Search

Shui Fu,1 Liang Zhang,1 Qi-Lei Hu,1,2 Zuo-Jie Li3 1Department of Clinical Laboratory, Linping Campus, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 311000, People’s Republic of China; 2Quality Management Section, Linping Campus, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 311100, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Clinical Laboratory, The People’s Hospital of Cangnan Zhejiang, Cangnan County, Zhejiang, 325800, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Zuo-Jie Li, Department of Clinical Laboratory, The People’s Hospital of Cangnan Zhejiang, No. 2288 Yucang Road, Cangnan County, Zhejiang, 325800, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 577-64810162, Email acdemicarticle@126.comObjective: This study establish and evaluate an internal quality control system for erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) by a “relay” mode based on samples from relevant patients.Methods: The method for establishing a new internal quality control system for ESR by a “relay” mode based on patient’s samples was executed from February 2021 to July 2021. In this paper, a total of 219 outpatients were recruited for ESR determination, and their blood samples were stored at 4 °C or room temperature for 24 h. Subsequently, the samples were re-measured for ESR, and the re-measured values were compared with the initial values. The patient samples (15± 1mm/h and 50± 3mm/h) were selected after the TEST1 ESR analyzer was calibrated, and were stored overnight at 4 °C and measured again the following day. The percentage deviation was determined and entered into the quality control management module for internal quality control. Next, we analyzed the median distribution trend of the patients’ ESR values measured by our laboratory every day over five months, as well as the external quality assessment (EQA) results for ESR obtained from the National Center for Clinical Laboratories (NCCL).Results: The ESR of the room temperature samples after 24 h of storage had significantly decreased (P=0.001), while there was no noticeable difference for those stored at 4 °C (P=0.197). Results of the internal quality control in March were satisfactory, and there was no significant deviation in the median ESR relay results within five months. Besides, the EQA results for the ESR data obtained from NCCL were excellent.Conclusion: As a precise and practical new method, the ESR relay internal quality control method can be used to scientifically determine the stability and accuracy of the TEST1 ESR analyzer.Keywords: erythrocyte sedimentation rate, ESR, fully automatic ESR analyzer, quality control, fresh blood sample, Westgard rules

The charge distribution on Ni–Mo–S active sites can affect hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) activity. In this study, a series of model Ni–Mo–S were developed with various charge distributions. For comparison, the charge distribution effects on quinoline HDN were studied. The results show that a lack of electrons and extra protons can both lower the orbital eigenvalue of the Ni–Mo–S, leading to stronger adsorption of nitrogen-containing compounds and inhibition of ammonia desorption. Electron deficiency will improve the generation of active hydrogen on the active sites but inhibit hydrogen transfer to the nitrogen compounds; extra protons can provide H+ to the nitrogen compounds, which will flexibly transfer between the nitrogen compound and active sites, thus improving the cleavage of the C–N bond.

Background Acute thyrotoxic myopathy (ATM) is a rare and potentially lethal complication of thyrotoxicosis. The typical clinical symptoms of ATM are characterized by bulbar paralysis. Reports of the successful treatment of ATM are sporadic due to its low incidence. Subacute thyroiditis (SAT) is one of the etiology of hyperthyroidism. The intrathyroidal injection of glucocorticoids is a novel administration route to treat subacute thyroiditis and reduce the resulting adverse reactions. However, no English literature has reported Chinese with ATM and SAT overlap. Here, we report a Chinese rare with ATM and SAT that recovered from a different and novel route of glucocorticoid administration. Case presentation A 23-year-old woman visited our hospital with a two-year history of progressive weakness of her bulbar muscles, hoarseness, cough when swallowing, dysphagia, and a one-month history of recurrent painful swelling of the thyroid gland. She was diagnosed with ATM, chronic thyrotoxic myopathy (CTM), Graves' ophthalmopathy (GO) due to Graves' disease (GD), and (SAT). After she was treated with a combination of low-dose glucocorticoids, antithyroid drugs (ATDs), propranolol, and ultrasound-guided percutaneous intrathyroidal injection of glucocorticoids, the bulbar paralysis, proximal myopathy, and neck pain simultaneously improved without recurrence during follow-up. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case report of a patient with ATM, CTM, GD, and GO treated by administering a combination of low-dose glucocorticoids and antithyroid agents. Conclusions Clinicians should consider ATM and intervene with aggressive glucocorticoid therapy was the key to reversing the progression of ATM when a patient has bulbar paralysis and thyrotoxic symptoms. Ultrasound-guided percutaneous intrathyroidal injection of glucocorticoids is a feasible and operable method of curing SAT. Our case report references the clinical diagnosis and treatment of such cases.

Background: Neuroinflammation and cytokines play critical roles in neuropathic pain and axon degeneration/regeneration. Cytokines of transforming growth factor-β superfamily have implications in pain and injured nerve repair processing. However, the transcriptional profiles of the transforming growth factor-β superfamily members in dorsal root ganglia under neuropathic pain and axon degeneration/regeneration conditions remain elusive. Objective: We aimed to plot the transcriptional profiles of transforming growth factor-β superfamily components in lumbar dorsal root ganglia of nerve axotomized rats and to further verify the profiles by testing the analgesic effect of activin C, a representative cytokine, on neuropathic pain. Methods: Adult male rats were axotomized in sciatic nerves and lumbar dorsal root ganglia were isolated for total RNA extraction or section. A custom microarray was developed and employed to plot the gene expression profiles of transforming growth factor-β superfamily components. Real-time RT-PCR was used to confirm changes in the expression of activin/inhibin family genes, and then in situ hybridization was performed to determine the cellular locations of activin βC mRNAs. Rat spared nerve injury model was performed and pain test was employed to determine the effect of activin C on neuropathic pain. Results: The expression of transforming growth factor-β superfamily cytokines and their signaling, including some receptors and signaling adaptors, were robustly upregulated. Activin βC subunit mRNAs were expressed in the small-diameter dorsal root ganglion neurons and upregulated after axotomy. Single intrathecal injection of activin C inhibited neuropathic pain in spared nerve injury model. Conclusion: This is the first report to investigate the transcriptional profiles of members of transforming growth factor-β superfamily in axotomized dorsal root ganglia. The distinct cytokine profiles observed here might provide clues toward further study of the role of transforming growth factor-β superfamily in the pathogenesis of neuropathic pain and axon degeneration/regeneration after peripheral nerve injury.

Fruit intake is beneficial to several chronic diseases, but controversial in diabetes. We aimed to investigate prospectively the associations of whole fresh fruit intake with risk of incident type 2 diabetes (T2D) in subjects with different glucose regulation capacities.The present study included 79,922 non-diabetic participants aged ≥ 40 years from an ongoing nationwide prospective cohort in China. Baseline fruit intake information was collected by a validated food frequency questionnaire. Plasma HbA1c, fasting and 2 h post-loading glucose levels were measured at both baseline and follow-up examinations. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for incident diabetes among participants with normal glucose tolerance (NGT) and prediabetes, after adjusted for multiple confounders. Restricted cubic spline analysis was applied for dose-response relation.During a median 3.8-year follow-up, 5886 (7.36%) participants developed diabetes. Overall, we identified a linear and dose-dependent inverse association between dietary whole fresh fruit intake and risk of incident T2D. Each 100 g/d higher fruit intake was associated with 2.8% lower risk of diabetes (HR 0.972, 95%CI [0.949-0.996], P = 0.0217), majorly benefiting NGT subjects with 15.2% lower risk (HR 0.848, 95%CI [0.766-0.940], P = 0.0017), while not significant in prediabetes (HR 0.981, 95%CI 0.957-4.005, P = 0.1268). Similarly, the inverse association was present in normoglycemia individuals with a 48.6% lower risk of diabetes when consuming fruits 7 times/week comparing to those 1 time/week (HR 0.514, 95% CI [0.368-0.948]), but not in prediabetes (HR 0.883, 95% CI [0.762-1.023]).These findings suggest that higher frequency and amount of fresh fruit intake may protect against incident T2D, especially in NGT, but not in prediabetes, highlighting the dietary recommendation of higher fresh fruit consumption to prevent T2D in normoglycemia population.

Objective This paper explores the effect of blood sample storage temperature and time on the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) by using the Weiss method. Methods Whole blood samples were collected from 80 patients and diluted 1:9 with sodium citrate solution. Each sample was split into two tubes. Using the Weiss method, ESR was tested within 1 h of collection, and one sample was placed at 4 °C and the other at room temperature (23 ± 2 °C). ESR was then measured at 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24 h. The data were statistically analyzed with consideration for temperature and time. Results ESR decreased gradually over 6 h at room temperature, but the results were not statistically significant. Similarly, there was no significant difference in the decline of ESR within 8 h at 4 °C. However, ESR results decreased significantly after the samples were stored at room temperature for more than 6 h or at 4 °C for more than 8 h. ESR reduction was lower in the samples stored at 4 °C than in those stored at room temperature over the same time period. Conclusion Blood sample storage temperature and duration can affect the measurement of ESR using the Weiss method. ESR testing should be completed within 4 h of sample collection in clinical work.

A pedestrian fusion tracking method with complementary multimodal information is proposed, and a fusion decision tracking model with detection followed by fusion and then tracking is established. The detection module uses a modified CenterNet network with a richer feature information backbone network and a lightweight prediction module, and the scene data is collected to train multiple detectors for multiple modalities. A decision process based on the confidence of detection results and feature similarity is proposed to achieve the fusion of multimodal detection results, and the fused results are fed to the tracker to achieve continuous pedestrian tracking. The results show that the proposed fusion tracking model can complement each other’s multi-modal information and provide better and more robust tracking results than the single-modal tracker for continuous tracking in multiple scenes.

Lu Yang,1,* Ming Xu,2,* Chuan-Bao Cui,1 Peng-Hai Wei,1 Shu-Zhi Wu,1 Zuo-Jie Cen,1 Xing-Xing Meng,1 Qiong-Guang Huang,1 Zhi-Chun Xie1 1Department of Epidemiology, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning 530021, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Human Anatomy and Histology and Embryology, Qilu Medical University, Zibo 255213, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Background: The current study aims at using the whole genome expression profile chips for systematically investigating the diagnostic and prognostic values of excision repair cross-complementation (ERCC) genes in hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).Materials and methods: Whole genome expression profile chips were obtained from the GSE14520. The receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve, survival analysis, and nomogram were used to investigate the diagnostic and prognostic values of ERCC genes. Investigation of the potential function of ERCC8 was carried out by gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and genome-wide coexpression analysis.Results: ROC analysis suggests that six ERCC genes (ERCC1, ERCC2, ERCC3, ERCC4, ERCC5, and ERCC8) were dysregulated and may have potential to distinguish between HBV-related HCC tumor and paracancerous tissues (area under the curve of ROC ranged from 0.623 to 0.744). Survival analysis demonstrated that high ERCC8 expression was associated with a significantly decreased risk of recurrence (adjusted P=0.021; HR=0.643; 95% CI=0.442–0.937) and death (adjusted P=0.049; HR=0.631; 95% CI=0.399–0.998) in HBV-related HCC. Then, we also developed two nomograms for the HBV-related HCC individualized prognosis predictions. GSEA suggests that the high expression of ERCC8 may have involvement in the energy metabolism biological processes. As the genome-wide coexpression analysis and functional assessment of ERCC8 suggest, those coexpressed genes were significantly enriched in multiple biological processes of DNA damage and repair. Conclusion: The present study indicates that six ERCC genes (ERCC1, ERCC2, ERCC3, ERCC4, ERCC5, and ERCC8) were dysregulated between HBV-related HCC tumor and paracancerous tissues and that the mRNA expression of ERCC8 may serve as a potential biomarker for the HBV-related HCC prognosis. Keywords: HBV, hepatocellular carcinoma, diagnosis, prognosis, ERCC

The myeloid differentiation factor 88 (MyD88) adaptor mediates signaling by Toll-like receptors and some interleukins (ILs) in neural and non-neuronal cells. Recently, MyD88 protein was found to express in primary sensory neurons and be involved in the maintenance of persistent pain induced by complete Freund's adjuvant, chronic constriction injury and chemotherapy treatment in rodents. However, whether MyD88 in nociceptive neurons contributes to persistent pain induced by intraplantar injection of formalin remains elusive. Here, using conditional knockout (CKO) mice, we found that selective deletion of Myd88 in Nav1.8-expressing primary nociceptive neurons led to reduced pain response in the recovery phase of 1% formalin-induced mechanical pain and impaired the persistent thermal pain. Moreover, CKO mice exhibited reduced phase II pain response in 1%, but not 5%, formalin-induced acute inflammatory pain. Finally, nociceptor MyD88 deletion resulted in less neuronal c-Fos activation in spinal dorsal horns following 1% formalin stimulation. These data suggest that MyD88 in nociceptive neurons is not only involved in persistent mechanical pain but also promotes the transition from acute inflammatory pain to persistent thermal hyperalgesia induced by low-dose formalin stimulation.