1.Prognostic significance of TRIM28 elevation in non-M3 acute myeloid leukemia
Siqi GONG ; Cong LI ; Mengmeng FAN ; Huiping WANG ; Wanqiu ZHANG ; Xue LIANG ; Qianshan TAO ; Qiang HONG ; Zhimin ZHAI
Acta Universitatis Medicinalis Anhui 2026;61(2):301-308
ObjectiveTo clarify the expression of TRIM28 in non-M3 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and its correlation with clinical indicators and prognosis, and to further explore the effect of TRIM28 expression levels on the proliferation and apoptosis of AML cells using small interfering RNA. MethodsThe GSE34577 dataset was analyzed using R software to compare TRIM28 expression between healthy controls and non-M3 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. Clinical samples from non-M3 AML patients were collected, with TRIM28 expression levels measured using real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR). The analysis focused on correlations between TRIM28 expression and various clinical indicators, treatment efficacy, and patient prognosis. Furthermore, small interfering RNA (siRNA) technology was employed to downregulate TRIM28 expression in human primary AML cells (HL60 cell line). The effects on cell proliferation and apoptosis were then assessed through CCK-8 assays and flow cytometry, respectively. ResultsThe results showed that TRIM28 was up-regulated in non-M3 AML of both online database GSE34577 and clinical samples (P<0.000 1), TRIM28 expression of new diagnosis group and relapsed refractory group was higher than iron deficiency anemia group (P<0.01), and there was no significance between different French-American-British classification systems subtype. TRIM28 expression was higher in non-M3 AML patients with a poor genetic prognosis stratified as moderate than in the good prognosis group, and TRIM28 expression was associated with NPM1 combined with the FLT3-ITD mutation, positively correlated with age, bone marrow blast, peripheral blood blast and white blood cell, negatively correlated with hemoglobin. In addition, interference TRIM28 greatly inhibited cell proliferation and promoted cell apoptosis. ConclusionThis study reveals that TRIM28 is highly expressed in non-M3 AML and associated with prognosis, and plays a key role in the proliferation and apoptosis of AML cells, suggesting that TRIM28 may serve as a novel therapeutic target for non-M3 AML.
2.Humanization modification of IL9-2G1 rabbit monoclonal antibody
Changhong ZHOU ; Zimeng XUE ; Jiajie TU ; Xinming WANG
Acta Universitatis Medicinalis Anhui 2026;61(6):969-977
ObjectiveTo humanize the variable region of the IL9-2G1 rabbit monoclonal antibody (IL9 2G1 mAb) and to evaluate its biological activity. MethodsThe humanized sequences of IL9-2G1 mAb were designed. The heavy chain variable region (VH) and light chain variable region (VL) of the antibody were humanized and cloned into vector backbones containing the constant region frameworks of human IgG1 and Ig Kappa subtypes. Protein purification was carried out using the Chinese hamster ovary cell (CHO) expression system. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to qualitatively analyze the antigen-binding activity of the antibodies. After screening the optimal humanized antibody candidate, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) was performed to detect molecular affinity. Western blot was used to examine the effects of the rIL-9 group and the rIL-9 + hIL-9 mAb group on the phosphorylation of Janus kinase 1/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (JAK1/STAT3), while ELISA was employed to assess the impact of the Th9 group and the Th9 + hIL-9 mAb group on interleukin-9 (IL-9) secretion. ResultsPurification and ELISA results showed that the heavy chain OH and light chain FL exhibited good compatibility and expression performance. SPR results indicated that the equilibrium dissociation constant (KD) of M501042-OHFL against the analyte M30903 was 1.33×10-7 M, which was superior to the parental 2G1 antibody. The Western blot results showed that the levels of phosphorylated JAK1 (p-JAK1) and phosphorylated STAT3 (p-STAT3) were significantly decreased in the rIL-9 + hIL-9 mAb group compared with the rIL-9 group (P<0.01). The ELISA results indicated that the secretion of IL-9 was significantly reduced in the Th9 + hIL-9 mAb group compared with the Th9 group (P<0.01). ConclusionHumanization modification is performed on the variable region of IL9-2G1 rabbit monoclonal antibody, and the humanized antibody hIL-9 mAb OHFL with high affinity and strong binding stability is successfully constructed, which provides an experimental basis for subsequent research.
3.Construction and genotypic identification of Il9 knockout mice
Zimeng XUE ; Hui XUE ; Weile CHEN ; Jiaqi QIU ; Mengjuan ZHU ; Jiajie TU
Acta Universitatis Medicinalis Anhui 2026;61(6):1069-1074
ObjectiveTo construct an interleukin-9 (Il9) gene knockout mouse model on a C57BL/6N background, establish a reliable genotyping method, and provide a standardized animal model for investigating Il9-related immune mechanisms and diseases. MethodsIl9 knockout mouse strain (C57BL/6N-Il9em1Cya) was generated using conventional gene knockout technology. The method for DNA extraction from mouse tails was optimized to ensure template quality. Two sets of specific primers (F1/R1 and F1/R2) were designed to amplify target fragments by PCR, and mouse genotypes were determined by agarose gel electrophoresis. Specifically, primer pair F1/R1 targeted the knockout sequence with an expected product of 465 bp, while F1/R2 targeted the wild-type sequence with an expected product of 703 bp. Subsequently, Western blot was performed to verify the knockout efficiency of Il9 in primary immune cells and key organs of the offspring mice, and flow cytometry was used to assess the effects of Il9 deficiency on the function of the immune system in major immune cell populations. ResultsIl9 knockout mice were successfully bred and genotyped. PCR identification showed that homozygous mice (-/-) exhibited only a 465 bp band, wild-type mice (+/+) displayed only a 703 bp band, and heterozygous mice (+/-) showed both bands simultaneously. Meanwhile, Western blot analysis revealed significantly decreased IL-9 expression in various organs of the offspring mice (P<0.001). Flow cytometric results demonstrated that Il9 deficiency exerted no obvious effects on the proportions of peripheral blood lymphocytes, splenic lymphocytes, and peritoneal macrophages. ConclusionAn Il9 gene knockout mouse model on a C57BL/6N background is successfully constructed. The established PCR genotyping system is highly efficient and accurate, which can effectively distinguish mice of different genotypes. This model provides a stable and reliable experimental basis for subsequent functional studies of Il9 and exploration of the mechanisms underlying Il9-related diseases.
4.Self-Supervised Multi-Organ Segmentation in Pediatric Abdominal CT Based on Vision Foundation Models
Qinghua ZHANG ; Ming LI ; Zhedian ZHOU ; Jian ZHENG ; Huadan XUE ; Qiuxia WANG ; Yu DU ; Zhen LI
Medical Journal of Peking Union Medical College Hospital 2026;17(4):954-962
To address the scarcity of annotated data for pediatric abdominal CT imaging and the insufficient generalization capability of existing models, we constructed a self-supervised pretraining architecture tailored for pediatric CT domain adaptation based on the visual foundation model DINOv3, and validated its performance in the task of pediatric abdominal multi-organ segmentation. We built a general-purpose radiological visual representation using the large-scale adult CT dataset CT-3M, and introduced a Gram-anchoring mechanism that employs a frozen adult pretrained model as a structural teacher to guide domain alignment of local topological structures on unlabeled pediatric CT data. Combined with a multi-scale feature aggregation strategy and a lightweight Primus decoder, downstream segmentation tasks were evaluated on a public pediatric CT dataset. Based on case-wise paired results, we compared the mean Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and mean intersection over union (IoU) between our model and the baseline nnU-Net using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, and computed the relative performance improvements. A total of 867 abdominal CT imaging cases were collected, constituting a pretraining dataset comprising 367 588 two-dimensional CT slices. On the public Pediatric-CT-SEG dataset (359 cases), our model achieved a mean DSC of (71.38±1.08)% and a mean IoU of (63.73±1.01)%, representing improvements of 3.22% and 3.59% over the baseline nnU-Net, respectively, with statistically significant differences ( The self-supervised pretraining framework proposed in this study effectively alleviates the domain shift between adult and pediatric abdominal CT images, significantly enhances segmentation accuracy for pediatric abdominal multi-organs-particularly small organs and structures with complex boundaries-and provides a reliable technical solution for intelligent pediatric imaging analysis in scenarios with limited annotated data.
5.Construction and validation of a targeted IL-13Rα CAR macrophage based on OX40L intracellular domain
Hui XUE ; Zimeng XUE ; Weile CHEN ; Jiaqi QIU ; Mengjuan ZHU ; Yizhao CHEN ; Jiajie TU
Acta Universitatis Medicinalis Anhui 2026;61(7):1170-1175
ObjectiveTo construct a chimeric antigen receptor macrophage (CAR-M) targeting interleukin-13 receptor α (IL-13Rα) and intracellular domain integration, which can double activate the signal adaptor protein OX40L of macrophages and T cells. MethodsThe CAR molecule targeting IL-13Rα (IL-13Rα-OX40L-CAR) with OX40L as the intracellular signal domain was designed and synthesized, and it was cloned into the adenovirus expression vector. After THP-1 cells were induced to differentiate into macrophages (THP-1-M) by phorbol ester, the cells were infected with recombinant adenovirus to construct THP-1 macrophages stably expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) labeled anti-IL-13RαCAR. The expression efficiency of CAR molecules was monitored by flow cytometry. The empty vector group was used as the negative control, the CD3ζ group was used as the positive control, and the CD3ζ-OX40L group was used as the experimental group. The phagocytic function of macrophages in each group on IL-13Rα high expression glioma cells (U251) and low expression glioma cells (T98G) was detected by in vitro co-culture experiments. ResultsCAR adenovirus was efficiently transfected into THP-1-M to obtain anti-IL-13RαCAR-M. After co-cultured with glioma cells with different expression levels of IL-13Rα, the results of flow cytometry showed that there was no significant difference among the three groups for T98G cells with low expression of IL-13Rα. After co-culture with U251 cells with high expression of IL-13Rα, the CD3ζ group showed enhanced phagocytosis compared with the empty vector group (P<0.05). Compared with the CD3ζ group, the phagocytosis ability of the CD3ζ-OX40L group was further enhanced (P<0.05). ConclusionAnti-IL13Rα- OX40L-CAR-M is successfully constructed by constructing IL-13Rα-OX40L-CAR adenovirus and transfecting PMA-induced differentiated THP-1-M. It can engulf glioma cells with high expression of IL-13Rα by specific targeting, and shows activation of intracellular domain superior to traditional CD3ζ.
6.Construction and genotyping of B cell conditional knockout Spi1 mice
Ruilin GE ; Huiru ZHANG ; Zimeng XUE ; Jiajie TU
Acta Universitatis Medicinalis Anhui 2026;61(7):1223-1230
ObjectiveTo construct B cell conditional knockout Spi1 gene mice and analysis their genotypes to provide an animal model basis for disease pathogenesis and drug target research. MethodsMb1-cre transgenic mice were crossed with Spi1flox/flox mice. PCR combined with agarose gel electrophoresis was performed for genotyping, and Mb1-cre×Spi1flox/flox homozygous knockout mice were screened out. Flow cytometry was used to detect the expression of PU.1 protein in various immune cell subsets to verify the specificity of gene knockout. ResultsPCR identification results showed that when using flox primers for detection, only a 220 bp band was amplified, indicating a genotype of Spi1flox/flox in the mice. When using Mb1-Cre primers for detection, a 383 bp band was amplified, indicating a genotype of Mb1-cre×Spi1flox/flox in the mice; Flow cytometry results showed that compared to Spi1flox/flox mice, Mb1-cre×Spi1flox/flox mice exhibited significantly reduced PU.1 expression levels in bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and spleen-derived B cells. Moreover, PU.1 exhibited normal expression in other immune cells, such as CD4+ T cells and macrophages. ConclusionBy utilizing the Cre/LoxP system and CRISPR/Cas9 technology, this study successfully generates mice with B cell-specific conditional knockout of the Spi1 gene, providing a reliable animal model for in-depth exploration of the specific role of PU.1 in B cell-related diseases.
7.Guidelines for the perioperative diagnosis and treatment of oncogene-driven non-small cell lung cancer (2026)
Weidong WANG ; Yongbin LIN ; Hui TIAN ; Gaofeng LI ; Shun XU ; Yongde LIAO ; Haitao MA ; Junfeng LIU ; Chundong GU ; Xiaolong YAN ; Shumin WANG ; Daqiang SUN ; Jianyang LIU ; Tao XUE ; Shaohua MA ; Zhigang LI ; Shuanghu YUAN ; Gen LIN ; Ling CAI ; Jianping ZHOU ; Wenzhao ZHONG ; Naixin LIANG ; Yi HAN ; Junfeng WANG ; Weidong ZHANG ; Xin WANG ; Lianjuan CHEN ; Lunxu LIU ; Xiuyi ZHI ; Lanjun ZHANG
Chinese Journal of Clinical Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery 2026;33(09):1337-1353
Lung cancer constitutes the most prevalent and lethal malignant tumor in China. Approximately 85% of lung cancer diagnoses correspond to the non-small cell histological subtype [non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)]. Despite surgery being the mainstay for early-stage disease, postoperative recurrence remains high and adjuvant chemotherapy offers limited benefit. In recent years, targeted therapy has demonstrated substantial advantages in driver mutation-positive NSCLC. To this end, the Lung Cancer Medical Education Committee of the Chinese Medical Education Association developed guidelines based on a systematic review of evidence through November 2025, using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) approach and a modified Delphi method. Focusing on epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), and addressing ROS proto-oncogene 1 (ROS1), B-Raf proto-oncogene serine/threonine kinase (BRAF) V600E mutation, and mesenchymal-epithelial transition factor (MET) exon 14 (METex14) skipping, the guideline covers molecular testing, neoadjuvant/adjuvant therapy, perioperative strategies, minimal residual disease monitoring, and postoperative surveillance. It defines testing requirements, specifies stage-directed and subtype-specific treatments, and standardizes minimal residual disease monitoring. These recommendations emphasize precision and feasibility to improve survival and quality of life.
8.An excerpt of BCLC strategy for prognosis prediction and treatment recommendations: The 2026 update
Jihua XUE ; Qingfen YE ; Yinying LU
Journal of Clinical Hepatology 2026;42(8):1826-1830
The Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) system is a major international framework for hepatocellular carcinoma prognostic assessment and treatment decision-making. While preserving the overall architecture of the 2022 edition, the 2026 update integrates the latest research evidence in locoregional therapy, systemic therapy, and liver transplantation, emphasizes a direct correspondence between staging and evidence-based first-line treatment options, and highlights the refined assessment of liver function, individualized decision-making, and pathway optimization in complex scenarios. This article gives an excerpt of the core concepts, key definitions, and key points regarding first-line treatment options for different stages in the 2026 update, with brief comments on the clinical practice in China.
9.The mechanism of PTGES3/HSP90 in the medial prefrontal cortex regulating obesity-related cognitive impairment
Jinyan Wang ; Jia Hu ; Rui Hu ; Chunxia Huang ; Qi Xue
Acta Universitatis Medicinalis Anhui 2025;60(4):596-603
Objective :
To investigate the mechanism of prostaglandin E synthase 3(PTGES3)/heat shock protein 90(HSP90) in the medial prefrontal cortex regulating obesity-related cognitive dysfunction.
Methods:
This study consisted of clinical trials and animal experiments. In part one, obese patients scheduled for bariatric surgery, and healthy adults matching gender and age were recruited at the same time to reach 10 cases in each group. The cognitive level was assessed with trail making test part A(TMT-A) and victoria stroop tests(VST). Four-dimensional data-independent acquisition(4D-DIA) was used to screen the proteome changes in peripheral blood. In part two, forty SPF healthy male C57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into four groups: normal diet group(ND group), high fat diet induced obesity group(DIO group), DIO supplemented with the control virus group(DIO+Scramble group) and DIO supplemented with the interfering virus group(DIO+shPTGES3 group). The Morris water maze test was conducted to evaluate the cognitive behavior changes of the four groups of mice. The immunofluorescence staining was performed to detect the expression of PTGES3 and HSP90 in the medial prefrontal cortex and the activation of ionized calcium binding adapter molecule 1(IBA1)-labeled microglia.
Results:
In the case-control study, the cognitive function of obese patients significantly decreased, and the expression of PTGES3 in peripheral blood significantly increased, while the level of PTGES3 was negatively correlated with cognitive function. In animal experiments, compared with ND group, DIO group had significantly prolonged time reaching the target platform, otherwise, the residence time in the target quadrant was shortened in the Morris water maze test. Simultaneously, there were significant increase in the expression of PTGES3 and HSP90, and the activation of IBA1 in the medial prefrontal cortex. Compared with DIO+Scramble group, mice in the DIO+shPTGES3 group spent less time reaching the target platform, and stayed longer in the target quadrant. The expression and co-localization levels of PTGES3 and HSP90 in medial prefrontal cortex significantly decreased. The activation level of microglia cells was also attenuated by PTGES3 interference.
Conclusion
Obesity-related cognitive dysfunction may be attributed to PTGES3/HSP90 in the medial prefrontal cortex by mediating neural inflammation.
10.Construction, breeding, and gene identification of TREM2 knockout mice
Rong Huang ; Xinxin Zhao ; Hui Xue ; Mengjuan Zhu ; Jiajie Tu ; Xinming Wang
Acta Universitatis Medicinalis Anhui 2025;60(6):977-983
Objective :
To construct triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2(TREM2) gene knockout(TREM2-/-) mice using CRISPR/Cas9 technology, to breed TREM2-/- mice and to analyze the genotype of TREM2-/- mice.
Methods :
CRISPR/Cas9 technology was used to selectively knock out exon 2-3 regions of TREM2 gene to construct a TREM2-/- mouse model, and the genetic background of all mice was C57BL/6J. Polymerase chain reaction(PCR) was used to identify the genotype of mice. Quantitative real-time PCR(qPCR) and Western blot were used to detect the expression level of TREM2 in major tissues of mice, and the authenticity and scientific nature of PCR identification results were verified from mRNA level and protein level. According to the sgRNA sequence, the possible off-target sites were predicted on the CCTop website, and the tail DNA of mice was extracted and amplified by PCR and then Sanger sequencing was performed to detect whether there was off-target effect in TREM2-/- mice.
Results :
TREM2-/- mice were successfully constructed by CRISPR/Cas9 technology, and the mice were genotyped. The results of agarose gel electrophoresis showed that the mouse genotype with only 415 bp band amplified was wild type(WT), the mouse genotype of the 449 bp band amplified only was TREM2-/-, and the mouse genotypes amplified with 415 bp and 449 bp double bands were heterozygous. qPCR results showed that compared with WT mice, the mRNA expression of TREM2 in heart and brain tissues of TREM2-/- mice was down-regulated(P-/- mice was reduced(P-/- mice.
Conclusion
TREM2-/- mice are successfully constructed and bred, a reliable genotype identification method is established, the genetic stability of the mouse model is verified, which will provide an important genetic animal model for the study of TREM2 gene function.


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