Browse Articles
Discover research articles across all indexed journals
Building on the momentum of N-of-1 base editor therapies for rare diseases
Regulation of steady state ribosomal transcription in Mycobacterium tuberculosis: Intersection of sigma subunits, superhelicity, and transcription factors
Prevalence and associated factors of pregnancy induced hypertension among pregnant women in public hospitals of Hadiya Zone, Central Ethiopia: A cross-sectional study
Background Pregnancy-induced hypertension is one of the global public health burdens contributing to several adverse perinatal outcomes. However, data on the prevalence and associated factors of PIH is limited in Hadiya Zone, central Ethiopia. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study among women attending antenatal care in the four public hospitals in the Hadiya zone from August 1, 2023, to January 30, 2024. The total sample size (433) was proportionally allocated to each hospital. Data were collected by face-to-face interview using a structured questionnaire. Blood pressure was measured by a digital Sphygmomanometer, and Pregnancy-induced hypertension status was considered if systolic blood pressure was ≥ 140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure ≥90 mmHg on two measurements among pregnant women with gestational age > 20 weeks. Factors associated with Pregnancy-induced hypertension were identified by multivariable binary logistic regression analysis, as expressed by adjusted odds ratio (aOR) and its 95% confidence interval. Results The mean age of the participants was 29.4 years (SD = ±4.6), and the majority of women were multiparous (59.6%). The prevalence of Pregnancy-induced hypertension was 13.4% (95% CI: 10.2% – 16.9%), of which 81% were preeclampsia. In the multivariable analysis, PIH was associated with, the poorest wealth index (aOR = 0.26, 95%CI: 0.08–0.90), having a family history of hypertension (aOR = 12.52,95%CI: 4.52–34.62), overweight maternal BMI (aOR = 4.24, 95%CI: 2.06–8.72), and gestational age (aOR = 0.21 at 95% CI: 0.06–0.82). Conclusions More than 13 out of 100 pregnant women were found to have pregnancy-induced hypertension in the Hadiya zone, Southern Ethiopia. The high prevalence of Pregnancy-induced hypertension and its association with wealth index, gestational age, overweight/obesity and family history of hypertension/Pregnancy-induced hypertension underscores the need for targeted, tailored, and contextualized interventions to address Pregnancy-induced hypertension in the Hadiya zone. Creating awareness on Pregnancy-induced hypertension among pregnant women and the general population and enhancing early screening and detection services in the community and healthcare facilities need to be strengthened in the Hadiya zone.
FDA new drug approvals in Q2 2025
Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy–associated ND1 3733G>C mutation ameliorates the mitochondrial quality control and cellular homeostasis
Abdominal organ injury in cardiac arrest: Systematic literature review
Background Both cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and ischaemia could lead to abdominal organ injury. However, the importance of abdominal injury in cardiac arrest remains uncertain. We aimed to systematically review indexed literature to describe incidence of abdominal injury after non-traumatic cardiac arrest and associations with outcome. Methods We searched MEDLINE/PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Scopus up to 12th September 2024 for studies reporting differences in outcomes between patients with and without abdominal injury, and all studies reporting abdominal adverse events after cardiac arrest. Two independent reviewers screened articles for eligibility. One reviewer extracted data and assessed risk of bias using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklist. Injuries were defined as traumatic or ischaemic, either in the studies or otherwise by the reviewers. Results were summarized and presented in tables and Forest plots. We followed the PRISMA guidelines, and registered the study in PROSPERO. Results We included 68 studies and 140 case reports. Most studies were single-centre. Quantitative synthesis of evidence was not feasible given high heterogeneity and risk of bias. Traumatic injuries affected mostly liver and spleen, with incidences from 0% to 15%, reaching 29% in one study of mechanical chest compressions. Life-threatening injuries were uncommon. The incidence of ischaemic injury was dependent on assessment method; 7% to 28% had liver injury, 0.7% to 2.5% was diagnosed with non-occlusive mesenteric ischaemia, 82% to 100% had intestinal injury measured by biomarkers. Ischaemic injuries were associated with mortality. Conclusion In this comprehensive review of abdominal injuries following cardiac arrest, CPR-related traumatic injuries were uncommon, but should be considered in patients with unexplained clinical deterioration. Ischaemic injury incidence ranged from 0.7% to 100%, and was consistently associated with mortality. Whether abdominal ischaemia independently contributes to poor outcomes remains unresolved and warrants further investigation. PROSPERO ID: CRD42022311508.
GAPDH heme delivery to Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 involves their complex formation and complementary charge pairing at the protein-protein interface
Monetary policy, debt maturity structure and corporate investment efficiency: Evidence from China
This paper examines the impact of monetary policy on corporate investment efficiency from the perspective of debt maturity structure by selecting data on Chinese non-financial listed firms and Chinese macroeconomic data from 2007–2022. The results find that loose monetary policy can have a dual effect on corporate investment efficiency by extending corporate debt maturity structure, which is manifested in alleviating corporate under-investment and promoting corporate over-investment. Heterogeneity analysis shows that in high bank competition areas, the debt maturity structure effect of monetary policy is effective in mitigating under-investment and promoting over-investment by enterprises. In contrast, in low bank competition regions, the debt maturity structure effect of monetary policy promotes corporate over-investment but has no significant effect on corporate under-investment. In addition, the debt maturity structure effect of monetary policy can effectively alleviate under-investment and promote over-investment of enterprises with low financing constraints. And it has no significant effect on the under-investment and over-investment behavior of high financing constraint enterprises. The research in this paper reveals the specific mechanism of monetary policy affecting the investment efficiency of enterprises, which has certain reference value for the objective evaluation of monetary policy effects.
PAXX/Ku interaction is rate limiting for repair of double-strand DNA breaks requiring end processing
Analytical validation and sequencing coverage studies suggest that performance of a liquid biopsy assay is tumor agnostic (DNA-is-DNA)
Per regulatory and standard requirements (e.g., Clinical & Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines, United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) correspondence), analytical validation (AV) for each companion diagnostic (CDx) biomarker should be repeated using a clinical sample set for each cancer type listed as an indication in labelling for a CDx. Using data from AV studies and Foundation Medicine (FMI)’s clinical database, we evaluated the hypothesis that analytical performance of the FoundationOne®Liquid CDx (F1LCDx) assay is not impacted by cancer type and that large sets of clinical, tumor-specific samples might not be necessary for analytical validation of specific CDx biomarkers. We retrospectively evaluated all liquid biopsy samples from F1LCDx assay AV studies that were executed between April 2019 and November 2021 and clinical samples processed by F1LCDx between September 2020 and October 2021. For the samples from AV studies, we evaluated the precision and concordance performance by F1LCDx between tumor types; and for the clinical samples, we performed analyses comparing the distribution of coverage between tumor types. A total of 31,247 F1LCDx clinical samples and 579 samples from F1LCDx AV studies with a total of 335 disease ontologies (DOs) were included in this study. For precision: the median absolute pairwise difference of mean reproducibility between any pairs of two tumor types is 0.94% [0.01%−2.63%] and the median absolute pairwise difference of mean repeatability between any pairs of two tumor types is 0.91% [0.03%−2.98%]. For concordance: the median absolute ∂PPA between any pairs of two tumor types is 1.39% [0.1%−4.1%] and the median absolute ∂NPA between any pairs of two tumor types is 0.05% [0%−1%]. For coverage, a similar distribution was observed between tumor types using F1LCDx clinical samples. Herein, the results based on the extensive cohort of 31,826 liquid biopsy samples sequenced by the F1LCDx assay demonstrated that both analytical assessment of precision and concordance and coverage are comparable among tumor types (i.e., deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is DNA). The tumor type that circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) was derived from is therefore not a vital consideration for AV studies for F1LCDx assay.
Phosphorylation-mediated regulation of the NADPH-dependent glutamate dehydrogenase, SpGdh1, from Schizosaccharomyces pombe
LTR-Net: A deep learning-based approach for financial data prediction and risk evaluation in enterprises
Financial data prediction and risk assessment represent a complex multi-task problem that requires effective handling of time-series data and multi-dimensional features. Traditional models struggle to simultaneously capture temporal dependencies, global information, and intricate nonlinear relationships, resulting in limited prediction accuracy. To address this challenge, we propose LTR-Net, a multi-module deep learning model that combines LSTM, Transformer, and ResNet. LTR-Net effectively processes the multi-dimensional features and dynamic changes in financial data by incorporating a temporal dependency modeling module, a global information capture module, and a deep feature extraction module. Experimental results demonstrate that LTR-Net significantly outperforms existing mainstream models, including LSTM, GRU, Transformer, and DeepAR, across multiple financial datasets. On the Kaggle Financial Distress Prediction Dataset and the Yahoo Finance Stock Market Data, LTR-Net exhibits higher accuracy, stability, and robustness across various metrics such as MSE, RMSE, MAE, and AUC. Ablation experiments further validate the indispensability of each module within LTR-Net, confirming the pivotal roles of the LSTM, Transformer, and ResNet modules in financial data analysis. LTR-Net not only enhances the accuracy of financial data prediction but also exhibits strong generalization capabilities, making it adaptable to data analysis and risk assessment tasks in other domains.
Lilly buys Verve and its in vivo gene editors for up to US$1.3 billion
Acetylation of microtubule-binding PinX1 orchestrates ribosome biogenesis to nutrient starvation via the RNA polymerase I preinitiation complex
Long lasting effects of perinatal exposure to the Chlorpyrifos pesticide on sleep, breathing, and neuroinflammation in adult mice
Early-life exposure to environmental stressors may increase the risk of disease later in life. Chlorpyrifos (CPF), a widely used pesticide and acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, can cross the placental barrier and can be found in breast milk, leading to excessive cholinergic stimulation. Acetylcholine is involved in sleep and respiratory regulation. The main objective of this study was to investigate whether perinatal CPF exposure affects sleep-related breathing together with promotion of neuroinflammatory processes in adulthood. To explore these effects, CPF (5 mg/kg/day) or vehicle was administered orally to dams from mating to weaning. The offspring were not directly treated. At 17–18 weeks of age, male and female offspring underwent electroencephalographic and electromyographic electrode implantation to monitor sleep-wake cycles. Recordings were conducted over 48 hours in home cages, and for 7 hours in a plethysmographic chamber to assess sleep-related breathing pattern. At the end of recordings, hippocampal tissues were collected for gene expression analysis via real-time PCR. Results revealed that CPF perinatal exposure increased sighs and apneas during sleep in adult mice, especially in female. Additionally, expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines was upregulated while expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor genes was downregulated in the hippocampus of female mice born to CPF-treated dams. These findings suggest that perinatal CPF exposure can induce long-lasting alterations in sleep-related respiratory patterns and hippocampal inflammatory responses, with a sex-specific susceptibility—females being more affected. This highlights the perinatal period as a critical window of vulnerability to environmental toxicants such as pesticides. The results support the hypothesis that adult sleep and brain inflammation phenotypes may be modulated by early-life chemical exposures during pregnancy and lactation.
The US biosimilars market after one decade
O-GlcNAcylation of fatty acid synthase is required for its proper subcellular localization, expression level, and activity
Mental and physical health of US rural/urban caregivers of persons with dementia
Purpose Increased dependence on caregiving and limited access to healthcare services in rural US communities may contribute to worse mental and physical health in rural caregivers of persons with dementia (PWD) relative to their urban counterparts. We assessed the association between rural/urban residence and mental and physical health among US caregivers of PWD. Methods Using 2020–2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, we identified caregivers of PWD from rural (n = 2311) and urban (n = 15094) areas. Mental health outcome was operationalized as poor mental health days (PMHD); categorized as 0, 1–13, and ≥14 PMHD in previous month. Poor physical health (PPHD) was operationalized in the same manner. Covariates included socio-demographic and caregiving factors. Four sets of unadjusted and adjusted survey-weighted multinomial logistic models (reference: 0 days) were created for PMHD and PPHD. Results Approximately, 25.7% of rural and 20.8% of urban caregivers reported ≥14 PMHD while 25% of rural and 10% of urban caregivers reported ≥14 PPHD. Prior to adjustment, rural caregivers had lower odds (0.59, 95% CI: 0.34–1.05) of 1–13 vs. 0 PMHD but higher odds (1.13, 95% CI: 0.55–2.30) of 14 + vs 0 PMHD compared to urban caregivers with neither association being statistically significant. In adjusted models, the association for 1–13 vs 0 PMHD became significant, while rural residence became associated with lower, non-significant odds of 14 + vs. 0 PMHD. For physical health, rural caregivers had lower odds (0.86, 95% CI: 0.53–1.41) of 1–13 vs 0 PPHD but higher odds (2.57, 95% CI: 1.00–6.63) of 14 + vs 0 PPHD in unadjusted models with neither result being significant. After adjustment, the associations for 1–13 vs. 0 PPHD were attenuated and remained non-significant, while rural caregivers had significantly higher odds of 14 + vs 0 PPHD, consistent with unadjusted results. Conclusions Rural caregivers of PWD are less likely to experience short-term mental health problems compared to their urban counterparts. However, they face similar levels of experiencing PMHD. Additionally, rural caregivers of PWD are more likely to endure more PPHD than urban caregivers. Considering the extensive day-to-day responsibilities that caregivers of PWD carry and the ongoing need for their support, it is crucial to enhance long-term mental health resources for both rural and urban caregivers. Furthermore, targeted initiatives to support the long-term physical health of rural caregivers are equally essential.