To understand the distribution of ticks in the Wuwei Region,enrich tick species data,and provide a basis for the prevention of tick-borne diseases,tick were collected using flagging and tick-picking methods during the highest activity period from April to September in 2021 and 2022 in the mountainous areas of Wuwei City.The ticks were identified based on morpho-logical and molecular biological characteristics,and characteristic sequences were obtained.A systematic evolutionary tree was constructed using the neighbor-joining method in MEGA 11.0 software.In total,7 342 ticks collected in Wuwei,which be-longed to 5 species from 4 genera with in the Ixodidae family,which included Dermacentor nuttalli,Hyalomma asiaticum,Ixodes canisuga,Haemaphysalis longicornis and Haema-physalis danieli.Ticks of the same species clustered together into the same branch of an evolutionary tree.In the Wuwei Re-gion,five common tick species are found across various habi-tats,with each habitat featuring different distributions of tick species and populations.The Dermacentor nuttalli is the dom-inant tick species in this area.

OBJECTIVE: To detect the relative expression of IGLL1 (immunoglobulin lambda-like polypeptide 1) mRNA in bone marrow of children with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), and analyze its correlation with the clinical characteristics and prognosis of the patients, so as to clarify the clinical significance of IGLL1 in pediatric T-ALL patients. METHODS: A total of 56 pediatric T-ALL patients hospitalized in Children's Hospital of Soochow University from June 2012 to December 2017 and treated with CCLG-ALL 2008 regimen were selected. Transcriptome sequencing technology was used to detect the transcription level of IGLL1 gene in children with T-ALL. According to 25% of the IGLL1 transcription level (cutoff value:448), the enrolled children were divided into IGLL1 low expression group (17 cases) and IGLL1 high expression group (39 cases). Combined with clinical data, the correlation between the expression level of IGLL1 and prognosis of the patients was analyzed. RESULTS: The comparative analysis showed that the transcription level of IGLL1 was not correlated with the clinical characteristics of the patients, such as sex, age, bone marrow blast, white blood cell (WBC) count at initial diagnosis. The 5-year OS rate of patients with high IGLL1 expression was significantly higher than that of patients with low IGLL1 expression (76.9%±6.7% vs 47.1%±12.1%, P =0.018). Further comparison of relapse-free survival (RFS) rate between the two groups showed that the 5-year RFS rate of patients with high IGLL1 expression was higher than that of patients with low IGLL1 expression, but the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant (P =0.095). Multivariate COX analysis was conducted on common clinical prognostic factors (age, sex, WBC count at diagnosis, prednisone response on the 7th day, bone marrow response on the 15th day after treatment) and IGLL1 expression level, and the results showed that IGLL1 expression (P =0.012) and prednisone response (P =0.017) were independent risk factors for overall survival in pediatric T-ALL patients. CONCLUSION In pediatric T-ALL, the OS rate of children with high expression of IGLL1 gene was significantly higher than that of children with low expression of IGLL1 gene, and the expression level of IGLL1 gene was an independent factor affecting the survival of children with T-ALL, which suggests that IGLL1 is a marker of good clinical prognosis of children with T-ALL.
Child ; Humans ; Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols/therapeutic use* ; Clinical Relevance ; Disease-Free Survival ; Precursor T-Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma/genetics* ; Prednisone/therapeutic use* ; Prognosis ; Recurrence ; Immunoglobulin Light Chains, Surrogate/genetics*

Hypoxic preconditioning could improve the survival of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in ischemic or hypoxic environments, but its exact mechanism remains to be further explored. This study aims to determine the role of lysine crotonylation (Kcr) in regulating the survival and proliferation of peripheral blood mesenchymal stem cells (PBMSCs) in the hypoxic culture. PBMSCs were isolated and cultured from rat peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and their surface markers were identified by flow cytometry. PBMSCs were first subjected to hypoxic/ normoxic preconditioning: hypoxic (1% O

BACKGROUND: Thyroid dysfunction is associated with cardiovascular diseases. However, the role of thyroid function in lipid metabolism remains partly unknown. The present study aimed to investigate the causal association between thyroid function and serum lipid metabolism via a genetic analysis termed Mendelian randomization (MR). METHODS: The MR approach uses a genetic variant as the instrumental variable in epidemiological studies to mimic a randomized controlled trial. A two-sample MR was performed to assess the causal association, using summary statistics from the Atrial Fibrillation Genetics Consortium (n = 537,409) and the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium (n = 188,577). The clinical measures of thyroid function include thyrotropin (TSH), free triiodothyronine (FT3) and free thyroxine (FT4) levels, FT3:FT4 ratio and concentration of thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPOAb). The serum lipid metabolism traits include total cholesterol (TC) and triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels. The MR estimate and MR inverse variance-weighted method were used to assess the association between thyroid function and serum lipid metabolism. RESULTS: The results demonstrated that increased TSH levels were significantly associated with higher TC (β = 0.052, P = 0.002) and LDL (β = 0.041, P = 0.018) levels. In addition, the FT3:FT4 ratio was significantly associated with TC (β = 0.240, P = 0.033) and LDL (β = 0.025, P = 0.027) levels. However, no significant differences were observed between genetically predicted FT4 and TPOAb and serum lipids. CONCLUSION Taken together, the results of the present study suggest an association between thyroid function and serum lipid metabolism, highlighting the importance of the pituitary-thyroid-cardiac axis in dyslipidemia susceptibility.
Lipid Metabolism/genetics* ; Mendelian Randomization Analysis ; Thyroid Function Tests ; Thyroid Gland ; Thyrotropin ; Thyroxine ; Triiodothyronine

Objective: Several COVID-19 patients have overlapping comorbidities. The independent role of each component contributing to the risk of COVID-19 is unknown, and how some non-cardiometabolic comorbidities affect the risk of COVID-19 remains unclear. Methods: A retrospective follow-up design was adopted. A total of 1,160 laboratory-confirmed patients were enrolled from nine provinces in China. Data on comorbidities were obtained from the patients' medical records. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds ratio ( Results: Overall, 158 (13.6%) patients were diagnosed with severe illness and 32 (2.7%) had unfavorable outcomes. Hypertension (2.87, 1.30-6.32), type 2 diabetes (T2DM) (3.57, 2.32-5.49), cardiovascular disease (CVD) (3.78, 1.81-7.89), fatty liver disease (7.53, 1.96-28.96), hyperlipidemia (2.15, 1.26-3.67), other lung diseases (6.00, 3.01-11.96), and electrolyte imbalance (10.40, 3.00-26.10) were independently linked to increased odds of being severely ill. T2DM (6.07, 2.89-12.75), CVD (8.47, 6.03-11.89), and electrolyte imbalance (19.44, 11.47-32.96) were also strong predictors of unfavorable outcomes. Women with comorbidities were more likely to have severe disease on admission (5.46, 3.25-9.19), while men with comorbidities were more likely to have unfavorable treatment outcomes (6.58, 1.46-29.64) within two weeks. Conclusion Besides hypertension, diabetes, and CVD, fatty liver disease, hyperlipidemia, other lung diseases, and electrolyte imbalance were independent risk factors for COVID-19 severity and poor treatment outcome. Women with comorbidities were more likely to have severe disease, while men with comorbidities were more likely to have unfavorable treatment outcomes.
Adult ; Aged ; COVID-19/virology* ; China/epidemiology* ; Comorbidity ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Retrospective Studies ; Severity of Illness Index ; Treatment Outcome

BACKGROUND: The efficacy of entecavir (ETV) add-on peg-interferon therapy compared with ETV monotherapy in treatment-naïve hepatitis B virus (HBV) patients remains controversial. We investigated whether adding peg-interferon to ongoing ETV treatment leads to a better curative effect or not. METHODS: All patients have been recruited between August 2013 and January 2015 from the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center and Zhongshan Hospital (China). Eligible HBV patients (n = 144) were randomly divided (1:1) to receive either ETV monotherapy (n = 70) or peg-interferon add-on therapy from week 26 to 52 (n = 74). Patients were followed-up for at least 2 years. Indexes including hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) seroconversion rate, sustained virologic response, transient elastography value, and histological scores were evaluated every 3 months until the end of the study. The rate of patients with HBsAg loss was defined as the primary endpoint criteria. RESULTS: At week 26, no patient achieved HBsAg seroconversion in either group. At week 52, one patient in the monotherapy group was HBsAg-negative but there was none in the combination therapy group. The monotherapy group showed significantly better liver function recovery results than the combination therapy group. At week 78, one patient in the combination group had HBsAg seroconverted. At week 104, only three patients in the combination therapy group were HBsAg-negative compared with one patient in monotherapy. The mean alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase levels and transient elastography values decreased significantly compared with baseline. Both groups showed a favorable decrease in alpha-fetoprotein (monotherapy: 4.5 [2.8, 7.1] vs. 2.2 [1.8, 3.1] ng/mL, P < 0.001; combination therapy: 5.7 [3.0, 18.8] vs. 3.2 [2.0, 4.3] ng/mL, P < 0.001) and an improved result of liver biopsy examination scores. The combination group showed a better improvement in histology compared with the monotherapy group (mean transient elastography value 6.6 [4.9, 9.8] vs. 7.8 [5.4, 11.1] kPa, P = 0.028). But there was no significant difference in HBsAg conversion rate (1.8% [1/56] vs. 4.1% [3/73], P = 0.809) and HBeAg conversion rate (12.5% [7/56] vs. 11.0% [8/73], P = 0.787), as well as HBV-DNA, sustained virologic response (93.2% vs. 98.5%, P = 0.150) between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Both therapies supported liver function recovery and histology improvement. Combination therapy did not show better anti-viral efficacy in HBsAg or HBeAg seroconversion compared with monotherapy. However, combination therapy played a more positive role in reversing hepatic fibrosis compared with monotherapy. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02849132; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02849132.

Cyclophosphamide (CPA) is the first-line chemotherapy for many tumors, but its overdose will lead to hepatotoxicity. This study aims to investigate whether the combined administration of oxymatrine (OMT) with CPA will aggravate the hepatotoxicity induced by CPA and its engaged mechanism. The expression of hepatic Cyp2b10 mRNA and CYP2B10 protein was detected by qPCR and Western blot in mice at different times after OMT (100 mg·kg^-1) administration. Mice were given with different doses of OMT (intragastric administration, ig) every day. At the same time, CPA (200 mg·kg^-1) was also intraperitoneally injected into mice every other day. After 10 days, serum alanine/aspartate aminotransferase (ALT/AST) activity, the mortality of mice and hepatic mRNA expression of Cyp2b10 were detected. Furthermore, the correlation among ALT/AST activity, the mortality and Cyp2b10 mRNA expression was analyzed. All animals were received humane care according to the institutional animal care guidelines approved by the Experimental Animal Ethical Committee of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The results showed that OMT itself enhanced hepatic mRNA and protein expression of Cyp2b10 (P<0.05), and increased liver enzymatic activity of CYP2B10 in mice (P<0.05). In mice treated with CPA plus OMT, OMT obviously enhanced the mortality of mice induced by CPA (from 33.3% to 58.3%). The results of serum biochemical analysis and hepatic mRNA expression of Cyp2b10 showed that OMT further enhanced the increased serum ALT/AST activity and hepatic Cyp2b10 mRNA expression in mice (P<0.05). There was a good correlation between serum ALT/AST activity and mortality or hepatic Cyp2b10 mRNA expression. These results showed that OMT could enhance hepatic Cyp2b10 mRNA expression and increase liver CYP2B10 enzymatic activity, and then promoted the metabolism of CPA, and thus aggravated CPA-induced hepatotoxicity in mice.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the risk factors for cow's milk protein allergy (CMPA) among infants through a multicenter clinical study. METHODS: A total of 1 829 infants, aged 1-12 months, who attended the outpatient service of the pediatric department in six hospitals in Shenzhen, China from June 2016 to May 2017 were enrolled as subjects. A questionnaire survey was performed to screen out suspected cases of CMPA. Food avoidance and oral food challenge tests were used to make a confirmed diagnosis of CMPA CMPA. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the risk factors for CMPA. RESULTS: Among the 1 829 infants, 82 (4.48%) were diagnosed with CMPA. The multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that maternal food allergy (OR=4.91, 95%CI: 2.24-10.76, P<0.05), antibiotic exposure during pregnancy (OR=3.18, 95%CI: 1.32-7.65, P<0.05), and the introduction of complementary food at an age of <4 months (OR=3.55, 95%CI: 1.52-8.27, P<0.05) were risk factors for CMPA, while exclusive breastfeeding (OR=0.21, 95%CI: 0.08-0.58, P<0.05) and the introduction of complementary food at an age of >6 months (OR=0.38, 95%CI: 0.17-0.86, P<0.05) were protective factors. CONCLUSIONS The introduction of complementary food at an age of <4 months, maternal food allergy, and antibiotic exposure during pregnancy are risk factors for CMPA in infants.
Animals ; Cattle ; China ; Female ; Humans ; Infant ; Milk Hypersensitivity ; Milk Proteins ; Pregnancy ; Risk Factors ; Surveys and Questionnaires

Adult ; China ; Cognitive Dysfunction ; genetics ; Electric Power Supplies ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Occupational Exposure ; adverse effects ; Power Plants ; Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate ; genetics ; metabolism ; Receptors, Serotonin ; genetics ; metabolism ; Young Adult

Little information is available about the effects of exposure to pulsed microwaves on neuronal Ca2+ signaling under non-thermal conditions. In this study, rat pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells were exposed to pulsed microwaves for 6 min at a specific absorption rate (SAR) of 4 W/kg to assess possible real-time effects. During microwave exposure, free calcium dynamics in the cytosol, mitochondria, and nucleus of cells were monitored by time-lapse microfluorimetry using a genetically encoded calcium indicator (ratiometric-pericam, ratiometric-pericam-mt, and ratiometric-pericam-nu). We established a waveguide-based real-time microwave exposure system under accurately controlled environmental and dosimetric conditions and found no significant changes in the cytosolic, mitochondrial, or nuclear calcium levels in PC12 cells. These findings suggest that no dynamic changes occurred in [Ca2+]c, [Ca2+]m, or [Ca2+]n of PC12 cells at the non-thermal level.