Background: The aim of this study is to systematically review the literature to summarize the evidence surrounding the clinical utility of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of mammography. Databases from PubMed, IEEE Xplore, and Scopus were searched for relevant literature. Studies evaluating AI models in the context of prediction and diagnosis of breast malignancies that also reported conventional performance metrics were deemed suitable for inclusion. From 90 unique citations, 21 studies were considered suitable for our examination. Data was not pooled due to heterogeneity in study evaluation methods. Summary: Three studies showed the applicability of AI in reducing workload. Six studies demonstrated that AI can aid in diagnosis, with up to 69% reduction in false positives and an increase in sensitivity ranging from 84 to 91%. Five studies show how AI models can independently mark and classify suspicious findings on conventional scans, with abilities comparable with radiologists. Seven studies examined AI predictive potential for breast cancer and risk score calculation. Key Messages: Despite limitations in the current evidence base and technical obstacles, this review suggests AI has marked potential for extensive use in mammography. Additional works, including large-scale prospective studies, are warranted to elucidate the clinical utility of AI.

Skin conditions are a significant cause of fatal and nonfatal disease burdens globally, ranging from mild irritations to debilitating diseases. Oxidative stress, which is an imbalance between reactive oxygen species and the cells’ ability to repair damage, is implicated in various skin diseases. Antioxidants have been studied for their potential benefits in dermatologic health, but the evidence is limited and conflicting. Herein, we conducted a systematic review of controlled trials, meta-analyses, and Cochrane review articles to evaluate the current evidence on the utility of antioxidant supplementation for adjunct prevention and treatment of skin disease and to provide a comprehensive assessment of their role in promoting dermatologic health. The Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, and Epistemonikos databases were queried. Eligibility criteria included (1) primary focus on nanoparticle utility for skin cancer; (2) includes measurable outcomes data with robust comparators; (3) includes a number of human subjects or cell-line types, where applicable; (4) English language; and (5) archived as full-text journal articles. A total of 55 articles met the eligibility criteria for the present review. Qualitative analysis revealed that topical and oral antioxidant supplementation has demonstrated preliminary efficacy in reducing sunburns, depigmentation, and photoaging. Dietary exogenous antioxidants (namely vitamins A, C, and E) have shown chemopreventive effects against skin cancer. Antioxidant supplementation has also shown efficacy in treating non-cancer dermatoses, including rosacea, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and acne vulgaris. While further studies are needed to validate these findings on a larger scale, antioxidant supplementation holds promise for improving skin health and preventing skin diseases.

Cell division, growth, and differentiation are energetically costly and dependent processes. In adult stem cell-based epithelia, cellular identity seems to be coupled with a cell’s metabolic profile and vice versa. It is thus tempting to speculate that resident stem cells have a distinct metabolism, different from more committed progenitors and differentiated cells. Although investigated for many stem cell types in vitro, in vivo data of niche-residing stem cell metabolism is scarce. In adult epithelial tissues, stem cells, progenitor cells, and their progeny have very distinct functions and characteristics. In our study, we hypothesized and tested whether stem and progenitor cell types might have a distinctive metabolic profile in the intestinal lineage. Here, taking advantage of the genetically accessible adult Drosophila melanogaster intestine and the availability of ex vivo single cell sequencing data, we tested that hypothesis and investigated the metabolism of the intestinal lineage from stem cell (ISC) to differentiated epithelial cell in their native context under homeostatic conditions. Our initial in silico analysis of single cell RNAseq data and functional experiments identify the microRNA miR-277 as a posttranscriptional regulator of fatty acid β-oxidation (FAO) in the intestinal lineage. Low levels of miR-277 are detected in ISC and progressively rising miR-277 levels are found in progenitors during their growth and differentiation. Supporting this, miR-277-regulated fatty acid β-oxidation enzymes progressively declined from ISC towards more differentiated cells in our pseudotime single-cell RNAseq analysis and in functional assays on RNA and protein level. In addition, in silico clustering of single-cell RNAseq data based on metabolic genes validates that stem cells and progenitors belong to two independent clusters with well-defined metabolic characteristics. Furthermore, studying FAO genes in silico indicates that two populations of ISC exist that can be categorized in mitotically active and quiescent ISC, of which the latter relies on FAO genes. In line with an FAO dependency of ISC, forced expression of miR-277 phenocopies RNAi knockdown of FAO genes by reducing ISC size and subsequently resulting in stem cell death. We also investigated miR-277 effects on ISC in a benign and our newly developed CRISPR-Cas9-based colorectal cancer model and found effects on ISC survival, which as a consequence affects tumor growth, further underlining the importance of FAO in a pathological context. Taken together, our study provides new insights into the basal metabolic requirements of intestinal stem cell on β-oxidation of fatty acids evolutionarily implemented by a sole microRNA. Gaining knowledge about the metabolic differences and dependencies affecting the survival of two central and cancer-relevant cell populations in the fly and human intestine might reveal starting points for targeted combinatorial therapy in the hope for better treatment of colorectal cancer in the future.

Introduction: Although not considered a primary cause, neuroinflammation is associated with many neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson’s disease (PD). Methods: To elucidate potential immune involvement in PD, the present study imputed immune cell abundances from bulk RNA-sequencing transcriptomic data of PD postmortem prefrontal cortices. CIBERSORTx, an RNA deconvolution algorithm that implements support vector regression, was used to measure the relative abundances of immune cells from a previously published gene expression dataset. Through this machine-learning approach, relative proportions of 22 immune cell subtypes present in the original brain tissue were estimated. Results: Prefrontal cortices from PD patients exhibited significantly higher relative abundances of monocytes compared to neuropathologically normal controls (p value = 0.0005). The relative proportions of the other 21 immune subtypes showed no significant differences between control and PD samples. Conclusion and Discussion: The findings corroborate previous reports and suggest monocytes may be involved in PD pathogenesis.