CAG Polymorphic Locus of Androgen Receptor () Gene in Russian Infertile and Fertile Men.

The androgen receptor (AR) is critical for mediating the effects of androgens. The polymorphic CAG locus in exon 1 of the gene is associated with several diseases, including spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA), prostate cancer, and male infertility. This study evaluated the CAG locus in 9000 infertile Russian men and 286 fertile men (control group).

Vitrectomy versus scleral buckle for retinal detachment without posterior vitreous detachment.

To compare the effectiveness and safety of scleral buckling and pars plana vitrectomy in treating retinal detachment without posterior vitreous detachment. A total of 88 eyes of 83 patients with retinal detachment without prior posterior vitreous detachment were investigated retrospectively. Group A comprised patients who underwent scleral buckling (n = 47) and Group B (n = 36) patients who were treated with pars plana vitrectomy.

Deep-Learning Interatomic Potential Connects Molecular Structural Ordering to the Macroscale Properties of Polyacrylonitrile.

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) is an important commercial polymer, bearing atactic stereochemistry resulting from nonselective radical polymerization. As such, an accurate, fundamental understanding of governing interactions among PAN molecular units is indispensable for advancing the design principles of final products at reduced processability costs. While molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations can provide the necessary accuracy for treating key interactions in polar polymers, such as dipole-dipole interactions and hydrogen bonding, and analyzing their influence on the molecular orientation, their implementation is limited to small molecules only.

Quantifying platinum binding on protein-functionalized magnetic microparticles using single particle-ICP-TOF-MS.

This work describes an analytical procedure, single particle-inductively coupled plasma-time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (SP-ICP-TOF-MS), that was developed to determine the platinum binding efficiency of protein-coated magnetic microparticles. SP-ICP-TOF-MS is advantageous due to its ability to quasi-simultaneously detect all nuclides (Li-Pu), allowing for both platinum and iron (composition of magnetic microparticles) to be measured concurrently. This method subsequently allows for the differentiation between bound and unbound platinum.

Tracing mechanistic pathways and reaction kinetics toward equilibrium in reactive molten salts.

In the dynamic environment of multi-component reactive molten salts, speciation unfolds as a complex process, involving multiple competing reaction pathways that are likely to face free energy barriers before reaching the reaction equilibria. Herein, we unravel intricate speciation in the AlCl-KCl melt compositions with rate theory and molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the compositions with 100 and 50 mol% AlCl exclusively comprise neutral AlCl dimers and charged AlCl monomers, respectively.

The Contribution of the Intestinal Microbiota to the Celiac Disease Pathogenesis along with the Effectiveness of Probiotic Therapy.

The development of many human disorders, including celiac disease (CD), is thought to be influenced by the microbiota of the gastrointestinal tract and its metabolites, according to current research. This study's goal was to provide a concise summary of the information on the contribution of the intestinal microbiota to the CD pathogenesis, which was actively addressed while examining the reported pathogenesis of celiac disease (CD). We assumed that a change in gluten tolerance is formed under the influence of a number of different factors, including genetic predisposition and environmental factors.

Volumetric Reconstruction of a Human Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cell Reveals Specialized Membranes and Polarized Distribution of Organelles.

Purpose: Despite the centrality of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) in vision and retinopathy our picture of RPE morphology is incomplete. With a volumetric reconstruction of human RPE ultrastructure, we aim to characterize major membranous features including apical processes and their interactions with photoreceptor outer segments, basolateral infoldings, and the distribution of intracellular organelles.

Methods: A parafoveal retinal sample was acquired from a 21-year-old male organ donor.

Gut Microbiota and Bacterial Translocation in the Pathogenesis of Liver Fibrosis.

Cirrhosis is the end result of liver fibrosis in chronic liver diseases. Studying the mechanisms of its development and developing measures to slow down and regress it based on this knowledge seem to be important tasks for medicine. Currently, disorders of the gut-liver axis have great importance in the pathogenesis of cirrhosis.

Pathogenic Variants and Genotypes of the Gene in Russian Men with Cystic Fibrosis and CBAVD Syndrome.

Pathogenic variants cause cystic fibrosis (CF), and CF-related disorders (CF-RD), including bilateral aplasia of the vas deferens (CBAVD). The spectrum of clinical manifestations depends on the genotype. The frequency and spectrum of the variants vary between populations and clinical groups.

Tunable Mie resonance in complex-shaped gadolinium niobate.

Nanoscale particles described by Mie resonance in the UV-vis-NIR region are in high demand for optical applications. Controlling the shape and size of these particles is essential, as it results in the ability to control the wavelength of the Mie resonance peak. In this work, we study the extensive scattering properties of gadolinium niobate particles with complex bar- and cube-like shapes in the UV-vis-NIR region.

Predicted structural proteome of Sphagnum divinum and proteome-scale annotation.

Motivation: Sphagnum-dominated peatlands store a substantial amount of terrestrial carbon. The genus is undersampled and under-studied. No experimental crystal structure from any Sphagnum species exists in the Protein Data Bank and fewer than 200 Sphagnum-related genes have structural models available in the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database.

DIPS-Plus: The enhanced database of interacting protein structures for interface prediction.

In this work, we expand on a dataset recently introduced for protein interface prediction (PIP), the Database of Interacting Protein Structures (DIPS), to present DIPS-Plus, an enhanced, feature-rich dataset of 42,112 complexes for machine learning of protein interfaces. While the original DIPS dataset contains only the Cartesian coordinates for atoms contained in the protein complex along with their types, DIPS-Plus contains multiple residue-level features including surface proximities, half-sphere amino acid compositions, and new profile hidden Markov model (HMM)-based sequence features for each amino acid, providing researchers a curated feature bank for training protein interface prediction methods. We demonstrate through rigorous benchmarks that training an existing state-of-the-art (SOTA) model for PIP on DIPS-Plus yields new SOTA results, surpassing the performance of some of the latest models trained on residue-level and atom-level encodings of protein complexes to date.

Association of Diabetic Lesions and Retinal Nonperfusion Using Widefield Multimodal Imaging.

Purpose: To evaluate the association of microvascular lesions on ultrawidefield (UWF) color fundus (CF) images with retinal nonperfusion (RNP) up to the midperiphery on single-capture widefield (WF) OCT angiography (OCTA) in patients with diabetic retinopathy (DR).

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Subjects: Seventy-five eyes of 50 patients with mild to severe nonproliferative DR (NPDR) and proliferative DR (PDR) were included in this analysis.

L138ins Variant of the Gene in Russian Infertile Men.

(1) Introduction: Pathogenic variants in the (Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane conductance Regulator, OMIM: 602421) gene cause Cystic Fibrosis (CF, OMIM: 219700) and CF-related disorders (CF-RD), often accompanied by obstructive azoospermia due to congenital bilateral aplasia of vas deferens (CBAVD, OMIM: 277180) in male patients. The L138ins (c.413_415dup; p.

tinyIFD: A High-Throughput Binding Pose Refinement Workflow Through Induced-Fit Ligand Docking.

A critical step in structure-based drug discovery is predicting whether and how a candidate molecule binds to a model of a therapeutic target. However, substantial protein side chain movements prevent current screening methods, such as docking, from accurately predicting the ligand conformations and require expensive refinements to produce viable candidates. We present the development of a high-throughput and flexible ligand pose refinement workflow, called "tinyIFD".

Effect of Changes in Surgical Strategies for the Treatment of Primary Rhegmatogenous Retinal Detachment on Functional and Anatomical Outcomes: A Retrospective Analysis of 812 Cases from the Years 2004 to 2012.

Background: At the Department of Ophthalmology and Optometry at the MUV surgical method (scleral buckling, vitrectomy, combined vitrectomy/scleral buckling) and timing (daytime, nighttime) for the treatment of primary rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) changed continuously in the years 2004 to 2012. This study aims to evaluate changes in surgical strategies over time including their impact on functional and anatomical outcomes.

Methods: Retrospective evaluation of patients operated on primary RRD between the years 2004 and 2012.

SARS-CoV2 billion-compound docking.

This dataset contains ligand conformations and docking scores for 1.4 billion molecules docked against 6 structural targets from SARS-CoV2, representing 5 unique proteins: MPro, NSP15, PLPro, RDRP, and the Spike protein. Docking was carried out using the AutoDock-GPU platform on the Summit supercomputer and Google Cloud.

Comprehensive semen examination in patients with pancreatic-sufficient and pancreatic-insufficient cystic fibrosis.

We examined a cohort of 93 cystic fibrosis (CF) male patients who were pancreatic-sufficient (PS-CF; n=40) or pancreatic-insufficient (PI-CF; n = 53). Complex semen examination was performed, including standard semen analysis, quantitative karyological analysis (QKA) of immature germ cells (IGCs), transmission electronic microscopy (TEM), biochemical analysis, and sperm DNA fragmentation by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nickend labeling (TUNEL) assay. Azoospermia was diagnosed in 83 (89.

Improving the Stability of Halide Perovskite Solar Cells Using Nanoparticles of Tungsten Disulfide.

Halide perovskites-based solar cells are drawing significant attention due to their high efficiency, versatility, and affordable processing. Hence, halide perovskite solar cells have great potential to be commercialized. However, the halide perovskites (HPs) are not stable in an ambient environment.

Ultra-Widefield OCT Angiography.

Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography (OCTA), a functional extension of OCT, has the potential to replace most invasive fluorescein angiography (FA) exams in ophthalmology. So far, OCTA's field of view is however still lacking behind fluorescence fundus photography techniques. This is problematic, because many retinal diseases manifest at an early stage by changes of the peripheral retinal capillary network.

Comparison of two ultra-widefield color-fundus imaging devices for visualization of retinal periphery and microvascular lesions in patients with early diabetic retinopathy.

Comparison of two ultra-widefield (UWF) color-fundus (CF) imaging devices in diabetic patients for visualization of retinal periphery and detection of early microvascular lesions. The total gradable areas (TGA) seen on non-mydriatic CF-images of two UWF-imaging devices (Optos Daytona P200T; Zeiss Clarus 700) were compared and differences in projected area measured. Retinal periphery outside the 7 standard fields (7SF) was divided into: F3 temporal, F4 superotemporal, F5 inferotemporal, F6 superonasal, F7 inferonasal.

The study of the relevance of macro- and microelements in the hair of young wrestlers depending on the style of wrestling.

While participating in an intensive training process, the athlete's body requires not only energy, but also specific macro- and microelements. The purpose of this study was to show the meaning of monitoring the level of mineral trace elements in athletes-wrestlers during physical activity. As an experimental group, 66 male wrestlers aged 18-20 years with at least 3 years of intensive wrestling experience were examined.

OpenMDlr: parallel, open-source tools for general protein structure modeling and refinement from pairwise distances.

Summary: Easy-to-use, open-source, general-purpose programs for modeling a protein structure from inter-atomic distances are needed for modeling from experimental data and refinement of predicted protein structures. OpenMDlr is an open-source Python package for modeling protein structures from pairwise distances between any atoms, and optionally, dihedral angles. We provide a user-friendly input format for harnessing modern biomolecular force fields in an easy-to-install package that can efficiently make use of multiple compute cores.