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CO2-responsive terpolymer hydrogels with adjustable dynamic networks for fractured plugging in the reservoir

Electrophysiological and Proteomic Evidence of Protease-Mediated Pro-nociceptive Signaling in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients

Abdominal pain is a debilitating symptom of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Despite advances in understanding IBD pathology, the mechanisms underlying pain remain poorly defined. While studies of tissue biopsies from IBD patients and rodent models have highlighted the roles of proinflammatory cytokines and proteases in pain signaling, these approaches predominantly capture host-derived mediators, overlooking the broader luminal environment influenced by the microbiota. Given the compromised barrier in IBD leading to increased mucosal permeability, examining the luminal milieu would characterize a novel source of factors involved in pain modulation in IBD patients with active disease. Fecal supernatants (FS) from healthy volunteers (HV) of either sex had no effect on ex vivo colonic afferent nerve mechanosensitivity or in vitro dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neuron excitability. In contrast, FS from Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) patients of either sex significantly excited colonic afferent nerves and increased mechanosensitivity ex vivo and increased DRG neuronal excitability in vitro. These were blocked by the serine protease inhibitor and a protease-activated receptor 2 (PAR 2 ) antagonist. Proteomic analysis revealed IBD FS contained elevated levels of trypsin- and elastase-like serine proteases compared with HV FS. Proteomics identified CELA3B, ELA2A, and PRSS1 as key proteases enriched in IBD FS, with distinct activity profiles in UC and CD. These findings establish that proteases within FS from IBD patients directly modulate pain-sensing pathways by activation of PAR 2 on colonic afferent nerves, offering a unique insight into luminal contributions to pain and identifying potential therapeutic targets for visceral hypersensitivity in IBD.

Beyond Mimicking Enzymes: NewTAML/Peroxide Abstracts sp ³ C–H Bonds to Initiate Biotranscendent Water-Purifying Mineralization of Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics

Effects of infrared assisted refractance window drying on physicochemical and quality attributes and thermodynamic analysis of thyme (Thymus vulgaris L.)

Selective Hydrogenation of Heteroarenes Using Supported Ruthenium Phosphide Nanoparticle Catalysts

The gene-modulating power of Tannins isolated from Jatropha integerrima flowers on the transcriptomic profile of multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae

Abstract The continuous increase in antibiotic resistance necessitates a global need to search for new sustainable antimicrobial agents, such as plant-delivered antimicrobial components. This study investigates the antimicrobial and antibiofilm properties of two tannins isolated from the flowers of Jatropha integerrima against multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae . The two active tannins were isolated from the methanol-soluble portion of 70% aqueous methanol flower extract, by consecutive column chromatography. Their antimicrobial activity against the resistant K. pneumoniae isolate (BKP-122) was assessed through agar well diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) assays. Their antibiofilm activity was evaluated by using the microtiter plate method and real-time PCR to reveal their effect on the biofilm-associated genes. Their structures were identified as 2 hydrolysable ellagitannins, namely 1- O -galloyl-3,6-( R )-hexahydroxydiphenoyl- D -B 1,4 -glucopyranose (Jatrophenin-1) and 1- O -galloyl-3,6-( R )-valoneoyl- D -B 1,4 -glucopyranose (Jatrophenin-2), together with vicenin-2, acacetin 7- O - β - D -glucopyranoside, ( E )- p -coumaric acid, and sucrose, based on the chromatographic characters, 1 H-, and 13 C NMR analyses. They were found to have potent antimicrobial activity and antibiofilm activity against the resistant K. pneumoniae isolate (BKP-122). Real-time PCR analysis indicated that treatment with tannins resulted in the downregulation of critical biofilm-related genes, including luxS , mrkA , pgaA , wzm , and wbbM . Additionally, the two compounds showed high docking binding scores against Topoisomerase IV, KPLpxH, and β -lactamase enzymes, and stable complexes, as evidenced by binding energy values ranging from -8.2 to -10 kcal/mol. These findings underscore the effectiveness of J. integerrima tannins as a viable therapeutic strategy to combat antibiotic resistance and biofilm-related infections, highlighting their role in modulating bacterial gene expression and biofilm development.

Population-Level Activity Dissociates Preparatory Overt from Covert Attention

The neural signatures of preparing overt eye movements and directing covert spatial attention overlap as they recruit the same brain areas. Yet, these neural signatures are dissociable at the single cell level: Specific cells within visuo-oculomotor areas are exclusively involved in motor preparation or covert attention. Nevertheless, it has been proposed that many cells in visuo-oculomotor areas are involved in both motor preparation and covert attention, and consequently their neural signatures should functionally overlap to a large degree. Here, we directly tested this proposal: We combined human (both sexes) EEG with sensitive decoding techniques to investigate whether the neural signatures of preparatory overt and covert attention are dissociable across large-scale neuronal populations. We found that neural decoding reliably discerned whether overt or covert attention was shifted well before saccade initiation. Further, inverted encoding modeling revealed earlier and sharper spatially selective activity in preparatory overt than in covert attention. We then asked whether preparatory overt attention achieved sharper spatial selectivity by using “more-of-the-same” covert attention or by recruiting an additional neural process. Cross-decoding results demonstrated that preparatory overt attention recruited at least one additional, frontal process. This additional spatially selective process emerged early and likely reflects motor preparation or predictive remapping. To summarize, we found that the neural signatures of overt and covert attention overlap, yet diverge rapidly, in part because overt attention employs an additional spatially selective neural process. Extending beyond a dissociation on the single-cell level, our findings demonstrate that population-level neural activity dissociates preparatory overt from covert attention.

Catassembly Triad: A Catalytic Framework for Enantioselective Chiral Molecular Assembly

Revealing and characterizing bacterial communities of in vitro Musa species through 16S rDNA metabarcoding and culture dependent approaches

Emotional and Social Dimension of Abstract Concepts Meet with Interoception in Right Anterior Insula

According to the embodied cognition theory, which claims that concepts’ representation is grounded in sensory and motor components, abstract concepts are grounded in interoception, which is processed in the Anterior Insula (AIns). However, it is not clear whether interoception and abstract concepts share common anatomical substrates, and if yes, whether AIns is one candidate. In this study, we used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on healthy human participants ( N  = 25, 19 females) to examine whether left and right AIns play a role in both abstract concepts and interoception. The heartbeat counting task served as a measure of interoceptive accuracy, and the semantic similarity judgment as a measure of semantic performance. Concepts were characterized according to both a categorical approach, contrasting three categories of concepts, namely social and emotion (abstract categories) and objects (concrete category), and a dimensional approach, collecting semantic ratings on the emotion and social dimensions of abstract and concrete concepts. TMS site and TMS-induced electric field inside the AIns ROI were used to predict interoceptive and semantic behavioral responses. Both TMS site and E-field ROI analyses confirmed the right AIns' role in supporting interoception and the emotion and social dimensions of abstract concepts. This aligns with an embodied cognition framework, where AIns is involved in both the nonlinguistic and linguistic processing of emotional and social dimensions. Together, these results support the evidence of a relation between interoception and socio-emotional semantics and the convergence of these two processes on the right AIns.

Visible-Light-Induced Nitrogen-Atom Deletion of Unactivated Secondary Amines

The mechanism of indigo naturalis and its active ingredients against ulcerative colitis

Sex and Stress Govern the Function and Innervation of a Basolateral Amygdala to Nucleus Accumbens Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone/GABA-Expressing Projection

Motivated behaviors are executed by refined brain circuits. Early-life adversity (ELA) is a risk for human affective disorders involving dysregulated reward behaviors. In mice, ELA causes anhedonia-like behaviors in males and augmented reward motivation in females, indicating sex-dependent disruption of reward circuit operations. We recently identified a long-range corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH)/GABA-expressing projection from the basolateral amygdala (BLA) to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) that mediates reward-seeking deficits in adult ELA males—but not females. To probe the sex-specific role of this projection in reward behaviors, adult male and female CRH-Cre mice raised in control or ELA conditions received excitatory or inhibitory Cre-dependent DREADDs in the BLA and clozapine- N -oxide or vehicle to the NAc medial shell during reward behaviors. Using tissue clearing, light sheet fluorescence microscopy, and deep learning pipelines, we mapped brain-wide CRH + /GABA BLA axonal projections to identify potential sex differences in its innervation. Chemogenetic manipulations in male mice demonstrated inhibitory effects of the CRH + /GABA BLA–NAc projection on reward behaviors, whereas neither excitation nor inhibition influenced female behaviors. Molecular and electrophysiological cell identities of the projection did not vary by sex. In contrast, comprehensive whole-brain mapping uncovered significant differences in NAc innervation patterns that were both sex and ELA dependent as well as selective changes of innervation of other brain regions. The CRH + /GABA BLA–NAc projection that influences reward behaviors in males differs structurally and functionally in females, uncovering potential mechanisms for the profound sex-dependent impacts of ELA on reward behaviors.

Precision Labeling of Native Antibodies with Lock Coupling

Optimizing color image security using hybrid cryptographic techniques based on sine and logistic maps

Discovery, Interruption, and Updating of Auditory Regularities in Memory: Evidence from Low-Frequency Brain Dynamics in Human MEG

During passive listening, the brain maintains a hierarchy of predictive models to monitor the statistics of its surroundings. The automatic discovery of regular patterns has been associated with a gradual increase in sustained tonic magnetoencephalography (MEG)/electroencephalography activity, sourced in auditory, hippocampal, and frontal areas—reflecting evidence accumulation and establishment of a regularity model. Conversely, when a regular pattern is interrupted, the sustained activity drops—indicating disengagement from the model. However, how such models are established in and retrieved from memory and the conditions under which they are activated and interrupted remain underexplored. In this MEG experiment ( N  = 26 human participants; both sexes), we examined how neural responses related to model “establishment” and “interruption” are influenced by (1) the rate of stimulus presentation (tone presentation rate 20 vs 40 Hz) and (2) the novelty of the experienced acoustic structure (novel vs resumed regular pattern). The results show that (1) the dynamics of model interruption and establishment are independent of stimulus presentation rate, and that (2) model establishment occurred much faster when an experienced versus novel pattern was presented after pattern interruption, suggesting reactivation of the stored original model facilitated by the hippocampus. (3) Finally, sustained-response rises in response to pattern establishment and interruption were localized in auditory, hippocampal, and frontal sources, supporting top–down model information flow. These results unveil the temporal dynamics and neural network underlying the brain's construction and selection of predictive models to monitor changes in sensory statistics.

Piezoelectric MEMS vibration energy harvester using BiFeO3 film and dynamic magnifier for impulsive forces

Direct Aziridine Synthesis from Amines and Styrene Derivatives via a Base-Promoted Oxidative Cascade Reaction

Simultaneous epigenomic profiling and regulatory activity measurement using e2MPRA

Abstract Using various biochemical assays that identify transcription factor (TF) binding and histone modifications, cis -regulatory elements (CREs) can be annotated in a genome-wide manner. However, these assays are descriptive and require functional validation. To the best of our knowledge, no technology can simultaneously analyze the regulatory function and epigenomic modifications of a specific sequence. Here, we develop an enrichment followed by epigenomic profiling massively parallel reporter assay (e2MPRA). This technique uses lentivirus to enrich for the integration of specific CREs into the genome and applies MPRA, Cut&Tag or ATAC-seq on them enabling simultaneous, high-throughput analysis of regulatory activity, protein binding, and epigenetic modification. We demonstrate that e2MPRA can dissect the epigenetic functions of TF motifs arranged within synthetic enhancers and evaluate the effects of sequence perturbation on epigenetic states. In summary, e2MPRA advances our understanding of the regulatory code, its effect on the epigenome and how its alteration leads to phenotypic effects.

Microstructural insights and thermal properties of a sustainable bio-based geopolymer