Objective To investigate the function and regulatory mechanisms of VCAN gene and protein in metastatic prostate cancer.Methods The data of whole genomic expression profiles got from the prostate cancer metastasis were obtained from gene expression omnibus (GEO) database,a set of bioinformatics tools,such as BRB-Array Tools,protparam,SMART,SignalP 4.0,TMHMM,NetPhos2.0,PredictProtein,SWISS-MODEL,GO,KEGG and STRING softwares were used to accomplish data-mining and bioinformatics analysis.Results There were 73 co-expressed differentially genes in prostate cancer metastasis,21 up-regulated and 52 down-regulated.Bioinformatics analysis indicated that VCAN gene encoded 3396 amino acids,VCAN was also contained one Immunoglobulin domain,two hyaluronan-binding domain,one epidermal growth factor-like domain,one calcium-binding EGF-like domain,one C-type lectin domain and one domain abundant in complement control proteins,and a furthermore analysis suggested that VCAN played essential roles in such important biological function including cell adhesion,hyaluronic acid binding,calcium-binding,glycosaminoglycan binding,extracellular matrix and cell adhesion molecules.Conclusions Bioinformatics analysis had a high efficiency in analyzing microarray data and revealing internal biology information.VCAN may play an important role in the prostate cancer metastasis,Thus,VCAN might be a novel biomarker for the diagnosis of prostate cancer metastasis or a new target for its treatment.

Objective To detect the expression level of Taurine up?regulated gene 1( TUG1) in the re?nal cell carcinoma and paired paracancerous normal tissues,then explore the relationships between the expression level of TUG1 and clinical characteristics.Methods RNA was Extacted from the resected renal cell carcinoma tissues and paired paracancerous normal tissues of 46 patients respectively,by reverse transcription to get cDNA, the expression level of the TUG1 was detected by RT?qPCR, the relationship between the expression level of TUG1 and the clinicopathological characteristics was analyzed by statistically software. Results The expression of TUG1 in renal cell carcinoma was obviously lower than that in paired paracancerous normal tissues(0.533±0. 027 vs. 1.000±0.298,t=-3.350,P<0.01).The△CT value of Tug1 in 46 cases of renal cell carcinoma after log?arithmic transformation,the minimum value was -5.535,maximum was 3.085,average value was -0.908,with the average of -0.908 as a dividing line,46 cases of renal cell carcinoma with 25 cases (54.34%) were down regulated the expression.The expression level of TUG1 of patients with renal carcinoma have no significant corre?lation with age,sex,type of renal cell carcinoma,TNM staging and UICC/AJCC staging(P>0.05).Conclusion The expression of TUG1 in renal cell carcinoma tissues are down?regulated,which also suggest that it may be re?lated to the tumorigenesis and development of renal cell carcinoma.

Objective Detecting of spermatozoal total RNAs by laboratory on chip gel electrophoresis so that it could provide better total RNAs for the sequent experiments, and spur the development of spermatozoal molecular biology. Methods Sperms of healthy adults were collected and then total RNAs were extracted by RNeasy mini kit(QIAGEN), detection and quality control were performed by loboratory on chip gel electrophoresis system. Meantime, the control RNAs were extracted from lymphocytes. Results It was found that there were a plenty of genes expressed in healthy sperms. Electrophoretic graphs showed that the total RNAs of spermatozoal had 2 bands which went ahead a little comparing to the normal somatic cells. The former peak appeared keenness, and the latter was broad and showed like a reversed U. The ratio of them was largely more than 2, no extra peaks were found in electrophoretic graph. Conclusion A simple,intuitionistic method to detect and control the quality of the healthy adults' spermatozoal total RNAs had been successfully constructed by using laboratory on chip gel electrophorosis.

Objective To review the diagnosis and treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of renal pelvis. Methods The clinical data from October 1991 to May 2009 of eight cases of squamous cell carcinoma of renal pelvis were reviewed and analyzed retrospectively. The symptoms of the patients were hematuria (eight cases), pain (seven cases) and abdominal mass (one case). All patients underwent B-ultrasound and IVU examination and four cases underwent CT scan. Three cases were diagnosed as having a tumor before surgery. Five cases were diagnosed as renal calculus, two of the five cases were diagnosed by intraoperative frozen section. Radical nephroureterectomy were performed in four cases, nephrectomy in three cases and palliative resection in one case. Results Histological classification revealed that six cases were moderately differentiated, one case was well differentiated and one case was poorly differentiated. Two cases had stage pT1/pT2 and six cases had stage pT3/pT4. 2 cases had regional lymph nodes metastasis. Seven cases were followed-up. All patients died of tumor recurrence or metastasis. The median tumor specific survive time was six months (range from two months to 42 months). Conclusions Squamous cell carcinoma of renal pelvis is often occurs concurrently with urolithiasis which could lead to difficulty in diagnose before operation. As the most of the patients were diagnosed with advanced stage disease, squamous cell carcinoma of renal pelvis tended to early recurrence and metastasis and the prognosis was very poor.

Objective:To analyze the results of surgical treatment in patients with obstructed total anomalous pulmonary venous connection.Methods:Inclusion criteria: Patients with obstructed total anomalous pulmonary venous connection, who underwent surgical treatment in our hospital between December 2012 to January 2018. Exclusion criteria: (1)With complicated malformations, such as single ventricle and visceral inversion; (2)The maximum flow velocity of pulmonary vein was less than 1.2 m/s; (3)Had not underwent surgery. 57 patients[33 males and 24 females, age: (3.2±1.7) months, weight: (5.0±0.9) kg] were enrolled. There were four anatomical subtypes: supracardiac type(n=30), cardiac type(n=16), infracardiac type(n=5), and mixed type(n=6). Patients were followed up after operation.Results:During the follow-up of(52±21) months, 8 cases(14.0%, 8/57) died postoperatively. Postoperative pulmonary vein stenosis was present in 7 patients(12.3%, 7/57). The mortality of patients with postoperative pulmonary vein stenosis(57.1%, 4/7) was significantly higher than that of patients without postoperative pulmonary vein stenosis(8.0%, 4/50).Conclusion:The results of surgical treatment in patients with obstructed total anomalous pulmonary venous connection were encouraging, however, recurrent pulmonary venous stenosis still should be taken care.

Objective:To explore the predictive value of low-dose biphasic (inspiratory and expiratory) CT air trapping sign and semi-quantitative score in predicting abnormal blood gas parameters and progression to severe disease in COVID-19 patients.Methods:Patients with non-severe COVID-19 who were diagnosed by nucleic acid testing and hospitalized in designated hospitals in Wuxi City from January 23 to February 29, 2020 were prospectively and consecutively recruited. All patients received low-dose biphasic CT examination on admission and repeated CT examination at regular intervals during the course. On the inspiratory phase admission of the bipolar CT, the scope of the lesion was evaluated by semi-quantitative score, and the air trapping sign on bipolar CT was assessed. The differences of semi-quantitative score, the presence of the air trapping sign and other clinical factors were compared between the patients with abnormal and the normal blood gas index, as well as between the cases progressed to severe disease and cases without disease progression using the independent sample t-test or χ 2 test. The area under the curve (AUC) of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and the comprehensive discriminant improvement index (IDI) were used to evaluate the predictive effectiveness of the semi-quantitative scores, air trapping sign, and combination of two factors in differentiating cases with abnormal and normal blood gas indexes, as well as in differentiating cases with and without disease progression to severe COVID-19 cases. Results:In total 51 non-severe COVID-19 cases were included, with 16 cases showed air trapping sign during the first biphasic CT examination on admission. During the course of the disease, there were 13 patients with abnormal blood gas index, and 9 cases displaying air trapping sign (9/13). All 7 cases with progression to severe cases showed air trapping sign (7/7). Patients with advanced age, air trapping sign and higher semi-quantitative score were found more likely to have abnormal blood gas index ( t=3.10, χ 2=9.38, t=3.34, P<0.05); patients with advanced age, underlying diseases, air trapping sign and higher semi-quantitative score were more likely to develop into severe disease ( t=2.68, χ 2=6.65, χ 2=4.25, t=4.33, P<0.05). The AUC of semi-quantitative score, air trapping sign and combination of two factors in distinguishing abnormal blood gas index from normal blood gas index was 0.803, 0.754 and 0.794 respectively. The AUC of semi-quantitative score, air trapping sign and combination of two factors in distinguishing cases with progression to severe cases from non-progression was 0.881, 0.898 and 0.932, respectively. Air trapping sign combined with semi-quantitative score significantly improved the prediction effectiveness of disease progression, compared with semi-quantitative score or air trapping sign (IDI=0.271, 0.117). Conclusion:Air trapping sign and semi-quantitative score might be used as effective indicators to predict the progression of COVID-19 cases, and the combination of these two factors might be more helpful to predict the disease progression.

Objective:To analyze the risk factors for postoperative pulmonary venous obstruction after correction of total anomalous pulmonary venous connection(TAPVC).Methods:We retrospectively reviewed all patients undergoing operative repair of TAPVC in our institution from December 2013 to January 2018. Patients with functionally univentricular circulations or atrial isomerism were excluded. Patients were divided into two groups according to whether there was pulmonary vein obstruction. The clinical variables of the two groups were compared. Variables for the multivariable analysis were chosen if there was statistical significance on univariable analysis.Results:145 patients were included, 91(63%) males, aged 4(2, 8)months and weight 5.5(4.5, 7.5)kg. Mean follow-up interval was(51±23) months. Postoperative obstruction developed in 27 patients(18.6%). The differences of anatomic type[supracardiac 18(67%) vs.59(50%), cardiac 4(15%) vs. 50(42%), infracardiac 3(11%) vs. 1(1%), mixed 2(7%) vs. 8(7%), P=0.003], preoperative obstruction[yes 19(70%) vs. 37(31%), no 8(30%) vs. 81(69%), P<0.001], associated cardiac lesions[yes 13(48%) vs. 27(23%), no 14(52%) vs. 91(77%), P=0.008] and bypass time[109(89, 129)min vs. 88(70, 110)min, P=0.002] between two groups were statistical significant. A multivariable model showed preoperative obstruction( P<0.001) and bypass time( P=0.009) were associated with postoperative obstruction. Conclusion:The incidence of pulmonary vein obstruction after correction of TAPVC was still high. If there was preoperative obstruction, or the bypass time was too long during operation, the surveillance of pulmonary vein obstruction should be strengthened after operation.

Owing to incurable castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) ultimately developing after treating with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), it is vital to devise new therapeutic strategies to treat CRPC. Treatments that target programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) have been approved for human cancers with clinical benefit. However, many patients, especially prostate cancer, fail to respond to anti-PD-1/PD-L1 treatment, so it is an urgent need to seek a support strategy for improving the traditional PD-1/PD-L1 targeting immunotherapy. In the present study, analyzing the data from our prostate cancer tissue microarray, we found that PD-L1 expression was positively correlated with the expression of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein L (HnRNP L). Hence, we further investigated the potential role of HnRNP L on the PD-L1 expression, the sensitivity of cancer cells to T-cell killing and the synergistic effect with anti-PD-1 therapy in CRPC. Indeed, HnRNP L knockdown effectively decreased PD-L1 expression and recovered the sensitivity of cancer cells to T-cell killing in vitro and in vivo, on the contrary, HnRNP L overexpression led to the opposite effect in CRPC cells. In addition, consistent with the previous study, we revealed that ferroptosis played a critical role in T-cell-induced cancer cell death, and HnRNP L promoted the cancer immune escape partly through targeting YY1/PD-L1 axis and inhibiting ferroptosis in CRPC cells. Furthermore, HnRNP L knockdown enhanced antitumor immunity by recruiting infiltrating CD8⁺ T cells and synergized with anti-PD-1 therapy in CRPC tumors. This study provided biological evidence that HnRNP L knockdown might be a novel therapeutic agent in PD-L1/PD-1 blockade strategy that enhanced anti-tumor immune response in CRPC.

Objectives: To propose a novel clinical classification system of gallbladder cancer, and to investigate the differences of clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis based on patients who underwent radical resection with different types of gallbladder cancer. Methods: The clinical data of 1 059 patients with gallbladder cancer underwent radical resection in 12 institutions in China from January 2013 to December 2017 were retrospectively collected and analyzed.There were 389 males and 670 females, aged (62.0±10.5)years(range:22-88 years).According to the location of tumor and the mode of invasion,the tumors were divided into peritoneal type, hepatic type, hepatic hilum type and mixed type, the surgical procedures were divided into regional radical resection and extended radical resection.The correlation between different types and T stage, N stage, vascular invasion, neural invasion, median survival time and surgical procedures were analyzed.Rates were compared by χ² test, survival analysis was carried by Kaplan-Meier and Log-rank test. Results: Regional radical resection was performed in 940 cases,including 81 cases in T1 stage,859 cases in T2-T4 stage,119 cases underwent extended radical resection;R0 resection was achieved in 990 cases(93.5%).The overall median survival time was 28 months.There were 81 patients in Tis-T1 stage and 978 patients in T2-T4 stage.The classification of gallbladder cancer in patients with T2-T4 stage: 345 cases(35.3%)of peritoneal type, 331 cases(33.8%) of hepatic type, 122 cases(12.5%) of hepatic hilum type and 180 cases(18.4%) of mixed type.T stage(χ²=288.60,P<0.01),N stage(χ²=68.10, P<0.01), vascular invasion(χ²=128.70, P<0.01)and neural invasion(χ²=54.30, P<0.01)were significantly correlated with the classification.The median survival time of peritoneal type,hepatic type,hepatic hilum type and mixed type was 48 months,21 months,16 months and 11 months,respectively(χ²=80.60,P<0.01).There was no significant difference in median survival time between regional radical resection and extended radical resection in the peritoneal type,hepatic type,hepatic hilum type and mixed type(all P>0.05). Conclusion With application of new clinical classification, different types of gallbladder cancer are proved to be correlated with TNM stage, malignant biological behavior and prognosis, which will facilitate us in preoperative evaluation,surgical planning and prognosis evaluation.