SOX Genes and Cancer

Transcription factors play a critical role in regulating the gene expression programs that establish and maintain specific cell states in humans. Deregulation of these gene expression programs can lead to a broad range of diseases including cancer. SOX transcription factors are a conserved group of transcriptional regulators that mediates DNA binding by a highly conserved high-mobility group (HMG) domain. Numerous evidence has recently demonstrated that SOX transcription factors critically control cell fate and differentiation in major developmental processes, and that their upregulation may be important for cancer progression. In this review, we discuss recent advances in our understanding of the role of SOX genes in cancer

Data-Centric Financial Large Language Models

Large language models (LLMs) show promise for natural language tasks but struggle when applied directly to complex domains like finance. LLMs have difficulty reasoning about and integrating all relevant information. We propose a data-centric approach to enable LLMs to better handle financial tasks. Our key insight is that rather than overloading the LLM with everything at once, it is more effective to preprocess and pre-understand the data. We create a financial LLM (FLLM) using multitask prompt-based finetuning to achieve data pre-processing and pre-understanding. However, labeled data is scarce for each task. To overcome manual annotation costs, we employ abductive augmentation reasoning (AAR) to automatically generate training data by modifying the pseudo labels from FLLM's own outputs. Experiments show our data-centric FLLM with AAR substantially outperforms baseline financial LLMs designed for raw text, achieving state-of-the-art on financial analysis and interpretation tasks. We also open source a new benchmark for financial analysis and interpretation. Our methodology provides a promising path to unlock LLMs' potential for complex real-world domains

Analysis of Oral Microbiota Revealed High Abundance of Prevotella Intermedia in Gout Patients

Background/Aims: Microbes reside in a number of body sites, including the oral cavity, and are associated with the progression of many systemic diseases. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of gout and hyperuricemia (HUA) on the composition of oral microbiomes. Methods: Analysis of the oral microbiota from 12 gout patients, 11 HUA patients, and 19 healthy control subjects was performed using a deep sequencing approach, and validation of significant changes in Prevotella intermedia and Serratia marcescens in new patient cohorts was performed using quantitative PCR (qPCR). Results: Our analysis indicated that both gout and HUA significantly altered the composition of the oral microbiome in patients. Patients with gout or HUA had significantly greater levels of salivary Prevotella intermedia but significantly lower levels of Serratia marcescens than healthy control subjects. Conclusion: We demonstrated the association between the oral microbiome and gout and HUA for the first time. In particular, 16S sequencing and qPCR analysis revealed significantly higher levels of oral Prevotella intermedia in gout/HUA patients, which suggests that these patients might be at risk for the development of periodontitis

Recent Progress of Remediating Heavy Metal Contaminated Soil Using Layered Double Hydroxides as Super-Stable Mineralizer

Heavy metal contamination in soil, which is harmful to both ecosystem and mankind, has attracted worldwide attention from the academic and industrial communities. However, the most-widely used remediation technologies such as electrochemistry, elution, and phytoremediation. suffer from either secondary pollution, long cycle time or high cost. In contrast, in situ mineralization technology shows great potential due to its universality, durability and economical efficiency. As such, the development of mineralizers with both high efficiency and low-cost is the core of in situmineralization. In 2021, the concept of ‘Super-Stable Mineralization’ was proposed for the first time by Kong et al.[1] The layered double hydroxides (denoted as LDHs), with the unique host–guest intercalated structure and multiple interactions between the host laminate and the guest anions, are considered as an ideal class of materials for super-stable mineralization. In this review, we systematically summarize the application of LDHs in the treatment of heavy metal contaminated soil from the view of: 1) the structure–activity relationship of LDHs in in situ mineralization, 2) the advantages of LDHs in mineralizing heavy metals, 3) the scale-up preparation of LDHs-based mineralizers and 4) the practical application of LDHs in treating contaminated soil. At last, we highlight the challenges and opportunities for the rational design of LDH-based mineralizer in the future

Identification and investigation of depression-related molecular subtypes in inflammatory bowel disease and the anti-inflammatory mechanisms of paroxetine

BackgroundUp to 40 per cent of people with active inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) also suffer from mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. Notwithstanding, the fundamental biological pathways driving depression in IBD remain unknown.MethodsWe identified 33 core genes that drive depression in IBD patients and performed consensus molecular subtyping with the NMF algorithm in IBD. The CIBERSORT were employed to quantify the immune cells. Metabolic signature was characterized using the “IOBR” R package. The scoring system (D. score) based on PCA. Pre-clinical models are constructed using DSS.ResultsUsing transcriptome data from the GEO database of 630 IBD patients, we performed a thorough analysis of the correlation between IBD and depression in this research. Firstly, the samples were separated into two different molecular subtypes (D. cluster1 and D. cluster2) based on their biological signatures. Moreover, the immunological and metabolic differences between them were evaluated, and we discovered that D. cluster2 most closely resembled IBD patients concomitant with depression. We also developed a scoring system to assess the IBD-related depression and predict clinical response to anti-TNF- therapy, with a higher D. score suggesting more inflammation and worse reaction to biological therapies. Ultimately, we also identified through animal experiments an antidepressant, paroxetine, has the added benefit of lowering intestinal inflammation by controlling microorganisms in the digestive tract.ConclusionsThis study highlights that IBD patients with or without depression show significant variations and antidepressant paroxetine may help reduce intestinal inflammation

Wannier-function description of the electronic polarization and infrared absorption of high-pressure hydrogen

We have constructed maximally-localized Wannier functions for prototype structures of solid molecular hydrogen under pressure, starting from LDA and tight-binding Bloch wave functions. Each occupied Wannier function can be associated with two paired protons, defining a ``Wannier molecule''. The sum of the dipole moments of these ``molecules'' always gives the correct macroscopic polarization, even under strong compression, when the overlap between nearby Wannier functions becomes significant. We find that at megabar pressures the contributions to the dipoles arising from the overlapping tails of the Wannier functions is very large. The strong vibron infrared absorption experimentally observed in phase III, above ~ 150 GPa, is analyzed in terms of the vibron-induced fluctuations of the Wannier dipoles. We decompose these fluctuations into ``static'' and ``dynamical'' contributions, and find that at such high densities the latter term, which increases much more steeply with pressure, is dominant.Comment: 17 pages, two-column style with 14 postscript figures embedded. Uses REVTEX and epsf macro

Seizing the window of opportunity to mitigate the impact of climate change on the health of Chinese residents

The health threats posed by climate change in China are increasing rapidly. Each province faces different health risks. Without a timely and adequate response, climate change will impact lives and livelihoods at an accelerated rate and even prevent the achievement of the Healthy and Beautiful China initiatives. The 2021 China Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change is the first annual update of China’s Report of the Lancet Countdown. It comprehensively assesses the impact of climate change on the health of Chinese households and the measures China has taken. Invited by the Lancet committee, Tsinghua University led the writing of the report and cooperated with 25 relevant institutions in and outside of China. The report includes 25 indicators within five major areas (climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement) and a policy brief. This 2021 China policy brief contains the most urgent and relevant indicators focusing on provincial data: The increasing health risks of climate change in China; mixed progress in responding to climate change. In 2020, the heatwave exposures per person in China increased by 4.51 d compared with the 1986–2005 average, resulting in an estimated 92% increase in heatwave-related deaths. The resulting economic cost of the estimated 14500 heatwave-related deaths in 2020 is US$176 million. Increased temperatures also caused a potential 31.5 billion h in lost work time in 2020, which is equivalent to 1.3% of the work hours of the total national workforce, with resulting economic losses estimated at 1.4% of China’s annual gross domestic product. For adaptation efforts, there has been steady progress in local adaptation planning and assessment in 2020, urban green space growth in 2020, and health emergency management in 2019. 12 of 30 provinces reported that they have completed, or were developing, provincial health adaptation plans. Urban green space, which is an important heat adaptation measure, has increased in 18 of 31 provinces in the past decade, and the capacity of China’s health emergency management increased in almost all provinces from 2018 to 2019. As a result of China’s persistent efforts to clean its energy structure and control air pollution, the premature deaths due to exposure to ambient particulate matter of 2.5 μm or less (PM2.5) and the resulting costs continue to decline. However, 98% of China’s cities still have annual average PM2.5 concentrations that are more than the WHO guideline standard of 10 μg/m3. It provides policymakers and the public with up-to-date information on China’s response to climate change and improvements in health outcomes and makes the following policy recommendations. (1) Promote systematic thinking in the related departments and strengthen multi-departmental cooperation. Sectors related to climate and development in China should incorporate health perspectives into their policymaking and actions, demonstrating WHO’s and President Xi Jinping’s so-called health-in-all-policies principle. (2) Include clear goals and timelines for climate-related health impact assessments and health adaptation plans at both the national and the regional levels in the National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy for 2035. (3) Strengthen China’s climate mitigation actions and ensure that health is included in China’s pathway to carbon neutrality. By promoting investments in zero-carbon technologies and reducing fossil fuel subsidies, the current rebounding trend in carbon emissions will be reversed and lead to a healthy, low-carbon future. (4) Increase awareness of the linkages between climate change and health at all levels. Health professionals, the academic community, and traditional and new media should raise the awareness of the public and policymakers on the important linkages between climate change and health.</p