Structural Characterization, Antioxidant and Antitumor Activities of the Two Novel Exopolysaccharides Produced by Debaryomyces hansenii DH-1

Exopolysaccharides produced by edible microorganisms exhibit excellent constructive physicochemical and significant biological activity, which provide advantages for the food or pharmaceutical industries. Two novel exopolysaccharides produced by Debaryomyces hansenii DH-1 were characterized, named S1 and S2, respectively. S1, with a molecular weight of 34.594 kDa, primarily consisted of mannose and glucose in a molar ratio of 12.19:1.00, which contained a backbone fragment of α-D-Manp-(1→4)-α-D-Manp-(1→2)-α-D-Glcp-(1→3)-α-D-Manp-(1→3)-β-D-Glcp-(1→4)-β-D-Manp-(1→. S2, with a molecular weight of 24.657 kDa, was mainly composed of mannose and galactose in a molar ratio of 4.00:1.00, which had a backbone fragment of α-D-Manp-(1→6)-β-D-Manp-(1→2)-α-D-Manp-(1→4)-α-D-Galp-(1→3)-β-D-Manp-(1→6)-α-D-Manp-(1→. Both S1 and S2 exhibited good thermal stability and potent hydroxyl radical scavenging activity, with ~98%. Moreover, S1 possessed an additional strong iron-reducing capacity. In vitro antitumor assays showed that S1 and S2 significantly inhibited the proliferation of Hela, HepG2, and PC-9 cancer cells. Moreover, PC-9 was more sensitive to S1 compared with S2. The above results indicate that S1 and S2 have great potential to be utilized as natural antioxidants and candidates for cancer treatment in the food and pharmaceutical industries.

[A deep-learning model for the assessment of coronary heart disease and related risk factors via the evaluation of retinal fundus photographs]

Objective: To develop and validate a deep learning model based on fundus photos for the identification of coronary heart disease (CHD) and associated risk factors. Methods: Subjects aged>18 years with complete clinical examination data from 149 hospitals and medical examination centers in China were included in this retrospective study. Two radiologists, who were not aware of the study design, independently evaluated the coronary angiography images of each subject to make CHD diagnosis. A deep learning model using convolutional neural networks (CNN) was used to label the fundus images according to the presence or absence of CHD, and the model was proportionally divided into training and test sets for model training. The prediction performance of the model was evaluated in the test set using monocular and binocular fundus images respectively. Prediction efficacy of the algorithm for cardiovascular risk factors (e.g., age, systolic blood pressure, gender) and coronary events were evaluated by regression analysis using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and R² correlation coefficient. Results: The study retrospectively collected 51 765 fundus images from 25 222 subjects, including 10 255 patients with CHD, and there were 14 419 male subjects in this cohort. Of these, 46 603 fundus images from 22 701 subjects were included in the training set and 5 162 fundus images from 2 521 subjects were included in the test set. In the test set, the deep learning model could accurately predict patients' age with an R² value of 0.931 (95%CI 0.929-0.933) for monocular photos and 0.938 (95%CI 0.936-0.940) for binocular photos. The AUC values for sex identification from single eye and binocular retinal fundus images were 0.983 (95%CI 0.982-0.984) and 0.988 (95%CI 0.987-0.989), respectively. The AUC value of the model was 0.876 (95%CI 0.874-0.877) with either monocular fundus photographs and AUC value was 0.885 (95%CI 0.884-0.888) with binocular fundus photographs to predict CHD, the sensitivity of the model was 0.894 and specificity was 0.755 with accuracy of 0.714 using binocular fundus photographs for the prediction of CHD. Conclusion: The deep learning model based on fundus photographs performs well in identifying coronary heart disease and assessing related risk factors such as age and sex.

Genetic influences of the effect of circulating inflammatory cytokines on osteoarthritis in humans

OBJECTIVE

The causal relationship between inflammatory cytokines and Osteoarthritis (OA) has not been well investigated. This study investigated the causal role of inflammatory cytokines in the risk of OA and total joint arthroplasty using the Mendelian randomization (MR) method.

METHOD

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) robustly associated with inflammatory cytokines were used as instrumental variables. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method with false discovery rate (FDR) adjusted P-value (q-value) for multiple comparisons were used as the main MR method to estimate causal effects based on the summary-level data for OA (knee and hip OA, respectively) and total joint arthroplasty (TJA). Sensitivity analyses validated the robustness of the results and ensured the absence of heterogeneity and horizontal pleiotropy.

RESULTS

After FDR adjustment, macrophage colony-stimulating factor (MCSF) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were identified as causally associated with knee OA (MCSF, odds ratio [OR]: 1.16, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.09-1.23, q = 5.05 × 10^-5; VEGF, OR: 1.09, 95% CI: 1.04-1.15, q = 0.011). We also observed that genetically predicted MCSF and VEGF were positively associated with the risk of TJA, and MCP3 was negatively associated with for the risk of TJA, although the effects seem fairly modest. Sensitivity analysis further excluded the influence of heterogeneity and horizontal pleiotropy.

CONCLUSIONS

Inflammatory cytokines, namely MCSF and VEGF, were causally associated with knee OA, which could enhance our understanding of inflammation in OA pathology.

Genome-wide association study for reproduction-related traits in Chinese domestic goose

1. This study measured six reproduction traits in a Sichuan white goose population (209 individuals), including fertility, qualified egg rate, plasma concentrations of progesterone (P), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), prolactin (PRL) and oestrogen (E2).2. Whole-genome resequencing data from the same goose population (209 individuals) were used in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) utilising a mixed linear model to investigate the genes and genetic markers associated with reproduction traits. The frequency of the selected SNPs and haplotypes were determined using the Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionisation Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) method.3. In total, 42 SNPs significantly associated with these traits were identified. A haplotype block was constructed based on five SNPs that were significantly associated with qualified egg rate, with individuals having the haplotype CCTTAAGGAA having the lowest qualified egg rate.4. In conclusion, these results provided potential markers for marker-assisted selection to improve goose reproductive performance and a basis for elucidating the genetics of goose reproduction.

Oridonin attenuates low shear stress-induced endothelial cell dysfunction and oxidative stress by activating the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 pathway

Background

Atherosclerosis (AS) is the primary cause of cardiovascular disease and the incidence is extremely common; however, there are currently few drugs that can effectively treat AS. Although oridonin has been widely used to treat inflammation and cancer for numerous years, to the best of our knowledge, its protective effect against AS has not been reported. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate whether oridonin attenuated AS.

Methods

By using text mining, chemometric and chemogenomic methods, oridonin was predicted to be a beneficial agent for the treatment of AS. A parallel flow chamber was used to establish a low shear stress (LSS)-induced endothelial cell (EC) dysfunction model. Briefly, ECs were exposed to 3 dyn/cm² LSS for 30 min and subsequently treated with oridonin or transfected with a small interfering RNA (siRNA) targeting nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NRF2). Reactive oxygen species (ROS), superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), glutathione (GSH) and glutathione disulfide (GSSG) in EA.hy926 cells were analyzed to determine the level of oxidative stress. The nitric oxide (NO) levels and mRNA expression levels of endothelial NO synthase (eNOS), endothelin-1 (ET-1) and prostaglandin synthase (PGIS) in EA.hy926 cells were analyzed to determine EC dysfunction. Furthermore, the mRNA and protein expression levels of NRF2 were analyzed using reverse transcription-quantitative PCR and western blot. In addition, zebrafish were fed with a high-cholesterol diet to establish a zebrafish AS model, which was used to observe lipid accumulation and inflammation under a fluorescence microscope.

Results

We found LSS led to oxidative stress and EC dysfunction; this was primarily indicated through the significantly decreased SOD and GSH content, the significantly increased MDA, GSSG and ROS content, the upregulated mRNA expression levels of ET-1, and the downregulated NO levels and mRNA expression levels of eNOS and PGIS in ECs. Notably, oridonin could improve LSS-induced oxidative stress and EC dysfunction, and the effects of oridonin were reversed by the transfection with NRF2 siRNA. Oridonin also attenuated lipid accumulation and neutrophil recruitment at the LSS regions in the zebrafish AS model.

Conclusions

In conclusion, the results of the present study suggested that oridonin may ameliorate LSS-induced EC dysfunction and oxidative stress by activating NRF2, thereby attenuating AS.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12906-022-03658-2.

Joint Learning of Salient Object Detection, Depth Estimation and Contour Extraction

Benefiting from color independence, illumination invariance and location discrimination attributed by the depth map, it can provide important supplemental information for extracting salient objects in complex environments. However, high-quality depth sensors are expensive and can not be widely applied. While general depth sensors produce the noisy and sparse depth information, which brings the depth-based networks with irreversible interference. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-task and multi-modal filtered transformer (MMFT) network for RGB-D salient object detection (SOD). Specifically, we unify three complementary tasks: depth estimation, salient object detection and contour estimation. The multi-task mechanism promotes the model to learn the task-aware features from the auxiliary tasks. In this way, the depth information can be completed and purified. Moreover, we introduce a multi-modal filtered transformer (MFT) module, which equips with three modality-specific filters to generate the transformer-enhanced feature for each modality. The proposed model works in a depth-free style during the testing phase. Experiments show that it not only significantly surpasses the depth-based RGB-D SOD methods on multiple datasets, but also precisely predicts a high-quality depth map and salient contour at the same time. And, the resulted depth map can help existing RGB-D SOD methods obtain significant performance gain.

[Hematologic responses to avatrombopag switch in TPO-RA refractory aplastic anemia]

Objective: Short-term efficacy and safety of afatrombopag conversion therapy in patients with aplastic anemia (AA) who were previously ineffectively treated with intense immunosuppressive therapy (IST) combined with TPO receptor Agonist (TPO-RA) or who were unable to tolerate the side effects of TPO-RA. Methods: Analysis of patients with severe aplastic anemia (SAA) treated in Institute of Hematology & Blood Diseases Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College from January 2021 to December 2021 who received IST combined with TPO-RA (eltrombopag/hatrombopag) for at least 6 months, but was ineffective for at least 3 months or patients who cannot continue to use TPO-RA due to side effects, and switched from TPO-RA to avatrombopag (APAG) , and treated for at least 6 months. This study analyzed its short-term efficacy and evaluated its safety. Results: The median age was 54 (14-68) years old among the 16 patients with AA (8 male and eight female) . A total of ten patients (refractory group) who did not respond to IST combined with TPO-RA were converted to APAG median therapy for 6 (6-10) months. Only seven patients (70% ) obtained trilineage HR [four cases of complete treatment response (CTR) , one case of good treatment response (GPR) , and two cases of partial treatment response (PR) ], all of which began to take effect at 3 months of APAG treatment. There were six patients with TPO-RA intolerance, and APAG was treated for 6 (2 to 8) months. About four patients (67% ) received HR (three GPR cases and one PR case) , of which two patients received PR at 3 months and four patients received HR at 6 months of APAG treatment. No APAG-related grade 2 or more adverse events occurred during the APAG therapy, no thrombotic events occurred, no fibrologic tissue hyperplasia was found in the bone marrow pathology reexamination at 6 months of treatment, and none of the patients discontinued the drug due to adverse events. Conclusion: APAG may be a better switching treatment option for patients with AA who are refractory or are intolerant to TPO-RA.

[Distribution and gene characteristics of H3, H4 and H6 subtypes of low pathogenic avian influenza viruses in environment related avian influenza viruses during 2014-2021 in China]

Objective: To analyze the characteristics of low pathogenic H3, H4 and H6 subtypes of avian influenza viruses in environment related avian influenza viruses in China from 2014 to 2021. Methods: Surveillance sites were located in 31 provinces, autonomous region and municipalities to collect environmental samples related to avian influenza, detect the nucleic acid detection of influenza A virus, isolate virus, deeply sequence, analyze pathogenicity related molecular sites, and determine the distribution and variation characteristics of common H3, H4 and H6 subtypes of avian influenza virus in different regions, places and sample types. Results: A total of 388 645 samples were collected. The positive rate of low pathogenic H3 (0.56‰) and H6 (0.53‰) was higher than that of H4 (0.09‰). The positive rate of H4 subtype virus in live poultry market was higher than that in other places, and the difference was statistically significant. The positive rate of H3 and H6 subtypes in sewage samples was higher than that in other samples, and the difference was statistically significant. The positive rate of H3, H4 and H6 viruses in the south was higher than that in the north, and the difference was statistically significant. December was the most active time for virus. The analysis of pathogenicity related molecular sites showed that H3, H4 and H6 subtypes of viruses combined with avian influenza virus receptors, and some gene sites related to increased pathogenicity had mutations. Conclusion: The H3, H4 and H6 subtypes of low pathogenic avian influenza viruses have a high isolation positive rate in the live poultry market and sewage. The distribution of the three subtypes of viruses has obvious regional and seasonal characteristics, and the genetic characteristics still show the feature of low pathogenic avian influenza.

Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and long-term bleeding in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention: 5-year outcomes from a large cohort study

Aims

Recent research reported that lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) is associated with more in-hospital bleeding in acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients. However, the association between lower LDL-C levels and long-term bleeding in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) patients remains unclear.

Methods

A total of 10724 patients treated with PCI enrolled in ourhospital from January 2013 to December 2013. The primary endpoint was the Bleeding Academic Research Consortium (BARC) type 2, 3 or 5 bleeding at 5 years. The secondary endpoint was intracranial hemorrhage. Taking the LDL-C value of 1.8 mmol/L (70 mg/dL) or 1.4 mmol/L (55 mg/dL) as cut-off points, patients were grouped to analyse, respectively.

Results

Among 9697 PCI patients treated with dual antiplatelet therapy finally enrolled, a total of 411 BARC type 2, 3 or 5 bleedings and 42 intracranial hemorrhage were recorded during a follow-up of 5 years. With LDL-C value of 1.8 mmol/L as cut-off point, multivariate Cox regression showed that lower LDL-C level was not associated with the risk for bleeding [hazard ratio (HR): 1.166, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.879–1.549]. The result was consistent (HR: 1.185; 95% CI: 0.713–1.968) in a 1:4 propensity-score matching cohort (n=1285). For further study, we performed subgroup analysis which showed that lower LDL-C was not associated with the risk for bleeding in ACS (HR: 1.140; 95% CI: 0.846–1.535) or non-ACS patients (HR: 1.284; 95% CI: 0.909–1.813). With LDL-C value of 1.4 mmol/L as cut-off point, Cox regression showed that lower LDL-C level was not associated with the risk for bleeding in total population, ACS or non-ACS patients (P>0.05). The result was consistent in a 1:4 propensity-score matching cohort (n=760) (P>0.05). As for secondary endpoint, lower LDL-C level was not associated with the risk for intracranial hemorrhage whether the LDL-C value is 1.8 or 1.4 mmol/L as the cut-off point (P>0.05).

Conclusions

To the best of our knowledge, we firstly report lower LDL-C level (whether the LDL-C value is 1.8 or 1.4 mmol/L as the cut-off point) was not the independent risk factor of long-term bleeding in PCI population and ACS or non-ACS subgroup populations.

Funding Acknowledgement

Type of funding sources: Public Institution(s). Main funding source(s): CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS); Young and middle-aged talents in the XPCC Science and Technology Project

The endorectal incision level of transanal total mesorectal excision (taTME): An emphasis on the distance from the anterior vs. posterior mesorectal ends to the anal verge

BACKGROUND

There is no intraluminal guidance to ensure complete inclusion of the mesorectum in transanal total mesorectal excision (taTME). This study aimed to assess the distance difference between the anterior and posterior mesorectal terminal ends and the anal verge as a potential risk for residual mesorectum after resection.

METHODS

Forty-four surgical specimens of extra-levator abdominoperineal excision (ELAPE) and 28 mid-sagittal cadaveric specimens were included to this study. The distance between the mesorectum terminal end (T) and the endoluminal landmarks (dentate line (D)/anal verge (A)) was measured and compared between men and women. Furthermore, 66 MRI images from The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA) were used to validate the same concept in a non-Asian population.

RESULTS

The mesorectal terminal end was found to be aligned along with the levator hiatus. From the midsagittal view, the ELAPE specimens showed that the distance between T and A anteriorly was significantly longer than the same distance posteriorly (34.74±7.79mm vs 23.74±4.24mm, P<0.001). Similarly, the distance measured in the cadaveric specimens was significantly longer anteriorly than posteriorly (P<0.001). The validation cohort of non-Asian MRI image has confirmed the same (56.68±14.17mm vs. 38.18 ±10.42mm, P<0.001(. There was no significant difference between men and women.

CONCLUSIONS

Because of the remarkable distance difference between the anterior and posterior mesorectal terminal ends away from the anal verge, the taTME proctectomy level may not meet the required mesorectal end. Thus, if TME is planned, aligning the proctectomy level around the levator hiatus would be the best place that can ensure complete TME.

Tumor-Promoting Actions of HNRNP A1 in HCC Are Associated with Cell Cycle, Mitochondrial Dynamics, and Necroptosis

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most frequent malignancies in the world. Although increasing evidence supports the role of heterogeneous ribonucleoprotein particle A1 (HNRNP A1) in tumor progression, the function of HNRNP A1 in HCC remains unclear. Here, we focused on the role of HNRNP A1 in the development of HCC. In this study, we found HNRNP A1 participates in many aspects of HCC, such as progression and prognosis. Our results showed that HNRNP A1 is upregulated in human HCC tissues and cell lines. High expression of HNRNP A1 can promote the proliferation, migration, and invasion in HCC cells and accelerate tumor progression in mice. Moreover, we found that HNRNP A1 prevents the senescence process of HCC cells. Knocking down of HNRNP A1 promotes the expression of P16^INK4, which arrests the cell cycle and then induces the senescence phenotype in HCC cells. Furthermore, we found that HNRNP A1 regulated necroptosis and mitochondrial dynamics. In summary, our study indicates that HNRNP A1 promotes the development of HCC, which suggests a potential therapeutic target for HCC.