The β Common Cytokine Receptor Family Reveals New Functional Paradigms From Structural Complexities.

Cytokines are small proteins that are critical for controlling the growth and activity of hematopoietic cells by binding to cell surface receptors and transmitting signals across membranes. The β common (βc) cytokine receptor family, consisting of the granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interleukin (IL)-3, and IL-5 cytokine receptors, is an architype of the heterodimeric cytokine receptor systems. We now know that signaling by cytokine receptors is not always an "all or none" phenomenon.

Psychiatric morbidity among SARS and COVID-19 survivors at 30 months post-infection.

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and COVID-19 are both highly infectious diseases that cause severe respiratory illness. This study aimed to compare survivors of SARS and COVID-19 and identify factors associated with long-term psychiatric comorbidities.

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of adult Chinese survivors of SARS and COVID-19 who had been admitted to the United Christian Hospital, Hong Kong.

Preclinical Evidence for a Drug-Drug Interaction Between Cannabinol and Melatonin.

The worldwide legalization of medicinal cannabis has led to an increased use of products made by commercial operators. These products often contain minor cannabinoids such as cannabinol (CBN) which are advertised to improve sleep. Products are also available in which CBN is combined with conventional therapies, with a common product containing both CBN and the widely used sleep-aid melatonin.

A high seizure burden increases brain concentrations of specialized pro-resolving mediators in the Scn1a mouse model of Dravet syndrome.

Objective: Dravet syndrome is a severe, intractable epilepsy in which 80 % of patients have a de novo mutation in the gene SCN1A. We recently reported that a high seizure burden increased hippocampal concentrations of an array of pro-inflammatory prostaglandins in the Scn1a mouse model of Dravet syndrome. This raised the possibility that a high seizure burden might also trigger the accumulation of specialized pro-resolving mediators that facilitate the resolution of neuroinflammation and brain repair.

Development and validation of the Post-COVID Symptom Scale for Children/Youth (PCSS-C/Y).

This study aims to develop and validate the Post-COVID Symptom Scale for Children/Youth (PCSS-C/Y), which is a comprehensive tool for measuring the symptom burden of post-COVID-19 conditions-persistent symptoms after SARS-CoV-2 infection, commonly known as Long COVID-and its impact on health-related quality of life among children and adolescents. Parents of children and adolescents, adolescents, and young adults with and without a history of COVID-19 were invited to fill in a questionnaire from October 2022 to June 2023. There were 386 valid parent proxy-reported responses, 433 valid adolescent self-reported responses, and 324 valid young adult self-reported responses included in the final analysis.

Prioritising domains of glucocorticoid therapy to measure in trials: Results from a modified delphi exercise from the OMERACT glucocorticoid impact working group.

Introduction: There is no consensus amongst patients and healthcare professionals about how to measure important adverse effects of glucocorticoids (GCs) that includes the patient's perspective. The OMERACT GC Impact working group sought to identify the domains of greatest importance to both patients and healthcare professionals for use in a proposed core outcome set.

Methods: Patients and healthcare professionals participated in a Delphi consensus exercise to rate the importance of previously identified candidate domains.

Cannabinoid-like compounds found in non-cannabis plants exhibit antiseizure activity in genetic mouse models of drug-resistant epilepsy.

Objective: The cannabinoid cannabidiol has established antiseizure effects in drug-resistant epilepsies such as Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. Amorfrutin 2, honokiol, and magnolol are structurally similar to cannabinoids (cannabis-like drugs) but derive from non-cannabis plants. We aimed to study the antiseizure potential of these compounds in various mouse seizure models.

Overcoming artificial structures in resolution-enhanced Hi-C data by signal decomposition and multi-scale attention.

Computational enhancement is an important strategy for inferring high-resolution features from genome-wide chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) data, which typically have limited resolution. Deep learning has been highly successful in this task but we show that it creates prevalent artificial structures in the enhanced data due to the need to divide the large contact matrix into small patches. In addition, previous deep learning methods largely focus on local patterns, which cannot fully capture the complexity of Hi-C data.

The Current and Novel Imaging Modalities for Ocular Vasculitis in Behcet's Disease: A Review.

Behcet's syndrome is a multisystem inflammatory disorder characterized by a chronic relapsing course and diverse clinical manifestations, prominently affecting young adults along the ancient Silk Road and beyond. The disease pathogenesis involves complex interactions between genetic predisposition, environmental triggers, and dysregulated immune responses, leading to systemic vasculitis and tissue damage. Ocular involvement, a hallmark of Behcet's Disease (BD), significantly impacts morbidity, with uveitis as a common initial presentation that can progress to severe vision-threatening complications like retinal vasculitis and occlusive disease.

Hyperferritinemia: Important Differentials for the Rheumatologists.

Ferritin is commonly used as a marker for iron status, aiding in diagnosing iron deficiency anemia. However, it is also an acute phase reactant often elevated in various inflammatory conditions. Marked hyperferritinemia, defined as ferritin levels above 10,000 μg/L, can indicate severe underlying conditions, including infections, cardiovascular like heart failure, endocrinological, autoimmune, and malignancies.

Down-regulation of CORO1C mediated by lncMALAT1/miR-133a-3p axis contributes to trophoblast dysfunction and preeclampsia.

Introduction: Placental trophoblast dysfunction has been proved to be closely related to the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. Coronaryxin-like actin-binding protein 1C (CORO1C) plays an important role in cell proliferation, apoptosis, invasion, and signal transduction, but its involvement in trophoblast dysfunction and preeclampsia remains uncertain.

Methods: The expression of CORO1C in placental tissues of preeclampsia (PE) pregnant women and pregnant mice PE model were detected by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), western blotting (WB) and immunohistochemical (IHC) staining.

Histone chaperone HIRA, promyelocytic leukemia protein, and p62/SQSTM1 coordinate to regulate inflammation during cell senescence.

Cellular senescence, a stress-induced stable proliferation arrest associated with an inflammatory senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), is a cause of aging. In senescent cells, cytoplasmic chromatin fragments (CCFs) activate SASP via the anti-viral cGAS/STING pathway. Promyelocytic leukemia (PML) protein organizes PML nuclear bodies (NBs), which are also involved in senescence and anti-viral immunity.

Observation of Strong Nuclear Suppression in Exclusive J/ψ Photoproduction in Au+Au Ultraperipheral Collisions at RHIC.

We report a measurement of exclusive J/ψ and ψ(2s) photoproduction in Au+Au ultraperipheral collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=200  GeV using the STAR detector. For the first time, (i) the ψ(2s) photoproduction in midrapidity at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider has been experimentally measured; (ii) nuclear suppression factors are measured for both the coherent and incoherent J/ψ production. At average photon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 25.

Influence of particle parameters on deposition onto healthy and damaged human hair.

Objective: This research investigates how particle parameters, such as zeta potential, size, functional group, material composition, and hydrophobicity affect their affinity and deposition of particles onto hair.

Methods: Streaming potential was used as the technique for analysis. The streaming potential data obtained was then converted to surface coverage data.

Histone chaperone HIRA, Promyelocytic Leukemia (PML) protein and p62/SQSTM1 coordinate to regulate inflammation during cell senescence.

Cellular senescence, a stress-induced stable proliferation arrest associated with an inflammatory Senescence-Associated Secretory Phenotype (SASP), is a cause of aging. In senescent cells, Cytoplasmic Chromatin Fragments (CCFs) activate SASP via the anti-viral cGAS/STING pathway. PML protein organizes PML nuclear bodies (NBs), also involved in senescence and anti-viral immunity.

Transmission Patterns of Co-Circulation of Omicron Sub-Lineages in Hong Kong SAR, China, a City with Rigorous Social Distancing Measures, in 2022.

Objective: This study aimed to characterize the changing landscape of circulating SARS-CoV-2 lineages in the local community of Hong Kong throughout 2022. We examined how adjustments to quarantine arrangements influenced the transmission pattern of Omicron variants in a city with relatively rigorous social distancing measures at that time.

Methods: In 2022, a total of 4684 local SARS-CoV-2 genomes were sequenced using the Oxford Nanopore GridION sequencer.

Construction of a pathway-level model for preeclampsia based on gene expression data.

Preeclampsia (PE) is a heterogeneous disease that seriously affects the health of mothers and fetuses. Lack of detection assays, its diagnosis and intervention are often delayed when the clinical symptoms are atypical. Using personalized pathway-based analysis and machine learning algorithms, we built a PE diagnosis model consisting of nine core pathways using multiple cohorts from the Gene Expression Omnibus database.

Emergency department management of patients with complications of dialysis.

In the United States, more than 450,000 patients are on dialysis due to end-stage renal disease. Compared to the general population, these patients account for a disproportionate number of emergency department visits due to higher rates of infection and cardiovascular complications, as well as issues unique to the process of dialysis itself, such as vascular access problems and dialysis disequilibrium syndrome. This issue describes the pathophysiology arising from hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis-related complications, as well as the evaluation and initial treatment within the emergency department, based on best available evidence.

ChIP-seq and RNA-seq Reveal the Involvement of Histone Lactylation Modification in Gestational Diabetes Mellitus.

Lactylation is a novel post-translational modification of proteins. Although the histone lactylation modification has been reported to be involved in glucose metabolism, its role and molecular pathways in gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are still unclear. This study aims to elucidate the histone lactylation modification landscapes of GDM patients and explore lactylation-modification-related genes involved in GDM.

Commonly used software tools produce conflicting and overly-optimistic AUPRC values.

The precision-recall curve (PRC) and the area under the precision-recall curve (AUPRC) are useful for quantifying classification performance. They are commonly used in situations with imbalanced classes, such as cancer diagnosis and cell type annotation. We evaluate 10 popular tools for plotting PRC and computing AUPRC, which were collectively used in more than 3000 published studies.

PEGylated liposomes for diagnosis of polyethylene glycol allergy.

Background: Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is a nonprotein polymer that is present in its native (unbound) form as an excipient in a range of products. It is increasingly being utilized clinically in the form of PEGylated liposomal medications and vaccines. PEG is the cause of anaphylaxis in a small percentage of drug reactions; however, diagnosis of PEG allergy is complicated by the variable and poor diagnostic performance of current skin testing protocols.

A high seizure burden increases several prostaglandin species in the hippocampus of a Scn1a mouse model of Dravet syndrome.

Dravet syndrome is an intractable epilepsy with a high seizure burden that is resistant to current anti-seizure medications. There is evidence that neuroinflammation plays a role in epilepsy and seizures, however few studies have specifically examined neuroinflammation in Dravet syndrome under conditions of a higher seizure burden. Here we used an established genetic mouse model of Dravet syndrome (Scn1a mice), to examine whether a higher seizure burden impacts the number and morphology of microglia in the hippocampus.

The clinical manifestations and molecular pathogenesis of radiation fibrosis.

Advances in radiation techniques have enabled the precise delivery of higher doses of radiotherapy to tumours, while sparing surrounding healthy tissues. Consequently, the incidence of radiation toxicities has declined, and will likely continue to improve as radiotherapy further evolves. Nonetheless, ionizing radiation elicits tissue-specific toxicities that gradually develop into radiation-induced fibrosis, a common long-term side-effect of radiotherapy.

Normative values of motor performance and their relationship with BMI status in Hong Kong preschoolers.

This study aimed to establish sex- and age-specific reference values for motor performance (MP) in Hong Kong preschoolers aged 3-5 years old and examine the relationship between MP and BMI status. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 5579 preschoolers in Hong Kong. Three MP tests were administered, and height and weight information were collected.