Effect of sagittal imbalance of the spine on the new fracture in osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures after percutaneous kyphoplasty

Objective To explore the correlation between sagittal imbalance of the spine and new fractures after percutaneous kyphoplasty (PKP) in patients with osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture (OVCF), providing a new idea for preventing new fracture. Methods Patients with OVCF admitted to The Affiliated Huai'an No.1 People's Hospital for PKP surgery between February 2020 and June 2023 were included in this retrospective study. Sixty-four patients with new fracture after surgery were selected as the study group, and 64 patients without new fracture were selected as the control group. The differences of sagittal spinal parameters between the two groups at 1 year after operation were analyzed and compared. Meanwhile, postoperative VAS scores, Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) score and Oswestry disability index (ODI) of the two groups were analyzed and compared. Results The age, postoperative VAS score and ODI of the study group were significantly higher than those of the control group, while postoperative JOA score was significantly lower than that of the control group (P＜0.05). The pelvic tilt (PT) ((22.66°±2.41° vs 20.36°±3.68°,t=4.18,P＜0.01) and thoracic kyphosis (TK) (45.95°±4.87° vs 40.22°±4.22°,t=7.12,P＜0.01) of the study group were higher than those of the control group, while the sacral slope (SS) (23.44°±6.35° vs 28.47°±5.46°,t=4.81,P＜0.01), pelvic incidence (PI) (46.09°±5.57° vs 48.83°±5.46°,t=2.80,P＜0.01) and lumbar lordosis (LL) (39.06°±6.08° vs 44.30°±6.20°,t=4.83,P＜0.01) were lower than those of the control group. Conclusion Sagittal imbalance of the spine is closely related to the occurrence of new vertebral fracture after PKP in patients with OVCFs

Genetic polymorphism of WNT9A is functionally associated with thumb osteoarthritis in the Chinese population

Abstract Background In a recent genome-wide association study, novel genetic variations of WNT9A were reported to be involved in the etiopathogenesis of thumb osteoarthritis (TOA) in Caucasians. Our purposes were to replicate the association of WNT9A with the development of TOA in the Chinese population and to further unveil the functional role of the risk variants. Methods SNP rs11588850 of WNT9A were genotyped in 953 TOA patients and 1124 healthy controls. The differences of genotype and allele distributions between the patients and healthy controls were evaluated using the Chi-square test. Luciferase Reporter Assay was performed to investigate the influence of variant on the gene expression. Results There was significantly lower frequency of genotype AA in TOA patients than in the controls 74.9% vs. 81.9%, p < 0.001). The frequency of allele A was remarkably lower in the patients than in the controls (86.3% vs. 90.5%, p < 0.001), with an odds ratio of 0.66 (95% CI = 0.54–0.80). Luciferase Reporter Assay showed that the construct containing mutant allele G of rs11588850 displayed 29.1% higher enhancer activity than the wild allele A construct (p < 0.05). Conclusions Allele G of rs11588850 was associated with the increased risk of TOA possibly via up-regulation of WNT9A expression. Further functional analysis into the regulatory role of rs11588850 in WNT9A expression can shed new light on the genetic architecture of TOA

Increasing meteorological drought under climate change reduces terrestrial ecosystem productivity and carbon storage

Plants on land absorb about 30% of the CO2 produced by human activities each year, meaning they have mitigated, to some degree, the global warming impacts of human emissions. However, plants are also vulnerable to climate change. While increases in CO2 may have a "fertilizing effect" and increase plant growth and therefore CO2 absorption, other impacts of climate change, such as increasingly frequent and severe droughts, will harm plant growth. In this work, we show that, if the future is powered by fossil-fueled development and CO2 emissions continue to increase, the end of the century will see a 3.5-fold increase in the loss of vegetation productivity due to droughts, especially in cropland. Our results suggest that the "buffering" impact of plants on human CO2 emissions cannot be counted on in an increasingly warm planet and emphasize the importance of greenhouse gas mitigation for vegetation and cropland productivity

Causal association between skin cancer and immune cells: mendelian randomization (MR) study

Abstract Background Numerous meta-analyses and clinical studies have shown that subtypes of immune cells are associated with the development of skin cancer, but it is not clear whether this association is causal or biased. Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis reduces the effect of confounding factors and improves the accuracy of the results when compared to traditional studies. Thus, in order to examine the causal relationship between various immune cell and skin cancer, this study employs two-sample MR. Methods This study assesses the causal association between 731 immune cell characteristics and skin cancer using a two-sample Mendel randomization (MR) methodology. Multiple MR methods were used to bias and to derive reliable estimates of causality between instrumental variables and outcomes. Comprehensive sensitivity analyses were used to validate the stability, heterogeneity and horizontal multiplicity of the results. Results We discovered that potential causal relationships between different types of immune cells and skin cancer disease. Specifically, one type of immune cell as potentially causal to malignant melanoma of skin (MM), eight different types of immune cells as potentially causal to basal cell carcinoma (BCC), four different types of immune cells as potentially causal to actinic keratosis (AK), and no different types of immune cells were found to have a potential causal association with squamous cell carcinoma(SCC), with stability in all of the results. Conclusion This study demonstrates the close connection between immune cells and skin cancer disease by genetic means, which enriches the current knowledge about the role of immune cells in skin cancer and also contributes to the design of therapeutic strategies from an immunological perspective

A novel two-dimensional liquid chromatography - Mass spectrometry method for direct drug impurity identification from HPLC eluent containing ion-pairing reagent in mobile phases

In this study, a novel two dimensional liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry (2D-LC-MS) method with use of a weak anion exchange column between the 1st DLC RP column and the 2nd DLC RP column (RP1-WAX-RP2) was developed and applied to identify drug impurities from MS incompatible mobile phases containing sodium 1-octanesulfonate and non-volatile buffer. The 1st DLC conditions follow exactly the original standard HPLC method recorded in Chinese Pharmacopeia (ChP), European Pharmacopeia (EP) or US Pharmacopeia (USP). An impurity fraction was collected with a built-in sample loop (100 mu L) and transferred to the WAX column where 1-octanesulfonate and phosphate were trapped and removed. While, the impurity and other cations were eluted to the 2nd D column (RP2) for separation and identification by connected IT-TOF MS. Methods were programmed and applied to identify impurities in two generic drugs, sulpiride (hydrophilic drug with logP 0.57) and dobutamine (hydrophobic drug with logP 3.6). The results indicate that the methods based on RP1-WAX-RP2 column configuration offer a feasible solution for direct impurity identification in generic drug product or API without needs of off-line desalting from the MS incompatible mobile phases containing ion-pairing reagent and nonvolatile buffer. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Quantitative determination of bioactive proteins in diphtheria tetanus acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccine by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

A liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method (LC-MS/MS) was developed to determine simultaneously the bioactive proteins including pertussis toxin (PT) subunits, filamentous hemagglutinin (FHA), pertactin (PRN) and fimbriae (FIM) in diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis combined vaccine (DTaP). The trypsin digestion conditions were investigated in detail using in reference to achieve satisfactory results in detection of the peptides on LC-MS/MS with a Bio-C18 column. The performance of the described method was evaluated using reference proteins and the results showed a wide linear range (0.15-24 ng mu L-1), a high sensitivity (0.038 ng. mu L-1 for FHA) and a good precision (RSD of peak area <3.3%). This novel LC-MS/MS method was applied to determine PT subunits, FHA, PRN and FIM in DTaP vaccines, a total of ten batches, obtained from five manufacturers. The results revealed clearly that batch-to-batch consistency of the DTaP vaccines in terms of the protein amounts was stable, while those from manufacturers were varied significantly. On the other hand, the amount of bioactive proteins in component DTaP vaccines was generally higher than those in co-purified DTaP vaccines. The described LC-MS/MS method was compared with Chinese Pharmacopeia method (Lowry method) and it was found that FHA and PRN amounts measured by the two methods were in good agreement. The LC-MS/MS method could provide the amounts of PT subunits. However, the Lowry method could not differentiate the subunits. The LC-MS/MS method was not only more selective and sensitive, but it can be used to determine simultaneously different bioactive proteins in complex matrix-formulated vaccines. The method was extended successfully in other purposes, such as the effect of detoxification on bioactive proteins and characterization of PT references from four organizations worldwide. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved