Ammonium Transporter 1 () Gene Family in Pomegranate: Genome-Wide Analysis and Expression Profiles in Response to Salt Stress.

Understanding the ammonium (NH) uptake and transport systems, particularly genes, is important for plant growth and defense. However, there is a lack of research on identifying and analyzing genes in pomegranate, emphasizing the need for further investigation in this area. Five genes ( to ) were identified, all of which contain the PF00909 domain, a feature of ammonium transporters.

Fluorogenic Biosensing with Tunable Polydiacetylene Vesicles.

Polydiacetylenes (PDAs) are conjugated polymers that are well known for their colorimetric transition from blue to red with the application of energetic stimulus. Sensing platforms based on polymerized diacetylene surfactant vesicles and other structures have been widely demonstrated for various colorimetric biosensing applications. Although less studied and utilized, the transition also results in a change from a non-fluorescent to a highly fluorescent state, making polydiacetylenes useful for both colorimetric and fluorogenic sensing applications.

Characterization and Machine Learning-Driven Property Prediction of a Novel Hybrid Hydrogel Bioink Considering Extrusion-Based 3D Bioprinting.

The field of tissue engineering has made significant advancements with extrusion-based bioprinting, which uses shear forces to create intricate tissue structures. However, the success of this method heavily relies on the rheological properties of bioinks. Most bioinks use shear-thinning.

N-Oxalylglycine-Conjugated Hyaluronic Acid as a Macromolecular Prodrug for Therapeutic Angiogenesis.

Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) initiates the cellular response to low oxygen levels, making it an attractive target for stimulating therapeutic angiogenesis. Several small molecules have been identified that stabilize HIF-1α and activate the angiogenic signaling pathway. However, achieving therapeutic doses of bioactive small molecules in target tissues remains challenging.

Feasibility and Preliminary Effects of Acupuncture for Cognitive Dysfunction in Diverse Cancer Survivors: A Pilot, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial.

(1) Background: This pilot study evaluates the feasibility and preliminary effects of acupuncture for cancer-related cognitive dysfunction (CRCD) in cancer survivors. (2) Methods: A randomized trial comparing real acupuncture (RA) to sham acupuncture (SA) and waitlist control (WLC) among cancer survivors reporting cognitive difficulties. Interventions were delivered weekly over 10 weeks.

Pain and Frailty in Childhood Cancer Survivors: A Narrative Review.

A significant proportion of childhood cancer survivors experience persistent health problems related to cancer or cancer treatment exposures, including accelerated or early onset of aging. Survivors are more likely than non-cancer peers to present a frail phenotype suggestive of reduced physiologic reserve and have symptoms that interfere with function in daily life, including pain. Studies in the general population, mostly among older adults, suggest that pain is a significant contributor to development and progression of frail health.

Nutritional Counseling During Chemotherapy Treatment: A Systematic Review of Feasibility, Safety, and Efficacy.

Dietary interventions during chemotherapy hold promise for clinical and supportive care outcomes. We systematically investigated the feasibility, safety, and efficacy of nutritional counseling conducted during chemotherapy. Studies prospectively implemented nutrition counseling during chemotherapy.

Trauma, Justice, and Equity: Using Critical Theories and Concepts to Address Systemic Harm Among Youth Punishment System-Involved Black Girls.

This review critically evaluates the existing literature on youth punishment system (YPS)-involved Black girls and their intersections of with trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It synthesizes findings from previous studies, identifying key research trends, gaps, and controversies, while also highlighting areas in need of further investigation. Black girls, particularly those involved in systems such as juvenile justice, child welfare, and education, often face disproportionate exposure to violence, abuse and neglect, trauma, and systemic racism.

Transport Numbers and Electroosmosis in Cation-Exchange Membranes with Aqueous Electrolyte Solutions of HCl, LiCl, NaCl, KCl, MgCl, CaCl and NHCl.

Electroosmosis reduces the available energy from ion transport arising due to concentration gradients across ion-exchange membranes. This work builds on previous efforts to describe the electroosmosis, the permselectivity and the apparent transport number of a membrane, and we show new measurements of concentration cells with the Selemion CMVN cation-exchange membrane and single-salt solutions of HCl, LiCl, NaCl, MgCl, CaCl and NHCl. Ionic transport numbers and electroosmotic water transport relative to the membrane are efficiently obtained from a relatively new permselectivity analysis method.

Key Role of Phosphorylation in Small Heat Shock Protein Regulation via Oligomeric Disaggregation and Functional Activation.

Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are essential molecular chaperones that protect cells by aiding in protein folding and preventing aggregation under stress conditions. Small heat shock proteins (sHSPs), which include members from HSPB1 to HSPB10, are particularly important for cellular stress responses. These proteins share a conserved α-crystallin domain (ACD) critical for their chaperone function, with flexible N- and C-terminal extensions that facilitate oligomer formation.

Dysregulation of Metabolic Peptides Precedes Hyperinsulinemia and Inflammation Following Exposure to Rotenone in Rats.

Rotenone, a naturally occurring compound derived from the roots of tropical plants, is used as a broad-spectrum insecticide, piscicide, and pesticide. It is a classical, high-affinity mitochondrial complex I inhibitor that causes not only oxidative stress, α-synuclein phosphorylation, DJ-1 (Parkinson's disease protein 7) modifications, and inhibition of the ubiquitin-proteasome system but it is also widely considered an environmental contributor to Parkinson's disease (PD). While prodromal symptoms, such as loss of smell, constipation, sleep disorder, anxiety/depression, and the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra of rotenone-treated animals, have been reported, alterations of metabolic hormones and hyperinsulinemia remain largely unknown and need to be investigated.

Effect of Kinases in Extracellular Vesicles from HIV-1-Infected Cells on Bystander Cells.

As of 2023, there were 39.9 million people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1). Although great strides have been made in treatment options for HIV-1, and our understanding of the HIV-1 life cycle has vastly improved since the start of this global health crisis, a functional cure remains elusive.

Gene-Environment Interaction: Small Deletions (DELs) and Transcriptomic Profiles in Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (NMSC) and Potential Implications for Therapy.

Arsenic (As) is a risk factor for non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC). From a six-year follow-up study on 7000 adults exposed to As, we reported the associations of single-nucleotide variation in tumor tissue and gene expression. Here, we identify the associations of small deletions (DELs) and transcriptomic profiles in NMSC.

Enhanced Interleukin 6 Trans-Signaling Modulates Disease Process in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Mouse Models.

Charcot first described ALS in 1869, but the specific mechanisms that mediate the disease pathology are still not clear. Intense research efforts have provided insight into unique neuroanatomical regions, specific neuronal populations and genetic associations for ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases; however, the experimental results also suggest a convergence of these events to common toxic pathways. We propose that common toxic pathways can be therapeutically targeted, and this intervention will be effective in slowing progression and improving patient quality of life.

Cerebellar Volume Measures Differentiate Multiple Sclerosis Fallers from Non-Fallers.

Introduction: The cerebellum is a common lesion site in persons with multiple sclerosis (PwMS). Physiologic and anatomic studies have identified a topographic organization of the cerebellum including functionally distinct motor and cognitive areas. In this study, a recent parcellation algorithm was applied to a sample of PwMS and healthy controls to examine the relationships among specific cerebellar regions, fall status, and common clinical measures of motor and cognitive functions.

Syllable as a Synchronization Mechanism That Makes Human Speech Possible.

Speech is a highly skilled motor activity that shares a core problem with other motor skills: how to reduce the massive degrees of freedom (DOF) to the extent that the central nervous control and learning of complex motor movements become possible. It is hypothesized in this paper that a key solution to the DOF problem is to eliminate most of the temporal degrees of freedom by synchronizing concurrent movements, and that this is performed in speech through the syllable-a mechanism that synchronizes consonantal, vocalic, and laryngeal gestures. Under this hypothesis, syllable articulation is enabled by three basic mechanisms: target approximation, edge-synchronization, and tactile anchoring.

Are Collagen Protons Visible with the Zero Echo Time (ZTE) Magnetic Resonance Imaging Sequence: A DO Exchange and Freeze-Drying Study.

It is known that ultrashort echo time (UTE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences can detect signals from water protons but not collagen protons in short T2 species such as cortical bone and tendons. However, whether collagen protons are visible with the zero echo time (ZTE) MRI sequence is still unclear. In this study, we investigated the potential of the ZTE MRI sequence on a clinical 3T scanner to directly image collagen protons via DO exchange and freeze-drying experiments.

Novel Fast-Setting and Mechanically-Strong Calcium Phosphate Pulp-Capping Cement with Metformin Release to Enhance Dental Pulp Stem Cells.

Traditional pulp-capping materials like mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) offer excellent biocompatibility and sealing, but limitations such as prolonged setting time, low bioactivity, and high costs persist. Metformin, with its potential in craniofacial regeneration, could enhance dentin synthesis by targeting pulp cells. This study aimed to: (1) develop a calcium phosphate cement with chitosan (CPCC) with improved physio-mechanical properties; (2) incorporate metformin (CPCC-Met) to assess release; and (3) evaluate human dental pulp stem cells (hDPSCs) response.

HDNLS: Hybrid Deep-Learning and Non-Linear Least Squares-Based Method for Fast Multi-Component T1ρ Mapping in the Knee Joint.

Non-linear least squares (NLS) methods are commonly used for quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), especially for multi-exponential T1ρ mapping, which provides precise parameter estimation for different relaxation models in tissues, such as mono-exponential (ME), bi-exponential (BE), and stretched-exponential (SE) models. However, NLS may suffer from problems like sensitivity to initial guesses, slow convergence speed, and high computational cost. While deep learning (DL)-based T1ρ fitting methods offer faster alternatives, they often face challenges such as noise sensitivity and reliance on NLS-generated reference data for training.

Risk factors affecting polygenic score performance across diverse cohorts.

Apart from ancestry, personal or environmental covariates may contribute to differences in polygenic score (PGS) performance. We analyzed the effects of covariate stratification and interaction on body mass index (BMI) PGS (PGS) across four cohorts of European (N = 491,111) and African (N = 21,612) ancestry. Stratifying on binary covariates and quintiles for continuous covariates, 18/62 covariates had significant and replicable R differences among strata.

Creating Glepaglutide, the First Long-Acting GLP-2 Analogue to Enable a Ready-to-Use Injection.

Human glucagon-like peptide-2 (hGLP-2) receptor agonists have a benefit for the treatment of short bowel syndrome (SBS) and potentially other intestinal diseases (e.g., IBD).

Deep learning-based design and experimental validation of a medicine-like human antibody library.

Antibody generation requires the use of one or more time-consuming methods, namely animal immunization, and in vitro display technologies. However, the recent availability of large amounts of antibody sequence and structural data in the public domain along with the advent of generative deep learning algorithms raises the possibility of computationally generating novel antibody sequences with desirable developability attributes. Here, we describe a deep learning model for computationally generating libraries of highly human antibody variable regions whose intrinsic physicochemical properties resemble those of the variable regions of the marketed antibody-based biotherapeutics (medicine-likeness).

Unveiling the electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction mechanism in heteroatom-decorated-MoCS-MXene: the synergistic effect of single-atom Fe and heteroatom.

Conversion of nitrogen (N) to ammonia (NH) is a significant process that occurs in environment and in the field of chemistry, but the traditional NH synthesis method requires high energy and pollutes the environment. In this work, the charge, orbital and spin order of the single-atom Fe loaded on heteroatom (X) doped-MoCS (X = B, N, O, F, P and Se) and its synergistic effect on electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction (eNRR) were investigated using well-defined density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Results revealed that the X-element modified the charge loss capability of Fe atoms and thereby introduced a net spin through heteroatom doping, resulting in the magnetic moment modulation of Fe.

Effects of CO and liquid digestate concentrations on the growth performance and biomass composition of and microalgal strains.

This study evaluated the growth performance of and microalgae cultivated in diluted liquid digestate supplemented with CO, comparing their efficiency to that of a conventional synthetic media. The presence of an initial concentration of ammonium of 125 mg N-NH .L combined with the continuous injection of 1% v/v CO enhanced the optimal growth responses and bioremediation potential for both strains in 200-mL cultures.

Inactivation of antibiotic resistant bacteria by nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots through spontaneous generation of intracellular and extracellular reactive oxygen species.

The widespread antibiotic resistance has called for alternative antimicrobial agents. Carbon nanomaterials, especially carbon quantum dots (CQDs), may be promising alternatives due to their desirable physicochemical properties and potential antimicrobial activity, but their antimicrobial mechanism remains to be investigated. In this study, nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots (N-CQDs) were synthesized to inactivate antibiotic-resistant bacteria and treat bacterial keratitis.