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The electrochemiluminescence and resonance energy transfer (ECL-RET) method was adopted to detect miRNAs, in which the two-dimensional Ti 3 C 2 Mxenes with high surface area modified with CdS:W nanocrystals (CdS:W NCs) were used as ECL signal emitter. Mxenes with a specific surface area of 5.2755 m 2 /g carried more emitters and promote ECL intensity. As an energy acceptor, BiOCl nanosheets (BiOCl NSs) have a wide UV-Vis absorption peak in the range 250 nm-700 nm, including the emission band of CdS:W NCs with 520 nm emission wavelength. Hence, BiOCl NSs are covalently bound to hairpin DNA 2 by amide bond to quench the ECL signal of CdS:W NCs. In the presence of miRNA-141, the hairpin DNA 1 modified on the GCE was unfold and then paired with hairpin DNA 2 to release miRNA-141 and quench the signal of the ECL biosensor. Then, the concentration signal of miRNA-141 was amplified by catalytic hairpin assembly. The novel specific biosensor demonstrated a satisfactory linear relationship with miRNA-141 in the range 0.6 pM to 4000 pM; the detection limit was as low as 0.26 pM (3 s/m) under the potential of 0 ~ -1.3 V and showed outstanding RSD of 1.19%. The findings of the present work with high accuracy and sensitivity will be of positive significance for the clinical diagnosis of miRNA in the future work. The construction process of the biosensor and electrochemiluminescence mechanism., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature.)

Background: Approximately 30% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) respond poorly to combination therapy of multiple drugs. The molecular mechanisms of different responses to methotrexate + leflunomide + infliximab therapy in patients with RA were explored in this study., Methods: Infliximab was administered to patients with RA whose disease activity score was higher than 5.1 after 1 month of combination therapy with methotrexate and leflunomide. After 14 weeks of undergoing triple therapy, patients with RA were classified as responders and non-responders. Protein profiles at baseline and 14th week were investigated via isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ), and proteins with significant differences ≥1.2 folds change or ≤0.8 folds change were defined as differentially expressed proteins (DEPs). Overlapping DEPs between responders and non-responders were confirmed by parallel reaction monitoring (PRM). Bioinformatic analyses were performed for DEPs., Results: The results revealed 5 non-responders (NRs) and 15 responders (Rs). iTRAQ analysis indicated 13 overlapping DEPs and included 6 opposite change DEPs such as testicular tissue protein Li 70, cofilin 1, fibrinogen beta chain, galectin-10, serotransferrin (TF) and albumin. The difference in serotransferrin between responders and non-responders confirmed by PRM was significant. Verification by PRM indicated that TF was elevated in the Rs group and was reduced in the NRs group. Bioinformatic analysis indicated that serotransferrin was involved in the hypoxia-inducible factor-1 pathway and ferroptosis., Conclusion: Serotransferrin-related molecular mechanism may be a new direction to study refractory RA., Competing Interests: The authors have report no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2021 Chen et al.)

Objective: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) usually receive triple therapy with methotrexate (MTX), leflunomide (LEF) and infliximab (IFX), but nearly one-third of them do not respond to triple therapy. This study aimed to identify biomarkers for predicting the efficacy of triple therapy to optimize personalized treatment of RA., Methods: All 20 enrolled patients met 2010 ACR/EULAR criteria for RA and were classified into good, moderate and non-responders (GR, MR, NR) for triple therapy. The Responders (R) were defined as the sum of GR and MR. Protein profiles of 4 responders and 4 non-responders were investigated via isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ), and differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) with high-confidence peptides were validated in 15 responders and 5 non-responders by parallel response monitoring (PRM)., Results: iTRAQ identified 51 DEPs between responders and non-responders (p < 0.05, fold change >±1.2). The top five up-regulated DEPs were B7Z7M2, A0A087WZR4, Q53FL1, P08254 and G3V2V8, while the top five down-regulated proteins were Q6MZX9, B3KP77, P0DJI9, P0DJI8 and P02787. Targeted mass spectrometry by PRM identified 10 candidate biomarkers, and 3 DEPs including fibrinogen beta chain, epididymal secretory protein Li 282 and testicular tissue protein Li 70 were confirmed as predictive biomarkers., Conclusion: This study demonstrated the feasibility of exploring biomarkers by applying iTRAQ and PRM mass spectrometry techniques, and a panel of biomarkers were identified to predict clinical response of IFX + MTX + LEF treatment in active RA patients., (Copyright © 2019 The Author. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.. All rights reserved.)

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by progressive joint erosion. Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists are the most widely used biological disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug in RA. However, there continue to be one third of RA patients who have poor or no response to TNF antagonists. Following consideration of the uncertainty of therapeutic effects and the high price of TNF antagonists, it is worthy to predict the treatment responses before anti-TNF therapy. According to the comparisons between the responders and non-responders to TNF antagonists by omic technologies, such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, rheumatologists are eager to find significant biomarkers to predict the effect of TNF antagonists in order to optimize the personalized treatment in RA.

Objective: To investigate the risk factors for the occurrence of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) and to provide a clinical basis for reducing the occurrence of PDA in early preterm infants., Methods: A total of 136 early preterm infants (gestational age≤32 weeks) who were hospitalized between January 2013 and December 2014 and diagnosed with hemodynamicalhy significant PDA (hs-PDA) were enrolled as the case group. Based on the matched case-control principle, 136 early preterm infants without hs-PDA were selected among those who were hospitalized within the same period at a ratio of 1:1 and enrolled as the control group. The two groups were matched for sex and gestational age. The basic information of neonates and maternal conditions during the pregnancy and perinatal periods were collected. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify the risk factors for the development of PDA., Results: Univariate analysis showed that neonatal infectious diseases, neonatal respiratory distress syndrome, decreased platelet count within 24 hours after birth, and low birth weight were associated with the development of hs-PDA (P<0.05). Multivariate conditional logistic regression analysis revealed that neonatal infectious diseases (OR=2.368) and decreased platelet count within 24 hours after birth (OR=0.996) were independent risk factors for hs-PDA., Conclusions: Neonatal infectious diseases and decreased platelet count within 24 hours after birth increase the risk of hs-PDA in early preterm infants.

Objective: To compare the growth of preterm infants fed standard protein-fortified human milk with that containing human milk fortifier (HMF) with a higher-than-standard protein content., Methods: Published articles reporting randomized controlled trials and prospective observational intervention studies listed on the PubMed®, Embase®, CINAHL and Cochrane Library databases were searched using the keywords 'fortifier', 'human milk', 'breastfeeding', 'breast milk' and 'human milk fortifier'. The mean difference with 95% confidence intervals was used to compare the effect of HMF with a higher-than-standard protein content on infant growth characteristics., Results: Five studies with 352 infants with birth weight ≤ 1750 g and a gestational age ≤ 34 weeks who were fed human milk were included in this meta-analysis. Infants in the experimental groups given human milk with higher-than-standard protein fortifier achieved significantly greater weight and length at the end of the study, and greater weight gain, length gain, and head circumference gain, compared with control groups fed human milk with the standard HMF., Conclusions: HMF with a higher-than-standard protein content can improve preterm infant growth compared with standard HMF., (© The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.)

This study aims to investigate the incidence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) reactivation in inflammatory arthritis (IA) patients with HBV infection using anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) agents and evaluate the efficacy of antiviral therapy in reducing the risk of viral reactivation in chronic HBV infection. IA patients using anti-TNF agents from six centers were enrolled. Their HBV infection conditions and ALT and HBV-DNA levels were monitored periodically. Among the six chronic hepatitis B patients, HBV reactivation was found in two patients without antivirus prophylaxis and no viral replication was detected in the other four patients with antivirus prophylaxis. In the 31 inactive carriers, the increase of viral load was detected in 6 of 22 (27.3 %) patients without antiviral prophylaxis, and there was no viral reactivation in the other 9 patients with antiviral prophylaxis. HBV reactivation was not found in the 50 patients with resolved HBV infection. It is suggested that anti-TNF therapy might increase the risk of HBV reactivation in patients with chronic HBV infection, and antiviral prophylaxis could effectively decrease the risk. Anti-TNF agents seem to be safe in patients with resolved HBV infection.

Takayasu arteritis (TA) is a type of systemic large-vessel vasculitis that usually affects the aorta and its major branches. It remains unrecognized owing to delayed diagnosis (Boltin et al. in Rheumatol Int 27(10):985-987, 2007) and non-characteristic clinical features. It has been described in association with many autoimmune diseases, such as inflammatory digestive tract diseases. However, report of TA associated with tumors, especially malignant tumors, are rare. We here presented a case diagnosed by both Takayasu arteritis and malignant fibrous histiocytoma, from which we learned not only clinical lessons, but also consensus of relationships between these two diseases.

Chitosan (CTS), a linear binary copolymer of (1-->8)-linked 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-beta-D-glucopyranose (GlcNAc unit) and 2-amino-2-deoxy-beta-D-glucopyranose (GlcNH2 unit), is derived from chitin by alkaline deacetylation. In the present work, the narrow molecular weight distribution chitooligosaccharides were prepared by degraded CTS with a microwave-assisted-cleavage method of metal-coordinating template-absorption catalytic oxidation. Under physiological pH conditions, the interaction of CTS and the narrow distribution chitooligosaccharides with Human serum albumin (HSA) was preliminarily explored by fluorescence spectra. Low molecular weight CTS in different concentration was added into HSA solution respectively, the absorptivity of the HSA solution decreased considerably. This phenomenon indicated that there was an interaction between these six different low molecular weight CTS with HSA, and the smaller the DP of the narrow distribution chitooligosaccharides, the stronger the interaction with HSA. However, the interaction gradually failed in as the DP was less than eight. The interaction almost disappeared when using glucosamine, the final product of degraded CTS, which revealed that there was a scale effect between chain-like CTS molecule and protein biomacromolecule. The results suggest that the strongest interaction binding occurs in CTS with DP approximately =8. Whether the DP increases or decreases, the interaction will weaken.

Four sulfur-contained D(+)-glucosamine metal complexes were synthesized (M-GLUS, M = Co, Cu, Ni and Zn)and characterized by elementary analysis, molar conductance, and proton nuclear magnetic resonance. The yield of the complex was about 70%, and it dissolved easily in water. The ligand coordinates with metalions mainly between sulphur and metalions, the coordination molar ratio of the ligand to metalion was 2 : 1, and the molar conductivity indicated that all the complexes are nonelectrolyte. The mechanism of the interaction between metal complexes and calf thymus (ct) DNA in Tris buffer (pH = 7. 08), was studied by ultraviolet absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy. The results from varied experiments showed that the intensity of the maximal absorption peaks increased with gradual addition of metal complexes, but the metalions can decrease the maximal absorption and the ligand has no effect on it. Meanwhile, metal complexes could remarkably quench the emission intensity of the DNA-EB system, and the metal complexes could be bound to ct DNA. The quenching mechanism was discussed by Stern-Volmer's equation, the figure showed that it is influenced by static quenching and dynamic quenching, so the partial interaction of the complexes and ct DNA was the major mode. Under physiological pH condition, this study was designed to examine the effect of complexes on human serum albumin and bovine serum albumin by fluorescence. The binding constants and sites of the interaction with SA were analyzed by the Scatchard's equation, the results indicated that there was a strong interaction between the four metal complexes and serum albumin and the binding force was Co-GLUS > Zn-GLUS > Cu-GLUS > Cu-GLUS, and the binding site is only one.