Resistance exercise is beneficial in terms of reducing pain, alleviating stiffness, and improving physical function in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

Aquatic exercise appears to have considerable short-term benefits compared with land-based exercise and nonexercise in patients with knee OA. Based on these results, aquatic exercise is effective and safe and can be considered as an adjuvant treatment for patients with knee OA. Studies in this area are still too scarce and too short-term to provide further recommendations on how to apply this therapy.

IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD) is an immune-mediated inflammatory disorder in multiple organs, characterized by abundant infiltration of IgG4-positive plasmacytes and fibrosis in the involved organs. The precise pathogenic mechanism of IgG4-RD still remains unclear. Aberrant innate and adaptive immunity are considered as the main pathogenesis of IgG4-RD. Recent studies have shown that abnormal adaptive immune responses mediated by T helper type 2 ​cells, regulatory T lymphocytes, CD4 + cytotoxic T lymphocytes, T follicular helper cells, T follicular regulatory cells, PD-1hiCXCR5-peripheral T helper cells and B cell subsets are involved in IgG4-RD. In addition to adaptive immune responses, innate immune responses play pathogenic roles in IgG4-RD. Macrophages, mast cells, basophils, complement, and plasmacytoid dendritic cells are activated to produce various kinds of cytokines in IgG4-RD. This review aims to summarize the most recent knowledge in the pathogenesis of IgG4-RD.

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High temperature at anthesis is one of the most serious stress factors for rice (Oryza sativa L.) production, causing irreversible yield losses and reduces grain quality. Illustration of thermotolerance mechanism is of great importance to accelerate rice breeding aimed at thermotolerance improvement. Here, we identified a new thermotolerant germplasm, SDWG005. Microscopical analysis found that stable anther structure of SDWG005 under stress may contribute to its thermotolerance. Dynamic transcriptomic analysis totally identified 3559 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in SDWG005 anthers at anthesis under heat treatments, including 477, 869, 2335, and 2210 for 1, 2, 6, and 12 h, respectively; however, only 131 were regulated across all four-time-points. The DEGs were divided into nine clusters according to their expressions in these heat treatments. Further analysis indicated that some main gene categories involved in heat-response of SDWG005 anthers, such as transcription factors, nucleic acid and protein metabolisms related genes, etc. Comparison with previous studies indicates that a core gene-set may exist for thermotolerance mechanism. Expression and polymorphic analysis of agmatine-coumarin-acyltransferase gene OsACT in different accessions suggested that it may involve in SDWG005 thermotolerance. This study improves our understanding of thermotolerance mechanisms in rice anthers during anthesis, and also lays foundation for breeding thermotolerant varieties via molecular breeding.

BackgroundGastric cancer (GC) is a highly heterogeneous tumor with different responses to immunotherapy. Identifying immune subtypes and landscape of GC could improve immunotherapeutic strategies.MethodsBased on the abundance of tumor-infiltrating immune cells in GC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas, we used unsupervised consensus clustering algorithm to identify robust clusters of patients, and assessed their reproducibility in an independent cohort from Gene Expression Omnibus. We further confirmed the feasibility of our immune subtypes in five independent pan-cancer cohorts. Finally, functional enrichment analyses were provided, and a deep learning model studying the pathological images was constructed to identify the immune subtypes.ResultsWe identified and validated three reproducible immune subtypes presented with diverse components of tumor-infiltrating immune cells, molecular features, and clinical characteristics. An immune-inflamed subtype 3, with better prognosis and the highest immune score, had the highest abundance of CD8+ T cells, CD4+ T–activated cells, follicular helper T cells, M1 macrophages, and NK cells among three subtypes. By contrast, an immune-excluded subtype 1, with the worst prognosis and the highest stromal score, demonstrated the highest infiltration of CD4+ T resting cells, regulatory T cells, B cells, and dendritic cells, while an immune-desert subtype 2, with an intermediate prognosis and the lowest immune score, demonstrated the highest infiltration of M2 macrophages and mast cells, and the lowest infiltration of M1 macrophages. Besides, higher proportion of EVB and MSI of TCGA molecular subtyping, over expression of CTLA4, PD1, PDL1, and TP53, and low expression of JAK1 were observed in immune subtype 3, which consisted with the results from Gene Set Enrichment Analysis. These subtypes may suggest different immunotherapy strategies. Finally, deep learning can predict the immune subtypes well.ConclusionThis study offers a conceptual frame to better understand the tumor immune microenvironment of GC. Future work is required to estimate its reference value for the design of immune-related studies and immunotherapy selection.

Faba bean (Vicia faba L.) is an important food legume crop. Salinity soils severely constrain the production of faba bean, however, the seed germination of faba bean, which is a vital plant growth stage, is sensitive to salinity. Planting improved varieties of faba bean, which exhibit salt tolerance in seed germination stage, is an optimal strategy for faba bean product. To investigate the genes dynamics during the seed germination stage under salinity, RNA-seq method was used to investigate genome-wide transcription profiles of two faba bean varieties with contrast salt-tolerance during the seed germination. A total of 4,486 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified among the comparison of salt-tolerant variety Y134 and salt-sensitive variety Y078 treated with salinity or not. Of these, 1,410 candidate DEGs were identified as salt-stress response genes. Furthermore, 623 DEGs were identified as variety-specific response gene during seed germination at 16 h or 24 h with salt treatment. Based on the pathway enrichment according to the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes database (KEGG), these DEGs involving in cell wall loosening (e.g., xyloglucan endotransglucosylase/hydrolase, chitinase, and expansin), hormone metabolism (e.g., LEA genes, genes associated with ABA or ethylene signal pathway), chromatin remodeling (e.g., chromatin structure proteins, LHP1), small interfering RNA pathway, etc., were significantly up-regulated in salt-tolerance variety with salt treatment, indicating that they play critical roles in regulation of seed germination. The results indicated that a clearer mechanism of gene regulation that regulates the seed germination responding to salinity in faba bean. These findings are helpful to increase the understanding of the salt tolerance mechanism of crops during seed germination, and provide valuable genetic resource for the breeding of salt-tolerant faba bean varieties in future.

Wearable technologies create a tactile interface with the body of the user, providing a new model for architecture in which the surface between the subject and the object is almost seamless and sensory. As Valentina Croci explores, they also call on us to reconsider a more interdisciplinary mode of designing that accommodates a dynamic social dialogue between highly portable small‐scale devices, their remote networks and the physical environment. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.