Probiotic consumption and hepatic steatosis: results from the NHANES 2011–2016 and Mendelian randomization study

BackgroundRecent research showed that probiotics treatment may reduce insulin resistance, regulate lipid metabolism, raise liver enzyme levels, and ameliorate inflammation in individuals with metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD). However, the possible effects of probiotic use on the progression of hepatic steatosis (HS) have not been identified. The purpose of this study was to investigate this in a large population database.MethodsThe cross-sectional research was conducted among adults with complete data on probiotic yogurt consumption and HS in the 2011–2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Probiotic yogurt consumption was assessed using a dietary supplement questionnaire, while HS was evaluated with HS index (HSI). To explore their relationship, weighted univariate regression analysis, subgroup analysis, and interaction analysis were conducted. To evaluate the causal association between yogurt consumption and NAFLD, mendelian randomization analysis (MR) were performed. A restricted cubic spline (RCS) was used to analyze the relationship curve between the leves of yogurt consumption and hepatic steatosis.ResultsA total of 7,891 participants were included in the study represented 146.7 million non-institutionalized residents of the United States, of whom 4,322 (54.77%) were diagnosed with HS. Multivariable logistic regression showed probiotic yogurt consumption had significantly inverse relationship for HS (OR = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.72–0.97, p = 0.02) after adjusting for all covariates. Once more, the independent relationship between probiotic yogurt consumption and HS was verified by subgroup analysis and interaction analysis. The MR analysis results indicate that there is no causal relationship between yogurt consumption and NAFLD. The RCS model demonstrated a robust J-shaped link between yogurt consumption and HS, revealing a significant decrease in risk within the lower range of yogurt consumption, which attained the lowest risk close to 0.4 cup.ConclusionAccording to the NHANES data, the consumption of probiotics and yogurt has a beneficial effect on HS, whereas the MR results indicated it was not related to NAFLD. The RCS analysis indicates a J-shaped relationship between yogurt consumption and HS, which may account for the inconsistency in the results. Based on these findings, we recommend that adults take half a cup of yogurt daily

Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress-Related Signature Predicts Prognosis and Drug Response in Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common type of kidney cancer. The maximum number of deaths associated with kidney cancer can be attributed to ccRCC. Disruption of cellular proteostasis results in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, which is associated with various aspects of cancer. It is noteworthy that the role of ER stress in the progression of ccRCC remains unclear. We classified 526 ccRCC samples identified from the TCGA database into the C1 and C2 subtypes by consensus clustering of the 295 ER stress-related genes. The ccRCC samples belonging to subtype C2 were in their advanced tumor stage and grade. These samples were characterized by poor prognosis and malignancy immune microenvironment. The upregulation of the inhibitory immune checkpoint gene expression and unique drug sensitivity were also observed. The differentially expressed genes between the two clusters were explored. An 11-gene ER stress-related prognostic risk model was constructed following the LASSO regression and Cox regression analyses. In addition, a nomogram was constructed by integrating the clinical parameters and risk scores. The calibration curves, ROC curves, and DCA curves helped validate the accuracy of the prediction when both the TCGA dataset and the external E-MTAB-1980 dataset were considered. Moreover, we analyzed the differentially expressed genes common to the E-MTAB-1980 and TCGA datasets to screen out new therapeutic compounds. In summary, our study can potentially help in the comprehensive understanding of ER stress in ccRCC and serve as a reference for future studies on novel prognostic biomarkers and treatments

Object Detection for Caries or Pit and Fissure Sealing Requirement in Children's First Permanent Molars

Dental caries is one of the most common oral diseases that, if left untreated, can lead to a variety of oral problems. It mainly occurs inside the pits and fissures on the occlusal/buccal/palatal surfaces of molars and children are a high-risk group for pit and fissure caries in permanent molars. Pit and fissure sealing is one of the most effective methods that is widely used in prevention of pit and fissure caries. However, current detection of pits and fissures or caries depends primarily on the experienced dentists, which ordinary parents do not have, and children may miss the remedial treatment without timely detection. To address this issue, we present a method to autodetect caries and pit and fissure sealing requirements using oral photos taken by smartphones. We use the YOLOv5 and YOLOX models and adopt a tiling strategy to reduce information loss during image pre-processing. The best result for YOLOXs model with tiling strategy is 72.3 mAP.5, while the best result without tiling strategy is 71.2. YOLOv5s6 model with/without tiling attains 70.9/67.9 mAP.5, respectively. We deploy the pre-trained network to mobile devices as a WeChat applet, allowing in-home detection by parents or children guardian

Value of contrast-enhanced CT based radiomic machine learning algorithm in differentiating gastrointestinal stromal tumors with KIT exon 11 mutation: a two-center study

PURPOSEKnowing the genetic phenotype of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) is essential for patients who receive therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitors. The aim of this study was to develop a radiomic algorithm for predicting GISTs with KIT exon 11 mutation.METHODSWe enrolled 106 patients (80 in the training set, 26 in the validation set) with clinicopathologically confirmed GISTs from two centers. Preoperative and postoperative clinical characteristics were selected and analyzed to construct the clinical model. Arterial phase, venous phase, delayed phase, and tri-phase combined radiomics algorithms were generated from the training set based on contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CE-CT) images. Various radiomics feature selection methods were used, namely least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO); minimum redundancy maximum relevance (mRMR); and generalized linear model (GLM) as a machine-learning classifier. Independent predictive factors were determined to construct preoperative and postoperative radiomics nomograms by multivariate logistic regression analysis. The performances of the clinical model, radiomics algorithm, and radiomics nomogram in distinguishing GISTs with the KIT exon 11 mutation were evaluated by area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristics.RESULTSOf 106 patients who underwent genetic analysis, 61 had the KIT exon 11 mutation. The combined radiomics algorithm was found to be the best prediction model for differentiating the expression status of the KIT exon 11 mutation (AUC = 0.836; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.640-0.951) in the validation set. The clinical model, and preoperative and postoperative radiomics nomograms had AUCs of 0.606 (95% CI, 0.397-0.790), 0.715 (95% CI, 0.506-0.873), and 0.679 (95% CI, 0.468-0.847), respectively, with the validation set.CONCLUSIONThe radiomics algorithm could distinguish GISTs with the KIT exon 11 mutation based on CE-CT images and could potentially be used for selective genetic analysis to support the precision medicine of GISTs

Vitamin C Enhances the Generation of Mouse and Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

SummarySomatic cells can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) by defined factors. However, the low efficiency and slow kinetics of the reprogramming process have hampered progress with this technology. Here we report that a natural compound, vitamin C (Vc), enhances iPSC generation from both mouse and human somatic cells. Vc acts at least in part by alleviating cell senescence, a recently identified roadblock for reprogramming. In addition, Vc accelerates gene expression changes and promotes the transition of pre-iPSC colonies to a fully reprogrammed state. Our results therefore highlight a straightforward method for improving the speed and efficiency of iPSC generation and provide additional insights into the mechanistic basis of the reprogramming process

Evolution law of surrounding rock bearing circle and support technology of deep roadway

Taking Guotun Coal Mine -670 auxiliary horizontal track roadway as the engineering background, the stress change of roadway surrounding rock is analyzed through the mechanical model of bearing circle, and the stress change of roadway surrounding rock under different driving distances, lateral pressure coefficients and vertical stresses is studied by FLAC3D software. The resales show that as the roadway expands to the deep, the bearing ring also shifts to the deep and the thickness increases, the stress of the roof and floor of the roadway changes greatly than that of the two sides, and the shape of the bearing ring changes from circle to ellipse; the control effect of bolts and anchor cables with different lengths on the bearing ring is analyzed; the bolts mainly control the inner boundary of the bearing ring to reduce the damage of the shallow part of the roadway surrounding rock, and the anchor cables mainly control the outer boundary of the bearing ring and affect the stress distribution of roadway surrounding rock. According to the bearing ring theory and the control effect of bolt and anchor cable on the bearing ring, the combined support scheme of “bolt net shotcrete + bolt + anchor cable” is proposed. The application show that the combined support technology of “bolt net shotcrete + bolt + anchor cable” has great technical advantages for the control of surrounding rock in deep roadway