Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parasitological and molecular survey of scattered parasitism by trichomonads in some avian species in Iran

ABSTRACT Outbreaks of avian trichomonosis are being reported worldwide; meanwhile, the genetic and virulence variations are under investigation. In this study, the occurrence and genetic variability of oral or faecal trichomonads among various avian species were investigated. Samples obtained from either the oropharyngeal cavity, crop/oesophagus, droppings/cloaca, or conjunctival swabs of avian species were inspected for flagellates. Phylogenetic analysis of partial ITS1-5.8s rRNA-ITS2 sequences from selected samples was performed to investigate the genetic diversity of the isolates. Investigation of 737 birds revealed an infection rate of 15.7% in the upper gastrointestinal tract, 7.3% in the faecal samples, and 0.7% involvement of the conjunctiva. Phylogenetic analysis of partial ITS1-5.8s rRNA-ITS2 sequences from selected samples, identified genotypes A and B of Trichomonas gallinae and genogroups A-C and E of Tetratrichomonas gallinarum. A novel ITS genotype of intestinal trichomonads was also detected in hooded crow (Corvus cornix) and common mynah (Acridotheres tristis). In the present study, in addition to Columbiformes and Falconiformes, trichomonads were detected in Passeriformes and Galliformes with the involvement of organs other than the gastrointestinal tract. Genotype A T. gallinae was detected in domestic pigeons (Columba livia domestica), a laughing dove (Spilopelia senegalensis), a common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), a budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulates), and a canary (Serinus canaria). Distinct genotype B was detected in a common mynah and a budgerigar. Genogroups A-C of T. gallinarum were also demonstrated in Galliformes and Anseriformes. Furthermore, two novel trichomonad ITS genotypes were detected in hooded crows and a common mynah warranting detailed multi-locus molecular analysis. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS ITS diversity of trichomonads was shown in various avian species. Diversity of the parasites’ target organ and clinical manifestations was demonstrated. Two novel ITS genotype trichomonads from common mynah and hooded crow were identified.
Biomedical potential of clay nanotube formulations and their toxicity assessment

ABSTRACT Introduction: Halloysite clay nanotubes (HNTs) are a naturally abundant and biocompatible aluminosilicate material with a structure able to encapsulate 10–20% of drugs. These features are attractive toward the clinical application in controlled drug delivery, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Areas covered: We describe the application of HNTs as a viable method for clinical purposes, particularly developing formulations for prophylaxis, diagnosis and therapeutics, having a special attention to these nanotubes bio-safety. HNTs may be used for pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals, wound healing, bone regeneration, dental repair, hair surface engineering and biomimetic applications. Expert opinion: HNTs are a versatile, safe and biocompatible nanomaterial used for drug encapsulation for numerous clinical applications. The studies here reviewed confirm the HNTs biocompatibility, describing their low toxicity. Further developments will be made regarding the long-term efficacy of halloysite-based treatments in humans, concentrating mostly on topical applications.
Reproductive phenology as a dimension of the phenotypic space in 139 plant species from the Mediterranean.

•Phenology, the study of seasonal timing of events in nature, plays a key role in the matching between organisms and their environment. Yet, it has been poorly integrated in trait-based descriptions of the plant phenotype. Here, we focus on three phases of reproductive phenology - time of flowering, time of seed dispersal and duration of seed maturation - , to test how these traits relate to other recognized dimensions of plant functioning. •Traits describing reproductive phenology, together with reproductive plant height, seed mass, area of a leaf, and traits involved in leaf economics were compiled for 139 species growing under Mediterranean climate conditions. •Across all species, flowering time was positively related to reproductive height, while the duration of seed maturation was related to leaf economics. Relationships differed among growth forms however: flowering time and reproductive height were related both in annuals and herbaceous perennials, while the duration of seed maturation was related to seed mass only in annuals; no correlations were found for woody species. •Phenology relates to other dimensions of plant functioning in a complex manner, suggesting that it should be considered as an independent dimension in the context of plant strategies. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Excess Light Priming in Arabidopsis thaliana Genotypes with Altered DNA Methylomes

Plants must continuously react to the ever-fluctuating nature of their environment. Repeated exposure to stressful conditions can lead to priming, whereby prior encounters heighten a plant’s ability to respond to future events. A clear example of priming is provided by the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis), in which photosynthetic and photoprotective responses are enhanced following recurring light stress. While there are various post-translational mechanisms underpinning photoprotection, an unresolved question is the relative importance of transcriptional changes toward stress priming and, consequently, the potential contribution from DNA methylation – a heritable chemical modification of DNA capable of influencing gene expression. Here, we systematically investigate the potential molecular underpinnings of physiological priming against recurring excess-light (EL), specifically DNA methylation and transcriptional regulation: the latter having not been examined with respect to EL priming. The capacity for physiological priming of photosynthetic and photoprotective parameters following a recurring EL treatment was not impaired in Arabidopsis mutants with perturbed establishment, maintenance, or removal of DNA methylation. Importantly, no differences in development or basal photoprotective capacity were identified in the mutants that may confound the above result. Little evidence for a causal transcriptional component of physiological priming was identified; in fact, most alterations in primed plants presented as a transcriptional ‘dampening’ in response to an additional EL exposure, likely a consequence of physiological priming. However, a set of transcripts uniquely regulated in primed plants provide preliminary evidence for a novel transcriptional component of recurring EL priming, independent of physiological changes. Thus, we propose that physiological priming of recurring EL in Arabidopsis occurs independently of DNA methylation; and that the majority of the associated transcriptional alterations are a consequence, not cause, of this physiological priming.
Exercise in multiple sclerosis and its models: Focus on the central nervous system outcomes

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a central nervous system (CNS) disorder characterized by inflammation, demyelination, and neurodegeneration. Emerging research suggests that exercise has therapeutic benefits for MS patients but the clinical data have focused primarily on non‐CNS outcomes. In this review, we discuss evidence in preclinical MS models that exercise influences oligodendrocyte proliferation and repopulation, remyelination, neuroinflammation, neuroprotection, axonal regeneration, and astrogliosis. Evidence for the therapeutic effects of exercise in MS is further supplemented by data from other CNS diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and spinal cord injury. These results motivate studies into the benefits that exercise confers within the CNS in MS.
Optimal Electric Stimulus Amplitude Improves the Selectivity Between Responses of ON Versus OFF Types of Retinal Ganglion Cells

Outer retinal degenerative diseases destroy photoreceptors primarily in the retina, resulting in a profound vision loss. Fortunately, surviving retinal neurons can be electrically stimulated using retinal prostheses to re-transmit visual information. Although retinal prostheses are promising for sight restoration, the best performance is still sub-optimal. For the enhanced performance, it is critical to optimize stimulation parameters. This study explored how stimulus charge and current amplitude alters responses of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). From the isolated mouse retina, spiking activities of alpha ON, OFF sustained, and OFF transient RGCs were recorded in response to epiretinally-delivered cathodal current pulses ranging from −10 to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$- 80~\mu \text{A}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. We have found that intermediate current amplitudes (−30 and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$- 40~\mu \text{A}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) maximize the response ratio of ON over OFF types. Also, the ON/OFF response ratio was always bigger for 10-ms-long than 5-ms-long stimuli. It was because, by the longer pulses, ON RGC responses were always significantly enhanced (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${p} < 0.05$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) while OFF RGC responses were minimally changed (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${p} >0.05$ </tex-math></inline-formula>). Given the earlier work reporting electrically-elicited responses are more natural in ON than OFF RGCs, the present study suggests effect strategies of more selective activation of ON RGCs for improved efficacy of retinal implant.
High-pressure region of the silica isotypes

The region extending from ambient conditions up to approximately 600° C and 60,000 bars has been examined for the various polymorphs of S i 0 2 , and for B e F 2 , A1P0 4 , A1AS04, A1V04 , MnAs0 4 , G a P 0 4 , GaAs0 4 , G a S b 0 4 , B P 0 4 , B V 0 4 , BAS0 4 , FePO„ and F e A s 0 4 . Reproducibility, reversibility and attainabil i ty of equilibrium have been thoroughly explored for the high-pressure apparatus, using the quartz-coesite reaction. At 500° C, SiOa and B e F 2 transform from the quartz form to the coesite form at 20,400 and 21,600 bars respectively, a n d B P 0 4 transforms from a cristobalite to a quartz form at 46,000 bars. M n P 0 4 , F e P 0 4 , G a P 0 4 and A1P0 4 all transform to new forms near 55,000 bars at 450° C. There are no new forms of A1AS04 or GaAs0 4 in this range. Tridymite and cristobalite cannot be transformed metastably into other new high-pressure forms. The p-t curves for these reactions have been determined over a narrow range. * Contribution No. 58—26.
Evaluation of Neural Degeneration Biomarkers in the Prefrontal Cortex for Early Identification of Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment: An fNIRS Study

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition characterizing poor cognition, is associated with aging and depicts early symptoms of severe cognitive impairment, known as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Meanwhile, early detection of MCI can prevent progression to AD. A great deal of research has been performed in the past decade on MCI detection. However, availability of biomarkers for MCI detection requires greater attention. In our study, we evaluated putative and reliable biomarkers for diagnosing MCI by performing different mental tasks (i.e., N-back task, Stroop task, and verbal fluency task) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) signals on a group of 15 MCI patients and 9 healthy control (HC). The 15 digital biomarkers (i.e., five means, seven slopes, peak, skewness, and kurtosis) and two image biomarkers (t-map, correlation map) in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) (i.e., left PFC, middle PFC, and right PFC) between the MCI and HC groups were investigated by the statistical analysis, linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and convolutional neural network (CNN) individually. The results reveal that the statistical analysis using digital biomarkers (with a p-value < 0.05) could not distinguish the MCI patients from the HC over 60% accuracy. Therefore, the current statistical analysis needs to be improved to be used for diagnosing the MCI patients. The best accuracy with LDA was 76.67% with the N-back and Stroop tasks. However, the CNN classification results trained by image biomarkers showed a high accuracy. In particular, the CNN results trained via t-maps revealed the best accuracy (90.62%) with the N-back task, whereas the CNN result trained by the correlation maps was 85.58% with the N-back task. Also, the results illustrated that investigating the sub-regions (i.e., right, middle, left) of the PFC for detecting MCI would be better than examining the whole PFC. The t-map (or/and the correlation map) is conclusively recommended as an image biomarker for early detection of AD. The combination of CNN and image biomarkers can provide a reliable clinical tool for diagnosing MCI patients.
Histone Deacetylase 4 Promotes Osteosarcoma Cell Proliferation and Invasion by Regulating Expression of Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen

Background/Aims: Osteosarcoma (OS) is commonly characterized by lower survival rates and high incidences of local recurrence due to its highly aggressive nature and metastatic tendencies. Studies have shown that histone deacetylase 4 (HDAC4) and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) are highly expressed in cancers. Nevertheless, the roles of HDAC4 and PCNA in osteosarcoma (OS) remain unclear. This research aimed to study the expression of HDAC4 and PCNA and their relation to cell proliferation and invasion in human OS. Methods: The levels of HDAC4 and PCNA mRNA and protein were tested in human OS and osteochondroma (OC) tissues. The overexpression and knockdown of HDAC4 in OS cell lines were used to determine the effect of HDAC4 on the expression and degradation of PCNA. The effect of HDAC4 on cell proliferation, invasion and apoptosis was also detected. Additionally, we explored the interaction between HDAC4 and PCNA. Results: The results showed that both HDAC4 and PCNA were increased in human OS tissues. Overexpression of the HDAC4 protein increased the protein level of PCNA, had no effect on the PCNA mRNA level, and decreased the level of ubiquitinated PCNA. We found that overexpression of HDAC4 promoted cell proliferation and invasion and inhibited apoptosis. The opposite effects were observed when HDAC4 was knocked down. The results also showed that HDAC4 could bind to PCNA directly. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that HDAC4 could promote OS cell proliferation and invasion by regulating the expression of PCNA. Thus, our research indicates that HDAC4 may be a potential target for therapy in OS.
Attentional Reorientation and Inhibition Adjustment in a Verbal Stroop Task: A Lifespan Approach to Interference and Sequential Congruency Effect

Several parameters influence the interference effect elicited in a Stroop task, especially contextual information. Contextual effects in the Stroop paradigms are known as the Gratton or Sequential congruency effect (SCE). This research aims at isolating two processes contributing to the SCE in a Stroop paradigm, namely attentional reorientation from the color to the word and vice-versa, as well as inhibition (engagement/disengagement from one trial to the next one). To this end, in Study 1 subprocesses of the SCE were isolated. Specifically, attentional reorientation and inhibition were segregated by submitting young adults to a discrete verbal Stroop task including neutral trials. In Study 2, the same procedure was applied to 124 participants aged from 10 to 80 years old to analyze how interference, SCE, and the aforementioned decomposition of attention and inhibition change across the lifespan. In both studies, the Gratton effect was only partially replicated, while both attentional reorientation and inhibition effects were observed, supporting the idea that these two processes contribute to SCE on top of conflict monitoring and of other processes highlighted in different theories (contingency learning, feature integration, and repetition expectancy). Finally, the classical age-related evolution was replicated in Study 2 on raw interference scores, but no age effect was observed when processing speed was taken into account, nor on the isolated attentional reorientation and inhibition processes, which is in line with the hypothesis of stability of the inhibition processes over age.
Metastable Resting State Brain Dynamics

Metastability refers to the fact that the state of a dynamical system spends a large amount of time in a restricted region of its available phase space before a transition takes place, bringing the system into another state from where it might recur into the previous one. beim Graben and Hutt (2013) suggested to use the recurrence plot (RP) technique introduced by Eckmann et al. (1987) for the segmentation of system's trajectories into metastable states using recurrence grammars. Here, we apply this recurrence structure analysis (RSA) for the first time to resting-state brain dynamics obtained from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Brain regions are defined according to the brain hierarchical atlas (BHA) developed by Diez et al. (2015), and as a consequence, regions present high-connectivity in both structure (obtained from diffusion tensor imaging) and function (from the blood-level dependent-oxygenation—BOLD—signal). Remarkably, regions observed by Diez et al. were completely time-invariant. Here, in order to compare this static picture with the metastable systems dynamics obtained from the RSA segmentation, we determine the number of metastable states as a measure of complexity for all subjects and for region numbers varying from 3 to 100. We find RSA convergence toward an optimal segmentation of 40 metastable states for normalized BOLD signals, averaged over BHA modules. Next, we build a bistable dynamics at population level by pooling 30 subjects after Hausdorff clustering. In link with this finding, we reflect on the different modeling frameworks that can allow for such scenarios: heteroclinic dynamics, dynamics with riddled basins of attraction, multiple-timescale dynamics. Finally, we characterize the metastable states both functionally and structurally, using templates for resting state networks (RSNs) and the automated anatomical labeling (AAL) atlas, respectively.
Bruton's Tyrosine Kinase Inhibition Attenuates the Cardiac Dysfunction Caused by Cecal Ligation and Puncture in Mice

Sepsis is one of the most prevalent diseases in the world. The development of cardiac dysfunction in sepsis results in an increase of mortality. It is known that Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) plays a role in toll-like receptor signaling and NLRP3 inflammasome activation, two key components in the pathophysiology of sepsis and sepsis-associated cardiac dysfunction. In this study we investigated whether pharmacological inhibition of BTK (ibrutinib 30 mg/kg and acalabrutinib 3 mg/kg) attenuates sepsis associated cardiac dysfunction in mice. 10-week old male C57BL/6 mice underwent CLP or sham surgery. One hour after surgery mice received either vehicle (5% DMSO + 30% cyclodextrin i.v.), ibrutinib (30 mg/kg i.v.), or acalabrutinib (3 mg/kg i.v.). Mice also received antibiotics and an analgesic at 6 and 18 h. After 24 h, cardiac function was assessed by echocardiography in vivo. Cardiac tissue underwent western blot analysis to determine the activation of BTK, NLRP3 inflammasome and NF-κB pathway. Serum analysis of 33 cytokines was conducted by a multiplex assay. When compared to sham-operated animals, mice subjected to CLP demonstrated a significant reduction in ejection fraction (EF), fractional shortening (FS), and fractional area change (FAC). The cardiac tissue from CLP mice showed significant increases of BTK, NF-κB, and NLRP3 inflammasome activation. CLP animals resulted in a significant increase of serum cytokines and chemokines (TNF-α, IL-6, IFN-γ, KC, eotaxin-1, eotaxin-2, IL-10, IL-4, CXCL10, and CXCL11). Delayed administration of ibrutinib and acalabrutinib attenuated the decline of EF, FS, and FAC caused by CLP and also reduced the activation of BTK, NF-κB, and NLRP3 inflammasome. Both ibrutinib and acalabrutinib significantly suppressed the release of cytokines and chemokines. Our study revealed that delayed intravenous administration of ibrutinib or acalabrutinib attenuated the cardiac dysfunction associated with sepsis by inhibiting BTK, reducing NF-κB activation and the activation of the inflammasome. Cytokines associated with sepsis were significantly reduced by both BTK inhibitors. Acalabrutinib is found to be more potent than ibrutinib and could potentially prove to be a novel therapeutic in sepsis. Thus, the FDA-approved BTK inhibitors ibrutinib and acalabrutinib may be repurposed for the use in sepsis.
Impact of congenital color vision defect on color-related tasks among schoolchildren in Durban, South Africa

Background People with congenital color vision deficiency can experience some difficulties with seeing colors in everyday life, and these problems vary according to the nature and severity of the defect, the individual’s circumstances and their ability to develop coping or adaptive strategies. Purpose To determine the impact of congenital color vision deficiency on color-related tasks among Black South African schoolchildren. Methods A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among 1305 public schoolchildren in Durban, South Africa. Structured questionnaires were administered to determine the difficulties they encountered in aspects of color matching and recognition. Results Of the 1305 schoolchildren who participated, 601 (46.1%) were boys and 704 (53.9%) were girls, with 29 (2.2%) having congenital color vision defects. The prevalence of congenital color vision deficiency was higher in boys (n=25; 4.2%) than in girls (n=4; 0.6%). A statistically significant proportion (P<0.0001) reported difficulties with color-related schoolwork and activities of daily living. Conclusion Congenital color vision deficiency affects many aspects of life and extends across play, sports, education, health and safety issues. Early detection of children with congenital color vision defect through regular school screenings is needed to offer affected children appropriate vocation and career guidance.