A five-layer deep convolutional neural network with stochastic pooling for chest CT-based COVID-19 diagnosis.

Till August 17, 2020, COVID-19 has caused 21.59 million confirmed cases in more than 227 countries and territories, and 26 naval ships. Chest CT is an effective way to detect COVID-19. This study proposed a novel deep learning model that can diagnose COVID-19 on chest CT more accurately and swiftly. Based on traditional deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) model, we proposed three improvements: (i) We introduced stochastic pooling to replace average pooling and max pooling; (ii) We combined conv layer with batch normalization layer and obtained the conv block (CB); (iii) We combined dropout layer with fully connected layer and obtained the fully connected block (FCB). Our algorithm achieved a sensitivity of 93.28% ± 1.50%, a specificity of 94.00% ± 1.56%, and an accuracy of 93.64% ± 1.42%, in identifying COVID-19 from normal subjects. We proved using stochastic pooling yields better performance than average pooling and max pooling. We compared different structure configurations and proved our 3CB + 2FCB yields the best performance. The proposed model is effective in detecting COVID-19 based on chest CT images.

Akebia Saponin D Decreases Hepatic Steatosis through Autophagy Modulation.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is considered to be a hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome, and the incidence of NAFLD is increasing rapidly. However, appropriate drugs for treatment of NAFLD are lacking. This study aimed to elucidate the protective effects and mechanisms of Akebia saponin D (ASD) against NAFLD in ob/ob mice and Buffalo rat liver cells. ASD significantly decreased hepatic steatosis and hepatocyte apoptosis in ob/ob mice. ASD also significantly activated autophagic flux, as assessed by the decreased expression of light chain 3 (LC3)-II and P62 accumulation of autophagosomes. In Buffalo rat liver cells, ASD prevented oleic acid (OA)-induced lipid droplets and increased autophagic flux acting as increase the number of autolysosomes than autophagosomes in mTagRFP-mWasabi-LC3. ASD treatment also prevented OA-induced expression of LC3-II, P62, Beclin, and phospho-mammalian target of rapamycin. These effects were similar to those of cotreatment with rapamycin. ASD treatment could not prevent OA-increased, autophagy-related protein expression after treatment with chloroquine or small interfering RNA-mediated knockdown of atg7. These results suggest that ASD alleviates hepatic steatosis targeted at the fusion of autophagosomes to lysosomes, and autophagy modulation via ASD may offer a new strategy for treating NAFLD.

Protective effects of Akebia saponin D against rotenone-induced hepatic mitochondria dysfunction.

Akebia saponin D (ASD) is a typical bioactive triterpenoid saponin obtained from the rhizome of Dipsacus asper Wall. Previous studies have found that ASD has a hepatoprotective effect in a mouse model. The purpose of this paper was to explore the molecular mechanism of the hepatoprotective effects of ASD on BRL cells and isolated rat liver mitochondria. We investigated the effects of ASD on rotenone-induced toxicity in BRL cells. The results showed that ASD inhibited the accumulation of reactive oxidant species, ATP deficiency, and mitochondrial membrane potential dissipation; ameliorates mitochondrial respiratory dysfunction, and improved the activity of complex I in a concentration-dependent manner, indicating that ASD likely improved mitochondrial function. ASD suppressed rotenone-induced BRL cell apoptosis and increased Bcl-2/Bax ratio. These results suggest that ASD may exert hepatoprotective effects against rotenone-induced toxicity through mitochondria. This study supports our previous research that ASD possesses hepatoprotective activity in vivo and it is worthy of further study.

Association between co-stimulatory molecule gene polymorphism and acute rejection of allograft.

Co-stimulatory molecules play important roles in T cell-mediated immune response and transplantation. Numerous epidemiological studies have evaluated the association between CD28, CTLA-4 gene variant and allograft rejection. However, the results of these studies on the association remain conflicting. The main purpose of this study was to integrate previous results and explore whether the CD28 IVS3 +17T/C variant, CTLA-4, CD86 and PDCD1 gene polymorphisms were associated with allograft rejection susceptibility. PubMed and Embase (before 2014-3-25), were searched for studies on the relationship of CD28, CTLA-4, CD86 and PDCD1 gene polymorphisms and the incidence of allograft rejection susceptibility. Eligible articles were included for data extraction. The main outcome was the frequency of co-stimulate molecule gene polymorphisms between rejection and non-rejection populations. Comparison of the distribution of SNP was mainly performed using Review Manager 5.0. The odds ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were used to assess the strength of association. Significant associations of the CD28 IVS3 +17T/C variant with acute allograft rejection susceptibility were found (CC +CT/TT OR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.08-1.94; P=0.01). Also we found an association of the CD28 IVS3 +17T/C variant with kidney allograft rejection cases (CC +CT/TT OR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.19-2.49; P=0.004) and (C allele OR, 1.74; 95% CI, 1.11-2.75; P=0.02), but not established for liver allograft rejection cases (CC +CT/TT OR, 1.19; 95% CI, 0.47-2.98; P=0.72) and (C allele OR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.67-1.39; P=0.84). And we found an association of the CD86 +1057G/A variant with non-allograft rejection cases (AA +AG/GG OR, 0.35; 95% CI, 0.14-0.85; P=0.02). This meta-analysis demonstrates that the CD28 IVS3 +17T/C variant might increase acute allograft rejection risk in kidney transplant but not in liver transplant, and there was an association between CD86 +1057G/A variant and reduced acute rejection risk. Further studies will be needed to confirm our findings.

Associations between UGT1A1*6 or UGT1A1*6/*28 polymorphisms and irinotecan-induced neutropenia in Asian cancer patients.

PURPOSE: Neutropenia is a life-threatening side effect of irinotecan, and uridine diphosphate glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs) gene polymorphisms are considered to be one of the predictive markers of irinotecan-related toxicities. Many studies have demonstrated that patients bearing UGT1A1*28 have a higher risk of severe neutropenia on toxicity of irinotecan. However, UGT1A1 (TA7/TA7) was very rare in Asian populations. Some researches reported that UGT1A1*28 and/or UGT1A1*6 could predict irinotecan-induced toxicities in Asian populations, but controversial conclusions still remained. This study aims to investigate the association between UGT1A1 gene polymorphisms *6, *6/*28 and irinotecan-related neutropenia in Asian cancer patients receiving irinotecan regimen chemotherapy. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Meta-analyses were done to assess the relationship between UGT1A1*6 or UGT1A1*6/*28 and irinotecan-induced neutropenia. RESULTS: The risk of neutropenia was significantly higher among patients with a UGT1A1*6 genotype than among those carrying the UGT1A1*1 allele(s) [odds ratio (OR) 3.276; 95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.887-5.688; P = 0.000 (*6/*6 vs. *1/*6 or *1/*1)], [OR 1.542; 95 % CI 1.180-2.041; P = 0.001 (*6/*6 or *1/*6 vs. *1/*1)]. Also, the risk was significantly higher among patients with a UGT1A1*6/*28 than among those carrying the UGT1A1*1 allele(s) [OR 3.275; 95 % CI 2.152-4.983; P = 0.000 (*6/*6 or *28/*28 or *6/*28 vs. *1/*6 or *1/*28 or *1/*1)]. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, the UGT1A1*6 and UGT1A1*6/*28 genotypes were associated with an increased risk of irinotecan-induced neutropenia in Asian cancer patients.