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DISCUSSION In Taiwan, medical expenditure is increasing annually because of the higher bed occupancy caused by acute abdominal pain in the hospital. We expect that the combined treatment of electroacupuncture and modern medical treatment will not only reduce bed occupancy and the length of ED stay but also effectively decrease the rate of readmission and revisits by 72 h. By means of electroacupuncture, the spiraling cost of health care can eventually be reduced. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03199495. Registered on 27 June 2017.OBJECTIVE For the majority of people with acute sore throat, over-the-counter treatments represent the primary option for symptomatic relief. This study evaluated the in vitro bactericidal activity of lozenges containing the antiseptic hexylresorcinol against five bacteria associated with acute sore throat Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Moraxella catarrhalis, Haemophilus influenzae and Fusobacterium necrophorum. selleck inhibitor RESULTS Hexylresorcinol 2.4 mg lozenges were dissolved into 5 mL of artificial saliva medium. Inoculum cultures were prepared in triplicate for each test organism to give an approximate population of 108 colony-forming units (cfu)/mL. Bactericidal activity was measured by log reduction in cfu. Greater than 3log10 reductions in cfu were observed at 1 min after dissolved hexylresorcinol lozenges were added to S. aureus (log10 reduction cfu/mL ± standard deviation, 3.3 ± 0.2), M. catarrhalis (4.7 ± 0.4), H. influenzae (5.8 ± 0.4) and F. necrophorum (4.5 ± 0.2) and by 5 min for S. pyogenes (4.3 ± 0.4). Hexylresorcinol lozenges achieved a > 99.9% reduction in cfu against all tested organisms within 5 min, which is consistent with the duration for a lozenge to dissolve in the mouth. In conclusion, in vitro data indicate that hexylresorcinol lozenges offer rapid bactericidal activity against organisms implicated in acute sore throat.BACKGROUND To assess the presence of a seasonal effect on fatigue, pain and dryness in primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS). METHODS Data (date; visual analogue scales (VAS) for pain, fatigue and dryness) were extracted from three randomised placebo-controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating infliximab (TRIPSS; n = 103 patients), hydroxychloroquine (JOQUER; n = 120 patients) and rituximab (TEARS; n = 120 patients) and from the 5-year follow-up of the ASSESS prospective cohort (n = 395 patients). Data were analysed at each visit for each patient, according to the day, the month of the year and the season. Linear mixed models were used to take into account the repeated structure of the data and to analyse a potential cyclic effect. RESULTS A total of 744, 584, 848 and 682 pain, fatigue and dryness VASs were collected on 632 subjects in spring, summer, fall and winter, respectively. No significant difference was observed in pain, fatigue and dryness, according to the month of the year or the season (all p values > 0.05). CONCLUSION In pSS, seasonality does not affect patient-reported outcomes (PROs) on fatigue, pain and dryness.OBJECTIVES The silkworm Bombyx mori (B. mori) is an important domesticated lepidopteran model for basic and applied research. They produce silk fibres that have great economic value. The gut microbiome plays an important role in the growth of organisms. Spermidine (Spd) is shown to be important for the growth of all living cells. The effect of spermidine feeding on the gut microbiome of 5th instar B. mori larvae was checked. The B. mori gut samples from control and spermidine fed larvae were subjected to next-generation sequencing analysis to unravel changes in the bacterial community upon spermidine supplementation. DATA DESCRIPTION The changes in gut bacteriota after spermidine feeding is not studied before. B. mori larvae were divided into two groups of 50 worms each and were fed with normal mulberry leaves and mulberry leaves fortified with 50 µM spermidine. The gut tissues were isolated aseptically and total genomic DNA was extracted, 16S rRNA region amplified and sequenced using Illumina platform. The spermidine fed gut samples were shown to have abundance and diversity of the phyla Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria.Tobacco, an economic crop and important model plant, has received more progress in salt tolerance with the aid of transgenic technique. Salt stress has become a key research field in abiotic stress. The study of tobacco promotes the understanding about the important adjustment for survival in high salinity environments, including cellular ion transport, osmotic regulation, antioxidation, signal transduction and expression regulation, and protection of cells from stress damage. Genes, which response to salt, have been studied using targeted transgenic technologies in tobacco plants to investigate the molecular mechanisms. The transgenic tobacco plants exhibited higher seed germination and survival rates, better root and shoot growth under salt stress treatments. Transgenic approach could be the promising option for enhancing tobacco production under saline condition. This review highlighted the salt tolerance molecular mechanisms of tobacco.Non-structural protein 1 (NS1) of influenza virus is a multifunctional protein that plays an important role in virus replication and virulence. In this study, an acetylation modification was identified at the K108 residue of the NS1 protein of H1N1 influenza virus. To further explore the function of the K108 acetylation modification of the NS1 protein, a deacetylation-mimic mutation (K108R) and a constant acetylation-mimic mutation (K108Q) were introduced into the NS1 protein in the background of A/WSN/1933 H1N1 (WSN), resulting in two mutant viruses (WSN-NS1-108R and WSN-NS1-108Q). In vitro and mouse studies showed that the deacetylation-mimic mutation K108R in the NS1 protein attenuated the replication and virulence of WSN-NS1-108R, while the constant acetylation-mimic mutant virus WSN-NS1-108Q showed similar replication and pathogenicity as the wild-type WSN virus (WSN-wt). The results indicated that acetylation at K108 of the NS1 protein has an important role in the replication and virulence of influenza virus.