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Recent studies have shown a close correlation between Capn4 expression and the prognosis of patients with solid tumors. This study aimed to investigate clinical role of Capn4 in ovarian cancer. The expression of Capn4 in 113 ovarian cancer and 35 non-tumor tissue samples were detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Capn4 expression was significantly upregulated in ovarian cancer tissues compared with non-tumor tissues (p < 0.01), and was positively correlated to FIGO stage, tumor grade and distant metastasis of ovarian cancer. Kaplan-Meier analysis indicated that patients with high Capn4 expression had shorter overall survival (HR = 1.929, 95%CI: 1.210-3.077, P= 0.006) and progress-free survival (PFS) (HR = 2.043, 95%CI: 1.276-3.271, P= 0.003). Moreover, univariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated that Capn4 overexpression was an unfavorable prognostic factor for ovarian cancer (HR = 2.819, 95%CI: 1.365-3.645, P = 0.003). After the adjustment with age, histological type and tumor size, multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that Capn4 expression level (HR = 2.157,95%CI: 1.091-3.138, P = 0.014), distant metastasis (HR = 1.576, 95%CI: 1.025-3.012, P = 0.028), tumor grade (HR = 1.408, 95%CI: 0.687-2.884, P = 0.037), and FIGO stage (HR = 1.791, 95%CI: 1.016-3.158, P=0.036) were independent poor prognostic indicators for ovarian cancer. In conclusion, Capn4 has the potential as a new prognostic marker for patients with ovarian cancer.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been identified as crucial regulators of gene expression in human cancer biology. CircZFR is a novel identified circRNA and its effect in bladder cancer remains unclearly. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the role of circZFR in the progression of bladder cancer. First, we demonstrated that the expression of circZFR was higher in bladder cancer tissues and cells compared with adjacent non-tumor tissues and normal bladder epithelial cells. And higher circZFR levels were positively correlated with bladder cancer patients’ pathological T stage, grade, lymphatic metastasis, recurrence, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Functionally, knockdown of circZFR could significantly prohibit cell growth, migration and invasion, arrest cell cycle as well as promote apoptosis of bladder cancer cells in vitro study. Mechanistically, we observed that circZFR could directly bind to miR-377 as sponge to promote ZEB2 expression in bladder cancer cells. In addition, rescue assays demonstrated that restoration of ZEB2 significantly impaired the suppressive effects of circZFR silencing on bladder cancer cells growth, migration and invasion. Taken together, our results illuminated that circZFR could be a prognostic biomarker in bladder cancer and exerted oncogenic roles through regulating miR-377/ZEB2 axis in bladder cancer, which indicated that circZFR could be a potential therapeutic target for bladder cancer patients treatment.

Concurrent hearing and genetic screening of newborns is expected to play important roles not only in early detection and diagnosis of congenital deafness, which triggers intervention, but also in predicting late-onset and progressive hearing loss and identifying individuals who are at risk of drug-induced HL. Concurrent hearing and genetic screening in the whole newborn population in Beijing was launched in January 2012. This study included 180,469 infants born in Beijing between April 2013 and March 2014, with last follow-up on February 24, 2018. Hearing screening was performed using transiently evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) and automated auditory brainstem response (AABR). For genetic testing, dried blood spots were collected and nine variants in four genes, GJB2, SLC26A4, mtDNA 12S rRNA, and GJB3, were screened using a DNA microarray platform. Of the 180,469 infants, 1,915 (1.061%) were referred bilaterally or unilaterally for hearing screening; 8,136 (4.508%) were positive for genetic screening (heterozygote, homozygote, or compound heterozygote and mtDNA homoplasmy or heteroplasmy), among whom 7,896 (4.375%) passed hearing screening. Forty (0.022%) infants carried two variants in GJB2 or SLC26A4 (homozygote or compound heterozygote) and 10 of those infants passed newborn hearing screening. In total, 409 (0.227%) infants carried the mtDNA 12S rRNA variant (m.1555A>G or m.1494C>T), and 405 of them passed newborn hearing screening. In this cohort study, 25% of infants with pathogenic combinations of GJB2 or SLC26A4 variants and 99% of infants with an m.1555A>G or m.1494C>T variant passed routine newborn hearing screening, indicating that concurrent screening provides a more comprehensive approach for management of congenital deafness and prevention of ototoxicity.

The incidence and mortality rate of bladder cancer have dramatically expanded, so it's urgent to discover new biomarker and therapeutic target for bladder cancer. Recently, lncRNA has been identified as oncogene or tumor suppressor to regulate the tumorigenesis. LncRNA ZFAS1 has been confirmed as oncogene in various tumors. However, the expression, function, and underlying mechanism of ZFAS1 in bladder carcinogenesis have yet to be totally clarified. In the current study, our data demonstrated that ZFAS1 expression was significantly upregulated in bladder cancer tissues and cell lines. Furthermore, Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that high ZFAS1 expression was significantly associated with unfavorable progression free survival (PFS) (P = 0.0034 0.01) and overall survival (OS) (P = 0.0041 0.01) of bladder cancer patients. Moreover, silencing of ZFAS1 expression could markedly suppress bladder cancer cells proliferation and colony formation, arrest cell cycle, promote cell apoptosis and inhibit cell migration in vitro. In addition, bioinformatics analysis, luciferase reporter assay, and pull down assay revealed that ZFAS1 straightly interacted with miR-329. Lastly, rescue experiments confirmed that miR-329 inhibitor reversed the tumor suppressing roles of ZFAS1 knockdown on bladder cancer cells. Collectively, our results illuminated that ZFAS1 could serve as an oncogene in the tumorigenesis of bladder cancer, and discovered the functional regulatory network of ZFAS1 sponging miR-329.

Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), a leading cause of Japanese encephalitis (JE) in children and adults, is a major public health problem in Asian countries. This study reports a meta-analysis of the immunogenicity and safety of vaccines used to protect infants or children from JE. Three types of JE vaccine were examined, namely, Japanese encephalitis live-attenuated vaccine (JEV-L), Japanese encephalitis inactivated vaccine (Vero cell) (JEV-I(Vero)), and Japanese encephalitis inactivated vaccine (primary hamster kidney cell) (JEV-I(PHK)). These vaccines are used to induce fundamental immunity against JE; however, few studies have compared their immunogenicity and safety in infants and young children less than 2 years of age. Data were obtained by searching 5 databases: Web of Science, PubMed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, the China Wanfang database, and the Cochrane database. Fifteen articles were identified and scored using the Jadad score for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Random effect models were used to calculate the pooled seroconversion rate and adverse reaction rate when tests for heterogeneity were significant. The results showed that the pooled seroconversion rate for JEV-I(PHK) (62.23%) was lower than that for JEV-I(Vero) (86.49%) and JEV-L (83.52%), and that the pooled adverse reaction rate for JEV-L (18.09%) was higher than that for JEV-I(PHK) (10.08%) and JEV-I(Vero) (12.49%). The pooled relative risk was then calculated to compare the seroconversion and adverse reaction rates. The results showed that JEV-I(Vero) and JEV-L were more suitable than JEV-I(PHK) for inducing fundamental immunity to JE in infants and children less than 2 years of age.