Predictive role of serum sST2 for heart failure in children with severe pneumonia.

Objective: To evaluate the predictive value of soluble suppression of tumorigenesis-2 (sST2) for heart failure (HF) in children hospitalized with severe pneumonia.

Methods: A total of 109 children with severe pneumonia who were admitted to our hospital between January 2022 and December 2023 were selected. They were divided into HF and non-HF groups based on whether they developed HF.

Iodide Salt-Catalyzed Oxidative Coupling of Benzofuran-3(2)-ones with Acids and Amines Using Air as the Oxidant.

A novel catalytic protocol enables efficient, environmentally benign oxidative coupling of benzofuran-3(2)-ones with acids and amines. Employing iodide salts as catalysts and ambient air as the sole oxidant, this method delivers straightforward access to 2-acyloxyaminobenzofuran-3(2)-ones and α-ketoamides with a broad substrate scope, excellent functional group tolerance, and good yields. The approach further demonstrates utility in late-stage functionalization of complex pharmaceuticals, highlighting its synthetic potential.

Glycosylation and Acylation: Important Regulators of Immune Cell Fate Decisions.

Dissecting the determinants of immune cell fate is a central challenge in immunology and is important for understanding cell differentiation, disease diagnosis, and therapy. Post-translational modifications (PTMs) of proteins are chemical modifications of amino acids involving the addition or removal of specific groups. As molecular gatekeepers of immune cell fate, PTMs affect immune function mainly through the regulation of important life processes such as immune cell growth, proliferation, differentiation, activation, and apoptosis.

CHPG's role in regulating apoptosis in heat-stressed microglia through endoplasmic reticulum stress: A new perspective☆.

Objective: This study aims to explore the influence of microglia-mediated endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress on cell apoptosis during heat stroke. Understanding this is important as it may help develop new therapies for heat-induced cellular damage and protect glial cells and brain health.

Methods: BV-2 cells were used as a cell model for this study.

The role of age-associated B cells in systemic lupus erythematosus.

Age-associated B cells (ABCs) are a distinct subset of B cells. This B-cell population expands in the elderly but is also abnormally expanded in patients with autoimmune diseases like systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). ABC differentiation requires unique signaling stimuli, including BCR stimulation, TLR7 and TLR9 signaling, and the action of cytokines.

Immobilizing the Endogenous 5-Hydroxytryptamine Transporter by Ligand-Directed and Proximity-Catalyzed Acyl Imidazole Chemistry for Affinity Chromatographic Analysis.

The sensitivity, selectivity, and accuracy of immobilized protein-based methods are critically dependent on the strategies employed for protein immobilization. Compared with random immobilization approaches, site-specific covalent methods have emerged as promising alternatives, offering enhanced analytical performance. However, these methods typically require genetic modification of the target protein to incorporate a specific tag or prior purification of the protein, posing significant challenges for immobilizing endogenous proteins.

Activin A enhances neurofunctional recovery following traumatic spinal cord injury by inhibiting autophagy.

In the early stages of traumatic spinal cord injury, extensive accumulation of autophagosomes creates a neurotoxic microenvironment, exacerbating neuronal cell death and worsening tissue damage, ultimately hindering neurofunctional recovery. Activin A is a critical growth factor necessary for the development of the embryonic nervous system and for maintaining neuronal function in the adult cerebral cortex. It can inhibit excessive autophagy in ischemic stroke to reduce neuronal damage.

An overview of hydrophobic deep eutectic solvents driven liquid-phase extraction: Applications and prospects.

Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are a type of emerging green solvent. They are simple to prepare, cost-effective, highly atom-efficient, exhibit extremely low toxicity, and are biodegradable. Since their discovery, DESs have attracted significant interest from the scientific community across various fields.

Methane Adsorption in Heterogeneous Potential Wells of Coal: Characterization Model and Applications.

In terms of the phenomenon of nonuniformity adsorption energy between methane and a natural heterogeneous coal surface, a heterogeneous potential well model is established in this study based on adsorption science and molecular dynamics theories. This model describes the methane adsorption positions in coal pores as a three-dimensional space composed of adsorption equipotential surfaces with varying depths of potential well, which emphasizes the heterogeneous distribution of methane adsorption potential well depths in coal and accurately describes the spatial distribution and energy states of methane molecules during methane adsorption and desorption in naturally heterogeneous coal. By taking the residual sum of squares (RSS) and Pearson correlation coefficient as indicators, the fitting accuracies of the Langmuir model and the heterogeneous potential well model for isothermal adsorption and desorption curves are compared so that the superiority of the heterogeneous potential well model in describing the adsorption and desorption of methane in natural coal is confirmed.

Systemic inflammation is associated with myocardial fibrosis in patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Aims: Chronic low-grade inflammation, often observed in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), promotes adverse ventricular remodelling. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between inflammatory markers and myocardial fibrosis (MF) in patients with HCM.

Methods And Results: This study included 102 patients with complete baseline data who underwent septal myectomy.

MYH7 mutation is associated with mitral valve leaflet elongation in patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Mitral valve (MV) leaflet elongation is recognized as a primary phenotypic expression of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) that contributes to obstruction. This study investigates the correlation between MV length and genotype mutations in the two predominant genes, myosin-binding protein C (MYBPC3), and the β-myosin heavy chain (MYH7) in patients with obstructive HCM (OHCM). Among the 402 OHCM patients, there were likely pathogenic or pathogenic variations in MYH7 (n = 94) and MYBPC3 (n = 76), along with a mutation-negative group (n = 212).

Emerging affinity methods for protein-drug interaction analysis.

The study of protein-drug interaction plays a crucial role in understanding drug mechanisms, identifying new drug targets and biomarkers, and facilitating drug development and disease treatment. In recent years, significant progress has been made in various protein-drug interaction research methods due to the rapid development and in-depth application of mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance, Raman spectroscopy, and other technologies. The progress has enhanced the sensitivity, precision, accuracy, and applicability of analytical methods, enabling the establishment of drug-protein interaction networks.

Impact of Lifestyle on Urinary Incontinence Severity among Women: A Cross-Sectional Study in East China.

Introduction And Hypothesis: Identifying the factors influencing the development of female urinary incontinence (UI) may facilitate early intervention, potentially delaying its progression. This study was aimed at investigating the impact of lifestyle habits on the severity of UI among women in East China.

Methods: This study included 414 women from six communities in East China who reported symptoms of UI and was conducted between September and December 2020.

A universal method for surface-based binding assays by preparing immobilized β-adrenergic receptor stationary phase using solid binding peptide as a fusion tag.

Protein functionalized surface has the potential to develop new assays for determining the drug-like properties of potential compounds and discovering specific partners of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). However, a universal method for purifying and immobilizing functional GPCRs has remained elusive. To this end, we developed a general and rapid way to purify and immobilize β-adrenergic receptor (βAR) by silicon-specific peptide.

Enhancing Performance and Stability of Perovskite Solar Cells with a Novel Formamidine Group Additive.

Perovskite materials, particularly FAPbI, have emerged as promising candidates for solar energy conversion applications. However, these materials are plagued by well-known defects and suboptimal film quality. Enhancing crystallinity and minimizing defect density are therefore essential steps in the development of high-performance perovskite solar cells.

Detection of epinephrine using a KFeO modified glassy carbon electrode.

Iron-based electrochemical catalysts used to modify electrodes for biosensing have received more attention from biosensor manufacturers because of their excellent biocompatibility and low cost. In this work, a fast-ion conductor potassium ferrite (KFeO) modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was prepared for detecting epinephrine (EP) by electrochemical techniques. The obtained KFeO/GCE electrode exhibited not only a wide linear range over EP concentration from 2 μM to 260 μM with a detection limit of 0.

Myocardial bridging in obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: a risk factor for myocardial fibrosis.

Background: Myocardial bridging (MB) is common in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). There are sparse data on the impact of MB on myocardial fibrosis in HCM. This study was designed to evaluate the relationship between MB and myocardial fibrosis in patients with obstructive HCM.

A chromatographic method for determining the interaction between a drug and two target proteins by fabricating a dual-heterogeneous surface.

Characterization of the drug-target interactions is pivotal throughout the whole procedure of drug development. Most of the current assays, particularly, chromatographic methods lack the capacity to reveal drug adsorption on the muti-target surface. To this end, we derived a reliable and workable mathematical equation for revealing drug bindings to dual targets on the heterogeneous surface starting from the mass balance equation.

Implementation of cytochrome c proteins and carbon nanotubes hybrids in bioelectrodes towards bioelectrochemical systems applications.

Multiheme cytochrome c (Cyt c) can function as a redox protein on electrode to accomplish bioelectrocatalysis. However, the direct electron transfer (DET) between the redox site of Cyt c and electrode is low due to the large coupling distance. A close proximity or a connection pathway from the deeply buried active site to the protein surface can be established by modifying the electrode with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to improve the DET.

Surface Energy Engineering of Buried Interface for Highly Stable Perovskite Solar Cells with Efficiency Over 25.

The abundant oxygen-related defects (e.g., O vacancies, O-H) in the TiO electron transport layer results in high surface energy, which is detrimental to effective carrier extraction and seriously impairs the photovoltaic performance and stability of perovskite solar cells.

Bottom Distribution of F-Based Additives in Perovskite Films and Their Effects on Photovoltaic Performance.

Various additives have been introduced to assist in film preparation and defect passivation. Herein, fluoroiodobenzene (FIB) molecules with different numbers of F atoms were incorporated into perovskite films to optimize the film quality as well as passivate defects. Based on the calculation and experimental results, it was found that the FIB additives were inclined to exist at the bottom of the film because of the strong affinity between F atoms stemming from FIB molecules and O atoms stemming from TiO, especially for molecules with more F atoms.