Machine learning-based antibiotic resistance prediction models: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: The widespread use of antibiotics has led to a gradual adaptation of bacteria to these drugs, diminishing the effectiveness of treatments. OBJECTIVE: To comprehensively assess the research progress of antibiotic resistance prediction models based on machine learning (ML) algorithms, providing the latest quantitative analysis and methodological evaluation. METHODS: Relevant literature was systematically retrieved from databases, including PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Library, from inception up to December 2023. Studies meeting predefined criteria were selected for inclusion. The prediction model risk of bias assessment tool was employed for methodological quality assessment, and a random-effects model was utilised for meta-analysis. RESULTS: The systematic review included a total of 22 studies with a combined sample size of 43,628; 10 studies were ultimately included in the meta-analysis. Commonly used ML algorithms included random forest, decision trees and neural networks. Frequently utilised predictive variables encompassed demographics, drug use history and underlying diseases. The overall sensitivity was 0.57 (95% CI: 0.42-0.70; p< 0.001; I2= 99.7%), the specificity was 0.95 (95% CI: 0.79-0.99; p< 0.001; I2 = 99.9%), the positive likelihood ratio was 10.7 (95% CI: 2.9-39.5), the negative likelihood ratio was 0.46 (95% CI: 0.34-0.61), the diagnostic odds ratio was 23 (95% CI: 7-81) and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.78 (95% CI: 0.74-0.81; p< 0.001), indicating a good discriminative ability of ML models for antibiotic resistance. However, methodological assessment and funnel plots suggested a high risk of bias and publication bias in the included studies. CONCLUSION: This meta-analysis provides a current and comprehensive evaluation of ML models for predicting antibiotic resistance, emphasising their potential application in clinical practice. Nevertheless, stringent research design and reporting are warranted to enhance the quality and credibility of future studies. Future research should focus on methodological innovation and incorporate more high-quality studies to further advance this field.

Phenotype and function of MAIT cells in patients with alveolar echinococcosis.

Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells are a subpopulation of unconventional T cells widely involved in chronic liver diseases. However, the potential role and regulating factors of MAIT cells in alveolar echinococcosis (AE), a zoonotic parasitic disease by Echinococcus multilocularis (E. multilocularis) larvae chronically parasitizing liver organs, has not yet been studied. Blood samples (n=29) and liver specimens (n=10) from AE patients were enrolled. The frequency, phenotype, and function of MAIT cells in peripheral blood and liver tissues of AE patients were detected by flow cytometry. The morphology and fibrosis of liver tissue were examined by histopathology and immunohistochemistry. The correlation between peripheral MAIT cell frequency and serologic markers was assessed by collecting clinicopathologic characteristics of AE patients. And the effect of in vitro stimulation with E. multilocularis antigen (Emp) on MAIT cells. In this study, MAIT cells are decreased in peripheral blood and increased in the close-to-lesion liver tissues, especially in areas of fibrosis. Circulating MAIT exhibited activation and exhaustion phenotypes, and intrahepatic MAIT cells showed increased activation phenotypes with increased IFN-γ and IL-17A, and high expression of CXCR5 chemokine receptor. Furthermore, the frequency of circulating MAIT cells was correlated with the size of the lesions and liver function in patients with AE. After excision of the lesion site, circulating MAIT cells returned to normal levels, and the serum cytokines IL-8, IL-12, and IL-18, associated with MAIT cell activation and apoptosis, were altered. Our results demonstrate the status of MAIT cell distribution, functional phenotype, and migration in peripheral blood and tissues of AE patients, highlighting their potential as biomarkers and therapeutic targets.

Rapid discrimination of hepatic echinococcosis patients' serum using vibrational spectroscopy combined with support vector machines.

Echinococcosis is a severe zoonotic parasitic disease, and it is continuing to be a significant public health issue. The course of the disease is usually slow, and patients often remain asymptomatic for years. There is no standardized and widely accepted treatment, so early and accurate diagnosis is essential. Herein, this study utilized vibrational spectroscopic techniques, namely Raman and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, to quickly and accurately distinguish hepatic echinococcosis (HE) patients' serum from the healthy group. Serum samples were collected from HE patients as well as healthy control subjects, and then the Raman and FTIR spectra of the two groups were recorded. After a series of pre-processing, support vector machines (SVMs) were then used to establish the classification models for the two spectral data sets. The performance of each diagnostic model was evaluated using leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) and hold-out validation methods, respectively. For the distinction between HE and healthy groups, these two spectroscopic techniques had achieved satisfactory classification results, and the diagnostic capabilities of the Raman technique were comparable to that of the FTIR method. The results demonstrate that vibrational spectroscopy has great potential in the rapid and accurate detection of HE and is expected to make up for the shortcomings of the existing clinical diagnosis methods.

Roles of immune cells in the concurrence of Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato infection and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Immune cells are pivotal players in the immune responses against both parasitic infection and malignancies. Substantial evidence demonstrated that there may exist possible relationship between echinococcus granulus sensu lato (E. granulosus s.l.) infection and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development. Thus, this study aimed to observe crucial roles of immune cells in the formation of subcutaneous lesions after transplanting HepG2 cell lines with or without E. granulosus s.l. protoscoleces (PSCs). HepG2 cell lines were subcutaneously injected into nude mice in the control group. In the co-transplantation group, HepG2 cells were subcutaneously co-injected with high dosage of E. granulosus s.l. PSCs. From the 25th day of transplantation, volume of subcutaneous lesions was measured every four days, which were removed at the 37th day for further studies. Basic pathological and functional changes were observed. Moreover, expression of Ki67, Bcl-2, Caspase3, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), T cell markers (CD3, CD4, CD8), PD1/PD-L1, nature killer (NK) cell markers (CD16, CD56) were further detected by immunohistochemical staining and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis. Subcutaneous lesions were gradually increased in volume and there occurred pathologically heterogeneous tumor cells, which were more significant in the co-transplantation group. Compared to the control group, expression of proliferation markers Ki67 and Bcl-2 was at higher levels in the co-transplantation group. Reversely, apoptotic marker Caspase3 was highly detected in the control group, suggesting promoting effects of E. granulosus s.l. PSCs on HCC development. Interestingly, subcutaneous lesions of the co-transplantation group were more functional in synthesizing and storing glycogen. Collagen and α-SMA+ cells were also at higher levels in the co-transplantation group than those in the control group. Most importantly, co-transplantation of HepG2 cells with E. granulosus s.l. PSCs led to significant increase in the expression of T cell markers, PD1/PD-L1 and NK cells markers. E. granulosus s.l. may have promoting effects on HCC development, which was closely associated with the immune responses of T cells and NK cells.

Bioinformatics analysis and experimental verification of Notch signalling pathway-related miRNA-mRNA subnetwork in extracellular vesicles during Echinococcus granulosus encystation.

BACKGROUND: Encystation of the protoscoleces (PSCs) of Echinococcus granulosus is the main cause of secondary hydatid dissemination in the intermediate host. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) can transfer miRNAs into parasite cells to regulate mRNA expression. However, loading of developmental pathway-related miRNAs, such as those related to the Notch signalling pathway in EVs is unclear. Thus, we screened the miRNA-mRNA subnetwork involved in the Notch pathway during E. granulosus encystation in vitro and assessed changes in expression in the parasite and EVs. METHODS: mRNAs and miRNAs differentially expressed (DE) between PSCs and microcysts (MCs) were screened using high-throughput sequencing. DE mRNAs obtained from transcriptome analysis were intersected with mRNAs predicted to be targets of the conserved DE miRNAs of a small RNA library. DE miRNA functions were analysed using public databases, and a miRNA-mRNA subnetwork related to the Notch pathway was established. Notch pathway-related mRNA and miRNA expression of worms and EVs at different times was verified. RESULTS: In total, 1445 DE mRNAs between MCs and PSCs were screened after the intersection between 1586 DE mRNAs from the transcriptome and 9439 target mRNAs predicted using 39 DE miRNAs from the small RNA library. The DE mRNAs were clustered into 94 metabolic pathways, including the Notch pathway. Five DE miRNAs, including the most significantly expressed new DE miRNA, egr-new-mir0694-3p, corresponding to four target mRNAs (EgrG_000892700, EgrG_001029400, EgrG_001081400 and EgrG_000465800) were all enriched in the Notch pathway. The expression of the above mRNAs and miRNAs was consistent with the results of high-throughput sequencing, and the expression of each miRNA in EVs was verified. Annotated as ADAM17/TACE in the Notch pathway, EgrG_000892700 was down-regulated during PSC encystation. egr-miR-4989-3p and egr-miR-277a-3p expression in EVs after encystation was nearly five times that in EVs before encystation, which might regulate the expression of EgrG_000892700. CONCLUSIONS: Five miRNAs corresponding to four target mRNAs may be involved in regulating the Notch pathway during the PSC encystation. EVs may regulate the expression of EgrG_000892700 in PSCs because of continuous targeting of egr-miR-4989-3p and egr-miR-277a-3p and participate in the regulation the Notch pathway. The study might expand new ideas for blocking the secondary infection of E. granulosus PSCs via EVs miRNAs.

In vitro efficacy of Capparis spinosa extraction against larvae viability of Echinococcus granulosus sensu stricto.

Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a chronic zoonotic parasitic disease caused by infection with the larvae of the Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato (s.l.) cluster. Currently, new drugs are urgently required due to the poor therapeutic effect of the existing drugs albendazole and mebendazole. Capparis spinosa, a traditional medicinal plant, has potential therapeutic effects on various diseases based on extracts from its fruit and other parts. The results of this study demonstrated that the water-soluble and ethanolic extracts of C. spinosa fruit had in vitro killing effects on the larvae of E. granulosus sensu stricto (s.s.) and disrupted the ultrastructure of protoscoleces and metacestodes. In vitro cytotoxicity assays showed that the water-soluble and ethanolic extracts of C. spinosa fruit were not significantly toxic to primary mouse hepatocytes at an effective dose to CE. In conclusion, water-soluble and ethanolic extracts of C. spinosa fruit have great potential for the development of new drugs for the treatment of CE.

Netrin-1 promotes liver regeneration possibly by facilitating vagal nerve repair after partial hepatectomy in mice.

Hepatic regeneration after hepatectomy is a great concern in clinical practice. Recently, the neuronal guidance protein netrin-1 has been reported to enhance regeneration after nerve injury. The goal of this study was to preliminarily investigate whether netrin-1 stimulates vagus nerve regeneration to promote liver regeneration after partial hepatectomy in mice. The expression of netrin-1 in murine remnant livers after partial hepatectomy (PHx) was evaluated in initial studies. C57BL/6 mice that received exogenous netrin-1 after PHx were used to examine liver regeneration. PHx was performed in wild-type mice after adeno-associated virus injection (Ntn1 gene silencing) to detect the impact of endogenous netrin-1. After PHx and hepatic branch vagotomy (HV), the mice were injected with or without netrin-1 to evaluate the effects on hepatic regeneration and vagal nerve recovery. Significant reductions in netrin-1 at the transcript and protein levels in murine liver tissue after hepatectomy were observed. Subsequent studies of netrin-1 administration revealed the promotion of hepatocyte proliferation and specific growth factors contributing to liver repair and a decrease in hepatic-specific injury enzymes. Furthermore, the opposite results were observed in the netrin-1 knockdown group. HV delayed liver regeneration after PHx. However, this retardation was reversed by exogenous netrin-1 supplementation. In addition, the results of nerve growth and vagal nerve repair in the remnant liver suggested that netrin-1 promoted vagal nerve regeneration after hepatectomy. Netrin-1 accelerates liver regeneration after partial hepatectomy in mice, and the potential mechanism is related to the promotion of vagus nerve repair and regeneration.

Echinococcus granulosus protoscoleces promotes proliferation and invasion of hepatocellular carcinoma cells.

There may exist a connection between Echinococcus granulosus infection and cancer development. Here, it is aimed to investigate specific effects of E. granulosus protoscoleces (PSCs) on the proliferation and invasion capacities of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells in vitro and ex vitro. HepG2 cells were cultured with different quantities of E. granulosus PSCs in vitro. MTT analysis was used to evaluate effects of E. granulosus PSCs on the proliferation of HepG2 cells. Besides, scratch and transwell assays were respectively used for the detection of HepG2 cells migration and invasion capacities after co-culture with E. granulosus PSCs. Then, HepG2 cells were subcutaneously transplanted into nude mice with or without E. granulosus PSCs. From the 25th day of transplantation, the volume of subcutaneous lesions was measured every four days. At the 37th day, subcutaneous lesions were removed and their weight was evaluated. H&E staining was used for detecting basic pathological changes. HepG2 cells grew well without obvious morphological changes. Proliferation rate and migration capacity of HepG2 cells were higher in the co-culture group than the control group, which was closely associated with quantities of E. granulosus PSCs and co-culture time length. Moreover, HepG2 cells co-cultured with E. granulosus PSCs had stronger invasion ability than the control HepG2 cells. Importantly, there existed significant differences in the volume and weight of subcutaneous lesions after transplanting HepG2 cells with E. granulosus PSCs than the control group. HepG2 cells were also more pathologically heterogeneous in morphology after transplantation with E. granulosus PSCs. Thus, E. granulosus PSCs may promote proliferation and invasion of HCC cells.

Raman spectroscopic study of cervical precancerous lesions and cervical cancer.

Early detection of cervical lesions, accurate diagnosis of cervical lesions, and timely and effective therapy can effectively avoid the occurrence of cervical cancer or improve the survival rate of patients. In this paper, the spectra of tissue sections of cervical inflammation (n = 60), CIN (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia) I (n = 30), CIN II (n = 30), CIN III (n = 30), cervical squamous cell carcinoma (n = 30), and cervical adenocarcinoma (n = 30) were collected by a confocal Raman micro-spectrometer (LabRAM HR Evolution, Horiba France SAS, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France). The Raman spectra of six kinds of cervical tissues were analyzed, the dominant Raman peaks of different kinds of tissues were summarized, and the differences in chemical composition between the six tissue samples were compared. An independent sample t test (p ≤ 0.05) was used to analyze the difference of average relative intensity of Raman spectra of six types of cervical tissues. The difference of relative intensity of Raman spectra of six kinds of tissues can reflect the difference of biochemical components in six kinds of tissues and the characteristic of biochemical components in different kinds of tissues. The classification models of cervical inflammation, CIN I, CIN II, CIN III, cervical squamous cell carcinoma, and cervical adenocarcinoma were established by using a support vector machine (SVM) algorithm. Six types of cervical tissues were classified and identified with an overall diagnostic accuracy of 85.7%. This study laid a foundation for the application of Raman spectroscopy in the clinical diagnosis of cervical precancerous lesions and cervical cancer.

Combining derivative Raman with autofluorescence to improve the diagnosis performance of echinococcosis.

Echinococcosis is a zoonotic parasitic disease transmitted by animals and distributed all over the world. There is no standardized and widely accepted treatment method, and early and accurate diagnosis is crucial for the prevention and cure of echinococcosis. Here, we explored the feasibility of using derivative Raman in combination with autofluorescence (AF) to improve the diagnosis performance of echinococcosis. The spectra of serum samples from patients with echinococcosis, as well as healthy volunteers, were recorded at 633 nm excitation. The normalized mean Raman spectra showed that there is a decrease in the relative amounts of ß carotene and phenylalanine and an increase in the percentage of tryptophan, tyrosine, and glutamic acid contents in the serum of echinococcosis patients as compared to that of healthy subjects. Then, principal components analysis (PCA), combined with linear discriminant analysis (LDA), were adopted to distinguish echinococcosis patients from healthy volunteers. Based on the area under the ROC curve (AUC) value, the derivative Raman + AF spectral data set achieved the optimal results. The AUC value was improved by 0.08 for derivative Raman + AF (AUC = 0.98), compared to Raman alone. The results demonstrated that the fusion of derivative Raman and AF could effectively improve the performance of the diagnostic model, and this technique has great application potential in the clinical screening of echinococcosis.

In vitro and in vivo Effects of Artesunate on Echinococcus granulosus Protoscoleces and Metacestodes.

BACKGROUND: In this study, we aim to investigate the efficiency of artesunate (AS) on Echinococcus granulosus protoscoleces and metacestodes. METHODS: For the in vitro assay, the eosin dye exclusion test and transmission electron microscope (TEM) were utilized to evaluate the effects of AS against protoscoleces (PSCs) from Echinococcus granulosus. In addition, mortality, ultrastructure change, reactive oxygen species (ROS) content and DNA damage were measured in order to explore the anti-echinococcosis mechanism of AS. For the in vivo assay, CE-infected mice were divided into model group, albendazole (ABZ) group (200 mg/kg), low AS (AS-L) group (50 mg/kg), moderate AS (AS-M) group (100 mg/kg), and high AS (AS-H) group (200 mg/kg). Upon 6 weeks oral administration, wet weight of cysts and the ultrastructural changes of cystic wall were utilized to evaluate the effects of AS on metacestodes. In addition, the liver biochemical parameters, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), glutathione/glutathione oxidized (GSH/GSSG) ratio in serum, and H2O2, total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD) in cyst fluid were detected. RESULTS: Both in vivo and in vitro experiments showed that AS showed anti-parasitic effects on CE. The AS could elevate the ROS level in the PSCs, which then resulted in obvious DNA damages. AS could significantly improve the liver biochemical parameters in infected mice compared with the model group (P < 0.05). Compared with the model group, AS-M and AS-H decrease the TNF-α content (P < 0.05); AS-H group significantly decrease in the serum GSH/GSSG ratio (P < 0.05). The content of H2O2 in hydatid fluid treated by AS showed significant decrease compared with the model group (P < 0.01), while the T-SOD level showed significant elevation compared with model group (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: In this study, we confirmed that the effects of AS on Echinococcus granulosus protoscoleces and metacestodes may be related to the DNA damages induced by oxidative stress, which provided solid information for the research and development of drugs for cystic echinococcosis.

Avicularin Reduces the Expression of Mediators of Inflammation and Oxidative Stress in Bradykinin-Treated MG-63 Human Osteoblastic Osteosarcoma Cells.

BACKGROUND Avicularin is a plant-derived flavonoid used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat conditions that include ankle fracture. Bradykinin stimulated MG-63 human osteoblastic osteosarcoma cells has previously been studied in an in vitro model. This study aimed to investigate the effects of avicularin on bradykinin-treated MG-63 human osteoblastic osteosarcoma cells in vitro. MATERIAL AND METHODS MG-63 cells were treated with increasing concentrations of avicularin for 48 hours, followed by 1 µM of bradykinin for 24 h. The MTT assay was used to measure cell viability. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to measure the expression of inflammatory mediators, interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß), IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) mRNA and protein, respectively. The expression of oxidative stress factors, malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase were measured. Western blot and qRT-PCR were performed to determine p38, p65, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) protein levels and mRNA expression, respectively. RESULTS Avicularin had no cytotoxic effect on MG-63 cells. Avicularin significantly upregulated the expression levels IL-1ß, IL-6, and TNF-alpha in the bradykinin treated group in a dose-dependent manner. Avicularin reduced the level of MDA and the activity of SOD and catalase in the bradykinin treated MG-63 cells, reduced p-p38, p-p65, iNOS, and COX-2 expression, and decreased the p-p38/p38 ratio and the p-p65/p65 ratio in bradykinin treated MG-63 cells in a dose-dependent manner. CONCLUSIONS Avicularin reduced the expression of inflammatory cytokines and the levels of markers of oxidative stress in MG-63 human osteoblastic osteosarcoma cells in vitro.

Exploration research on the fusion of multimodal spectrum technology to improve performance of rapid diagnosis scheme for thyroid dysfunction.

The spectral fusion by Raman spectroscopy and Fourier infrared spectroscopy combined with pattern recognition algorithms is utilized to diagnose thyroid dysfunction serum, and finds the spectral segment with the highest sensitivity to further advance diagnosis speed. Compared with the single infrared spectroscopy or Raman spectroscopy, the proposal can improve the detection accuracy, and can obtain more spectral features, indicating greater differences between thyroid dysfunction and normal serum samples. For discriminating different samples, principal component analysis (PCA) was first used for feature extraction to reduce the dimension of high-dimension spectral data and spectral fusion. Then, support vector machine (SVM), back propagation neural network, extreme learning machine and learning vector quantization algorithms were employed to establish the discriminant diagnostic models. The accuracy of spectral fusion of the best analytical model PCA-SVM, single Raman spectral accuracy and single infrared spectral accuracy is 83.48%, 78.26% and 80%, respectively. The accuracy of spectral fusion is higher than the accuracy of single spectrum in five classifiers. And the diagnostic accuracy of spectral fusion in the range of 2000 to 2500 cm-1 is 81.74%, which greatly improves the sample measure speed and data analysis speed than analysis of full spectra. The results from our study demonstrate that the serum spectral fusion technique combined with multivariate statistical methods have great potential for the screening of thyroid dysfunction.

Application of Raman spectroscopy in the detection of hepatitis B virus infection.

OBJECTIVE: Detection of hepatitis B virus (HBV) using Raman spectroscopy. METHODS: Raman spectroscopy was used to examine the serum samples of 500 patients with HBV and 500 non-HBV persons. First, the adaptive iterative weighted penalty least squares method (airPLS) was used to deduct the fluorescence background in Raman spectra. Then, a principal component analysis (PCA) was used to extract the processed Raman spectra, and a support vector machine (SVM) was used for modeling and prediction. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm was selected to optimize the parameters of the SVM instead of a traditional grid search. Finally, 600 serum samples were detected by Raman spectroscopy, and the results wereverified using a double-blind method. RESULTS: In the Raman spectra, the non-HBV human Raman peaks at 509, 957, 1002, 1153, 1260, 1512, 1648 and 2305 cm-1 were different from those of patients with HBV. The reported accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the HBV serum model established using airPLS-PCA-PSO-SVM was 93.1%, 100% and 88%, respectively. The two groups were verified by a double-blind method. In the first group sensitivity was 87%, specificity was 92%, and the KAPPA value was 0.79; in the second group sensitivity was 80%, specificity was 79%, and the KAPPA value was 0.59. CONCLUSION: This preliminary study shows that serum Raman spectroscopy combined with the airPLS-PCA-PSO-SVM model can be used for hepatitis B virus detection.

Rapid and non-invasive screening of high renin hypertension using Raman spectroscopy and different classification algorithms.

This study presents a rapid and non-invasive method to screen high renin hypertension using serum Raman spectroscopy combined with different classification algorithms. The serum samples taken from 24 high renin hypertension patients and 22 non-high renin hypertension samples were measured in this experiment. Tentative assignments of the Raman peaks in the measured serum spectra suggested specific biomolecular changes between the groups. Principal component analysis (PCA) was first used for feature extraction and reduced the dimension of high-dimension spectral data. Then, support vector machine (SVM), linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and k-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithms were employed to establish the discriminant diagnostic models. The accuracies of 93.5%, 93.5% and 89.1% were obtained from PCA-SVM, PCA-LDA and PCA-KNN models, respectively. The results from our study demonstrate that the serum Raman spectroscopy technique combined with multivariate statistical methods have great potential for the screening of high renin hypertension. This technique could be used to develop a portable, rapid, and non-invasive device for screening high renin hypertension.

Detection of Echinococcus granulosus antigen by a quantum dot/porous silicon optical biosensor.

Highly sensitive labeled detection of Echinococcus granulosus using colloidal quantum dots (QDs) based on a porous silicon Bragg mirror sensor are demonstrated. Rabbit anti-p38 labeled CdSe/ZnS QDs was infiltrated in porous silicon pores immobilized Egp38 antigen. QD-antibodies are specifically bound to antigens linked covalently to the pore walls of PSi after the immune reaction. By the design of the transfer matrix method and the preparation of the electrochemical etching method, the fluorescence peak wavelength of the quantum dots is located in the forbidden band of the Bragg mirror. The fluorescence of QDs are enhanced by PSi Bragg mirror. Egp38 antigen detection limit of 300fg/mL is achievable. Our results exhibit that the biosensor combining PSi Bragg mirror and QDs can potentially be applied to the clinical detection of hydatid disease.

Parallel Detection of Refractive Index Changes in a Porous Silicon Microarray Based on Digital Images.

A new technique for the refractive index change with high-sensitivity measurements was proposed by the digital image of porous silicon (PSi) microarray utilization in this paper. Under the irradiation of a He-Ne laser, the surface images of the PSi array cells with the microcavity structure were obtained by the digital imaging equipment, whereas the refractive index change of each array cells was detected by calculating the average gray value of the image and the refractive index change measurement sensitivity was 10-4. This technique could be utilized in the label-free and parallel detection of refraction index changes induced by a biological reaction in the microarray or the chip.

Therapeutic effects of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 on diabetes-induced liver complications in a rat model.

It has been suggested that 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (vitamin D) plays a protective role against inflammation and insulin resistance (IR) in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The present study investigate the hypothesis that vitamin D may exert beneficial effects on the liver in a rat model of T2DM by regulating the expression of inflammation-related cytokines and ameliorating IR induced by inflammation. Normal control group rats were fed a basic diet (NC). Experimental rats received a high-fat diet for 8 weeks and were then injected with streptozotocin (STZ) to induce T2DM. Half of the T2DM model rats received vitamin D (0.03 µg/kg/day) for 8 weeks (vitamin D-treated group; VD; n=11), while the other (T2DM group; DM; n=10) and NC group received an equivalent quantity of peanut oil. Following sacrifice, fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and fasting insulin (FINS) were recorded and homeostasis model assessment of IR (HOMA-IR) was calculated. Liver histopathology was examined using hematoxylin and eosin staining. The levels of the inflammatory cytokines C-Jun N-terminal kinase, C-Jun, tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-1ß were measured using immunohistology, quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blot analyses. The results revealed that treatment with vitamin D markedly alleviated the pathological alterations of liver and reduced the expression of inflammatory cytokines at the protein and mRNA levels. Furthermore, decreased levels of FPG, HOMA-IR and increased FINS were detected. In conclusion, the results of the present study indicate that vitamin D has therapeutic effects on diabetes-induced liver complications in T2DM model rats, which may involve the modulation of the inflammatory response, attenuating the crosstalk' between inflammation and IR and ameliorating hyperglycemic state.

Lipid metabolism and inflammation modulated by Vitamin D in liver of diabetic rats.

BACKGROUND: In recent years, much evidence suggested that vitamin D plays an important role in decreasing the risk of type 2 diabetes. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether 1, 25 (OH) 2D3 can modulate inflammation and lipid metabolism in type 2 diabetic rat liver. METHODS: Type 2 diabetes was induced in SD rat with high-fat and high-sugar diets and multiple low-dose streptozotocin. The levels of serum calcium, phosphorus, glucose, TC, TG, AST, ALT and hepatic TG were determined. H & E staining were performed to assess the effects of vitamin D treatment on pathological changes in the liver tissues. Immunohistology, real-time PCR and Western blot were used to evaluate the expressions of NF-κ B, MCP-1, ICAM-1, TGF-ß1, PPAR-α and CPT-1. RESULTS: The administration of 1, 25 (OH) 2D3 reduced liver weight. Compared to DM rats, 1, 25 (OH) 2D3-treated DM rats had lower liver weight. Moreover, compared to healthy or 1, 25 (OH) 2D3-treated DM rats, DM rats had increased hepatic transcription factors (NF-κ B), monocyte chemoattractant protein -1 (MCP-1), intercellular adhesion molecule -1 (ICAM-1), transforming growth factor-ß1 (TGF-ß1) expressions, but had fewer hepatic PPAR- α and CPT-1 expressions. CONCLUSIONS: 1, 25 (OH) 2D3 significantly modulated the liver inflammation and lipid metabolism in diabetic rat models, which may be caused by its regulations on hepatic signaling NF-κ B pathway and PPAR- α.

[Research Achievements and Challenges for Echinococcosis Control].

Echinococcosis is an important communicable disease that has remarkable impacts on the global health. The disease is highly endemic in western China. In the last decades, achievements were obtained for the surgery and drug therapies for echinococcosis, as well as for studies on genomics, signaling pathways, and liver proliferation and injury of the intermediate hosts. Although steps have entered vaccine development, challenges remainin immunodiagnosis and drug treatment for intermediate hosts, and in vaccine development for definitive hosts. This paper gives an overview on the current achievements and challenges for echinococcosis control.