Evolutionary Conservation and Immunoregulatory Function of LOXL3 Gene in Lamprey.

Lysyl oxidase (LOX) family enzymes play a pivotal role in extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling and tissue homeostasis, and have evolved diverse functions in vertebrate immunity and metabolism. However, the evolutionary trajectory of these multifunctional roles-particularly in jawless vertebrates-remains obscure. Here, we investigate LOXL3 in the lamprey (Lethenteron reissneri), a jawless vertebrate that retains ancestral features of early vertebrate evolution.

Causal disentanglement for single-cell representations and controllable counterfactual generation.

Conducting disentanglement learning on single-cell omics data offers a promising alternative to traditional black-box representation learning by separating the semantic concepts embedded in a biological process. We present CausCell, which incorporates the factual information about causal relationships among disentangled concepts within a diffusion model to generate more reliable disentangled cellular representations, with the aim of increasing the explainability, generalizability and controllability of single-cell data, including spatial-temporal omics data, relative to those of the existing black-box representation learning models. Two quantitative evaluation scenarios, i.

Barriers and Facilitators to the Participation of Pregnant Women in Clinical Research: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review.

Objectives: Pregnant women had a large demand for diagnosis and treatment, but the clinical research was not sufficient, and there were many barriers for pregnant women to participate in clinical research. This study aimed to systematically identify these barriers and facilitators, map them with Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) and Behavior Change Techniques (BCTs) to inform the development of interventions promoting pregnant women's involvement in clinical research.

Methods: This was a mixed-methods systematic review.

Foundation models in molecular biology.

Determining correlations between molecules at various levels is an important topic in molecular biology. Large language models have demonstrated a remarkable ability to capture correlations from large amounts of data in the field of natural language processing as well as image generation, and correlations captured from data using large language models can also be applicable to solving a wide range of specific tasks, hence large language models are also referred to as foundation models. The massive amount of data that exists in the field of molecular biology provides an excellent basis for the development of foundation models, and the recent emergence of foundation models in the field of molecular biology has really pushed the entire field forward.

Evolutionary and functional analysis of metabotropic glutamate receptors in lampreys.

The metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR, GRM) family is involved in multiple signaling pathways and regulates neurotransmitter release. However, the evolutionary history, distribution, and function of the mGluRs family in lampreys have not been determined. Therefore, we identified the mGluRs gene family in the genome of Lethenteron reissneri, which has been conserved throughout vertebrate evolution.

Unified cross-modality integration and analysis of T cell receptors and T cell transcriptomes by low-resource-aware representation learning.

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) and T cell receptor sequencing (TCR-seq) are pivotal for investigating T cell heterogeneity. Integrating these modalities, which is expected to uncover profound insights in immunology that might otherwise go unnoticed with a single modality, faces computational challenges due to the low-resource characteristics of the multimodal data. Herein, we present UniTCR, a novel low-resource-aware multimodal representation learning framework designed for the unified cross-modality integration, enabling comprehensive T cell analysis.

Emphasis should be placed on identifying and reporting research priorities to increase research value: An empirical analysis.

Objectives: To compared the presentation of research priorities in the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) developed under the guidance of the GRADE working group or its two co-chair, and the Chinese CPGs.

Methods: This was a methodological empirical analysis. We searched PubMed, Embase, and four Chinese databases (Wanfang, VIP Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database) and retrieved nine Chinese guideline databases or Society websites as well as GRADE Pro websites.

Comprehensive consideration of multiple determinants from evidence to recommendations in guidelines for most traditional Chinese medicine was suboptimal: a systematic review.

Background: The overall comprehensive consideration of the factors influencing the recommendations in the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) guidelines remains poorly studied. This study systematically evaluate the factors influencing recommendations formation in the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) and TCM CPGs.

Methods: This was a methodological review in which we searched six databases and multiple related websites.

Privacy-preserving integration of multiple institutional data for single-cell type identification with scPrivacy.

The rapid accumulation of large-scale single-cell RNA-seq datasets from multiple institutions presents remarkable opportunities for automatically cell annotations through integrative analyses. However, the privacy issue has existed but being ignored, since we are limited to access and utilize all the reference datasets distributed in different institutions globally due to the prohibited data transmission across institutions by data regulation laws. To this end, we present scPrivacy, which is the first and generalized automatically single-cell type identification prototype to facilitate single cell annotations in a data privacy-preserving collaboration manner.

Music Literacy and Soundscape Perception: A Study Based on the Soundwalk Method of Soundscapes.

To explore a method of promoting college aesthetic education through campus environments, the Aesthetic Education Center of the Beijing Institute of Technology Zhuhai (BITZH-AEC) used the soundwalk method of soundscapes to carry out an experiment on students' soundscape perceptions on campus. Half of the students who participated in the experiment ( = 42) had musical instrument learning experience and musical literacy. The research work used conventional statistical analysis methods and "Soundscapy", newly developed by the British soundscape research team, to process the experimental data.

Development and validation of a predictive nomogram for preoperative deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in isolated calcaneal fracture.

The fact that most of the patients with preoperative DVTs after calcaneal fractures are asymptomatic brought challenges to the early intervention, and periodic imaging examinations aggravated the financial burden of the patients in preoperative detumescence period. This study aimed to use routine clinical data, obtained from the database of Surgical Site Infection in Orthopaedic Surgery (SSIOS), to construct and validate a nomogram for predicting preoperative DVT risk in patients with isolated calcaneal fracture. The nomogram was established base on 7 predictors independently related to preoperative DVT.

BRD4 Inhibition Suppresses Senescence and Apoptosis of Nucleus Pulposus Cells by Inducing Autophagy during Intervertebral Disc Degeneration: An In Vitro and In Vivo Study.

Intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) is the most common chronic skeletal muscle degeneration disease. Although the underlying mechanisms remain unclear, nucleus pulposus (NP) autophagy, senescence, and apoptosis are known to play a critical role in this process. Previous studies suggest that bromodomain-containing protein 4 (BRD4) promotes senescent and apoptotic effects in several age-related degenerative diseases.

Integrating multiple references for single-cell assignment.

Efficient single-cell assignment is essential for single-cell sequencing data analysis. With the explosive growth of single-cell sequencing data, multiple single-cell sequencing data sources are available for the same kind of tissue, which can be integrated to further improve single-cell assignment; however, an efficient integration strategy is still lacking due to the great challenges of data heterogeneity existing in multiple references. To this end, we present mtSC, a flexible single-cell assignment framework that integrates multiple references based on multitask deep metric learning designed specifically for cell type identification within tissues with multiple single-cell sequencing data as references.

NF-κB signalling pathways in nucleus pulposus cell function and intervertebral disc degeneration.

Intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) is a common clinical degenerative disease of the spine. A series of factors, such as inflammation, oxidative stress and mechanical stress, promote degradation of the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the intervertebral discs (IVD), leading to dysfunction and structural destruction of the IVD. Nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) transcription factor has long been regarded as a pathogenic factor of IDD.

Fire Acupuncture versus conventional acupuncture to treat spasticity after stroke: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Post-stroke spasm is currently a complex clinical problem that remains to be resolved. Due to its excellent efficacy and few side effects, clinicians have used fire acupuncture to treat post-stroke spasticity in China.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical efficacy of fire acupuncture compared with conventional acupuncture to treat post-stroke spasms and provide a detailed summary of the commonly used acupoints.

Different Types of Double-Level Degenerative Lumber Spondylolisthesis: What Is Different in the Sagittal Plane?

Background: Degenerative lumber spondylolisthesis (DLS) is a common orthopedic condition, described as a condition that compared with the lower vertebra, the superior vertebra slides forward or backward in the sagittal plane without accompanying isthmic spondylolisthesis. Information pertaining to different types of double-level DLS is scarce. This study aims to analyze parameters of patients with different types of double-level DLS to provide a reference for guiding surgical treatment and restoring sagittal balance of patients with DLS.

Grape seed proanthocyanidins protect PC12 cells from hydrogen peroxide-induced damage via the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway.

Grape seed proanthocyanidins (GSP) are natural flavonoids with strong antioxidant and anti-apoptotic effects. Oxidative stress and neuronal apoptosis are major contributors to spinal cord injury (SCI). In this study, we assessed the potential protective effects of GSP on hydrogen peroxide (HO)-damaged pheochromocytoma-12 (PC12) cells in an in vitro model of SCI as well as the putative mechanism of action.

Single-segment central lumbar spinal stenosis: Correlation with lumbar X-ray measurements.

Background: Lumbar X-rays are usually preferred in patients with lower back pain, but lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) cannot be directly observed on lumbar X-ray films.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to explore the correlation between the degree of single-segment central LSS and lumbar X-ray measurements.

Methods: The data of 60 male patients aged 39-78 years with single-segment central LSS were analyzed.

Trapezoidal Vertebral Body and Spine-Pelvis Sagittal Alignment in Patients with Lumber Spondylolisthesis.

BACKGROUND Trapezoidal changes of the vertebral body are more common in patients with lumbar spondylolisthesis than in others. However, we lack an understanding of factors predisposing to the development of a marked trapezoidal deformity. Also, no associations between a trapezoidal vertebrae (TV) and spine-pelvis sagittal parameters have been previously reported.

Rosmarinic acid exerts a neuroprotective effect on spinal cord injury by suppressing oxidative stress and inflammation via modulating the Nrf2/HO-1 and TLR4/NF-κB pathways.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a severe central nervous system injury for which few efficacious drugs are available. Rosmarinic acid (RA), a water-soluble polyphenolic phytochemical, has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-apoptotic properties. However, the effect of RA on SCI is unclear.