SARS-CoV-2 and its emerging variants continue to pose a significant global public health threat. The SARS-CoV-2 main protease (M^pro) is a critical target for the development of antiviral agents that can inhibit viral replication and transcription. In this study, we identified chebulagic acid (CHLA), isolated from Terminalia chebula Retz., as a potent non-peptidomimetic and non-covalent M^pro inhibitor. CHLA exhibited intermolecular interactions and provided significant protection to Vero E6 cells against a range of SARS-CoV-2 variants, including the wild-type, Delta, Omicron BA.1.1, BA.2.3, BA.4, and BA.5, with EC₅₀ values below 2 μmol/L. Moreover, in vivo studies confirmed the antiviral efficacy of CHLA in K18-hACE2 mice. Notably, CHLA bound to a unique groove at the interface between M^pro domains I and II, which was revealed by the high-resolution crystal structure (1.4 Å) of the M^pro-CHLA complex, shrinking the substrate binding pocket of M^pro and inducing M^pro aggregation. CHLA was proposed to act as an allosteric inhibitor. Pharmacokinetic profiling and safety assessments underscore CHLA's potential as a promising broad-spectrum antiviral candidate. These findings report a novel binding site on M^pro and identify antiviral activity of CHLA, providing a robust framework for lead compounds discovery and elucidating the underlying molecular mechanisms of inhibition.

Objective:To explore the feasibility of deep learning image reconstruction (DLIR) in reducing radiation dose and improving image quality in 100 kV portal vein CT angiography (CTPV), and compare the image quality with traditional 120 kV CTPV.Methods:Consecutive 100 patients who underwent upper abdominal CTPV examinations at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University from June 2021 to December 2022 were prospectively enrolled in this study. They were divided into two groups: the standard dose group (S group) using 120 kV and the low dose group (L group) using 100 kV. In the S group, adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction-Veo (ASIR-V) was employed with weights of 40%, 60%, and 80% (S-AV40, S-AV60, and S-AV80, respectively), along with a medium-level DLIR (S-DM). The L group used two weights of 60% and 80% of ASIR-V (L-AV60 and L-AV80) and medium to high-intensity DLIR (L-DM and L-DH) for reconstruction. Objective evaluation measurements, including CT values and standard deviation (SD) of the main portal vein (MPV), right portal vein (RPV), left portal vein (LPV), hepatic parenchyma, and right vertical muscle, were independently measured by two radiologists. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were also calculated. The images of eight groups were blindly evaluated using a 5 points scale by three radiologists. The Volume CT dose index (CTDIvol) and dose length product (DLP) were recorded for both protocol groups, and the effective dose (ED) was calculated. Statistical analysis was performed using Single factor variance analysis for objective indicators and Kruskal-Wallis H test for subjective scores. Results:The effective dose in the L group was reduced by 51% compared to the S group. There were significant statistical differences in SD, SNR and CNR among eight groups for MPV, RPV, and LPV ( P<0.001 for all). The SD of L-DH showed no statistical difference compared to the S-AV80 group ( P>0.05), but it was significantly lower than the other six groups ( P<0.05 for all). Except for CNR in the MPV, which showed no statistically significant difference between the L-DH and S-AV80 groups ( P>0.05), both SNR and CNR were significantly higher in the L-DH group compared to the other groups ( P<0.001 for all). The L-DH (4.61±0.16) achieved the highest subjective image quality score, which was statistically higher than the scores in the other six groups ( P<0.001 for all) except for the S-DM group (4.31±0.19). There was good consistency among the radiologists regarding objective parameter measurements and subjective image quality scores ( ICC=0.584-0.960). Conclusion:Compared to standard-dose CTPV at 120 kV, the combination of 100 kV with the DLIR algorithm significantly reduced the radiation dose by 51% in CTPV while maintaining higher SNR, CNR and subjective scores. The high-level DLIR algorithm produced the best image quality for 100 kV CTPV.

Objective:To understand the epidemiological characteristics and spatiotemporal distribution of viral encephalitis in children and adolescents in Henan Province from 2012 to 2023.Methods:The information about viral encephalitis cases from October 1, 2012 to July 26, 2023 were collected from Zhengzhou Children's Hospital (National Children's Regional Medical Center),Henan Provincial Children's Hospital for the analyses on temporal distribution the cases, the severe illness rate, age distribution, pathogen type and imaging findings of the cases.Results:A total of 6 276 cases of viral encephalitis were included in this study after excluding cases with incomplete information. The cases mainly originated from Zhengzhou (38.96%), followed by Zhoukou (9.93%), Xuchang (8.68%), Zhumadian (7.90%) and Pingdingshan (7.39%). The cases in boys accounted for 62.13% and the cases in girls accounted for 37.87%. Most cases (72.45%) occurred in age group 7-13 years. The overall rate of severe illness cases was 4.51% from 2012 to 2023. There were significant differences in severe illness cases among different areas and years ( χ2=5.33, P=0.021; χ2=48.14, P<0.001). Enteroviruses were mainly detected (31.57%), in which Coxsackie virus was predominant (58.37%). Imaging findings showed that cerebral hemisphere damage was most common in children and adolescents with viral encephalitis (54.93%). Conclusions:From 2012 to 2023, more cases of viral encephalitis occurred in boys in Henan. Children and adolescents aged 7-13 years were the main affected group. The prevention of enteroviruses infection, especially Coxsackie virus, needs to be strengthened. Special attention should be paid to the prevention of cerebral hemisphere damage after viral encephalitis diagnosis.

Objective:To evaluate the effectiveness,safety and economics of absorbable drug-eluting coronary stent systems using rapid health technology assessment tools,and to provide evidence-based basis for rational use for clinicians use and expert evaluation.Methods:A computer search was performed on PubMed,CNKI,Wanfang,VIP and other databases from 1 January 2014 to 1 January 2023 for relevant literature on patients with coronary artery disease who were treated with coronary artery stent interventional surgery.The 210 collected literatures were screened and extracted according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria,and the literature quality evaluation was carried out.The extracted data related to the intravascular thrombosis rate,myocardial infarction rate,cardiac mortality rate,all-cause mortality rate,target lesion revascularization rate and intravascular adverse event incidence of absorbable drug-eluting coronary stents and drug-eluting coronary stents were meta-analyzed by Revman5.4 software.Results:7 studies were ultimately included in the comparative study of absorbable drug-eluting coronary stents and drug-eluting coronary stents.The thrombosis rate,all-cause mortality rate and intravascular adverse event rate of absorbable drug-eluting coronary stents were lower than those of drug-eluting coronary stents,and the difference was statistically significant(Z=2.16,1.89,2.22,P＜0.05).There were no statistically significant difference in the myocardial infarction rate,cardiac mortality rate and target lesion revascularization rate between absorbable drug-eluting coronary stents and drug-eluting coronary stents(P＞0.05).Conclusion:There was no significant difference in safety and efficacy between absorbable drug-eluting coronary stents and drug-eluting coronary stents.In terms of economy,the cost of absorbable drug-eluting coronary stents is significantly higher than that of drug-eluting coronary stents,and patients can choose stents according to their own economic conditions and other actual conditions.

In this study, 34 deep eutectic solvents (DESs) were successfully prepared for the extraction of proanthocyanidin from Rhodiolae Crenulatae Radix et Rhizomes. The extraction process was optimized using single factor exploration and Box-Behnken design-response surface analysis. The extraction rate was significantly improved when the molar ratio of choline chloride to 1,3-propanediol was 1:3.5 and the water content was 30% (V/V) in DESs. AB-8 macroporous resin and ethyl acetate were used for separation and refining, and the oligomer-rich proanthocyanidin components were eventually obtained. The ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) spectra showed that the proanthocyanidins were mainly composed of catechin and epicatechin. To further clarify the chemical composition of proanthocyanidin, an ion scan list containing 156 proanthocyanidins precursors was obtained by constructing a proanthocyanidins structural library and mass defect filtering (MDF) algorithm, combined with the full mass spectrometry (MS)/dd-MS² scan mode that turns on the "if idle pick others" function. By using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography and high-resolution MS (UHPLC/HRMS), the analysis used both targeted and non-targeted methods to detect proanthocyanidins. Finally, 50 oligomeric proanthocyanidin (OPC) compounds were identified, including 7 monomers, 22 dimers, 20 trimers, and 1 tetramer, most of which were procyanidins of proanthocyanidins (84%), and a small amount of prodelphinidin (14%) and other types of proanthocyanidins (2%), which enabled the systematic characterization of proanthocyanidin components from Rhodiolae Crenulatae Radix et Rhizomes. Meanwhile, the comparison with the grape seeds OPCs standard (United States Pharmacopeia) revealed that the proanthocyanidins in Rhodiolae Crenulatae Radix et Rhizomes were more abundant, suggesting that the proanthocyanidins in Rhodiolae Crenulatae Radix et Rhizomes has promising applications.

Plant-derived nanovesicles have gained attention given their similarity to mammalian exosomes and advantages such as low cost, sustainability, and tissue targeting. Thus, they hold promise for disease treatment and drug delivery. In this study, we proposed a time-efficient method, PEG 8000 combined with sucrose density gradient centrifugation to prepare ginger-derived nanovesicles (GDNVs). Subsequently, curcumin (CUR) was loaded onto GDNV by ultrasonic incubation. The optimum conditions for ginger-derived nanovesicles loaded with curcumin (CG) were ultrasound time of 3 min, a carrier-to-drug ratio (GDNV:CUR) of 1:1. The study achieved a high loading capacity (94.027% ± 0.094%) and encapsulation efficiency (89.300% ± 0.344%). Finally, the drugs' in vivo distribution and anti-colitis activity were investigated in mice. CG was primarily distributed in the colon after oral administration. Compared to CUR and GDNV, CG was superior in improving disease activity, colon length, liver and spleen coefficients, myeloperoxidase activity, and biochemical factor levels in ulcerative colitis (UC) mice. In addition, CG plays a protective role against UC by modulating serum metabolite levels and gut flora. In summary, our study demonstrated that GDNV can be used for CUR delivery with enhanced therapeutic potential.

The cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS)-stimulator of interferon genes (STING) signaling exert essential regulatory function in microbial-and onco-immunology through the induction of cytokines, primarily type I interferons. Recently, the aberrant and deranged signaling of the cGAS-STING axis is closely implicated in multiple sterile inflammatory diseases, including heart failure, myocardial infarction, cardiac hypertrophy, nonalcoholic fatty liver diseases, aortic aneurysm and dissection, obesity, etc. This is because of the massive loads of damage-associated molecular patterns (mitochondrial DNA, DNA in extracellular vesicles) liberated from recurrent injury to metabolic cellular organelles and tissues, which are sensed by the pathway. Also, the cGAS-STING pathway crosstalk with essential intracellular homeostasis processes like apoptosis, autophagy, and regulate cellular metabolism. Targeting derailed STING signaling has become necessary for chronic inflammatory diseases. Meanwhile, excessive type I interferons signaling impact on cardiovascular and metabolic health remain entirely elusive. In this review, we summarize the intimate connection between the cGAS-STING pathway and cardiovascular and metabolic disorders. We also discuss some potential small molecule inhibitors for the pathway. This review provides insight to stimulate interest in and support future research into understanding this signaling axis in cardiovascular and metabolic tissues and diseases.

Platelets buoy up cancer metastasis via arresting cancer cells, enhancing their adhesion, and facilitating their extravasation through the vasculature. When deprived of intracellular and granular contents, platelet decoys could prevent metastatic tumor formation. Inspired by these, we developed nanoplatesomes by fusing platelet membranes with lipid membranes (P-Lipo) to restrain metastatic tumor formation more efficiently. It was shown nanoplateletsomes bound with circulating tumor cells (CTC) efficiently, interfered with CTC arrest by vessel endothelial cells, CTC extravasation through endothelial layers, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition of tumor cells as nanodecoys. More importantly, in the mouse breast tumor metastasis model, nanoplateletsomes could decrease CTC survival in the blood and counteract metastatic tumor growth efficiently by inhibiting the inflammation and suppressing CTC escape. Therefore, nanoplatelesomes might usher in a new avenue to suppress lung metastasis.

Human chromosomes karyotyping is an important means to diagnose genetic diseases. Chromosome image type recognition is a key step in the karyotyping process. Accurate and efficient identification is of great significance for automatic chromosome karyotyping. In this paper, we propose a model named segmentally recalibrated dense convolutional network (SR-DenseNet). In each stage of the model, the dense connected network layers is used to extract the features of different abstract levels of chromosomes automatically, and then the concatenation of all the layers which extract different local features is recalibrated with squeeze-and-excitation (SE) block. SE blocks explicitly construct learnable structures for importance of the features. Then a model fusion method is proposed and an expert group of chromosome recognition models is constructed. On the public available Copenhagen chromosome recognition dataset (G-bands) the proposed model achieves error rate of only 1.60%, and with model fusion the error further drops to 0.99%. On the Padova chromosome dataset (Q-bands) the model gets the corresponding error rate of 6.67%, and with model fusion the error further drops to 5.98%. The experimental results show that the method proposed in this paper is effective and has the potential to realize the automation of chromosome type recognition.
Chromosomes ; Humans ; Neural Networks, Computer

Objective:To investigate the clinical features and associated influencing factors of cognitive impairment in middle-aged and elderly Chinese adult patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis (HD).Methods:A cross-sectional study was conducted among HD patients from 11 centers in Beijing city from April 2017 to June 2017. A neuropsychological battery covering domains of attention/processing speed, executive function, memory, language, and visuospatial function was applied in cognitive function assessment. Patients were classified as normal cognitive function group and cognitive impairment group according to the fifth version of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders criteria (DSM-V). Multivariate binary logistic regression was used to analyze the independent influencing factors of cognitive impairment. Results:A total of 613 HD patients were included in the study, and the prevalence of cognitive impairment was 80.91% (496/613). Attention impairment (81.05%) and memory impairment (63.51%) were the most common impaired domains, and 79.23% was concomitant impairment across two or more cognitive domains among those with cognitive impairment. Compared with the patients in the normal cognitive function group, the patients in the cognitive impairment group had senior age, longer dialysis vintage, higher proportion of diabetes, hypertension, and stroke, higher level of serum intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH), lower education level, and lower urea clearance index (Kt/V) (all P<0.05). Factors were independently associated with cognitive impairment including increasing age ( OR=1.110, 95% CI 1.072-1.150, P<0.001), education time>12 years (with education time<6 years as reference, OR=0.323, 95% CI 0.115-0.909, P=0.032), history of diabetes ( OR=2.151, 95% CI 1.272-3.636, P=0.004), history of stroke ( OR=2.546, 95% CI 1.244-5.210, P=0.011), increased dialysis vintage ( OR=1.016, 95% CI 1.010-1.022, P<0.001), reduced Kt/V( OR=0.008, 95% CI 0.002-0.035, P<0.001), and increased iPTH level ( OR=1.002, 95% CI 1.002-1.003, P=0.012). Conclusions:The prevalence of cognitive impairment in middle-aged and elderly adult Chinese patients undergoing HD is high. Memory and attention are the most commonly impaired domains. Increasing age, low education level, history of diabetes and stroke, increased dialysis vintage, reduced Kt/V and increased serum iPTH are the independent influencing factors associated with cognitive impairment.