Objective
Malignant biliary obstruction (MBO) is a rare disease with a poor prognosis. Recent studies have shown that endoscopic radiofrequency ablation (ERFA) may improve survival. We conducted a ...systematic review and meta-analysis of the efficacy of ERFA in combination with biliary stent placement for the treatment of MBO.
Methods
The study was registered in INPLASY (number 202340096). The PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Embase databases were searched from inception to April 2023. We selected studies comparing the efficacy of ERFA plus stent placement with stent placement alone. The primary outcomes were pooled hazard ratios (HRs) for overall survival and stent patency; the secondary outcomes were the odds ratios (ORs) for adverse events.
Results
Eleven studies (four randomized controlled trials and seven observational studies) were included in the meta-analysis. Pooled analysis showed a difference in survival time between the two groups (HR 0.65, 95% confidence interval CI 0.58–0.73, I2 = 40%). However, there were no differences in the duration of stent patency or the incidence of adverse events (HR 1.04, 95% CI 0.84–1.29, I2 = 46%; OR 1.41, 95% CI 1.02–1.96, I2 = 29%).
Conclusions
ERFA has a significant survival benefit for MBO, but does not increase the risk of adverse events.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most prevalent cause of dementia and is primarily associated with memory impairment and cognitive decline, but the etiology of AD has not been elucidated. In recent ...years, evidence has shown that immune cells play critical roles in AD pathology. In the current study, we collected the transcriptomic data of the hippocampus from gene expression omnibus database, and investigated the effect of immune cell infiltration in the hippocampus on AD, and analyzed the key genes that influence the pathogenesis of AD patients. The results revealed that the relative abundance of immune cells in the hippocampus of AD patients was altered. Of all given 28 kinds of immune cells, monocytes were the important immune cell associated with AD. We identified 4 key genes associated with both AD and monocytes, including KDELR1, SPTAN1, CDC16 and RBBP6, and they differentially expressed in 5XFAD mice and WT mice. The logistic regression and random forest models based on the 4 key genes could effectively distinguish AD from healthy samples. Our research provided a new perspective on immunotherapy for AD patients.
Sarcopenia is associated with poor outcomes in many malignancies. However, the relationship between sarcopenia and the prognosis of pancreatic cancer has not been well understood. The aim of this ...meta-analysis was to identify the prognostic value of preoperative sarcopenia in patients with pancreatic cancer after curative-intent surgery.
Database from PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science were searched from its inception to July 2023. The primary outcomes were overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and the incidence of major complications. The hazard ratio (HR), odds ratio (OR), and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the relationship between preoperative sarcopenia and the prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer. All statistical analyses were conducted by Review Manager 5.3 and STATA 17.0 software.
A total of 23 retrospective studies involving 5888 patients were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled results demonstrated that sarcopenia was significantly associated with worse OS (HR = 1.53, P < 0.00001) and PFS (HR = 1.55, P < 0.00001). However, this association was not obvious in regard to the incidence of major complications (OR = 1.33, P = 0.11).
Preoperative sarcopenia was preliminarily proved to be associated with the terrible prognosis of pancreatic cancer after surgery. However, this relationship needs to be further validated in more prospective studies.
TiO2 nanoparticles with different shapes and surface modifiers can change the hole mobility of a P3HT matrix in TiO2/P3HT composite films by three orders of magnitude. The composite films with TiO2 ...nanorods modified with pyridine show hole mobilities 2–3 times higher than that of a pristine P3HT film and the mobilities can reach as high as 0.23 cm2 V−1s−1.
China agricultural development has been facing the problem of resource constraints because its resources per capita such as land and energy are relatively lower than the global average. By applying ...the provincial agricultural panel data from 2000 to 2015 and fixed effect model based on the translog production function, this paper estimates both output elasticities and substitution elasticities of agricultural inputs, which may provide insights into sustainable agricultural development. The results show that, except for capital, the output elasticities of other production factors are all positive. Energy has always played an important role in agricultural production, whose elasticity in agriculture increased from 0.0203 in 2000 to 0.1694 in 2015. We also find a severe scarcity of land, and the high intensity of energy in the field of agriculture. Moreover, there exists a substitute relationship between all factors, which means that in the short term, one production factor can be employed to replace another to maintain agricultural development. From the empirical results of this paper, some policy suggestions are proposed as follows: it is crucial that more attention should be placed on land and to plan energy use wisely. In addition, on account of the current situation in China, the input of labor force should be stepped up and energy should be used more efficiently to make up for the shortage of land resources. The empirical results and policy suggestions in this paper may benefit the sustainable development of China’s agricultural economy.
Bone morphogenetic protein-4 (BMP4) is involved in regulation of neural stem cells (NSCs) proliferation, differentiation, migration and survival. It was previously thought that the treatment of NSCs ...with BMP4 alone induces astrocytes, whereas the treatment of NSCs with the bFGF/BMP4 combination induces quiescent neural stem cells (qNSCs). In this study, we performed bulk RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) to compare the transcriptome profiles of BMP4-treated NSCs and bFGF/BMP4-treated NSCs, and found that both NSCs treated by these two methods were Sox2 positive qNSCs which were able to generate neurospheres. However, NSCs treated by those two methods exhibited different characteristics in state and the potential for neuronal differentiation based on transcriptome analysis and experimental results. We found that BMP4-treated NSCs tended to be in a deeper quiescent state than bFGF/BMP4-treated NSCs as the percentage of ki67-positive cells were lower in BMP4-treated NSCs. And after exposure to differentiated environment, bFGF/BMP4-treated NSCs generated more DCX-positive immature neurons and MAP2-positive neurons than BMP4-treated NSCs. Our study characterized qNSCs treated with BMP4 alone and bFGF/BMP4 combination, providing a reference for the scientific use of BMP4 and bFGF/BMP4-induced qNSCs models.
This paper details the design and implementation of a single-stage transformerless buck–boost inverter for electric vehicle (EV) chargers. Being different from conventional H-bridge inverters, the ...proposed inverter operates like buck–boost dc/dc converters instead of buck dc/dc converters. As a consequence, the advantages of a buck–boost dc/dc converter, i.e., the arbitrary relationships between its input voltage and output voltage, are still applicable to the proposed inverter. Specifically, it remains in normal operation even when the peak ac output voltage is higher than the dc-link voltage. Simulation results are finally presented to illustrate its effectiveness.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is an age-related and second most common neurodegenerative disorder. In recent years, increasing evidence revealed that peripheral immune cells might be able to infiltrate ...into brain tissues, which could arouse neuroinflammation and aggravate neurodegeneration. This study aimed to illuminate the landscape of peripheral immune cells and signature genes associated with immune infiltration in PD. Several transcriptomic datasets of substantia nigra (SN) from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database were separately collected as training cohort, testing cohort, and external validation cohort. The immunoscore of each sample calculated by single-sample gene set enrichment analysis was used to reflect the peripheral immune cell infiltration and to identify the differential immune cell types between PD and healthy participants. According to receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, the immunoscore achieved an overall accuracy of the area under the curve (AUC) = 0.883 in the testing cohort, respectively. The immunoscore displayed good performance in the external validation cohort with an AUC of 0.745. The correlation analysis and logistic regression analysis were used to analyze the correlation between immune cells and PD, and mast cell was identified most associated with the occurrence of PD. Additionally, increased mast cells were also observed in our
PD model. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to selected module genes related to a mast cell. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) analysis and random-forest analysis were used to analyze module genes, and two hub genes RBM3 and AGTR1 were identified as associated with mast cells in the training cohort. The expression levels of RBM3 and AGTR1 in these cohorts and PD models revealed that these hub genes were significantly downregulated in PD. Moreover, the expression trend of the aforementioned two genes differed in mast cells and dopaminergic (DA) neurons. In conclusion, this study not only exhibited a landscape of immune infiltrating patterns in PD but also identified mast cells and two hub genes associated with the occurrence of PD, which provided potential therapeutic targets for PD patients (PDs).
As a new factor of production, data element has profoundly changed our mode of production, lifestyle and social governance style. The sharing of a data element in the convergence media ecology can ...greatly improve the circulation of a data element and enhance the value of a data element; however, it may face problems such as insufficient sharing willingness, incomplete sharing circulation mechanism and inadequate implementation of the incentive mechanism. To solve these problems, this paper introduced the evolutionary game theory in the convergence media ecology and established the data-sharing model according to the characteristics of nodes. We analyzed the ecological node evolution path, evolutionary stable strategy and the corresponding state conditions in the model. Furthermore, we carried out the sampling experiment simulation, which verified the effectiveness of the research content in this paper. At the end of the article, we summarize and give some key factors to increase the willingness to participate in sharing in convergence media ecology. This paper enriched the research field of data element sharing in convergence media and explored the willingness and tendency of the participants. The research results can provide targeted suggestions for promoting the sharing of data elements in convergence media ecology.
Mitochondria, the centers of energy metabolism, have been shown to participate in epigenetic regulation of neurodegenerative diseases. Epigenetic modification of nuclear genes encoding mitochondrial ...proteins has an impact on mitochondria homeostasis, including mitochondrial biogenesis, and quality, which plays role in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. On the other hand, intermediate metabolites regulated by mitochondria such as acetyl-CoA and NAD
+
, in turn, may regulate nuclear epigenome as the substrate for acetylation and a cofactor of deacetylation, respectively. Thus, mitochondria are involved in epigenetic regulation through bidirectional communication between mitochondria and nuclear, which may provide a new strategy for neurodegenerative diseases treatment. In addition, emerging evidence has suggested that the abnormal modification of mitochondria DNA contributes to disease development through mitochondria dysfunction. In this review, we provide an overview of how mitochondria are involved in epigenetic regulation and discuss the mechanisms of mitochondria in regulation of neurodegenerative diseases from epigenetic perspective.
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