Prevalence and genetic diversity of rotavirus among children under 5 years of age in China: a meta-analysis

BackgroundThis meta-analysis was performed to assess the prevalence and circulating strains of rotavirus (RV) among Chinese children under 5 years of age after the implantation of the RV vaccine.Material and methodsStudies published between 2019 and 2023, focused on RV-based diarrhea among children less than 5 years were systematically reviewed using PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, CNKI, Wanfang and SinoMed Data. We synthesized their findings to examine prevalence and genetic diversity of RV after the RV vaccine implementation using a fixed-effects or random-effects model.ResultsSeventeen studies met the inclusion criteria for this meta-analysis. The overall prevalence of RV was found to be 19.00%. The highest infection rate was noted in children aged 12-23months (25.79%), followed by those aged 24-35 months (23.91%), and 6-11 months (22.08%). The serotype G9 emerged as the most predominant RV genotype, accounting for 85.48% of infections, followed by G2 (7.70%), G8 (5.74%), G1 (4.86%), and G3 (3.21%). The most common P type was P[8], representing 64.02% of RV cases. Among G-P combinations, G9P[8] was the most frequent, responsible for 78.46% of RV infections, succeeded by G8P[8] (31.22%) and G3P[8] (8.11%).ConclusionDespite the variation of serotypes observed in China, the G1, G2, G3, G8 and G9 serotypes accounted for most RV strains. The genetic diversity analysis highlights the dynamic nature of RV genotypes, necessitating ongoing surveillance to monitor changes in strain distribution and inform future vaccine strategies

Being a morning man has causal effects on the cerebral cortex: a Mendelian randomization study

IntroductionNumerous studies have suggested a connection between circadian rhythm and neurological disorders with cognitive and consciousness impairments in humans, yet little evidence stands for a causal relationship between circadian rhythm and the brain cortex.MethodsThe top 10,000 morningness-related single-nucleotide polymorphisms of the Genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics were used to filter the instrumental variables. GWAS summary statistics from the ENIGMA Consortium were used to assess the causal relationship between morningness and variates like cortical thickness (TH) or surficial area (SA) on the brain cortex. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) and weighted median (WM) were used as the major estimates whereas MR-Egger, MR Pleiotropy RESidual Sum and Outlier, leave-one-out analysis, and funnel-plot were used for heterogeneity and pleiotropy detecting.ResultsRegionally, morningness decreased SA of the rostral middle frontal gyrus with genomic control (IVW: β = −24.916 mm, 95% CI: −47.342 mm to −2.490 mm, p = 0.029. WM: β = −33.208 mm, 95% CI: −61.933 mm to −4.483 mm, p = 0.023. MR Egger: β < 0) and without genomic control (IVW: β = −24.581 mm, 95% CI: −47.552 mm to −1.609 mm, p = 0.036. WM: β = −32.310 mm, 95% CI: −60.717 mm to −3.902 mm, p = 0.026. MR Egger: β < 0) on a nominal significance, with no heterogeneity or no outliers.Conclusions and implicationsCircadian rhythm causally affects the rostral middle frontal gyrus; this sheds new light on the potential use of MRI in disease diagnosis, revealing the significance of circadian rhythm on the progression of disease, and might also suggest a fresh therapeutic approach for disorders related to the rostral middle frontal gyrus-related

Effect of blood flow-restrictive resistance training on metabolic disorder and body composition in older adults with type 2 diabetes: a randomized controlled study

IntroductionTo explore whether blood flow-restrictive resistance exercise (BFRE) can be used as an alternative strategy to moderate-intensity resistance training (RT) to improve metabolic disorder and body composition in older adults with type 2 diabetes (T2DM).MethodsThis is a single-blind, randomized, controlled trial. Ninety-eight older adults with T2DM were randomly divided into three groups: BFRE group (n = 34), RT group (n = 31) and control group (n = 33). Two exercise groups received supervised collective training for a period of six months, each lasting 50 min, three times a week. The primary outcomes included fasting plasma glucose (FPG), Glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), blood lipids, blood pressure, and body composition. The secondary outcome was muscle performance.ResultsAfter six months of intervention, the FPG, HbA1c, blood lipids, diastolic blood pressure, body composition, and muscle performance of the two exercise groups were significantly improved relative to the control group and baseline measurements (P < 0.05). There was no significant increase in lean mass between the two exercise groups compared to the control group and baseline (p > 0.05). There was no significant decrease in systolic blood pressure between the two exercise groups compared to the control group (p > 0.05), but it was significantly lower than their baseline (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in all indicators between the two exercise groups at the baseline, third and sixth months of intervention (p > 0.05).DiscussionBFRE can safely and effectively improve the metabolic disorder and body composition of older adults with T2DM. For elderly exercise beginners, BFRE can be used as an alternative strategy to moderate-intensity resistance training.Clinical trial registrationhttps://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.html?proj=178886, identifier ChiCTR2300074357

Expression profiling of ALOG family genes during inflorescence development and abiotic stress responses in rice (Oryza sativa L.)

The ALOG (Arabidopsis LSH1 and Oryza G1) family proteins, namely, DUF640 domain-containing proteins, have been reported to function as transcription factors in various plants. However, the understanding of the response and function of ALOG family genes during reproductive development and under abiotic stress is still largely limited. In this study, we comprehensively analyzed the structural characteristics of ALOG family proteins and their expression profiles during inflorescence development and under abiotic stress in rice. The results showed that OsG1/OsG1L1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9 all had four conserved helical structures and an inserted Zinc-Ribbon (ZnR), the other four proteins OsG1L10/11/12/13 lacked complete Helix-1 and Helix-2. In the ALOG gene promoters, there were abundant cis-acting elements, including ABA, MeJA, and drought-responsive elements. Most ALOG genes show a decrease in expression levels within 24 h under ABA and drought treatments, while OsG1L2 expression levels show an upregulated trend under ABA and drought treatments. The expression analysis at different stages of inflorescence development indicated that OsG1L1/2/3/8/11 were mainly expressed in the P1 stage; in the P4 stage, OsG1/OsG1L4/5/9/12 had a higher expression level. These results lay a good foundation for further studying the expression of rice ALOG family genes under abiotic stresses, and provide important experimental support for their functional research

Genome-wide association studies and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing identify regulatory variants influencing eyebrow thickness in humans

Hair plays an important role in primates and is clearly subject to adaptive selection. While humans have lost most facial hair, eyebrows are a notable exception. Eyebrow thickness is heritable and widely believed to be subject to sexual selection. Nevertheless, few genomic studies have explored its genetic basis. Here, we performed a genome-wide scan for eyebrow thickness in 2961 Han Chinese. We identified two new loci of genome-wide significance, at 3q26.33 near SOX2 (rs1345417: P = 6.51×10−10) and at 5q13.2 near FOXD1 (rs12651896: P = 1.73×10−8). We further replicated our findings in the Uyghurs, a population from China characterized by East Asian-European admixture (N = 721), the CANDELA cohort from five Latin American countries (N = 2301), and the Rotterdam Study cohort of Dutch Europeans (N = 4411). A meta-analysis combining the full GWAS results from the three cohorts of full or partial Asian descent (Han Chinese, Uyghur and Latin Americans, N = 5983) highlighted a third signal of genome-wide significance at 2q12.3 (rs1866188: P = 5.81×10−11) near EDAR. We performed fine-mapping and prioritized four variants for further experimental verification. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing provided evidence that rs1345417 and rs12651896 affect the transcriptional activity of the nearby SOX2 and FOXD1 genes, which are both involved in hair development. Finally, suitable statistical analyses revealed that none of the associated variants showed clear signals of selection in any of the populations tested. Contrary to popular speculation, we found no evidence that eyebrow thickness is subject to strong selective pressure

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies identifies 8 novel loci involved in shape variation of human head hair

Shape variation of human head hair shows striking variation within and between human populations, while its genetic basis is far from being understood. We performed a series of genome-wide association studies (GWASs) and replication studies in a total of 28 964 subjects from 9 cohorts from multiple geographic origins. A meta-analysis of three European GWASs identified 8 novel loci (1p36.23

The need for focused, hard X-ray investigations of the Sun

Understanding accelerated particles at the Sun is one of the most important problems in heliophysics. Flare-accelerated particles have huge energies; are an important source of particles in the heliosphere; and are the most important corollary to other areas of high-energy astrophysics. This paper describes the scientific motivation for X-ray studies of particle acceleration at the Sun