The gut bacteria-derived metabolite trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) has been discussed in various cardiometabolic diseases. However, evidence characterizing the microbial population responsible for ...TMAO accumulation in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), an increasingly prevalent arrhythmia, is yet lacking. In order to understand the key gut microorganisms that produce TMAO in AF, trimethylamine (TMA)-synthesis enzymes and metabolic pathways, as well as the potential TMA-producers in gut microbiome were assessed based on metagenomic data-mining in a northern Chinese cohort consisting of 50 non-AF controls and 50 patients with different types of AF.
Compared to the control subjects, AF patients showed a marked increase in the microbial genes underlying TMA formation in the gut, which included 12 potential TMA-synthesis functional orthologs and 1 module. The specific bacterial genes, including choline-TMA lyase, carnitine monooxygenase, glycine betaine reductase, and TMAO reductase, were elevated in the gut of AF patients. Furthermore, 16 genera were assigned and significantly correlated with TMA-enzymatic genes, where 9 genera were remarkably enriched in the gut communities of AF patients. Neither of these TMA-synthesis pathways nor the microbial players showed a significant discrepancy between different types of AF in the current cohort. These gut microbes might participate in the formation of TMA by activating the key TMA-synthesis enzymes and contributing to the functional pathways in AF patients.
The present study provides an in-depth insight into the potential bacteria and metabolic pathways involved in TMA production in the gut of AF patients. These findings emphasize a key role of the gut bacteria in driving TMAO formation during AF pathogenesis, thereby indicating its therapeutic potential as an intervention strategy of AF by targeting TMA-synthesis pathways and dysbiotic gut microbiota.
As the number of cores in a chip multiprocessor increase, the directory size becomes excessive. Current research shows that directory size can be reduced by tracking private entries with coarse-grain ...directory entries called region entries. In order to indicate which blocks the region owner has cached, the present vector in the region entries in the dual-grain directory (DGD) uses a bit vector format. If a coarser-grain region granularity is used, the length of the region entries becomes excessive. Besides, most of the latest scalable directories use the short-entry directory format with only one pointer. Therefore, DGD has limited flexibility of region granularity and is incompatible with the latest scalable directories. In this paper, we propose a scalable short-entry dual-grain coherence directory with flexible region granularity (SS-DGD). In private region entries, a counter is used instead of the original bit vector. Region entries using counters and private block entries using a single pointer always have the same length, giving SS-DGD the flexibility of region size. To reduce the directory size, SS-DGD is divided into a shared directory and a private directory that includes private block entries and private region entries. With the same total number of directory entries, SS-DGD has a smaller directory size than previous DGD because the private directory entries in SS-DGD are shorter. And the detailed simulation-based study shows that there are no statistically significant differences in execution time and network traffic between SS-DGD and DGD. In the 64-core system, our proposal can reduce the directory size by 29.9%. More importantly, the region entries in SS-DGD can be used in the latest scalable directories and have a high potential to compress the number of directory entries.
Background Compromised intestinal barrier integrity can be independently driven by hyperglycemia, and both hyperglycemia and intestinal barrier injury are associated with poor prognosis in critical ...illness. This study investigated the intestinal barrier biomarkers in critically ill patients, to explore the role of compromised intestinal barrier integrity on the prognosis of critically ill patients with pre-existing hyperglycemia. Methods This was a retrospective observational study. The relationships between intestinal barrier biomarkers and glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), fasting blood glucose (FBG), indicators of clinical characteristics, disease severity, and prognosis in critically ill patients were investigated. Then the metrics mentioned above were compared between survivors and non-survivors, the risk factors of 90-day mortality were investigated by logistic regression analysis. Further, patients were divided into HbA1c < 6.5% Group and HbA1c greater than or equal to 6.5% Group, metrics mentioned above were compared between these two groups. Results A total of 109 patients with critical illness were included in the study. D-lactate and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) were associated with sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score and 90-day mortality. LPS was an independent risk factor of 90-day mortality. DAO, NEU (neutrophil) proportion, temperature, lactate were lower in HbA1c greater than or equal to 6.5% Group while D-lactate, LPS, indicators of disease severity and prognosis showed no statistical difference between HbA1c < 6.5% Group and HbA1c greater than or equal to 6.5% Group. Conclusions Intestinal barrier integrity is associated with the disease severity and prognosis in critical illness. Compromised intestinal barrier integrity might be responsible for the poor prognosis in critically ill patients with pre-existing hyperglycemia. Keywords: Intestinal barrier, Hyperglycemia, Critical illness, Prognosis
Traits are basic attributes of organisms that form the basis for speciation and diversity. The floral nectar spur is a classic example of a key innovative trait. Differences in nectar spur morphology ...can lead to pollinator specialization and thereby promote reproductive isolation between species. Despite its importance, the nectar spur has been lost in some members of the columbine genus (Aquilegia), resulting in a new spurless trait, and the evolutionary influence of this trait has become a topic of scientific interest. Aquilegia ecalcarata is an important representative columbine species that lacks spurs. Here, we resequenced the genomes of 324 individuals from A. ecalcarata and four related species. We found that A. ecalcarata was divided into three groups based on the phylogenetic relationships and population genetic structures. Topology weighting analysis revealed that A. ecalcarata has multiple origins, and Patterson′s D statistic showed that the spurless trait may have one origin. Floral morphological analysis revealed significant differences between A. ecalcarata and its spurred sister groups, and the floral phenotypes of the three A. ecalcarata groups have identical or similar floral phenotypes. Our results confirmed that the spurless trait not only produced the phenotype of A. ecalcarata but also contributed to the emergence of the A. rockii phenotype. Moreover, the spurless trait promoted the divergence between A. ecalcarata and its close, spurred relatives. Our research shows that the loss of key innovative traits can play a very important role in speciation and species diversity.
The phylogenetic relationships of Aquilegia ecalcarata and four related species, A. ecalcarata has multiple origins, A. rockii phenotype is due to the introgression of A. ecalcarata.
Hypertension (HTN) is one of the major cardiovascular risk factors, which contributes to increasing target organ damages and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality worldwide. Isolated systolic HTN ...(ISH) and isolated diastolic HTN (IDH) are two important subtypes of HTN. Previous researches have demonstrated the alteration of fecal bacteria in HTN, but not down to these two sub-types. In order to identify whether the composition of bacterial taxa and functional modules shift in ISH and IDH, we performed a metagenomic sequencing analysis of fecal samples from 15 controls, 14 ISH, and 11 IDH.
Compared with control and ISH, IDH patients showed decreased gene number, bacterial richness, and evenness, although the bacterial alterations did not reach statistical significance in the Shannon index. Also, at the genus level, the β-diversity for intestinal flora in IDH was distinguishable from those with ISH. Furthermore, the taxonomic composition of ISH or IDH was different from that of healthy control at genus and species levels. Patients with IDH or ISH were confirmed to be enriched with Rothia mucilaginosa, along with reduced Clostridium sp. ASBs410. Lastly, the altered KEGG modules were significantly decreased in IDH compared with the control group, such as sodium transport system; while for ISH, functions relevant to biotin biosynthesis were decreased.
Overall, our results showed the disordered fecal bacteria profiles in subjects with ISH and especially IDH, emphasizing the significance of early intervention for IDH.
Disease and pest detection of grape foliage is essential for grape yield and quality. RGB image (RGBI), multispectral image (MSI), and thermal infrared image (TIRI) are widely used in the health ...detection of plants. In this study, we collected three types of grape foliage images with six common classes (anthracnose, downy mildew, leafhopper, mites, viral disease, and healthy) in the field. ShuffleNet V2 was used to build up detection models. According to the accuracy of RGBI, MSI, TIRI, and multi-source data concatenation (MDC) models, and a multi-source data fusion (MDF) decision-making method was proposed for improving the detection performance for grape foliage, aiming to enhance the decision-making for RGBI of grape foliage by fusing the MSI and TIRI. The results showed that 40% of the incorrect detection outputs were rectified using the MDF decision-making method. The overall accuracy of MDF model was 96.05%, which had improvements of 2.64%, 13.65%, and 27.79%, compared with the RGBI, MSI, and TIRI models using label smoothing, respectively. In addition, the MDF model was based on the lightweight network with 3.785 M total parameters and 0.362 G multiply-accumulate operations, which could be highly portable and easy to be applied.
Menopause is a significant life transition for women, impacting their physical and psychological health. The age at natural menopause (ANM) and its associated factors have differed by race and ...region. This study aimed to investigate ANM and associated factors of early and late menopause among Chinese women in Zhejiang province. A cross-sectional study was conducted using a multi-stage stratified cluster sampling method to recruit 8,006 women aged 40-69 years who had resided in Zhejiang province for over 6 months between July 2019 and December 2021. Self-reported ANM and sociodemographics, lifestyle behaviors, reproductive history, and health-related factors were collected using questionnaires in face-to-face surveys. ANM were categorized into three groups: early menopause (<45 years), normal menopause (45-54 years), and late menopause (greater than or equal to55 years). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was utilized to calculate the median ANM. Multivariable multinomial logistic regression was employed to explore the associated factors of early menopause and late menopause. A total of 6,047 women aged 40-69 years were included for survival analysis, with 3,176 of them for the regression analysis. The overall median ANM was 51 years (Inter-quartile range IQR: 51-52). Women who were smokers (odds ratio OR:4.54, 95% confidence interval CI:1.6-12.84), had irregular menstrual cycles (OR:1.78, 95% CI:1.12-2.83) and hypertension (OR:1.55, 95% CI:1.09-2.21) had a higher odds ratio of early menopause, while central obesity (OR:1.33, 95% CI:1.03-1.73) and hyperlipidemia (OR:1.51, 95% CI:1.04-2.18) were factors associated with late menopause. This study revealed the associations between ANM and various factors among Chinese women. These factors included socio-demographic factors such as age; life behavior factors like current or prior smoking status; reproductive history factors such as irregular menstrual cycles, miscarriages, and breastfeeding; and health-related factors like central adiposity, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. These findings provided a basis for understanding factors associated with ANM.
Purpose
The angle between the anterior talofibular ligament (ATFL) and the posterior talofibular ligament (PTFL) is increased in patients with chronic ATFL injury. This study aimed to compare the ...AFTL–PTFL angle before versus after ankle lateral stabilization surgery, and to evaluate whether the ATFL–PTFL angle correlates with the ligament injury severity.
Methods
This retrospective study included 48 patients with mechanical ankle instability treated between 2016 and 2018. After arthroscopic evaluation, all patients underwent ankle lateral stabilization surgery comprising ligament repair (
n
= 28) or reconstruction (
n
= 20). The ATFL–PTFL angle was measured in the axial plane on pre- and postoperative MRI. Comparisons were made of the pre- versus postoperative ATFL–PTFL angles, and the ATFL–PTFL angle of the repair versus reconstruction groups. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to assess the diagnostic performance of the ATFL–PTFL angle in selecting the surgical technique.
Results
The postoperative ATFL–PTFL angle was significantly decreased compared with preoperatively. The ATFL–PTFL angle was significantly smaller in the repair group than the reconstruction group preoperatively and postoperatively. The area under the ROC curve was 0.741 (
P
< 0.01). The optimal cutoff point for the selection of ligament reconstruction was an ATFL–PTFL angle of 89.4° (sensitivity 0.85, specificity 0.61).
Conclusion
The ATFL–PTFL angle decreases after ankle lateral stabilization surgery. The ATFL–PTFL angle is related to the severity of the ATFL injury. Ankle lateral ligament reconstruction should be considered when the ATFL–PTFL angle is > 89.4°.
Level of Evidence
Level III.
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