Acid-tolerant Pseudomonas citronellolis YN-21 exhibits a high heterotrophic nitrification capacity independent of the amo and hao genes.

Heterotrophic nitrifying bacteria are found to be promising candidates for implementation in wastewater treatment systems due to their tolerance to extreme environments. A novel acid-resistant bacterium, Pseudomonas citronellolis YN-21, was isolated and reported to have exceptional heterotrophic nitrification capabilities in acidic condition. At pH 5, the highest NH4+ removal rate of 7.84 mg/L/h was displayed by YN-21, which was significantly higher than the NH4+ removal rates of other strains in neutral and alkaline environments. Remarkably, a distinct accumulation of NH2OH and NO3- was observed during NH4+ removal by strain YN-21, while traditional amo and hao genes were not detected in the genome, suggesting the possible presence of alternative nitrifying genes. Moreover, excellent nitrogen removal performance was displayed by YN-21 even under high concentrations of metal ion stress. Consequently, a broad application prospect in the treatment of leather wastewater and mine tailwater is offered by YN-21.

Integrating Machine Learning and Mendelian Randomization Determined a Functional Neurotrophin-Related Gene Signature in Patients with Lower-Grade Glioma.

Recent researches reported that neurotrophins can promote glioma growth/invasion but the relevant model for predicting patients' survival in Lower-Grade Gliomas (LGGs) lacked. In this study, we adopted univariate Cox analysis, LASSO regression, and multivariate Cox analysis to determine a signature including five neurotrophin-related genes (NTGs), CLIC1, SULF2, TGIF1, TTF2, and WEE1. Two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR) further explored whether these prognostic-related genes were genetic variants that increase the risk of glioma. A total of 1306 patients have been included in this study, and the results obtained from the training set can be verified by four independent validation sets. The low-risk subgroup had longer overall survival in five datasets, and its AUC values all reached above 0.7. The risk groups divided by the NTGs signature exhibited a distinct difference in targeted therapies from the copy-number variation, somatic mutation, LGG's surrounding microenvironment, and drug response. MR corroborated that TGIF1 was a potential causal target for increasing the risk of glioma. Our study identified a five-NTGs signature that presented an excellent survival prediction and potential biological function, providing new insight for the selection of LGGs therapy.

Biobehavioral susceptibility for obesity in childhood: Behavioral, genetic and neuroimaging studies of appetite.

Modern food environments are conducive to overeating and weight gain, but not everyone develops obesity. One reason for this may be that individuals differ in appetitive characteristics, or traits, that manifest early in life and go on to influence their behavioral susceptibility to gain and maintain excess weight. Classic studies showing that eating behavior in children can be measured by behavioral paradigms such as tests of caloric compensation and eating in the absence of hunger inspired the development and validation of psychometric instruments to assess appetitive characteristics in children and infants. A large body of evidence now suggests that food approach traits increase obesity risk, while food avoidant traits, such as satiety responsiveness, decrease obesity risk. Twin studies and genetic association studies have demonstrated that appetitive characteristics are heritable, consistent with a biological etiology. However, family environment factors are also influential, with mounting evidence suggesting that genetic and environmental risk factors interact and correlate with consequences for child eating behavior and weight. Further, neuroimaging studies are revealing that individual differences in responses to visual food cues, as well as to small tastes and larger amounts of food, across a number of brain regions involved in reward/motivation, cognitive control and other functions, may contribute to individual variation in appetitive behavior. Growing evidence also suggests that variation on psychometric measures of appetite is associated with regional differences in brain structure, and differential patterns of resting state functional connectivity. Large prospective studies beginning in infancy promise to enrich our understanding of neural and other biological underpinnings of appetite and obesity development in early life, and how the interplay between genetic and environmental factors affects appetitive systems. The biobehavioral susceptibility model of obesity development and maintenance outlined in this narrative review has implications for prevention and treatment of obesity in childhood.

Paediatric obesity and metabolic syndrome associations with cognition and the brain in youth: Current evidence and future directions.

Obesity and components of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) are associated with differences in brain structure and function and in general and food-related cognition in adults. Here, we review evidence for similar phenomena in children and adolescents, with a focus on the implications of extant research for possible underlying mechanisms and potential interventions for obesity and MetS in youth. Current evidence is limited by a relative reliance on small cross-sectional studies. However, we find that youth with obesity and MetS or MetS components show differences in brain structure, including alterations in grey matter volume and cortical thickness across brain regions subserving reward, cognitive control and other functions, as well as in white matter integrity and volume. Children with obesity and MetS components also show some evidence for hyperresponsivity of food reward regions and hyporesponsivity of cognitive control circuits during food-related tasks, altered brain responses to food tastes, and altered resting-state connectivity including between cognitive control and reward processing networks. Potential mechanisms for these findings include neuroinflammation, impaired vascular reactivity, and effects of diet and obesity on myelination and dopamine function. Future observational research using longitudinal measures, improved sampling strategies and study designs, and rigorous statistical methods, promises to further illuminate dynamic relationships and causal mechanisms. Intervention studies targeted at modifiable biological and behavioural factors associated with paediatric obesity and MetS can further inform mechanisms, as well as test whether brain and behaviour can be altered for beneficial outcomes.

Differential Laminar Activation Dissociates Encoding and Retrieval in the Human Medial and Lateral Entorhinal Cortex.

The hierarchically organized structures of the medial temporal lobe are critically important for episodic memory function. Accumulating evidence suggests dissociable information processing pathways are maintained throughout these structures including in the medial and lateral entorhinal cortex. Cortical layers provide an additional dimension of dissociation as the primary input to the hippocampus derives from layer 2 neurons in the entorhinal cortex, whereas the deeper layers primarily receive output from the hippocampus. Here, novel high-resolution T2-prepared functional MRI methods were successfully used to mitigate susceptibility artifacts typically affecting MRI signals in this region providing uniform sensitivity across the medial and lateral entorhinal cortex. During the performance of a memory task, healthy human subjects (age 25-33 years, mean age 28.2 ± 3.3 years, 4 female) showed differential functional activation in the superficial and deep layers of the entorhinal cortex associated with task-related encoding and retrieval conditions, respectively. The methods provided here offer an approach to probe layer-specific activation in normal cognition and conditions contributing to memory impairment.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT This study provides new evidence for differential neuronal activation in the superficial versus deep layers of the entorhinal cortex associated with encoding and retrieval memory processes, respectively, in cognitively normal adults. The study further shows that this dissociation can be observed in both the medial and the lateral entorhinal cortex. The study was achieved by using a novel functional MRI method allowing us to measure robust functional MRI signals in both the medial and lateral entorhinal cortex that was not possible in previous studies. The methodology established here in healthy human subjects lays a solid foundation for subsequent studies investigating layer-specific and region-specific changes in the entorhinal cortex associated with memory impairment in various conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.

The neuroprotective and neural circuit mechanisms of acupoint stimulation for cognitive impairment.

Cognitive impairment is a prevalent neurological disorder that burdens families and the healthcare system. Current conventional therapies for cognitive impairment, such as cholinesterase inhibitors and N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor antagonists, are unable to completely stop or reverse the progression of the disease. Also, these medicines may cause serious problems with the digestive system, cardiovascular system, and sleep. Clinically, stimulation of acupoints has the potential to ameliorate the common symptoms of a variety of cognitive disorders, such as memory deficit, language dysfunction, executive dysfunction, reduced ability to live independently, etc. There are common acupoint stimulation mechanisms for treating various types of cognitive impairment, but few systematic analyses of the underlying mechanisms in this domain have been performed. This study comprehensively reviewed the basic research from the last 20 years and found that acupoint stimulation can effectively improve the spatial learning and memory of animals. The common mechanism may be that acupoint stimulation protects hippocampal neurons by preventing apoptosis and scavenging toxic proteins. Additionally, acupoint stimulation has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, promoting neural regeneration, regulating synaptic plasticity, and normalizing neural circuits by restoring brain functional activity and connectivity. Acupoint stimulation also inhibits the production of amyloid ß-peptide and the phosphorylation of Tau protein, suggesting that it may protect neurons by promoting correct protein folding and regulating the degradation of toxic proteins via the autophagy-lysosomal pathway. However, the benefits of acupoint stimulation still need to be further explored in more high-quality studies in the future.

Obesity and acute stress modulate appetite and neural responses in food word reactivity task.

Obesity can result from excess intake in response to environmental food cues, and stress can drive greater intake and body weight. We used a novel fMRI task to explore how obesity and stress influenced appetitive responses to relatively minimal food cues (words representing food items, presented similarly to a chalkboard menu). Twenty-nine adults (16F, 13M), 17 of whom had obesity and 12 of whom were lean, completed two fMRI scans, one following a combined social and physiological stressor and the other following a control task. A food word reactivity task assessed subjective food approach (wanting) as well as food avoidant (restraint) responses, along with neural responses, to words denoting high energy-density (ED) foods, low-ED foods, and non-foods. A multi-item ad-libitum meal followed each scan. The obese and lean groups demonstrated differences as well as similarities in activation of appetitive and attention/self-regulation systems in response to food vs. non-food, and to high-ED vs. low-ED food words. Patterns of activation were largely similar across stress and non-stress conditions, with some evidence for differences between conditions within both obese and lean groups. The obese group ate more than the lean group in both conditions. Our results suggest that neural responses to minimal food cues in stressed and non-stressed states may contribute to excess consumption and adiposity.

Biofilm with highly heterogeneous interior structure for pollutant removal: Effects of individual extracellular polymeric substance.

For the first time, this study reveals the effects of an individual component of extracellular polymeric substances on the substrate consumption rates by the embedded cells based on the highly heterogeneous interior structures of a working biofilm. The flow-across mode in operation established a boundary-layer flow field with high transport resistance, making the uniformly structured model valid. Conversely, the flow field of the flow-through mode is determined by 46% jointly by proteins and ß-d-glucopyranose polysaccharides. The substrate consumption rates hindered by ß-d-glucopyranose polysaccharide is up to 60% over the 20%-40% biofilm height from the bottom, much lower than expected by the uniformly structured models. The strategies to maximize the biofilm performance have been suggested.

Altered Angular Gyrus Resting State Functional Connectivity Associated with Financial Capacity in Mild Cognitive Impairment.

BACKGROUND: Financial capacity (FC) is a complex ability commonly impaired in older individuals with cognitive impairment; however, the underlying neural mechanisms are not well understood. OBJECTIVE: To assess resting state functional connectivity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and impaired FC compared to cognitively normal older adults. METHODS: rs-fMRI scans were obtained from individuals with MCI (N = 17) and normal older adults (N = 15). All participants completed the Financial Capacity Instrument Short Form (FCI-SF) and neuropsychological assessments. Based on previous findings, the left angular gyrus (lAG) was used as the seed region. Connectivity correlation coefficients were calculated for each seed-based connection that showed significantly altered connectivity. A Pearson's correlation was calculated between the connectivity correlation values from relevant regions and FC and other cognitive measures. RESULTS: A total of 26 brain regions showed significantly increased functional connectivity with the lAG. Of these regions, 14 were identified as relevant to higher-level cognitive function for analysis. Pearson's correlations showed a significant negative correlation between the FCI-SF total score and increased connectivity between the IAG and the right temporal fusiform cortex (rTFC) (r = -0.455, p = 0.009). CONCLUSION: Results showed a significant correlation between FC and increased functional connectivity between the lAG and the rTFC in cognitively normal older adults compared to participants with MCI. These exploratory findings suggest that cognitive functions play important roles in FC as the functional connectivity between the lAG and rTFC was not associated with other tests of executive or visuospatial cognition.

Biofilm with highly heterogeneous interior structure for pollutant removal: Cell distribution and manipulated mass transport.

Biofilm wastewater treatment had been applied in practice. Conventionally the biofilm was modeled as a uniform structure to simplify the analysis. This study for the first time established a three-dimensional biofilm model with distributions separating living cells, Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and pores, based on which the local fluid flow velocity and pollutant diffusion and reaction fluxes inside the biofilm were numerically evaluated. Both the uniform structured and previously proposed heterogeneous models had been confirmed to overestimate the performances of a biofilm for wastewater treatment. The survival strategies of living cells in biofilm were discussed. Besides exposing to fresh pollutants for maximizing pollutant uptake, the tendency to form small aggregates of cells for shortening diffusion length so furnishing the pollutant with reduced diffusional resistance to living cells was also for the first time noted. This communication advanced the knowledge to comprehend the detailed processes in biofilm.

Genetically-predicted prefrontal DRD4 gene expression modulates differentiated brain responses to food cues in adolescent girls and boys.

The dopamine receptor 4 (DRD4) in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) acts to modulate behaviours including cognitive control and motivation, and has been implicated in behavioral inhibition and responsivity to food cues. Adolescence is a sensitive period for the development of habitual eating behaviors and obesity risk, with potential mediation by development of the PFC. We previously found that genetic variations influencing DRD4 function or expression were associated with measures of laboratory and real-world eating behavior in girls and boys. Here we investigated brain responses to high energy-density (ED) and low-ED food cues using an fMRI task conducted in the satiated state. We used the gene-based association method PrediXcan to estimate tissue-specific DRD4 gene expression in prefrontal brain areas from individual genotypes. Among girls, those with lower vs. higher predicted prefrontal DRD4 expression showed lesser activation to high-ED and low-ED vs. non-food cues in a distributed network of regions implicated in attention and sensorimotor processing including middle frontal gyrus, and lesser activation to low-ED vs non-food cues in key regions implicated in valuation including orbitofrontal cortex and ventromedial PFC. In contrast, males with lower vs. higher predicted prefrontal DRD4 expression showed minimal differences in food cue response, namely relatively greater activation to high-ED and low-ED vs. non-food cues in the inferior parietal lobule. Our data suggest sex-specific effects of prefrontal DRD4 on brain food responsiveness in adolescence, with modulation of distributed regions relevant to cognitive control and motivation observable in female adolescents.

Neural correlates of doubt in decision-making.

The experience of doubt, the lack of confidence in one's perceptions, internal states, memory and attention, can be due to the variability in occurrence of a phenomenon or can be driven by the internal experience of uncertainty based on subjective evaluation of the environment. Although the experience of some doubt is adaptive in normal cognitive functioning, excessive doubt can significantly impair decision-making and in extreme cases give rise to psychopathology. Although neuroimaging studies have provided some insight into the network of brain areas that is engaged when decision-making involves uncertainty, it remains unclear if dysfunction in these areas also gives rise to the experience and pathological expression of doubt. This study examined the neural correlates of doubt using neuroimaging during the performance of a forced-choice perceptual decision-making task under varying levels of uncertainty in participants who reported either low or high doubt. Participants reporting high doubt exhibited increased activation in the bilateral inferior parietal lobule (IPL) during perceptual decision-making which was not observed in participants who reported low doubt. Furthermore, activity in the IPL in high doubt participants was associated with clinical measures of doubt and showed functional connectivity differences between the high and low doubt groups. The findings of the current study suggest a key role of the IPL and provide a network of brain regions that may play a role in the experience and expression of doubt.

A Panel of Tumor-associated Autoantibodies for the Detection of Early-stage Breast Cancer.

We previously found a panel of autoantibodies against multiple tumor-associated antigens (BMI-1, HSP70, MMP-7, NY-ESO-1, p53 and PRDX6) that might facilitate early detection of esophagogastric junction adenocarcinoma and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Here we aimed at assessing the diagnostic performance of these autoantibodies in breast cancer patients. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was applied to detect sera autoantibodies in 123 breast cancer patients and 123 age-matched normal controls. We adopted logistic regression analysis to identify optimized autoantibody biomarkers for diagnosis and receiver-operating characteristics to analyze diagnostic efficiency. Five of six autoantibodies, BMI-1, HSP70, NY-ESO-1, p53 and PRDX6 demonstrated significantly elevated serum levels in breast cancer compared to normal controls. An optimized panel composed of autoantibodies to BMI-1, HSP70, NY-ESO-1 and p53 showed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.819 (95% CI 0.766-0.873), 63.4% sensitivity and 90.2% specificity for diagnosing breast cancer. Moreover, this autoantibody panel could differentiate patients with early stage breast cancer from normal controls, with AUC of 0.805 (95% CI 0.743-0.886), 59.6% sensitivity and 90.2% specificity. Our findings indicated that the panel of autoantibodies to BMI-1, HSP70, NY-ESO-1 and p53 as serum biomarkers have the potential to help detect early stage breast cancer.

The influence of COVID-19-related stress on food motivation.

The COVID-19 pandemic and public health measures to reduce its transmission have increased stress. Stress is associated with alterations in eating behavior which may be partly driven by effects on food-related motivation. To investigate effects of COVID-related stress on food motivation, we recruited adults (N = 429; 272 F, 157 M) to complete an online survey via Amazon MTurk in May 2020. Current COVID-related stress, retrospective pre-COVID stress, and motivation in relation to individualized preferred foods from five categories (sweet snacks, fruit, savory snacks, vegetables, and fast food) were assessed. Food motivation measures included willingness to wait, willingness to expend low effort [finger taps], willingness to expend high effort [jumping jacks], and willingness to pay for hypothetical delivery of the food item. Food motivation for each food type was assessed using a novel instrument designed for brief assessment of multiple aspects of food motivation across multiple food types. Participants were willing to pay the most for fast food followed by sweet snacks, and willing to wait longer for sweet snacks relative to other food types. While fast food and sweets also generated the most willingness to expend high and low effort, willingness to expend low effort for fruit was similar to that for fast food and sweets, and willingness to expend high effort for fruit was comparable to that for fast food. Participants were least willing to pay or expend low effort for vegetables. Higher COVID-related stress levels were associated with willingness to expend more effort and pay more for food items. These data collected during the pandemic demonstrate that highly processed and sweet foods have high motivating value across multiple measures of motivation, and COVID-related stress increases food motivation across food categories. Interventions to mitigate stress and target the link between stress and overeating may help to limit the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on obesity.

Familial Obesity Risk and Current Excess Weight Influence Brain Structure in Adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: Obesity risk transmits from parents to children. Underlying neural mechanisms were investigated in this study by evaluating influences of familial obesity risk defined by maternal obesity and influences of current overweight on three indices of brain structure in adolescents. METHODS: In total, 22 lean adolescents with lean mothers (lean low-risk), 25 lean adolescents with mothers with obesity/overweight (lean high-risk), and 36 adolescents with obesity/overweight underwent structural MRI scans for estimation of regional gray and white matter volume and cortical thickness. RESULTS: The lean high-risk compared with the lean low-risk group demonstrated lower gray and white matter volume and cortical thickness in the postcentral gyrus (somatosensory cortex), lower gray and white matter volume in the opercular cortex (taste cortex), lower gray matter volume and cortical thickness in the anterior cingulate cortex, and lower cortical thickness in the precuneus. Comparisons of the lean and obesity/overweight groups revealed further structural alterations in the postcentral gyrus, posterior cingulate gyrus, and middle temporal gyrus. CONCLUSIONS: Familial obesity risk and current obesity/overweight were associated with overlapping and distinct patterns of brain structure alterations. Longitudinal studies are warranted to investigate whether structural changes associated with familial obesity risk predict future weight trajectories.

Serum IGFBP-1 as a potential biomarker for diagnosis of early-stage upper gastrointestinal tumour.

BACKGROUND: Early detection would improve upper gastrointestinal cancer prognosis. We aimed to identify serum protein biomarker for the detection of early-stage upper gastrointestinal cancer. METHODS: We performed a three-tiered study including 2028 participants from three medical centres. First, we applied two different antibody arrays to screen candidate serum proteins that increased in 20 patients with oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) compared with 20 normal controls. We then evaluated the selected protein by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 1064 participants including 731 upper gastrointestinal cancer patients (287 ESCCs, 237 oesophagogastric junction adenocarcinomas (EJAs), and 207 stomach cancers) and 333 normal controls. The diagnostic value of the selected protein was finally validated in two independent cohorts of ESCC patients and controls (n=472 and 452, respectively). The receiver operating characteristic was used to calculate diagnostic accuracy. FINDINGS: Serum insulin-like growth factor binding protein-1 (IGFBP-1) identified in both antibody arrays showed significantly elevated levels in upper gastrointestinal cancers, compared with normal controls. Serum IGFBP-1 provided high diagnostic accuracy of early-stage ESCC, EJA, stomach and cancer (areas under the curve: 0·898, 0·936 and 0·864, respectively). This protein maintained diagnostic performance for early-stage ESCC in independent cohorts 1 and 2 (0·849 and 0·911, respectively). Additionally, serum levels of IGFBP-1 dropped significantly after surgical resection of primary tumours, compared with the corresponding pre-operative ESCC samples (p < 0·05). INTERPRETATION: Serum IGFBP-1 represents a promising diagnostic biomarker to detect early-stage upper gastrointestinal cancer.

Photosynthetic index and nitrogen assimilation in rapeseed seedlings transplanted in soil with ammonium glufosinate / Índice fotossintético e assimilação de nitrogênio em plântulas de colza transplantadas em resposta a resíduos de glufosinato presentes no solo

ABSTRACT: Herbicide application is an effective weed control method for mitigating crop yield loss; however, herbicide overuse can cause toxicity in non-target plants. The present study evaluated the effects of glufosinate at recommended dose for agricultural application (0.45 kg ha-1) and at overuse dose (0.90 kg ha-1) glufosinate application on photosynthetic performance and nitrogen assimilation of the rapeseed varieties D148 and Zhongshuang 11 (ZS11). Both glufosinate concentrations significantly decreased the content of chlorophyll and nitrogenous compounds, except free proline, and the activity of glutamine synthetase and glutamate synthase, and increased the activity of glutamic acid dehydrogenase in both varieties. When the concentration of glyphosate was 0.45kg ha-1, the nitrogen assimilation of the two varieties decreased, which indicated that the recommended dosage inhibited the nitrogen assimilation of the two varieties; however, the increase of net photosynthetic rate of D148 and the decrease of that of ZS11 mean that D148 is more tolerant to the recommended dose of glyphosate than ZS11. The 0.90 kg ha-1 dosage was toxic to both rapeseed varieties. Overall, our results indicated that herbicide overuse inhibited the photosynthetic rate and nitrogen assimilation in rapeseed seedlings, and it is essential to apply a suitable glufosinate dose based on the variety grown to minimize adverse effects on crops and environment.

RESUMO: A aplicação de herbicidas é um método eficaz de controle de ervas daninhas para mitigar a perda de produtividade das culturas. No entanto, o uso excessivo de herbicidas pode causar toxicidade em plantas não alvo. O presente estudo avaliou os efeitos da dose recomendada para aplicação agrícola (0.45 kg ha-1) e dose excessiva (0.90 kg ha-1) de glufosinato no desempenho fotossintético e assimilação de nitrogênio das variedades de colza D148 e Zhongshuang 11 (ZS11). Ambas as concentrações de glutamato diminuíram significativamente o teor de clorofila e compostos azotados, exceto a prolina livre, e a atividade de síntese da glutamina e de síntese de glutamato, e aumentaram a atividade de desidrogenase do ácido glutâmico em ambas as variedades. Quando a concentração de glifosato foi 0.45 kg ha-1, a assimilação de azoto das duas variedades diminuiu, o que indicou que a dosagem recomendada de glifosato inibiu a assimilação de azoto das duas variedades de colza. Entretanto, a taxa fotosintética líquida do D148 aumentou enquanto o do ZS11 diminuiu, o que significa que o D148 é mais tolerante a dose recomendada de glifosato do que o ZS11. A dose de 0.90 kg ha-1 de glifosato foi prejudicial para as mudas de duas variedades de colza. Em geral, os nossos resultados indicam que o uso excessivo de glufosinato inibe a taxa fotossintética e a assimilação de nitrogênio em mudas de colza, sendo essencial aplicar uma dose adequada deste herbicida com base na variedade cultivada para minimizar os efeitos adversos nas culturas e no meio ambiente.

The Diagnostic Value of Serum IGFBP7 in Patients with Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) is one of the leading malignant cancer in the world and especially in China with high incidence and mortality. The exploration of novel serum biomarkers is required for early detection of ESCC. We investigated the diagnostic value of serum insulin like growth factor binding protein 7 (IGFBP7) in ESCC, evaluating its potential to improve the diagnosis of ESCC. The serum samples of 106 patients with ESCC and 107 normal controls were tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The levels of IGFBP7 in ESCC group were significantly higher than that in normal controls, compared by the Mann-Whitney U test (P<0.0001). Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, the diagnostic value of serum IGFBP7 was demonstrated. Versus normal group, the area under the ROC curve (AUC) of all ESCC was 0.794 (95%CI: 0.735-0.853) and early-stage ESCC was 0.725 (95%CI: 0.633-0.817). With optimized cutoff value of 2.993 ng/mL, IGFBP7 showed certain diagnostic value with specificity of 90.7%, sensitivities of 40.6% and 32.4% in ESCC and early-stage ESCC, respectively. Considering the correlation between clinical data and IGFBP7, no significant association was found (all P>0.05). Thus, we supposed that serum IGFBP7 might be a potential biomarker in the diagnosis of ESCC.