Early development of the Amur sleeper (Perccottus glenii, Dybowski, 1877): a remarkable invasive species in Eurasia

To investigate the ontogeny of Perccottus glenii, embryonic, larval and juvenile development of P. glenii were examined under captive condition. The fertilized eggs with numerous oil droplets were orange-pink in color, prolate spherical in shape and had average length of 3.32±0.14 mm and width of 1.24±0.04 mm. From fertilization to hatching, the ontogenesis of the fish spent more than 200 h, and the process of embryonic development was divided into 25 stages based on the morphological characteristics. The newly hatched larvae, with well-developed swim bladder and pectoral fins, measured 5.07±0.18mm in total length. Initial feeding occurred at day 2 after hatching (AH) and the complete absorption of yolk sphere was observed 3 days after hatching. At day 40 AH, scales and vertical pigment were found to be appear. Scales covered the entire body and all fins were well developed 70 days AH, at which time the juveniles reached the young stage with a total length (TL) of 24.74±4.28 mm. At day 140 AH, The fry with a TL of 29.57±4.65 mm, were morphologically similar to the adults except for size

A First Step Towards Behavioral Coaching for Managing Stress: A Case Study on Optimal Policy Estimation with Multi-stage Threshold Q-learning

Psychological stress is a major contributor to the adoption of unhealthy behaviors, which in turn accounts for 41% of global cardiovascular disease burden. While the proliferation of mobile health apps has offered promise to stress management, these apps do not provide micro-level feedback with regard to how to adjust one's behaviors to achieve a desired health outcome. In this paper, we formulate the task of multi-stage stress management as a sequential decision-making problem and explore the application of reinforcement learning to provide micro-level feedback for stress reduction. Specifically, we incorporate a multi-stage threshold selection into Q-learning to derive an interpretable form of a recommendation policy for behavioral coaching. We apply this method on an observational dataset that contains Fitbit ActiGraph measurements and self-reported stress levels. The estimated policy is then used to understand how exercise patterns may affect users' psychological stress levels and to perform coaching more effectively

Curcumin-loaded graphene oxide quantum dots enhance otoprotective effects via blocking cuproptosis

Background: Cisplatin (CIS) is widely used to treat various cancers but can cause ototoxicity and sensory hair cell loss in the inner ear. Copper induces an excessive production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in hair cells, leading to the development of various antioxidants.Methods and results: This study aimed to evaluate the potential antioxidant properties of curcumin (CUR) in the inner ear organ of corti-1 cells (OC1) and animal models (zebrafish and guinea pigs). Graphene oxide quantum dots (GOQDs) enabled CUR to penetrate the round window membrane (RWM) and maintain the concentration in the perilymph after inner ear administration. The results showed that CUR/GOQDs had favorable biocompatibility and strongly affected ROS generation induced by CIS in OC1 cells. DCFHDA Green staining demonstrated that CUR/GOQDs successfully reversed the decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential induced by CIS in vitro and rescued cells from early cuproptosis, which was confirmed by FDX1 staining. Additionally, the experiment found that CUR decreased the expression of cuproptosis proteins (FDX1, LIAS, and LIPT1) and increased the expression of the Bcl-2 protein.Conclusion: The results demonstrate that CUR/GOQDs is a promising therapeutic agent that can prevent CIS-induced ototoxicity by blocking the cuproptosis signal pathway

A new stripe rust resistance gene transferred from Thinopyrum intermedium to hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum)

Wheat stripe rust (Puccinia striiforis f. sp. tritici) races CYR31 and CYR32, prevalent in China, are virulent to many wheat stripe rust resistance genes (Yr genes). To expand the availability of effective resistance to CYR31 and CYR32, stripe rust resistance was transferred from intermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium) to common wheat (Triticum aestivum). The susceptible wheat cultivar CM107 was crossed with amphiploid TAI7047, derived from the wide cross Taiyuan768/Thinopyrum intermedium//76(64). Two wheat lines originating from the cross, YU24 and YU25, were resistant to CYR31 and CYR32. Pedigree analysis showed that the resistance to stripe rust in YU24 and YU25 originated from intermediate wheatgrass. Genetic analyses indicated that the resistance to stripe rust is controlled by a single dominant gene. Allelic tests determined that the resistance gene(s) in YU24 and YU25 are identical. The new gene has temporarily been designated as YrYU25. SSR and RAPD analyses showed that YrYU25 was introduced by cryptic translocation into common wheat.Les races CYR31 et CYR32 de la rouille jaune du blé (Puccinia striiforis f. sp. tritici), très répandues en Chine, sont virulentes pour plusieurs gènes de résistance à cette maladie (gènes Yr). Afin d'accroître la disponibilité d'une résistance efficace aux races CYR31 et CYR32, la résistance à la rouille jaune du blé a été transférée de l'agropyre intermédiaire (Thinopyrum intermedium) au blé tendre (Triticum aestivum). CM107, un cultivar de blé sensible, a été croisé avec l'amphiploïde AI7047 dérivé du croisement éloigné Taiyuan768/Thinopyrum intermedium//76(64). Deux lignées de blé provenant de ce croisement, soit YU24 et YU25, étaient résistantes aux races CYR31 et CYR32. Une analyse généalogique a démontré que la résistance à la rouille jaune du blé chez les lignées YU24 et YU25 provenait de l'agropyre intermédiaire. Des analyses génétiques ont indiqué que cette résistance était contrôlée par un seul gène dominant. Des tests d'allélisme ont révélé que le(s) gène(s) de résistance dans les lignées YU24 et YU25 étaient identiques. Le nouveau gène a temporairement été nommé YrYU25. Des analyses SSR et RAPD ont démontré que le gène YrYU25 avait été introduit dans le blé tendre par translocation cryptique

The metabolic repression effect of carbon-ion radiotherapy in synchronous hormone-sensitive oligometastatic prostate cancer

BackgroundMetastatic prostate cancer (PCa) poses a significant public health concern. While radiation therapy (RT) is commonly utilized in the treatment of synchronous oligometastatic hormone sensitive prostate cancer (OM-HSPC), the occurrence of biochemical recurrence still remains. To deepen our understanding and optimize the outcome of OM-HSPC, we conducted this study to investigate the characteristics of PCa progression and explore potential synergistic mechanisms involving carbon-ion radiotherapy (CIRT) and neoadjuvant androgen deprivation treatment (naADT) in OM-HSPC.MethodsMetabolomic analysis was conducted with 72 urinary samples (at different timepoints) from 33 Patients (T2-3N0M0-1b) and 18 healthy volunteers by using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). MetaboAnalyst website and R software were employed for metabolomic analysis and visualization (using the criteria of p value < 0.05 and |FC|>1.5). The impact of CIRT on metabolism were further verified and explored through in vitro and in vivo experiments.ResultsWe found that most metabolites (223 out of 233) were upregulated in treatment-naïve PCa samples compared to healthy samples. After naADT, 60 core risk metabolites were still significantly related to PCa’s progression, and the glutamine level which was significantly higher in OM-HSPC compared to other groups. Remarkably, after CIRT treatment, the glutamine levels in OM-HSPC were significantly reduced to the level of healthy samples. Experiments further confirmed CIRT’s ability to suppress glutamine levels in PCa tumors and its potential enhancement with glutamine deprivation intervention.ConclusionCIRT with naADT might synergistically inhibit HS-OMPC development, progression and even the ADT resistance through glutamine metabolism repression, moreover, the glutamine metabolism might be a novel target to further improved the efficacy of CIRT

The Use of Cardiac Magnetic Resonance in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Over the Past 10 Years [2013-2023]: a Citespace-Based Bibliometric analysis

BACKGROUND: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a common genetic cardiac disorder characterized by the hypertrophy of a segment of the myocardium. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) has been widely used in the assessment of HCM. However, no bibliometric assessment has been conducted on the progress of research in this field. This study thus aimed to examine the current state of research into the application of CMR in HCM and the hotspots and trends that have emerged in this field over the past decade. METHODS: A systematic search was conducted on the Web of Science regarding CMR in the assessment of HCM. The databases were searched from 2013 to June 2023. CiteSpace is an application that can be used to characterize the underlying knowledge of the scientific literature in a given field. We used it to analyze the relationship between publication year and country, institution, journal, author, bibliography, and keywords in the field of CMR for the assessment of HCM. RESULTS: A total of 1,427 articles were included in the analysis. In the assessment of HCM, the findings from the past decade have consistently demonstrated a progressive rise in the quantity of articles pertaining to CMR. The country with the largest number of publications was the United States [310], and the institution with the greatest number of publications was the University College London [45]. The analysis of keywords revealed the diagnosis and management of HCM with CMR to be the current research focus and emerging trend within this academic field. CONCLUSIONS: This study used a novel approach to visually analyze the use of CMR in HCM assessment. The current research trajectory in CMR consists of the diagnosis and management of patients with HCM. Although most studies confirmed the indispensability of CMR in the assessment of HCM, larger-scale cohorts are still needed to more comprehensively evaluate the role of CMR in the differential diagnosis, pre- and post-treatment assessment, and long-term management of patients with HCM

Carbon Ion Radiotherapy Induce Metabolic Inhibition After Functional Imaging-Guided Simultaneous Integrated Boost for Prostate Cancer

PurposeAs local recurrence remains a challenge and the advantages of the simultaneous integrated boost (SIB) technique have been validated in photon radiotherapy, we applied the SIB technique to CIRT. The aim was to investigate the metabolomic changes of the CIRT with concurrent androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) in localized prostate cancer (PCa) and the unique metabolic effect of the SIB technique.Material and MethodsThis study enrolled 24 pathologically confirmed PCa patients. All patients went through CIRT with concurrent ADT. The gross target volume (GTV) boost was defined as positive lesions on both 68Ga-PSMA PET/CT and mpMRI images. Urine samples collected before and after CIRT were analyzed by the Q-TOF UPLC-MS/MS system. R platform and MetDNA were used for peak detection and identification. Statistical analysis and metabolic pathway analysis were performed on Metaboanalyst.ResultsThe metabolite profiles were significantly altered after CIRT. The most significantly altered metabolic pathway is PSMA participated alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism. Metabolites in this pathway showed a trend to be better suppressed in the SIB group. A total of 11 identified metabolites were significantly discriminative between two groups and all of them were better down-regulated in the SIB group. Meanwhile, among these metabolites, three metabolites in DNA damage and repair related purine metabolism were down-regulated to a greater extent in the SIB group.ConclusionMetabolic dysfunction was one of the typical characteristics of PCa. CIRT with ADT showed a powerful inhibition of PCa metabolism, especially in PSMA participated metabolic pathway. The SIB CIRT showed even better performance on down-regulation of most metabolism than uniform-dose-distribution CIRT. Meanwhile, the SIB CIRT also showed its unique superiority to inhibit purine metabolism. PSMA PET/CT guided SIB CIRT showed its potentials to further benefit PCa patients