Concatenating Microbial, Enzymatic, and Organometallic Catalysis for Integrated Conversion of Renewable Carbon Sources.

The chemical industry can now seize the opportunity to improve the sustainability of its processes by replacing fossil carbon sources with renewable alternatives such as CO, biomass, and plastics, thereby thinking ahead and having a look into the future. For their conversion to intermediate and final products, different types of catalysts-microbial, enzymatic, and organometallic-can be applied. The first part of this review shows how these catalysts can work separately in parallel, each route with unique requirements and advantages.

A gradient of hemisphere-specific dorsal to ventral processing routes in parieto-premotor networks.

Networks in the parietal and premotor cortices enable essential human abilities regarding motor processing, including attention and tool use. Even though our knowledge on its topography has steadily increased, a detailed picture of hemisphere-specific integrating pathways is still lacking. With the help of multishell diffusion magnetic resonance imaging, probabilistic tractography, and the Graph Theory Analysis, we investigated connectivity patterns between frontal premotor and posterior parietal brain areas in healthy individuals.

Investigating proactive aggression in patients with borderline personality disorder and major depressive disorder using a modified version of the Taylor aggression paradigm.

Introduction: Inappropriate reactive (provoked) aggression is common in various psychiatric disorders, including Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and, to a lesser extent, Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Less is known about proactive (unprovoked) aggression in these patients, with mixed findings in the literature. Drawing from the current evidence, we expect higher trait aggression in both patient groups and higher behavioral proactive aggression and physiological arousal in patients with BPD compared to both MDD and healthy participants (HC).

A study of long-term GABA and high-energy phosphate alterations in the primary motor cortex using anodal tDCS and H/P MR spectroscopy.

Introduction: Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been reported to modulate gamma-aminobutyric acid levels and cerebral energy consumption in the brain. This study aims to investigate long-term GABA and cerebral energy modulation following anodal tDCS over the primary motor cortex.

Method: To assess GABA and energy level changes, proton and phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy data were acquired before and after anodal or sham tDCS.

Why Current Detection of Vascular Calcification Falls Short and How to Improve on It.

Vascular calcification is a common phenomenon in various vascular diseases, where its presence heralds increased occurrence of adverse disease events, which invariably lead to increased morbidity and mortality in patients. Although the impact of calcification has become apparent, adequate and early detection of the most damaging form of early microcalcification is still in its infancy, preventing reliable identification of locations that would benefit from intervention. In this review, we will provide an overview of the current state-of-the-art noninvasive calcification imaging and its persisting limitations.

The maturation of infant and toddler visual cortex neural activity and associations with fine motor performance.

Our understanding of how visual cortex neural processes mature during infancy and toddlerhood is limited. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), the present study investigated the development of visual evoked responses (VERs) in cross-sectional and longitudinal samples of infants and toddlers 2 months to 3 years. Brain space analyses focused on N1m and P1m latency, as well as N1m-to-P1m amplitude.

- a large-scale dataset of 3D medical shapes for computer vision.

Objectives: The shape is commonly used to describe the objects. State-of-the-art algorithms in medical imaging are predominantly diverging from computer vision, where voxel grids, meshes, point clouds, and implicit surface models are used. This is seen from the growing popularity of ShapeNet (51,300 models) and Princeton ModelNet (127,915 models).

The role of biodegradable plastics in lignite anaerobic digestion: Changes of organics transformation and metabolic pathway.

Biodegradable plastics (BPs) and lignite, both rich in organic matter, present significant challenges for efficient conversion into clean energy. This study examined the anaerobic co-digestion of BPs and lignite under controlled laboratory conditions. The results demonstrated that the co-digestion of polylactic acid (PLA) and lignite (at a 1:2 mass ratio, with 5 g PLA and 10 g lignite as the model system) rapidly acclimated to the anaerobic environment, enhancing cumulative biogas production by 57 % compared to the mono-digestion of lignite alone.

A hepatocellular carcinoma model with and without parenchymal liver damage that integrates technical and pathophysiological advantages for therapy testing.

Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) is the most common form of primary liver cancer, with cirrhosis being its strongest risk factor. Interestingly, an increasing number of HCC cases is also observed without cirrhosis. We developed an HCC model via intrasplenic injection of highly tumorigenic HCC cells, which, due to cellular tropism, invade the liver and allow for a controllable disease progression.

Various Hydrogel Types as a Potential In Vitro Angiogenesis Model.

Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, is a fundamental process in both physiological repair mechanisms and pathological conditions, including cancer and chronic inflammation. Hydrogels are commonly used as in vitro models to mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM) and support endothelial cell behavior during angiogenesis. Mesenchymal stem cells further augment cell and tissue growth and are therefore widely used in regenerative medicine.

Inhibition of intracellular versus extracellular cathepsin D differentially alters the liver lipidome of mice with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.

The prevalence of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) progressing to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), characterized by hepatic inflammation, has significantly increased in recent years due to unhealthy dietary practices and sedentary lifestyles. Cathepsin D (CTSD), a lysosomal protease involved in lipid homeostasis, is linked to abnormal lipid metabolism and inflammation in MASH. Although primarily intracellular, CTSD can be secreted extracellularly.

Predictors of anxiety in endometriosis patients.

Purpose: To evaluate the main factors influencing anxiety in endometriosis patients presenting to an endometriosis centre in Germany.

Methods: One hundred and eighty-two patients were asked to complete the German version of the STAI (state anxiety and trait anxiety) questionnaire prior to examination for diagnosis and treatment of pelvic pain or suspected endometriosis. Typical endometriosis symptoms, main complaints, operations, type of endometriosis and planned treatment were analyzed as influencing factors of anxiety in endometriosis patients.

Noble-Metal-Free Cocatalysts Reinforcing Hole Consumption for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution with Ultrahigh Apparent Quantum Efficiency.

Achieving efficient and sustainable hydrogen production through photocatalysis is highly promising yet remains a significant challenge, especially when replacing costly noble metals with more abundant alternatives. Conversion efficiency with noble-metal-free alternatives is frequently limited by high charge recombination rates, mainly due to the sluggish transfer and inefficient consumption of photo-generated holes. To address these challenges, a rational design of noble-metal-free cocatalysts as oxidative sites is reported to facilitate hole consumption, leading to markedly increased H yield rates without relying on expensive noble metals.

The fruit fly as a screening model for antiseizure medications.

Objective: Resistance to antiseizure medications (ASMs) is a major challenge in the treatment of patients with epilepsy. Despite numerous newly marketed ASMs, the proportion of drug-resistant people with epilepsy has not significantly decreased over the years. Therefore, novel and innovative seizure models for preclinical drug screening are highly desirable.

Bronchoscopic biopsies - a novel source for primary airway epithelial cells in respiratory research.

Background: Using primary airway epithelial cells (AEC) is essential to mimic more closely different types and stages of lung disease in humans while reducing or even replacing animal experiments. Access to lung tissue remains limited because these samples are generally obtained from patients who undergo lung transplantation for end-stage lung disease or thoracic surgery for (mostly) lung cancer. We investigated whether forceps or cryo biopsies are a viable alternative source of AEC compared to the conventional technique.

Trimethylamine-N-oxide accelerates osteoporosis by PERK activation of ATF5 unfolding.

Imbalances in gut microbiota and their metabolites have been implicated in osteoporotic disorders. Trimethylamine-n-oxide (TMAO), a metabolite of L-carnitine produced by gut microorganisms and flavin-containing monooxygenase-3, is known to accelerate tissue metabolism and remodeling; however, its role in bone loss remained unexplored. This study investigates the relationship between gut microbiota dysbiosis, TMAO production, and osteoporosis development.

Ecologically sustainable benchmarking of AI models for histopathology.

Deep learning (DL) holds great promise to improve medical diagnostics, including pathology. Current DL research mainly focuses on performance. DL implementation potentially leads to environmental consequences but approaches for assessment of both performance and carbon footprint are missing.

Remission induction therapies and long-term outcomes in granulomatosis with polyangiitis and microscopic polyangiitis: real-world data from a European cohort.

To explore disease characteristics, renal involvement and induction treatment strategies over the last decades and evaluate relapse rates and renal outcomes in ANCA-associated vasculitides (AAV). We retrospectively analyzed remission, relapse rates and the occurrence of the composite endpoint (comprising death and renal failure) in newly diagnosed AAV cases in four tertial referral centers in Germany and Switzerland diagnosed between 1999 and 2022. Hazard ratios were computed by Cox proportional hazard and Kaplan-Meier curves were plotted to compare therapeutic strategies after propensity-matching.

An ultra-high vacuum scanning tunneling microscope with pulse tube and Joule-Thomson cooling operating at sub-pm z-noise.

Low-temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy is a key method to probe electronic and magnetic properties down to the atomic scale, but suffers from extreme vibrational sensitivity. This makes it challenging to employ closed-cycle cooling with its required pulse-type vibrational excitations, albeit this is mandatory to avoid helium losses for counteracting the continuously raising helium prices. Here, we describe a compact ultra-high vacuum scanning tunneling microscope (STM) system with an integrated primary pulse tube cooler (PTC) for closed-cycle operation.

Graphene or MoS nanopores: pore adhesion and protein linearization.

Nanopores drilled in materials can electrophoretically drive charged biomolecules to enable their detection. Here, we explore and compare two-dimensional nanopores, graphene and MoS, in order to unravel their advantages and disadvantages with regard to protein detection. We tuned the protein translocation and its dynamics by the choice and concentration of the surrounding solvent.

Crosstalk between periodontitis and cardiovascular risk.

Recent demographic developments resulted in an aged society with a rising disease burden of systemic and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). In cardiovascular disease (CVD), a NCD with high morbidity and mortality, recent preventive strategies include the investigation of comorbidities to reduce its significant economic burden. Periodontal disease, an oral bacterial-induced inflammatory disease of tooth-supporting tissue, is regulated in its prevalence and severity by the individual host response to a dysbiotic oral microbiota.

Encompassing view of spatial and single-cell RNA sequencing renews the role of the microvasculature in human atherosclerosis.

Atherosclerosis is a pervasive contributor to ischemic heart disease and stroke. Despite the advance of lipid-lowering therapies and anti-hypertensive agents, the residual risk of an atherosclerotic event remains high, and developing therapeutic strategies has proven challenging. This is due to the complexity of atherosclerosis with a spatial interplay of multiple cell types within the vascular wall.