The risk factors and impact of subchorionic hematoma in the first trimester in IVF twin pregnancies: a prospective cohort study

ObjectiveThis study aimed to identify the risk factors for subchorionic hematoma (SCH) in the first trimester of in vitro fertilization (IVF) twin pregnancies and investigate the impact of SCH on pregnancy outcomes.Study designA prospective cohort study was conducted at Chengdu Women and Children's Central Hospital. The study recruited patients who were identified with twin pregnancies in the first trimester, undergoing IVF treatment from January 2020 to May 2021. The demographic characteristics and pregnancy outcomes were compared between the SCH and the non-SCH groups. A logistic regression analysis was used to determine the risk factors for SCH and adverse pregnancy outcomes.ResultsIn the first trimester, 38% of patients developed SCH. The independent risk factors for SCH included male factor, hydrosalpinx, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), previous miscarriage, and adenomyosis. With respect to the pregnancy outcomes, only the rate of twin pregnancy loss before 20 gestational weeks was significantly higher in the SCH group than in the non-SCH group. After adjusting for the confounding factors, the presence of SCH diminished the ovarian reserve, and previous miscarriage was independently related to twin pregnancy loss before 20 gestational weeks.ConclusionThis may be the first study to evaluate the risk factors of SCH in twin pregnancies who underwent IVF-ET/FET treatment, which may provide some theoretical basis for clinical practice in the future. Furthermore, it was found that the occurrence of SCH was associated with the loss of both pregnancies before 20 gestational weeks. Therefore, these patients should be offered increased surveillance and timely treatment

Proteomic analysis reveals proteins and pathways associated with declined testosterone production in male obese mice after chronic high-altitude exposure

ObjectiveObesity is common in highland areas owing to lifestyle alterations. There are pieces of evidence to suggest that both obesity and hypoxia may promote oxidative stress, leading to hypogonadism in males. These findings indicate an increased risk of hypogonadism in obese males following hypoxia exposure. However, the mechanisms underlying the disease process remain unclear. The current study aims to explore the mechanism of testosterone production dysfunction in obese male mice exposed to a chronic high-altitude hypoxia environment.MethodsAn obese male mouse model was generated by inducing obesity in mice via a high-fat diet for 14 weeks, and the obese mice were then exposed to a high-altitude hypoxia environment for 24 days. Sera and testicular tissues were collected to detect serum lipids, sex hormone level, and testicular oxidative stress indicators. Morphological examination was performed to assess pathological alterations in testicular tissues and suborganelles in leydig cells. Proteomic alterations in testicular tissues were investigated using quantitative proteomics in Obese/Control and Obese-Hypoxia/Obese groups.ResultsThe results showed that chronic high-altitude hypoxia exposure aggravated low testosterone production in obese male mice accompanied by increased testicular oxidative stress and histological damages. In total, 363 and 242 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were identified in the two comparison groups, Obese/Control and Obese-Hypoxia/Obese, respectively. Functional enrichment analysis demonstrated that several significant functional terms and pathways related to testosterone production were altered in the two comparison groups. These included cholesterol metabolism, steroid hormone biosynthesis, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) signaling pathway, oxidative stress responses, as well as retinol metabolism. Finally, 10 representative DEPs were selected for parallel reaction monitoring verification. Among them, StAR, DHCR7, NSDHL, CYP51A1, FDPS, FDX1, CYP11A1, ALDH1A1, and GPX3 were confirmed to be downregulated in the two groups.ConclusionsChronic hypoxia exposure could exacerbate low testosterone production in obese male mice by influencing the expression of key proteins involved in steroid hormone biosynthesis, cholesterol biosynthesis, oxidative stress responses and retinol metabolism

Anion-induced robust ferroelectricity in sulfurized pseudo-rhombohedral epitaxial BiFeO3 thin films via polarization rotation

Polarization rotation caused by various strains, such as substrate and/or chemical strain, is essential to control the electronic structure and properties of ferroelectric materials. This study proposes anion-induced polarization rotation with chemical strain, which effectively improves ferroelectricity. A method for the sulfurization of BiFeO3 thin films by introducing sulfur anions is presented. The sulfurized films exhibited substantial enhancement in room-temperature ferroelectric polarization through polarization rotation and distortion, with a 170% increase in the remnant polarization from 58 to 100.7 μC cm−2. According to first-principles calculations and the results of X-ray absorption spectroscopy and high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy, this enhancement arose from the introduction of S atoms driving the re-distribution of the lone-pair electrons of Bi, resulting in the rotation of the polarization state from the [001] direction to the [110] or [111] one. The presented method of anion-driven polarization rotation might enable the improvement of the properties of oxide materials.This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFA0703700, 2017YFE0119700, 2021YFA1400300 and 2018YFA0305700), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21801013, 51774034, 22271309, 11721404, 11934017, 12261131499, and 51961135107), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (FRF-IDRY-19-007 and FRF-TP-19-055A2Z), the National Program for Support of Top-notch Young Professionals, the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (2019-2021QNRC), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Z200007), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB33000000). This research used the resources of the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (1W1A and 4B9B beamlines) of the Chinese Academy of Science.Peer reviewe

Genetic Variation of Promoter Sequence Modulates XBP1 Expression and Genetic Risk for Vitiligo

Our previous genome-wide linkage analysis identified a susceptibility locus for generalized vitiligo on 22q12. To search for susceptibility genes within the locus, we investigated a biological candidate gene, X-box binding protein 1(XBP1). First, we sequenced all the exons, exon-intron boundaries as well as some 5′ and 3′ flanking sequences of XBP1 in 319 cases and 294 controls of Chinese Hans. Of the 8 common variants identified, the significant association was observed at rs2269577 (p_trend = 0.007, OR = 1.36, 95% CI = 1.09–1.71), a putative regulatory polymorphism within the promoter region of XBP1. We then sequenced the variant in an additional 365 cases and 404 controls and found supporting evidence for the association (p_trend = 0.008, OR = 1.31, 95% CI = 1.07–1.59). To further validate the association, we genotyped the variant in another independent sample of 1,402 cases and 1,288 controls, including 94 parent-child trios, and confirmed the association by both case-control analysis (p_trend = 0.003, OR = 1.18, 95% CI = 1.06–1.32) and the family-based transmission disequilibrium test (TDT, p = 0.005, OR = 1.93, 95% CI = 1.21–3.07). The analysis of the combined 2,086 cases and 1,986 controls provided highly significant evidence for the association (p_trend = 2.94×10−6, OR = 1.23, 95% CI = 1.13–1.35). Furthermore, we also found suggestive epistatic effect between rs2269577 and HLA-DRB1*07 allele on the development of vitiligo (p = 0.033). Our subsequent functional study showed that the risk-associated C allele of rs2269577 had a stronger promoter activity than the non-risk G allele, and there was an elevated expression of XBP1 in the lesional skins of patients carrying the risk-associated C allele. Therefore, our study has demonstrated that the transcriptional modulation of XBP1 expression by a germ-line regulatory polymorphism has an impact on the development of vitiligo

The Defense of Adversarial Example with Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks

Deep neural network approaches have made remarkable progress in many machine learning tasks. However, the latest research indicates that they are vulnerable to adversarial perturbations. An adversary can easily mislead the network models by adding well-designed perturbations to the input. The cause of the adversarial examples is unclear. Therefore, it is challenging to build a defense mechanism. In this paper, we propose an image-to-image translation model to defend against adversarial examples. The proposed model is based on a conditional generative adversarial network, which consists of a generator and a discriminator. The generator is used to eliminate adversarial perturbations in the input. The discriminator is used to distinguish generated data from original clean data to improve the training process. In other words, our approach can map the adversarial images to the clean images, which are then fed to the target deep learning model. The defense mechanism is independent of the target model, and the structure of the framework is universal. A series of experiments conducted on MNIST and CIFAR10 show that the proposed method can defend against multiple types of attacks while maintaining good performance

Microstructure evolution and corrosion resistance of high-pressure rheo-cast Mg–Zn–Y alloy containing quasicrystal

The effects of high pressure applied during rheo-squeeze casting (RSC) process on the microstructure evolution and corrosion resistance of Mg90.8Zn8.6Y0.6 alloy were investigated. The results reveal that with the increase of pressure, both the average size of α-Mg grains and the lamellar spacing of in-situ formed quasicrystal phase (I–Mg3Zn6Y) are continuously decreased. Meanwhile, the high-pressure results in the increase in the supersaturation of Zn in matrix, the decrease in volume fraction of second phases and the disappearance of Mg7Zn3 phase. The high-pressure contributed to the improvement of corrosion resistance, and the corrosion process was changed from three stages (galvanic corrosion, filiform corrosion and pitting corrosion) to two stages (galvanic corrosion and pitting corrosion), which was mainly attributed to the supersaturation of Zn in matrix, the continuous distribution of finer I-phase and the disappearance of Mg7Zn3