367 research outputs found
Primulina cardaminifolia (Gesneriaceae), a rare new species from limestone areas in Guangxi, China
Age, but not short-term intensive swimming, affects chondrocyte turnover in zebrafish vertebral cartilage
Both age and intensive exercise are generally considered critical risk factors for osteoarthritis. In this work, we intend to establish zebrafish models to assess the role of these two factors on cartilage homeostasis. We designed a swimming device for zebrafish intensive exercise. The body measurements, bone mineral density (BMD) and the histology of spinal cartilages of 4- and 12-month-old zebrafish, as well the 12-month-old zebrafish before and after a 2-week exercise were compared. Our results indicate that both age and exercise affect the body length and body weight, and the micro-computed tomography reveals that both age and exercise affect the spinal BMD. However, quantitative analysis of immunohistochemistry and histochemistry indicate that short-term intensive exercise does not affect the extracellular matrix (ECM) of spinal cartilage. On the other hand, the cartilage ECM significantly grew from 4 to 12 months of age with an increase in total chondrocytes. dUTP nick end labeling staining shows that the percentages of apoptotic cells significantly increase as the zebrafish grows, whereas the BrdU labeling shows that proliferative cells dramatically decrease from 4 to 12 months of age. A 30-day chase of BrdU labeling shows some retention of labeling in cells in 4-month-old spinal cartilage but not in cartilage from 12-month-old zebrafish. Taken together, our results suggest that zebrafish chondrocytes are actively turned over, and indicate that aging is a critical factor that alters cartilage homeostasis. Zebrafish vertebral cartilage may serve as a good model to study the maturation and homeostasis of articular cartilage
Effects of a Chinese Herbal Medicine, Guan-Jen-Huang (Aeginetia indica Linn.), on Renal Cancer Cell Growth and Metastasis
Aeginetia indica Linn. (Guan-Jen-Huang, GJH), a traditional Chinese herb, has the potential to be an immunomodulatory agent. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of GJH in the treatment of renal cancer. Concentration-effect curves for the influence of GJH on cellular proliferation showed a biphasic shape. Besides, GJH had a synergistic effect on cytotoxicity when combined with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)which may be due to the alternation of the chemotherapeutic agent resistance-related genes and due to the synergistic effects on apoptosis. In addition, treatment with GJH extract markedly reduced 786-O cell adherence to human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and decreased 786-O cell migration and invasion. In a xenograft animal model, GJH extract had an inhibitory effect on tumor cell-induced metastasis. Moreover, western blot analysis showed that the expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) in 786-O cells was significantly decreased by treatment with GJH extract through inactivation of nuclear factor-κB (NF–κB). These results suggest that GJH extract has a synergistic effect on apoptosis induced by chemotherapeutic agents and an inhibitory effect on cell adhesion, migration, and invasion, providing evidence for the use of water-based extracts of GJH as novel alternative therapeutic agents in the treatment of human renal cancer
Clinical and pathological correlates of severity classifications in trigger fingers based on computer-aided image analysis
BACKGROUND: The treatment of trigger finger so far has heavily relied on clinicians’ evaluations for the severity of patients’ symptoms and the functionality of affected fingers. However, there is still a lack of pathological evidence supporting the criteria of clinical evaluations. This study’s aim was to correlate clinical classification and pathological changes for trigger finger based on the tissue abnormality observed from microscopic images. METHODS: Tissue samples were acquired, and microscopic images were randomly selected and then graded by three pathologists and two physicians, respectively. Moreover, the acquired images were automatically analyzed to derive two quantitative parameters, the size ratio of the abnormal tissue region and the number ratio of the abnormal nuclei, which can reflect tissue abnormality caused by trigger finger. A self-developed image analysis system was used to avoid human subjectivity during the quantification process. Finally, correlations between the quantitative image parameters, pathological grading, and clinical severity classification were assessed. RESULTS: One-way ANOVA tests revealed significant correlations between the image quantification and pathological grading as well as between the image quantification and clinical severity classification. The Cohen’s kappa coefficient test also depicted good consistency between pathological grading and clinical severity classification. CONCLUSIONS: The criteria of clinical classification were found to be highly associated with the pathological changes of affected tissues. The correlations serve as explicit evidence supporting clinicians in making a treatment strategy of trigger finger. In addition, our proposed computer-aided image analysis system was considered to be a promising and objective approach to determining trigger finger severity at the microscopic level
Hungry bone syndrome in peritoneal dialysis patients after parathyroid surgery
Secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) is a common complication of end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). Hungry bone syndrome (HBS) occurs frequently in patients on maintenance dialysis receiving parathyroidectomy for refractory SHPT. However, there is scanty study investigating the clinical risk factors that predict postoperative HBS, and its outcome in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. We conducted a single-center retrospective study to analyze 66 PD patients who had undergone parathyroidectomy for secondary hyperparathyroidism at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital between 2009 and 2019. The patients were stratified into two groups based on the presence ( n=47) or absence (n=19) of HBS after parathyroidectomy. Subtotal parathyroidectomy was the most common surgery performed (74.2%), followed by total parathyroidectomy with autoimplantation (25.8%). Pathological examination of all surgical specimens revealed parathyroid hyperplasia (100%). Patients with HBS had lower levels of postoperative nadir corrected calcium, higher alkaline phosphate (ALP), and higher potassium levels compared with patients without HBS (all P<0.05). A multivariate logistic regression model confirmed that lower preoperative serum calcium level (OR 0.354, 95% CI 0.133–0.940, P=0.037), higher ALP (OR 1.026, 95% CI 1.008–1.044, P=0.004), and higher potassium level (OR 6.894, 95% CI 1.806–26.317, P=0.005) were associated with HBS after parathyroidectomy. Patients were followed for 58.2±30.8 months after the surgery. There was no significant difference between HBS and non-HBS groups in persistence (P=0.496) or recurrence (P=1.000) of hyperparathyroidism. The overall mortality rate was 10.6% with no significant difference found between both groups (P=0.099). We concluded that HBS is a common complication (71.2%) of parathyroidectomy for SHPT and should be managed appropriately
Transcriptome analysis of Dnmt3l knock-out mice derived multipotent mesenchymal stem/stromal cells during osteogenic differentiation
Multipotent mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) exhibit great potential for cell-based therapy. Proper epigenomic signatures in MSCs are important for the maintenance and the subsequent differentiation potential. The DNA methyltransferase 3-like (DNMT3L) that was mainly expressed in the embryonic stem (ES) cells and the developing germ cells plays an important role in shaping the epigenetic landscape. Here, we report the reduced colony forming ability and impaire
AV-SUPERB: A Multi-Task Evaluation Benchmark for Audio-Visual Representation Models
Audio-visual representation learning aims to develop systems with human-like
perception by utilizing correlation between auditory and visual information.
However, current models often focus on a limited set of tasks, and
generalization abilities of learned representations are unclear. To this end,
we propose the AV-SUPERB benchmark that enables general-purpose evaluation of
unimodal audio/visual and bimodal fusion representations on 7 datasets covering
5 audio-visual tasks in speech and audio processing. We evaluate 5 recent
self-supervised models and show that none of these models generalize to all
tasks, emphasizing the need for future study on improving universal model
performance. In addition, we show that representations may be improved with
intermediate-task fine-tuning and audio event classification with AudioSet
serves as a strong intermediate task. We release our benchmark with evaluation
code and a model submission platform to encourage further research in
audio-visual learning.Comment: Submitted to ICASSP 2024; Evaluation Code:
https://github.com/roger-tseng/av-superb Submission Platform:
https://av.superbbenchmark.or
Fifteen-Year Population Attributable Fractions and Causal Pies of Risk Factors for Newly Developed Hepatocellular Carcinomas in 11,801 Men in Taiwan
Development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a multi-factorial process. Chronic infections with hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are important risk factors of HCC. Host factors, such as alcohol drinking, may also play a role. This study aims to provide a synthesis view on the development of HCC by examining multiple risk factors jointly and collectively. Causal-pie modeling technique was applied to analyze a cohort of 11,801 male residents (followed up for 15 years) in Taiwan, during which a total of 298 incident HCC cases were ascertained. The rate ratios adjusted by age were further modeled by an additive Poisson regression. Population attributable fractions (PAFs) and causal-pie weights (CPWs) were calculated. A PAF indicates the magnitude of case-load reduction under a particular intervention scenario, whereas a CPW for a particular class of causal pies represents the proportion of HCC cases attributable to that class. Using PAF we observed a chance to reduce around 60% HCC risk moving from no HBV-related intervention to the total elimination of the virus. An additional ∼15% (or ∼5%) reduction can be expected, if the HBV-related intervention is coupled with an HCV-related intervention (or an anti-drinking campaign). Eight classes of causal pies were found to be significant, including four dose-response classes of HBV (total CPW=52.7%), one independent-effect class of HCV (CPW=14.4%), one HBV-alcohol interaction class (CPW=4.2%), one HBV-HCV interaction class (CPW=1.7%), and one all-unknown class (CPW=27.0%). Causal-pie modeling for HCC helps clarify the relative importance of each viral and host factor, as well as their interactions
The Physical Drivers and Observational Tracers of CO-to-H2 Conversion Factor Variations in Nearby Barred Galaxy Centers
The CO-to-H conversion factor (\alpha_\rm{CO}) is central to measuring
the amount and properties of molecular gas. It is known to vary with
environmental conditions, and previous studies have revealed lower
\alpha_\rm{CO} in the centers of some barred galaxies on kpc scales. To
unveil the physical drivers of such variations, we obtained ALMA Band 3, 6, and
7 observations toward the inner 2 kpc of NGC 3627 and NGC 4321 tracing
CO, CO, and CO lines on 100 pc scales. Our multi-line
modeling and Bayesian likelihood analysis of these datasets reveal variations
of molecular gas density, temperature, optical depth, and velocity dispersion,
which are among the key drivers of \alpha_\rm{CO}. The central 300 pc nuclei
in both galaxies show strong enhancement of temperature T_\rm{k}>100 K and
density n_\rm{H_2}>10^3 cm. Assuming a CO-to-H abundance of
, we derive 4-15 times lower \alpha_\rm{CO} than the Galactic
value across our maps, which agrees well with previous kpc-scale measurements.
Combining the results with our previous work on NGC 3351, we find a strong
correlation of \alpha_\rm{CO} with low-J CO optical depths
(\tau_\rm{CO}), as well as an anti-correlation with T_\rm{k}. The
\tau_\rm{CO} correlation explains most of the \alpha_\rm{CO} variation in
the three galaxy centers, whereas changes in T_\rm{k} influence
\alpha_\rm{CO} to second order. Overall, the observed line width and
CO/CO 2-1 line ratio correlate with \tau_\rm{CO} variation in
these centers, and thus they are useful observational indicators for
\alpha_\rm{CO} variation. We also test current simulation-based
\alpha_\rm{CO} prescriptions and find a systematic overprediction, which
likely originates from the mismatch of gas conditions between our data and the
simulations.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ; 30 pages of main text + 3 appendice
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CHD7 and Runx1 interaction provides a braking mechanism for hematopoietic differentiation.
Hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) formation and lineage differentiation involve gene expression programs orchestrated by transcription factors and epigenetic regulators. Genetic disruption of the chromatin remodeler chromodomain-helicase-DNA-binding protein 7 (CHD7) expanded phenotypic HSPCs, erythroid, and myeloid lineages in zebrafish and mouse embryos. CHD7 acts to suppress hematopoietic differentiation. Binding motifs for RUNX and other hematopoietic transcription factors are enriched at sites occupied by CHD7, and decreased RUNX1 occupancy correlated with loss of CHD7 localization. CHD7 physically interacts with RUNX1 and suppresses RUNX1-induced expansion of HSPCs during development through modulation of RUNX1 activity. Consequently, the RUNX1:CHD7 axis provides proper timing and function of HSPCs as they emerge during hematopoietic development or mature in adults, representing a distinct and evolutionarily conserved control mechanism to ensure accurate hematopoietic lineage differentiation.Bloodwise, CRUK, MRC, Wellcome Trust, NIH, Leukemia and Lymphoma Societ
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