Dual-Modular Hydrogel Microparticles with Precision-Modulation of Inflammatory Microenvironment Dictate Full-Thickness Cartilage Regeneration for Osteoarthritis Repair.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a typical degenerative disease characterized primarily by the degeneration of cartilage. However, current treatments for cartilage degeneration often lead to the formation of hypertrophic cartilage and fibrocartilage, making it challenging to achieve full-thickness cartilage. Here, dual-modular hydrogel microparticles (dmHMPs) are developed, which enable precise spatio-temporal modulation and dynamic equilibrium between immune responses and cartilage regeneration.

Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes of Eosinophilic Exacerbations of COPD.

Introduction: The role of eosinophilic inflammation in exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is increasingly recognised. Eosinophilic exacerbations have previously been associated with shorter hospital length of stay and lower inpatient mortality. The objective of this study was to examine clinical characteristics of hospitalised COPD exacerbations stratified by admission eosinophil count.

New insights into the cytotoxic mechanism of marine-fungus-derived citrinin in three-dimensional Hepa1-6 cell model.

Although recent studies have demonstrated that Marine-fungus-derived citrinin (MFDC) has a significant cytotoxic effect in traditional two-dimensional (2D) monolayer cell culture and animal models, its precise cytotoxic mechanism, particularly in a three-dimensional (3D) cell culture model remains unclear. In this study, a 3D Hepa1-6 cell model based on Matrigel was used to investigate the potential cytotoxic mechanism of MFDC (0-100 μg/mL). The results revealed that, after treatment of 60-100 μg/mL MFDC, the increases of reactive oxygen species (ROS), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in 2D cell model were more significant than those in 3D cell model.

SCGB1A1 as a Key Regulator of Splenic Immune Dysfunction in COPD: Insights From a Murine Model.

Introduction: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a chronic inflammatory disorder characterized by irreversible airflow limitation and systemic immune impacts. COPD patients demonstrate an increased susceptibility to sepsis and septic shock, underscoring the importance of understanding its effects on splenic function.

Methods: A rat COPD model was established using lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and cigarette smoke exposure.

Lack of diversity in antifibrotic trials for pulmonary fibrosis: a systematic review.

Introduction: Social determinants of health (SDH), including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and rurality, influence health outcomes. Clinical trials investigating antifibrotic agents for people with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) have been conducted in predominantly White and male populations; it is unclear whether other SDH have been considered. This study aimed to investigate active consideration and reporting of SDH in clinical trials of antifibrotic agents for people with IPF.

A narrative review of proactive palliative care models for people with COPD.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) refers to a group of lung diseases that are distinct in underlying aetiology but share a common disease course of persistent and progressive airflow restriction. People living with COPD, as well as the people who care for them, frequently have severe and unmet physical and psychosocial needs, including breathlessness, fatigue, cough, anxiety and depression. Early proactive palliative care is well placed to address these needs, yet it is frequently under-utilised in this group.

Sheath-enhanced concentration and on-chip detection of bacteria from an extremely low-concentration level.

Microfluidic-based sheath flow focusing methods have been widely used for efficiently isolating, concentrating, and detecting pathogenic bacteria for various biomedical applications due to their enhanced sensitivity and exceptional integration. However, such a microfluidic device usually needs complicated device fabrication and sample dilution, hampering the efficient and sensitive identification of target bacteria. In this study, we develop and fabricate a sheath-assisted and pneumatic-induced nano-sieve device for achieving the improved on-chip concentration and sensitive detection of (MRSA).

Gender Disparities in Advanced Lung Diseases: do They Persist Towards the End of Life?

Background: Advanced lung diseases are prevalent in women, yet are underrecognized and under-treated due to differing epidemiology and pathophysiology.

Aim: To investigate any gender differences in access to palliative care and end-of-life management for patients with advanced lung diseases.

Methods: A post-hoc analysis was conducted using three datasets that included information regarding the provision of palliative care to patients with advanced lung diseases - chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), fibrotic interstitial lung diseases (f-ILD) or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in tertiary and regional hospitals in Victoria, Australia, from 2004 to 2019.

Taxonomic Diversity, Predicted Metabolic Pathway, and Interaction Pattern of Bacterial Community in Sea Urchin .

Bacterial assemblages associated with sea urchin are critical to their physiology and ecology within marine ecosystems. In this study, we characterized the bacterial communities in wild sea urchin captured in Daya Bay, South China Sea. A total of 363 amplicon sequence variants belonging to nine phyla and 141 genera were classified from intestine, body surface, and surrounding seawater samples.

Biodiversity and antifouling activity of microbes associated with gorgonian corals Leptogorgia rigida and Menella kanisa from the South China Sea.

Recently, coral-associated microorganisms have attracted widespread attention, and most of these studies have focused on stony and soft corals. However, our knowledge of the diversity and bioactivity of microorganisms in gorgonian corals is still limited. In this study, the biodiversity of microbes in two gorgonian corals (Leptogorgia rigida and Menella kanisa) from the South China Sea was investigated by combining traditional culture method with molecular biology technique (bacterial 16S or fungal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rRNA gene sequences).

Study on the prediction model of liver cancer based on chronic liver disease and the related molecular mechanism.

Introduction And Objective: Due to the high heterogeneity of HCC, which leads to poor prognostic outcomes for patients, there is a need to develop a novel predictive model for accurate classification of HCC in order to improve patient survival rates.

Materials And Methods: The data of the HCV, cirrhosis, and HCC were obtained from TCGA and GEO databases. Multivariable Cox regression analysis and survival analysis was conducted to assess the prognostic relevance of these differentially expressed genes.

Significant correlations between heavy metals and prokaryotes in the Okinawa Trough hydrothermal sediments.

Prokaryotes play crucial roles in hydrothermal vent ecosystems, yet their interactions with heavy metals are not well understood. This study explored the diversity of prokaryotic communities and their correlations with heavy metals and nutrient elements in hydrothermal sediments from Okinawa Trough. A total of 117 bacterial genera in 26 bacterial phyla and 10 archaeal classes in 3 archaeal phyla were identified, including dominant prokaryotic phyla Planctomycetes, Acidobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, and Euryarchaeota.

DISSyphilis and the Risk of HIV Infection: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

This study aims to assess the causal effect of syphilis on HIV infection by Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. The data of syphilis and HIV infection were obtained from genome-wide association studies. Mendelian randomization analyses were conducted using methods such as weighted median, MR Egger, and inverse variance to evaluate the causal relationship between syphilis and HIV infection.

Biodiversity, Distribution and Functional Differences of Fungi in Four Species of Corals from the South China Sea, Elucidated by High-Throughput Sequencing Technology.

Recent studies have predominantly spotlighted bacterial diversity within coral microbiomes, leaving coral-associated fungi in the shadows of scientific inquiry. This study endeavors to fill this knowledge gap by delving into the biodiversity, distribution and functional differences of fungi associated with soft corals and , gorgonian coral and stony coral from the South China Sea. Leveraging high-throughput sequencing of fungal internal transcribed spacer-1 (ITS1) region of the rRNA gene, a total of 431 fungal amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) were identified in this study, which indicated that a large number of fungal communities were harbored in the South China Sea corals.

Effects of Dietary SCAU-070 (Based on a Woody Plant-Based Diet) on Antioxidation, Immune and Intestinal Microbiota of Tilapia ().

This study aimed to explore the effects of (BA) as one woody forage addition (as a probiotic, 1 × 10 CFU/g) on tilapia (). Woody forage is one kind of fishery feed that could significantly enhance the growth, feed utilization, and digestibility of tilapia. At first, tilapia was divided into eight groups and fed with control, control + BA, , + BA, , + BA, , and + BA diets, respectively.

Arterial blood gas analysis or venous blood gas analysis for adult hospitalised patients with respiratory presentations: a systematic review.

Background: Identification of hypoxaemia and hypercapnia is essential for the diagnosis and treatment of acute respiratory failure. While arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis is standard for PO and PCO measurement, venous blood gas (VBG) analysis is increasingly used as an alternative. Previous systematic reviews established that VBG reporting of PO and PCO is less accurate, but the impacts on clinical management and patient outcomes are unknown.

Regulating the bioactivity of non-glycosylated recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 to enhance bone regeneration.

Recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2) is the predominant growth factor that effectively induces osteogenic differentiation in orthopedic procedures. However, the bioactivity and stability of rhBMP-2 are intrinsically associated with its sequence, structure, and storage conditions. In this study, we successfully determined the amino acid sequence and protein secondary structure model of non-glycosylated rhBMP-2 expressed by an expression system through X-ray crystal structure analysis.

Fast and exact fixed-radius neighbor search based on sorting.

Fixed-radius near neighbor search is a fundamental data operation that retrieves all data points within a user-specified distance to a query point. There are efficient algorithms that can provide fast approximate query responses, but they often have a very compute-intensive indexing phase and require careful parameter tuning. Therefore, exact brute force and tree-based search methods are still widely used.

Comprehensive insights into the differences of fungal communities at taxonomic and functional levels in stony coral Acropora intermedia under a natural bleaching event.

Previous studies have reported the correlations between bacterial communities and coral bleaching, but the knowledge of fungal roles in coral bleaching is still limited. In this study, the taxonomic and functional diversities of fungi in unbleached, partly bleached and bleached stony coral Acropora intermedia were investigated through the ITS-rRNA gene next-generation sequencing. An unexpected diversity of successfully classified fungi (a total of 167 fungal genera) was revealed in this study, and the partly bleached coral samples gained the highest fungal diversity, followed by bleached and unbleached coral samples.

Palliative Approach Remains Lacking in Terminal Hospital Admissions for Chronic Disease Across Rural Settings: Multisite Retrospective Medical Record Audit.

Introduction/aim: Despite clear benefit from palliative care in end-stage chronic diseases, access is often limited, and rural access largely undescribed. This study sought to determine if a palliative approach is provided to people with chronic disease in their terminal hospital admission.

Methods: Multisite, retrospective medical record audit, of decedents with a primary diagnosis of chronic lung, heart, or renal failure, or multimorbidity of these conditions over 2019.

Sulfated oligosaccharide activates endothelial Notch for inducing macrophage-associated arteriogenesis to treat ischemic diseases.

Ischemic diseases lead to considerable morbidity and mortality, yet conventional clinical treatment strategies for therapeutic angiogenesis fall short of being impactful. Despite the potential of biomaterials to deliver pro-angiogenic molecules at the infarct site to induce angiogenesis, their efficacy has been impeded by aberrant vascular activation and off-target circulation. Here, we present a semisynthetic low-molecular sulfated chitosan oligosaccharide (SCOS) that efficiently induces therapeutic arteriogenesis with a spontaneous generation of collateral circulation and blood reperfusion in rodent models of hind limb ischemia and myocardial infarction.

Pneumatic nano-sieve for CRISPR-based detection of drug-resistant bacteria.

The increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, particularly methicillin-resistant (MRSA), presents a significant public health concern. Timely detection of MRSA is crucial to enable prompt medical intervention, limit its spread, and reduce antimicrobial resistance. Here, we introduce a miniaturized nano-sieve device featuring a pneumatically-regulated chamber for highly efficient MRSA purification from human plasma samples.

Indirubin derivatives as bifunctional molecules inducing DNA damage and targeting PARP for the treatment of cancer.

Based on the facts that significant synergistic effect existed between PARP inhibitors and DNA damage agents and the DNA damage caused by indirubin's derivatives, we herein adopted the strategy to combine the pharmacophores of PARP inhibitors and the unique scaffold of indirubin to design a series of bifunctional molecules inducing DNA damage and targeting PARP. After SAR studies, the most potent compound 12a, encoded as KWWS-12a, exhibited improved inhibitory effect against PARP1 compared with PARP1 inhibitor Olaparib (IC = 1.89 nM vs 7.

Pneumatic Nano-Sieve for CRISPR-based Detection of Drug-resistant Bacteria.

The increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, particularly methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), presents a significant public health concern. Timely detection of MRSA is crucial to enable prompt medical intervention, limit its spread, and reduce antimicrobial resistance. Here, we introduce a miniaturized nano-sieve device featuring a pneumatically-regulated chamber for highly efficient MRSA purification from human plasma samples.

Discovery of dual PARP and CDK6 inhibitors for triple-negative breast cancer with wild-type BRCA.

Inhibition of PARP is synthetic lethal with defects in BRCA, which provide effective targeted therapy strategy for BRCA mutation type of TNBC patients. However, approximately 80% of TNBC patients do not have BRCA mutations. Recent studies have shown that CDK4/6 inhibitors can increase the sensitivity of wild-type BRCA cells to PARP inhibitors.