Notum, a negative feedback regulator of the Wnt signaling, has emerged as a promising target for treating glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (GIOP). This study showcases an efficient strategy for discovering the anti-Notum constituents from herbal medicines (HMs) as novel anti-GIOP agents. Firstly, a rapid-responding near-infrared fluorogenic substrate for Notum was rationally engineered for high-throughput identifying the anti-Notum HMs. The results showed that Bu-Gu-Zhi (BGZ), a known anti-osteoporosis herb, potently inhibited Notum in a competitive-inhibition manner. To uncover the key anti-Notum constituents in BGZ, an efficient strategy was adapted via integrating biochemical, phytochemical, computational, and pharmacological assays. Among all identified BGZ constituents, three furanocoumarins were validated as strong Notum inhibitors, while 5-methoxypsoralen (5-MP) showed the most potent anti-Notum activity and favorable safety profiles. Mechanistically, 5-MP acted as a competitive inhibitor of Notum via creating strong hydrophobic interactions with Trp128 and Phe268 in the catalytic cavity of Notum. Cellular assays showed that 5-MP remarkably promoted osteoblast differentiation and activated Wnt signaling in dexamethasone (DXMS)-challenged MC3T3-E1 osteoblasts. In dexamethasone-induced osteoporotic mice, 5-MP strongly elevated bone mineral density (BMD) and improved cancellous and cortical bone thickness. Collectively, this study constructs a high-efficient platform for discovering key anti-Notum constituents from HMs, while 5-MP emerges as a promising anti-GIOP agent.

Animal survival necessitates adaptive behaviors in volatile environmental contexts. Virtual reality (VR) technology is instrumental to study the neural mechanisms underlying behaviors modulated by environmental context by simulating the real world with maximized control of contextual elements. Yet current VR tools for rodents have limited flexibility and performance (e.g., frame rate) for context-dependent cognitive research. Here, we describe a high-performance VR platform with which to study contextual behaviors immersed in editable virtual contexts. This platform was assembled from modular hardware and custom-written software with flexibility and upgradability. Using this platform, we trained mice to perform context-dependent cognitive tasks with rules ranging from discrimination to delayed-sample-to-match while recording from thousands of hippocampal place cells. By precise manipulations of context elements, we found that the context recognition was intact with partial context elements, but impaired by exchanges of context elements. Collectively, our work establishes a configurable VR platform with which to investigate context-dependent cognition with large-scale neural recording.
Animals ; Mice ; Rodentia ; Virtual Reality ; Cognition ; Recognition, Psychology

Objective To explore whether different Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection status is involved in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) pathogenesis through type Ⅰ interferon pathway by observing the EBV antibodies,serum interferon α (IFN-α) level and four type Ⅰ interferon induced gene (ISGs;2'-5' oligoadenylate synthetase-like protein (OASL),myxovirous resistant 1 (MX1),interferon-stimulated gene 15 (ISG15) and lymphocyte antigen 6 complex,locus E (LY6E) expressions in SLE patients and healthy controls.Methods Forty-eight patients with SLE and 36 healthy controls were enrolled into this study.The serum antibodies of EBV capsid antigen-IgG/lgM and EBV nuclear antigen 1-IgG,and serum levels of IFN-α were measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method.Real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction was used to test the mRNA levels of OASL,MX1,ISG15 and LY6E in the peripheral blood lymphocytes (2-△△Ct was used to indicate the gene expression).Statistical analysis was performed using t-test or Mann-Whitney U test,Chi square test and Spearman correlation test.Results ① The EBV lytic infection rate (VCA-IgM) in SLE patients was higher than that in healthy controls (40％ vs 11％,x2=5.381,P=0.027).② The serum levels of IFN-α in SLE patients were higher than those in the healthy controls [(206±151) ng/L vs (90± 76) ng/L,t=4.248,P＜0.05],as well as the mRNA levels of OASL,MX1,ISG15 and LY6E [1.8(0.6,5.1) vs 1.2 (0.5,1.4);1.9(1.0,4.4) vs 0.9(0.7,2.5);4.1(1.6,7.8) vs 0.8(0.5,1.7);1.6(0.7,3.3) vs 0.8(0.6,1.2),U=604,560,312,608;P＜0.05,respectively].The mRNA levels of OASL,MX1,LY6E and ISG15 were all positively related to SLE disease activity index (SLEDAI) scores (r=0.319,0.461,0.547,0.484,P＜0.05,respectively).Serum IFN-α levels were elevated in SLE patients with EBV lytic infection than in non-lytic infection patients [(282± 174) ng/L vs (157±114) ng/L,t=2.604,P＜0.05];The mRNA levels of OASL and ISG15 were also elevated in patients with lytic EBV infection [2.0(0.8,7.6) vs 1.2(0.6,3.1);6.2(2.4,15.5) vs 3.3(1.3,6.3),U=377,350,385,354;P＜0.05,respectively].The SLEDAI scores in patients with EBV lyric infection were higher than in patients with non-lyric infection (16±4 vs 12±8,P＜0.05).Conclusion EBV infection may be involved in the pathogenesis of SLE by activating the type Ⅰ interferon pathway.

The duration of QRS wave,P wave and T wave of ECG can be computerized auto-detected with digital signal process and waveform recognition technology. It can diagnose 15 kinds of abnormal ECG such as ventricular presystole automatically and print out corresponding diagnosis reports. In order to verify the systems stability and creditability, we used American MIT-BIH database to test our algorithms and got a good result.