PubMed HealthSearch

Biomedical subjects

Zheng Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Zheng Wang.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

BriGHT: transcriptome-regularized multimodal neuroimaging for brain disorder prediction.

MOTIVATION: Hypergraph-based models for brain disorder prediction mainly adopt imaging-derived hypergraphs as propagation backbones. However, the entanglement of topology construction and feature propagation leaves regional representations weakly constrained by underlying biological organization, making them vulnerable to subject-specific variation and noise, particularly in heterogeneous multimodal settings. RESULTS: We present BriGHT, a Brain transcriptome-reGularized Hypergraph framework for mulTimodal disorder prediction. BriGHT employs a transcriptome-derived structural reference as a soft anchoring prior to regularize neuroimaging ROI embeddings, stabilizing representation geometry while preserving disease-relevant subject-specific variation. BriGHT further incorporates a reliability-aware fusion module to estimate subject-specific modality reliability from prediction confidence, cross-modal consistency, and decision certainty, enabling adaptive integration under heterogeneous modality quality. Experiments on three neuroimaging cohorts (ADNI, ADHD-200, REST-meta-MDD) and four modalities (VBM, fMRI, FDG, AV45) demonstrate that BriGHT consistently outperforms competing graph/hypergraph learning methods across six brain disorder prediction tasks. Perturbation analyses show that BriGHT benefits from the spatial correspondence between transcriptomic modules and imaging ROIs, rather than from arbitrary hypergraph regularization alone. Ablation and meta-analytic interpretability analyses support the contribution of transcriptomic anchoring and adaptive fusion to robust and biologically meaningful brain disorder prediction. AVAILABILITY: The software is publicly available at: https://github.com/Yaolab-fantastic/BriGHT. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Journal Article

Generation of an NKX2-1-EGFP reporter iPSC line with inducible Cas9 for lung progenitor cell tracing.

NK2 homeobox 1 (NKX2-1), a master regulator robustly expressed in lung, thyroid, and forebrain, is indispensable for specifying lung epithelial fate and serves as a definitive marker of lung progenitors. Here, we generated a human induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) line harboring a doxycycline (dox)-inducible Cas9 and an NKX2-1-EGFP-puro reporter via CRISPR/Cas9-mediated homology-directed repair. This dual-function line combines inducible genome editing with real-time tracing of early lung progenitors, enabling their prospective isolation and screening for stage-specific maturation regulators. Therefore, this engineered iCas9-NKX2-1 EGFP line is a key resource for dissecting human lung development, modeling pulmonary disease, and advancing regenerative therapies.

Humans

Antarctic Peninsula soil carbon stock and efflux: A complex interplay of soil properties and heavy metals.

This study establishes a quantitative framework for understanding surface soil carbon dynamics and ecosystem connectivity in Fildes Peninsula and Ardley Island, King George Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctic Peninsula. The mean soil organic carbon (SOC) stock across all study sites was 1.10 ± 1.93 kg C/m². Restricting net carbon balance analysis to Fildes Peninsula, where soil respiration (Rs) data were available, yielded a site-specific SOC stock of 0.45 ± 0.45 kg C/m². Scaling Rs to a realistic 120-day active season and assuming stable SOC stocks resulted in estimated annual carbon loss of 15 g C/(m2·yr), equivalent to 3.3 % of standing SOC. Comprehensive sensitivity analyses spanning plausible winter respiration (0 %-20 % of summer rates) and annual change in SOC stocks (-1 %-2 %) consistently supported a net carbon sink, with turnover rates constrained to 3.3 %/yr-4.7 %/yr. Principal component analysis showed that ornithogenic processes as the dominant control on SOC, total nitrogen (TN), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), and cadmium (Cd) provide a clear multivariate signature of marine-derived nutrient, while Pb was decoupled from this gradient and associated instead with fine-particle size controls. These results reveal dual but independent drivers of soil metal enrichment in this region. Despite their limited spatial extent, ornithogenic soils store disproportionately large carbon pools. Overall, this integrated analysis reveals how marine-terrestrial subsidies regulate Antarctic carbon cycling and provides a quantitative and reproducible framework for assessing carbon dynamics under ongoing climate change.

Antarctic Regions

Generating three-dimensional genome structures with a variational quantum algorithm.

Chromosome conformation capture experiments have revealed the underlying spatial interactions that govern three-dimensional (3D) genome organization and topology. Detecting 3D contacts between genomic loci considerably enhances our understanding of fundamental regulatory processes. Modeling 3D structures from experimental contact matrices can further contextualize the relationship between 3D genome organization and regulation. While classical algorithms have been successful in reconstructing genomic conformations, we investigate the prospect of quantum computation to aid in modeling the conformational space. In this context, we propose a novel variational quantum algorithm (VQA) to model the distribution of 3D genomic structures from experimental contact data. Through rigorous evaluations, we demonstrate the capability of our algorithm to sample ensembles of viable 3D conformations that agree well with experimental and simulated contact data. Furthermore, we extend our methodology to model the conformational space of a single cell or a population of cells. In the advent of sufficient quantum utility, the insights gained from this study can serve as a foundation for investigating high-resolution, large-scale ensembles of genomic conformations through generative VQAs.

Algorithms

Entertainment activities and the risk of multiple sclerosis: A Mendelian randomization analysis.

Modifying environmental and lifestyle factors may have the potential to prevent and ameliorate multiple sclerosis. Further elucidating the etiology of multiple sclerosis and proposing actionable prevention measures are of significant importance, but establishing causality in epidemiological data can be challenging. This study employed a two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis to evaluate the causal effect of entertainment activity factors on the risk of multiple sclerosis. Publicly accessible summary statistics derived from genome-wide association studies were utilized to assess 14 modifiable forms of entertainment activities. The inverse variance weighted random effects method was used as the primary analytical approach to estimate causal effects. Additionally, MR-Egger, weighted median, and weighted mode methods were applied to assess robustness. Systematic sensitivity analyses and heterogeneity tests were conducted to verify the reliability of our findings. We found that spending time outdoors in the summer may prevent the development of multiple sclerosis (odds ratio = 0.995; 95% confidence interval 0.991-0.999; P = .010). In contrast, the other entertainment activities studied showed no significant causal relationship with multiple sclerosis. Our results suggest that spending time outdoors in the summer may protect against the development of multiple sclerosis, providing implications for preventive measures against the disease.

Humans