Mesenchymal stem cell therapy as a game-changer in liver diseases: review of current clinical trials.

Chronic liver diseases, including cirrhosis and liver failure, remain formidable challenges due to their complex progression and limited therapeutic options. Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapy has emerged as a game-changing approach, leveraging its potent immunomodulatory, anti-fibrotic, and regenerative capabilities, along with the ability to transdifferentiate into hepatocytes. This review delves into the latest advances in MSC-based treatments for chronic and end-stage liver diseases, as highlighted in current clinical trials.

A universal gene expression signature-based strategy for the high-throughput discovery of anti-inflammatory drugs.

Background: Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a valuable resource for drug discovery and has demonstrated excellent efficacy in treating inflammatory diseases. This study aimed to develop a universal gene signature-based strategy for high-throughput discovery of anti-inflammatory drugs, especially Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

Methods: The disease gene signature of liposaccharide-stimulated THP-1 cells and drug gene signatures of 655 drug candidates were established via sequencing.

ANGPTL4 induces Kupffer cell M2 polarization to mitigate acute rejection in liver transplantation.

Acute rejection (AR) is a significant complication in liver transplantation, impacting graft function and patient survival. Kupffer cells (KCs), liver-specific macrophages, can polarize into pro-inflammatory M1 or anti-inflammatory M2 phenotypes, both of which critically influence AR outcomes. Angiopoietin-like 4 (ANGPTL4), a secretory protein, is recognized for its function in regulating inflammation and macrophage polarization.

Parasitic structure defect blights sustainability of cobalt-free single crystalline cathodes.

Recent efforts to reduce battery costs and enhance sustainability have focused on eliminating Cobalt (Co) from cathode materials. While Co-free designs have shown notable success in polycrystalline cathodes, their impact on single crystalline (SC) cathodes remains less understood due to the significantly extended lithium diffusion pathways and the higher-temperature synthesis involved. Here, we reveal that removing Co from SC cathodes is structurally and electrochemically unfavorable, exhibiting unusual voltage fade behavior.

Dual-target nanotherapy for vascular endothelium and bone mesenchymal stem cells halt steroid-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head progression.

Steroid-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head (SANFH) is a common hip joint disease that imposes a heavy economic burden on society. Patients continue to experience bone necrosis even after discontinuing glucocorticoid therapy, and the specific mechanisms require further investigation. The results of this study demonstrate that exosomes secreted by damaged vascular endothelial cells in SANFH lesions may be a crucial factor leading to abnormal adipogenic differentiation of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs).

Persistence of Phi6, a SARS-CoV-2 surrogate, in simulated indoor environments: Effects of humidity and material properties.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus caused the COVID-19 pandemic and brought major challenges to public health. It is transmitted via aerosols, droplets, and fomites. Among these, viral transmission through fomites is not well understood although it remains a very important transmission route.

Risk and Protective Factors of Poor Clinical Outcomes in Heart Failure with Improved Ejection Fraction Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Aims: Heart failure with improved ejection fraction (HFimpEF) patients could still develop adverse outcomes despite EF improvement. This study evaluates the risk and protective factors of poor clinical outcomes in HFimpEF patients.

Methods: Systematic searching was done to include studies that evaluate the risks of developing poor outcomes in HFimpEF patients.

Intracranial Hypotension Mechanism and Implant Retention Procedure for Patients With Titanium Mesh Exposure.

Background And Objectives: The study aimed to investigate the potential pathogenesis and present an implant retention procedure for patients with titanium mesh exposure after cranioplasty.

Methods: The clinical data were obtained from 26 consecutive cases with titanium mesh exposure who underwent surgical treatment between 2018 and 2023. These patients' medical records, scalp photographs, operative notes, and outcomes were retrospectively analyzed.

Tumor burden with AFP improves survival prediction for TACE-treated patients with HCC: An international observational study.

Background & Aims: Current prognostic models for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) undergoing transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) are not extensively validated and widely accepted. We aimed to develop and validate a continuous model incorporating tumor burden and biology for individual survival prediction and risk stratification.

Methods: Overall, 4,377 treatment-naive candidates for whom TACE was recommended, from 39 centers in five countries, were enrolled and divided into training, internal validation, and two external validation datasets.

Melatonin Alleviates Circadian Rhythm Disruption-Induced Enhanced Luteinizing Hormone Pulse Frequency and Ovarian Dysfunction.

Circadian rhythm disruption (CRD), stemming from sleep disorders and/or shift work, is a risk factor for reproductive dysfunction. CRD has been reported to disturb nocturnal melatonin signaling, which plays a crucial role in female reproduction as a circadian regulator and an antioxidant. The hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian (HPO) axis regulates female reproduction, with luteinizing hormone (LH) pulse pattern playing a pivotal role in folliculogenesis and steroidogenesis.

Optimizing Acidic Oxygen Evolution Reaction via Modulation Doping in Van der Waals Layered Iridium Oxide.

Anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) exhibits a sluggish four-electron transfer process, necessitating catalysts with exceptional catalytic activity to enhance its kinetic rate. Van der Waals layered oxides are ideal materials for catalyst design, yet its stability for acidic OER remains large obstacle. Doping provides a crucial way to improve the activity and stability simultaneously.

Harnessing acylhydrazone-oxime exchange reaction to achieve diverse synthesis of glycosite-specific antibody-drug conjugates.

Glycosite-specific antibody-drug conjugates (gsADCs), which carry cytotoxic payloads at the conserved -glycosylation site, N297, of an IgG, have emerged as a promising ADC format with better therapeutic index. Conjugating the payloads aldehyde-based chemistry is more friendly to IgGs, and has been widely investigated. However, the efficiency of introducing an aldehyde tag at the N297 site is poor due to the complicated procedures required, such as the multiple-enzyme-catalyzed IgG glycoengineering process and the successive oxidation step, which always results in heterogeneous products and poor stability.

Electrostatic Harmonization for Superior Charge Extraction at Interface for Stable High-Efficiency FAPbI Quantum Dots Solar Cells.

Organic-inorganic formamidinium lead triiodide (FAPbI) hybrid perovskite quantum dots (QDs) have garnered considerable attention in the photovoltaic field due to their narrow bandgap, exceptional environmental stability, and prolonged carrier lifetime. Unfortunately, their insulating ligands and surface vacancy defects pose significant obstacles to efficient charge transfer across device interfaces. In this work, an electrostatic harmonization strategy at the interface using a donor-acceptor dipole molecular attachment to achieve enhanced charge separation capabilities on the QD surface is ventured.

A Modular Self-Assembling and Self-Adjuvanting Multiepitope Peptide Nanoparticle Vaccine Platform to Improve the Efficacy and Immunogenicity of BCG.

After more than a century since its initial development, Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) remains the only licensed vaccine against tuberculosis (TB). Subunit boosters are considered a viable strategy to enhance BCG efficacy, which often wanes in adolescence. While many studies on booster subunit vaccines have concentrated on recombinant proteins, here we developed a novel modular peptide-based subunit vaccine platform that is flexible, cold-chain independent and customizable to diverse circumstances and populations.

Lightweight Lung-nodule Detection Model Combined with Multidimensional Attention Convolution.

Background: Early and timely detection of pulmonary nodules and initiation treatment can substantially improve the survival rate of lung carcinoma. However, current detection methods based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) cannot easily detect pulmonary nodules owing to low detection accuracy and the difficulty in detecting small-sized pulmonary nodules; meanwhile, more accurate CNN-based models are slow and require high hardware specifications.

Objective: The aim of this study is to develop a detection model that achieves both high accuracy and real-time performance, ensuring effective and timely results.

Application of Online Multi-Internal Standard Calibration for Determination of Iodine by ICP-MS.

This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of the application of online multi-internal standard calibration (M.ISC) in determining iodine concentrations through inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Notably, M.

Prior heatwave exposure improves hypoxia tolerance in a typical freshwater fish species.

The prevalence of heatwave and hypoxia events and their devastating impacts on aquatic ecosystems and fishery resources reinforces the priority of research to address the resilience and adaption mechanisms to these two stressors in important fish species. However, our understanding of the development of cross-tolerance of these two stressors in fish still limited. Here, we investigated the impacts of prior heatwave exposure on hypoxia tolerance and the underlying mechanisms in silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix), a species of considerable ecological and commercial importance.

Numerical simulation of dust deposition on photovoltaic module surface based on multifactor fusion deposition mechanism.

Dust deposition on the surface of photovoltaic (PV) modules will reduce power generation efficiency and field service life. Existing research has deficiencies in terms of the adaptation of influencing factors and deposition types, deposition mechanism, numerical model of dust deposition process and time scale of dust deposition problem research. To address these deficiencies, first, this study applies the association diagram method to systematically identify the relevant factors of dust deposition, establishes an adaptive relationship between influencing factors and dust deposition types, improves the existing deposition mechanism, and proposes dust deposition criteria.

Improving the screening ability of neuron-specific enolase on small cell lung cancer.

Neuron-specific enolase (NSE) is one of the most common biomarkers of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and is widely used in lung cancer screening. But its specificity is affected by many factors. Using residual correction and machine learning, corrected NSE and its reference range were constructed based on metabolic factors and smoking history affecting NSE in the training set of 48,009 healthy individuals recruited from the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University.

Environmental impact and carbon recovery in coal gasification slag after Separation-Oxidation-Acid washing (SOA) process.

Coal gasification slag (CGS) is a challenging solid waste due to the presence of highly toxic heavy metals, which pose significant risks to environmental and human health. CGS cannot be freely reused or disposed of, creating considerable obstacles to solid waste resource utilization. This study presents a novel method for heavy metal removal from CGS through a separation-oxidation-acid washing (SOA) process, which effectively recycles residual carbon (RC) while minimizing the risk of heavy metal leakage.