Regulation of Chromatin Modifications through Coordination of Nucleus Size and Epithelial Cell Morphology Heterogeneity.

Cell morphology heterogeneity within epithelial collectives is a pervasive phenomenon intertwined with tissue mechanical properties. Despite its widespread occurrence, the underlying mechanisms driving cell morphology heterogeneity and its consequential biological ramifications remain elusive. Here, we investigate the dynamic evolution of epithelial cell morphology and nucleus morphology during crowding, unveiling a consistent correlation between the two. Our investigation reveals a persistent log-normal probability distribution characterizing both cell and nucleus areas across diverse crowding stages and epithelial model systems. We showed that this morphological diversity arises from asymmetric partitioning during cell division and is perpetuated through actomyosin-mediated regulation of cell-nucleus size coordination. Moreover, we provide insights into the impact of nucleus morphology on chromatin dynamics, demonstrating that constraining nucleus area leads to downregulation of the euchromatic mark H3K9ac and upregulation of the heterochromatic mark H3K27me3 through modulation of histone demethylase UTX expression. These findings under-score the significance of cell morphology heterogeneity as a driver of chromatin state diversity, shaping functional variability within epithelial tissues.

An Open-Source Membrane Stretcher for Simultaneous Mechanical and Structural Characterizations of Soft Materials and Biological Tissues.

The ability to simultaneously measure material mechanics and structure is central for understanding their nonlinear relationship that underlies the mechanical properties of materials, such as hysteresis, strain-stiffening and -softening, and plasticity. This experimental capability is also critical in biomechanics and mechanobiology research, as it enables direct characterizations of the intricate interplay between cellular responses and tissue mechanics. Stretching devices developed over the past few decades, however, do not often allow simultaneous measurements of the structural and mechanical responses of the sample. In this work, we introduce an open-source stretching system that can apply uniaxial strain at a submicron resolution, report the tensile force response of the sample, and be mounted on an inverted microscope for real-time imaging. Our system consists of a pair of stepper-based linear motors that stretch the sample symmetrically, a force transducer that records the sample tensile force, and an optically clear sample holder that allows for high-magnification microscopy. Using polymer samples and cellular specimens, we characterized the motion control accuracy, force measurement robustness, and microscopy compatibility of our stretching system. We envision that this uniaxial stretching system will be a valuable tool for characterizing soft and living materials.

Uso de anticonceptivos y conocimiento del periodo fértil del ciclo menstrual en adolescentes

Introducción: La comprensión de los cambios fisiológicos que se presentan en las mujeres adolescentes son fundamentales para el cuidado de su salud sexual. Esto favorece un comportamiento anticonceptivo orientado a la elección de métodos seguros y eficaces. Objetivo: Establecer la asociación entre el uso de métodos anticonceptivos y el conocimiento del periodo fértil del ciclo menstrual en adolescentes peruanas. Métodos: Estudio transversal basado en el análisis secundario de la Encuesta Demográfica y de Salud Familiar del año 2021. La muestra fue de 717 de mujeres adolescentes con registro completo en las bases de datos. Se calcularon recuentos ponderados, no ponderados y se aplicó la prueba ji cuadrado con un 95 % de nivel de confianza. Resultados: El 19 % de las adolescentes reconocen el periodo fértil del ciclo menstrual y 6,3 % refirió que este periodo sucede durante la menstruación. El 80,8 % de las mujeres que cursan la adolescencia temprana, no conocen el momento del periodo. Respecto al uso de anticonceptivos, el 21,5 % era usuaria de preservativos y 16,3 % de inyectables; no obstante, 47 % señaló que no utilizaban ningún anticonceptivo. El 53,5 % de las adolescentes en etapa tardía indicaron que sí utilizan anticonceptivos. Entre las que son usuarias de estos métodos, 86,3 % no reconocen el periodo fértil. Conclusiones: En las adolescentes, el uso de métodos anticonceptivos no se asocia de manera significativa con el conocimiento que tienen acerca del periodo fértil del ciclo menstrual.

Introduction: The understanding of the physiological changes that occur in adolescent women are essential for the care of their sexual health. Thus, this favors a contraceptive behavior oriented to the choice of safe and effective methods. Objective: To establish the association between the use of contraceptive methods and the knowledge of the fertile period of the menstrual cycle in Peruvian adolescents. Methods: Cross-sectional study based on the secondary analysis of the 2021 Demographic and Family Health Survey. The sample consisted of 717 adolescent women with complete registration in the databases. Weighted and unweighted counts were calculated; and the Chi square test was applied at a 95% confidence level. Results: 19% of adolescents recognize the fertile period of the menstrual cycle and 6.3% reported that this period occurs during menstruation. In addition, 80.8% of women in early adolescence do not know the time of their period. Regarding the use of contraceptives, 21.5% were users of condoms and 16.3% of injectables; however, 47% indicated that they did not use any contraceptive. 53.5% of late-stage adolescents indicated that they do use contraceptives. Among those who are users of these methods, 86.3% do not recognize the fertile period. Conclusions: In adolescents, the use of contraceptive methods is not significantly associated with the knowledge they have about the fertile period of the menstrual cycle.

A Bibliometric Perspective on the Relationship between Periodontal Disease and Gestational Diabetes.

AIM: To analyze the bibliometric indicators of the world scientific production on periodontal disease and gestational diabetes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Bibliometric study in which a search strategy was designed with logical operators and MESH terms. After the search and application of selection criteria, 83 articles were included. SciVal, VOSviewer, and the Bibliometrix module of R Studio were used to analyze the metadata. RESULTS: From 2012 to 2021, there is evidence of an increase in scientific dissemination on gestational diabetes and periodontal disease, especially in high-impact journals (79.2%). SUNY Buffalo (6), United State University, and Ege University, Turkey (5) are the most productive; however, the one that received more citations than the global average was the University of Birmingham (FWCI: 5.59). In addition, the United States, Brazil, and India were the most influential countries; while, Graziani F, Akcali A, and Buduneli N, were the most representative authors. The Journal of Periodontology and the Journal of Clinical Periodontology published the most articles, with 13 and 6, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The scientific production on periodontal disease and gestational diabetes is higher in recent years, with a better proportion of articles in high-impact journals. In addition, the United States concentrates many publications, and the activity of Chilean institutions stands out. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: The clinical significance of this study lies in its capacity to synthesize the currently available published information regarding the correlation between periodontal disease and gestational diabetes. This study enables researchers and clinicians to ascertain the current level of knowledge on this subject.

Severity of climacteric symptomatology related to depression and sexual function in women from a private clinic.

Introduction: The climacteric is a natural transition stage in women, in which hormonal changes occur that affect the physical and psychological well-being. Therefore, the objective was to determine the relationship of the severity of climacteric symptomatology with depression and sexual function in women. Materials and methods: It was a descriptive, cross-sectional study, with a sample of 60 women between 40 and 65 years old. The Female Sexual Function Questionnaire-2, the Menopause Rating Scale, and the Beck Depression Inventory were used. Results: The mean age of the women was 49.1 ±5.6 years. 21.7% of the women had severe depression, 28.3% moderate, and 50% mild/minimal. Changes in sleep habits (1.73 ±0.88) and in appetite (1.63 ±0.73) were the most severe manifestations. Difficulty sleeping (1.05 ±0.99), physical and mental fatigue (1.48 ±0.98), and vaginal sequelae (1.45 ±1.26) were the most serious complaints in the somatic, psychological, and urogenital domains, respectively. 60% presented severe sexual dysfunction regarding genital pain and 55% in vaginal penetration. Communicating sexual preferences to the partner was common in 75% of women. 88.3% had frequent sexual activity, but 63.3% had zero or low sexual satisfaction. Conclusions: Climacteric symptomatology is related to depression but not to women's sexual function.

Supracellular measurement of spatially varying mechanical heterogeneities in live monolayers.

The mechanical properties of tissues have profound impacts on a wide range of biological processes such as embryo development (1,2), wound healing (3-6), and disease progression (7). Specifically, the spatially varying moduli of cells largely influence the local tissue deformation and intercellular interaction. Despite the importance of characterizing such a heterogeneous mechanical property, it has remained difficult to measure the supracellular modulus field in live cell layers with a high-throughput and minimal perturbation. In this work, we developed a monolayer effective modulus measurement by integrating a custom cell stretcher, light microscopy, and AI-based inference. Our approach first quantifies the heterogeneous deformation of a slightly stretched cell layer and converts the measured strain fields into an effective modulus field using an AI inference. This method allowed us to directly visualize the effective modulus distribution of thousands of cells virtually instantly. We characterized the mean value, SD, and correlation length of the effective cell modulus for epithelial cells and fibroblasts, which are in agreement with previous results. We also observed a mild correlation between cell area and stiffness in jammed epithelia, suggesting the influence of cell modulus on packing. Overall, our reported experimental platform provides a valuable alternative cell mechanics measurement tool that can be integrated with microscopy-based characterizations.

Cell-cell adhesion impacts epithelia response to substrate stiffness: Morphology and gene expression.

Monolayer epithelial cells interact constantly with the substrate they reside on and their surrounding neighbors. As such, the properties of epithelial cells are profoundly governed by the mechanical and molecular cues that arise from both the substrate and contiguous cell neighbors. Although both cell-substrate and cell-cell interactions have been studied individually, these results are difficult to apply to native confluent epithelia, in which both jointly regulate the cell phenotype. Specifically, it remains poorly understood about the intertwined contributions from intercellular adhesion and substrate stiffness on cell morphology and gene expression, two essential microenvironment properties. Here, by adjusting the substrate modulus and altering the intercellular adhesion within confluent kidney epithelia, we found that cell-substrate and cell-cell interactions can mask each other's influence. For example, we found that epithelial cells exhibit an elongated morphological phenotype only when the substrate modulus and intercellular adhesions are both reduced, whereas their motility can be upregulated by either reduction. These results illustrate that combinatorial changes of the physical microenvironment are required to alter cell morphology and gene expression.

Tasa de embarazo en embriones criopreservados según la calificación / Pregnancy rates in cryopreserved embryo according to morphologic classic evaluation and intact blastomeres at the time of embryo transfer

Se compara la tasa de embarazo en ciclos de transferencia de embriones criopreservados, según la calificación morfológica clásica1 y la integridad de todas las blastómeras en por lo menos un embrión al momento de la transferencia y se discuten los parámetros clínicos de preparación de la paciente y las posibles causas fisiopatológicas implicadas en el éxito de estos ciclos. Se revisaron 176 ciclos de transferencia de 513 embriones criopreservados. Se encontraron mejores tasas de embarazo y de nacimientos vivos en transferencias embrionarias donde al menos uno de los embriones transferidos tenía todas las blastómeras intactas al momento de la transferencia en comparación con transferencias de embriones de buena calidad (1+, 2+) de la calificación morfológica clásica sin diferencia estadísticamente significativa (p>0.05). En casos con congelación de embriones en estadio de pronúcleos con relación al estadio de células la tasa de embarazo y de nacidos vivos fue significativamente mayor (p<0.05). El daño de las blastómeras altera el potencial de implantación embrionaria, lo cual fue corroborado por la tendencia encontrada en este estudio, de manera que probablemente el futuro estará dado en la remoción microquirúrgica de las blastómeras dañadas y la utilización de eclosión asistida, quirúrgica o química.