deficiency in the initial segment is dispensable for sperm maturation and male fertility in mice.

EXOSC10 is an exosome-associated ribonuclease that degrades and processes a wide range of transcripts in the nucleus. The initial segment (IS) of the epididymis is crucial for sperm transport and maturation in mice by affecting the absorption and secretion that is required for male fertility. However, the role of EXOSC10 ribonuclease-mediated RNA metabolism within the IS in the regulation of gene expression and sperm maturation remains unknown.

Joint regression analysis of clustered current status data with latent variables.

Clustered current status data frequently occur in many fields of survival studies. Some potential factors related to the hazards of interest cannot be directly observed but are characterized through multiple correlated observable surrogates. In this article, we propose a joint modeling method for regression analysis of clustered current status data with latent variables and potentially informative cluster sizes.

Loss of DIS3L in the initial segment is dispensable for sperm maturation in the epididymis and male fertility.

DIS3L, a catalytic exoribonuclease associated with the cytoplasmic exosome complex, degrades cytoplasmic RNAs and is implicated in cancers and certain other diseases in humans. Epididymis plays a pivotal role in the transport, maturation, and storage of sperm required for male fertility. However, it remains unclear whether DIS3L-mediated cytoplasmic RNA degradation plays a role in epididymis biology and functioning.

NAD precursors promote the restoration of spermatogenesis in busulfan-treated mice through inhibiting Sirt2-regulated ferroptosis.

In recent years, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) precursors (Npre) have been widely employed to ameliorate female reproductive problems in both humans and animal models. However, whether and how Npre plays a role in the male reproductive disorder has not been fully clarified. In the present study, a busulfan-induced non-obstructive azoospermic mouse model was used, and Npre was administered for five weeks following the drug injection, with the objective of reinstating spermatogenesis and fertility.

Alginate oligosaccharide assimilation by gut microorganisms and the potential role in gut inflammation alleviation.

Unlabelled: Dietary fiber metabolism by gut microorganisms plays important roles in host physiology and health. Alginate, the major dietary fiber of daily diet seaweeds, is drawing more attention because of multiple biological activities. To advance the understanding of alginate assimilation mechanism in the gut, we show the presence of unsaturated alginate oligosaccharides (uAOS)-specific alginate utilization loci (AUL) in human gut microbiome.

Transcriptomic regulatory analysis of skeletal muscle development in landrace pigs.

The development of pig skeletal muscle is a complex dynamic regulation process, which mainly includes the formation of primary and secondary muscle fibers, the remodeling of muscle fibers, and the maturation of skeletal muscle; However, the regulatory mechanism of the entire developmental process remains unclear. This study analyzed the whole-transcriptome data of skeletal muscles at 27 developmental nodes (E33-D180) in Landrace pigs, and their key regulatory factors in the development process were identified using the bioinformatics method. Firstly, we constructed a transcriptome expression map of skeletal muscle development from embryo to adulthood in Landrace pig.

Assessing mental demand in consecutive interpreting: Insights from an fNIRS study.

Consecutive interpreting involves a demanding language task where mental workload (MWL) is crucial for assessing interpreters' performance. An elevated cognitive load in interpreters may lead to the interpretation failures. The widely used NASA-TLX questionnaire effectively measures MWL.

LncRNA profiles of Cyanidin-3-O-glucoside ameliorated Zearalenone-induced damage in porcine granulosa cells.

Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), a class of RNA molecules with transcripts longer than 200 nt, is crucial for maintaining animal reproductive function. Zearalenone (ZEN) damaged animal reproduction by targeting ovarian granulosa cells (GCs), especially in pigs. Nonetheless, it is not quite clear that whether Cyanidin-3-O-glucoside (C3G) exert effects on porcine GCs (pGCs) after ZEN exposure by altering lncRNA expression.

Divergent interpersonal neural synchronization patterns in the first, second language and interlingual communication.

An accumulating number of studies have highlighted the importance of interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) between interlocutors in successful verbal communications. The opportunities for communication across different language contexts are rapidly expanding, thanks to the frequent interactions among people all over the world. However, whether the INS changes in different language contexts and how language choice affects the INS remain scarcely explored.

Single cell epigenomic and transcriptomic analysis uncovers potential transcription factors regulating mitotic/meiotic switch.

In order to reveal the complex mechanism governing the mitotic/meiotic switch in female germ cells at epigenomic and genomic levels, we examined the chromatin accessibility (scATAC-seq) and the transcriptional dynamics (scRNA-seq) in germ cells of mouse embryonic ovary between E11.5 to 13.5 at single-cell resolution.

H3K4me3 as a target of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) impairing primordial follicle assembly.

Di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is a widely used plastics additive that growing evidence indicates as endocrine disruptor able to negatively affect various reproductive processes both in female and male animals, including humans. However, the precise molecular mechanism of such actions is not completely understood. In the present study, scRNA-seq was performed on the ovaries of offspring from mothers exposed to DEHP from 16.

Impaired primordial follicle assembly in offspring ovaries from zearalenone-exposed mothers involves reduced mitochondrial activity and altered epigenetics in oocytes.

Previous works have shown that zearalenone (ZEA), as an estrogenic pollutant, has adverse effects on mammalian folliculogenesis. In the present study, we found that prolonged exposure of female mice to ZEA around the end of pregnancy caused severe impairment of primordial follicle formation in the ovaries of newborn mice and altered the expression of many genes in oocytes as revealed by single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). These changes were associated with morphological and molecular alterations of mitochondria, increased autophagic markers in oocytes, and epigenetic changes in the ovaries of newborn mice from ZEA-exposed mothers.

Oxidative stress as a plausible mechanism for zearalenone to induce genome toxicity.

Zearalenone (ZEN), a common non-steroidal estrogenic mycotoxin of the Fusarium genus, is one of the most frequent and powerful contaminant of grains and cereal products representing a serious threat for people and livestock health. In fact, ZEN causes cytotoxicity and genotoxicity in a variety of cell types at least in part through binding to estrogen receptors (ERs). The main pathways through which ZEN induces such effects remain, however, elusive.

Genetic Regulation of N6-Methyladenosine-RNA in Mammalian Gametogenesis and Embryonic Development.

Emerging evidence shows that mA is the most abundant modification in eukaryotic RNA molecules. It has only recently been found that this epigenetic modification plays an important role in many physiological and pathological processes, such as cell fate commitment, immune response, obesity, tumorigenesis, and relevant for the present review, gametogenesis. Notably the RNA metabolism process mediated by mA is controlled and regulated by a series of proteins termed writers, readers and erasers that are highly expressed in germ cells and somatic cells of gonads.

Goodness-of-fit inference for the additive hazards regression model with clustered current status data.

Clustered current status data are frequently encountered in biomedical research and other areas that require survival analysis. This paper proposes graphical and formal model assessment procedures to evaluate the goodness of fit of the additive hazards model to clustered current status data. The test statistics proposed are based on sums of martingale-based residuals.

Regression analysis of multivariate interval-censored failure time data with informative censoring.

Regression analysis of multivariate interval-censored failure time data has been discussed by many authors. For most of the existing methods, however, one limitation is that they only apply to the situation where the censoring is non-informative or the failure time of interest is independent of the censoring mechanism. It is apparent that this may not be true sometimes and as pointed out by some authors, the analysis that does not take the dependent censoring into account could lead to biased or misleading results.

Establishment of lncRNA-mRNA network in bovine oocyte between germinal vesicle and metaphase II stage.

Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), a type of non-protein coding transcripts with lengths exceeding 200 nucleotides, is reported to be widely involved in many cellular and developmental processes. However, few roles of lncRNA in oocyte development have been defined. In this study, to uncover the effect of lncRNA during oocyte maturation, bovine germinal vesicle (GV) and in vitro matured metaphase II (MII) oocytes underwent RNA sequencing.

A Class of Additive Transformation Models for Recurrent Gap Times.

The gap time between recurrent events is often of primary interest in many fields such as medical studies (Cook and Lawless 2007; Kang, Sun, and Zhao 2015; Schaubel and Cai 2004), and in this paper, we discuss regression analysis of the gap times arising from a general class of additive transformation models. For the problem, we propose two estimation procedures, the modified within-cluster resampling (MWCR) method and the weighted risk-set (WRS) method, and the proposed estimators are shown to be consistent and asymptotically follow the normal distribution. In particular, the estimators have closed forms and can be easily determined, and the methods have the advantage of leaving the correlation among gap times arbitrary.

Nonparametric comparison of survival functions based on interval-censored data with unequal censoring.

Nonparametric comparison of survival functions is one of the most commonly required task in failure time studies such as clinical trials, and for this, many procedures have been developed under various situations. This paper considers a situation that often occurs in practice but has not been discussed much: the comparison based on interval-censored data in the presence of unequal censoring. That is, one observes only interval-censored data, and the distributions of or the mechanisms behind censoring variables may depend on treatments and thus be different for the subjects in different treatment groups.

Effect on proliferation and apoptosis of retinoblastoma cell by RNA inhibiting high mobility group protein box-1 expression.

Aim: To investigate the effect of high mobility group protein box-1 (HMGB1) siRNA on proliferation and apoptosis of retinoblastoma (Rb) cells.

Methods: The expression of HMGB1 in Rb cells were detected by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blot. Chemically synthesized HMGB1 siRNA was transfected into Y79 cells.