Native T1 adds independent value for cardiovascular risk assessment beyond global longitudinal strain in an all-comers real-world clinical patient population.

Aims: Deformation imaging remains underused for cardiovascular risk assessment. As tissue characterization has now been recognized as an additional assessment tool, we sought to investigate the significance of native T1 and extracellular volume (ECV) in an unselected clinical routine population.

Methods And Results: The single-centre, prospective cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) registry included patients referred for clinical CMR.

Multiple Mammalian Cytokines and Erythropoietin-Mimetic Peptides Protect Insect Neurons via Phylogenetically Conserved Cytokine Receptor-Like Factor 3 (CRLF3).

Erythropoietin (Epo) and its non-erythropoietic splice variant EV-3 have demonstrated potent neuroprotective effects across species, although the respective mechanisms are variable and incompletely understood. Unlike vertebrates, insects lack both Epo and the classical Epo receptor but express Cytokine Receptor-Like Factor 3 (CRLF3), a conserved type I receptor that serves as a neuroprotective receptor for Epo and EV-3 in insects and human iPSC-derived neuron-like cells. Insects, which express CRLF3 but lack all other group 1 type I cytokine receptors, represent a suitable model to study the function of CRLF3 in neuroprotection.

An Open Data and Methods Framework for Comparative Evaluation of DICOM De-Identification Tools.

Introduction: Removal of identifying information from data used in clinical studies protects patient privacy and maintains confidentiality. It ensures compliance with laws like data protection regulations, which safeguard personal data. Medical imaging data may contain various sensitive personal data.

Performance of Contradiction Rule Implementations in Health Data for Efficient Data Quality Assessments.

Introduction: Boolean rules are the building blocks for rule-based data quality assessment (DQA) in health research. While some DQA rules are generic, contradiction rules are guided by established facts supported by domain knowledge. A recent study reported performance degradation in infrastructure as DQA rules scale.

The euroSAMPL1 p blind prediction and reproducible research data management challenge.

The development and testing of methods in computational chemistry for the prediction of physicochemical properties is by now a mature form of scientific research, with a number of different methods ranging from molecular mechanics simulations, over quantum calculations, to empirical and machine learning models. Blind prediction challenges for these properties are regularly organized to allow researchers from academia and industry to test their methods in a fair and unbiased manner. At the same time, research data management (RDM) is still not utilized as extensively as it could be in the development and application of such models, especially in academia.

Diversified Crop Rotations Strengthen Maize Seedling Drought Tolerance by Modulating Rhizosphere Microbiota and Enzyme Activities.

Although diversified crop rotations increase drought tolerance and system productivity, the underlying mechanisms conferring this resilience in crop-soil-microorganisms systems remain incomplete. Maize drought tolerance mechanisms were evaluated in a 20-year experiment with low, medium, and high crop diversity rotations using soil zymography to visualize enzyme activity distribution and high-throughput sequencing to assess microbial communities. High crop diversity increased maize shoot biomass by 56%-87% and reduced drought-induced root biomass loss by 14%-59% compared to low crop diversity.

Abnormal Left Atrial Strain by CMR is Associated with Left Heart Disease in Patients with Pulmonary Hypertension.

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is classified as pre-capillary, isolated postcapillary (IpcPH), combined post- and pre-capillary (CpcPH), or exercise PH. IpcPH associated with left heart disease can lead to pulmonary vascular remodeling and eventually CpcPH. Conversely, pre-capillary PH may be diagnosed in the presence of cardiovascular comorbidities including left heart disease.

Heart Failure Therapy in Patients with Advanced Cancer Receiving Specialized Palliative Care (EMPATICC trial).

Background And Aims: Advanced cancer may resemble a heart failure (HF)-like phenotype marked by cardiac wasting, dyspnoea, congestion, and/or physical dysfunction. The trial evaluated safety and efficacy of HF therapy among patients with advanced cancer receiving specialized palliative care to improve patients' self-care ability.

Methods: Patients with stage 4 solid tumours with a life expectancy of 1-6 months receiving specialized palliative care were enrolled.

Polyvalent Mannuronic Acid-Coated Gold Nanoparticles for Probing Multivalent Lectin-Glycan Interaction and Blocking Virus Infection.

Multivalent lectin-glycan interactions (MLGIs) are vital for viral infection, cell-cell communication and regulation of immune responses. Their structural and biophysical data are thus important, not only for providing insights into their underlying mechanisms but also for designing potent glycoconjugate therapeutics against target MLGIs. However, such information remains to be limited for some important MLGIs, significantly restricting the research progress.

Exploring novel roles of lipid droplets and lipid metabolism in regulating inflammation and blood-brain barrier function in neurological diseases.

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a critical structure that maintains the brain's homeostasis by regulating the transport of molecules and protecting it from harmful substances. However, in neurological diseases such as ischemic stroke, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and multiple sclerosis, the integrity and function of the BBB can be significantly compromised. In these conditions, BBB disruption leads to increased permeability, which facilitates neuroinflammation, exacerbates neuronal damage, and accelerates disease progression.

Low bone mineral density of the spine in adolescents with cerebral palsy relates to reduced correction of scoliosis after surgery.

Adolescents with cerebral palsy (CP) often require scoliosis surgery. Low bone mass may counteract benefits of surgical treatment. This study compares volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD) in adolescents with CP to age and sex matched healthy controls and evaluates its effect on scoliosis treatment.

SynapseNet: Deep Learning for Automatic Synapse Reconstruction.

Electron microscopy is an important technique for the study of synaptic morphology and its relation to synaptic function. The data analysis for this task requires the segmentation of the relevant synaptic structures, such as synaptic vesicles, active zones, mitochondria, presynaptic densities, synaptic ribbons, and synaptic compartments. Previous studies were predominantly based on manual segmentation, which is very time-consuming and prevented the systematic analysis of large datasets.

Role of Structural Versus Cellular Remodeling in Atrial Arrhythmogenesis: Insights From Personalized Digital Twins.

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a progressive disease involving both structural and functional remodeling. Although over the past decade, digital twin-guided therapy has been proposed and applied, accounting for cardiomyocyte functional remodeling remains challenging. We aimed to investigate the contribution of functional remodeling at the cellular level to AF pathogenesis in patients with fibrotic remodeling and to develop novel techniques to predict the location of reentrant drivers.

Evaluation of oat genotypes for species-specific and cross-resistance to species and the role of trichomes in susceptibility.

Introduction: head blight (FHB), caused by various species, poses a significant threat to oat grain quality and yield. The presence of multiple species raises the question whether FHB resistance in oats can be broadly effective and species non-specific (cross-resistance), or whether it is rather species-specific. While several morphological and biochemical factors are known to influence FHB resistance, the role of hull trichomes in oat resistance remains unclear.

Characterising high-order interdependence via entropic conjugation.

High-order phenomena are pervasive across complex systems, yet their formal characterisation remains a formidable challenge. The literature provides various information-theoretic quantities that capture high-order interdependencies, but their conceptual foundations and mutual relationships are not well understood. The lack of unifying principles underpinning these quantities impedes a principled selection of appropriate analytical tools for guiding applications.

Implementing clinical ethics support services in psychiatry: A qualitative study.

BackgroundDespite the ubiquity of ethical challenges in psychiatric practice, many psychiatric hospitals in Germany have not yet successfully established clinical ethics support services (CESS).AimOffering and evaluating a program that supports professionals in implementing CESS in psychiatric hospitals in Germany, and identifying which barriers and facilitators they encounter in the process.Research design, participants and research contextWe offered online implementation support to four psychiatric hospitals over a period of 14 months, which included regular support meetings with members of the hospitals' ethics committees.

Long-term retrieval performance is associated with CA1 hippocampal volume in older adults and individuals at risk for dementia.

Background: Long-term retrieval (LTR) and accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF) paradigms might help differentiating individuals at increased dementia risk from healthy controls (HC).

Objective: We investigated the utility of a LTR paradigm in discriminating subjective cognitive decline (SCD) from HC and its relationship to the CA1 body volume, a hippocampal structure pivotal to the memory circuitry.

Methods: LTR was assessed via recall rates of the ADAS-cog word list and the FCSRT-IR free recall in 59 DELCODE study participants, including individuals with SCD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), as well as HC, all of them DELCODE study participants.

Blebbistatin reduces calcium buffering in cardiomyocytes: Consequences for cellular electrophysiology.

Blebbistatin is an excitation-contraction uncoupling agent commonly used in cardiac optical mapping; however, it has been reported to influence cardiac myofilament Ca sensitivity. As primary contributors to Ca buffering within cardiomyocytes, cardiac myofilaments play a critical role, and even minor disruptions in intracellular Ca buffering significantly alter the free Ca concentration. In this study, we investigated the effect of blebbistatin, a myosin II ATPase inhibitor, on intracellular Ca buffering and cellular electrophysiology in induced pluripotent stem cell-derived atrial cardiomyocytes.

Coproheme decarboxylase from Bacillus subtilis is required for bacterial growth and heme b biosynthesis under anaerobic conditions.

Heme biosynthesis notably does not follow a universal pathway. Instead, different organisms utilize various routes of producing this essential molecule. The coproporphyrin-dependent (CPD) pathway is unique to Gram-positive bacteria.

Translocations can drive expression changes of multiple genes in regulons covering entire chromosome arms.

Chromosomal translocations have largely been implicated in tumor development. However, beyond the consequences of aberrant gene expression near the breakpoint, their effects remain underexplored. In this work, we characterize the interplay between translocations, chromatin organization and gene expression using mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) as a model.

Tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA) improves cryo-resilience and lowers energy turnover via affecting the mitochondrial bioenergetic profile in bovine embryos.

The developmental capacity of bovine embryos produced in vitro (IVP) is often reduced due to suboptimal culture conditions, inducing oxidative and endoplastmatic reticulum (ER) stress. Tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA), a chemical chaperone, has shown potential to improve embryo developmental potential sustainably. However, its mechanistic effects remain unclear.

Lysogenic control of Bacillus subtilis morphology and fitness by Spbetavirus phi3T.

In lysogenic conversion, temperate phages can profoundly alter the phenotypes of their bacterial hosts. When studying the effects of SPbeta-like viruses on a Bacillus subtilis soil isolate, we observed that phage phi3T induced a stable and heritable acquisition of a spherical cell morphology, departing from the typical rod shape of its ancestor. Although time-lapse imaging revealed that the lysogen retained cell wall integrity and symmetric division, it exhibited reduced fitness and increased susceptibility to cell wall-targeting antimicrobials.

Super-Resolution Axial Imaging for Quantifying Piconewton Traction Forces in Live Cells.

Cell mechanics play a pivotal role in regulating numerous biological processes. Although super-resolution microscopy enables the imaging of cellular forces in the lateral dimension with sub-10-nm resolution, achieving comparable resolution along the axial dimension remains a significant challenge. Here, we introduce metal-induced energy transfer (MIET)-based tension probe microscopy (MIET-TPM), a technique for mapping cellular mechanical forces with nanometer precision in the axial direction.