This study presents the first investigation of acetyl-11-keto-β-boswellic acid (AKBA)'s anti-human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) activity in vitro and elucidates its underlying mechanisms. In HCMV Towne strain-infected WI-38 cells, AKBA (1-12 μM) exhibited negligible cytotoxicity while significantly suppressing virus-induced cytopathic effects (CPE) at 6-10 μM, with dose-dependent reduction of viral proteins (IE1/2 and p52) expression, viral DNA copy number (UL123, UL44, and UL32), and infectious viral progeny titer (TCID50). Time-of-addition experiments demonstrated the primary antiviral activity of AKBA during post-entry phase, along with direct virion inactivation. Transcriptome analysis revealed that AKBA significantly downregulated the expression of the host factor NR4A1 induced by HCMV, a finding further validated by Western blotting. Further gene knockdown experiments confirmed that silencing NR4A1 significantly reduced the expression of viral proteins IE1/2, thereby validating NR4A1 as a key host factor for HCMV infection. These findings indicate that AKBA has a potent and dose-dependent inhibitory effect on HCMV replication in WI-38 cells, and proves that this effect is mediated through two different mechanisms: one is the downregulation of the expression of the key host factor NR4A1, and the other is the direct inactivation of HCMV viral particles.
Background: Curcumin is the major component of turmeric, which has an anticancer property in multiple cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the mechanisms are still largely unclear. This research aims to assess the pharmacological function of curcumin and explore the potential microRNA (miRNA)-mRNA regulatory mechanism in curcumin-mediated HCC progression. Materials and Methods: Hep3B and Huh-7 cells were used for in vitro experiments. Cells were exposed to various doses of curcumin, and transfection was conducted using Lipofectamine 2000. Cell proliferation, migration, and invasion were examined using 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2-H-tetrazolium bromide or transwell assay. The abundances of miR-21-5p and gender-determining region Y-related high-mobility group box 6 (SOX6) were examined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction or Western blot. The relationship between miR-21-5p and SOX6 was analyzed through luciferase reporter analysis. Results: Curcumin repressed HCC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. miR-21-5p level was decreased in curcumin-treated cells, and miR-21-5p overexpression reversed curcumin-mediated inhibition of HCC progression. SOX6 was targeted through miR-21-5p, and SOX6 restoration attenuated miR-21-5p-induced promotion of HCC progression. Moreover, curcumin exposure increased SOX6 expression through regulating miR-21-5p, and knockdown of SOX6 overturned curcumin-modulated suppression of HCC progression. Conclusions: Curcumin repressed proliferation, migration, and invasion of HCC cells by regulating miR-21-5p and SOX6, indicating the promisingly pharmacological effect of curcumin in HCC.
Consumer electronics devices—including smartphones and smart cameras—generate massive volumes of image data. Image retrieval serves as a critical enabling technology for diverse image-centric applications in consumer electronic applications (like AI-powered photo retrieval in smartphone, efficient media asset and creative template retrieval in smart camera, streaming recommendation systems for smart TVs). Nevertheless, text-query-based image retrieval encounters unique challenges within consumer electronics environments. First, in consumer electronics applications, text-to-image retrieving queries are typically concise, frequently leading to ambiguity in intent. Second,numerous images lack textual descriptions and metadata tags, while others contain inaccuracies or unreliable annotations—particularly in consumer-generated content where such semantic gaps critically undermine retrieval accuracy. Third, identical text queries elicit divergent expected results from distinct consumers across varying contexts. To address those challenges and improve image retrieval accuracy in consumer electronic applications, we propose AugMMRev. AugMMRev is primarily designed as a re-ranking model within a multimodal retrieval pipeline to evaluate the similarity between the query and a given candidate image. To achieve stronger re-ranking performance, we used a variety of processing methods. AugMMRev employs text augmentation to enrich abbreviated queries, utilizes image augmentation to enhance visually sparse content, and integrates user profiling to deliver personalized retrieval results. Comprehensive experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of AugMMRev. AugMMRev achieves 90.7% and 88.3% retrieval accuracy over real-business dataset and public dataset, which surpass the compared methods.
OBJECTIVE:Fractional flow (FF) reserve has been developed as a gold standard for coronary intervention. Intracranial FF is also a valuable hemodynamic index to assess the severity of narrowing in intracranial atherosclerotic stenosis (ICAS). This study aims to investigate the predictive value of FF in assessing restenosis following endovascular treatment in patients with symptomatic ICAS. METHODS:This retrospective study recruited 67 patients with symptomatic ICAS who received intracranial stenting between March 2019 and January 2024. FF was measured by dedicated software (AccuICAD) before and after stenting. During follow-up, patients were categorized into two groups based on the occurrence of in-stent restenosis (ISR): ISR group and non-ISR group. Multivariate regression analysis and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis were performed to identify the predictive factors for ISR. RESULTS:Post-FF was significantly different between the ISR and non-ISR groups (0.84±0.09 vs 0.92±0.06, respectively, P<0.01). Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses identified post-FF (HR 0.0, 95% CI 0.0 to 0.08, P=0.005) and smoking (HR 3.06, 95% CI 1.02 to 9.19, P=0.047) as the two predictors of ISR. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis confirmed the predictive value of post-FF for ISR (AUC=0.783, 95% CI 0.645 to 0.920, P=0.003), with a cut-off value of 0.94. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis further demonstrated that patients with a post-FF value >0.94 had a significantly lower incidence of ISR (P=0.001). CONCLUSION:In this study, post-FF effectively predicted ISR, providing an intraoperative evaluation value for stenting in ICAS.
