Electroacupuncture enhances spermatogenesis in rats after scrotal heat treatment

Spermatogenesis is regulated by a cascade of steroid regulated genes in the testis. Recent studies suggested that acupuncture may improve fertility in men with abnormal semen parameters. Yet, the underlying mechanisms in which acupuncture enhances spermatogenesis remain largely unknown. Here we used a scrotal heat-treated rat model to study the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) on recovery of spermatogenesis. In this model, spermatogenesis was disrupted by 30 min scrotal heat treatment at 43°C. Ten sessions of EA were given at Baihui (GV20), Guanyuan (CV4), Zusanli (ST36) and Sanyinjiao (SP6) from day 9 to day 36 post-treatment. Sperm motility and production, morphology of the germinal epithelium by Johnsen’s scoring, germ cell apoptosis by TUNEL staining, proliferation by proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) staining, as well as serum testosterone and inhibin B levels by immunoassays were evaluated on day 0, 1, 9, 25, 37, 46, 56 and 79. When compared with the heat-treated (H) group, the heat-treated plus EA (H+EA) group showed a significant increase (p < 0.05) in PCNA-positive cells and inhibin B levels on days 37 and 46, and a higher Johnsen’s score till day 56. On day 79, motile spermatozoa could be found in the vas deferens of H+EA group only. Consistently, there was a trend of improved motility and increased number of motile epididymal spermatozoa in the H+EA group than the H group; while apoptosis of germ cells and serum testosterone levels were similar between the two groups. Taken together, EA enhanced germ cell proliferation through improvement of Sertoli cell functions. This may facilitate the recovery of spermatogenesis and may restore normal semen parameters in subfertile patients

RNA polymerase II stalling promotes nucleosome occlusion and pTEFb recruitment to drive immortalization by Epstein-Barr virus

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) immortalizes resting B-cells and is a key etiologic agent in the development of numerous cancers. The essential EBV-encoded protein EBNA 2 activates the viral C promoter (Cp) producing a message of ~120 kb that is differentially spliced to encode all EBNAs required for immortalization. We have previously shown that EBNA 2-activated transcription is dependent on the activity of the RNA polymerase II (pol II) C-terminal domain (CTD) kinase pTEFb (CDK9/cyclin T1). We now demonstrate that Cp, in contrast to two shorter EBNA 2-activated viral genes (LMP 1 and 2A), displays high levels of promoter-proximally stalled pol II despite being constitutively active. Consistent with pol II stalling, we detect considerable pausing complex (NELF/DSIF) association with Cp. Significantly, we observe substantial Cp-specific pTEFb recruitment that stimulates high-level pol II CTD serine 2 phosphorylation at distal regions (up to +75 kb), promoting elongation. We reveal that Cp-specific pol II accumulation is directed by DNA sequences unfavourable for nucleosome assembly that increase TBP access and pol II recruitment. Stalled pol II then maintains Cp nucleosome depletion. Our data indicate that pTEFb is recruited to Cp by the bromodomain protein Brd4, with polymerase stalling facilitating stable association of pTEFb. The Brd4 inhibitor JQ1 and the pTEFb inhibitors DRB and Flavopiridol significantly reduce Cp, but not LMP1 transcript production indicating that Brd4 and pTEFb are required for Cp transcription. Taken together our data indicate that pol II stalling at Cp promotes transcription of essential immortalizing genes during EBV infection by (i) preventing promoter-proximal nucleosome assembly and ii) necessitating the recruitment of pTEFb thereby maintaining serine 2 CTD phosphorylation at distal regions

Recent changes of water discharge and sediment load in the Yellow River basin, China

The Yellow River basin contributes approximately 6% of the sediment load from all river systems globally, and the annual runoff directly supports 12% of the Chinese population. As a result, describing and understanding recent variations of water discharge and sediment load under global change scenarios are of considerable importance. The present study considers the annual hydrologic series of the water discharge and sediment load of the Yellow River basin obtained from 15 gauging stations (10 mainstream, 5 tributaries). The Mann-Kendall test method was adopted to detect both gradual and abrupt change of hydrological series since the 1950s. With the exception of the area draining to the Upper Tangnaihai station, results indicate that both water discharge and sediment load have decreased significantly (p&lt;0.05). The declining trend is greater with distance downstream, and drainage area has a significant positive effect on the rate of decline. It is suggested that the abrupt change of the water discharge from the late 1980s to the early 1990s arose from human extraction, and that the abrupt change in sediment load was linked to disturbance from reservoir construction.Geography, PhysicalGeosciences, MultidisciplinarySCI(E)43ARTICLE4541-5613

Bi-allelic Variants in TKFC Encoding Triokinase/FMN Cyclase Are Associated with Cataracts and Multisystem Disease

We report an inborn error of metabolism caused by TKFC deficiency in two unrelated families. Rapid trio genome sequencing in family 1 and exome sequencing in family 2 excluded known genetic etiologies, and further variant analysis identified rare homozygous variants in TKFC. TKFC encodes a bifunctional enzyme involved in fructose metabolism through its glyceraldehyde kinase activity and in the generation of riboflavin cyclic 4′,5′-phosphate (cyclic FMN) through an FMN lyase domain. The TKFC homozygous variants reported here are located within the FMN lyase domain. Functional assays in yeast support the deleterious effect of these variants on protein function. Shared phenotypes between affected individuals with TKFC deficiency include cataracts and developmental delay, associated with cerebellar hypoplasia in one case. Further complications observed in two affected individuals included liver dysfunction and microcytic anemia, while one had fatal cardiomyopathy with lactic acidosis following a febrile illness. We postulate that deficiency of TKFC causes disruption of endogenous fructose metabolism leading to generation of by-products that can cause cataract. In line with this, an affected individual had mildly elevated urinary galactitol, which has been linked to cataract development in the galactosemias. Further, in light of a previously reported role of TKFC in regulating innate antiviral immunity through suppression of MDA5, we speculate that deficiency of TKFC leads to impaired innate immunity in response to viral illness, which may explain the fatal illness observed in the most severely affected individual

Thirty‐day mortality with andexanet alfa compared with prothrombin complex concentrate therapy for life‐threatening direct oral anticoagulant‐related bleeding

Objective Compare 30-day mortality among patients receiving the specific reversal agent andexanet alfa versus replacement prothrombin complex concentrate (PCC) in the management of direct-acting oral anticoagulant (DOAC)–related bleeds. Methods Two patient-level datasets were used: ANNEXA-4, a prospective, single-arm trial of patients taking apixaban or rivaroxaban who received andexanet alfa and ORANGE, a prospective, observational study of anticoagulated patients in UK hospitals, some of whom received PCC. Patients were propensity score matched based on demographic and clinical characteristics. Subgroup analyses were performed by bleed type (intracranial hemorrhage [ICH], gastrointestinal [GI], other). Relative risk (RR) of all-cause 30-day mortality was calculated. Results 322 ANNEXA-4 patients treated with andexanet alfa (mean age = 77.7 years; 64.9% ICH) were matched with 88 ORANGE patients treated with PCC (mean age = 74.9 years, 67.1% ICH). Adjusted 30-day mortality for patients treated with andexanet alfa (14.6%) was lower than patients treated with PCC (34.1%; RR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.29–0.63). In the ICH subgroup, patients treated with andexanet alfa had lower mortality (15.3%) than patients treated with PCC (48.9%; RR, 0.31; 95% CI, 0.20–0.48). Mortality risk was lowest for patients in the GI subgroup but did not differ significantly by treatment (12.2% for andexanet alfa vs 25.0% for PCC; RR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.21–1.16). Conclusions In this propensity score–matched comparison across 2 independent datasets, adjusted 30-day mortality rates were lower for patients treated with andexanet alfa than in matched patients receiving PCC. This indirect comparison was limited in that it could not account for several highly predictive variables including GCS score, hematoma volume, and expected survival. Further research is warranted to confirm the mortality differences between reversal/replacement agents for DOAC-related bleeding

Unscented Kalman filter with parameter identifiability analysis for the estimation of multiple parameters in kinetic models

In systems biology, experimentally measured parameters are not always available, necessitating the use of computationally based parameter estimation. In order to rely on estimated parameters, it is critical to first determine which parameters can be estimated for a given model and measurement set. This is done with parameter identifiability analysis. A kinetic model of the sucrose accumulation in the sugar cane culm tissue developed by Rohwer et al. was taken as a test case model. What differentiates this approach is the integration of an orthogonal-based local identifiability method into the unscented Kalman filter (UKF), rather than using the more common observability-based method which has inherent limitations. It also introduces a variable step size based on the system uncertainty of the UKF during the sensitivity calculation. This method identified 10 out of 12 parameters as identifiable. These ten parameters were estimated using the UKF, which was run 97 times. Throughout the repetitions the UKF proved to be more consistent than the estimation algorithms used for comparison

Anatomical Network Comparison of Human Upper and Lower, Newborn and Adult, and Normal and Abnormal Limbs, with Notes on Development, Pathology and Limb Serial Homology vs. Homoplasy

How do the various anatomical parts (modules) of the animal body evolve into very different integrated forms (integration) yet still function properly without decreasing the individual's survival? This long-standing question remains unanswered for multiple reasons, including lack of consensus about conceptual definitions and approaches, as well as a reasonable bias toward the study of hard tissues over soft tissues. A major difficulty concerns the non-trivial technical hurdles of addressing this problem, specifically the lack of quantitative tools to quantify and compare variation across multiple disparate anatomical parts and tissue types. In this paper we apply for the first time a powerful new quantitative tool, Anatomical Network Analysis (AnNA), to examine and compare in detail the musculoskeletal modularity and integration of normal and abnormal human upper and lower limbs. In contrast to other morphological methods, the strength of AnNA is that it allows efficient and direct empirical comparisons among body parts with even vastly different architectures (e.g. upper and lower limbs) and diverse or complex tissue composition (e.g. bones, cartilages and muscles), by quantifying the spatial organization of these parts-their topological patterns relative to each other-using tools borrowed from network theory. Our results reveal similarities between the skeletal networks of the normal newborn/adult upper limb vs. lower limb, with exception to the shoulder vs. pelvis. However, when muscles are included, the overall musculoskeletal network organization of the upper limb is strikingly different from that of the lower limb, particularly that of the more proximal structures of each limb. Importantly, the obtained data provide further evidence to be added to the vast amount of paleontological, gross anatomical, developmental, molecular and embryological data recently obtained that contradicts the long-standing dogma that the upper and lower limbs are serial homologues. In addition, the AnNA of the limbs of a trisomy 18 human fetus strongly supports Pere Alberch's ill-named "logic of monsters" hypothesis, and contradicts the commonly accepted idea that birth defects often lead to lower integration (i.e. more parcellation) of anatomical structures

Impact Factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?

A review of Garfield's journal impact factor and its specific implementation as the Thomson Reuters Impact Factor reveals several weaknesses in this commonly-used indicator of journal standing. Key limitations include the mismatch between citing and cited documents, the deceptive display of three decimals that belies the real precision, and the absence of confidence intervals. These are minor issues that are easily amended and should be corrected, but more substantive improvements are needed. There are indications that the scientific community seeks and needs better certification of journal procedures to improve the quality of published science. Comprehensive certification of editorial and review procedures could help ensure adequate procedures to detect duplicate and fraudulent submissions.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures, 6 table

Scans for signatures of selection in Russian cattle breed genomes reveal new candidate genes for environmental adaptation and acclimation

Domestication and selective breeding has resulted in over 1000 extant cattle breeds. Many of these breeds do not excel in important traits but are adapted to local environments. These adaptations are a valuable source of genetic material for efforts to improve commercial breeds. As a step toward this goal we identified candidate regions to be under selection in genomes of nine Russian native cattle breeds adapted to survive in harsh climates. After comparing our data to other breeds of European and Asian origins we found known and novel candidate genes that could potentially be related to domestication, economically important traits and environmental adaptations in cattle. The Russian cattle breed genomes contained regions under putative selection with genes that may be related to adaptations to harsh environments (e.g., AQP5, RAD50, and RETREG1). We found genomic signatures of selective sweeps near key genes related to economically important traits, such as the milk production (e.g., DGAT1, ABCG2), growth (e.g., XKR4), and reproduction (e.g., CSF2). Our data point to candidate genes which should be included in future studies attempting to identify genes to improve the extant breeds and facilitate generation of commercial breeds that fit better into the environments of Russia and other countries with similar climates