[A clinical performance study of modified CT angiography in detecting bronchial artery-pulmonary artery fistula].

Objective: To evaluate the clinical value of modified computed tomography angiography(CTA) in detecting bronchial artery-pulmonary artery fistula(BPF). Methods: Retrospective analysis was performed on 246 patients with hemoptysis admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University from July 2017 to December 2018, who underwent modified CTA and DSA examination at the same time. CT was performed with Toshiba Aquilion one 320 row 640-slice spiral CT scanner. All modified CTA images were read blindly by two radiologists above the attending doctors. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of the modified CTA in diagnosing BPF were calculated with the DSA results as the reference,and the consistency of the two tests was analyzed. Results: DSA detected 186 cases of positive and 60 cases of negative, modified CTA detected 160 cases of positive and 86 cases of negative. The sensitivity,specificity and accuracy of modified CTA for BPF diagnosis was 85.5%(159/186),98.3%(59/60), 88.6%(218/246) respectively, and they were with high consistency with DSA examination results (kappa=0.73,P<0.01). Conclusion: Modified CTA has high diagnostic specificity for BPF,which can be used as the preferred method for non-invasive screening of suspected BPF patients.

A meta-analysis of pharmacological neuroprotection in noncardiac surgery: focus on statins, lidocaine, ketamine, and magnesium sulfate.

OBJECTIVE: Non-cardiac surgery is associated with perioperative cerebral complications (delirium, postoperative cognition dysfunction, stroke). While rare, these complications can lead to disabilities and deaths. Information is ambiguous as to whether pharmacological preoperative treatment exerts neuroprotection. We wished to systematically assess potential modulation by statins, lidocaine, ketamine or magnesium sulfate of the relative risk of cerebral complications in noncardiac surgery. Selection of these pharmacological agents was based on their known neuroprotective abilities. PATIENTS AND METHODS: By searching Medline, EMBASE and Cochrane databases, we identified 4 suitable publications that collectively enrolled 1358 patients (intent-to-treat population), of which 679 patients were treated preoperatively with statins (404 patients on atorvastatin and 275 on rosuvastatin) and 679 patients with preoperative placebo. The reported cerebral outcome was stroke, assessed either within 30 days (4 publications) or 6 months (2 publications) after surgery. RESULTS: Episodes of stroke within 30 days and 6 months postoperatively were observed in several publications, enabling aggregate analyses. No modulation by statins of the relative risk of stroke at 30 days was observed (risk ratio 1.59, 95% confidence interval 0.08-30.97; p = 0.76). At 6 months, statins showed an insignificant trend toward neuroprotection (risk ratio 0.33, 95% confidence interval 0.05-2.10; p = 0.24). CONCLUSIONS: The available clinical data are still scarce. Our analyses indicate no protective effects by statins against perioperative stroke but some favorable trends toward delayed stroke. Further randomized trials are needed to unequivocally assess the neuroprotective potential of current pharmacological agents in non-cardiac surgery.

Glycolysis gatekeeper PDK1 reprograms breast cancer stem cells under hypoxia.

Glycolysis is critical for cancer stem cell reprogramming; however, the underlying regulatory mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we show that pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1 (PDK1) is enriched in breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs), whereas depletion of PDK1 remarkably diminishes ALDH+ subpopulations, decreases stemness-related transcriptional factor expression, and inhibits sphere-formation ability and tumor growth. Conversely, high levels of PDK1 enhance BCSC properties and are correlated with poor overall survival. In mouse xenograft tumor, PDK1 is accumulated in hypoxic regions and activates glycolysis to promote stem-like traits. Moreover, through screening hypoxia-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in PDK1-positive tissue, we find that lncRNA H19 is responsible for glycolysis and BCSC maintenance. Furthermore, H19 knockdown decreases PDK1 expression in hypoxia, and ablation of PDK1 counteracts H19-mediated glycolysis and self-renewal ability in vitro and in vivo. Accordingly, H19 and PDK1 expression exhibits strong correlations in primary breast carcinomas. H19 acting as a competitive endogenous RNA sequesters miRNA let-7 to release Hypoxia-inducible factor 1α, leading to an increase in PDK1 expression. Lastly, aspirin markedly attenuates glycolysis and cancer stem-like characteristics by suppressing both H19 and PDK1. Thus, these novel findings demonstrate that the glycolysis gatekeeper PDK1 has a critical role in BCSC reprogramming and provides a potential therapeutic strategy for breast malignancy.

Glycolysis gatekeeper PDK1 reprograms breast cancer stem cells under hypoxia.

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/onc.2017.368.

Variations of rhizosphere bacterial communities in tea (Camellia sinensis L.) continuous cropping soil by high-throughput pyrosequencing approach.

AIMS: The goal was to investigate the dynamics of soil bacterial community in the chronosequence tea orchards. METHOD AND RESULTS: In this study, soils from tea orchards with continuously cropping histories for 1, 10 and 20 years were collected for investigating rhizosphere bacterial communities using 454 pyrosequencing. The results indicated that Gammaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, Acidobacteria and Actinobacteria were the main phyla in the tea orchard soils and accounted for more than 60% of the bacterial sequences. At the genus level, the relative abundance of beneficial bacteria, such as Pseudomonas, Rhodanobacter, Bradyrhizobium, Mycobacterium and Sphingomonas, significantly decreased in the 20-year tea orchard soils. Similar patterns of bacterial community structure were observed between 1-year and 10-year tea orchards, which significantly differed from those of 20-year tea orchards. Redundancy analysis indicated that soil organic carbon and pH showed high correlations (positive or negative) with the majority of the taxa. CONCLUSION: Long-term tea cultivation altered the composition and structure of soil bacterial community, which led to the reduction in the beneficial bacteria. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: The results can provide clues on how to regulate the soil microbial community and maintain the health of soils in tea orchard systems.

1079.5- and 1341.4-nm: larger energy from a dual-wavelength Nd:YAIO(3) pulsed laser.

On the basis of oscillation conditions of simultaneous multiple-wavelength lasing that we have established, a larger-energy (1079.5 and 1341.4 nm) dual-wavelength Nd:YAlO(3) pulsed laser has been developed. Output energies of 3.71 and 1.39 J with efficiencies of 1.29% and 0.48% for the 1341.4-and 1079.5-nm wavelengths, respectively, have been achieved. To our knowledge, this is the best result among simultaneous dual-wavelength solid-state lasers to date. The temporal and spatial distributions of these beams obtained from a free-running dual-wavelength Nd:YAlO3 pulsed laser have also been measured. Experimental results show that the temporal and spatial overlap of the two beams is quite good for this type of laser.

The nondeletional types of Hb H disease in Guangxi.

Three primers were designed, one specific for alpha 1-globin DNA, a second for alpha 2-globin DNA, and a third that is common for both alpha 1- and alpha 2-globin DNA. These three primers can be applied for selective amplification of the two globin DNA fragments, which is useful for identification of nondeletional types of Hb H disease. Fifty-nine DNA samples of Hb H patients from Guangxi were studied by selective amplification, and 27 cases (45.8%) were confirmed as nondeletional types. Of these, 22 (81.5%) had the Hb Constant Spring (CS) mutation and one had the Hb Quong Sze (QS) mutation; both were identified by hybridization with synthesized oligonucleotide probes. Nondeletional Hb H disease in Guangxi seems to be more severe than the deletional types. The average hemoglobin level of the nondeletional Hb H/CS (--/alpha alpha) is 6.8 g/dl, which is lower than that of the deletional types (7.9 g/dl), while the levels of Hb H and Hb Bart's were much higher in the patients with Hb H/CS than in those with the deletional types.

Measurement of refractive indices and thermal refractive-index coefficients of LiNbO(3) crystal doped with 5 mol. % MgO.

The principal refractive indices and the thermal coefficients for a LiNbO(3) crystal doped with 5 mol. % MgO have been measured by a minimum-deviation method for the wavelengths of 0.53975, 0.6328, 1.0795, and 1.3414, microm in the temperature range 20-154.5 degrees C. The constants of modified Sellmeier equations are all given in the described temperature range. The measured results were used to calculate the type I critical phase-matching angles for 1.0795- and 1.3414-microm second-harmonic generation at room temperature and the noncritical phase-matching temperature for 1.0795-microm second-harmonic generation for LiNbO(3) crystal doped with 5 mol. % MgO. The values obtained agree well with the experimental results.

Detection of the Hb Quong Sze mutation in a Chinese family by selective amplification of the alpha 2-globin gene and restriction map analysis with Msp I.

The polymerase chain reaction technique combined with restriction map analysis with Msp I and hybridization with synthetic oligonucleotide probes has been used to identify Hb Quong Sze [alpha 125(H8)Leu----Pro] in a Chinese family in Guangxi (Quong Sze), P. R. China. Our data and those described in an earlier publication (1) indicate that the Hb Quong Sze carriers originate from the same province of the People's Republic of China, namely Guangxi.