Fabrication of Stable Liquid-like Wetting Buckled Surfaces as Bioinspired Antibiofouling Coatings by Using Silicon-Containing Block Copolymers.

Inspired by animals with a slippery epidermis, durable slippery antibiofouling coatings with liquid-like wetting buckled surfaces are successfully constructed in this study by combining dynamic-interfacial-release-induced buckling with self-assembled silicon-containing diblock copolymer (diBCP). The core diBCP material is polystyrene-block-poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PS-b-PDMS). Because silicon-containing polymers with intrinsic characters of low surface energy, they easily flow over and cover a surface after it has undergone controlled thermal treatment, generating a slippery wetting layer on which can eliminate polar interactions with biomolecules. Additionally, microbuckled patterns result in curved surfaces, which offer fewer points at which organisms can attach to the surface. Different from traditional slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces, the proposed liquid-like PDMS wetting layer, chemically bonded with PS, is stable and slippery but does not flow away. PS-b-PDMS diBCPs with various PDMS volume fractions are studied to compare the influence of PDMS segment length on antibiofouling performance. The surface characteristics of the diBCPs─ease of processing, transparency, and antibiofouling, anti-icing, and self-cleaning abilities─are examined under various conditions. Being able to fabricate ecofriendly silicon-based lubricant layers without needing to use fluorinated compounds and costly material precursors is an advantage in industrial practice.

ChatGPT's innovative application in blood morphology recognition.

BACKGROUND: Recently, the rapid advancement in generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology, such as ChatGPT-4, has sparked discussions, particularly in image recognition. Accurate results are critical for hematological diagnosis, particularly for blood morphology identification. Despite advanced hematology analyzers, reliance on professional hematopathologists for manual identification remains in cases of abnormal or rare conditions, a process prone to human subjectivity and potential errors. Consequently, this study aimed to investigate the potential of ChatGPT-4 to assist with blood morphology identification. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study using blood images obtained from the American Society of Hematology (ASH). These images comprised a range of normal and abnormal morphologies. Each sample was analyzed by expert technicians (control group) and classified using ChatGPT-4 (test group). RESULTS: Preliminary results showed that ChatGPT-4 could identify normal blood cells with an accuracy of 88%, exceeding the accuracy of identifying abnormal blood cells at a rate of 54%. Regarding identifying abnormal cells, the accuracy of ChatGPT-4 was slightly higher than that of the manual method, which was 49.5%. CONCLUSION: This study shows that although generative AI shows the potential for blood type identification, it has not yet reached the point where it can replace the professional judgment of medical staff. The results showed that ChatGPT-4 is excellent for identifying red blood cell morphology, particularly inclusion bodies. It can be used as an auxiliary tool for clinical diagnosis. However, the overall recognition accuracy must be further improved. Our study produced innovative results in this field, establishing a foundation for future studies and highlighting the potential of generative AI in aiding blood morphology recognition. Future research should focus on enhancing the effectiveness of AI to improve overall standards of medical care.

Increasing salinity stress decreases the thermal tolerance of amphibian tadpoles in coastal areas of Taiwan.

Global warming is the main cause for the rise of both global temperatures and sea-level, both major variables threatening biodiversity. Rising temperatures threaten to breach the thermal limits of organisms while rising sea-level threatens the osmotic balance of coastal animals through habitat salinization. However, variations in thermal tolerance under different salinity stresses have not yet been thoroughly studied. In this study, we assessed the critical thermal maxima (CTmax) of amphibian tadpoles in different salinity conditions. We collected tadpoles of Duttaphrynus melanostictus, Fejervarya limnocharis and Microhyla fissipes from coastal areas and housed them in freshwater, low, and high salinity treatments for 7 days of acclimation. The CTmax, survival rate, and development rate of tadpoles in high salinity treatments were significantly lower than that of the two other treatments. Our results indicate that physiological performances and heat tolerances of tadpoles are negatively affected by salinization. Maximum entropy models showed that CTmax and sea-level rise are predicted to negatively affect the distribution of the three focal species. The present results suggest that global warming can lead to negative dual-impacts on coastal animals because of reduced thermal tolerances at elevated salinity. The impacts of global warming on anurans in coastal areas and other habitats impacted by salinization may be more severe than predicted and it is likely to cause similar dual-impacts on other ectotherms.

A check list and population trends of invasive amphibians and reptiles in Taiwan.

Invasive species have impacted biodiversity all around the world. Among various ecosystems, islands are most vulnerable to these impacts due to their high ratio of endemism, highly specialized adaptation, and isolated and unique fauna. As with other subtropical islands, Taiwan faces constant risk of biological invasions and is currently ranked as one of the countries most affected by invasive amphibians and reptiles. In this paper, a comprehensive checklist of all known exotic amphibians and reptiles is provided, including twelve species which have successfully colonized Taiwan and six species with a controversial status. We provide an update on the knowledge of all these species including their distribution, colonization history, threats to native animals, and population trends based on literature records, fauna surveys, and data collected during invasive species eradication and control programs. A list of species with high invasive potentials is also provided. This study reports, for the first time, a comprehensive survey of invasive herpetofauna in Taiwan, which should provide a valuable reference to other regions which might suffer from similar invasion risk.

Inferring Microbial Interactions in the Gut of the Hong Kong Whipping Frog (Polypedates megacephalus) and a Validation Using Probiotics.

The concerted activity of intestinal microbes is crucial to the health and development of their host organisms. Investigation of microbial interactions in the gut should deepen our understanding of how these micro-ecosystems function. Due to advances in Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies, various bioinformatic strategies have been proposed to investigate these microbial interactions. However, due to the complexity of the intestinal microbial community and difficulties in monitoring their interactions, at present there is a gap between the theory and biological application. In order to construct and validate microbial relationships, we first induce a community shift from simple to complex by manipulating artificial hibernation (AH) in the treefrog Polypedates megacephalus. To monitor community growth and microbial interactions, we further performed a time-course screen using a 16S rRNA amplicon approach and a Lotka-Volterra model. Lotka-Volterra models, also known as predator-prey equations, predict the dynamics of microbial communities and how communities are structured and sustained. An interaction network of gut microbiota at the genus level in the treefrog was constructed using Metagenomic Microbial Interaction Simulator (MetaMIS) package. The interaction network obtained had 1,568 commensal, 1,737 amensal, 3,777 mutual, and 3,232 competitive relationships, e.g., Lactococcus garvieae has a commensal relationship with Corynebacterium variabile. To validate the interacting relationships, the gut microbe composition was analyzed after probiotic trials using single strain (L. garvieae, C. variabile, and Bacillus coagulans, respectively) and a combination of L. garvieae, C. variabile, and B. coagulans, because of the cooperative relationship among their respective genera identified in the interaction network. After a 2 week trial, we found via 16S rRNA amplicon analysis that the combination of cooperative microbes yielded significantly higher probiotic concentrations than single strains, and the immune response (interleukin-10 expression) also significantly changed in a manner consistent with improved probiotic effects. By taking advantage of microbial community shift from simple to complex, we thus constructed a reliable microbial interaction network, and validated it using probiotic strains as a test system.

Functional analysis for gut microbes of the brown tree frog (Polypedates megacephalus) in artificial hibernation.

BACKGROUND: Annual hibernation is an adaptation that helps many animals conserve energy during food shortage in winter. This natural cycle is also accompanied by a remodeling of the intestinal immune system, which is an aspect of host biology that is both influenced by, and can itself influence, the microbiota. In amphibians, the bacteria in the intestinal tract show a drop in bacterial counts. The proportion of pathogenic bacteria is greater in hibernating frogs than that found in nonhibernating frogs. This suggests that some intestinal gut microbes in amphibians can be maintained and may contribute to the functions in this closed ecosystem during hibernation. However, these results were derived from culture-based approaches that only covered a small portion of bacteria in the intestinal tract. METHODS: In this study, we use a more comprehensive analysis, including bacterial appearance and functional prediction, to reveal the global changes in gut microbiota during artificial hibernation via high-throughput sequencing technology. RESULTS: Our results suggest that artificial hibernation in the brown tree frog (Polypedates megacephalus) could reduce microbial diversity, and artificially hibernating frogs tend to harbor core operational taxonomic units that are rarely distributed among nonhibernating frogs. In addition, artificial hibernation increased significantly the relative abundance of the red-leg syndrome-related pathogenic genus Citrobacter. Furthermore, functional predictions via PICRUSt and Tax4Fun suggested that artificial hibernation has effects on metabolism, disease, signal transduction, bacterial infection, and primary immunodeficiency. CONCLUSIONS: We infer that artificial hibernation may impose potential effects on primary immunodeficiency and increase the risk of bacterial infections in the brown tree frog.

Zebrafish as a disease model for studying human hepatocellular carcinoma.

Liver cancer is one of the world's most common cancers and the second leading cause of cancer deaths. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a primary hepatic cancer, accounts for 90%-95% of liver cancer cases. The pathogenesis of HCC consists of a stepwise process of liver damage that extends over decades, due to hepatitis, fatty liver, fibrosis, and cirrhosis before developing fully into HCC. Multiple risk factors are highly correlated with HCC, including infection with the hepatitis B or C viruses, alcohol abuse, aflatoxin exposure, and metabolic diseases. Over the last decade, genetic alterations, which include the regulation of multiple oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes and the activation of tumorigenesis-related pathways, have also been identified as important factors in HCC. Recently, zebrafish have become an important living vertebrate model organism, especially for translational medical research. In studies focusing on the biology of cancer, carcinogen induced tumors in zebrafish were found to have many similarities to human tumors. Several zebrafish models have therefore been developed to provide insight into the pathogenesis of liver cancer and the related drug discovery and toxicology, and to enable the evaluation of novel small-molecule inhibitors. This review will focus on illustrative examples involving the application of zebrafish models to the study of human liver disease and HCC, through transgenesis, genome editing technology, xenografts, drug discovery, and drug-induced toxic liver injury.

Enhancement of bioactivity on medical polymer surface using high power impulse magnetron sputtered titanium dioxide film.

This study utilizes a novel technique, high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS), which provides a higher ionization rate and ion bombardment energy than direct current magnetron sputtering (DCMS), to deposit high osteoblast compatible titanium dioxide (TiO2) coatings with anatase (A-TiO2) and rutile (R-TiO2) phases onto the biomedical polyetheretherketone (PEEK) polymer substrates at low temperature. The adhesions of TiO2 coatings that were fabricated using HIPIMS and DCMS were compared. The in vitro biocompatibility of these coatings was confirmed. The results reveal that HIPIMS can be used to prepare crystallinic columnar A-TiO2 and R-TiO2 coatings on PEEK substrate if the ratio of oxygen to argon is properly controlled. According to a tape adhesion test, the HIPIMS-TiO2 coatings had an adhesion grade of 5B even after they were immersed in simulated body fluid (SBF) environments for 28days. Scratch tests proved that HIPIMS-TiO2 coatings undergo cohesive failure. These results demonstrate that the adhesive force between HIPIMS-TiO2 coating/PEEK is stronger than that between DCMS-TiO2 coating/PEEK. After a long period (28days) of immersion in SBF, a bone-like crystallinic hydroxyapatite layer with a corresponding Ca/P stoichiometry was formed on both HIPIMS-TiO2. The osteoblast compatibility of HIPIMS-TiO2 exceeded that of the bare PEEK substrate. It is also noticeable that the R-TiO2 performed better in vitro than the A-TiO2 due to the formation of many negatively charged hydroxyl groups (-OH(-)) groups on R-TiO2 (110) surface. In summary, the HIPIMS-TiO2 coatings satisfied the requirements for osseointegration, suggesting the possibility of using HIPIMS to modify the PEEK surface with TiO2 for spinal implants.

Zebrafish as a Model for the Study of Human Myeloid Malignancies.

Myeloid malignancies are heterogeneous disorders characterized by uncontrolled proliferation or/and blockage of differentiation of myeloid progenitor cells. Although a substantial number of gene alterations have been identified, the mechanism by which these abnormalities interact has yet to be elucidated. Over the past decades, zebrafish have become an important model organism, especially in biomedical research. Several zebrafish models have been developed to recapitulate the characteristics of specific myeloid malignancies that provide novel insight into the pathogenesis of these diseases and allow the evaluation of novel small molecule drugs. This report will focus on illustrative examples of applications of zebrafish models, including transgenesis, zebrafish xenograft models, and cell transplantation approaches, to the study of human myeloid malignancies.

Hiwi knockdown inhibits the growth of lung cancer in nude mice.

Hiwi, a human homologue of the Piwi family, plays an important role in stem cell self-renewal and is overexpressed in various human tumors. This study aimed to determine whether an RNA interference-based strategy to suppress Hiwi expression could inhibit tumor growth in a xenograft mouse model. A rare population of SSCloAldebr cells was isolated and identified as lung cancer stem cells in our previous study. Plasmids containing U6 promoter-driven shRNAs against Hiwi or control plasmids were successfully established. The xenograft tumor model was generated by subcutaneously inoculating with lung cancer stem cell SSCloAldebr cells. After the tumor size reached about 8 mm in diameter, shRNA plasmids were injected into the mice via the tail vein three times a week for two weeks, then xenograft tumor growth was assessed. In nude mice, intravenously delivery of Hiwi shRNA plasmids significantly inhibited tumor growth compared to treatment with control scrambled shRNA plasmids or the vehicle PBS. No mice died during the experiment and no adverse events were observed in mice administered the plasmids. Moreover, delivery of Hiwi shRNA plasmids resulted in a significant suppressed expression of Hiwi and ALDH-1 in xenograft tumor samples, based on immunohistochemical analysis. Thus, shRNA-mediated Hiwi gene silencing in lung cancer stem cells by an effective in vivo gene delivery strategy appeared to be an effective therapeutic approach for lung cancer, and may provide some useful clues for RNAi gene therapy in solid cancers.