Concentration

Accurate analysis of microRNAs (miRNAs) at the single-cell level is extremely important for deeply understanding their multiple and intricate biological functions. Despite some advancements in analyzing single-cell miRNAs, challenges such as intracellular interferences and insufficient detection limits still remain. In this work, an ultrasensitive nanopore sensor for quantitative single-cell miRNA-155 detection is constructed based on ionic current rectification (ICR) coupled with enzyme-free catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA)...

Advancements in the management of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) allowed them to achieve survival comparable with their healthy counterparts. Consequently, their care has widened with growing focus on quality of life, including parenting children. Although tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) are contraindicated in pregnancy given their teratogenic effect, their effect on male fertility is less clear with contradictory results from animal studies and case reports/series. We compared the sperm analysis parameters, as the gold-standard assessment for male fertility, of 11 patients with CP- CML before and after TKI therapy...

Grain boundaries (GBs) and twin boundaries (TBs) in copper (Cu) are two major planar defects that influence electrical conductivity due to their complex electron transport characteristics, involving electron scattering and electron concentration. Understanding their local electronic states is crucial for the design of future conductor materials. In this study, we characterized electron behaviors at TBs and GBs within one Cu grain using atomic force microscopy. Our findings revealed that, compared with GBs, TBs exhibit better current transport capability (direct-current mode) and larger electromagnetic loss (high-frequency microwave mode)...

Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) are the major components of long-chain per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), known for their chemical stability and environmental persistence. Even if PFOA and PFOS have been phased out or are limited in use, they still represent a concern for human and environmental health. Several studies have been performed to highlight the toxicological behavior of these chemicals and their mode of action (MoA). Data suggested the causal association between PFOA or PFOS exposure and carcinogenicity in humans, but the outcomes of epidemiological studies showed some inconsistency...

Permeabilities of various trace elements (TEs) through the blood-follicle barrier (BFB) play an important role in oocyte development. However, it has not been comprehensively described as well as its involved biological pathways. Our study aimed to construct a blood-follicle distribution model of the concerned TEs and explore their related biological pathways. We finally included a total of 168 women from a cohort of in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer conducted in two reproductive centers in Beijing City and Shandong Province, China...

BACKGROUND: Partial-thickness skin wounds are some of the most painful injuries due to large areas of exposed nerve endings. These injuries often require systemic opioid treatments to manage pain adequately. However, in 2021 alone, the CDC reported nearly 17,000 prescription opioid-related deaths in the USA, highlighting the ongoing need for non-opioid treatment strategies. In this manuscript, we developed a novel single-application ropivacaine-eluting primary wound dressing that could provide sustained ropivacaine delivery to partial-thickness wounds and assessed its in vivo feasibility for prolonged non-opioid analgesia...

We screened the contact activity of 32 commercial essential oils (EOs) and their synergistic effect with β-cypermethrin against Blattella germanica . Results showed that the most effective EOs against B. germanica were from Illicium verum , Syzygium aromaticum , and Cinnamomum camphora , with LD50 values of less than 500 μg/insect. The most potent synergistic effects of β-cypermethrin on B. germanica were from Dysphania ambrosioides and Mentha canadensis . Both oils have a co-toxic factor of 133...

In bacteria, intracellular K+ is involved in the regulation of membrane potential, cytosolic pH, and cell turgor as well as in spore germination, environmental adaptation, cell-to-cell communication in biofilms, antibiotic sensitivity, and infectivity. The second messenger cyclic-di-AMP (c-di-AMP) has a central role in modulating the intracellular K+ concentration in many bacterial species, controlling transcription and function of K+ channels and transporters. However, our understanding of how this regulatory network responds to c-di-AMP remains poor...

This paper studies the effect of air pollution on voting outcomes. We use data from 60 federal and state elections in Germany from 2000 to 2018 and exploit plausibly exogenous fluctuations in ambient air pollution within counties across election dates. Higher air pollution on election day shifts votes away from incumbent parties and toward opposition parties. An increase in the concentration of particulate matter (PM10) by 10 [Formula: see text]g/m[Formula: see text]-around two within-county SDs-reduces the vote share of incumbent parties by two percentage points, which is equivalent to 4% of the mean vote share...

Drug abuse is a severe social problem worldwide. Particularly, the issue of new psychoactive substances (NPSs) have increasingly emerged. NPSs are structural or functional analogs of traditional illicit drugs, such as cocaine, cannabis, and amphetamine; these molecules provide the same or more severe neurological effects. Usually, immunoassays are utilized in the preliminary screening method. However, NPSs have poor detectability in commercially available immunoassay kits. Meanwhile, various chromatography combined with the mass spectrometry platform have been developed to quantify NPSs...

Collectively searching animals might be expected to coordinate with their groupmates to cover ground more evenly or efficiently than uncoordinated groups. Communication can lead to coordination in many ways. Previous work in ants suggests that chemical 'footprints', left behind by individuals as they walk, might serve this function by modulating the movement patterns of following ants. Here, we test this hypothesis by considering the two predictions that, first, ants may turn away from sites with higher footprint concentrations (klinotaxis), or, second, that they may change their turning patterns depending on the presence of footprints (klinokinesis)...

OBJECTIVE: The Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4-mediated nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) signaling pathway regulates the production of inflammatory factors and plays a key role in the pathogenesis of gouty arthritis. The aim of the present study was to investigate the link among TLR4 gene polymorphisms at various loci, protein expression, and gouty arthritis susceptibility. METHODS: Between 2016 and 2021, a case-control study was used to collect a total of 1207 study subjects, including 317 male patients with gouty arthritis (gout group) and 890 healthy males (control group)...

Chronically elevated levels of glucose are deleterious to pancreatic β cells and contribute to β cell dysfunction, which is characterized by decreased insulin production and a loss of β cell identity. The Krüppel-like transcription factor, Glis3 has previously been shown to positively regulate insulin transcription and mutations within the Glis3 locus have been associated with the development of several pathologies including type 2 diabetes mellitus. In this report, we show that Glis3 is significantly downregulated at the transcriptional level in INS1 832/13 cells within hours of being subjected to high glucose concentrations and that diminished expression of Glis3 is at least partly attributable to increased oxidative stress...

We endeavor on a rarely explored task named thermal infrared video denoising. Perception in the thermal infrared significantly enhances the capabilities of machine vision. Nonetheless, noise in imaging systems is one of the factors that hampers the large-scale application of equipment. Existing thermal infrared denoising methods, primarily focusing on the image level, inadequately utilize time-domain information and insufficiently conduct investigation of system-level mixed noise, presenting the inferior ability in the video-recorded era; while video denoising methods, commonly applied to RGB cameras, exhibit uncertain effectiveness owing to substantial dissimilarities in the noise models and modalities between RGB and thermal infrared images...

In the field of medical imaging, the fusion of data from diverse modalities plays a pivotal role in advancing our understanding of pathological conditions. Sparse representation (SR), a robust signal modeling technique, has demonstrated noteworthy success in multi-dimensional (MD) medical image fusion. However, a fundamental limitation appearing in existing SR models is their lack of directionality, restricting their efficacy in extracting anatomical details from different imaging modalities. To tackle this issue, we propose a novel directional SR model, termed complex sparse representation (ComSR), specifically designed for medical image fusion...

Background: The optimal management of euvolemic and hypervolemic hyponatremia remains controversial. The effectiveness of the vasopressin receptor antagonist tolvaptan on serum sodium normalization has been well described in the literature, although the associated risk of serum sodium overcorrection limits its use. Urea has been proposed as an alternative treatment option due to its milder serum sodium raising effects and adverse event profile. Objective: This study aimed to compare urea and tolvaptan for their serum sodium raising effects and potential for overcorrection...

Indole is often associated with a sweet and floral odor typical of jasmine flowers at low concentrations and an unpleasant, animal-like odor at high concentrations. However, the mechanism whereby the brain processes this opposite valence of indole is not fully understood yet. In this study, we aimed to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying indole valence encoding in conversion and nonconversion groups using the smelling task to arouse pleasantness. For this purpose, 12 conversion individuals and 15 nonconversion individuals participated in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm with low (low-indole) and high (high-indole) indole concentrations in which valence was manipulated independent of intensity...

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a fatal brain injury, but the current treatments for it are inadequate to reduce the severity of secondary brain injury. Our study aims to explore the molecular mechanism of Egr1 and Phlda1 in regulating hemin-induced neuronal pyroptosis, and hope to provide novel therapeutic targets for ICH treatment. Mouse hippocampal neuron cells treated with hemin were used to simulate an in-vitro ICH model. Using qRT-PCR and western blot to evaluate mRNA and protein concentrations. MTT assay was utilized to assess cell viability...

BACKGROUND: Short-term acid-base effects of 0.9% saline solution infusion are not well described. Aim of this study was to assess the effects of a fluid challenge with 0.9% saline in critically ill patients according to the Stewart's approach, which allows a precise determination of acid base equilibrium. METHODS: In 40 mechanically ventilated critically ill patients, acid-base variables according to Stewart's approach were measured before and after 30 minutes from the infusion of 0...

Probiotic-containing foods are among the most appreciated functional foods; however, probiotic-based dairy products cannot be consumed by people who are lactose intolerant, allergic to milk, or vegetarian or vegan individuals. Thus, new non-dairy matrices have been tested for probiotics delivery. This study evaluated the growth and viability of Limosilactobacillus fermentum ATCC 23271 and Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus ATCC 9595 in Pitanga juice (Eugenia uniflora L.). The effects of the fermentation on the antioxidant and anti-infective properties of the juice were also analyzed...