Mechanism research

Purpose: Older adults may abandon or discontinue the use of assistive products due to low levels of satisfaction. Only few studies have examined need and satisfaction related to the use of assistive products for this group in China. As such, research is needed to improve satisfaction with assistive products and related services. Method: This study used technology acceptance theory to examine the self-reported need for, and ownership of, assistive products among older adults in China, as well as to examine the association between services and satisfaction with assistive products; the underlying mechanism of this association was also assessed...

BACKGROUND: Although internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been included in the DSM-5 for approximately 10 years, debate remains regarding its existence and classification. METHODS: The current research incorporated three approaches. First, implicit association tests were used to examine for potential dissociation between wanting and liking in IGD. Second, brain features in wanting and liking circuits were tested and compared with tobacco use disorder (TUD) when performing a cue-craving task to explore the neural features of wanting and liking...

Trauma-focused psychotherapies, in particular prolonged exposure (PE) therapy, have been recognized as the "gold standard" for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But effectiveness and implementation data show that a large proportion of patients who undergo exposure therapy retain their PTSD diagnosis, and implementation studies have shown low engagement and high dropout rates. Meanwhile, non-trauma-focused therapies have shown promise in treating PTSD. In this review, we aim to answer the question of whether exposure is necessary to treat PTSD by integrating clinical and research literature from multiple perspectives...

Research has established the impact of paternal depression on fathering behaviors and child outcomes. Despite this, less is known about the mechanisms linking paternal depressive symptomology to paternal warmth, particularly regarding the role of parenting stress and beliefs in the centrality of the paternal role. The aim of this study was to examine factors potentially associated with paternal warmth. Specifically, we explored the association between paternal depressive symptomology and paternal warmth, examining the mediating role of paternal parenting stress in this association...

Having associations with a range of adverse physical health outcomes including mortality, loneliness is increasingly recognized as a pressing public health concern, but the mechanisms studied to date do not yet explain all loneliness-related health risk. We sought to evaluate whether epigenetic influences on DNA methylation could help explain the relationship between loneliness and health. To do so, we first estimated associations between loneliness and epigenetic age acceleration (EAA) in a subsample of participants in the study of midlife in the United States ( n = 1,310), before testing whether EAA mediated and/or moderated the association between loneliness and the onset of chronic health conditions in older adulthood ( n = 445 completing longitudinal follow-ups)...

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a complex disease that develops through a sequence of molecular events that are still poorly defined. This process is driven by a multitude of context-dependent genes that play different roles based on their environment. The complexity and multi-faceted nature of these genes make it difficult to study the genetic basis of IBD. The goal of this article is to review the key genes in the pathophysiology of IBD and highlight new technology that can be used in further research...

Gallbladder Cancer (GBC) is a lethal malignancy with limited treatment options and poor prognosis. Recent studies have emphasized the role of ferroptosis, a regulated form of cell death, in various cancers, including GBC. We applied bioinformatics methodologies on four GBC datasets to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs). An intersection of DEGs from the four datasets with ferroptosis and GBC-associated genes was done to identify key ferroptosis-related genes in GBC. GSVA pathway enrichment analysis and immune cell infiltration assessment were conducted to explore their functional roles and interactions...

PURPOSE: Childhood cancer survivors are at risk for cardiac dysfunction and impaired physical performance, though underlying cellular mechanisms are not well studied. In this cross-sectional study, we examined the association between peripheral blood mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNA-CN, a proxy for mitochondrial function) and markers of performance impairment and cardiac dysfunction. METHODS: Whole-genome sequencing, validated by quantitative polymerase chain reaction, was used to estimate mtDNA-CN in 1720 adult survivors of childhood cancer (48...

Sulfate wastewater has a wide range of sources and greatly harms water, soil, and plants. Iron-carbon microelectrolysis (IC-ME) is a potentially sustainable strategy to improve the treatment of sulfate (SO4 2- ) wastewater by sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB). In this study, an iron-carbon mixed micro-electrolysis bioreactor (R1), iron-carbon layered bioreactor (R2), activated carbon bioreactor (R3), and scrap iron filing bioreactor (R4) were constructed by up-flow column experimental device. The performance and mechanism of removing high-concentration sulfate wastewater under different sulfate concentrations, hydraulic retention times (HRT), and chemical oxygen demand (COD)/SO4 2- were discussed...

Congenital heart disease (CHD) represents a significant risk factor with profound implications for neonatal survival rates and the overall well-being of adult patients. The emergence of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and their derived cells, combined with CRISPR technology, high-throughput experimental techniques, and organoid technology, which are better suited to contemporary research demands, offer new possibilities for treating CHD. Prior investigations have indicated that the paracrine effect of exosomes may hold potential solutions for therapeutic intervention...

BACKGROUND: Necroptosis-related long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play crucial roles in cancer initiation and progression. Nevertheless, the role and mechanism of necroptosis-related lncRNAs in soft tissue sarcomas (STS) is so far unknown and needs to be explored further. METHODS: Clinical and genomic data were obtained from the UCSC Xena database. All STS patients' subclusters were performed by unsupervised consensus clustering method based on the prognosis-specific lncRNAs, and then assessed their survival advantage and immune infiltrates...

Glycosylation alterations in TNBC have significant implications for tumor behavior, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic strategies. Dysregulated glycosylation affects cell adhesion, signaling, immune recognition, and response to therapy in TNBC. Different types of glycosylation, including N-linked glycosylation, O-linked glycosylation, glycosphingolipid glycosylation, mucin-type glycosylation, and sialylation, play distinct roles in TNBC. The "barcoding" method based on glycosylation sites of the membrane type mannose receptor (MR) shows promise in accurately distinguishing breast cancer subtypes, including TNBC...

CONTEXT: Further understanding of the molecular mechanisms is necessary since it is important for designing new drugs. This study aimed to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in the design of drugs that are inhibitors of the α-glucosidase enzyme. This research aims to gain further understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying antidiabetic drug design. The molecular docking process yielded 4 compounds with the best affinity energy, including γ-Mangostin, 1,6-dimethyl-ester-3-isomangostin, 1,3,6-trimethyl-ester-α-mangostin, and 3,6,7-trimethyl-ester-γ-mangostin...

BACKGROUND: The continuous advancement in medical and surgical techniques has led to a rise in the frequency of abdominal operations, subsequently increasing the incidence of intra-abdominal adhesions. Over 90% of laparotomies result in postoperative intra-abdominal adhesions. This study investigates the effect of a 5% boric acid solution on the development of intra-abdominal adhesions in rats, using an adhesion model. METHODS: This study was conducted with two groups: a control group, in which the adhesion model was applied without any treatment, and a boric acid group, which was treated with a 5% boric acid solution...

In recent years, preparing precious metal catalysts with a controllable morphology has become a hot research topic for researchers. In this study, monodispersed palladium (Pd) nanoparticles (NP) and ultrathin Pd twisty nanowire networks (TNN) were synthesized in a solvothermal system using N , N -dimethylformamide (DMF) and oleylamine (OAm) as solvents, Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images reveal the successful synthesis of nanoparticles and ultrathin TNN microstructures. Electrochemical data show that the current densities of Pd-NP and Pd-TNN for the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) reach 1878 mA mg-1 and 1765 mA mg-1 , respectively...

It has been proposed that coronavirus nsp15 mediates evasion of host cell double-stranded (ds) RNA sensors via its uracil-specific endoribonuclease activity. However, how nsp15 processes viral dsRNA, commonly considered as a genome replication intermediate, remains elusive. Previous research has mainly focused on short single-stranded RNA as substrates, and whether nsp15 prefers single-stranded or double-stranded RNA for cleavage is controversial. In the present work, we prepared numerous RNA substrates, including both long substrates mimicking the viral genome and short defined RNA, to clarify the substrate preference and cleavage pattern of SARS-CoV-2 nsp15...

Transcription-coupled repair (TCR) and global genomic repair (GGR) are two subpathways of nucleotide excision repair (NER). The TFIIH subunit Tfb1 contains a Pleckstrin homology domain (PHD), which was shown to interact with one PHD-binding segment (PB) of Rad4 and two PHD-binding segments (PB1 and PB2) of Rad2 in vitro. Whether and how the different Rad2 and Rad4 PBs interact with the same Tfb1 PHD, and whether and how they affect TCR and GGR within the cell remain mysterious. We found that Rad4 PB constitutively interacts with Tfb1 PHD, and the two proteins may function within one module for damage recognition in TCR and GGR...

The duration and quality of sleep are believed to significantly influence the onset of metabolic syndrome (MetS), but existing data lack consistency. The meta-analysis aims to evaluate the prevalence of the MetS in association with sleep duration. We conducted a systematic review according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses 2020 guidelines. A comprehensive search of PubMed, Google Scholar, and Research Gate databases was performed to identify cohort and cross-sectional studies published in English between 2013 and 2023...

Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), a dsDNA herpesvirus, is believed to play a significant role in exacerbating and potentially triggering autoimmune and autoinflammatory maladies. Around 90% of the world is infected with the virus, which establishes latency within lymphocytes. EBV is also known to cause infectious mononucleosis, a self-limited flu-like illness, in adolescents. EBV is often reactivated and it employs several mechanisms of evading the host immune system. It has also been implicated in inducing host immune dysfunction potentially resulting in exacerbation or triggering of inflammatory processes...

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive subtype with poor prognosis of breast cancer. Thiostrepton exerts anti-tumor activities against several cancers including TNBC. Herein we discussed the new molecular mechanisms of thiostrepton in TNBC. Thiostrepton inhibited MDA-MB-231 cell viability, accompanied by a decrease of c-FLIP and p-SMAD2/3. c-FLIP overexpression reduced the sensitivity of MDA-MB-231 cells to thiostrepton, while SMAD2/3 knockdown increased the sensitivity of MDA-MB-231 cells to thiostrepton...