The effects of eyelash extensions on the ocular surface.

PURPOSE: To investigate the effects of eyelash extensions on the ocular surface. METHODS: This prospective study included 32 participants with eyelash extensions in both eyes. Symptoms and clinical parameters such as conjunctival vascular density, tear meniscus height (TMH), noninvasive tear break-up time, bulbar redness, meibography, lipid layer thickness, and corneal staining were assessed in the right eyes. These measurements were taken at baseline and 1 h, 1 day, 1 week, and 1 month after eyelash extensions were applied. RESULTS: At 1 h after eyelash extensions, ocular symptoms were reported by 27 participants (84.44 %), the most common being foreign body sensation (59.38 %). However, the Ocular Surface Disease Index scores were not statistically different between baseline, 1 week, and 1 month after eyelash extension (P > 0.05). TMH increased significantly at 1 h after eyelash extensions, from 0.27 ± 0.08 mm (baseline) to 0.29 ± 0.07 mm (P = 0.02). Subsequently, TMH decreased and was the lowest at 1 week at 0.24 ± 0.08 mm. First tear break-up time and average tear break-up time decreased to the lowest at 1 week after eyelash extension, with 8.36 ± 4.6 s and 10.71 ± 4.99 s, respectively, both of which were statistically different from baseline (P < 0.05). Corneal staining score was highest at 1 h after eyelash extensions at 0.78 ± 1.34. However, there were no significant differences in the conjunctival vascular density, bulbar redness, meiboscore, or lipid layer thickness. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that eyelash extensions can lead to an imbalance in ocular surface homeostasis, resulting in corneal epithelial defects and short-term decreased tear film stability.

Integrated Transcriptome Analysis of Long Noncoding RNA and mRNA in Developing and Aging Mouse Retina.

Mice have emerged as a widely employed model for investigating various retinal diseases. However, the availability of comprehensive datasets capturing the entire developmental and aging stages of the mouse retina, particularly during the elderly period, encompassing integrated lncRNA and mRNA expression profiles, is limited. In this study, we assembled a total of 18 retina samples from mice across 6 distinct stages of development and aging (5 days, 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 6 months, and 15 months) to conduct integrated lncRNA and mRNA sequencing analysis. This invaluable dataset offers a comprehensive transcriptomic resource of mRNA and lncRNA expression profiles during the natural progression of retinal development and aging. The discoveries stemming from this investigation will significantly contribute to the elucidation of the underlying molecular mechanisms associated with various retinal diseases, such as congenital retinal dysplasia and retinal degenerative diseases.

A Comparison of Cell-Cell Interaction Prediction Tools Based on scRNA-seq Data.

Computational prediction of cell-cell interactions (CCIs) is becoming increasingly important for understanding disease development and progression. We present a benchmark study of available CCI prediction tools based on single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data. By comparing prediction outputs with a manually curated gold standard for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), we evaluated prediction performance and processing time of several CCI prediction tools, including CCInx, CellChat, CellPhoneDB, iTALK, NATMI, scMLnet, SingleCellSignalR, and an ensemble of tools. According to our results, CellPhoneDB and NATMI are the best performer CCI prediction tools, among the ones analyzed, when we define a CCI as a source-target-ligand-receptor tetrad. In addition, we recommend specific tools according to different types of research projects and discuss the possible future paths in the field.

GSA Central-A web platform to perform, learn, and discuss gene set analysis.

Gene Set Analysis (GSA) is one of the most commonly used strategies to analyze omics data. Hundreds of GSA-related papers have been published, giving birth to a GSA field in Bioinformatics studies. However, as the field grows, it is becoming more difficult to obtain a clear view of all available methods, resources, and their quality. In this paper, we introduce a web platform called "GSA Central" which, as its name indicates, acts as a focal point to centralize GSA information and tools useful to beginners, average users, and experts in the GSA field. "GSA Central" contains five different resources: A Galaxy instance containing GSA tools ("Galaxy-GSA"), a portal to educational material ("GSA Classroom"), a comprehensive database of articles ("GSARefDB"), a set of benchmarking tools ("GSA BenchmarKING"), and a blog ("GSA Blog"). We expect that "GSA Central" will become a useful resource for users looking for introductory learning, state-of-the-art updates, method/tool selection guidelines and insights, tool usage, tool integration under a Galaxy environment, tool design, and tool validation/benchmarking. Moreover, we expect this kind of platform to become an example of a "thematic platform" containing all the resources that people in the field might need, an approach that could be extended to other bioinformatics topics or scientific fields.

The safety of first and subsequent lines of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors monotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer patients: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: In both first or subsequent therapy of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), some programmed cell death protein 1/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) inhibitors have shown prominent efficacy and safety. However, the disease spectra of side effects in different therapy time might exist heterogeneity. In this meta-analysis, we assessed and compared the safety of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors in first or subsequent line therapy. And the system-specific disease spectra of both treatment-related adverse events (trAEs) and immune-related adverse events (irAEs) were summarized. METHODS: We performed a comprehensive search of online databases. Incidence and its 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were chosen as the main outcome to assess safety. The incidence of trAEs/irAEs was calculated, including discontinuation and death results. Besides, the most common trAEs/irAEs and system-specific treatment-related/immune-related disease spectra in different therapy lines were also collected. RESULTS: In total, 18 studies (5,649 patients) were included. First-line therapy had a higher risk of high-grade trAEs, any-grade irAEs and high-grade irAEs comparing with subsequent therapy (19.4% vs. 13.0%, P<0.001; 30.1% vs. 16.9%, P<0.001; 9.9% vs. 2.4%, P<0.001). The rate of discontinuation in first-line therapy were also higher (9.5% vs. 5.2%, P<0.001). However, the common system-specific trAEs of first-line and subsequent therapy were semblable, including gastrointestinal disorders, general disorders, skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders, investigations. As for irAEs, the frequent system-specific adverse events related to different therapy lines were also similar, including endocrine adverse events, dermatologic adverse events, pulmonary adverse events, and gastrointestinal adverse events. Especially, the incidence of pneumonitis always ranks high in most of the analyses, while for the high-grade toxicities, first-line therapy focuses more on liver-related disorders in trAEs/irAEs. CONCLUSIONS: In summary, the incidence of trAEs in first-line therapy of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors in NSCLC is similar to the one in subsequent therapy, while the rate of having any-grade irAEs and high-grade trAEs/irAEs in first-line therapy is higher than the one in subsequent therapy. Meanwhile, there is no obvious heterogeneity for disease spectra in different therapy lines.