Objective:To investigate the effect of β-elemene on mitochondrial structure and function of the A549 cells of non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC),and to elucidate the mechanism of β-elemene in the treatment of NSCLC.Methods:The A549 cells at logarithmic growth stage were divided into blank control group(0 mng·L-1 β-elemene),low,medium and high doses of β-elemene groups(10,25 and 50 mg·L-1),and solvent control group(0.5％ethanol in equal volume).After treatment for 24 h,the cell activities in various groups were detected by MTT assay;the morphology changes of mitochondria in the cells in various groups was observed by transmission electron microscope;the levels of adenosine 5′-triphosphate(ATP)in the cells in various groups were detected by colorimetry;the mitochondrial membrane potential of the A549 cells in various groups were detected by JC-1 flow cytometry;mitochondrial membrane permeability transfer hole assay was used to detect the mitochondrial membrane permeabilities of the cells in various groups.Results:The MTT results showed that compared with blank control group,the cell activities in low,medium and high doses of β-elemene groups were decreased gradually(P＜0.05),while the cell activity in solvent control group had no significant change,and the difference was not significant(P＞0.05).The transmission electron microscope results showed that compared with blank control group,the mitochondria of A549 cells in low,medium and high doses ofβ-elemene groups showed swelling,vacuolation,disordered arrangement and dissolution,while the mitochondrial morphology of the A549 cells in solvent control group had no significant changes.The colorimetric method results showed that compared with blank control group,the ATP levels in the A549 cells in low,medium and high dose β-elemene groups were gradually decreased(P＜0.05),while the ATP level in the A549 cells in solvent control group had no significant change,and the difference was not significant(P＞0.05).The JC-1 flow cytometry method results showed that compared with blank control group,the mitochondrial membrane potential of the A549 cells in low,medium and high doses ofβ-elemene groups were decreased,and the percentages of the cells in Q2-4 region were increased(P＜0.05);the percentage of the A549 cells in the Q2-4 region in solvent control group had no significant change.The results of mitochondrial membrane permeability transfer hole experiment showed that compared with blank control group,the mitochondrial membrane permeabilities of the A549 cells in low,medium and high doses of β-elemene groups were increased,and the percentages of the cells in M4 region were increased(P＜0.05);the mitochondrial membrane permeability of the A549 cells and the percentage of the M4 cells in solvent control group had no significant changes,and the difference was not significant(P＞0.05).Conclusion:β-elemene can inhibit the proliferation of the A549 cells,and the mechanism may be that the mitochondrial structure of A549 cells is damaged by reducing the level of ATP and mitochondrial membrane potential,changing the mitochondrial morphology and increasing the mitochondrial membrane permeability.

In the era of rational molecular design of fusion proteins,linker selection has garnered significant attention as a critical determinant of construct functionality.Suboptimal selection of linkers may result in such structural perturbations as protein misfolding,reduced expression yields,and compromised bioactivity.Consequently,the strategic selection of linkers tailored to specific objectives of molecular design by optimizing spatial orientation,maintaining domain autonomy or enabling post-translational modifications has emerged as a pivotal research frontier.Given these challenges,this review outlines the common properties of linkers,ways of classification,and the functional-structural interplay in current applications.Furthermore,we propose context-dependent selection frameworks for therapeutic proteins,biosensors,and enzyme cascades,which can serve as a systematic methodology to guide linker optimization in next-generation fusion protein engineering.

BACKGROUND:How to improve the accuracy of puncture,reduce surgical damage,and improve surgical efficiency during vertebroplasty is currently one of the focuses of exploration and improvement in vertebroplasty techniques. OBJECTIVE:To explore the clinical significance of application of mixed reality technology in percutaneous vertebroplasty for spinal fractures. METHODS:Two patients with osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture in Dalian Second People's Hospital in June 2023 were selected.Before operation,128-row CT scanning of the lumbar spine was performed and the original data of digital imaging and communications in medicine(DICOM)were obtained.Visual Volume software was used to build the three-dimensional network model of vertebral compression fracture.Holographic imaging glasses were used to accurately map 3D network model images to the real world,assist the surgeon in completing preoperative simulation,explaining preoperative conditions and treatment plans,and guiding puncture and bone cement injection during surgery. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:(1)Precise puncture was achieved with the assistance of a mixed reality technology.Postoperative imaging examination showed good bone cement filling and no obvious leakage.The postoperative symptoms of the patient were alleviated well,and they were able to move to the ground on the same day after surgery.(2)It is concluded that a mixed reality technology is helpful for preoperative surgical design and communication efficiency with patients and their families.Assisting with precise puncture during surgery,shortening surgical time,and reducing side injuries is a new and effective clinical diagnosis and treatment model,which has development potential in minimally invasive,precise,and personalized treatment of spinal surgery.

Recently,the substance P(SP)/neurokinin-1 receptor(NK-1R)system has been found to be involved in various human pathophysiological disorders including the symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19).Besides,studies in the oncological field have demonstrated an intricate correlation between the upregulation of NK-1R and the activation of SP/NK-1R system with the progression of multiple carcinoma types and poor clinical prognosis.These findings indicate that the modulation of SP/NK-1R system with NK-1R antagonists can be a potential broad-spectrum antitumor strategy.This review updates the latest potential and applications of NK-1R antagonists in the treatment of human diseases and cancers,as well as the underlying mechanisms.Furthermore,the strategies to improve the bioavailability and efficacy of NK-1R antagonist drugs are summarized,such as solid dispersion systems,nanonization,and nanoencapsulation.As a radiopharmaceutical therapeutic,the NK-1R antagonist aprepitant was originally developed as radioligand receptor to target NK-1R-overexpressing tumors.However,combining NK-1R antagonists with other drugs can produce a synergistic effect,thereby enhancing the therapeutic effect,alleviating the symptoms,and improving patients'quality of life in several diseases and cancers.

Surgery is an important treatment for the anterior mediastinal disease. With the rapid development of minimally invasive techniques, complete resection of the lesion in most patients with thymic disease can be achieved through thoracoscopic surgery. Practice has proved that the three-port resection of anterior mediastinal thymus disease via the subxiphoid approach is an ideal surgical method for the treatment of anterior mediastinal thymic tumors at present, which has strong popularization and popularity and can benefit the patients. The procedure focuses primarily on the anterior and upper mediastinum and can thoroughly expose the anatomy of the mediastinum and both sides, with minimal intraoperative bleeding, high safety, minimal trauma and postoperative pain, and a short hospital stay. It has clear advantages over conventional thoracic open-heart surgery and transversal resection. However, the surgical approach and field of view, and intraoperative precautions of this procedure are completely different from those of previous thoracoscopic procedures, and from the subxiphoid single-port approach adopted by other centers. Based on 10 years of surgical experience at our center, a modular mode of surgical operation has been developed and its procedure has been standardized. This paper will share and discuss relevant operational points and experiences.

Objective To observe the alterations in functional complexity of brain regions in autism spectrum disorder(ASD)patients and correlations with the predicted brain age.Methods Open brain resting-state functional MRI(rs-MRI)data of 93 ASD patients and 96 typically developing adolescents(healthy subjects)were downloaded.The functional complexity in brain regions were extracted with self-developed virtual digital brain software,and the alterations in functional complexity of brain regions in ASD patients and correlations with their ages were analyzed.Two networks were prospectively trained with data of 65 ASD patients and 67 healthy subjects as the training set to predict brain age,and the results were evaluated,and the predicting errors were compared using test set,i.e.the other 28 ASD patients and 29 healthy subjects.Results Compared to healthy subjects,on the basis of anatomical automatic labeling(AAL)atlas,ASD patients exhibited significantly reduced functional complexity based on Shannon entropy in the left precuneus,left cuneus and right parahippocampal gyrus.Conversely,functional complexity of ASD patients based on permutation entropy significantly increased in the left cuneus and right cerebellar Crus Ⅱ region.The left hippocampus showed reduced functional complexity based on Pearson correlation coefficient,while the left middle temporal gyrus showed increased functional complexity based on Pearson correlation coefficient.The functional complexity in brain regions of ASD patients were not closely correlated with ages(all|r|＜0.4).According to the trained fully connected network,the predicted brain ages of ASD patients and healthy subjects in test set were all lower than their physiological ages,but no significant difference was found between the prediction errors of ASD patients and healthy subjects(P=0.283).Conclusion Functional complexity changed in some brain region functions in ASD patients.The predicted brain ages of ASD patients based on the obtained fully connected network were on the low side,but not obviously affected by the alterations of functional complexity in brain regions.

The major histocompatibility complex(MHC)is closely related to immune regulation.MHC shows distinct genetic polymorphism,and there are also species differences in MHC restriction.The human MHC is called human leukocyte antigen(HLA),and the mouse MHC is called H-2.The construction of humanized MHC transgenic mouse models is an important strategy to overcome the differences in MHC among species and simulate the characteristics of a human immune response.MHC transgenic mice are mainly divided into MHC Ⅰ or MHC Ⅱ single-transgenic mouse models and MHC Ⅰ and MHC Ⅱ double-transgenic mouse models.The development of HLA Ⅰ transgenic mouse model went through three stages,at present,the strategy of knocking out H-2Kb and H-2Db or murine β2m is adopted to eliminate the competitive inhibition of HLA Ⅰ molecules by endogenous H-2 class Ⅰ molecules.In the construction of an HLA Ⅱtransgenic mouse model,the β strand of murine origin is knocked out and HLA Ⅱ class genes are inserted.With the optimization of construction strategies,MHC transgenic mouse models have been applied to epitope vaccine development,tumor treatment,and genetic disease-association studies,becoming a powerful tool for preclinical trials.In this paper,we summarize the relevant data on MHC transgenic mouse models,as well as the construction strategies used for MHC transgenic mouse models and their application in vaccine development and disease treatment.

Three novel sesquiterpenoid heterodimers,designated as auckcostusolides A-C(1-3),were isolated from Aucklandia costus leaves.The structures of compounds 1-3 were elucidated through comprehensive spectroscopic analysis,with their absolute configurations established using a combination of X-ray single-crystal diffraction and electronic circular dichroism(ECD)calculations.Notably,compounds 1 and 2,despite sharing identical planar structures derived from two identical sesquiterpenoids,exhibited oppos-ite configurations at C-11 and C-8'.This configurational difference can be attributed to distinct Diels-Alder cycloaddition processes between the sesquiterpenoid monomers.Additionally,the cytotoxic effects of compounds 1-3 were evaluated against colorectal can-cer HCT116 cells,fibrosarcoma HT1080 cells,and hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells.Compounds 1-3 induced cell death was characterized by endoplasmic reticulum(ER)swelling and cytoplasmic vacuolization,typical morphological changes associated with paraptosis.Mechanistic studies revealed that compounds 1 and 3 triggered paraptosis-like cell death through the accumulation of react-ive oxygen species(ROS),activation of ER stress,and stimulation of the MAPK signaling pathway.

Objective To investigate the predictive value of preoperative frailty for pulmonary com-plications(PPCs)after cardiac surgery in elderly patients.Methods A total of 162 elderly patients,109 males and 53 females,aged 65-83 years,BMI 18-36 kg/m2,ASA physical status Ⅱ-Ⅳ,underwent elec-tive open heart surgery from July 2022 to January 2023 were collected.The patients were divided into two groups according to the occurrence of PPCs:the PPCs group(n=57)and the non-PPCs group(n=105).General information,smoking history,alcohol consumption history,EuroSCORE Ⅱ,frailty,chronic comorbidities(hypertension,diabetes mellitus,myocardial infarction,pulmonary hypertension,chronic ob-structive pulmonary disease,sleep apnea syndrome,etc.),Hb,creatinine,albumin,pulmonary function indices,left ventricular ejection fraction,type of surgery,duration of surgery,aortic clamping time,and cardiopulmonary bypass time were collected.Factors with P＜0.2 and clinically significant in the univariate regression analysis were included in the multivariate logistic regression analysis,and the predictive efficacy of the Fried frailty scale and EuroSCORE Ⅱ for PPCs were compared by the area under the ROC curve(AUC).Results PPCs occurred in 57 patients(35.2％).Multifactorial Logistic regression analysis showed that frailty(OR=3.14,95％CI 1.05-9.37,P＜0.05)and EuroSCORE Ⅱ(OR=2.16,95％CI 1.01-4.60,P＜0.05)were risk factors for the development of PPCs.The predictive power of Fried frailty scale(AUC=0.76,95％CI 0.68-0.82)was significantly higher than that of EuroSCORE Ⅱ(AUC=0.65,95％CI 0.57-0.72)(P＜0.05).Conclusion Preoperative frailty is the independent risk factors for pulmonary complications after cardiac surgery in elderly patients,and the Fried frailty scale has a better predictive efficacy compared to EuroSCORE Ⅱ,a traditional risk predictor.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer patients who are positive for hormone receptor typically exhibit a favorable prognosis. It is controversial whether chemotherapy is necessary for them after surgery. Our study aimed to establish a multigene model to predict the relapse of hormone receptor-positive early-stage Chinese breast cancer after surgery and direct individualized application of chemotherapy in breast cancer patients after surgery. METHODS: In this study, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified between relapse and nonrelapse breast cancer groups based on RNA sequencing. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed to identify potential relapse-relevant pathways. CIBERSORT and Microenvironment Cell Populations-counter algorithms were used to analyze immune infiltration. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression, log-rank tests, and multiple Cox regression were performed to identify prognostic signatures. A predictive model was developed and validated based on Kaplan-Meier analysis, receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC). RESULTS: A total of 234 out of 487 patients were enrolled in this study, and 1588 DEGs were identified between the relapse and nonrelapse groups. GSEA results showed that immune-related pathways were enriched in the nonrelapse group, whereas cell cycle- and metabolism-relevant pathways were enriched in the relapse group. A predictive model was developed using three genes ( CKMT1B , SMR3B , and OR11M1P ) generated from the LASSO regression. The model stratified breast cancer patients into high- and low-risk subgroups with significantly different prognostic statuses, and our model was independent of other clinical factors. Time-dependent ROC showed high predictive performance of the model. CONCLUSIONS A multigene model was established from RNA-sequencing data to direct risk classification and predict relapse of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer in Chinese patients. Utilization of the model could provide individualized evaluation of chemotherapy after surgery for breast cancer patients.
Humans ; Female ; Breast Neoplasms/genetics* ; East Asian People ; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local/genetics* ; Breast ; Algorithms ; Chronic Disease ; Prognosis ; Tumor Microenvironment