Prediction of cccDNA dynamics in hepatitis B patients by a combination of serum surrogate markers.

Quantification of intrahepatic covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) is a key for evaluating an elimination of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in infected patients. However, quantifying cccDNA requires invasive methods such as a liver biopsy, which makes it impractical to access the dynamics of cccDNA in patients. Although HBV RNA and HBV core-related antigens (HBcrAg) have been proposed as surrogate markers for evaluating cccDNA activity, they do not necessarily estimate the amount of cccDNA.

An energy landscape approach reveals the potential key bacteria contributing to the development of inflammatory bowel disease.

The dysbiosis of microbiota has been reported to be associated with numerous human pathophysiological processes, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). With advancements in high-throughput sequencing, various methods have been developed to study the alteration of microbiota in the development and progression of diseases. However, a suitable approach to assess the global stability of the microbiota in disease states through time-series microbiome data is yet to be established.

Association between oral frailty and Prevotella percentage in the oral microbiota of community-dwelling older adults who participated in the CHEER Iwamizawa project, Japan.

Background: Prevotella bacteria are associated with inherent diseases of the oral cavity, such as periodontal disease, and systemic diseases. Oral frailty (OF) has been associated with nursing necessity and death. However, the relationship between OF and oral microbiota has not been fully clarified.

Multiscale modeling of HBV infection integrating intra- and intercellular viral propagation to analyze extracellular viral markers.

Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) is caused by the persistence of closed circular DNA (cccDNA) in the nucleus of infected hepatocytes. Despite available therapeutic anti-HBV agents, eliminating the cccDNA remains challenging. Thus, quantifying and understanding the dynamics of cccDNA are essential for developing effective treatment strategies and new drugs.

Examining corporate support issues with health literacy as a key factor: The Case of a Hiroshima corporation.

Context: Given the dramatic decline in Japan's labor force, promoting women's participation in the workforce is essential.

Aims: We aimed to take a Hiroshima company as an example and analyze the influencing factors of health literacy (HL) to clarify the issues of the active participation of female employees.

Methods And Materials: From February to March 2023, a cross-sectional study was conducted by a company in Hiroshima prefecture that contained many male employees.

Lifestyle Factors and Health Awareness for Improving Bone Density Acquisition in Adolescent Girls: A Pilot Study With Secondary Data.

Objectives: Adolescent girls are in an important life stage of peak bone mass (PBM) acquisition. We aimed to examine the provision of health guidance for female high school students and elucidate the factors that can increase bone density.

Design: A quantitative, cross-sectional analysis was used in conducting the study.

Acute Tubulointerstitial Nephritis due to Human Papillomavirus Vaccination.

Acute tubulointerstitial nephritis (ATIN), a rare cause of acute kidney injury in children, is caused by various factors such as drugs, infection, and systemic inflammation. We herein present a case of ATIN with mild encephalitis/encephalopathy with reversible splenial lesion (MERS)-like findings on head magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which was associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. A 14-year-old girl presented to our hospital with a high fever for 5 days.

Coping With Women's Menstruation-Related Health Issues in Male-Dominated Companies: A Cross-Sectional Study in Japan.

Background And Objectives: Japanese women face many female-specific health problems in the workplace, especially menstruation-related issues, which can adversely affect their quality of life and productivity. This study aims to examine how female employees in a male-dominated company in Hiroshima, Japan, cope with menstruation-related health issues in the workplace and the factors that influence their coping strategies.

Materials And Methods: This study used a cross-sectional survey research method.

Anti-HTLV-1 immunity combined with proviral load as predictive biomarkers for adult T-cell leukemia-lymphoma.

Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) establishes chronic infection in humans and induces a T-cell malignancy called adult T-cell leukemia-lymphoma (ATL) and several inflammatory diseases such as HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). Persistent HTLV-1 infection is established under the pressure of host immunity, and therefore the immune response against HTLV-1 is thought to reflect the status of the disease it causes. Indeed, it is known that cellular immunity against viral antigens is suppressed in ATL patients compared to HAM/TSP patients.

Disentangling the growth curve of microbial culture.

Many researchers have studied the population dynamics of microbe of microbes as a typical example of population dynamics. The Monod equation, which mainly focuses on the growth and stationary phases, is used when plotting a growth curve. However, the growth potential in the late stage of culture has been overlooked.

Comparison of RNA-Seq analysis data between tracheal mite-infested and uninfested Japanese honey bees (Apis cerana japonica).

Objective: The purpose of this data set is to investigate differences in RNA-Seq transcriptome profiles between Acarapis woodi-infested and uninfested Japanese honey bees (Apis cerana japonica). The data set is strengthened by data collected from different body parts (head, thorax, and abdomen). The data set will support future studies of molecular biological changes in mite-infested honey bees.

Multiscale modeling of HBV infection integrating intra- and intercellular viral propagation for analyzing extracellular viral markers.

Chronic infection of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is caused by the persistence of closed circular DNA (cccDNA) in the nucleus of infected hepatocytes. Despite available therapeutic anti-HBV agents, eliminating the cccDNA remains challenging. The quantifying and understanding dynamics of cccDNA are essential for developing effective treatment strategies and new drugs.

COVID-19-related stress, exercise, and oral health-related quality of life among community-dwelling older adults who participated in the CHEER Iwamizawa project, Japan.

This study examined the association between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related stress, exercise habits, and oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) in a sample of 215 community-dwelling older adults in Japan (57 men, 158 women; M = 74.2 years, SD = 6.0).

Early dynamics of chronic myeloid leukemia on nilotinib predicts deep molecular response.

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a myeloproliferative disorder caused by the BCR-ABL1 tyrosine kinase. Although ABL1-specific tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) including nilotinib have dramatically improved the prognosis of patients with CML, the TKI efficacy depends on the individual patient. In this work, we found that the patients with different nilotinib responses can be classified by using the estimated parameters of our simple dynamical model with two common laboratory findings.

Analysis of the Pancreatic Cancer Microbiome Using Endoscopic Ultrasound-Guided Fine-Needle Aspiration-Derived Samples.

Objectives: Most previous studies have analyzed bacteria in tumors using resected pancreatic cancer (PC) tissues, because it is difficult to obtain tissue samples from unresectable advanced PC. We aimed to determine whether minimal tissue obtained by endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration is useful for microbiome analysis.

Methods: Thirty PC and matched duodenal and stomach tissues (N = 90) were prospectively collected from 30 patients who underwent endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration.

Evolving neural networks through bio-inspired parent selection in dynamic environments.

Environmental variability often degrades the performance of algorithms designed to capture the global convergence of a given search space. Several approaches have been developed to challenge environmental uncertainty by incorporating biologically inspired notions, focusing on crossover, mutation, and selection. This study proposes a bio-inspired approach called NEAT-HD, which focuses on parent selection based on genetic similarity.

Antithetic effect of interferon-α on cell-free and cell-to-cell HIV-1 infection.

In HIV-1-infected individuals, transmitted/founder (TF) virus contributes to establish new infection and expands during the acute phase of infection, while chronic control (CC) virus emerges during the chronic phase of infection. TF viruses are more resistant to interferon-alpha (IFN-α)-mediated antiviral effects than CC virus, however, its virological relevance in infected individuals remains unclear. Here we perform an experimental-mathematical investigation and reveal that IFN-α strongly inhibits cell-to-cell infection by CC virus but only weakly affects that by TF virus.

Chemical-Mediated Microbial Interactions Can Reduce the Effectiveness of Time-Series-Based Inference of Ecological Interaction Networks.

Network-based assessments are important for disentangling complex microbial and microbial-host interactions and can provide the basis for microbial engineering. There is a growing recognition that chemical-mediated interactions are important for the coexistence of microbial species. However, so far, the methods used to infer microbial interactions have been validated with models assuming direct species-species interactions, such as generalized Lotka-Volterra models.

Oral frailty and carriage of oral Candida in community-dwelling older adults (Check-up to discover Health with Energy for senior Residents in Iwamizawa; CHEER Iwamizawa).

Objective: To examine the association between oral frailty and oral Candida carriage as a general indicator of deteriorating oral function in older adults.

Background: Older adults exhibit an elevated risk of oral candidiasis caused by Candida. Although many studies have identified factors associated with oral Candida carriage, none have evaluated its relationship with oral function.

Dynamic Associations of Milk Components With the Infant Gut Microbiome and Fecal Metabolites in a Mother-Infant Model by Microbiome, NMR Metabolomic, and Time-Series Clustering Analyses.

The gut microbiome and fecal metabolites of breastfed infants changes during lactation, and are influenced by breast milk components. This study aimed to investigate dynamic associations of milk components with the infant gut microbiome and fecal metabolites throughout the lactation period in a mother-infant model. One month after delivery, breast milk and subsequent infant feces were collected in a pair for 5 months from a mother and an exclusively breastfed infant.

Muscarinic receptor M3 contributes to intestinal stem cell maintenance via EphB/ephrin-B signaling.

Acetylcholine (ACh) signaling through activation of nicotinic and muscarinic ACh receptors regulates expression of specific genes that mediate and sustain proliferation, differentiation, and homeostasis in the intestinal crypts. This signaling plays a pivotal role in the regulation of intestinal stem cell function, but the details have not been clarified. Here, we performed experiments using type 3 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (M3) knockout mice and their intestinal organoids and report that endogenous ACh affects the size of the intestinal stem niche via M3 signaling.

Detection of significant antiviral drug effects on COVID-19 with reasonable sample sizes in randomized controlled trials: A modeling study.

Background: Development of an effective antiviral drug for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global health priority. Although several candidate drugs have been identified through in vitro and in vivo models, consistent and compelling evidence from clinical studies is limited. The lack of evidence from clinical trials may stem in part from the imperfect design of the trials.

Gamma4: a genetically versatile Gammaproteobacterial nifH phylotype that is widely distributed in the North Pacific Ocean.

Despite the increasing reports of non-cyanobacterial diazotrophs (NCDs) in pelagic waters, only one NCD (GammaA) has been relatively well described, whose genome and physiology are still unclear. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of the biogeography and ecophysiology of a widely distributed NCD, Gamma4. Gamma4 was the most abundant Gammaproteobacterial NCD along transects across the subtropical North Pacific.