Ischemic stroke, caused by a sudden disruption of blood flow to the brain, is a leading cause of death and exerts a heavy burden on both patients and public health systems. Currently available ...treatments for ischemic stroke are very limited and are not feasible in many patients due to strict time windows required for their administration. Thus, novel treatment strategies are keenly required. T cells, which are part of the adaptive immune system, have gained more attention for its effects in ischemic stroke. Both preclinical and clinical studies have revealed the conflicting roles for T cells in post-stroke inflammation and as potential therapeutic targets. This review summarizes the mediators of T cell recruitment, as well as the temporal course of its infiltration through the blood-brain-barrier, choroid plexus, and meningeal pathways. Furthermore, we describe the mechanisms behind the deleterious and beneficial effects of T cells in the brain, in both antigen-dependent and antigen-independent manners, and finally we specifically focus on clinical and preclinical studies that have investigated T cells as potential therapeutic targets for ischemic stroke.
For many decades, zero thermal expansion materials have been the focus of numerous investigations because of their intriguing physical properties and potential applications in high-precision ...instruments. Different strategies, such as composites, solid solution and doping, have been developed as promising approaches to obtain zero thermal expansion materials. However, microstructure controlled zero thermal expansion behavior via interface or surface has not been realized. Here we report the observation of an impressive zero thermal expansion (volumetric thermal expansion coefficient, -1.41 × 10
K
, 293-623 K) in single-crystal ferroelectric PbTiO
fibers with large-scale faceted and enclosed mesopores. The zero thermal expansion behavior is attributed to a synergetic effect of positive thermal expansion near the mesopores due to the oxygen-based polarization screening and negative thermal expansion from an intrinsic ferroelectricity. Our results show that a fascinating surface construction in negative thermal expansion ferroelectric materials could be a promising strategy to realize zero thermal expansion.
Ischemic stroke is caused by insufficient cerebrovascular blood and oxygen supply. It is a major contributor to death or disability worldwide and has become a heavy societal and clinical burden. To ...date, effective treatments for ischemic stroke are limited, and innovative therapeutic methods are urgently needed. Hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) is a sensitive regulator of oxygen homeostasis, and its expression is rapidly induced after hypoxia/ischemia. It plays an extensive role in the pathophysiology of stroke, including neuronal survival, neuroinflammation, angiogenesis, glucose metabolism, and blood brain barrier regulation. In addition, the spatiotemporal expression profile of HIF-1α in the brain shifts with the progression of ischemic stroke; this has led to contradictory findings regarding its function in previous studies. Therefore, unveiling the Janus face of HIF-1α and its target genes in different type of cells and exploring the role of HIF-1α in inflammatory responses after ischemia is of great importance for revealing the pathogenesis and identifying new therapeutic targets for ischemic stroke. Herein, we provide a succinct overview of the current approaches targeting HIF-1α and summarize novel findings concerning HIF-1α regulation in different types of cells within neurovascular units, including neurons, endothelial cells, astrocytes, and microglia, during the different stages of ischemic stroke. The current representative translational approaches focused on neuroprotection by targeting HIF-1α are also discussed.
The database of faces containing sensitive information is at risk of being targeted by unauthorized automatic recognition systems, which is a significant concern for privacy. Although there are ...existing methods that aim to conceal identifiable information by adding adversarial perturbations to faces, they suffer from noticeable distortions that significantly compromise visual perception, and therefore, offer limited protection to privacy. Furthermore, the increasing prevalence of appearance anxiety on social media has led to users preferring to beautify their faces before uploading images. In this paper, we design a novel face database protection scheme via beautification with chaotic systems. Specifically, we construct the adversarial face with better visual perception via beautification for each face in the database. In the training, the face matcher and the beautification discriminator are federated against the generator, prompting it to generate beauty-like perturbations on the face to confuse the face matcher. Namely, the pixel changes produced by face beautification mask the adversarial perturbations. Moreover, we use chaotic systems to disrupt the order of adversarial faces in the database, further mitigating the risk of privacy leakage. Our scheme has been extensively evaluated through experiments, which show that it effectively defends against unauthorized attacks while also yielding good visual results.
Privacy concerns may be caused after uploading images into image hosting platforms. For traditional image encryption, images with rich content and meaning are transformed into noise-like encrypted ...images without any visual information, which can protect privacy from infringement but at the expense of visual usability. Recently, thumbnail-preserving encryption (TPE) was proposed to balance privacy and usability by preserving the thumbnail unchanged after encrypting. On the other hand, a large number of pseudo-random functions with high computational complexity are utilized in the existing TPE schemes, which makes the encryption and decryption time too long. Motivated by this, we deeply analyze the characteristics of TPE and propose a scheme to organically combine TPE with chaotic systems, which reduces the encryption and decryption time exponentially besides ensuring security. The experiments show that the time cost is reduced dozens of times as well as relatively stable compared with the existing schemes. Meanwhile, encrypted images have high visual quality and can resist some commonly used attacks including differential attack and face detection and the balance between privacy and visual usability is achieved.
Yunnan Baiyao (YNBY), a traditional Chinese medicine, is renowned for its anti-inflammatory properties. Recent studies have suggested that YNBY plays a significant role in inhibiting osteoclast ...differentiation and autophagy, which are essential processes in inflammation and bone resorption associated with periodontitis. However, the precise relationship between autophagy and the mechanism by which YNBY inhibits osteoclastogenesis remains unexplored.The primary objective of this study was to investigate the inhibitory effects of YNBY on the process of osteoclastogenesis and its potential in preventing inflammatory bone loss.
The animals were subjected to sacrifice at intervals of 2, 4, and 6 weeks postintervention whilst under deep anaesthesia, and specimens were subsequently collected. The specimens were subjected to hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining, in addition to tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) staining and subsequently imaged employing a digital scanner. The confirmation of osteoclast (OC) differentiation and autophagic flux was achieved through various techniques, including western blotting, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), TRAP staining, pit formation assay, and immunofluorescence.
The microcomputed tomography images provided evidence of the effective inhibition of alveolar bone absorption at 2, 4, and 6 weeks following YNBY treatment. Additionally, the histomorphometric evaluations of tissue segments stained with HE and TRAP, which involved measuring the distance between the alveolar bone crest (ABC) and cementoenamel junction (CEJ) and quantifying TRAP-positive OCs, yielded comparable results to those obtained through computed tomography analysis. YNBY treatment resulted in a decrease in the CEJ–ABC distance and inhibition of OC differentiation. Furthermore, in vitro studies showed that the autophagy modulators rapamycin (RAP) and 3-methyladenine (3-MA) significantly affected OC differentiation and function. YNBY attenuated the impact of RAP on the differentiation of OCs, autophagy-related factor activation, and bone resorption.
We hypothesise that YNBY suppresses the differentiation of OC and bone resorption by blocking autophagy. This study reveals that targeting autophagy might be a new alternative treatment methodology for periodontitis treatment.
Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a crucial public health problem, accounting for approximately 2% of all cancers globally and 90% of oral malignancies over the world. Unfortunately, despite the ...achievements in surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy techniques over the past decades, OSCC patients still low 5-year survival rate. Cisplatin, a platinum-containing drug, serves as one of the first-line chemotherapeutic agents of OSCC. However, the resistance to cisplatin significantly limits the clinical practice and is a crucial factor in tumor recurrence and metastasis after conventional treatments. Ferroptosis is an iron-based form of cell death, which is initiated by the intracellular accumulation of lipid peroxidation and reactive oxygen species (ROS). Interestingly, cisplatin-resistant OSCC cells exhibit lower level of ROS and lipid peroxidation compared to sensitive cells. The reduced ferroptosis in cisplatin resistance cells indicates the potential relationship between cisplatin resistance and ferroptosis, which is proved by recent studies showing that in colorectal cancer cells. However, the modulation pathway of ferroptosis reversing cisplatin resistance in OSCC cells still remains unclear. This article aims to concisely summarize the molecular mechanisms and evaluate the relationship between ferroptosis and cisplatin resistance OSCC cells, thereby providing novel strategies for overcoming cisplatin resistance and developing new therapeutic approaches.
Southwest China is one of the largest karst regions in the world. Karst environment is relatively fragile and vulnerable to human activities. Due to the discharge of sewage and domestic garbage, the ...karst system may be polluted by pathogenic bacteria. The detection of bacterial distribution and identification of phage capable of infecting them is an important approach for environmental assessment and resource acquisition.
Bacteria and phages were isolated from karst water in southwest China using the plate scribing and double plate method, respectively. Isolated phage was defined by transmission electron microscopy, one-step growth curve and optimal multiplicity of infection (MOI). Genomic sequencing, phylogenetic analysis, comparative genomic and proteomic analysis were performed.
A Klebsiella quasipneumoniae phage was isolated from 32 isolates and named KL01. KL01 is morphologically identified as Caudoviricetes with an optimal MOI of 0.1, an incubation period of 10 min, and a lysis period of 60 min. The genome length of KL01 is about 45 kb, the GC content is 42.5%, and it contains 59 open reading frames. The highest average nucleotide similarity between KL01 and a known Klebsiella phage 6939 was 83.04%.
KL01 is a novel phage, belonging to the Autophagoviridae, which has strong lytic ability. This study indicates that there were not only some potential potentially pathogenic bacteria in the karst environment, but also phage resources for exploration and application.
Objectives. To investigate the correlation between tamoxifen (TAM) and lumbar intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration (IVDD). Methods. The patients who visited the department of spine surgery from ...January 2015 to December 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. Those with a history of breast cancer surgery were identified and their data were collected. These data included patients' age, body mass index (BMI), menstrual history, postoperative history, drug treatment plan, and imaging data. The participants were divided into the TAM group and the non-TAM group. Lumbar IVDD was assessed by lumbar lordosis (LL), vertebral CT density, lumbar disc height index (DHI), Modic changes, and modified Pfirrmann grading score. SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis. Results. A total of 75 patients were included in this study, 46 patients in the TAM group and 29 patients in the non-TAM group. No significant differences were present in age, BMI, postoperative history, LL, and vertebral CT density between the two groups. The DHI of L1/2 and L2/3 in the TAM group was lower compared to the non-TAM group (P=0.038 and P=0.034, respectively), while comparisons regarding the DHI of L3/4, L4/5, and L5/S1, and the average DHI between TAM and non-TAM groups were not significant. The modified Pfirrmann grading scores of the L1/2 and L2/3 IVDs in the TAM group were higher than those in the non-TAM group (P=0.004 and P=0.025, respectively). Comparisons of L3/4, L4/5, and L5/S1 between the two groups were not significant. The comparisons regarding the occurrence of Modic changes did not show a significant difference between the TAM and non-TAM groups. Conclusions. This study indicates that there might be some positive correlation between TAM use and lumbar IVDD. In particular, the degeneration of L1/2 and L2/3 has shown a correlation with TAM use.
Background
Although subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) is related to abnormalities in left ventricular diastolic function, the use of levothyroxine as a regular treatment remains debatable. This ...meta-analysis aimed to determine whether thyroid hormone replacement therapy affects cardiac diastolic function in patients with SCH as measured by echocardiography.
Methods
This meta-analysis included a search of the EMBASE, PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library databases from their inception to May 18, 2023, for studies analyzing cardiac morphology and functional changes in patients with SCH before and after thyroid hormone replacement. The outcome measures were cardiac morphology and diastolic and overall cardiac function, as assessed using ultrasound parameters (including ventricular wall thickness, chamber size, mitral wave flow, tissue Doppler, and speckle tracking). The quality of the studies was assessed using the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale. The standard mean differences (MDs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using fixed- or random-effects models.
Results
Seventeen studies met the inclusion criteria. A total of 568 patients participated and completed the follow-up. All studies specifically stated that serum thyrotropin levels returned to normal by the end of the study period. Compared with baseline levels, no significant morphological changes were observed in the heart. In terms of diastolic function, we discovered that the ratios of E-velocity to A-velocity (E/A) had greatly improved after thyroid hormone replacement therapy, whereas the ratios of the mitral inflow E wave to the tissue Doppler e’ wave (E/e’) had not. Global longitudinal strain (GLS) increased significantly after treatment with levothyroxine.
Conclusion
In adult patients with SCH, thyroid hormone supplementation can partially but not completely improve parameters of diastolic function during the observation period. This meta-analysis was performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 statement, an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews (11) and was registered with INPLASY (INPLASY202320083).
Systematic review registration
https://inplasy.com/inplasy-2023-2-0083
.
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