Identification of the Metabolic Enzyme Involved Morusin Metabolism and Characterization of Its Metabolites by Ultraperformance Liquid Chromatogaphy Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (UPLC/Q-TOF-MS/MS)

Morusin, the important active component of a traditional Chinese medicine, Morus alba L., has been shown to exhibit many vital pharmacological activities. In this study, six recombinant CYP450 supersomes and liver microsomes were used to perform metabolic studies. Chemical inhibition studies and screening assays with recombinant human cytochrome P450s were also used to characterize the CYP450 isoforms involved in morusin metabolism. The morusin metabolites identified varied greatly among different species. Eight metabolites of morusin were detected in the liver microsomes from pigs (PLMs), rats (RLMs), and monkeys (MLMs) by LC-MS/MS and six metabolites were detected in the liver microsomes from humans (HLMs), rabbits (RAMs), and dogs (DLMs). Four metabolites (M1, M2, M5, and M7) were found in all species and hydroxylation was the major metabolic transformation. CYP1A2, CYP2C9, CYP2D6, CYP2E1, CYP3A4, and CYP2C19 contributed differently to the metabolism of morusin. Compared to other CYP450 isoforms, CYP3A4 played the most significant role in the metabolism of morusin in human liver microsomes. These results are significant to better understand the metabolic behaviors of morusin among various species

The PBDE-209 Exposure during Pregnancy and Lactation Impairs Immune Function in Rats

In the present study, we assessed the treatment effects of PBDE-209 administration on the immune function in rats during pregnancy and lactation. We harvested the blood and organs for flow cytometry, viability assay, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and histological evaluation. The results of this study were the PBDE-209 exposure during pregnancy and lactation impairs immune function in rats. The results may contribute to understanding the mechanism of PBDE-209 in immune function

Application of graphene-based materials for detection of nitrate and nitrite in water—a review

Nitrite and nitrate are widely found in various water environments but the potential toxicity of nitrite and nitrate poses a great threat to human health. Recently, many methods have been developed to detect nitrate and nitrite in water. One of them is to use graphene-based materials. Graphene is a two-dimensional carbon nano-material with sp2 hybrid orbital, which has a large surface area and excellent conductivity and electron transfer ability. It is widely used for modifying electrodes for electrochemical sensors. Graphene based electrochemical sensors have the advantages of being low cost, effective and efficient for nitrite and nitrate detection. This paper reviews the application of graphene-based nanomaterials for electrochemical detection of nitrate and nitrite in water. The properties and advantages of the electrodes were modified by graphene, graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite in the development of nitrite sensors are discussed in detail. Based on the review, the paper summarizes the working conditions and performance of different sensors, including working potential, pH, detection range, detection limit, sensitivity, reproducibility, repeatability and long-term stability. Furthermore, the challenges and suggestions for future research on the application of graphene-based nanocomposite electrochemical sensors for nitrite detection are also highlighted

Emergently Alteration of Procedural Strategy During Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement to Prevent Coronary Occlusion: A Case Report

BackgroundCoronary occlusion is an uncommon but fatal complication of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) with a poor prognosis.Case PresentationA patient with symptomatic severe bicuspid aortic valve stenosis was admitted to a high-volume center specializing in transfemoral TAVR with self-expanding valves. No anatomical risk factors of coronary occlusion were identified on pre-procedural computed tomography analysis. The patient was scheduled for a transfemoral TAVR with a self-expanding valve. Balloon pre-dilatation prior to prosthesis implantation was routinely used for assessing the supra-annular structure and assessing the risk of coronary occlusion. Immediately after the tubular balloon inflation, fluoroscopy revealed that the right coronary artery was not visible, and the flow in the left coronary artery was reduced. The patient would be at high-risk of coronary occlusion if a long stent self-expanding valve was implanted. Therefore, our heart team decided to suspend the ongoing procedure. A transapical TAVR with a 23 mm J-valve was performed 3 days later. The prosthesis was deployed at a proper position without blocking the coronary ostia and the final fluoroscopy showed normal flow in bilateral coronary arteries with the same filling as preoperatively.DiscussionOur successful case highlights the importance of a comprehensive assessment of coronary risk and a thorough understanding of the TAVR procedure for the heart team. A short-stent prosthesis is feasible for patients at high risk of coronary occlusion. Most importantly TAVR should be called off even if the catheter has been introduced when an extremely high risk of coronary obstruction is identified during the procedure and no solution can be found

A Multi‐Functional Separator for Li‐S Batteries: WS₂@C Nanoflowers Catalyze the Rapid Recycling of Lithium Polysulfides by Polar Attraction

Featuring high theoretical capacity, environmental friendliness and low cost, lithium‐sulfur (Li‐S) batteries become promising alternatives to satisfy the growing demand for energy storage. To boost their energy density for practical application, modified separators are needed to suppress shuttle effects resulting from the solubility of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs). Herein, we modified traditional polypropylene (PP) separators with functional WS₂@C nanoflower composites (WS₂@C‐PP). They can effectively adsorb LiPSs and catalyze their conversion on the edge sites of the WS₂. Also, the unique construction of a carbon layer coating on the WS₂ nanoflowers combines active sites and conducting properties. The material benefits the reversibility of redox reactions and reutilization of active materials. With the WS₂@C‐PP separator, the cell displays improved cycling stability and rate performance. When cycling at 0.1 C, the cell discharges a capacity of up to 1475 mAh g⁻¹, and it contributes 943 mAh g⁻¹ originally at 1 C, with a decay rate of only 0.07 % after 500 cycles. Our work highlights the potential of functional separators to advance the properties of Li‐S batteries

Short-interval second ejaculation improves sperm quality, blastocyst formation in oligoasthenozoospermic males in ICSI cycles: a time-lapse sibling oocytes study

BackgroundDoes short-interval second ejaculation improve sperm quality, embryo development and clinical outcomes for oligoasthenozoospermia males received intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) treatment?MethodsAll enrolled male patients underwent short-interval secondary ejaculation on the day of oocyte retrieval, and 786 sibling MII oocytes from 67 cycles were equally divided into two groups based on whether the injected spermatozoons originated from the first or second ejaculation. Semen parameters, embryo development efficiency, morphokinetic parameters and clinical outcomes were compared between the two groups to assess the efficiency and clinical value of short-interval second ejaculation in ICSI cycles.ResultsShort-interval second ejaculation significantly improved sperm motility, normal morphological rate, and sperm DNA integrity both before and after sperm swim-up. The high-quality blastocyst rate (24.79% versus 14.67%), available blastocyst rate (57.56% versus 48.44%), and oocyte utilization rate (52.93% versus 45.29%) were significantly higher in the second ejaculation group (P<0.05). The clinical pregnancy rate (59.09% versus 47.37%), implantation rate (42.11% versus 32.35%) and live birth rate (40.91% versus 31.58%) were higher in the second ejaculation group, but the differences were not significant (P>0.05). Time-lapse analysis showed that morphokinetic time points after the 7-cell stage were earlier in the second ejaculation group but without a significant difference (P>0.05), and abnormal embryo cleavage patterns between the two groups were not significantly different (P>0.05).ConclusionsShort-interval second ejaculation significantly improves sperm quality in oligoasthenozoospermic males, and is beneficial for blastocyst formation efficiency in ICSI cycles. This study suggested a non-invasive and simple but effective strategy for improving ICSI treatment outcomes

The first clinical data of the SAPIEN 3 aortic valve in the treatment of aortic stenosis in China

BackgroundData on outcomes following transcatheter aortic valve replacement with SAPIEN 3 in China is limited as it was approved by the National Medical Products since 2020. The present study was designed to collect clinical data on the SAPIEN 3 aortic valve in Chinese patients with bicuspid aortic valve and tricuspid aortic valve stenosis.MethodsWe analyzed the patient characteristics, procedural features and procedural outcomes of the first 438 patients (223 for bicuspid aortic valve and 215 tricuspid aortic valve) from 21 provinces in 74 sites treated with the SAPIEN 3 valve system for transcatheter aortic valve replacement between September 2020 and May 2022.ResultsProcedural mortality was 0.7%. 5 cases during the operation were converted to surgery. Among 438 cases, permanent pacemaker implantation was performed in a total of 12 cases (2.7%). The patient had severe leaflet calcification of the aortic valve, with moderate and severe calcification reaching 39.7% and 35.2% respectively. The size of the implanted valves was predominantly 26 mm and 23 mm, reaching 42.5% and 39.5% respectively. The incidence of moderate or severe perivalvular leak in the postoperative period was 0.5%, with a predominance of 90/10 and 80/20 valve deployment height. There was a significant difference in the deployment height of the valve between bicuspid aortic valve and tricuspid aortic valve, with the bicuspid aortic valve having a more deployment height of 90/10. Annulus size in bicuspid aortic valve group was significantly larger than tricuspid aortic valve group. Valve sizing for oversized, within size, and undersized were different between bicuspid aortic valve and tricuspid aortic valve.ConclusionsProcedural success rates were high, with similar and good results for bicuspid aortic valve and tricuspid aortic valve, low perivalvular leak for both valve types, and low permanent pacemaker implantation rates for both valve types. Annulus size, valve sizing and coronary artery height were significantly different in the BAV and TAV group

Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting among cancer patients in Shanghai: a cross-sectional study

Background and purpose: Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) can cause severe damage to body functions and even lead to death. The prevention of CINV is critically important in patients receiving emetogenic chemotherapy regimen. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and treatment of CINV in Grade-A tertiary hospitals in Shanghai and explore risk factors of CINV to improve its management. Methods: The clinical data of 376 cancer patients in Grade-A tertiary hospitals in Shanghai from October 2022 to December 2022 were collected retrospectively. The questionnaire was used to conduct a cross-sectional study. The univariate and multivariable logistic regression models were used to evaluate the influencing factors of CINV. Results: The management and coincidence of the guideline in 2022 significantly improved compared to five years ago. For patients receiving high-emetic-risk chemotherapy regimen, the coincidence of the guideline increased from 21.6% to 67.0%. For patients receiving moderate-emetic-risk chemotherapy regimen, the neurokinin-1 (NK-1) receptor antagonist was not significantly associated with CINV. Multivariable analysis showed that the chemotherapy regimen was the only risk factor for CINV during the whole period (P<0.05). Conclusion: The chemotherapy regimen is the main risk factor for CINV. To control CINV better, clinical practitioners should focus on the intrinsic risk of chemotherapy regimens preferentially, estimate the risk and adhere better to guidelines

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe