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As a null hypothesis, we consider whether the conservation of some structural features on the inactive X may reflect selection for X-linked tandem repeats on account of necessary cis- and trans-regulatory roles they may play on the active X, rather than the inactive X. Additional hypotheses invoking a role for X-linked tandem repeats on X reactivation, for example in the germline or totipotency, remain to be assessed in multiple developmental models spanning mammalian evolution. Copyright © 2020 Bansal, Kondaveeti and Pinter.Prosthetic pulmonary valves are widely used in the management procedures of various congenital heart diseases, including the surgical pulmonary valve replacement (PVR) and right ventricular outflow tract reconstruction (RVOT). The discouraging long-term outcomes of standard prostheses, including homografts and bioprosthetic, constrained their indications. Recent developments in the expanded-polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) pulmonary prosthetic valves provide promising alternatives. In this study, the hemodynamic characteristics of bileaflet and trileaflet ePTFE valve designs were experimentally evaluated. The in vitro tests were performed under the right ventricle (RV) flow conditions by using an in vitro RV circulatory system and particle image velocimetry (PIV). The leaflet kinetics, trans-valvular pressure gradients, effective orifice areas, regurgitant fractions, energy losses, velocity fields, and Reynolds shear stress (RSS) in both prostheses were evaluated. The opening of the bileaflet and trileaflet valve takes 0.060 and 0.088 s, respectively. The closing of the former takes 0.140 s, in contrast to 0.176 s of the latter. The trans-valvular pressure is 6.8 mmHg in the bileaflet valve vs. 7.9 mmHg in the trileaflet valve. The effective orifice area is 1.83 cm2 in the bileaflet valve and 1.72 cm2 in the trileaflet valve. The regurgitant fraction and energy loss of bileaflet are 7.13% and 82 mJ, which are 7.84% and 101.64 mJ in its bileaflet counterpart. Darovasertib manufacturer The maximum RSS of 48.0 and 49.2 Pa occur at the systole peak in the bileaflet and trileaflet valve, respectively. A higher average RSS level is found in the bileaflet valve. The results from this preliminary study indicate that the current bileaflet prosthetic valve design is capable of providing a better overall hemodynamic performance than the trileaflet design. Copyright © 2020 Zhu, Wei, Yuan, Cai, Nakao and Yeo.Cronobacter sakazakii is a food-borne pathogen carried in milk powder that can cause severe bacteremia, enterocolitis, and meningitis in newborns, which can lead to death of newborns. Preventing infection by this pathogen is significant to the health of newborns. Since infants and young children are the main target group of C. sakazakii, it is considered that maternal immunity can enhance the protection of newborns. Previous studies showed that two proteins of C. sakazakii (GroEL and OmpX) exhibited high expression levels and elicited strong immune reactions, suggesting their potential as vaccine candidates. In this study, GroEL and OmpX were recombinantly expressed in Escherichia coli and purified as immunogens to immunize pregnant rats. Three days after birth, the progeny were challenged with C. sakazakii to determine the protective effect of maternal immunity on the offspring. The results showed that immunization during pregnancy decreased bacterial load in the brain and blood, reduced brain and intestine damage, and significantly increased specific antibody titers in the offspring. Immunization with the recombinant proteins significantly increased cytokine levels in the serum of the progeny. The group whose mothers were immunized with OmpX produced more IL-4, while the group whose mothers were immunized with GroEL produced more IFN-γ, indicating that the immunogens enhanced the Th2 and Th1 responses, respectively. However, although the immune response was induced by both proteins, only the offspring of the pregnant rats immunized with OmpX or OmpX/GroEL mixture showed delayed death, possibly because immunization with OmpX led to a stronger humoral immune response in the offspring, suggesting that OmpX was a better vaccine candidate than GroEL. This study first reported that exposure to C. sakazakii proteins during pregnancy could improve the offspring's ability to resist infection caused by this pathogen. Copyright © 2020 Song, Fu, Li, Du, Du and Wang.Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR)-based therapies offer a promising, targeted approach to effectively treat relapsed or refractory B cell malignancies. However, the treatment-related toxicity defined as cytokine-release syndrome (CRS) often develops in patients, and if uncontrolled, can be fatal. Grading systems have now been developed to further characterize and objectify clinical findings in order to provide algorithm-based guidance on CRS-related treatment decisions. The pharmacological treatments associated with these algorithms suppress inflammation through a variety of mechanisms and are paramount to improving the safety profile of CAR-based therapies. However, fatalities are still occurring, and there are downsides to these treatments, including the possibility of disrupting CAR-T cell persistence. This review article will describe the clinical presentation and current management of CRS, and through our now deeper understanding of downstream signaling pathways, will provide a molecular framework to formulate new hypotheses regarding clinical applications to contain proinflammatory cytokines responsible for CRS. Copyright © 2020 Thakar, Kearl and Malarkannan.Radiation pneumonitis (RP) is one of the major side effects of thoracic radiotherapy. The aim of this study is to build a dose distribution based prediction model, and investigate the correlation of RP incidence and high-order features of dose distribution. A convolution 3D (C3D) neural network was used to construct the prediction model. The C3D network was pre-trained for action recognition. The dose distribution was used as input of the prediction model. With the C3D network, the convolution operation was performed in 3D space. The guided gradient-weighted class activation map (grad-CAM) was utilized to locate the regions of dose distribution which were strongly correlated with grade≥2 and grade less then 2 RP cases, respectively. The features learned by the convolution filters were generated with gradient ascend to understand the deep network. The performance of the C3D prediction model was evaluated by comparing with three multivariate logistic regression (LR) prediction models, which used the dosimetric, normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) or dosiomics factors as input, respectively.