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Lasers in Medical Science Jun 2024Previous clinical studies have shown that pulsed dye laser (PDL) and intense pulsed light (IPL) are effective for treating erythematotelangiectatic rosacea(ETR). This... (Randomized Controlled Trial)
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Previous clinical studies have shown that pulsed dye laser (PDL) and intense pulsed light (IPL) are effective for treating erythematotelangiectatic rosacea(ETR). This article aims to compare the efficacy and safety of PDL and IPL at three different wavelength bands (broad-band, single-narrow-band, and dual-narrow-band) in treating ETR. Sixty subjects with ETR were randomly categorized into four groups and received one of the following laser treatments: PDL (595 nm), IPL with Delicate Pulse Light (DPL, 500-600 nm), IPL with M22 590 (590-1200 nm), or IPL with M22 vascular filter (530-650 nm and 900-1200 nm). Four treatment sessions were administered at 4-week intervals, with one follow-up session 4 weeks after the final treatment. The efficacy of the four lasers was evaluated by comparing the clinical symptom score, total effective rate, VISIA red area absolute score, and RosaQoL score before and after treatment. The safety was evaluated by comparing adverse reactions such as pain, purpura, erythematous edema, and blister. All 60 subjects completed the study. Within-group effects showed that the clinical symptom score, VISIA red area absolute score, and RosaQoL score of all four groups were significantly reduced compared to before treatment (p < 0.001). Between-group effects showed no statistically significant difference among the four laser groups. Safety analysis showed that all four lasers were safe, but the incidence of blister was higher in the M22 vascular group. Nonpurpurogenic PDL, DPL, M22 590, and M22 vascular were equally effective in treating ETR and were well-tolerated. ClinicalTrial.gov Identifier: NCT05360251.
Topics: Humans; Lasers, Dye; Female; Rosacea; Adult; Male; Middle Aged; Intense Pulsed Light Therapy; Treatment Outcome; Low-Level Light Therapy
PubMed: 38822948
DOI: 10.1007/s10103-024-04098-9 -
Journal of Agricultural and Food... Jun 2024Blister beetles of have attracted attention because they contain a large amount of cantharidin (CTD). To date, however, the synthesis and transfer of CTD in adults of...
Blister beetles of have attracted attention because they contain a large amount of cantharidin (CTD). To date, however, the synthesis and transfer of CTD in adults of are largely unknown. Here, we showed that the larvae are capable of synthesizing CTD and they consume CTD during pupation. Before sexual maturity, both male and female adults synthesized a small amount of CTD, while after sexual maturity, males produced larger amounts of CTD, but females did not. The newly synthesized CTD in males first appeared in the hemolymph and then accumulated in the reproductive system. During the mating, the males transferred CTD to the reproductive system of females. In addition, a farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase (FPPS) gene was identified in male . RNA-seq analysis, quantitative RT-PCR, and RNA interference analyses were conducted to investigate expression patterns and the functional roles of FPPS (). Our results indicate that is highly expressed in the fat body of males. Moreover, the knock-down of led to a significant decrease in CTD synthesis. The current study indicates that is expressed in the fat body to regulate CTD synthesis in male blister beetles.
PubMed: 38822796
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.4c00116 -
Dermatology Practical & Conceptual Apr 2024Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is an autoimmune disease primarily affecting the oral mucosa.
Evaluation of the Quality of Life and the Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of Patients With Pemphigus With Oral Mucosal İnvolvement: A Multicenter Observational Study.
INTRODUCTION
Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is an autoimmune disease primarily affecting the oral mucosa.
OBJECTIVES
This study aimed to determine the demographic, clinical and treatment characteristics of PV patients with oral mucosal involvement and to assess the impact on their quality of life.
METHODS
We conducted a prospective observational study among 106 patients diagnosed with PV and presenting oral mucosal involvement. Demographic data, clinical and treatment characteristics, and quality of life questionnaires were recorded.
RESULTS
The study included 106 patients, 55 (51.89%) were male and there was a predominance of the mucocutaneous subtype in 83 individuals (78.38%). Oral mucosa was the initial site of manifestation in 44 patients (41.51%). Bilateral buccal mucosa was the most frequently affected site. The predominant symptom reported was a burning sensation, noted in 91 patients (85.85%). Oral mucosal examination revealed erosions in 85.85% of the patients. Systemic steroids were the most commonly administered treatment, and rituximab was used in 18 patients (16.98%). A positive and significant correlation was found between pemphigus severity and Oral Health Impact Profile-14, Dermatology Life Quality Index and Dermatological Quality of Life Scale scores (P < 0.05). The presence of superficial ulcers, flaccid bullae, lesion diameter ≥1 cm, and >10 lesions were factors that markedly diminished quality of life. Complete response to treatment was noted in all patients administered rituximab.
CONCLUSIONS
The most common area of involvement was bilateral buccal mucosa, and the severity of PV closely correlated with a decline in quality of life measures. These results highlight the need for careful clinical oversight of PV, taking into account its effects on patients quality of life.
PubMed: 38810063
DOI: 10.5826/dpc.1402a99 -
World Journal of Clinical Cases May 2024There is limited literature on managing the airway of patients with linear immunoglobulin A (IgA) bullous dermatosis, a rare mucocutaneous disorder that leads to the...
BACKGROUND
There is limited literature on managing the airway of patients with linear immunoglobulin A (IgA) bullous dermatosis, a rare mucocutaneous disorder that leads to the development of friable bullae. Careful clinical decision making is necessary when there is a risk of bleeding into the airway, and a multidisciplinary team approach may lead to decreased patient morbidity during these high-risk scenarios, especially when confronted with an unusual cause for bleeding.
CASE SUMMARY
A 45-year-old African American female presented to our ambulatory surgical center for right corneal transplantation due to corneal perforation after blunt trauma in the setting of cicatricial conjunctivitis and diffuse corneal neovascularization from linear IgA bullous dermatosis. The diagnosis of IgA dermatosis was recent, and the patient had been lost to follow-up. The severity of the disease and extent of airway involvement was unknown at the time of the surgery. Significant airway bleeding was noticed upon intubation and the otorhinolaryngology team had to be called to the operating room. The patient required transfer to the intensive care unit where a multidisciplinary team was involved in her case. The patient was extubated on postoperative day 4.
CONCLUSION
A multidisciplinary approach to treating this disease is the best course of action before a surgical procedure. In our case, key communication between the surgery, anesthesia, and dermatology teams led to the quick and safe treatment of our patient's disease. Ambulatory surgery should not be considered for these cases unless they are in full remission and there is no mucous membrane involvement.
PubMed: 38808340
DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v12.i13.2263 -
CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association... May 2024
Topics: Humans; Amyloidosis; Blister; Immunoglobulin Light Chains; Male; Female; Oral Hemorrhage; Aged; Immunoglobulin Light-chain Amyloidosis; Middle Aged
PubMed: 38802132
DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.240119 -
Microsurgery Jul 2024The pure skin perforator (PSP) flap is gaining popularity for its remarkable thinness. The subdermal dissection technique was recently introduced, allowing for a quicker...
BACKGROUND
The pure skin perforator (PSP) flap is gaining popularity for its remarkable thinness. The subdermal dissection technique was recently introduced, allowing for a quicker elevation of a PSP flap. In this report, we present our two-year experience utilizing subdermal dissection for harvesting PSP flaps.
METHODS
All patients who had undergone PSP flap reconstruction at our hospital from February 2021 to February 2023 were included. Demographic data, intraoperative variables, flap characteristics, and postoperative outcomes were collected. Surgical planning involved locating the perforator using ultrasound and harvesting the flap using the subdermal dissection technique.
RESULTS
A total of 26 PSP flap reconstructions were conducted on 24 patients aged between 15 and 86 years. The flaps were based on perforators issuing from the superficial circumflex iliac artery in 24 cases, and from the descending branch of the lateral circumflex femoral artery in 2 cases. Flap sizes ranged from 3 × 1.5 cm to 19 × 6 cm, with a mean thickness of 3.48 mm. The average time for flap harvest was 131.92 min. Postoperatively, we observed four cases of partial necrosis, 1 total flap loss, and 2 instances of vascular thrombosis at the anastomosis site. The flaps exhibited good pliability without contracture, and no debulking procedures were required during the follow-up period (minimum 6 months, range 6-24; mean 9.4615).
CONCLUSION
The subdermal dissection technique is a safe and efficient approach for elevating PSP flaps. Our initial experience with this technique has been encouraging, and it currently serves as our preferred reconstructive option for defects requiring thin reconstruction.
Topics: Humans; Perforator Flap; Adult; Middle Aged; Male; Female; Aged; Adolescent; Plastic Surgery Procedures; Aged, 80 and over; Young Adult; Burns; Retrospective Studies; Dissection; Treatment Outcome; Skin Transplantation
PubMed: 38798132
DOI: 10.1002/micr.31189 -
Plant Physiology and Biochemistry : PPB May 2024The primary challenges in tea production under multiple stress exposures have negatively affected its global market sustainability, so introducing an infield fast...
The primary challenges in tea production under multiple stress exposures have negatively affected its global market sustainability, so introducing an infield fast technique for monitoring tea leaves' stresses has tremendous urgent needs. Therefore, this study aimed to propose an efficient method for the detection of stress symptoms based on a portable smartphone with deep learning models. Firstly, a database containing over 10,000 images of tea garden canopies in complex natural scenes was developed, which included healthy (no stress) and three types of stress (tea anthracnose (TA), tea blister blight (TB) and sunburn (SB)). Then, YOLOv5m and YOLOv8m algorithms were adapted to discriminate the four types of stress symptoms; where the YOLOv8m algorithm achieved better performance in the identification of healthy leaves (98%), TA (92.0%), TB (68.4%) and SB (75.5%). Furthermore, the YOLOv8m algorithm was used to construct a model for differentiation of disease severity of TA, and a satisfactory result was obtained with the accuracy of mild, moderate, and severe TA infections were 94%, 96%, and 91%, respectively. Besides, we found that CNN kernels of YOLOv8m could efficiently extract the texture characteristics of the images at layer 2, and these characteristics can clearly distinguish different types of stress symptoms. This makes great contributions to the YOLOv8m model to achieve high-precision differentiation of four types of stress symptoms. In conclusion, our study provided an effective system to achieve low-cost, high-precision, fast, and infield diagnosis of tea stress symptoms in complex natural scenes based on smartphone and deep learning algorithms.
PubMed: 38797010
DOI: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2024.108769 -
Pharmaceutics May 2024The identification of novel therapeutic strategies for ovarian cancer (OC), the most lethal gynecological neoplasm, is of utmost urgency. Here, we have tested the...
BACKGROUND
The identification of novel therapeutic strategies for ovarian cancer (OC), the most lethal gynecological neoplasm, is of utmost urgency. Here, we have tested the effectiveness of the compound 2c (4-hydroxy-2,6-bis(4-nitrobenzylidene)cyclohexanone 2). 2c interferes with the cysteine-dependent deubiquitinating enzyme (DUB) UCHL5, thus affecting the ubiquitin-proteasome-dependent degradation of proteins.
METHODS
2c phenotypic/molecular effects were studied in two OC 2D/3D culture models and in a mouse xenograft model. Furthermore, we propose an in silico model of 2c interaction with DUB-UCHL5. Finally, we have tested the effect of 2c conjugated to several linkers to generate 2c/derivatives usable for improved drug delivery.
RESULTS
2c effectively impairs the OC cell line and primary tumor cell viability in both 2D and 3D conditions. The effectiveness is confirmed in a xenograft mouse model of OC. We show that 2c impairs proteasome activity and triggers apoptosis, most likely by interacting with DUB-UCHL5. We also propose a mechanism for the interaction with DUB-UCHL5 via an in silico evaluation of the enzyme-inhibitor complex. 2c also reduces cell growth by down-regulating the level of the transcription factor E2F1. Eventually, 2c activity is often retained after the conjugation with linkers.
CONCLUSION
Our data strongly support the potential therapeutic value of 2c/derivatives in OC.
PubMed: 38794326
DOI: 10.3390/pharmaceutics16050664 -
Genes May 2024Pathogen perception generates the activation of signal transduction cascades to host defense. White pine blister rust (WPBR) is caused by J.C. Fisch and affects a...
Pathogen perception generates the activation of signal transduction cascades to host defense. White pine blister rust (WPBR) is caused by J.C. Fisch and affects a number of species of . One of the most severely affected species is Engelm (whitebark pine). WPBR resistance in the species is a polygenic and complex trait that requires an optimized immune response. We identified early responses in 2-year-old seedlings after four days of fungal inoculation and compared the underlying transcriptomic response with that of healthy non-inoculated individuals. A de novo transcriptome assembly was constructed with 56,796 high quality-annotations derived from the needles of susceptible and resistant individuals in a resistant half-sib family. Differential expression analysis identified 599 differentially expressed transcripts, from which 375 were upregulated and 224 were downregulated in the inoculated seedlings. These included components of the initial phase of active responses to abiotic factors and stress regulators, such as those involved in the first steps of flavonoid biosynthesis. Four days after the inoculation, infected individuals showed an overexpression of chitinases, reactive oxygen species (ROS) regulation signaling, and flavonoid intermediates. Our research sheds light on the first stage of infection and emergence of disease symptoms among whitebark pine seedlings. RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data encoding hypersensitive response, cell wall modification, oxidative regulation signaling, programmed cell death, and plant innate immunity were differentially expressed during the defense response against .
Topics: Pinus; Plant Diseases; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Disease Resistance; Basidiomycota; Transcriptome; Seedlings; Gene Expression Profiling; Plant Proteins
PubMed: 38790231
DOI: 10.3390/genes15050602 -
Scientific Reports May 2024Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a causative agent of fever blister, genital herpes, and neonatal herpes. Nowadays, edible algae are recognized as health food due to high...
Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a causative agent of fever blister, genital herpes, and neonatal herpes. Nowadays, edible algae are recognized as health food due to high nutrition content and their many active compounds that are beneficial to health. The purpose of this study is to investigate the inhibitory effects of algal polysaccharide extract from Cladophora spp. against herpes simplex virus type 1 and type 2 on Vero cells. In this study, the structure of polysaccharide extract is presented as S=O and C-O-S of the sulfate group, as identified by the FT-IR technique. The toxicity of algal polysaccharide extract on Vero cells was determined by MTT assay. The algal extract showed low toxicity on the cells, with 50% cytotoxic concentration (CC) value greater than 5000 µg mL. The inhibition of HSV infection by the algal extract was then evaluated on Vero cells using plaque reduction assay. The 50% effective concentration (EC) values of algal extract exhibited antiviral activity against HSV-1 upon treatment before, during, and after viral adsorption with and without removal of the extract were 70.31, 15.17, > 5000 and 9.78 µg mL, respectively. Additionally, the EC values of algal extract against HSV-2 upon treatment before, during and after viral adsorption with, and without removal of the extract were 5.85, 2.57, > 5000 and 26.96 µg mL, respectively. Moreover, the algal extract demonstrated direct inactivation of HSV-1 and HSV-2 virions as well as inhibitory effect against HSV replication. Accordingly, algal polysaccharide extract containing sulfated polysaccharides showed strong activity against HSV. Therefore, it is proved to be useful to apply Cladophora spp. polysaccharide extract as an anti-HSV agent.
Topics: Animals; Chlorocebus aethiops; Vero Cells; Polysaccharides; Antiviral Agents; Chlorophyta; Herpesvirus 1, Human; Herpes Simplex; Plant Extracts; Herpesvirus 2, Human
PubMed: 38789457
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-60941-7