Recently, Pingping Zhu, Zhenzhen Chen, Qiankun He from Zhengzhou University and Xinrui Lv from Henan University published a review paper on MedComm-Oncology, which is titled "Characteristic, Regulation and Targeting Strategies of Cancer Stem Cells and Their Niche in Digestive System Tumors". They comprehensively reviewed the recent progress in understanding and targeting of CSCs and their niche.

Scientists developed a new way of investing in stocks using natural language processing. Using dynamic topic modeling, a variant of Latent Dirichlet Allocation, the new model uncovers hidden risk factors directly from company reports and translates them into tradable indices with minimal human oversight. Investors can now trade these risk factors directly and track industry trends using only the information contained in words.

The ricefield eel (Monopterus albus) is the only protogynous hermaphrodite freshwater fish. How this species changes its sex remains elusive. By performing comparative transcriptome analysis, we tentatively propose that a temperature-induced sex reversal mechanism is at work in ricefield eel, similar to that in embryonic reptiles. We show that warm temperature induces the expression of male sex determination genes in ovarian tissues, and that temperature-induced up-regulation of male genes depends on Trpv4, a thermosensor that can sense thermal cues.  

This study uncovers dynamic immune adaptations during pregnancy through single-cell RNA sequencing of peripheral blood mononuclear cells at different pregnancy stages. A gradual reduction in cytotoxicity of T and NK cells, along with decreased MHC-II and CD40 signaling in T and B cells, suggests weakened adaptive immunity. Meanwhile, upregulated pro-inflammatory genes in monocytes may compensate for this reduction. Late pregnancy shows a transition toward immune activation in dendritic and CD4+ T cells. Notably, we highlight a novel pro-aging effect of pregnancy, which may reverse postpartum. These findings enhance our understanding of pregnancy immunity and its impact on disease risk.

Traditional terahertz (THz) polarization conversion devices show the unchanged polarization state on each output plane along the propagation path. This paper proposes a THz polarization controlled metasurface device that is dependent on propagation distance, which can continuously modify the polarization state of each output plane along the propagation path. The designed metasurface device can control the phase difference between the left-handed and right-handed circularly polarized components in the incident THz linearly polarized wave. This phase difference changes with the propagation distance, and ultimately outputs a linearly polarized wave that rotates along the propagation path. The polarization rotation angle can cover 0 to π. This device may have potential applications in fields such as variable matter excitation, THz communication, THz radar, THz sensing.

For the first time, researchers have revealed the high-affinity interaction between mitochondrial proteins HAX1 (intrinsically disordered) and CLPB (α-helical), uncovering their structural and functional synergy. Using NMR, the study shows HAX1's disordered region binds CLPB's helical domain with low micromolar affinity, providing mechanistic insights into diseases like cancer and mitochondrial encephalomyopathy. These findings open new avenues for targeted therapies against mitochondrial dysfunction-related disorders.

This work developed a new deep learning framework, MULGONET, to predict cancer recurrence and identify key biomarkers by integrating multi omics data (such as mRNA, DNA methylation, copy number variation). By utilizing the gene ontology (go) hierarchy, the model overcomes the challenges of data dimensionality and interpretability, and achieves higher accuracy in bladder cancer, pancreatic cancer, and gastric cancer datasets. This innovation enables clinicians to pinpoint key genes and biological pathways associated with cancer recurrence, paving the way for personalized treatment strategies.