Browse Articles

Force‐Locking DNA Hairpin Probes for High‐Throughput and Cumulative Detection of Intercellular Molecular Tensions

ABSTRACT Mechanical forces at cell‐cell junctions play essential roles in tissue organization, morphogenesis, and disease progression, yet their transient and low‐intensity nature makes detection challenging. Here, we introduce force‐locking integrator probe (FLIP)—a DNA‐based system that records cumulative molecular tension events over time. FLIP employs membrane‐anchored DNA hairpins as force sensors and fluorophore‐labeled locking strands that selectively hybridize upon hairpin unfolding, forming stable duplexes that preserve force history at the single‐cell level. By leveraging endocytosis‐driven uptake, FLIP converts membrane tension signals into whole‐cell fluorescence, extending detection beyond the short surface lifetime of lipid‐DNA probes. We demonstrate long‐term and high‐throughput measurement of integrin‐ and E‐cadherin‐mediated intercellular forces using fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry across thousands of cells. FLIP reveals force‐dependent changes under cytoskeletal perturbation and supports ratiometric imaging for precise analysis. This platform enables robust mapping of cumulative intercellular forces, offering new opportunities to study mechanotransduction in collective cell behaviors and to accelerate the development of mechano‐active therapeutics.

Neutrophil extracellular traps exacerbate liver ischemia-reperfusion injury by promoting macrophage M1 polarization via the cGAS-STING pathway

Abstract Hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is a serious complication during liver transplantation, which triggers a strongrepresents a significant complication in the context of liver transplantation, characterized by the induction of a robust non-specific inflammatory response throughmediated by damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and leads to, ultimately resulting in dysfunction of the transplanted liverorgan. The pathogenic pro-inflammatory (M1) polarization of hepatic macrophages is a driver of this hepatocyte injury, but the exact upstream trigger factor for this remains unclear. We investigated thecritical contributor to this hepatocellular damage; however, the precise upstream trigger remains unidentified. This study explores the potential role of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) as an upstream regulator of M1-type macrophage polarization. Utilizing the in vivo H-IRI mouse model alongside an in vitro macrophage co-culture system, we elucidated that the interaction between neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) and macrophages is facilitated by the cGAS-STING signaling pathway. Our findings indicate that the double-stranded DNA generated by NETs is internalized by macrophages, subsequently activating the cytoplasmic sensor cGAS and the adaptor protein 3wSTING. This activation serves as a driver for the M1 macrophage phenotype. Our study unveils a novel and critical pathway, “NETs → cGAS-STING → M1 polarization,” which plays a significant role in hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury (HIRI). This pathway presents a promising therapeutic target for mitigating graft damage following liver transplantation.

Impact of medical protective gown type and temperature conditions on cognitive performance of female healthcare workers during COVID-19

Quantifying building-level benefits of Vehicle-to-Home with photovoltaic: a high-resolution parametric study with corrected KPIs

Distinct mitochondrial response patterns to PM2.5 and microplastic exposure in healthy and asthmatic bronchial epithelial cells: an exploratory pilot study

The role of generative artificial intelligence as a catalyst for telecollaborative learning: insights from engineering

The distribution of dissolved cadmium and its isotopes across the subarctic Pacific Ocean

Hypoimmunogenic iPSC-derived hepatic organoids featuring a functional vascular network

Diffusive memristors in the edge of chaos

An evolutionary chimp-based chimp-based metaheuristic of data clustering with intelligent learning system applications

Mesh-represented and learning-empowered hologram synthesis for full 3D holographic displays

Evaluating the factor structure and measurement invariance of the Tilburg Frailty Index among community-dwelling older people in Saudi Arabia

Abstract Frailty is a multidimensional syndrome associated with adverse health outcomes in older adults and is commonly assessed using the self-reported Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI). Although the TFI was originally developed with physical, psychological, and social domains, evidence regarding its factor structure and measurement invariance across cultures remains mixed. To date, no large-scale study has examined the factorial validity and measurement invariance of the TFI in Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 428 community-dwelling Saudi adults aged ≥ 50 years. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using tetrachoric correlations and unweighted least squares was performed to examine dimensionality. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using weighted least squares mean, and variance adjustment (WLSMV) initially evaluated the original three-factor TFI structure, followed by additional models informed by EFA findings. Model stability was assessed using repeated 70/30 holdout cross-validation (200 iterations). Measurement invariance across gender, age group (50–64 vs. ≥ 65 years), and marital status was examined using multiple-group CFA. Exploratory factor-retention analyses yielded partially divergent recommendations regarding dimensionality; however, comparative evaluation of competing solutions supported retention of a three-factor structure corresponding broadly to physical, psychological, and social frailty, explaining approximately 57% of the total variance. CFA indicated that an adapted three-factor model retaining all 15 items demonstrated excellent fit (CFI = 0.971, TLI = 0.966, RMSEA = 0.046) and outperformed the original specification (CFI = 0.926, TLI = 0.913, RMSEA = 0.073). A three-factor 14-item model excluding item Q6 showed comparable fit in sensitivity analyses. Cross-validation confirmed the robustness of the adapted 15-item model (median CFI = 1.00, median RMSEA = 0.00). Multiple-group CFA supported configural and threshold invariance across all examined subgroups. This study provides substantial evidence for the factorial validity, stability, and measurement invariance of an adapted three-factor 15-item TFI among community-dwelling older adults in Saudi Arabia. The findings support its use for frailty assessment and subgroup comparisons in Saudi and similar Middle Eastern populations, while highlighting the importance of culturally informed interpretation of frailty domains.

Retraction Note: Carbon nano-onion-mediated dual targeting of P-selectin and P-glycoprotein to overcome cancer drug resistance

Genome-wide association studies for transpiration efficiency and physiological traits in Ethiopian Sorghum genotypes

Near-infrared stress memory emitters enable delayed impact visualization in illuminated environments

Highly selective removal of cationic dye using a novel synthesized polyacrylic polyacrylamide phosphate (PAA@PAm@P) hydrogel

Abstract In this study, a novel phosphate-functionalized hydrogel adsorbent, poly(acrylic acid-g-polyacrylamide) phosphate (PAA@PAm@P), was successfully synthesized for considerable adsorption of methylene blue (MB)-dye from aquatic solutions. The base hydrogel, poly(acrylic acid-g-polyacrylamide) (PAA@PAm), was prepared via free-radical copolymerization of acrylic acid and acrylamide, followed by mechanical homogenization to obtain hydrogel particles. Surface modification was subsequently achieved through phosphorylation using trisodium phosphate at 180 °C for 4.0 h, yielding the functionalized micron-sized PAA@PAm@P hydrogel. The fabricated materials were characterized using different analytical techniques, such as SEM, FTIR, TGA, and EDS, to confirm successful structural modification and functional groups incorporation. Batch adsorption experiments were conducted to investigate the influence of operational parameters including contact time, adsorbent dose, initial pH, initial MB-dye concentrations, NaCl concentrations, and temperature. The modified micron-sized PAA@PAm@P hydrogel exhibited rapid adsorption kinetics, reaching equilibrium within 15.0 min, which is twice as fast as the unmodified PAA@PAm (30.0 min). The material also demonstrated exceptional swelling behavior with a maximum swelling ratio of 5590% within 3 min, significantly higher than that of PAA@PAm (1712% after 7.0 min). Experimental results indicated that kinetic data were best described by pseudo-second-order (R 2  = 0.9978) and intra-particle diffusion mechanisms (R 2  = 0.971) while isotherm data were best fitted well with the Freundlich isotherm model with a remarkably high maximum adsorption capacity of 1000 mg g⁻ 1 for MB-dye. Furthermore, micron-sized PAA@PAm@P hydrogel showed excellent regeneration capability, maintaining high adsorption efficiency over five consecutive adsorption–desorption cycles. Comparative analysis with recently reported hydrogel adsorbents confirmed the superior adsorption performance of the developed material. These findings demonstrate that the phosphate-functionalized PAA@PAm@P hydrogel is a highly efficient, reusable, and environmentally sustainable adsorbent for rapid removal of cationic dyes from contaminated water.

Hypernetworks induce stable hyperlocking

Abstract Hypernetworks capture coupling structures where interactions extend beyond pairs to groups of three or more units, called hyperedges. They are of increasing importance for many systems such as the brain, social groups, ecosystems, and the climate. We describe here a synchronization phenomenon that is distinctive for hypernetworks. We uncover that in a system of three coupled oscillators with resonant frequencies, the coupling by a triadic hypernetwork motif, where a third node modulates the interaction between two others, can induce a stable locking of a phase triplet, while no pairwise locking is observed. Using normal form transformations and phase reduction, we derive analytically how a specific choice of the coupling functions induces this hyperlocking. We confirm our predictions with both numerical simulations and chemical experiments. Our findings uncover a new synchronization mechanism intrinsic to higher-order interactions and open new directions for controlling real-world complex dynamics beyond pairwise frameworks.

The repeatability and comparison between swept-source optical coherence tomography and Scheimpflug imaging in healthy eyes and various grades of keratoconus

Pseudouridine synthase PUS1 and initiation factor mtIF2 are human mitoribosomal small subunit assembly factors

Abstract Assembly of the mitochondrial ribosome (mitoribosome) is a crucial step in mitochondrial gene expression. This process facilitates mitochondrial translation, which produces essential subunits of the oxidative phosphorylation machinery—the cell’s primary energy-producing machinery. Disruptions in mitoribosome assembly can lead to severe human diseases. Given its fundamental importance, detailed structural analysis of mitoribosome assembly pathways is essential for advancing our understanding of mitochondrial function in both health and disease. In this study, we characterize twelve distinct assembly states of the mitoribosomal small subunit (mtSSU) isolated from human cells. Our findings reveal the intricate details of the final maturation stages of the mtSSU platform, decoding center, and the 3’-end of 12S rRNA. This process is governed by coordinated actions of assembly factors that ensure precise, stepwise rRNA folding and the integration of mitoribosomal proteins into the developing subunit. Our approach identifies pseudouridine synthase PUS1 and initiation factor mtIF2 as assembly factors, expanding their known roles beyond mt-tRNA maturation and translation, respectively. In addition, the identified assembly intermediates provide insight into the modular nature of mtSSU biogenesis in mitochondria and further link late-stage assembly to the acquisition of translational competence.

Dynamic heterogeneous graph contrastive learning for uncovering collusive financial fraud

Abstract Detecting collusion rings in modern banking requires modeling the evolving structural interactions among heterogeneous entities (customers, accounts, and devices) rather than isolated transaction features. Most graph-based fraud detectors assume abundant labels, yet confirmed fraud labels in anti-money laundering (AML) settings routinely arrive months after the fact. We introduce Audit-HCL , a dynamic heterogeneous graph neural network framework that uses dual-view contrastive learning to operate effectively under this label scarcity. Audit-HCL represents the transaction ecosystem as a temporal sequence of heterogeneous graph snapshots, encodes them through a metapath-guided heterogeneous attention encoder, and tracks evolving node behavior with a GRU-based temporal dynamics module. A cross-view contrastive objective aligns structural and temporal perspectives for legitimate nodes while separating anomalous ones, guided by an anomaly-aware negative sampling strategy. Experiments on two public benchmarks (Elliptic and IBM AML-Synthetic) show that Audit-HCL outperforms fourteen baselines by 3.2% in AUC-ROC and 6.8% in F1-score, with the gains over the strongest competitors confirmed by paired significance tests, and that it retains useful discriminative power with zero fraud labels. On the synthetic IBM AML benchmark, it also detects laundering patterns an average of 7.4 weeks ahead of confirmed events ( $$2.3\times$$ the lead time of the best baseline) by capturing gradual structural drift before large-scale fund transfers begin, although the magnitude of this lead time is tied to the controlled typologies of the synthetic data and should be read as indicative rather than as a guarantee for production AML environments.