This study was aimed at comparing performance differences among three metagenomic sequencing platforms,MGISEQ-2000,Illumina NextSeq 2000,and Ion GeneStudio S5 Plus,to optimize the sequencing process for trace samples.The three sequencing platforms were used to perform high-throughput sequencing on DNA standards and simulated samples.Through analysis of the quality of raw data and microbial detection capabilities,systematic differences among platforms were compared.The sequencing results were optimized for trace samples by incorporation of exogenous nucleic acids during the li-brary preparation process.In terms of data output per batch and base quality,MGISEQ-2000 surpassed the other two plat-forms.Illumina NextSeq 2000 had the lowest proportion of duplicate reads,whereas Ion GeneStudio S5 Plus had the highest proportion,and significant differences were observed across platforms(P＜0.001).In sequencing uniformity,MGISEQ-2000 and Illumina NextSeq 2000 were superior to Ion GeneStudio S5 Plus.MGISEQ-2000 provided a substantial advantage in microbial detection capability(P＜0.001),but the advantage diminished with decreasing bacterial fluid concentration.Ion GeneStudio S5 Plus had the shortest duration for single-batch sequencing.Moreo-ver,for trace samples with DNA content ≤0.05 ng,the experi-mental group(with added exogenous nucleic acids)achieved a higher number of reads than the control group(without exogenous nucleic acids),with a 11.09±8.03 fold increase.In conclu-sion,the different sequencing platforms each had advantages and disadvantages,thus allowing researchers to choose the appro-priate platform according to specific needs.Furthermore,the addition of exogenous nucleic acids improved the microorganism detection efficiency,and provided better support for subsequent diagnosis and evaluation of results.

Objective:To investigate the predictive value of Naples prognostic score (NPS) in assessing the overall survival of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) patients after receiving hepatectomy treatment.Methods:Clinicopathological characteristics and follow-up data of 164 ICC patients who underwent curative hepatectomy at Zhejiang Cancer Hospital from Jan 2010 to Aug 2022 were retrospectively collected. NPS was calculated basing on preoperative serum albumin concentration, total cholesterol concentration, the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio, and lymphocyte-monocyte ratio. The relationship between NPS and overall survival was analyzed, and the efficacy of NPS in predicting long-term survival was compared to TNM staging system and other independent risk factors.Results:Multivariate analysis identified the NPS [Score 1 versus 0: 1.864 (1.011-3.437), P=0.046; Score 2 versus 0: 3.013 (1.465-6.199), P=0.003] as an independent risk factor for overall survival. The area under curve (AUC) of the rece中iver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for predicting 5-year OS based on NPS is 0.75, which is higher than TNM staging (0.59) and other independent risk factors (CA19-9:0.71, lymph node metastasis: 0.66, tumor size: 0.62, microvascular invasion: 0.56). Conclusion:NPS as an independent predictor of overall survival for ICC patients, is more accurate than TNM staging system and other clinicopathological factors.

To address the challenge of unclear features and difficulties in pulmonary nodule CT image detection,an efficient attention feature pyramid network is proposed.The network firstly employs a feature pyramid of multi-scale feature fusion as the backbone network for effectively preserving both low-and high-level features,and uses the depthwise separable convolutional neural network to extract feature information.Then,the attention mechanism is integrated into the backbone network for assigning weights to salient feature information.Finally,the proposed algorithm is applied to Lung-PET-CT-Dx dataset and Luna16 dataset,and the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has higher precision,recall rate and mAP value than the existing comparative algorithms,substantiating its superiority in pulmonary nodule detection.

An intensive breast array sensor was designed based on three-dimensional electrical impedance tomography in this work.Firstly,an electrical impedance sensor for detection of breast cancer was developed.The sensor adopted the integrated design of excitation electrode array and ground electrode to achieve structural simplification.It realized electric field densification through conical matrix and double-layer circumferentially arranged electrode array and improved the detection accuracy of target object through taper optimization.Secondly,the imaging system was designed,and the sensor was optimized by numerical simulation.The simulation results showed that halving the number of electrodes did not affect imaging accuracy of the sensor,but could improve the imaging speed.Finally,the performance of the sensor was verified by experiment.The signal-to-noise ratio and channel consistency of the system were at a good level.The sensor was used to reconstruct three-dimensional image of the experimental model with relative volume of the detection field of 0.4%.The image correlation coefficient of the single target imaging was above 0.6 and the position of the double target object could be clearly identified,and thus the visual detection of breast cancer was realized.

Objective To investigate the epidemic features and pathogen spectrum distribution of diarrhea cases in Minhang District of Shanghai City so as to provide scientific evidence for developing prevention and control measures. Methods Surveillance on diarrhea was conducted in sentinel hospitals in Minghang District from 2018 to 2020. According to the quantity of outpatients in the monitoring hospital, the stool samples were collected by systematic sampling method according to the fixed interval proportion in the case queue which met the requirements of the monitored cases, and the pathogenic composition and epidemiological characteristics were analyzed. Results Among the 721 samples detected , 307(42.58%) were pathogen positive, The main positive bacteria was Vibrio parahaemolyticus, which accounted for 36.11%(39/108) among all positive bacteria.The main positive virus was norovirus GII, which accounted for 24.43%(75/307) among all positive virus. Positive cases were detected among all age groups. 81 positive cases (26.38%) were detected among 31-40 years old, with the highest detection rate. There was no difference in the positive detection rate between genders(χ²= 1.95, P = 0.16). The positive cases showed two peaks during the season of winter and spring. The positive rate of bacteria was highest in the third quarter and positive rate of viruses was highest in the first quarter. The mixed infection rate of bacteria and viruses was highest in the second quarter. Conclusions Diarrhea cases in Minhang District of Shanghai from 2018 to 2020 is caused by a variety of pathogens and related seasonality is obvious in Minghang District, Shanghai City in 2018-2020. It is necessary to take specific prevention based on various pathogens to reduce the incidence of diarrhea.

The assessment of adverse drug events is an important basis for clinical safety evaluation and post-marketing risk control of drugs,and its causality assessment is gaining increasing attention.The existing methods for assessing the causal relationship between drugs and the occurrence of adverse reactions can be broadly classified into three categories:global introspective methods,standardized methods,and probabilistic methods.At present,there is no systematic introduction of the operational details of the various methods in the domestic literature.This paper compares representative causality assessment methods in terms of definition and concept,methodological steps,industry evaluation and advantages and disadvantages,clarifies the basic process of determining the causality of adverse drug reactions,and discusses how to further improve the adverse drug reaction monitoring and evaluation system,with a view to providing a reference for drug development and pharmacovigilance work in China.

Objective To investigate the effect of percutaneous balloon mitral valvuloplasty under echocardiographic guidance for patients with moderate to severe mitral stenosis during pregnancy. Methods A retrospective observational study was conducted to include pregnant women who were diagnosed with moderate to severe mitral stenosis and underwent percutaneous balloon mitral valvuloplasty under echocardiographic guidance in Fuwai Hospital from August 2018 to June 2022, and their baseline characteristics, surgical outcomes, echocardiographic results, and follow-up results were analyzed. Results A total of 3 pregnant women aged 30-35 years, with gestational age of 19-26 weeks, and New York Heart Association (NYHA) function class Ⅲ were included. All the procedures were successfully performed. The mitral valve orifice area increased from 0.9 cm2 preoperatively to 2.1 cm2 postoperatively. The mean transvalvular pressure gradient decreased from 15.0 mm Hg preoperatively to 6.7 mm Hg postoperatively. No perioperative adverse events occurred. The follow-up time ranged from 3 to 48 months. All patients delivered uneventfully and returned to normal life, with maternal-fetal safety. Conclusion Percutaneous balloon mitral valvuloplasty under echocardiographic guidance is a feasible and effective procedure for the treatment of patients with moderate to severe mitral stenosis in pregnancy, with satisfactory maternal-fetal outcomes.

This study investigates whether compounds in Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge can bind to the Toll like receptor 4/myeloid differentiation protein 2 (TLR4/MD2) protein complex and exhibit anti-inflammatory activity. Virtual screening of reported chemical components of Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge against TLR4/MD2 was conducted in this study. The selected compound, neoprzewaquinone A (Neo A), was tested for its impact on the binding of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to receptors on the cell membrane, its affinity for the protein, its influence on the dimerization of TLR4 and MD2 in LPS-induced cells, and its effects on the phosphorylation of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) p65 protein and the secretion of inflammatory cytokines in cells. Results indicate that Neo A in Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge exhibited the highest virtual binding affinity with TLR4/MD2, with a value of -12.8 kcal·mol^-1. Neo A significantly inhibited the binding of LPS to receptors on the cell membrane (P < 0.01). Moreover, Neo A demonstrated affinity for rhTLR4/MD2, rhTLR4, and rhMD2, with K_D values of 267, 534, and 228 nmol·L^-1, respectively. Amino acid residues like TYR131 and PHE121 in TLR4/MD2 might play a role in the alkyl and π-alkyl hydrophobic interactions with Neo A. Neo A also significantly inhibited the dimerization of TLR4 and MD2 in LPS-mediated cells (P < 0.01) and markedly suppressed the phosphorylation of NF-κBp65 protein (P < 0.05). Furthermore, Neo A significantly or markedly inhibited the secretion of nitric oxide (NO), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β) in LPS-induced cells (P < 0.05, P < 0.01). In conclusion, Neo A exerts its anti-inflammatory effects by binding TLR4/MD2 then disrupting the binding of LPS to TLR4/MD2. It may serve as a TLR4/MD2 inhibitor with the potential to treat inflammation-related diseases targeting TLR4/MD2.

OBJECTIVE To study the effect of 60Co-γ irradiation on the sterilization effect and main components of Rubus chingii Hu. METHODS Irradiated Rubus chingii Hu by 0, 6, 10, 15, 30 kGy doses of 60Co-γ, used the microbial count method to determine the microbial level of Rubus chingii Hu before and after irradiation. Analyzed the components of Rubus chingii Hu by high resolution mass spectrometry, investigated the effects of irradiation on the quality of Rubus chingii Hu by comparing the components of Rubus chingii Hu samples before and after irradiation, analyzing the quantitative results of ellagic acid and kaempferol 3-O-yunxiangoside, and evaluating the similarity of fingerprints. RESULTS The results of microbial examination of Rubus chingii Hu after different doses of irradiation all met the requirements, cluster analysis and principal component analysis of 20 components showed no significant difference. And there was no significant difference in the contents of ellagic acid and kaempferol 3-O-glucoside before and after irradiation. The similarity of fingerprints before and after irradiation was between 0.995 and 1.000. CONCLUSION Irradiation can effectively control the microbial level in Rubus chingii Hu, and there is no significant effect on the chemical composition of Rubus chingii Hu, the results provide a basis for the application of irradiation in the sterilization process of Rubus chingii Hu.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a kind of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) with covalent closed-loop structure. They have attracted more and more attention because of their high stability, evolutionary conservatism, and tissue expression specificity. It has shown that circRNAs are involved in the development of a variety of diseases including malignant tumors recently. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a malignant tumor that occurs in the nasopharynx and has a unique ethnic and geographical distribution in South China and Southeast Asia. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection is closely related to the development of NPC. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are the mainstays of treatment for NPC. But tumor recurrence or distant metastasis is the leading cause of death in patients with NPC. Several studies have shown that circRNAs, as gene expression regulators, play an important role in NPC and affect the progression of NPC. This review mainly summarized the research status of abnormally expressed circRNAs in NPC and EBV-encoded circRNAs. We also discussed the possibility of circRNAs as a therapeutic target, diagnostic and prognostic marker for NPC.