Objective To understand the basic characteristics of Rickettsia bacteria carried by parasitic ticks on the surface of free-range goats in the mountainous areas of Luodian County, Guizhou Province. Methods Ticks were collected from the free-range goats raised in the mountainous areas of Luodian County, Guizhou Province, China. DNA was extracted from individual ticks to prepare pooled DNA samples for full-length 16S rRNA sequencing. Quality-controlled sequences were annotated and classified using the Kraken2 database. The best-quality sequence for each species was selected as the representative sequence, and the consistency of each obtained representative sequence with Rickettsia sequences was assessed using the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) on the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) website to evaluate the identity of the obtained representative sequence with the Rickettsia sequence. Based on the results of the genetic consistency analysis, the representative sequence with the highest consistency with registered Rickettsia genes on NCBI and other sequences of the same Rickettsia species were selected, then, using the Orientia within the family Rickettsiaceae as the outgroup to construct the phylogenetic tree by MEGA 7.0 software. Results　A total of 66 ticks were collected, of which 63 were Haemaphysalis longicornis and 3 were Rhipicephalus microplus. A total of 499 representative sequences were obtained in this study. BLAST analysis revealed that 21 representative sequences had more than 85% gene identity with 16S rRNA genes of Rickettsia in the NCBI nucleotide database. Among them, 9 sequences were more than 89% gene identity to Rickettsia (KU758903 and KY433580) isolated in China, with OTU47 showing the highest consistency at 95.76% with KU758903. Six sequences were more than 90% identity to the genes of Rickettsia (LC388776 and MT434769) isolated in China and Japan; three sequences were more than 89% identity to the genes of Rickettsia symbionts (KY617772) isolated in Henan Province, China; two sequences had more than 85% genetic identity with Rickettsia japonica (MF496167 and MF496155) isolated in Shandong Province, China; one sequence had more 85% genetic identity with Rickettsia vini isolated in Belgium. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that Rickettsia (OTU47) identified in this study belongs to the same branch as an unidentified Rickettsia species isolated in China (GenBank accession number: KU758903) and is closely related to Rickettsia longicornis isolated in Yunnan, China (GenBank accession number: KY433580).Conclusions The ticks parasitizing free-range goats in Luodian County, Guizhou, carry mostly unidentified Rickettsia species, and their pathogenicity and public health significance need to be further studied.

Objective:To summarize the clinical features, treatments and prognoses of aggressive natural killer cell leukemia (ANKL) in children.Methods:Clinical data and follow-up results were retrospectively reviewed for one hospitalized case of ANKL in June 2019.Through a literature search, the relevant items were retrieved from the databases of China National Knowledge Infrastructure, WanFang and PubMed using the Chinese and English keywords of "aggressive natural killer cell leukemia" and "children" up to December 2021.Results:This 8-year-old girl was diagnosed with ANKL by flow cytometric immunophenotype and immunohistochemical stain.Fever was the initial manifestation accompanied by sallow complexion, fatigue, enlargement of liver, spleen and lymph node and hematopenia of three lines.Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) was performed after chemotherapy.As of April 2022, the child stayed in a disease-free survival state after follow-ups for over 2 years.The literature search finally yielded 7 eligible Chinese and 10 English reports with a total of 17 pediatric ANKLs.In this group, there were fever (n=15), rash (n=1), perineal mass (n=1) and diarrhea, vomiting and other digestive tract symptoms (n=1). Six cases were misdiagnosed during an early stage of disease.4 cases received chemotherapy alone, 3 cases received chemotherapy regimen for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, 1 child died and one death occurred after received chemotherapy regimen of "cisplatin + vincristine + doxorubicin + ifosfamide". Allo-HSCT was performed in 5 patients after remission with chemotherapy and one child died from multiple organ failure at 9 months after allo-HSCT.Nine cases gave up treatment.Conclusions:ANKL has a rapid disease progression, diverse clinical manifestations, easy misdiagnosis and poor prognosis.For suspected ANKL cases, clinicians perform multiple bone perforations at multiple sites and immunophenotype by flow cytometry as soon as possible to confirm the diagnosis.Currently allo-HSCT offers a long-term survival of ANKL patients.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the Expression and correlation of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGF) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. METHOD: In this study, expression levels of COX-2, VEGF were examined in 58 patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma and 38 patients with inflammation in nasopharyngeal mucosa by immunohistochemistry method. RESULT: The expression of COX-2, VEGF were higher in nasopharyngeal carcinoma than those in nasopharyngeal mucosa (P < 0.05), and they had some correlation with the invasion and lymphatic metastasis and with the clinical stage of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (P < 0.05). The expression of COX-2 was positively correlated with that of VEGF (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION The coexpression of COX-2 and VEGF may play animportant role in the carcinogenesis and development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and they may prom (see text) lymph node metastasis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
Carcinoma ; Cyclooxygenase 2 ; metabolism ; Humans ; Immunohistochemistry ; Lymphatic Metastasis ; Mucous Membrane ; metabolism ; Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma ; Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; Nasopharyngitis ; metabolism ; Neoplasm Proteins ; metabolism ; Receptors, Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor ; metabolism