Rising challenges in periprosthetic joint infections: a focus on rare pathogens and their clinical implications.

Objectives: The study aimed to evaluate differences in clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) attributed to rare versus common pathogens.

Methods: Data on PJI patients who underwent hip or knee arthroplasty at our center from April 2013 to December 2022 were retrospectively collected. Among the 219 enrolled patients, we compared 32 cases of PJI caused by rare pathogens with 187 controls of PJI caused by common pathogens, analyzing demographic information, clinical characteristics, and treatment outcomes.

Detection of rare microorganisms in bone and joint infections by metagenomic next-generation sequencing.

Aims: This aim of this study was to analyze the detection rate of rare pathogens in bone and joint infections (BJIs) using metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS), and the impact of mNGS on clinical diagnosis and treatment.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 235 patients with BJIs who were treated at our hospital between January 2015 and December 2021. Patients were divided into the no-mNGS group (microbial culture only) and the mNGS group (mNGS testing and microbial culture) based on whether mNGS testing was used or not.

Wireless Optogenetic Targeting Nociceptors Helps Host Cells Win the Competitive Colonization in Implant-Associated Infections.

The role of nociceptive nerves in modulating immune responses to harmful stimuli via pain or itch induction remains controversial. Compared to conventional surgery, various implant surgeries are more prone to infections even with low bacterial loads. In this study, an optogenetic technique is introduced for selectively activating peripheral nociceptive nerves using a fully implantable, wirelessly rechargeable optogenetic device.

TRPV1 neurons alter Staphylococcus aureus skin infection outcomes by affecting macrophage polarization and neutrophil recruitment.

Background: The interaction between the nervous system and the immune system can affect the outcome of a bacterial infection. Staphylococcus aureus skin infection is a common infectious disease, and elucidating the relationship between the nervous system and immune system may help to improve treatment strategies.

Results: In this study, we found that the local release of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) increased during S.

Fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4) induces chondrocyte degeneration via activation of the NF-κb signaling pathway.

The pathogenesis of osteoarthritis (OA) is still unclear. Fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4), a novel adipokine, has been found to play a role in OA. This study aimed to explore the role of NF-κB in FABP4-induced OA.

COVID-19 and Sinophobia: Detecting Warning Signs of Radicalization on Twitter and Reddit.

Hate crimes and hateful rhetoric targeting individuals of Asian descent have increased since the outbreak of COVID-19. These troubling trends have heightened concerns about the role of the Internet in facilitating radicalization. This article explores the existence of three warning signs of radicalization-fixation, group identification, and energy bursts-using data from Twitter and Reddit.

Investigating the causal relationship between ankylosing spondylitis and osteoporosis in the European population: a bidirectional Mendelian randomization study.

Background: Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) is an inflammatory condition affecting the spine, which may lead to complications such as osteoporosis (OP). Many observational studies have demonstrated a close relationship with strong evidence between OP and AS. The combination of AS and OP is already an indisputable fact, but the exact mechanism of AS complicated with OP is unclear.

Diagnostic Role of mNGS in Polymicrobial Periprosthetic Joint Infection.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to explore the clinical value of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) in the diagnosis of polymicrobial periprosthetic joint infection (PJI).

Methods: Patients with complete data who underwent surgery at our hospital between July 2017 and January 2021 for suspected periprosthetic joint infection (PJI), according to the 2018 ICE diagnostic criteria, were enrolled, and all patients underwent microbial culture and mNGS detection, which were performed on the BGISEQ-500 platform. Microbial cultures were performed on two samples of synovial fluid, six samples of tissue, and two samples of prosthetic sonicate fluid for each patient.

No genetic causal association between Alzheimer's disease and osteoporosis: A bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization study.

Objective: Many observational studies have found an association between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and osteoporosis. However, it is unclear whether there is causal genetic between osteoporosis and AD.

Methods: A two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study was used to investigate whether there is a causal relationship between osteoporosis and AD.

Intraoperative method of femoral head central measurement to prevent leg length discrepancy following hemiarthroplasty.

Purpose: This study aimed to introduce and investigate the safety and efficiency of the intraoperative central measurement method of the femoral head (IM-CMFH) to prevent leg length discrepancies (LLD) after hemiarthroplasty.

Methods: Overall, 79 patients aged 75 to 85 years with femoral neck fractures who underwent hemiarthroplasty were divided into two groups: the Control group ( = 46) and the IM-CMFH group ( = 33). The two groups were compared for postoperative LLD and the proportions of patients with greater than 10 mm, 6-10 mm, and within 5 mm, postoperative femoral offset (FO) difference and the proportions of patients within 5 mm, incremental greater than 5 mm and reduction greater than 5 mm.

The causal relationship between obesity and skin and soft tissue infections: A two-sample Mendelian randomization study.

Objective: Many observational studies have shown that obesity strongly affects skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs). However, whether a causal genetic relationship exists between obesity and SSTIs is unclear.

Methods: A two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study was used to explore whether obesity is causally associated with SSTIs using a publicly released genome-wide association study (GWAS).

Motor neurons transplantation alleviates neurofibrogenesis during chronic degeneration by reversibly regulating Schwann cells epithelial-mesenchymal transition.

A novel understanding of peripheral nerve injury is epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which characterizes the process of dedifferentiation and transformation of Schwann cells after nerve injury. Despite being regarded as an important mechanism for healing nerve injuries, long-term EMT is the primary cause of fibrosis in other tissue organs. The potential mechanism promoting neurofibrosis in the process of chronic degeneration of nerve injury and the effects of motor neurons (MNs) transplantation on neurofibrosis and repair of nerve injury were studied by transcriptome sequencing and bioinformatics analysis, which were confirmed by in vivo and in vitro experiments.

Reduction with Pre-Drilling Combined with a Finger Reduction Tool in Difficult-to-Reduce Intertrochanteric Fracture.

Objective: To investigate the feasibility of pre-drilling combined with a finger reduction tool for the reduction of difficult-to-reduce intertrochanteric fractures.

Methods: Patients diagnosed with complicated intertrochanteric fractures during the period from July 2016 to May 2021 at the Affiliated Hospital of our College were enrolled in this study. All patients underwent reduction by pre-drilling combined with a finger reduction tool followed by fixing with proximal femoral nail antirotation.

Dual-Level Knowledge Distillation via Knowledge Alignment and Correlation.

Knowledge distillation (KD) has become a widely used technique for model compression and knowledge transfer. We find that the standard KD method performs the knowledge alignment on an individual sample indirectly via class prototypes and neglects the structural knowledge between different samples, namely, knowledge correlation. Although recent contrastive learning-based distillation methods can be decomposed into knowledge alignment and correlation, their correlation objectives undesirably push apart representations of samples from the same class, leading to inferior distillation results.

Covalent Functionalization of Nanodiamonds with Natural Amino Acids and Ascorbic Acids.

Nanodiamonds have gained considerable attention nowadays owing to their excellent properties and various applications especially in biomedical field. Nevertheless, the tendency of agglomeration limits further wide applications of nanodiamonds. A biological method was conducted to graft natural amino acids and ascorbic acid on the surface of nanodiamonds.

The expression and the functional roles of tissue factor and protease-activated receptor-2 on SW620 cells.

Tissue factor (TF) is believed to play an important role in tissue repair, inflammation, angiogenesis, and tumor metastasis. Protease-activated receptors (PARs) are widely expressed on various cells including tumor cells and associated with many pathological mechanisms. In the present study, the expression of TF and PAR1, PAR2 on human colon cancer cells (SW620 and SW480) was investigated and their functional roles on the behavior of tumor cells were evaluated.