Expression of host-specific Lysyloxidase double-stranded RNA in Metarhizhium anisopliae enhanced virulence against the rice pest Sogatella furcifera.

Background: Entomopathogenic fungi show great potential as biological control agents for managing insect pests. However, host defenses have limited the effectiveness of these fungi in practice. Utilizing genetic engineering-based technology could be a promising strategy to enhance the killing efficiency of these fungi against insect pests.

Obesity hinders the efficacy of adipose-derived stem cells for knee osteoarthritis by reducing the proportion of DPP4+ stem cells.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most prevalent and disabling joint disease, while adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) have emerged as a promising therapeutic option in pre-clinical studies. However, the therapeutic efficacy of ASCs may be influenced by the source of these cells, especially in obese patients. This study compared the effects of intra-articular injections of ASCs from wild-type (WT) and ob/ob (OB) mice.

Synergistic t-to-π* Electron Transfer and Nanotube Engineering in Spinal Catalysts for Ultra-Efficient Chloride Evolution.

Facing the massive energy consumption of over 200 TWh y of chlor-alkali industry, developing high-activity and durable non-precious CER (chlorine evolution reaction) catalysts is urgently needed to address the high overpotentials and suppress the dissolution high-valance metal species. Herein, a carbon quantum dots functionalized trimetallic Fe/Co/Ni spinel oxide nanotube architecture (FCNO@CQDs) is constructed, featuring t-to-π* π-backbonding for dramatically enhanced CER activity and stability. The reverse electron flow from Co d-obritals to the vacant CQDs' π* orbitals can upshift the d-band center for enhanced intermediate adsorption, while stabilizing high-valent Co centers via increased bond order.

Effects of immune checkpoint inhibitors on the pulmonary circulation in lung cancer patients.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are effective anti-tumor agents, but new immune-related side effects (irAEs) are emerging. This retrospective cohort study investigated 461 lung cancer patients treated with ICIs over 2 years, analyzing changes in pulmonary artery diameter (PAD), aortic diameter (AoD), and the pulmonary artery/aortic diameter (PAD/AoD) ratio through chest computed tomography (CT) at baseline, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years post-treatment. The PAD increased from 25.

PEDUNCLE LENGTH 1 regulates wheat peduncle elongation through brassinosteroid signaling pathway.

This study identifies TaPL1, a MADS-box transcription factor underlying the QFiriti-6B QTL, as a key regulator of peduncle elongation in wheat. TaPL1 enhances brassinosteroid signaling through direct suppression of TaBKI1, and its loss-of-function alleles exhibit reduced plant height and peduncle length, but increased grain weight, offering valuable targets for yield improvement in wheat breeding.

Fxyd5 downregulation protects the heart from ischemia/reperfusion injury by suppressing myocardial inflammation.

Background: Myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury is a common cause of death. FXYD domain-containing ion transport regulator-5 (Fxyd5) is a type I membrane protein that plays a significant role in mediating cellular functions. However, the expression and function of Fxyd5 in myocardial I/R injury remain unclear.

Design and Fabrication of Microsphere-Based Micro/Nano Structures for Efficient Electromagnetic Modulation and Absorption.

The development of high-performance electromagnetic (EM) absorption materials is pivotal in addressing EM pollution. Such absorption materials enable flexible modulation of EM performance, which has become an important focal point of recent research. Among various EM absorption materials, microsphere-based micro/nano materials exhibit extremely high stability and remarkable attributes for modulating their EM performance.

Regulating charge dynamics in covalent organic frameworks for efficient solar-driven hydrogen peroxide production.

Solar-driven hydrogen peroxide (HO) production offers a green and sustainable alternative to the energy-intensive anthraquinone process, utilizing water and oxygen as feedstock and solar energy as the sole input. Covalent organic frameworks (COFs), owing to their well-defined crystalline structures and tunable electronic properties, have emerged as a compelling platform for photocatalytic HO synthesis. However, the efficiency of HO photosynthesis remains limited by sluggish charge separation and rapid carrier recombination.

A mechanism-guided inverse engineering framework to unlock design principles of H-bonded organic frameworks for gas separation.

The diverse combinations of novel building blocks offer a vast design space for hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks (HOFs), rendering them highly promising for gas separation and purification. However, the underlying separation mechanism facilitated by their unique hydrogen-bond networks has not yet been fully understood. In this work, a comprehensive understanding of the separation mechanisms was achieved through an iterative data-driven inverse engineering approach established upon a hypothetical HOF database possessing nearly 110 000 structures created by a materials genomics method.

The Individual and Joint Associations of Sarcopenic Obesity and Malnutrition on Predicting the Severity of Acute Pancreatitis.

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the individual and joint associations of malnutrition and obesity on predicting the severity and prognosis of acute pancreatitis (AP).

Patients And Methods: A retrospective analysis of 240 AP patients was conducted. Malnutrition was diagnosed using Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria.

The mediating role of family adaptability in the relationship between insecure attachment and family functioning in patients with major depression disorder: a cross-sectional study.

Introduction: Depression ranks as the second leading cause of the global health burden; therefore, identification of its risk and influencing factors is essential to develop more effective multidimensional interventions. The aim of the present study was to analyze the mediating role of family adaptability (FA) on the relationship between insecure attachment (IA) and family functioning (FF) in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), which currently remains unclear. It also aims to provide a theoretical reference for optimizing rehabilitation interventions.

Large language models can extract metadata for annotation of human neuroimaging publications.

We show that recent (mid-to-late 2024) commercial large language models (LLMs) are capable of good quality metadata extraction and annotation with very little work on the part of investigators for several exemplar real-world annotation tasks in the neuroimaging literature. We investigated the GPT-4o LLM from OpenAI which performed comparably with several groups of specially trained and supervised human annotators. The LLM achieves similar performance to humans, between 0.

OsSPT38 encodes a novel SUMO E3 ligase that enhances rice stress resilience and grain yield.

Abiotic stresses severely threaten global food security, underscoring the need for resilient crop varieties. We identified OsSPT38, a previously uncharacterized SUMO E3 ligase in rice, and discovered a rare gain-of-function mutation (Gly212Asp) that enhances both stress resilience and yield. This phenotype was validated in 18 additional independent mutants and by base editing in the elite indica cultivar Huanghuazhan.

Multiview-cooperated graph neural network enables novel multi-omics cancer subtype classification.

Cancer presents a significant challenge in the field of public health due to its high incidence, mortality rate, and inherent heterogeneity. Integrating multi-omics biological data offers a comprehensive and intricate understanding of biological processes, disease mechanisms, and cancer subtyping, rendering it an influential tool for scientific research. Nevertheless, current approaches to integrating multi-omics data often fail to consider the scale of data in feature information and overlook the analysis of the individual and shared feature expressions in multi-omics data.

Counterion-mediated modulation of electroadhesion in polyanionic/polycationic hydrogels: mechanisms and performance.

Reversible electroadhesive polyelectrolyte gels have emerged as promising materials for flexible electronic and soft robotic applications. While current research predominantly emphasizes polymer design and structural optimization to enhance both the reversibility and strength of electroadhesion, fundamental limitations persist in elucidating ion-mediated interfacial mechanisms. Herein, the synergistic effects of ion species selection and interfacial engineering were systematically investigated through the development of distinct polyelectrolyte hydrogel assemblies.

Emerging opportunities and challenges in small molecule development for non-HSP90 chaperones.

Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are pivotal regulators of proteostasis, with their dysregulation implicated in cancer, neurodegeneration, and infectious diseases. Significant progress has been made in targeting HSP90, particularly in oncology, where inhibitors have demonstrated considerable therapeutic potential and validated HSP90 as a promising drug target. However, other HSP families remain relatively underexplored as drug targets despite their critical biological roles.

A comparative theoretical study on the photoisomerization and antioxidant capacity of resveratrol and its Azo/Dihydro analogs.

This study employs a suite of quantum chemical methods to systematically investigate the photoisomerization mechanism and antioxidant activity of resveratrol (Res) and two key derivatives, Azo-Resveratrol (AzoRes) and Dihydro-Resveratrol (dhRes), thereby elucidating the impact of molecular scaffold modification on their structure-activity relationships. Employing density functional theory (DFT), time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT), spin-flip TD-DFT and multistate complete active space second-order perturbation theory (MS-CASPT2), we investigated the geometric configurations, absorption spectra, photoisomerization pathways, and key antioxidant parameters for all three molecules. The results reveal that the substitution of the CC bond with an NN linkage (AzoRes) induces a bathochromic shift in the absorption spectrum, introduces a low-energy n → π* transition, and facilitates a barrierless photoisomerization pathway.

Atomically Asymmetrical Ruthenium-Oxygen-Cobalt Sites Accelerate Oxygen Redox and Suppress Side Reactions for Stable Lithium-Oxygen Batteries.

Development of aprotic lithium-oxygen (Li-O) batteries suffers from slow cathode reaction kinetics, numerous side reactions, and large polarization, which are intimately related to the discharge product of LiO. Here, we designed and prepared a modified CoO nanoparticle with atomic Ru substitution at octahedral Co sites supported by carbon nanocages (RuCoO@HCNs) as a cathode catalyst. The asymmetrical octahedral Ru-O-Co units trigger a strong electron coupling effect, leading to charge redistribution and optimization of the d-orbital energy levels, thus facilitating oxygen activation and conversion into superoxide anions during discharging.

Achieving Efficient Solar Hydrogen Production via a Three-Motif Molecular Junction with Spatially Separated Dual Reduction Sites.

Organic semiconductors are very attractive photocatalysts for the production of solar fuels. However, their development is greatly plagued by limited visible light absorption and severe restriction of photoexcited charge carrier separation and transfer caused by the exciton effect resulting from inherent dielectric constraints. Herein, a three-motif molecular junction hydrogen evolution photocatalyst is constructed by linking a donor-acceptor-donor (D-A-D) molecule integrating the photosensitizer unit and the redox unit with holey carbon nitride sheets (HCNS) as a second electron acceptor unit (A) based on the covalent strategy.

Design, synthesis, and evaluation of novel pinane-based thiazolidione derivatives with anti-glioblastoma activity.

A series of pinane-based thiazolidione derivatives were synthesised, and their anti-proliferative effects were investigated by CCK-8 assay. All these compounds exhibited anti-proliferation activity against three glioblastoma cell lines (U87, T98G, and U251). Compound exhibited the strongest inhibition effect against all three cell lines.

Serum ascites albumin gradient in predicting the severity of hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome induced by pyrrolizidine alkaloids.

Aim Of The Study: Hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome induced by pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA-HSOS) is a form of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) associated with portal hypertension (PH). The serum-ascites albumin gradient (SAAG) is known to be directly related to PH. However, the clinical value of SAAG for predicting the severity of PA-HSOS is unknown.

Effects of Dexmedetomidine on Postoperative Quality of Recovery and Electroencephalogram in Elderly Patients Undergoing Total Knee Arthroplasty: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Purpose: Anesthesia management strategies in elderly patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA) are critical to the postoperative quality of recovery (QoR), and changes in electroencephalogram (EEG) associated with anesthesia drugs may play an important role in this process. This study aimed to determine the effects of different doses of dexmedetomidine on postoperative QoR in elderly TKA patients, and whether there is a correlation with specific EEG changes.

Methods: In this randomized controlled trial, elderly patients (aged ≥ 60 years) undergoing elective TKA were randomly allocated in a 1:1:1 ratio to 0.

From trash to treasure: tumor draining lymph nodes as a multi-omics goldmine in cancer therapy.

Tumor draining lymph nodes (TDLNs), as secondary lymphoid organs, are pivotal in initiating and regulating adaptive immune responses. Historically, TDLNs were recognized primarily as metastasis gateways in cancer, promoting radical dissection to prevent recurrence. However, emerging preclinical studies reveals their critical role in orchestrating systemic anti-tumor immune responses during cancer therapy, highlighting the dilemma of balancing lymph nodes (LNs) preservation with metastasis control.

3D-Printed Extracellular Matrix-Mimicking Hydrogels Derived from Multiple Tissues for Integrated Construction of Complex Organs.

Due to the lack of suitable donors and concerns about immune rejection after transplantation, the demand for artificial organs among patients is increasing. Extracellular matrix-mimicking hydrogels provide excellent prospects for overcoming the limitations of current artificial organ construction methods. Here, a set of extracellular matrix-mimicking hydrogels derived from multiple animal tissues is described, which meets the regeneration needs of multiple tissues after xenotransplantation.