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Santana Wu posted an update 2 days, 8 hours ago
Our study aimed to determine how lncRNA DANCR, miR-320a, and CTNNB1 interact with each other and regulate osteogenic differentiation in osteoporosis. qRT-PCR and western blotting were performed to determine the expression of DANCR, miR-320a, CTNNB1, and the osteoporosis- or Wnt/β-catenin pathway-related markers T-cell factor 1 (TCF-1), runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), osteocalcin (OCN), and osteopontin (OPN). Interactions between CTNNB1, DANCR, and miR-320a were predicted by bioinformatics approaches and validated using a luciferase assay. Osteoblastic phenotypes were evaluated by ALP staining, ALP activity assay and Alizarin Red staining. The bilateral ovariectomy method was used to establish an in vivo osteoporosis model. Bone morphological changes were examined using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) and Alcian Blue staining. The expression levels of DANCR and miR-320a in BMSCs derived from osteoporosis patients were upregulated, whereas CTNNB1 expression was downregulated compared with that in healthy controls. Importantly, we demonstrated that miR-320a and DANCR acted independently from each other and both inhibited CTNNB1 expression, whereas the inhibitory effect was additive when miR-320a and DANCR were cooverexpressed. Moreover, we found that DANCR overexpression largely abrogated the effect of the miR-320a inhibitor on CTNNB1 expression and the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in BMSCs during osteogenic differentiation. We further confirmed the results above in BMSCs derived from an osteoporosis animal model. Taken together, our findings revealed that DANCR and miR-320a regulated the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway during osteogenic differentiation in osteoporosis through CTNNB1 inhibition. Our results highlight the potential value of DANCR and miR-320a as promising therapeutic targets for osteoporosis treatment.Cold sensitivity is common following nerve injuries in the upper extremity, but is less well studied in carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). We investigated cold sensitivity in CTS and its effects on surgical outcome. A search of the Swedish National Registry for Hand Surgery (HAKIR) for open carpal tunnel releases (OCTR) from 2010-2016 identified 10,746 cases. Symptom severity questionnaires (HQ-8; HAKIR questionnaire 8, eight Likert-scale items scored 0-100, one item on cold sensitivity) and QuickDASH scores before and after surgery were collected. Patient mean age was 56 ± SD 16 years, and 7,150/10,746 (67%) were women. Patients with severe cold sensitivity (defined as cold intolerance symptom severity score > 70; n = 951), scored significantly higher on QuickDASH at all time points compared to those with mild cold sensitivity (cold intolerance symptom severity scores ≤ 30, n = 1,532); preoperatively 64 [50-75] vs. 40 [25-55], at three months 32 [14-52] vs. 18 [9-32] and at 12 months 25 [7-50] vs. 9 [2-23]; all p less then 0.0001. Severe cold sensitivity predicted higher postoperative QuickDASH scores at three [12.9 points (95% CI 10.2-15.6; p less then 0.0001)] and at 12 months [14.8 points (11.3-18.4; p less then 0.0001)] compared to mild cold sensitivity, and adjustment for a concomitant condition in the hand/arm, including ulnar nerve compression, did not influence the results. Cold sensitivity improves after OCTR. A higher preoperative degree of cold sensitivity is associated with more preoperative and postoperative disability and symptoms than a lower degree of cold sensitivity, but with the same improvement in QuickDASH score.An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.Sensory cortices display a suite of ubiquitous dynamical features, such as ongoing noise variability, transient overshoots and oscillations, that have so far escaped a common, principled theoretical account. We developed a unifying model for these phenomena by training a recurrent excitatory-inhibitory neural circuit model of a visual cortical hypercolumn to perform sampling-based probabilistic inference. The optimized network displayed several key biological properties, including divisive normalization and stimulus-modulated noise variability, inhibition-dominated transients at stimulus onset and strong gamma oscillations. These dynamical features had distinct functional roles in speeding up inferences and made predictions that we confirmed in novel analyses of recordings from awake monkeys. Our results suggest that the basic motifs of cortical dynamics emerge as a consequence of the efficient implementation of the same computational function-fast sampling-based inference-and predict further properties of these motifs that can be tested in future experiments.Cerebrovascular abnormalities have emerged as a preclinical manifestation of Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia, diseases characterized by the accumulation of hyperphosphorylated forms of the microtubule-associated protein tau. However, it is unclear whether tau contributes to these neurovascular alterations independent of neurodegeneration. We report that mice expressing mutated tau exhibit a selective suppression of neural activity-induced cerebral blood flow increases that precedes tau pathology and cognitive impairment. 3-Methyladenine This dysfunction is attributable to a reduced vasodilatation of intracerebral arterioles and is reversible by reducing tau production. Mechanistically, the failure of neurovascular coupling involves a tau-induced dissociation of neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) from postsynaptic density 95 (PSD95) and a reduced production of the potent vasodilator nitric oxide during glutamatergic synaptic activity. These data identify glutamatergic signaling dysfunction and nitric oxide deficiency as yet-undescribed early manifestations of tau pathobiology, independent of neurodegeneration, and provide a mechanism for the neurovascular alterations observed in the preclinical stages of tauopathies.Patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) present with both extracellular amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques and intracellular tau-containing neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. For many years, the prevailing view of AD pathogenesis has been that changes in Aβ precipitate the disease process and initiate a deleterious cascade involving tau pathology and neurodegeneration. Beyond this ‘triggering’ function, it has been typically presumed that Aβ and tau act independently and in the absence of specific interaction. However, accumulating evidence now suggests otherwise and contends that both pathologies have synergistic effects. This could not only help explain negative results from anti-Aβ clinical trials but also suggest that trials directed solely at tau may need to be reconsidered. Here, drawing from extensive human and disease model data, we highlight the latest evidence base pertaining to the complex Aβ-tau interaction and underscore its crucial importance to elucidating disease pathogenesis and the design of next-generation AD therapeutic trials.