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Background: In the normal life cycle of the parasite (Echinococcus multilocularis) that causes alveolar echinococcosis, domestic and wild carnivores act as definitive hosts, and rodents act as intermediate hosts. The presented study contributes to the research on the distribution and transmission pattern of E. multilocularis in China having identified sheep as an unusual intermediate host taking part in the domestic transmission of alveolar echinococcosis in Gansu Province, China. Methods: From 2020 to 2021, nine whitish different cyst-like were collected from the liver of sheep in Gansu Province for examination. A near complete mitochondrial (mt) genome and selected nuclear genes were amplified from the cyst-like lesion for identification. To confirm the status of the specimen, comparative analysis with reference sequences, phylogenetic analysis, and network analysis were performed. Results: The isolates displayed ≥ 98.87% similarity to E. multilocularis NADH dehydrogenase sub-unit 1 (nad1) (894 bp) reference sequences deposited in GenBank. Furthermore, amplification of the nad4 and nad2 genes also confirmed all nine samples as E. multilocularis with > 99.30% similarity. Additionally, three nuclear genes, pepck (1545 bp), elp-exons VII and VIII (566 bp), and elp-exon IX (256 bp), were successfully amplified and sequenced for one of the isolates with 98.42% similarity, confirming the isolates were correctly identified as E. multilocularis. Network analysis also correctly placed the isolates with other E. multilocularis. Conclusions: As a result of the discovery of E. multilocularis in an unusual intermediate host, which is considered to have the highest zoonotic potential, the result clearly demonstrated the necessity for expanded surveillance in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We attempted to estimate dietary vitamin A requirements based on dietary vitamin A intake in well-nourished Chinese children with adequate liver vitamin A reserves.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a kindergarten and an elementary school in Shiyan city, Hubei province of China from December 2009 to July 2010. After screening, 60 children (22 aged 4 ~ 6 y and 38 aged 7 ~ 9 y) were randomly subjected to a 3-d or 18-d deuterated-retinol-dilution (DRD) procedure to evaluate the vitamin A reserves in the body and liver. Dietary intakes of vitamin A were estimated from two (one in winter and one in summer) consecutive 3-day weighed food records and dietary recalls.Results: The dietary vitamin A intakes were significantly correlated with vitamin A stores in the body and liver, but not with the serum level of retinol. The dietary vitamin A intakes were 476.9 ± 196.7 µg retinol equivalent (RE) (or 377.7 ± 166.2 µg retinol activity equivalent (RAE)) / day for 4 ~ 6 y children and 529.1 ± 87.2 µg RE/d (or 464.0 ± 81.1 µg RAE/d) for 7 ~ 9 y children with adequate liver vitamin A reserves. The estimated liver stores of vitamin A derived from both time points (3-d and 18-d) were similar.Conclusion: Adequate dietary vitamin A intakes among the well-nourished Chinese children were estimated to be 477 µg RE/d (95%CI 385 ~ 570) or 378 µg RAE/d (95%CI 304 ~ 441) for 4 ~ 6 y children and 529 µg RE/d (95%CI 500 ~ 560) or 464 µg RAE/d (95%CI 437 ~ 491) for 7 ~ 9 y children. Although it needs to be verified in a larger population of different regions in China, our results provide important data to establish the dietary requirement of vitamin A specifically for Chinese children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mulberry leaves are the dried leaves of Morus alba L., flavonoids from mulberry leaves (MLF) has showed regulatory effect on abnormal lipid metabolism, but the regulatory mechanism of MLF on cholesterol metabolism is still missing. This study was designed to investigate the effect of MLF and its active metabolite quercetin on regulating cholesterol disorders. Methods: The mechanism of MLF on alleviating liver injury and regulating cholesterol was examined in dyslipidemic SD rats. The regulatory mechanism of quercetin for cholesterol disorders have also been detected through lipid laden HepG2 cell model. Results: Our results showed that MLF significantly inhibited lipid accumulation and alleviate hepatic injury in NAFLD rat model. The hepatic expression level of SREBP2, HMGCR and miR-33a were significantly down-regulated, while CYP7A1 was induced by MLF treatment. In vitro, Quercetin significantly decreased lipid accumulation in HepG2 cells. Mechanistically, quercetin could inhibit the mRNA and protein expression level of SREBP2 and HMGCR with or without LDL treatment. In addition, quercetin could also reduce the LXRβ while induced SR-BI mRNA expression. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that MLF and quercetin could reduce the excessive cholesterol accumulation in vivo and in vitro. These cholesterol-regulating phenomenon might attribute to its effect on down-regulating the expression of lipid-related markers such as SREBP2 and HMGCR, which may exert a protective role in the NAFLD treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To report the outcomes of hepatoblastoma resected in our institution.Methods: We diagnosed 135 children with hepatoblastoma at our institution between January 2010 and December 2017. Patients who underwent liver resection were included for analysis. However, patients who abandoned treatment after diagnosis were excluded from analysis, but their clinical characteristics were provided in the supplementary material.Results: Forty-two patients abandoned treatment, whereas 93 patients underwent liver resection and were included for statistical analysis. Thirty-six, 23, 3, and 31 patients had PRETEXT stages II, III, IV, and unspecified tumours, respectively. Seven patients had ruptured tumour; 9 had lung metastasis (one patient had portal vein thrombosis concurrently). Sixteen patients underwent primary liver resection; 22, 25, and 30 patients received cisplatin-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy and delayed surgery, preoperative transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) and delayed surgery, and a combination of cisplatin-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy, TACE, and delayed surgery, respectively. Forty patients had both PRETEXT and POST-TEXT information available for analysis. Twelve patients were down-staged after preoperative treatment, including 2, 8, and 2 patients from stages IV to III, III to II, and II to I, respectively. Ten patients with unspecified PRETEXT stage were confirmed to have POST-TEXT stages II (n = 8) and I (n = 2) tumours. Seven tumours were associated with positive surgical margins, and 12 patients had microvascular involvement. During a median follow-up period of 30.5 months, 84 patients survived without relapse, 9 experienced tumour recurrence, and 4 died. The 2-year event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) rates were 89.4 ± 3.4%, and 95.2 ± 2.4%, respectively; they were significantly better among patients without metastasis (no metastasis vs metastasis: EFS, 93.5 ± 3.7% vs 46.7 ± 19.0%, adjusted p = 0.002. OS, 97.6 ± 2.4% vs 61.0 ± 18.1%, adjusted p = 0.005), and similar among patients treated with different preoperative strategies (chemotherapy only vs TACE only vs Both: EFS, 94.7 ± 5.1% vs 91.7 ± 5.6% vs 85.6 ± 6.7%, p = 0.542. OS, 94.1 ± 5.7% vs 95.7 ± 4.3% vs 96.7 ± 3.3%, p = 0.845).Conclusion: The OS for patients with hepatoblastoma who underwent liver resection was satisfactory. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy and TACE seemed to have a similar effect on OS. However, the abandonment of treatment by patients with hepatoblastoma was common, and may have biased our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Diet and exercise play important roles in ameliorating metabolic syndrome. Yunkang 10 (Camellia sinensis var. assamica) is a most cultivated tea variety for making tea in the Southwestern China. Currently, there is no report of healthy effects of Yunkang 10 green tea (YKGT) and treadmill exercise (Ex) on high fat diet induced metabolic syndrome (MetS). We aimed to investigate the beneficial effects and molecular mechanism of YKGT and Ex using high fat diet induced MetS of C57BL/6 mice. Methods: Catechins and caffeine in water extract of YKGT were measured via high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). 10-week old mice were fed with high fat diet (HFD) for 10 weeks to induce obese mice. Then the obese mice were fed with continuous high fat diet (HFD), HFD with YKGT, HFD with Ex, and HFD with both YKGT and Ex for 8 weeks, respectively. The another group of 10-week old mice fed with low fat diet (LFD) were used as control. Results: HPLC data revealed that YKGT has abundantly high concentration of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and caffeine compared to Longjing 43 (Camellia sinensis var. sinensis) green tea. YKGT and Ex significantly decreased the level of blood glucose, serum total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), insulin, and alanine aminotransferase activity (ALT) when compared to HFD group. The fatty liver and hepatic pro-inflammatory gene expression in the YKGT, Ex and YKGT+Ex groups was mitigated significantly compared with HFD group, respectively. The phosphorylation of inhibitor of nuclear factor kappa-B kinase α/β (IKKα/β) and inhibitor of nuclear factor kappa-B α (IkBα) protein in the nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-kB) signaling pathway was also decreased in YKGT or YKGT+Ex groups. The combination of YKGT and Ex prevented gene expression for lipid synthesis in the liver tissue, and significantly upregulated mRNA level of glucose transport genes in the skeletal muscles, when compared to the HFD group. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that YKGT supplement or exercise appeared to reverse preexisting metabolic syndrome, and effectively relieved the fatty liver and hepatic inflammatory response induced by high fat diet. YKGT supplement and treadmill exercise together had better beneficial effects than only one intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: First-degree relatives of patients with diabetes (FDR) tend to have impaired insulin activity, which lead to the alternation of circulating cytokine levels. Liver is a main target tissue of insulin action; therefore, liver fat content (LFC) has a close relationship with insulin resistance. This study aimed to find the alteration in serum osteocalcin levels in FDR and the relationship of serum osteocalcin levels with FDR and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).Methods: In total, 1206 subjects including 413 men and 793 women from the communities, aged 59.7 (range, 54.8-64.3) years, were enrolled. An electrochemiluminescence immunoassay was performed to measure the levels of serum osteocalcin. LFC was measured using quantitative ultrasonography.Results: A significant decrease was found in serum osteocalcin levels in subjects with NAFLD (P < 0.001) as well as in FDR (19.8 ± 5.7 ng/mL versus 20.7 ± 6.8 ng/mL, P = 0.028). Furthermore, among the subjects with NAFLD, those with FDR had lower levels of osteocalcin than those without FDR (P = 0.011). The presence of FDR remained a predictor for decreased serum osteocalcin levels after adjusting for body mass index, blood glucose, blood lipids, and LFC (standardized β = - 0.057, P = 0.028).Conclusions: FDR had lower serum osteocalcin levels than non-FDR. The inverse association between FDR and serum osteocalcin levels was independent of metabolic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bicyclol, the most commonly-used liver hepatoprotective drug in China, is often selected to control disease progression in CHB patients who refuse anti-viral treatment. However, data on histological changes after bicyclol treatment in these patients are scarce. Therefore, this study has been conducted to find out whether bicyclol has good benefits of histological improvement in CHB patients who refuse anti-viral agents.Methods: The demographic, clinical and pathological data were collected from CHB patients who received bicyclol from January 2010 to June 2016. Improvement in liver inflammation or fibrosis is defined as at least one-grade or one-stage decrease as measured by the Scheuer scoring system. Thirty patients treated with ETV for 48 weeks were chosen as a control group to compare the histological improvement between bicyclol and entecavir (ETV) after 48-week treatment.Results: A total of 123 patients with CHB treated with bicyclol were included in this study. Paired liver biopsies were performed in 70 patients. Inter-biopsy interval was 17.44 ± 8.90 months (12-60 months). As shown by facts, 41.4% patients achieved liver inflammation improvement, while only 10.0% patients showed liver inflammation progression after bicyclol treatment. In regarding to liver fibrosis, as shown by facts, 28.6% patients achieved fibrosis improvement. More importantly, It was found that the proportions of patients with liver inflammation and fibrosis improvement were both not significantly lower than those in ETV group (53.3% vs 63.3 and 36.7% vs 43.4%). Most of patients (82.4%) with elevated baseline ALT became normal after bicyclol treatment. More importantly, as shown by the multi-variate analysis, the treatment course of bicyclol was an independent factor for liver inflammation improvement. With the HBeAg status adjusted, ALT and HBV-DNA quantity, the odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of patients with ≥48-week treatment was 5.756 (1.893,17.500) when compared with patients via < 48-week treatment.Conclusion: Bicyclol can improve liver inflammation and the ALT normalization rate of CHB patients, especially when the treatment course is prolonged. This has confirmed that bicyclol could control hepatitis activity, which might be a good choice for CHB patients who refuse anti-viral treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Short beak and dwarfism syndrome (SBDS) was caused by novel goose parvovirus (NGPV)--a variant of goose parvovirus (GPV). Ducks infected with NGPV shows clinical signs including growth retardation and protrusion of the tongue from an atrophied beak. SBDS outbreak was first reported at the northern coastal provinces of China during 2015 and it was again reported in Sichuan, an inland province of China in 2016. The disease caused a huge economic loss in Chinese duck feeding industry. Results: The SD15 strain of NGPV was isolated from liver and intestinal tract tissue samples of infected ducks. Real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) was used to estimate viral load in embryonated eggs and cells infected with adapted virus. The data showed that duck embryo fibroblasts (DEFs) were permissive to NGPV, while goose embryo fibroblasts (GEFs) cells were not, and the copy numbers of SD15 in the allantoic fluid of infected eggs remained at 105.0–106.5 copies/ml. The adaption procession of the virus was determined via qPCR, and viral proliferation was detected through indirect fluorescent antibody assay (IFA) in DEFs. It was further determined that viral copy numbers peaked at 96 h post-inoculation (hpi), which is the best time to harvest the virus in DEFs. Cytotoxic effects and cell death were observed at 72 hpi in SD15 infected DEFs, yet SD15 did not induce apoptosis. Conclusions: The growth characteristics of SD15 strain of NGPV determined would be beneficial for further molecular characterization of these viruses and develop potential vaccines if required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]