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In Situ Encapsulation of Cationic [2]Catenane in a Stable Zirconium Metal–Organic Framework

Correction: Killer whale respiration rates

Discovery of High-Capacity Asymmetric Three-Stage Redox Reactions of Iodine for Aqueous Batteries

Identification of differentially expressed genes and proteins related to diapause in Lymantria dispar: Insights for the mechanism of diapause from transcriptome and proteome analyses

Spongy moth (Lymantria dispar Linnaeus) is a globally recognized quarantine leaf-eating pest. Spongy moths typically enter diapause after completing embryonic development and overwinter in the egg stage. They spend three-quarters of their life cycle (approximately nine months) in the egg stage, which requires a period of low-temperature stimulation to break diapause and continue growth and development. In this study, we explored the molecular mechanism underlying the diapause process in spongy moth. We performed bioinformatics analysis on four Asian populations of spongy moth and one Asian–European hybrid population through a transcriptome analysis combined with proteomics. The results revealed that 1,842 genes were differentially expressed upon diapause initiation, while 264 genes were identified upon diapause termination. Eight diapause-related genes were screened out from the three-level pathways that were significantly enriched by differentially expressed genes at the time of diapause and diapause termination, and the phylogenetic tree and protein three-dimensional structure model were constructed. This study elucidates the diapause mechanism of spongy moth at the gene and protein levels, providing theoretical insights into the early and precise prevention and control of spongy moth. This study can facilitate the development of an efficient, environmentally friendly control system for managing spongy moth populations in the field.

Intrinsically Adaptive Salicylaldimine: Mechanically and Thermally Induced Switching between Photochromism and Photoluminescence

The global impact of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (including cirrhosis) in the elderly from 1990 to 2021 and future projections of disease burden

Background Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a metabolic disorder characterized by hepatic steatosis and inflammation in individuals with no significant alcohol consumption history. Predominantly affecting middle-aged and elderly populations, particularly those with obesity or metabolic syndrome, this condition represents a spectrum ranging from benign fatty accumulation to progressive liver damage. In advanced stages, NAFLD may progress to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. This study systematically examines the global incidence patterns and epidemiological characteristics of NAFLD in older adults(>60 years), while establishing predictive models for its future disease burden. Methods Data on NAFLD in the Elderly(>60 years), from 1990 to 2021, was obtained from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, encompassing 204 countries and territories. This dataset includes incidence rates of NAFLD. The Joinpoint regression model was utilized to detect turning points in the epidemiological trends of NAFLD, and decomposition analysis was performed to analyze the factors influencing these trends. To evaluate potential health disparities related to NAFLD, the Slope Index and Concentration Index were calculated. Additionally, the Norpred and Bayesian age-period-cohort (BAPC) models were employed to forecast future incidence rates of NAFLD. Results In 1990, the global NAFLD incidence in the elderly was 2819125(3972309 ± 1807520), with an ASIR of 568.46(803.33 ± 364.10). The global NAFLD prevalence in the elderly was 132549345(166820867 ± 102941502), with an ASPR of 27284.94(34321.92 ± 21200.69). The global NAFLD deaths in the elderly were 27864(45975 ± 15898), with an age-standardized death rate of 6.20(10.18 ± 3.55). The global NAFLD DALYs in the elderly were 559945(931920 ± 319045), with an age-standardized DALYs rate of 116.78(193.49 ± 66.73). In 2021, the global NAFLD incidence in the elderly was 7,012,128 (9,896,736 ± 4,480,162), with an ASIR of 636.90 (900.15 ± 406.76). The global NAFLD prevalence in the elderly was 366,363,498 (454,385,769 ± 287,891,088), with an ASPR of 33,576.22 (41,647.44 ± 26,372.13). The global NAFLD deaths in the elderly were 63,313 (99,891 ± 37,267), with an age-standardized death rate of 5.95 (9.39 ± 3.50). The global NAFLD DALYs in the elderly were 1,238,927 (1,973,042 ± 729,228), with an age-standardized DALYs rate of 113.95 (181.50 ± 66.91). From 1990 to 2021, the AAPC of ASIR for NAFLD in the elderly globally was 0.37(0.36 to 0.38), with a p-value < 0.05. The AAPC of ASPR for NAFLD in the elderly globally was 0.67(0.65 to 0.68), with a p-value < 0.05. The AAPC of age-standardized deaths rate for NAFLD in the elderly globally was −0.13(−0.16 to −0.1), with a p-value < 0.05. The AAPC of age-standardized DALYs rate for NAFLD in the elderly globally was −0.05(−0.07 to −0.02), with a p-value < 0.05. The decomposition analysis results indicate that population growth is the primary driver of increased disease burden in older NAFLD patients. It is expected that in the future, the disease burden of NAFLD in elderly people worldwide will continue to rise. Conclusions Over the past three decades, the annual age-standardized incidence rate and total number of cases of NAFLD, including cirrhosis, have increased among the elderly population, irrespective of gender. This upward trend is consistent across all SDI regions. Furthermore, future projections indicate that both the annual age-standardized incidence rate and the case numbers of NAFLD, including cirrhosis, in the elderly are likely to continue rising.

Spatially Aligned Binary Single-Site Catalyst on Defective SiO ₂ for Cascading Reactions

Computer-aided discovery of dual-target compounds for Alzheimer’s from ayurvedic medicinal plants

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by cognitive decline, driven by the accumulation of amyloid-beta plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. It involves the dysfunction of key enzymes such as Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and β-secretase (BACE1), making them critical targets for therapeutic intervention. In this study we investigated an in-house library of 820 secondary metabolites obtained from Ayurvedic plants against AChE and BACE1 with the aim to discover novel leads for AD. Virtual screening resulted in 15 ligands, mostly belonging to the ursane-type or dammarene-type triterpene saponins of Centella asiatica, reestablishing the potency of this plant in drug discovery against AD. The binding affinities were further verified by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation trajectories, including root mean square fluctuations (RMSF), root mean square deviation (RMSD), hydrogen bonding analysis, Coulomb interaction calculation, Lennard-Jones interactions, and the total interaction energy. Moreover, extensive Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Gibbs free energy landscape were performed. Our results demonstrated three compounds, namely (S)-eriodictyol 7-O-(6-β-O-trans-p-coumaroyl)-β-d-glucopyranoside, sitoindoside-X and 1,5-di-o-caffeoyl quinic acid as more effective in treating AD due to their comparable drug-like properties. Drug-likeness, structural chemistry, pharmacophore, and ADMET (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion, and Toxicity) analysis support their potential for future drug development. To establish the effectiveness of these lead compounds against AD, additional experimental testing should be performed.

A Linear Metallocene of Sc(II) Supported by [C₅Me₄(SiMe₂^<i>t</i>Bu)]^1– Ligands

Identification of novel biomarkers related to pathogenesis and treatment of psoriasis based on integrated analysis of weighted gene co-expression network analysis and LASSO

Background Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin disease, and current treatments have their own limitations, including moderate treatment effectiveness, poor compliance, and potential safety risks, etc. Therefore, the primary focus of this study is to explore novel molecular targets and improve the diagnosis and treatment of psoriasis patients. Method In this study, comprehensive bioinformatics analysis was performed on the expression profiles of tissue samples from patients with psoriasis in the clinical trial of TYK2/JAK1 inhibitor treatment (NCT02310750). Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression were performed to identify characteristic genes and construct the diagnostic models. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used to identify the biological processes of psoriasis characteristic gene sets. GO and KEGG pathway analysis were combined to elucidate the potential biological significance of differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The accuracy of biomarker identification was further validated using immune cell infiltration and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves based on external data (GSE6710\GSE30999\GSE14905). Results A total of 5 genes (DEFB103A, OAS3, OASL, SAMD9, STAT1) were co-identified as characteristic genes in psoriasis progression and treatment. The feature of the immune cell infiltration was highly consistent with association of characteristic biomarkers with immune cells. A total of 14 up-regulated genes and 5 down-regulated genes were identified in respective modules (AUC NL/LS = 0.9783; AUC pre/post = 0.9395; AUC external = 0.9469). In addition, 8 genes (DEFB103A, OASL, HERC6, ISG15, MKI67, MX1, MXD1, SCO2) were considered to have statistically significant differences in sensitivity of short-term treatment for psoriasis. Conclusion The research findings provide an understanding of the role of novel biomarkers and offer a perspective for further in-depth investigation into the progression and treatment of psoriasis.

Self-Assembly of Alkynylplatinum(II) Complexes for Sialic Acid Detection and Differentiation of Cancer Cells from Normal Cells

PoseNet++: A multi-scale and optimized feature extraction network for high-precision human pose estimation

Human pose estimation (HPE) has made significant progress with deep learning; however, it still faces challenges in handling occlusions, complex poses, and complex multi-person scenarios. To address these issues, we propose PoseNet++, a novel approach based on a 3-stacked hourglass architecture, incorporating three key innovations: the multi-scale spatial pyramid attention hourglass module (MSPAHM), coordinate-channel prior convolutional attention (C-CPCA), and the PinSK Bottleneck Residual Module (PBRM). MSPAHM enhances long-range channel dependencies, enabling the model to better capture structural relationships between limb joints, particularly under occlusion. C-CPCA combines coordinate attention (CA) and channel prior convolutional attention (CPCA) to prioritize keypoints’ regions and reduce the confusion in complex multi-person scenarios. The PBRM improves pose estimation accuracy by optimizing the receptive field and convolutional kernel selection, thus enhancing the network’s feature extraction capabilities in multi-scale and complex poses. On the MPII validation set, PoseNet++ improves the PCKh score by 3.3% relative to the baseline 3-stacked hourglass network, while reducing the number of model parameters and the number of floating-point operations by 60.3% and 53.1%, respectively. Compared with other mainstream human pose estimation models in recent years, PoseNet++ achieves the state-of-the-art performance on the MPII, LSP, COCO and CrowdPose datasets. At the same time, the model complexity of PoseNet++ is much lower than that of methods with similar accuracy.

Modulating Solid-State Photocycloaddition Kinetics via Ligand Substituents and Crystal Structures in One-Dimensional Coordination Polymers

Optimizing genomic diversity assessments for conservation of Bromus auleticus (Trinius ex Nees) using individual and pooled sequencing

Bromus auleticus, a valuable forage grass native to the Pampa biome, is currently undergoing genetic erosion. Therefore, it is essential to assess appropriate methodologies for developing population genomic studies that will contribute to the conservation of this genetic resource. In this study, we evaluated five accessions using two genotyping strategies: individual sequencing (ind-seq) and pooled sequencing (pool-seq). To assess methodologies effectiveness, the correlation between allele frequencies calculated using each approach was investigated, as well as genetic diversity and population structure. These comparisons explicitly accounted for the potential effects of factors such as sample size, missing data, sequencing depth, and minor allele frequencies. The highest values of frequencies concordance and percentage of SNPs in common between ind-seq and pool-seq were achieved using a sample size of 30–60 plants per accession. These values were obtained with a maximum missing data threshold of 10% and a less strict minimum allele frequency threshold for pool-seq (0.01) compared to ind-seq (0.05). Pool-seq required a higher sequencing depth per accession (4.8 million reads) compared to ind-seq (0.9 million reads) to achieve similar allele frequencies. Pools of 50 individuals yielded the highest number of polymorphic sites, averaging over 9,000 per accession at a sequencing depth of 4.8 Mr. Under these conditions, pool-seq consistently resulted in an average of 0.09 higher expected heterozygosity and a 0.24 lower allelic richness compared to ind-seq in all accessions. Population structure inferred with both methodologies confirmed the outcrossing nature of B. auleticus and aligned with the geographical origin of each accession. The average inbreeding coefficient of 0.2 evidence inbreeding, which highlights the importance of conservation efforts for this valuable plant genetic resource. Based on these findings, we propose two workflows for conducting population genomics studies on Bromus auleticus.

Study protocol of group antenatal care implementation at a public women’s hospital in Brazil

The antenatal care is an important service offered to women during pregnancy that aims to guarantee the mother and fetus’s health. In Brazil, although the coverage of this service is high, the outcomes need to be improved. This study aims to implement a pilot study of a group antenatal care among pregnant women in follow up at a Woman´s Hospital of Universidade Estadual de Campinas, a public teaching hospital referral in women’s health. This randomized clinical trial will be conducted. The study group will be composed of a maximum of 15 women that will be followed in a group antenatal care with 11 meetings every 4 weeks or earlier, during all pregnancy period, while control group will receive the individual antenatal care. Sociodemographic data, quality of life, anxiety and depression will be assessed in women from both groups and women’s satisfaction and experience among the intervention group will be evaluated. A 5% significance level was adopted for quantitative analysis and the sample size was calculated based on ambulatory’s flow. A positive result among the intervention group is expected, mainly in providing a better antenatal experience for women and their knowledge of maternal and child health. This study was approved by the Ethics and Research Commission of UNICAMP number of approval: 25333119.2.0000.5404 and the Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials (REBEC): RBR-8xcjmf UTN code: U1111-1243–6241. Date: jan.2025, version 1.

Ultrastable Copper Carboxylate Metal–Organic Frameworks

Cooperation is not rewarded by friendship, but generous and selfish students repel each other in social networks

Humans cooperate across various contexts, despite the individual costs involved. Cooperation and prosocial behavior may persist because these costs are offset by reputation and other social benefits. Specifically, cooperators and prosocial individuals may receive more friendship nominations and be less likely to face exclusion or avoidance. We test whether such beneficial network dynamics are present in a unique dataset of twenty primary school classes in northern Italy. Cooperation and social preferences of 420 students in grades 4 and 5 were measured with incentivized social dilemma games, and the social network of the entire classroom was traced on two subsequent occasions. We modeled the dynamics of friendship and negative ties with Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models, and conducted a meta-analysis of the results. Our key finding is that, while we do not observe evidence of homophily based on social preferences in friendship nominations - and being prosocial does not lead to receiving more friendship nominations, individuals are significantly more likely to direct negative tie nominations toward peers who made different offers in the dictator game. These results suggest that social network dynamics support cooperation not by rewarding prosocial behavior with friendship, but through repulsion between prosocial and selfish students.

Erratum: Bellocchio et al., “Sustained G _q -Protein Signaling Disrupts Striatal Circuits via JNK”

Bis(trifluoromethyl)carborhodamines: Highly Fluorogenic, Far-Red to Near-Infrared Dyes for Live Cell Fluorescence Microscopy, Activity-Based Sensing, and Single-Molecule Microscopy

Evaluation of sugar meal administered anti-Leishmania compounds on the vectorial capacity of the vector, Lutzomyia longipalpis

Multiple strategies involving the parasite-host-vector triad are necessary to control leishmaniasis. One option is to prevent or reduce transmission of the pathogen by the phlebotomine sand fly vectors. In this sense, it is essential to explore compounds that may influence the vectorial capacity of the insect and reduce its longevity. We investigated the effect of anti-Leishmania drugs administered via the sugar meal on longevity, blood feeding, oviposition, and parasite load on the third day of infection of the sand flies, to identify the most promising candidates for vector infection tests. We identified compounds that affected the longevity of sand flies (three pterocarpanquinones – LQB-475, LQB-181, and LQ-03; one hydroxyethylpiperazine, PMIC-4, and Pentamidine), reduced oviposition of females after blood feeding (LQB-181 and PMIC-4), but did not decrease infection rates or parasite loads. The results provide the effect of antiparasitic drugs from the perspective of the insect vector.