In recent years, the emergence of single-port laparoscopic technology promoted the development of the technology of laparoscopy, but deficiencies like equipment conflict or lack of triangulation severely hampered the clinical application of this technology. The appearance of single-port laparoscopic flexible instruments makes up for those deficiencies to a great extent. The element is to add a wrist joint to the tip of the instrument to form triangulation and reduce equipment conflict. But this technique is still in an early stage of development. The purpose of this article is to summarize the characteristics and problems of existing flexible single-port laparoscopic instruments, and to provide information for the further improvement, finally the future development was expected.
Equipment Design ; Humans ; Laparoscopy ; instrumentation

Liver transplantation is the only way to treat end-stage liver disease. In order to overcome the shortage of donor, marginal donors have been used widely, which bring about a series of problems. Machine perfusion can stimulate the circulation in vivo and is beneficial for the protection of liver. It could also improve the graft function and reduce postoperative complications, which makes it a hot spot in recent years. The aim of this study is to summarize the current status and prospects of application of machine perfusion on clinical liver transplantation.
Humans ; Liver ; Liver Transplantation ; Perfusion ; instrumentation ; methods ; Tissue Donors

Objective To investigate the role of preoperative peripheral blood neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR),platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR),prognostic nutritional index (PNI) in the prognosis of patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after radical operation.Methods This is a retrospective study,involving 426 surgically resected hepatitis B related hepatocellular carcinoma cases in a single center from 2003 to 2012.Results Kaplan-Meier analysis showed patients in NLR ≤ 1.62 group achieve higher rate of recurrence-free and overall survival than that in the NLR ＞ 1.62 group,the difference was statistically significant (P ＜ 0.005);Also PNI ＞ 49.42 group showed higher rate of overall survival significantly than PNI≤49.42 group (P ＜ 0.005).The results of Cox regression multivariate analysis further suggested that both NLR ＞ 1.62 (HR 1.74,P =0.007) and PNI ≤49.42 (HR 0.70,P =0.021) were independent risk factors for overall survival,NLR ＞ 1.62 (HR 1.45,P =0.03) was also an independent risk factor for recurrence-free survival.Conclusion The preoperative NLR and PNI may be independent risk factors for prognosis of patients with HBV-related HCC after radical operation.

Predicting protein-coding genes still remains a significant challenge. Although a variety of computational programs that use commonly machine learning methods have emerged, the accuracy of predictions remains a low level when implementing in large genomic sequences. Moreover, computational gene finding in newly sequenced genomes is especially a difficult task due to the absence of a training set of abundant validated genes. Here we present a new gene-finding program, SCGPred,to improve the accuracy of prediction by combining multiple sources of evidence.SCGPred can perform both supervised method in previously well-studied genomes and unsupervised one in novel genomes. By testing with datasets composed of large DNA sequences from human and a novel genome of Ustilago maydi, SCGPred gains a significant improvement in comparison to the popular ab initio gene predictors. We also demonstrate that SCGPred can significantly improve prediction in novel genomes by combining several foreign gene finders with similarity alignments, which is superior to other unsupervised methods. Therefore, SCGPred can serve as an alternative gene-finding tool for newly sequenced eukaryotic genomes. The program is freely available at http://bio.scu.edu.cn/SCGPred/.

Predicting protein-coding genes still remains a significant challenge. Although a variety of computational programs that use commonly machine learning methods have emerged, the accuracy of predictions remains a low level when implementing in large genomic sequences. Moreover, computational gene finding in newly sequenced genomes is especially a difficult task due to the absence of a training set of abundant validated genes. Here we present a new gene-finding program, SCGPred, to improve the accuracy of prediction by combining multiple sources of evidence. SCGPred can perform both supervised method in previously well-studied genomes and unsupervised one in novel genomes. By testing with datasets composed of large DNA sequences from human and a novel genome of Ustilago maydi, SCG-Pred gains a significant improvement in comparison to the popular ab initio gene predictors. We also demonstrate that SCGPred can significantly improve prediction in novel genomes by combining several foreign gene finders with similarity alignments, which is superior to other unsupervised methods. Therefore, SCG-Pred can serve as an alternative gene-finding tool for newly sequenced eukaryotic genomes. The program is freely available at http://bio.scu.edu.cn/SCGPred/.
Algorithms ; Chromosome Mapping ; methods ; Computational Biology ; methods ; Exons ; genetics ; Genes, Fungal ; genetics ; Genome, Fungal ; Genome, Human ; Humans ; Reproducibility of Results ; Software ; Ustilago ; genetics

This study shows the case of a patient with peroneus brevis tendon rupture in ankle fracture. The patient com-plained of swelling, pain and activity limitation in her right ankle caused by sprain. She was diagnosed with ankle fracture, supina-tion-adduction (Lauge-Hansen typing) by medical history, physical examination and imaging. The peroneus brevis tendon was not-ed complete ruptured when suturing the incision after ORIF, which was then repaired by "8" shaped suture. Based on literature re-view, the injury mechanism of the case may be because of overload inversion force toward to lateral inferior from the fracture of fib-ula on the peroneus brevis tendon. Additional attention should be paid to patients who suffered from an supination-adduction ankle fracture for whether peroneus brevis tendon tears before and during surgery.

Liver transplantation is the only way to treat end-stage liver disease. In order to overcome the shortage of donor, marginal donors have been used widely, which bring about a series of problems. Machine perfusion can stimulate the circulation in vivo and is beneficial for the protection of liver. It could also improve the graft function and reduce postoperative complications, which makes it a hot spot in recent years. The aim of this study is to summarize the current status and prospects of application of machine perfusion on clinical liver transplantation.

In recent years, the emergence of single-port laparoscopic technology promoted the development of the technology of laparoscopy, but deficiencies like equipment conflict or lack of triangulation severely hampered the clinical application of this technology. The appearance of single-port laparoscopic flexible instruments makes up for those deficiencies to a great extent. The element is to add a wrist joint to the tip of the instrument to form triangulation and reduce equipment conflict. But this technique is stil in an early stage of development. The purpose of this article is to summarize the characteristics and problems of existing flexible single-port laparoscopic instruments, and to provide information for the further improvement, finaly the future development was expected.

Objective:To investigate the protective role of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling pathway in the process that vasonatrin peptide (VNP) reduces hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats.Methods:Twenty SD rats, weighting 200-250 g, were randomly divided into four groups and each group has five rats. The four groups were sham operation group (S group), ischemia-reperfusion group (I/R group), VNP group (V group) and PD98059+ VNP group (P+ V group). In the rat model of hepatic warm ischemia and reperfusion, the hepatic artery and portal vein of the left lobe and middle lobe of the liver were clamped with arterial clamp for 45 min followed by reperfusion for 120 min. In the V group, VNP (50 μg/kg) was injected 10 minutes before ischemia. In the P+ V group, PD98059 (2 mg/kg) was injected 20 min before VNP injection followed by VNP administration and I/R treatment. The serum levels of alanine amino transaminase (ALT), aspartate amino transferase (AST), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and the superoxide dismutase (SOD) in liver tissue homogenate and malondialdehyde (MDA) were measured. The histopathology of liver tissue was observed. The contents of p-ERK1/2 were detected by Western blot.Results:Compared with S group, in I/R group and P+ V group the serum levels of ALT [(489.65±11.22), (333.05±24.77) vs. (33.78±4.88) U/L], AST [(651.43±14.99), (503.18±21.48) vs. (154.84±12.32) U/L], TNF-α [(12.83±1.09), (9.64±0.57) vs. (2.11±0.11) ng/L], IL-1β [(7.19±0.62), (5.12±0.22) vs. (1.10±0.49) ng/L], MDA [(8.00±0.88), (5.60±1.01) vs. (2.76±1.29) μmol/mg] increased, while SOD [(54.89±10.60), (68.85±8.33) vs. (126.10±15.63) nmol/mg]decreased (all P<0.05). The histopathology of liver tissue revealed that liver structure damaged more seriously in I/R group and P+ V group. Western blot analysis showed that p-ERK1/2 decreased significantly in I/R group and P+ V group. Compared with I/R group, ALT, AST, MDA, TNF-α and IL-1β decreased significantly and SOD increased significantly in V group (all P<0.05). The histopathology of liver tissue revealed that liver structure was damaged slightly, and p-ERK1/2 increased significantly in V group compared with I/R group ( P<0.05). Conclusion:VNP can significantly reduce hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury through activation of p-ERK1/2 signaling pathway and inhibition of hepatocyte inflammatory response.

Objective To investigate the relationship between Toxoplasma gondii (T.gondii) infection and metabolic syndrome (MS).Methods A total of 20 577 patients who received serum test of anti-T.gondii IgG antibody in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey ( NHANES) of the United States from 2009 to 2014 were collected to analyze the clinical features of anti-T.gondii IgG antibody positive patients , and to compare metabolic related indicators in the antibody IgG positive and negative groups .The independent sample t-test, chi-square test, and logistic regression analysis were used to explore the risk factors of MS . Results A total of 2 746 participants were positive for the T.gondii antibody (13.34%), with a higher prevalence of male (14.44%vs 12.27%, χ2 ＝15.99, P＜0.01).Meanwhile, the prevalence of T.gondii increased with age and body mass index (BMI) (χ2 ＝979.98 and 50.85,respectively, both P＜0.01).Among the 2 191 patients with MS, 449 (20.49%) patients were positive for T.gondii.While 2 297 (12.49%) patients were anti-T.gondii positive in 18 386 non-MS patients.The difference was statistically significant (χ2 ＝78.504, P＜0.01).Age (t＝-37.37), BMI (t＝-4.28), glycosylated hemoglobin (t＝-11.81), fasting blood glucose (t＝-9.38), triacylglycerol (t＝-6.32), cholesterol (t＝-7.16), serum uric acid (t＝-5.25) and serum creatinine (t＝-7.69) in the seropositive group were all higher than those in the seronegative group (all P＜0.01).After adjusting for age and gender , the prevalence of T.gondii was an independent risk factor for MS (odds ratio [OR]＝1.147,P＝0.023).Conclusions BMI, blood lipids, blood uric acid and blood glucose are significantly increased in patients with T.gondii infection.T.gondii infection is an independent risk factor for MS.