Impaired cognitive flexibility in major depressive disorder: Evidences from spatial-temporal ERPs analysis.

Background: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) may exhibit impairments in cognitive flexibility. This study investigated whether the cognitive flexibility deficits in MDD are evident across general stimuli or specific to emotional stimuli, while exploring the underlying neuropsychological mechanism.

Methods: A total of 41 MDD patients and 42 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited.

Quantitative proteomics of the miR-301a/SOCS3/STAT3 axis reveals underlying autism and anxiety-like behavior.

Autism is a widespread neurodevelopmental disorder. Although the research on autism spectrum disorders has been increasing in the past decade, there is still no specific answer to its mechanism of action and treatment. As a pro-inflammatory microRNA, miR-301a is abnormally expressed in various psychiatric diseases including autism.

CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knockout of intracellular molecule SHP-1 enhances tumor-killing ability of CD133-targeted CAR T cells in vitro.

CAR T cell therapy has been successfully used in the treatment of hematological malignancies, and the strategy that deletion of inhibitory receptor on the CAR T cell surface, such as PD-1, greatly enhance the antitumor effects. Here, we describe a one-step electroporation for the co-transfection of Cas9:sgRNA and CAR plasmids on primary T cells to demonstrate the effect of SHP-1 deletion in CAR T cells. By using PiggyBac Transposase system, we can achieve more than 90% of T cells express CAR gene and nearly 60% SHP-1 knockout efficiency in T cells.

Cognitive inflexibility is linked to abnormal frontoparietal-related activation and connectivity in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Although it was acknowledged that patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) would exhibit cognitive inflexibility, the underlying neural mechanism has not been fully clarified. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the neural substrates involved in cognitive inflexibility among individuals with OCD. A total of 42 patients with OCD and 48 healthy controls (HCs) completed clinical assessment and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data collection during cued task switching.

Altered intrinsic functional network connectivity is associated with impulsivity and emotion dysregulation in drug-naïve young patients with borderline personality disorder.

Background: Despite impulse control and emotion regulation being altered in borderline personality disorder (BPD), the specific mechanism of these clinical features remains unclear. This study investigated the functional connectivity (FC) abnormalities within- and between- default mode network (DMN), salience network (SN), and central executive network (CEN) in BPD, and examined the association between aberrant FC and clinical features. We aimed to explore whether the abnormal large-scale networks underlie the pathophysiology of impulsivity and emotion dysregulation in BPD.

Mindfulness training selectively reduces altruistic behaviour in low-cost situations.

There have been rich debates about whether and how mindfulness alters prosocial behaviour. Nevertheless, few empirical studies have touched on how mindfulness training (MT) influences altruistic behaviour under high- and low-cost situations in a real-life scenario. The present study aimed to examine the effect of mindfulness training on altruistic willingness at different cost levels.

Development of a versatile nuclease prime editor with upgraded precision.

The applicability of nuclease-based form of prime editor (PEn) has been hindered by its complexed editing outcomes. A chemical inhibitor against DNA-PK, which mediates the nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ) pathway, was recently shown to promote precise insertions by PEn. Nevertheless, the intrinsic issues of specificity and toxicity for such a chemical approach necessitate development of alternative strategies.

PCDetection: PolyA-CRISPR/Cas12a-based miRNA detection without PAM restriction.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that posttranscriptionally regulate gene expression. The aberrant expression of miRNAs is related to many diseases. MiRNAs can serve as potential biomarkers for the prognosis and diagnosis of cancers and other human diseases.

Inflammatory-miR-301a circuitry drives mTOR and Stat3-dependent PSC activation in chronic pancreatitis and PanIN.

Activated pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) are the main cells involved in chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia lesion (PanIN). Fine-tuning the precise molecular targets in PSC activation might help the development of PSC-specific therapeutic strategies to tackle progression of pancreatic cancer-related fibrosis. miR-301a is a pro-inflammatory microRNA known to be activated by multiple inflammatory factors in the tumor stroma.

Natural compound library screening identifies Sanguinarine chloride for the treatment of SCLC by upregulating CDKN1A.

Objectives: Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is notorious for aggressive malignancy without effective treatment, and most patients eventually develop tumor progression with a poor prognosis. There is an urgent need for discovering novel antitumor agents or therapeutic strategies for SCLC.

Materials And Methods: We performed a screening method based on CCK-8 assay to screen 640 natural compounds for SCLC.

Increased functional interaction within frontoparietal network during working memory task in major depressive disorder.

Abnormal fronto-parietal activation has been suggested as a neural underpinning of the working memory (WM) deficits in major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the potential interaction within the frontoparietal network during WM processing in MDD remains unclear. This study aimed to examine the role of abnormal functional interactions within frontoparietal network in the neuropathological mechanisms of WM deficits in MDD.

Gray Matter Abnormalities of Orbitofrontal Cortex and Striatum in Drug-Naïve Adult Patients With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

This study examined whether obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients have gray matter abnormalities in regions related to executive function, and whether such abnormalities are associated with impaired executive function. Multiple scales were administered to 27 first-episode drug-naïve OCD patients and 29 healthy controls. Comprehensive brain morphometric indicators of orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and three striatum areas (caudate, putamen, and pallidum) were determined.

Factorial Validity and Factorial Invariance Across Gender of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale-Chinese version in Undergraduates.

Objective: This study was aimed to examine the factor structure and factorial invariance across gender of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale-Chinese version (FMPS-CV).

Methods: The FMPS-CV was completed by 2451 undergraduates. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were performed to verify its factorial validity, and Multigroup CFA were performed to examine its factorial invariance across gender.

Impaired set-shifting in drug-naïve patients with borderline personality disorder: an event-related potentials study.

Background: Neurocognitive impairments might play a key role in the development of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), however, the pathophysiological mechanism underlying cognitive impairment of BPD is largely unknown. This study was aimed to examine the electrophysiological mechanism of deficits in set-shifting processing in patients with BPD.

Methods: Twenty-seven drug-naïve patients with BPD and twenty-four healthy controls were recruited.

MeCas12a, a Highly Sensitive and Specific System for COVID-19 Detection.

Cas12a-based systems, which detect specific nucleic acids via collateral cleavage of reporter DNA, display huge potentials for rapid diagnosis of infectious diseases. Here, the Manganese-enhanced Cas12a (MeCas12a) system is described, where manganese is used to increase the detection sensitivity up to 13-fold, enabling the detection of target RNAs as low as five copies. MeCas12a is also highly specific, and is able to distinguish between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) differing by a single nucleotide.

Insecure attachment and maladaptive emotion regulation mediating the relationship between childhood trauma and borderline personality features.

Background: Previous studies suggested that childhood trauma is an important etiologic factor for the development of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Moreover, insecure attachment and maladaptive emotion regulation (ER) might be related to childhood trauma and BPD. This study was aimed to explore the relationships among childhood trauma, insecure attachment, maladaptive ER, and BPD features.

miR-301a Suppression within Fibroblasts Limits the Progression of Fibrosis through the TSC1/mTOR Pathway.

Pulmonary fibrosis has been characterized by abnormal proliferation of fibroblasts and massive deposition of the extracellular matrix, which results from a complex interplay of chronic injury and inflammatory responses. MicroRNA-301a (miR-301a) is activated by multiple inflammatory stimulators, contributing to multiple tumorigenesis and autoimmune diseases. This study showed that miR-301a was overexpressed in a bleomycin-induced murine model of pulmonary fibrosis and patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

Gramicidin inhibits cholangiocarcinoma cell growth by suppressing EGR4.

Gramicidin is a well-known antibiotic and recently was reported to induced tumour cell death, however, little is understood about the molecular mechanism of gramicidin as a therapeutic agent for solid tumours. Here, we investigated the role of gramicidin in cholangiocarcinoma cells. We found that gramicidin A inhibits cholangiocarcinoma cell growth and induced the necrotic cell death.

Structural and Functional Connectivity of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex in Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder.

Background: Emerging evidences supported the hypothesis that emotional dysregulation results from aberrant connectivity within the fronto-limbic neural networks in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Considering its important role in emotional regulation, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has not yet been fully explored in BPD patients. Therefore, using the seed-based resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) and probabilistic fiber tracking, we aimed to explore the alterations of functional and structural connectivity (SC) of the ACC in patients with BPD.

miR-301a promotes lung tumorigenesis by suppressing Runx3.

Background: Our previous report demonstrated that genetic ablation of miR-301a reduces Kras-driven lung tumorigenesis in mice. However, the impact of miR-301a on host anti-tumor immunity remains unexplored. Here we assessed the underlying molecular mechanisms of miR-301a in the tumor microenvironment.

Resting-State Default Mode Network Related Functional Connectivity Is Associated With Sustained Attention Deficits in Schizophrenia and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Previous studies have indicated the resting-state default mode network (DMN) related connectivity serving as predictor of sustained attention performance in healthy people. Interestingly, sustained attention deficits as well as DMN-involved functional connectivity (FC) alterations are common in both patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) and with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Thus, the present study was designed to investigate whether the DMN related resting-state connectivity alterations in these two psychiatric disorders were neural correlates of their sustained attention impairments.

RNA-Seq Analyses of the Role of miR-21 in Acute Pancreatitis.

Background/aims: Our previous study demonstrated that a deficiency of microRNA 21 (miR-21) protects mice from acute pancreatitis, yet the underlying molecular networks associated with miR-21 in pancreatitis and pancreatitis-associated lung injury remain unexplored.

Methods: We used next generation sequencing to analyze gene expression profiles of pancreatic tissues from wild-type (WT) and miR-21 knockout (KO) mice treated with caerulein by using a 1-day treatment protocol. The Database for Annotation, Visualization, and Integrated Discovery gene annotation tool and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis were used to analyze the molecular pathways, while quantitative real-time PCR, western blotting, and immunohistochemistry were used to explore the molecular mechanisms.

Malignant Transformation of Human Bronchial Epithelial Cells Induced by Arsenic through STAT3/miR-301a/SMAD4 Loop.

Arsenic is a well-known of human carcinogen and miR-301a is an oncogenic microRNA, which links to oncogenesis, however, little is understood about its contribution to arsenic-induced cellular transformation and tumorigenesis. Here, we investigated the role of miR-301a during arsenic-induced cellular transformation and tumor formation. miR-301a was found to be upregulated during arsenic-induced BEAS-2B transformation and the overexpression of miR-301a was dependent on IL-6/STAT3 signaling.