pathway and established that pSTING signaling exerts an IFN-independent antiviral function. Second, we found that pSTING-induced IFN-independent autophagy and the antiviral activity of pSTING are independent of both IFN and autophagy. Finally, pSTING signaling activates cell apoptosis independently of IFN and autophagy, and the apoptosis is associated with antiviral activity. Our results suggest that pSTING-activated apoptosis at least partially mediates the antiviral activity or multiple pSTING-activated signals, including IFN production, nuclear factor κ light chain enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) expression, autophagy, and apoptosis, exert a redundant antiviral role. Thus, the work reveals a new layer of complexity in STING antiviral activity.
To translate and validate the Chinese version of the Demoralization Scale among breast cancer patients.
A cross-sectional, descriptive correlational design was employed. From September 2016 to May ...2017, 203 breast cancer survivors completed the survey. Content, construct, concurrent and divergent validity and internal consistency of the Chinese version of the Demoralization Scale were evaluated.
The proposed factor structures of the Demoralization Scale in previous studies cannot be confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis in the present study. Moreover, four factors were extracted by exploratory factor analysis, which accounted for 58.66% of the variance. Each subscale yielded satisfactory internal consistency with coefficient alphas ranging from 0.720 to 0.894. Relationships/differences between demoralization, quality of life, despair and depression provide initial support for the concurrent/divergent validity. Given these results, the Chinese version of the Demoralization Scale appears to be both valid and reliable.
Our results preliminary supported that the Chinese version of the Demoralization Scale is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing demoralization among mainland Chinese breast cancer patients, and the factor structure of this measurement needs to be further addressed in future studies.
•Confirmatory factor analysis in the present study did not yield satisfactory results.•Results of exploratory factor analysis demonstrated a four-factor structure, which explain 58.66% of the variance.•Each subscale yielded satisfactory internal consistency with coefficient alphas ranging from 0.720 to 0.894.•Relationships/differences between demoralization and other variables provide support for the concurrent/ divergent validity.
Abstract
The innate immune DNA sensing cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS)–stimulator of IFN genes (STING) signaling pathway plays a key role in host antiviral function. Although the cGAS-STING pathway ...has been extensively studied, the cGAS-STING signaling in livestock and poultry is not well understood, and whether the species specificity exists is still unknown. In this study, we found that porcine and chicken STING, but not cGAS, exhibit species differences in regulation of IFN; that is, porcine (p)STING mediates good induction of IFN in mammalian cells and low IFN induction in chicken DF-1 cells; on the contrary, chicken (ch)STING mediates IFN induction only in chicken cells but not in mammalian cells. Furthermore, it was found that the motifs pLxIS of pSTING and pLxVS of chSTING are responsible for the species disparity, with the IFN activity of pSTING and chSTING exchanged by swapping the two pLxI/VS motifs. The pLxI/VS motifs mediated the interactions of various STING with downstream IFN regulatory factors (IRFs), reflecting the species-specific pIRF3 and chIRF7. Next, the STING, IRFs, and STING-IRFs were reconstituted in porcine and chicken macrophages that were genetically knocked out for STING and/or IRFs by the CRISPR-Cas9 approach. The results showed that pSTING plus pIRF3 or chIRF7 are able to induce IFN; however, chSTING plus chIRF7 but not pIRF3 are able to induce IFN, suggesting that pIRF3 is specific and stringent, which underlies the inability of chSTING to induce IFN in mammalian cells. In summary, our findings reveal the differential species specificity in the cGAS-STING pathway and the underlying mechanisms, thus providing valuable insights on the cGAS-STING-IRF signaling axis for comparative immunology.
Three-dimensional (3D) cell cultures have contributed to a variety of biological research fields by filling the gap between monolayers and animal models. The modern optical sectioning microscopic ...methods make it possible to probe the complexity of 3D cell cultures but are limited by the inherent opaqueness. While tissue optical clearing methods have emerged as powerful tools for investigating whole-mount tissues in 3D, they often have limitations, such as being too harsh for fragile 3D cell cultures, requiring complex handling protocols, or inducing tissue deformation with shrinkage or expansion. To address this issue, we proposed a modified optical clearing method for 3D cell cultures, called MACS-W, which is simple, highly efficient, and morphology-preserving. In our evaluation of MACS-W, we found that it exhibits excellent clearing capability in just 10Formula: see textmin, with minimal deformation, and helps drug evaluation on tumor spheroids. In summary, MACS-W is a fast, minimally-deformative and fluorescence compatible clearing method that has the potential to be widely used in the studies of 3D cell cultures.
Accurate delineation of the clinical target volume (CTV) is a crucial prerequisite for safe and effective radiotherapy characterized. This study addresses the integration of magnetic resonance (MR) ...images to aid in target delineation on computed tomography (CT) images. However, obtaining MR images directly can be challenging. Therefore, we employ AI-based image generation techniques to “intelligentially generate” MR images from CT images to improve CTV delineation based on CT images. To generate high-quality MR images, we propose an attention-guided single-loop image generation model. The model can yield higher-quality images by introducing an attention mechanism in feature extraction and enhancing the loss function. Based on the generated MR images, we propose a CTV segmentation model fusing multi-scale features through image fusion and a hollow space pyramid module to enhance segmentation accuracy. The image generation model used in this study improves the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity index (SSIM) from 14.87 and 0.58 to 16.72 and 0.67, respectively, and improves the feature distribution distance and learning-perception image similarity from 180.86 and 0.28 to 110.98 and 0.22, achieving higher quality image generation. The proposed segmentation method demonstrates high accuracy, compared with the FCN method, the intersection over union ratio and the Dice coefficient are improved from 0.8360 and 0.8998 to 0.9043 and 0.9473, respectively. Hausdorff distance and mean surface distance decreased from 5.5573 mm and 2.3269 mm to 4.7204 mm and 0.9397 mm, respectively, achieving clinically acceptable segmentation accuracy. Our method might reduce physicians’ manual workload and accelerate the diagnosis and treatment process while decreasing inter-observer variability in identifying anatomical structures.
Klebsiella pneumoniae is a major opportunistic pathogen that is a member of the Enterobacteriaceae. Klebsiella pneumoniae causes pneumonia in mink and has become the primary infectious disease that ...limits mink farming. In this study, we report the draft genome sequence of a multidrug-resistant (MDR) strain of K. pneumoniae that harbours the mcr-1 gene isolated from a mink in China.
The agar microdilution method was used to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration of the strain. The entire genomic DNA was sequenced using an Illumina MiSeq platform. A multilocus sequence type (MLST) and a core genome SNP phylogenetic tree analysis with a heatmap of the resistance genes and virulence genes were performed.
The size of the genome was 5451.826 kb, and it included one chromosome and one plasmid. The draft genome of K. pneumoniae indicated that the isolate was a member of MLST 661. Four types of virulence genes were detected. The results of antimicrobial susceptibility testing showed multiple drug resistance, and 17 resistance genes were identified.
The genome sequence reported in this study will help to reveal the key role of antibiotic resistance and pathogenic mechanisms. It will provide useful information for the role of mobile genetic elements in the adaptive translocation and spread of antimicrobial resistance.
