Preventive Effects of Dendrobium candidum Wall ex Lindl. on the formation of Lung Metastases in BALB/c Mice Injected with 26-M3.1 Colon Carcinoma Cells

Dendrobium candidum Wall ex Lindl. (D. candidum) is a traditional Chinese medicine widely used in Asia. The present study has showed that D. candidum exerted an anti-metastatic effect in mice injected with 26-M3.1 colon carcinoma cells. D. candidum showed the most marked tumor inhibitory rate of 64.5% at a dose of 400 mg/kg body weight (b.w). The mRNA and protein expression of Bax in lung tissue of D. candidum-treated mice was shown to be higher as compared with control mice, whereas the mRNA and protein expression of Bcl-2 showed the opposite trend. Decreased mRNA and protein expression of MMP and increased expression of TIMPs was demonstrated in lung tissues by quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blot assays. D. candidum reduced the serum cytokine levels of IL-6, IL-12, TNF-α and IFN-γ to a greater extent as compared with the control mice, and administration of 400 mg/kg b.w. resulted in a lower serum cytokine levels as compared with mice treated with 200 mg/kg b.w. Eleven compounds were in the D. candidum leaf, of which the functional contents may help to generate novel treatments for the prevention of lung metastases. The results of the present study have demonstrated that D. candidum had a potent in vivo antitumor and anti-metastatic effect in BALB/c mice injected with 26-M3.1 cells

The role of VdSti1 in Verticillium dahliae: insights into pathogenicity and stress responses

Sti1/Hop, a stress-induced co-chaperone protein, serves as a crucial link between Hsp70 and Hsp90 during cellular stress responses. Despite its importance in stress defense mechanisms, the biological role of Sti1 in Verticillium dahliae, a destructive fungal pathogen, remains largely unexplored. This study focused on identifying and characterizing Sti1 homologues in V. dahliae by comparing them to those found in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The results indicated that the VdSti1-deficient mutant displayed increased sensitivity to drugs targeting the ergosterol synthesis pathway, leading to a notable inhibition of ergosterol biosynthesis. Moreover, the mutant exhibited reduced production of microsclerotia and melanin, accompanied by decreased expression of microsclerotia and melanin-related genes VDH1, Vayg1, and VaflM. Additionally, the mutant’s conidia showed more severe damage under heat shock conditions and displayed growth defects under various stressors such as temperature, SDS, and CR stress, as well as increased sensitivity to H2O2, while osmotic stress did not impact its growth. Importantly, the VdSti1-deficient mutant demonstrated significantly diminished pathogenicity compared to the wild-type strain. This study sheds light on the functional conservation and divergence of Sti1 homologues in fungal biology and underscores the critical role of VdSti1 in microsclerotia development, stress response, and pathogenicity of V. dahliae

Research progress on the application of anti-gravity treadmill in the rehabilitation of Parkinson’s disease patients: a mini review

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor and non-motor symptoms. It is the second most common chronic progressive neurodegenerative disease. PD still lacks a known cure or prophylactic medication. Current treatments primarily address symptoms without halting the progression of PD, and the side effects of dopaminergic therapy become more apparent over time. In contrast, physical therapy, with its lower risk of side effects and potential cardiovascular benefits, may provide greater benefits to patients. The Anti-Gravity Treadmill is an emerging rehabilitation therapy device with high safety, which minimizes patients’ fear and allows them to focus more on a normal, correct gait, and has a promising clinical application. Based on this premise, this study aims to summarize and analyze the relevant studies on the application of the anti-gravity treadmill in PD patients, providing a reference for PD rehabilitation practice and establishing a theoretical basis for future research in this area

A deep semantic network-based image segmentation of soybean rust pathogens

IntroductionAsian soybean rust is a highly aggressive leaf-based disease triggered by the obligate biotrophic fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi which can cause up to 80% yield loss in soybean. The precise image segmentation of fungus can characterize fungal phenotype transitions during growth and help to discover new medicines and agricultural biocides using large-scale phenotypic screens.MethodsThe improved Mask R-CNN method is proposed to accomplish the segmentation of densely distributed, overlapping and intersecting microimages. First, Res2net is utilized to layer the residual connections in a single residual block to replace the backbone of the original Mask R-CNN, which is then combined with FPG to enhance the feature extraction capability of the network model. Secondly, the loss function is optimized and the CIoU loss function is adopted as the loss function for boundary box regression prediction, which accelerates the convergence speed of the model and meets the accurate classification of high-density spore images.ResultsThe experimental results show that the mAP for detection and segmentation, accuracy of the improved algorithm is improved by 6.4%, 12.3% and 2.2% respectively over the original Mask R-CNN algorithm.DiscussionThis method is more suitable for the segmentation of fungi images and provide an effective tool for large-scale phenotypic screens of plant fungal pathogens

Ubenimex combined with Albendazole for the treatment of Echinococcus multilocularis-induced alveolar echinococcosis in mice

IntroductionAlveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a parasitic disease caused by E. multilocularis metacestodes and it is highly prevalent in the northern hemisphere. We have previously found that vaccination with E. multilocularis-Leucine aminopeptidase (EM-LAP) could inhibit the growth and invasion of E. multilocularis in host liver, and Ubenimex, a broad-spectrum inhibitor of LAP, could also inhibit E. multilocularis invasion but had a limited effect on the growth and development of E. multilocularis.MethodsIn this study, the therapeutic effect of Ubenimex combined with Albendazole on AE was evaluated. Mice were intraperitoneally injected with protoscoleces and imaging examination was performed at week 8 and week 16 to detect cyst change. During this period, mice were intraperitoneally injected with Ubenimex and intragastrically administered with Albendazole suspension. At last, the therapeutic effect was evaluated by morphological and pathological examination and liver function.ResultsThe results revealed that the combined treatment could inhibit the growth and infiltration of cysts in BALB/c mice infected with E. multilocularis protoscoleces. The weight, number, invasion and fibrosis of cysts were reduced in mice treated with Ubenimex in combination with Albendazole. The same effect was achieved by the single Ubenimex treatment because of its inhibitory effect on LAP activity, but it was less effective in inhibiting the growth of cysts. The levels of ALT, AST, TBIL, DBIL, ALP, and γ-GT were reduced after the combined treatment, indicating that treatment with both Ubenimex and Albendazole could alleviate liver damage.DiscussionThis study suggests that the combined treatment with Ubenimex and Albendazole could be a potential therapeutic strategy for E. multilocularis infections

Reliability and validity of the Mental Health Self-management Questionnaire among Chinese patients with mood and anxiety disorders

BackgroundSelf-management plays an important role in promoting and restoring mental health for individuals with mental health issues. However, there is no valid and reliable Chinese tool assessing the self-management behaviors of people with mood and anxiety disorders. This study aimed to develop a Chinese version of the Mental Health Self-management Questionnaire (MHSQ-C) and to verify its psychometric properties.MethodsA total of 440 potential participants were recruited by convenience sampling from June to August 2020. Item analysis and analyses of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, content validity, construct validity and criterion validity were performed.ResultsData from 326 participants were used. Three factors obtained via principal component analysis and varimax rotation explained 53.68% of the total variance. The average content validity index was 0.99. The Cronbach’s α coefficient (total: 0.874, clinical: 0.706, empowerment: 0.818, vitality: 0.830) and test-retest reliability (ICC: total: 0.783, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.616, 0.882], clinical: 0.525, 95% CI [0.240, 0.725], empowerment: 0.786, 95% CI [0.622, 0.884], vitality: 0.748, 95% CI [0.564, 0.862]) were good. The MHSQ-C was well correlated with the Partners in Health scale and showed no floor or ceiling effect.DiscussionThe MHSQ-C is a reliable and valid tool to evaluate the self-management strategies of patients with mood and anxiety disorders

Observation of Fungi, Bacteria, and Parasites in Clinical Skin Samples Using Scanning Electron Microscopy

This chapter highlights the description of the clinical manifestation and its pathogen and the host tissue damage observed under the Scanning Electron Microscope, which helps the clinician to understand the pathogen’s superstructure, the change of host subcell structure, and the laboratory workers to understand the clinical characteristics of pathogen-induced human skin lesions, to establish a two-way learning exchange database with vivid image