Altered dopamine metabolism and its role in pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease / 生理学报

Parkinson's disease (PD), one of the most frequent neurodegenerative disorders, is characterized by the selective loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SN). Genetic vulnerability, aging, environmental insults are believed to contribute to the pathogenesis of PD. However, the cellular and molecular mechanism of dopaminergic neurons degeneration remains incompletely understood. Dopamine (DA) metabolism is a cardinal physiological process in dopaminergic neurons, which is closely related to the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the SN. DA metabolism takes part in several pathological processes of PD neurodegeneration, such as iron metabolism disturbance, α-synuclein mis-folding, endoplasmic reticulum stress, protein degradation dysfunction, neuroinflammatory response, etc. In this review, we will describe altered DA metabolism and its contributions to PD pathogenesis.

Identification of a novel coronavirus causing severe pneumonia in human: a descriptive study / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

BACKGROUND@#Human infections with zoonotic coronaviruses (CoVs), including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV, have raised great public health concern globally. Here, we report a novel bat-origin CoV causing severe and fatal pneumonia in humans.@*METHODS@#We collected clinical data and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) specimens from five patients with severe pneumonia from Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, Hubei province, China. Nucleic acids of the BAL were extracted and subjected to next-generation sequencing. Virus isolation was carried out, and maximum-likelihood phylogenetic trees were constructed.@*RESULTS@#Five patients hospitalized from December 18 to December 29, 2019 presented with fever, cough, and dyspnea accompanied by complications of acute respiratory distress syndrome. Chest radiography revealed diffuse opacities and consolidation. One of these patients died. Sequence results revealed the presence of a previously unknown β-CoV strain in all five patients, with 99.8% to 99.9% nucleotide identities among the isolates. These isolates showed 79.0% nucleotide identity with the sequence of SARS-CoV (GenBank NC_004718) and 51.8% identity with the sequence of MERS-CoV (GenBank NC_019843). The virus is phylogenetically closest to a bat SARS-like CoV (SL-ZC45, GenBank MG772933) with 87.6% to 87.7% nucleotide identity, but is in a separate clade. Moreover, these viruses have a single intact open reading frame gene 8, as a further indicator of bat-origin CoVs. However, the amino acid sequence of the tentative receptor-binding domain resembles that of SARS-CoV, indicating that these viruses might use the same receptor.@*CONCLUSION@#A novel bat-borne CoV was identified that is associated with severe and fatal respiratory disease in humans.

Value of a Panel Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization in Three Kinds of Hematological Malignancies / 中国实验血液学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To evaluate the role of a panel fluorescence in situ hybridization (Panel-FISH) for the detection of common cytogenetic abnormalities in patients with chronic lymphoblastic leukemia (CLL), multiplemyeloma (MM) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Three panels of probes were used to perform FISH assays in 46 patients with CLL, 53 with MM and 93 with MDS. Their results were compared with that obtain by conventional cytogenetic examination.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The panel FISH detection in CLL and MM groups showed significantly higher sensitivity in revealing chromosomal abnormalities than that in conventional cytogenetics (73.8% vs 9.5%, 70.8% vs 22.9%, respectively). There were significant differences between these 2 technologies(P<0.001, P<0.001, respectively). However, there was no difference between Panel-FISH and conventional cytogenetics in MDS group (30.4 vs 27.2%, P=0.625).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Panel-FISH can increase the detection rate in CLL and MM patients while it did not in MDS patients. However, it can increase the detection rate of aberration clones in MDS cases with normal karyotypes or without enough karyotypes to be analysis.</p>

Comparison of STR-PCR and FISH value for monitoring chimerism after sex-mismatched allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation / 中国实验血液学杂志

This study was purposed to compare the significance of multiplex short tandem repeat polymerase chain reaction (STR-PCR) and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) for monitoring chimerism after sex-mismatched allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). The chimerism of bone marrow or peripheral blood cells from 38 patients was analyzed by STR-PCR and FISH on days 14, 28 and at 3 months after allo-HSCT. The results indicated that on day 14, the complete chimerism (CC) was detected in 14 of 30 cases by STR-PCR and in 8 of 30 cases by FISH (p > 0.05). On day 28, the CC was detected in 26 of 31 cases by STR-PCR and in 15 of 31 cases by FISH (p < 0.01). At 3 months, the CC was observed in 22 of 24 cases by STR-PCR and 17 of 24 cases by FISH (p > 0.05). 14 cases were found to have a graft rejection or relapse among 28 cases which were continuously monitored more than 3 months post the transplants. Donor cell decrease in 9 of 14 cases was proved by FISH alone. It is concluded that FISH is more sensitive than STR-PCR in early monitoring chimerism status of post-transplant and in predicting graft rejection or disease relapse.

Relationship of osteolytic biochemical indicators of bone metabolism with the therapeutic effect in breast cancer patients with bone metastases / 中华肿瘤杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>The aim of this study was to access the relationship of osteolytic bone metabolic markers such as serum type I collagen carboxy-terminal telopeptide (sICTP), N-terminal cross-linked telopeptides of type I collagen (uNTx), urinary pyridinoline (uPyd) with the therapeutic effect in breast cancer patients with bone metastases.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>120 patients with breast cancer were included in this study. The levels of sICTP, uNTx and uPYD were measured by ELISA assay. The differences were compared between patients with and without bone metastasis. The patients with bone metastasis were treated and followed up as clinically indicated.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The levels of all above mentioned biomarkers in patients with bone metastasis were significantly higher than that in patients without bone metastasis (P < 0.01). A significant correlation was found between each two markers (r > 0.5, P < 0.01). The biomarkers were examined again in 45 patients with bone metastasis after treatment to evaluate the treatment response. The median follow-up was 10 months. Based on clinical evaluation criteria, 25 patients were responders and 20 were non-responders. For responders, after 3 months treatment, the levels of the three bone markers were significantly reduced (P = 0.025, P < 0.001, P < 0.001). But for non-responders, with progression of bone lesions, the levels of the three markers were significantly raised (P = 0.011, P = 0.002, P = 0.002). By means of multiple logistic regression with stepwise selection, the uPyd and uNTx activities were closely correlated with treatment response (OR = 17.0, P = 0.019; OR = 16.7, P = 0.015), however, the sICTP did not show any correlation with treatment response P = 0.841).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The levels of sICTP, uNTx and uPyd may be used as indicators in assessment of the effect of antiresorptive treatment and evaluation of prognosis in breast cancer patient with bone metastases.</p>

Intelligent direct analysis of physical and mechanical parameters of tunnel surrounding rock based on adaptive immunity algorithm and BP neural network / 西安交通大学学报·英文版

Because of complexity and non-predictability of the tunnel surrounding rock, the problem with the determination of the physical and mechanical parameters of the surrounding rock has become a main obstacle to theoretical research and numerical analysis in tunnel engineering. During design, it is a frequent practice, therefore, to give recommended values by analog based on experience. It is a key point in current research to make use of the displacement back analytic method to comparatively accurately determine the parameters of the surrounding rock whereas artificial intelligence possesses an exceptionally strong capability of identifying, expressing and coping with such complex non-linear relatiouships. The parameters can be verified by searching the optimal network structure, using back analysis on measured data to search optimal parameters and performing direct computation of the obtained results. In the current paper, the direct analysis is performed with the biological emulation system and the software of Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua (FLAC3D. The high non-linearity, network reasoning and coupling ability of the neural network are employed. The output vector required of the training of the neural network is obtained with the numerical analysis software. And the overall space search is conducted by employing the Adaptive Immunity Algorithm. As a result, we are able to avoid the shortcoming that multiple parameters and optimized parameters are easy to fall into a local extremum. At the same time, the computing speed and efficiency are increased as well. Further, in the paper satisfactory conclusions are arrived at through the intelligent direct-back analysis on the monitored and measured data at the Erdaoya tunneling project. The results show that the physical and mechanical parameters obtained by the intelligent direct-back analysis proposed in the current paper have effectively improved the recommended values in the original prospecting data. This is of practical significance to the appraisal of stability and informatiomzation design of the surrounding rock.

Distribution of abnormal cell clone with deletion of chromosome 20q in marrow cell lineages and apoptosis cells in myelodysplastic syndrome / 中国实验血液学杂志

This study was aimed to investigate the distribution of abnormal clone in marrow cell lineages and apoptosis cells in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) with deletion of chromosome 20q. Monoclonal antibodies recognizing myeloid precursors (CD15), erythroid precursors (GPA), T cells (CD3(+)CD56(-)CD16(-)), B cells (CD19), NK cells (CD3(-)CD56(+)CD16(+)) were used to sort bone marrow cells in a MDS patient with del (20q) by fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS). Annexin V-FITC and PI were used to sort bone marrow Annexin V(+)PI(-) and Annexin V(-)PI(-) cells by FACS. The sorted positive cells were detected by interphase dual-color fluorescence in situ hybridization (D-FISH) using a LSI D20S108 probe (Spectrum Orange) and a Telvysion TM 20p probe (Spectrum Green). FACS and FISH analysis were also performed on the samples from 4 cases with normal karyotype. The results showed that the proportions of MDS clone in the myeloid and erythroid precursors were 70.50% and 93.33% respectively, in the RAEB-1 patient with del (20q) and were obviously higher than that in control group (5.39% and 6.17%). The proportions of abnormal clone in T, B and NK cells were 3.23%, 4.32% and 5.77% respectively and were less than that in control group (5.76%, 4.85%, 6.36%). The percentage of apoptotic cells in the bone marrow nucleated cells was 16.09%. The proportions of MDS clone in Annexin V(+)PI(-) and Annexin V(-)PI(-) cells were 32.48% and 70.11%, respectively. It is concluded that most myeloid and erythroid precursors are originated from the abnormal clone in MDS with del (20q). A little part of apoptotic cells are derived from the abnormal clone.