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Abstract Lung isolation usually refers to the isolation of the operative from the non-operative lung without isolating the non-operative lobe(s) of the operative lung. We aimed to evaluate whether protecting the non-operative lobe of the operative lung using a double-bronchial blocker (DBB) with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) could reduce the incidence of postoperative pneumonia. Eighty patients were randomly divided into two groups (n = 40 each): the DBB with CPAP (Group DBB) and routine bronchial blocker (Group BB) groups. In Group DBB, a 7-Fr BB was placed in the middle bronchus of the right lung for right lung surgery and in the inferior lobar bronchus of the left lung for left lung surgery. Further, a 9-Fr BB was placed in the main bronchus of the operative lung. In Group BB, routine BB placement was performed on the main bronchus on the surgical side. The primary endpoint was the postoperative pneumonia incidence. Compared with Group BB, Group DBB had a significantly lower postoperative pneumonia incidence in the operative (27.5% vs 5%, P = 0.013) and non-operative lung (40% vs 15%) on postoperative day 1. Compared with routine BB use for thoracoscopic lobectomy, using the DBB technique to isolate the operative lobe from the non-operative lobe(s) of the operative lung and providing CPAP to the non-operative lobe(s) through a BB can reduce the incidence of postoperative pneumonia in the operative and non-operative lungs.

Abstract The pig-nosed turtle (Carettochelys insculpta) represents the only extant species within the Carettochelyidae family, is a unique Trionychia member fully adapted to aquatic life and currently facing endangerment. To enhance our understanding of this species and contribute to its conservation efforts, we employed high-fidelity (HiFi) and Hi-C sequencing technology to generate its genome assembly at the chromosome level. The assembly result spans 2.18 Gb, with a contig N50 of 126 Mb, encompassing 34 chromosomes that account for 99.6% of the genome. The assembly has a BUSCO score above 95% with different databases and strong collinearity with Yangtze giant softshell turtles (Rafetus swinhoei), indicating its completeness and continuity. A total of 19,175 genes and 46.86% repetitive sequences were annotated. The availability of this chromosome-scale genome represents a valuable resource for the pig-nosed turtle, providing insights into its aquatic adaptation and serving as a foundation for future turtle research.

BackgroundType 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is a chronic metabolic disease that seriously jeopardizes human physical and mental health and reduces quality of life. Intestinal flora is one of the critical areas of exploration in T1DM research.ObjectiveThis study aims to explore the research hotspot and development trend of T1DM and intestinal flora to provide research direction and ideas for researchers.MethodsWe used the Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection and searched up to 18 November 2023, for articles on studies of the correlation between T1DM and intestinal flora. CiteSpace, VOSviewers and R package “bibliometrix” were used to conduct this bibliometric analysis.ResultsEventually, 534 documents met the requirements to be included, and as of 18 November 2023, there was an upward trend in the number of publications in the field, with a significant increase in the number of articles published after 2020. In summary, F Susan Wong (UK) was the author with the most publications (21), the USA was the country with the most publications (198), and the State University System of Florida (the United States) was the institution with the most publications (32). The keywords that appeared more frequently were T cells, fecal transplants, and short-chain fatty acids. The results of keywords with the most robust citation bursts suggest that Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and butyrate may become a focus of future research.ConclusionIn the future, intestinal flora will remain a research focus in T1DM. Future research can start from Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and combine T cells, fecal bacteria transplantation, and short-chain fatty acids to explore the mechanism by which intestinal flora affects blood glucose in patients with T1DM, which may provide new ideas for the prevention and treatment of T1DM.

Due to the high incidence of lumbar vertebral lesions causing spondylolisthesis and intervertebral disc protrusion, lumbar spine (vertebrae and intervertebral discs) MRI image segmentation can provide effective clinical information for the initial diagnosis and early treatment of current lumbar spine-related diseases. However, in MRI images, there is a significant overlap and similarity in features between the vertebral bones and intervertebral discs within the lumbar spine. Therefore, the effective identification and segmentation of each vertebra and intervertebral disc in the lumbar spine pose a significant challenge. We propose a lumbar spine MRI segmentation model based on the 3D Residual U-Net, incorporating boundary segmentation structures and a hybrid attention mechanism. The model achieves boundary-constrained segmentation of individual vertebrae and intervertebral discs by integrating the boundary segmentation module. Additionally, it utilizes a hybrid attention module based on convolutional attention and self-attention mechanisms for multiscale feature extraction in the lumbar spine. The proposed model is trained and validated using the publicly available datasets MRSpineSeg2021 and SpineSagT2Wdataset3. Experimental results demonstrate a significant improvement in segmentation performance, as measured by metrics such as the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and Hausdorff distance (HD). This validates the superiority and generalization performance of our proposed lumbar spine MRI.

Abstract In the process of bioethanol production, more stable and active cellulase in high temperature condition is required. In this study, syringic acid was applied in cellulase hydrolysis system. At 70°C, TvEG3 activity increased 201.36%, CtBglA activity decreased 72.79% by syringic acid. With syringic acid assisting, TvEG3 thermostability was improved, CtBglA thermostability was reduced. Syringic acid scarcely affected CtCBH. In hydrolysis system with the cellulases containing TvEG3, CtCBH, and CtBglA, the reducing sugar yield improved by 28.37% with syringic acid assisting. With the molecular dynamic simulation in syringic acid system, the backbone root‐mean‐square deviation (RMSD) and the residue root‐mean‐square fluctuation (RMSF) of TvEG3, CtCBH reduced, while the RMSD and RMSF of CtBglA increased. The reduction in the number of secondary structures, especially α‐helix, caused the structure of CtBglA in the presence of syringic acid to collapse at high temperature. More secondary structures in TvEG3 and more α‐helix in CtCBH in the presence of syringic acid make them more stable at high temperatures. These means syringic acid can stabilize TvEG3 and CtCBH structure, destabilize CtBglA structure at high temperature. In summary, this study not only provides insight into cellulase hydrolysis at high temperature with syringic acid assisting but also demonstrates the promoting mechanism of syringic acid.

Scoliosis, spinal deformity and vertebral spondylolisthesis are spinal disorders with high incidence, which seriously affect people’s lives and health. CT is an important medical tool for the detection and diagnosis of spinal disorders and provides a large amount of pathologically valid information in various clinical practices such as spine pathology assessment and computer-assisted surgical interventions. As the spine presents long span, complex shape of biological curve and high multi-stage similarity in the sagittal plane of CT images. Therefore, fast and accurate spine segmentation technology has become an important research direction for computer-aided diagnosis. We proposed an RUnT network based on the combination of residual U-Net feature extraction network and Vision Transformer structure for fast and efficient automatic segmentation of multiple vertebrae of the spine. The deep vertebral features are first extracted using the residual U-Net network to prevent gradient diffusion while improving the accuracy of vertebral contour segmentation. Then the multi-scale feature maps extracted by the residual structure containing rich vertebral superficial information are input to the edge segmentation module. We designed the vertebral contour feature extraction structure to refine the segmentation boundaries and ensure the segmentation consistency of each vertebra by combining the operations of deconvolution and convolution for three different scales of deep features.Finally, the global information extraction module based on Transformer structure is combined with the local feature extraction module to achieve the blending of global location information of vertebrae with local features through the self-attentive feature map of multi-scale volume. By mixing edge features with semantic features, the semantic confusion arising from the high similarity between vertebrae when the decoder extracts vertebral features is reduced. The model proposed in this paper is experimented on the CTSpine1K and VerSe 20 public datasets. The results show that the model proposed in this paper obtains the state-of-the-art segmentation performance with the average DSC scores of 88.4% and 81.5% on CTSpine1K and VerSe 20, respectively, while reducing the average distance of HD95 from 4.86 to 3.88.

Summary: Mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma (MC) is less likely to respond to chemotherapy and is associated with poorer prognosis compared with non-MC (NMC). Fibroblast activation protein (FAP) was found and validated to be upregulated in MC patients and was negatively correlated with prognosis and therapeutic outcomes in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients who were treated with adjuvant chemotherapy. Overexpression of FAP promoted CRC cell growth, invasion and metastasis, and enhanced chemoresistance. Myosin phosphatase Rho-interacting protein (MPRIP) was identified as a direct interacting protein of FAP. FAP may influence the efficiency of chemotherapy and prognosis by promoting the crucial functions of CRC and inducing tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) recruitment and M2 polarization through regulating theRas Homolog Family Member/Hippo/Yes-associated protein (Rho/Hippo/YAP) signaling pathway. Knockdown of FAP could reverse tumorigenicity and chemoresistance in CRC cells. Thus, FAP may serve as a marker for prognosis and therapeutic outcome, as well as a potential therapeutic target to overcome chemoresistance in MC patients.

Abstract Background Preoperative neoadjuvant chemoradiation (nCRT) has been the standard treatment for locally advanced rectal cancer. Serum biomarkers to stratify patients with respect to prognosis and response to nCRT are needed due to the diverse response to the therapy. Methods Thirteen paired pre- and post-nCRT sera from rectal cancer patients were analyzed by isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) method. Twenty-five proteins were selected for validation by parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) in ninety-one patients. Results Totally, 310 proteins were identified and quantified in sera samples. Reactome pathway analysis showed that the immune activation-related pathways were enriched in response to nCRT. Twenty-five proteins were selected for further validation. PRM result showed that the level of PZP was higher in pathological complete response (pCR) patients than non-pCR patients. The Random Forest algorithm identified a prediction model composed of 10 protein markers, which allowed discrimination between pCR patients and non-pCR patients (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.886 on testing set). Higher HEP2 and GELS or lower S10A8 in baseline sera were associated with better prognosis. Higher APOA1 in post nCRT sera was associated with better disease-free survival (DFS). Conclusions We identified and confirmed a 10-protein panel for nCRT response prediction and four potential biomarkers HEP2, GELS, S10A8 and APOA1 for prognosis of rectal cancer based on iTRAQ-based comparative proteomics screening and PRM-based targeted proteomic validation.

BackgroundEssential and non-essential elements have an important impact on the development of the central nervous system during fetal development. Due to their less developed brain, preterm infants are more sensitive to element exposure, and are high-risk groups of neurodevelopmental abnormalities. However, it is not clear whether the effects of element exposure in utero on postpartum neurodevelopment are different between full-term infants and preterm infants. ObjectiveTo evaluate the effects of element exposure levels during pregnancy on neurodevelopment of children aged 6-24 months (of corrected age), and compare the effects between preterm and full-term children. MethodsA prospective study design was adopted and this study was conducted based on the Maoming Birth Cohort Study (MBCS) in Maoming City, Guangdong Province. Twenty elements in cord blood of 197 preterm infants and 297 full-term infants were measured, including 11 essential trace elements [vanadium (V), chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), selenium (Se), strontium (Sr), tin (Sn), and iron (Fe)], and 9 non-essential trace elements [aluminum (Al), arsenic (As), thallium (Tl), lead (Pb), uranium (U), cerium (Ce), antimony (Sb), cadmium (Cd), and yttrium (Y)]. The neurodevelopment of the children at 6, 12, and 24 months were evaluated by the Ages and Stages Questionnaires-the Third Edition (ASQ-3). A generalized estimating equation (GEE) model was adopted to evaluate the associations between elements and neurodevelopment in full-term and preterm children separately. ResultsThe positive rates of 10 elements (Mn, Cu, Zn, Se, Sr, Fe, Sb, Tl, Pb, and As) in cord blood were greater than 80%. Among the preterm birth children, the results of GEE analysis showed that after adjusting for the covariates, for each increase of interquartile range (IQR) in ln-transformed concentration, As was associated with problems/delay in the communication and problem-solving sub-scales, with the adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of 1.36 (1.03-1.80) and 1.55 (1.10-2.20), respectively; the adjusted OR (95%CI) of problems/delay in the fine motor and problem-solving sub-scales were 1.44 (1.00-2.07) and 1.76 (1.09-2.84) for Sb, respectively; the adjusted OR (95%CI) of problems/delay in the communication sub-scale was 1.37 (1.09-1.74) for Se. No statistically significant associations between umbilical cord blood element concentrations and neurodevelopment indicators were observed among full-term children. The results of stratified analysis by sex showed that the associations between umbilical cord blood element concentrations and neurodevelopment problems/delay were only significant among female preterm children. ConclusionExposures to As, Se, and Sb during pregnancy may increase the risk of neurodevelopment problems/delay in preterm children aged 6-24 months, and female seem to be more vulnerable.

BackgroundThe 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza A virus (pdm09) continue to evolve, and few studies have systemically analyzed the evolution, replication, and transmission of pmd09 viruses in China.MethodsTo better understand the evolution and pathogenicity of pdm09 viruses, we systematically analyzed viruses that were confirmed in 2009–2020 in China and characterized their replication and transmission ability. We extensively analyzed the evolution characteristics of pdm/09 in China over the past decades. The replication ability of 6B.1 and 6B.2 lineages on Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) and human lung adenocarcinoma epithelial (A549) cells and their pathogenicity and transmission in guinea pigs were also compared.ResultsIn total, 3,038 pdm09 viruses belonged to clade 6B.1 (62% of all pdm09 viruses) and clade 6B.2 (4%). Clade 6B.1 pdm09 viruses are the predominant clade, with proportions of 54.1%, 78.9%, 57.2%, 58.6%, 61.7%, 76.3%, and 66.6% in the North, Northeast, East, Central, South, Southwest, and Northeast regions in China, respectively. The isolation proportion of clade 6B.1 pdm/09 viruses was 57.1%, 74.3%, 96.1%, 98.2%, 86.7%, and 78.5% in 2015–2020, respectively. A clear differentiation time point appeared in 2015 before which the evolution trend of pdm09 viruses in China was similar to that in North America but then showed a different trend after that point. To characterize pdm09 viruses in China after 2015, we further analyzed 33 pdm09 viruses isolated in Guangdong in 2016–2017, among which A/ Guangdong/33/2016 and A/Guangdong/184/2016 (184/2016) belonged to clade 6B.2, and the other 31 strains belonged to clade 6B.1. A/Guangdong/887/2017 (887/2017) and A/Guangdong/752/2017 (752/2017) (clade 6B.1), 184/2016 (clade 6B.2) and A/California/04/2009 (CA04) replicated efficiently in MDCK cells and A549 cells, as well as the turbinates of guinea pigs. 184/2016 and CA04 could transmit among guinea pigs through physical contact.ConclusionOur findings provide novel insights into the evolution, pathogenicity, and transmission of pdm09 virus. The results show that enhancing surveillance of pdm09 viruses and timely evaluation of their virulence are essential.

Maternal exposure to chemical elements, including essential and non-essential elements, have been found to be associated with preterm births (PTB). However, few studies have measured element concentrations in cord whole blood, which reflects activity at the maternal-fetal interface and may be biologically associated with PTBs. In this study, we determined concentrations of 21 elements in cord whole blood and explored the associations between element concentrations and PTB in a nested case-control study within a birth cohort in Guangdong, China. Finally, 515 preterm infants and 595 full-term infants were included. We performed single-element and multi-element logistic regressions to evaluate linear relationships between element concentrations and PTB. According to the results of single-element models, most essential elements (including K, Ca, Si, Zn, Se, Sr and Fe) were negatively associated with PTB, while Cu, V, Co and Sn were positively associated with PTB. Of the non-essential elements, Sb, Tl, and U were positively associated with PTB, while Pb was negatively associated with PTB. The multi-element model results for most elements were similar, except that the association between Mg and PTB was shown to be significantly positive, and the association for Cu became much larger. A possible explanation is that the effects of Mg and Cu may be influenced by other elements. We performed restricted cubic spline (RCS) regressions and found significantly non-linear exposure-response relationships for Mg, Se, Sr, K and Sb, indicating that the effects of these elements on PTB are not simply detrimental or beneficial. We also examined the joint effect using a Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR) model and found the risk of PTB decreased significantly with element mixture concentration when lnC was larger than the median. Bivariate interaction analysis suggested antagonistic effects of Sb on Zn and Sr, which may be attributed to Sb negating the antioxidant capacity of Zn and Sr. This study provides additional evidence for the effect of element exposures on PTB, and will have implications for the prevention of excessive exposures or inappropriate element supplementation during pregnancy.

Halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) were employed to design and synthesize palladium-based heterogeneous catalysts with the purpose of exploring an efficient non-mercuric catalyst for acetylene hydrochlorination. Various Pd/UHNTs catalysts with urea modification were prepared using ultrasonic-assisted impregnation method and the Pd/9UHNTs catalyst exhibited the best catalytic performance, with 90% acetylene conversion and above 94% vinyl chloride selectivity under the reaction conditions of T = 160 °C, a C2H2 gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) = 150 h−1 and V(HCl): V(C2H2) = 1.25. The results demonstrated that the urea additive (mainly nitrogen species) significantly immobilized Pd species and inhibited the carbon deposition on the catalyst surface, thus contributing to enhance the catalytic performance of Pd/HNTs catalysts during the reaction.

Programmed cell death protein 1 (PD‐1), an immune checkpoint receptor expressed by activated T, B, and NK cells, is a well‐known target for cancer immunotherapy. Tislelizumab (BGB‐A317) is an anti‐PD‐1 antibody that has recently been approved for treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma and urothelial carcinoma. Here, we show that tislelizumab displayed remarkable antitumor efficacy in a B16F10/GM‐CSF mouse model. Structural biology and Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analyses revealed unique epitopes of tislelizumab, and demonstrated that the CC′ loop of PD‐1, a region considered to be essential for binding to PD‐1 ligand 1 (PD‐L1) but not reported as targeted by other therapeutic antibodies, significantly contributes to the binding of tislelizumab. The binding surface of tislelizumab on PD‐1 overlaps largely with that of the PD‐L1. SPR analysis revealed the extremely slow dissociation rate of tislelizumab from PD‐1. Both structural and functional analyses align with the observed ability of tislelizumab to completely block PD‐1/PD‐L1 interaction, broadening our understanding of the mechanism of action of anti‐PD‐1 antibodies.

Gas explosions and outbursts were the leading types of gas accidents in mining in China with gas concentration exceeding the threshold limit value (TLV) as the leading cause. Current research is focused mainly on using machine learning approaches for avoiding exceeding the TLV of the gas concentration. no published reports were found in the literature of attempts to uncover the correlation between gas data and other data to predict gas concentration. This research aimed to fill this gap and develop an innovative gas warning system for increasing coal mining safety. A mixed qualitative and quantitative research methodology was adopted, including a case study and correlational research. This research found that strong correlations exist between gas, temperature, and wind. It suggests that integrating correlation analysis of data on temperature and wind into gas would improve warning systems' sensitivity and reduce the incidence of explosions and other adverse events. A Unified Modeling Language (UML) model was developed by integrating the Correlation Analysis Theoretical Framework to the existing gas monitoring system for demonstrating an innovative gas warning system. Feasibility verification studies were conducted to verify the proposed method. This informed the development of an Innovative Integrated Gas Warning System which was deployed for user acceptance testing in 2020.

Biotransformation has gained increasing attention due to its being an eco-friendly way for the production of value-added chemicals. The present study aimed to assess the potential of Bacillus pumilus ZB1 on guaiacyl lignin monomers biotransformation for the production of vanillin. Consequently, isoeugenol, eugenol, and vanillyl alcohol could be transformed into vanillin by B. pumilus ZB1. Based on the structural alteration of masson pine and the increase of total phenol content in the supernatant, B. pumilus ZB1 exhibited potential in lignin depolymerization and valorization using masson pine as the substrate. As the precursors of vanillin, 61.1% of isoeugenol and eugenol in pyrolyzed bio-oil derived from masson pine could be transformed into vanillin by B. pumilus ZB1. Four monooxygenases with high specific activity were identified that were involved in the transformation process. Thus, B. pumilus ZB1 could emerge as a candidate in the biosynthesis of vanillin by using wide guaiacyl precursors as the substrates.

BackgroundAs the world's largest coal producer, China was accounted for about 46% of global coal production. Among present coal mining risks, methane gas (called gas in this paper) explosion or ignition in an underground mine remains ever-present. Although many techniques have been used, gas accidents associated with the complex elements of underground gassy mines need more robust monitoring or warning systems to identify risks. This paper aimed to determine which single method between the PCA and Entropy methods better establishes a responsive weighted indexing measurement to improve coal mining safety.MethodsQualitative and quantitative mixed research methodologies were adopted for this research, including analysis of two case studies, correlation analysis, and comparative analysis. The literature reviewed the most-used multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods, including subjective methods and objective methods. The advantages and disadvantages of each MCDM method were briefly discussed. One more round literature review was conducted to search publications between 2017 and 2019 in CNKI. Followed two case studies, correlation analysis and comparative analysis were then conducted. Research ethics was approved by the Shanxi Coking Coal Group Research Committee.ResultsThe literature searched a total of 25,831publications and found that the PCA method was the predominant method adopted, and the Entropy method was the second most widely adopted method. Two weighting methods were compared using two case studies. For the comparative analysis of Case Study 1, the PCA method appeared to be more responsive than the Entropy. For Case Study 2, the Entropy method is more responsive than the PCA. As a result, both methods were adopted for different cases in the case study mine and finally deployed for user acceptance testing on 5 November 2020.ConclusionsThe findings and suggestions were provided as further scopes for further research. This research indicated that no single method could be adopted as the better option for establishing indexing measurement in all cases. The practical implication suggests that comparative analysis should always be conducted on each case and determine the appropriate weighting method to the relevant case. This research recommended that the PCA method was a dimension reduction technique that could be handy for identifying the critical variables or factors and effectively used in hazard, risk, and emergency assessment. The PCA method might also be well-applied for developing predicting and forecasting systems as it was sensitive to outliers. The Entropy method might be suitable for all the cases requiring the MCDM. There is also a need to conduct further research to probe the causal reasons why the PCA and Entropy methods were applied to each case and not the other way round. This research found that the Entropy method provides higher accuracy than the PCA method. This research also found that the Entropy method demonstrated to assess the weights of the higher dimension dataset was higher sensitivity than the lower dimensions. Finally, the comprehensive analysis indicates a need to explore a more responsive method for establishing a weighted indexing measurement for warning applications in hazard, risk, and emergency assessments.

Although accumulating evidence suggests the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with costs in mental health, the development of students' mental health, including the change from their previous levels of depression and anxiety and the factors associated with this change, has not been well-studied. The present study investigates changes in students' anxiety and depression from before the pandemic to during the lockdown and identifies factors that are associated with these changes. 14,769 university students participated in a longitudinal study with two time points with a 6-month interval. Students completed the Anxiety and Depression subscales of the Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90) before the COVID-19 outbreak (October 2020, Time 1), and the Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) during the pandemic (April 2020, Time 2). The prevalence of anxiety and depression symptoms were 1.44 and 1.46% at Time 1, and 4.06 and 22.09% at Time 2, respectively, showing a 181.94% increase in anxiety and a 1413.01% increase in depression. Furthermore, the increases in anxiety and depression from pre-pandemic levels were associated with students' gender and the severity of the pandemic in the province where they resided. This study contributes to the gap in knowledge regarding changes in students' mental health in response to the pandemic and the role of local factors in these changes. Implications for gender and the Typhoon Eye effect are discussed.

Heavy metal pollution in soil has severe impact on the human health and global environment. There is an urgent need for cost-effective devices capable of recognizing and detecting heavy metallic matters in soils. A broadband photoacoustic spectrometric (PAS) system was established for the detection of heavy metal contaminants in soil. The heavy metal element lead (Pb) was selected as a preferred detection target. The near infrared photoacoustic spectra of contaminated soil samples with various concentrations of Pb were collected and the spectroscopic relationship between the soil absorption peaks and Pb concentrations was analyzed. Four advanced spectral preprocessing methods were explored to improve the robustness of the prediction model. Based on the maximal correlation coefficient and minimal root mean square error criteria of prediction, a two-layer feed-forward network with a continuum removing preprocessing method with a correlation coefficient as 0.96 was tested as the most appropriate method for Pb concentration prediction. This fact verifies that the broadband PAS evaluation methodology, as a nondestructive testing method, can be potentially used as an alternative quantification detection method of heavy metal contaminants in soil without the involvement of complicated sample pretreatment.

Canine influenza viruses (CIVs) could be a source of influenza viruses which infect humans because canine are important companion pets. To assess the potential risk of H3N2 CIVs currently circulating in southern China to public health, biological characteristics of A/canine/Guangdong/DY1/2019 (CADY1/2019) were detected. CADY1/2019 bound to both avian-type and human-type receptors. CADY1/2019 had a similar pH value for HA protein fusion to human viruses, but its antigenicity was obviously different from those of current human H3N2 influenza viruses (IVs) or the vaccine strains recommended in the North hemisphere. CADY1/2019 effectively replicated in the respiratory tract and was transmitted by physical contact among guinea pigs. Compared to human H3N2 IV, CADY1/2019 exhibited higher replication in MDCK, A549, 3D4/21, ST, and PK15 cells. Sequence analysis indicated that CADY1/2019 is an avian-origin virus, and belongs to the novel clade and has acquired many adaptation mutations to infect other mammals, including human. Taken together, currently circulating H3N2 CIVs have a zoonotic potential, and there is a need for strengthening surveillance and monitoring of their pathogenicity.

Currently, H9N2 avian influenza viruses (H9N2 AIVs) globally circulate in poultry and have acquired some adaptation to mammals. However, it is not clear what the molecular basis is for the variation in receptor-binding features of the H9N2 AIVs. The receptor-binding features of 92 H9N2 AIVs prevalent in China during 1994–2017 were characterized through solid-phase ELISA assay and reverse genetics. H9N2 AIVs that circulated in this period mostly belonged to clade h9.4.2. Two increasing incidents occurred in the ability of H9N2 AIVs to bind to avian-like receptors in 2002–2005 and 2011–2014. Two increasing incidents occurred in the strength of H9N2 AIVs to bind to human-like receptors in 2002–2005 and 2011–2017. We found that Q227M, D145G/N, S119R, and R246K mutations can significantly increase H9N2 AIVs to bind to both avian- and human-like receptors. A160D/N, Q156R, T205A, Q226L, V245I, V216L, D208E, T212I, R172Q, and S175N mutations can significantly enhance the strength of H9N2 AIVs to bind to human-like receptors. Our study also identified mutations T205A, D208E, V216L, Q226L, and V245I as the key sites leading to enhanced receptor binding of H9N2 AIVs during 2002–2005 and mutations S119R, D145G, Q156R, A160D, T212I, Q227M, and R246K as the key sites leading to enhanced receptor binding of H9N2 AIVs during 2011–2017. These findings further illustrate the receptor-binding characteristics of avian influenza viruses, which can be a potential threat to public health.

Background Distant metastasis is the major cause of mortality in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) following neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. Local radiotherapy can trigger an abscopal response to metastatic tumor cells. However, the abscopal effect is a rare event. CD4+ regulatory T (Treg) cell is a highly immune-suppressive subset which impedes immune surveillance against cancer, prevents the development of effective antitumor immunity and promotes tumor progression. We assume that the exploitation of the proimmunogenic effects of radiotherapy with anti-CD25 or anti-Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte Associated Protein 4 (anti-CTLA4) monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) may enhance the local and abscopal effects in rectal cancer and improve the therapeutic outcome.Methods mRNA expression profiling of 81 pretreatment biopsy samples from LARC patients who received neoadjuvant radiotherapy (nRT) was performed to analyze the correlation between gene expression and prognosis. A retrospective analysis of patients with rectal cancer with distant metastasis or synchronous extracolonic cancers was performed to evaluate the abscopal effect of radiotherapy on rectal cancer. Two different dual-tumor mouse models were established to investigate the efficacy of single dose and dose-fractionated radiotherapy combined with anti-CD25 or anti-CTLA4 and anti-Programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (anti-PD1) mAbs on the local tumor growth and liver metastasis. The univariate Cox regression analysis, one-way analysis of variance, Dunnett’s test, a mixed-effect linear model and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis were used to calculate p values.Results The proportion of Tregs in pre-nRT biopsies was negatively correlated with prognosis (p=0.007). The retrospective analysis showed that regressing liver metastases were infiltrated by CD8+ T cells. In contrast, stable/progressing metastases and synchronous extracolonic cancers were characterized by PD1+ T cells and Tregs infiltration. Animal experiment results demonstrated that the combination of radiotherapy and anti-CD25/CTLA4 mAb resulted in a significant increase in CD8+ T cells and CD8+/CD4+ ratio in primary and secondary tumors compared with the irradiation alone group (all p

Background: Approximately 60% of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) undergo either local recurrence or distant metastases after surgery. Current prognostic biomarkers are insufficient to predict recurrence of CRC and provide little forecast information about what patients are likely to receive benefit from the adjuvant chemotherapy. As microRNAs (miRNAs) constantly exist in human serum and being used to predict the prognosis of a various cancers, this study was designed to identify miRNA-based circulating biomarkers to predict clinical outcomes of CRC. Methods: A serum-focused miRNA expression was used to investigate if miRNA expression profiles could predict the clinical outcomes of patients with CRC. We created miRNA signature profiles associated in the training set (n = 40), and further validated its prediction in two independent testing cohorts. Results: Using Cox regression and risk-score analysis, we identified a four-miRNA signature (miR-652-3p, miR-342-3p, miR-501-3p and miR-328-3p) for the prediction of tumor relapse and the overall survival(OS) of patients with CRC in the training set (n = 40). This miRNA signature was further validated in a testing set (n = 226) and another independent cohort (n = 56). A high-risk signature score was significantly associated with CRC tumor recurrence and poor treatment outcome. Multivariable Cox regression models indicated that the risk score, based on the four-miRNA signature, was an independent prognostic classifier for patients with CRC. Conclusions: The serum miRNA signature may serve as a minimally invasive predictor for tumor relapse and treatment outcome in patients with CRC and provide a useful reference for treatment selection. Keywords: Serum-based microRNA signature, Colorectal cancer, Adjuvant chemotherapy, Prognostic biomarker

Abstract Indole, as a signal molecule, is involved in multiple physiological behavior including biofilm formation, antibiotic resistance and virulence. In this study, we demonstrated that indole was involved in iron deficient and H2O2 stress response in Muricauda olearia Th120. Transcriptome analysis showed that totally 206 genes were regulated by exogenous indole. Besides, momL-suf gene cluster, consisting of quorum quenching enzyme coding gene momL and iron-sulfur biosynthetic genes suf, were involved in indole-induced stress response pathway. The result indicated that indole not only up-regulated momL-suf gene cluster, but also enhanced the MomL secretion and the growth rates of MomL-bearing strains in H2O2 stress and iron deficient culture conditions. Co-incubation of M. olearia Th120 and Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum under H2O2 condition revealed that M. olearia Th120 bearing MomL possessed an increased competitive advantage, whereas its competitor had a reduced survival. The phenomenon that quorum quenching enzyme is triggered by stress factor has been rarely reported. The study also opens a new clue to explore the indole function towards quorum quenching factor in bacteria.

The asymmetric unit of the title structure, C28H19NO·0.5C3H6O, comprises one 2-(anthracen-9-yl)-10-methoxybenzo[h]quinoline molecule and an acteone molecule with an occupany of 0.5. The solvent molecule is disordered around a centre of symmetry. Its occupancy was determined from NMR data and kept fixed during the refinement. The two conjugated ring systems of the molecule are almost perpendicular to each other; the interplanar angle between the anthracene and quinoline ring systems is 84.9 (2)°.

Swine are regarded as "intermediate hosts" or "mixing vessels" of influenza viruses, capable of generating strains with pandemic potential. From 2020 to 2021, we conducted surveillance on swine H1N2 influenza (swH1N2) viruses in swine farms located in Guangdong, Yunnan, and Guizhou provinces in southern China, as well as Henan and Shandong provinces in northern China. We systematically analyzed the evolution and pathogenicity of swH1N2 isolates, and characterized their replication and transmission abilities. The isolated viruses are quadruple reassortant H1N2 viruses containing genes from pdm/09 H1N1 (PB2, PB1, PA and NP genes), triple-reassortant swine (NS gene), Eurasian Avian-like (HA and M genes), and recent human H3N2 (NA gene) lineages. The NA, PB2, and NP of SW/188/20 and SW/198/20 show high gene similarities to A/Guangdong/Yue Fang277/2017 (H3N2). The HA gene of swH1N2 exhibits a high evolutionary rate. The five swH1N2 isolates replicate efficiently in human, canine, and swine cells, as well as in the turbinate, trachea, and lungs of mice. A/swine/Shandong/198/2020 strain efficiently replicates in the respiratory tract of pigs and effectively transmitted among them. Collectively, these current swH1N2 viruses possess zoonotic potential, highlighting the need for strengthened surveillance of swH1N2 viruses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]