Background and Aims Probiotics was considered as a potential therapy for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) without approval and comprehensive assessment in recent years, which call for a meta-analysis. Methods We performed electronic and manual searches including English and Chinese databases published before April 2019, with the use of mesh term and free text of “nonalcoholic fatty liver disease” and “probiotics.” Clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of probiotic therapy in NAFLD patients were included according to the eligibility criteria. With the use of random effects models, clinical outcomes were presented as weighted mean difference (WMD) with 95% confidence interval (CI), while heterogeneity and meta-regression were also assessed. Results 28 clinical trials enrolling 1555 criterion proven NAFLD patients with the use of probiotics from 4 to 28 weeks were included. Overall, probiotic therapy had beneficial effects on body mass index (WMD: -1.46, 95% CI: [-2.44, -0.48]), alanine aminotransferase (WMD: -13.40, 95% CI: [-17.03, -9.77]), aspartate transaminase (WMD: -13.54, 95% CI: [-17.86, -9.22]), gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (WMD: -9.88, 95% CI: [-17.77, -1.99]), insulin (WMD: -1.32, 95% CI: [-2.43, -0.21]), homeostasis model assessment-insulin resistance (WMD: -0.42, 95% CI: [-0.73, -0.12]), and total cholesterol (WMD: -15.38, 95% CI: [-26.50, -4.25]), but not in fasting blood sugar, lipid profiles, or tumor necrosis factor-alpha. Conclusion The systematic review and meta-analysis support that probiotics are superior to placebo in NAFLD patients and could be utilized as a common complementary therapeutic approach.

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The bones and connective tissues of the murine jaws and skull are partly derived from cephalic neural crest cells (CNCCs). Here, we report that mice deficient of protogenin (Prtg) protein, an immunoglobulin domain-containing receptor expressed in the developing nervous system, have impairments of the palatine and skull. Data from lineage tracing experiments, expression patterns of neural crest cell (NCC) marker genes and detection of apoptotic cells indicate that the malformation of bones in Prtg-deficient mice is due to increased apoptosis of rostral CNCCs (R-CNCCs). Using a yeast two-hybrid screening, we found that Prtg interacts with Radil, a protein previously shown to affect the migration and survival of NCCs in zebrafish with unknown mechanism. Overexpression of Prtg induces translocation of Radil from cytoplasm to cell membrane in cultured AD293 cells. In addition, overexpression of Prtg and Radil activates α5β1-integrins to high-affinity conformational forms, which is further enhanced by the addition of Prtg ligand ERdj3 into cultured cells. Blockage of Radil by RNA interference abolishes the effect of ERdj3 and Prtg on the α5β1-integrin, suggesting that Radil acts downstream of Prtg. Prtg-deficient R-CNCCs display fewer activated α5β1-integrins in embryos, and these cells show reduced migratory ability in in vitro transwell assay. These results suggest that the inside-out activation of the α5β1-integrin mediated by ERdj3/Prtg/Radil signaling is crucial for proper functions of R-CNCCs, and the deficiency of this pathway causes premature apoptosis of a subset of R-CNCCs and malformation of craniofacial structures.

Objective Ovarian cancer is one of three malignant tumors of the female reproductive system. Our previous studies showed that the traditional Chinese medicine naringin significantly inhibited the proliferation of platinum-resistant ovarian cancer cells in vitro, and that the mechanism may be related to the NF-κB pathway. Methods The MTT assay was used to detect the sensitivity of SKOV3 and SKOV3/CDDP cells to cisplatin, the effect of different naringin concentrations on the proliferation of SKOV3/CDDP cells, and the reversal of cisplatin resistance in naringin-treated SKOV3/CDDP cells. Western blotting was used to detect β-catenin, c-Myc, and cyclin D1 protein levels in the different cell lines. Results MTT results showed that different concentrations of naringin inhibited the proliferation of SKOV3 and SKOV3/CDDP cells, and that the inhibition increased with increasing concentrations and prolonged incubation times. Western blotting revealed that compared with controls (SKOV3/CDDP-0), β-catenin, c-Myc and cyclin D1 proteins levels were significantly decreased in SKOV3/CDDP-C, SKOV3/CDDP-N 20, and SKOV3/CDDP-CN 20 cells, suggesting that naringin inhibited the proliferation of SKOV3/CDDP cells in a concentration and time dependent manner. Conclusions Non-cytotoxic naringin reduced the expression of β-catenin, c-Myc, and cyclin D1 in SKOV3/CDDP cells and partially reversed cisplatin resistance in SKOV3/CDDP CN 20 cells.

Thanks to the rapid development of Wearable Fitness Trackers (WFTs) and Smartphone Pedometer Apps (SPAs), people are keeping an eye on their health through fitness and heart rate tracking; therefore, home weight training exercises have received a lot of attention lately. A multi-procedure intelligent algorithm for weight training using two inertial measurement units (IMUs) is proposed in this paper. The first procedure is for motion tracking that estimates the arm orientation and calculates the positions of the wrist and elbow. The second procedure is for posture recognition based on deep learning, which identifies the type of exercise posture. The final procedure is for exercise prescription variables, which first infers the user’s exercise state based on the results of the previous two procedures, triggers the corresponding event, and calculates the key indicators of the weight training exercise (exercise prescription variables), including exercise items, repetitions, sets, training capacity, workout capacity, training period, explosive power, etc.). This study integrates the hardware and software as a complete system. The developed smartphone App is able to receive heart rate data, to analyze the user’s exercise state, and to calculate the exercise prescription variables automatically in real-time. The dashboard in the user interface of the smartphone App can display exercise information through Unity’s Animation System (avatar) and graphics, and records are stored by the SQLite database. The designed system was proven by two types of experimental verification tests. The first type is to control a stepper motor to rotate the designed IMU and to compare the rotation angle obtained from the IMU with the rotation angle of the controlled stepper motor. The average mean absolute error of estimation for 31 repeated experiments is 1.485 degrees. The second type is to use Mediapipe Pose to calculate the position of the wrist and the angles of upper arm and forearm between the Z-axis, and these calculated data are compared with the designed system. The root-mean-square (RMS) error of positions of the wrist is 2.43 cm, and the RMS errors of two angles are 5.654 and 4.385 degrees for upper arm and forearm, respectively. For posture recognition, 12 participants were divided into training group and test group. Eighty percent and 20% of 24,963 samples of 10 participants were used for the training and validation of the LSTM model, respectively. Three-thousand-three-hundred-and-fifty-nine samples of two participants were used to evaluate the performance of the trained LSTM model. The accuracy reached 99%, and F1 score was 0.99. When compared with the other LSTM-based variants, the accuracy of one-layer LSTM presented in this paper is still promising. The exercise prescription variables provided by the presented system are helpful for weight trainers/trainees to closely keep an eye on their fitness progress and for improving their health.

Objective This study aimed to explore the effects of activating GABAB1 receptor by baclofen on proliferation, migration, invasion and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of ovarian cancer cells. Results One hundred μmol/L, 200 μmol/L and 300 μmol/L were selected as low, medium and high baclofen concentrations respectively. Cells were divided into four groups: Control, 100 μmol/L, 200 μmol/L and 300 μmol/L. Compared with the control group, the viability, colony formation, migration and invasion of SKOV3 cells were inhibited, and the apoptosis of SKOV3 cells were enhanced significantly at 200 μmol/L and 300 μmol/L baclofen. Moreover, they changed significantly with the increase of baclofen concentration. Compared with the control group, the expression of E-cadherin and GABAB1 increased and the N-cadherin expression decreased significantly in 200 μmol/L and 300 μmol/L groups. Higher concentration of baclofen induced higher expression of E-cadherin and lower expression of N-cadherin. Conclusion Baclofen inhibited the proliferation, cloning, migration, invasion and EMT of ovarian cancer cells by activating GABAB1 receptor. These results might contribute a lot to clarify the role and possible mechanism of GABAB1 receptor in ovarian cancer.

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