As the continuation of the left ventricle,the left atrium and left ventricle interact and play an important role in the function of the whole heart.At present,there are many techniques to evaluate the atrial structure and function,but the left atrial structure is complex and the myocardium is thin,which brings some challenges to the relevant evaluation.This paper introduces the parameters,precautions and relevant clinical applications in the process of left atrial evaluation from the aspects of myocardial strain and delayed enhancement.

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy and feasibility of coronary artery calcium score ( CACS) on virtual non-contrast scan ( VNC) images obtained from coronary artery CT angiography ( CCTA) scan with dual －layer spectral detector CT (SDCT) ． Methods : The data of 197 patients who underwent CCTA scan in hospital were analyzed retrospectively，and 88 patients with CACS ＞0 were further analyzed． Linear regression analysis of CACS and coronary artery calcium volume ( CACV) of true non-contrast (TNC) images and VNC images ( CACS-TNC， CACS-VNC，CACV-TNC，CACV-VNC) was performed to obtain linear regression equation and correction coefficients λ 1AVG and λ2AVG ．CACS-VNC and CACV-VNC were corrected by the corresponding regression equation and recorded as CCACS-VNC and CCACV-VNC，respectively．Spearman correlation coefficient was used for correlation analysis and Bland-Altman plot was used for consistency test．Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the difference between the two groups. Results : For the total coronary artery，there was a strong correlation between CACS- TNC and CACS-VNC (rs = 0. 952，P ＜0. 001 ，λ 1AVG = 2. 19 ) ，CACV-TNC and CACV-VNC ( rs = 0. 954，P < 0. 001，λ2AVG = 1. 93) ．The results of Mann-Whitney U test showed that there was no significant difference between CACS-TNC and CCACS-VNC or between CACV-TNC and CCACV-VNC，and the Bland-Altman plot showed good consistency between CACS-TNC and CCACS-VNC ，CACV-TNC and CCACV-VNC． Conclusion VNC images based on SDCT can accurately measure CACS and be used for cardiovascular risk classification，which is expected to replace TNC scan and reduce the radiation dose of patients.

Objective To observe the value of quantitative CT(QCT)for predicting the efficacy of medical thoracoscopic giant emphysematous bullae(GEB)volume reduction.Methods Data of chest QCT and pulmonary function tests before and 6 months after medical thoracoscopic volume reduction in 26 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD)patients complicated with GEB who underwent medical thoracoscopic GEB volume reduction were retrospectively analyzed.According to the improvement rate of lung function(forced expiratory volume in one second[FEV1])6 months after treatment compared with that before treatment,the patients were divided into significant improvement group(FEV1 improvement rate≥15％,n=20)and non-significant improvement group(FEV1 improvement rate＜15％,n=6).QCT parameters before treatment were compared between groups,and the correlations of QCT parameters being significantly different between groups with FEV1 improvement 6 months after treatment were analyzed.Then receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curves were drawn to evaluate the efficacy of the above parameters for predicting the curative effect of medical thoracoscopic volume reduction of GEB.Results Significant differences of preoperative target lung lobe volume,total lung volume and bullae volume were found between groups(all P＜0.05).Preoperative target lung lobe volume,total lung volume,target lobar bullae volume and total lung bullae volume were positively correlated with FEV1 improvement(r/rs=0.600,0.470,0.699,0.523,all P＜0.05),with the area under the curve(AUC)for predicting FEV1 improvement of 0.817,0.817,0.892 and 0.833(all P＜0.05),respectively.Conclusion QCT could effectively predict the efficacy of medical thoracoscopic GEB volume reduction.

Objective:To analyze the clinical manifestations, gene mutation characteristics and treatment effects of patients with GATOR1 complex-related epilepsy, and to explore the diagnosis and treatment of this disease.Methods:The medical history, electroencephalogram, brain imaging, genetic test results, treatment and follow-up data of patients with GATOR1 complex-related epilepsy who attended the Children′s Hospital Affiliated to Capital Institute of Pediatrics, Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital, and Shanghai Deji Hospital from May 2017 to July 2022 were retrospectively analyzed.Results:A total of 16 patients with GATOR1 complex-related epilepsy were collected, including 7 males and 9 females. The age of onset of epilepsy was from 2 months to 14 years. Ten cases had focal seizures only, 2 cases had generalized seizures only, and 4 cases had coexistence of focal seizures and generalized seizures, of which generalized seizures included generalized tonic-clonic seizure, spastic seizure, and myoclonic seizure. Among the 16 patients, 2 had infantile spasms, 3 had familial focal epilepsy with variable focus, and 1 had sleep related hyperkinetic epilepsy. Electroencephalogram intervals suggested multiple brain areas discharge or diffuse discharge. A total of 13 DEPDC5 gene mutation sites, 1 NPRL2 gene mutation site, and 2 NPRL3 gene mutation sites were found; 4 sites of DEPDC5 gene were reported sites, the rest were unreported; all mutations had pathogenic significance; 8 cases had nonsense mutation, 1 case had large fragment deletion, 4 cases had frameshift mutation, 1 case had integer mutation, 2 cases had splicing mutation; 13 cases′ mutation was inherited from parents, 2 cases had new mutation, and 1 case had unverified mutation. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed 5 of the 16 patients were normal, and 11 had abnormal cerebral cortex structure, manifested as bottom-of-sulcus focal cortical dysplasia (FCD), abnormal formation of sulci and (or) gyri with or without ill-defined gray-white matter and malformation of cortical dysplasia of the bilateral brain. Seven patients underwent stereotactic electroencephalogram (SEEG) monitoring, and the SEEG showed low-amplitude fast rhythm at the beginning in 6 patients, of whom 5 cases started from the frontal lobe, and 1 case started from the parietal lobe. Eight patients were only treated with drugs, 1 with single-drug therapy and the rest with multi-drug combination therapy. Eight patients underwent surgery. Among them, 5 patients with DEPDC5 gene mutation underwent epileptogenic cortex excising after SEEG monitoring, and postoperative pathological examinations showed FCDⅡ, FCDⅢ or non-specific changes; 1 patient was waiting for surgery. One patient with NPRL3 gene mutation underwent epileptogenic foci resection and postoperative pathological examinations showed FCDⅡa; the other patient with NPRL3 gene mutation underwent radiofrequency thermocoagulation after SEEG monitoring. Follow-up showed that 3 patients were seizure-free with drug treatment, and 4 patients had fewer seizures after drug treatment. Six cases underwent epileptic foci resection. Five of them were assisted by SEEG to locate the epileptic foci before surgery and were seizure-free after the operation, but the range of surgical resection was wider than the abnormal range shown by MRI; whereas 1 case who was not assisted by SEEG showed no improvement. There was still 1 case who underwent SEEG-guided radiofrequency thermocoagulation and had no improvement after operation. Conclusions:GATOR1 complex-related epilepsy mostly manifests as focal seizures. SEEG shows that seizures originate from the frontal lobe more often, and cortical developmental abnormalities are often found. DEPDC5 gene mutations are the most common ones, mostly inherited from parents, with high incomplete penetrance rate. Therefore, genetic testing is recommended for non-acquired brain structural abnormalities. For those who are refractory to drugs, a radical cure can be obtained by resection of the epileptogenic foci after preoperative evaluation.

Infantile spasm (IS) is a common epileptic encephalopathy in infancy, characterized by typical epileptic spasm, developmental delay and hypsarrhythmia on interictal electroencephalogram (EEG). Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) is the first-line treatment medicine for IS. Although ACTH has shown good response to IS and has been widely used, the regime is not identical and the mechanism is still unclear. This paper focuses on the clinical application of ACTH for IS and the anticonvulsant mechanisms of ACTH, in order to provide clinical and theoretical basis for ACTH application.

As an important model industrial microorganism, Escherichia coli has been widely used in pharmaceutical, chemical industry and agriculture. In the past 30 years, a variety of new strategies and techniques, including artificial intelligence, gene editing, metabolic pathway assembly, and dynamic regulation have been used to design, construct, and optimize E. coli cell factories, which remarkably improved the efficiency for biotechnological production of chemicals. In this review, three key aspects for constructing E. coli cell factories, including pathway design, pathway assembly and regulation, and optimization of global cellular performance, are summarized. The technologies that have played important roles in metabolic engineering of E. coli, as well as their future applications, are discussed.
Artificial Intelligence ; Escherichia coli/genetics* ; Gene Editing ; Metabolic Engineering ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways/genetics*

Objective:To report the clinical features of KCNQ2-associated epilepsy and the novel mutations and unreported clinical phenotype of KCNQ2 gene, so as to provide help for treatment selection and prognosis evaluation.Methods:Among 979 patients with epilepsy and developmental delay who were admitted to the Department of Neurology,Children′s Hospital Affiliated to Capital Institute of Pediatrics from July 2015 to October 2019, a total of 13 patients were selected from 12 families with KCNQ2 gene mutation by whole exome sequencing technology. Suspected mutations were verified by Sanger sequencing on the probands and their parents to identify the source. The clinical phenotype and genotype were analyzed according to these results.Results:Among the 13 patients with epilepsy, the onset age of four cases were older than six months [two cases in infancy (epilepsy encephalopathy), one case in early childhood (epilepsy encephalopathy) and one case in adolescence (benign epilepsy)]. Eight cases were treated with oxcarbazepine, of whom five cases were seizure free, and two cases showed partial response (>50%). Two cases treated with topiramate were seizure free. Five novel mutations were found in this research, including c.379T>G(p.Y127D), c.1A>C(initial codon mutation), c.708G>C(p.W236C), c.1027G>T(p.A343S) and c.1649T>G(p.V550G).Conclusions:Although it was rare in clinical work, the variation of KCNQ2 gene existed in patients with childhood-onset epilepsy and adolescent-onset epilepsy. Meanwhile, five novel mutations of KCNQ2 gene were reported, which further expanded its gene spectrum. This research supported that oxcarbazepine was the efficient medicine for the KCNQ2-associated epilepsy. Genetic testing showed great help to the treatment of epilepsy.

Objective:To analyze the relationship between iron metabolism and insulin resistance in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) complicated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) .Methods:The pregnant women who were routinely tested in Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital from Jan. 2017 to Feb. 2018 were selected for screening. 60 pregnant women with GDM were diagnosed as gestational diabetes group (GDM) , 60 cases of GDM pregnant women previously diagnosed as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) as polycystic ovarian diabetes group (PGDM) , and 60 normal pregnant women were as the normal control group (NC) . The levels of blood glucose, insulin, hemoglobin and iron indexes (serum iron, ferritin and transferrin saturation) were measured in three groups, and the changes of oxidative stress injury and inflammation level were evaluated. The relationship between iron and inflammation with insulin resistance was analyzed by multiple linear regression.Results:Compared with NC, the hemoglobin decreased, the saturation of ferritin and transferrin increased in PGDM group[ F=3.55, 8.24, 5.10, all P<0.05], Malondialdehyde increased and superoxide dismutase decreased[ F=11.11,7.24,all P<0.01], the level of tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-6 increased [ F=4.02,19.06, all P<0.05]. Compared with GDM group, Hb was decreased, SF, TS were increased and HOMA-IR, MDA, TNF-α, IL-6 were increased in PGDM group (all P<0.05) . MDA, TNF-alpha and interleukin -6 were positively correlated with ferritin ( r=0.42, 0.43, 0.56, P<0.05) , and were positively correlated with the saturation of ferritin ( r=0.61, 0.42. 0.52, all P<0.01) , and the superoxide dismutase was negatively correlated with the saturation of ferritin and transferrin ( r=-0.61, -0.42, P<0.05) , and the saturation of ferritin and transferrin was positively correlated with the insulin resistance index ( r=0.39, 0.41, P<0.01) . Conclusions:Iron deposition in patients with PGDM leads to increased oxidative stress injury and inflammatory response, which aggravates insulin resistance. The disorder of iron metabolism may be related to the mechanism of hyperglycemia in patients with PGDM.

Objective:To investigate the clinical and genetic characteristics of developmental and epileptic encephalopathy (DEE) caused by syntaxin-binding protein 1 (STXBP1) gene mutation.Methods:The clinical data, gene variation and treatment outcome of 15 children with STXBP1 encephalopathy admitted to Children′s Hospital Affiliated to Capital Institute of Pediatrics from January 2014 to June 2019 were analyzed retrospectively.Results:Among 15 patients, 11 were male and 4 were female, age ranged from 2 months to 69 months. The clinical manifestations of 14 children were epilepsy and developmental delay (DD) and the remaining one showed developmental delay without seizure. The onset age of epilepsy ranged from two days to 19 months and 11 of them experienced the first attack before 1 year of age. The common seizure types were epileptic spasms and tonic seizures. Seven patients were diagnosed with Ohtahara syndrome or West syndrome. Epileptic form discharges were observed in the interictal electroencephalograms (EEG) of 11 patients, including multifocal discharges, suppression-burst and hypsarrhythmia. The brain magnetic resonance imaging of 7 children were abnormal, including myelin dysplasia, less white matter, lack of corpus callosum or hypoplasia. The follow-up time ranged from 2 months to 57 months, after the last follow-up, 3 cases were seizure free, 6 children showed partial response and the other 5 patients had no response on multitherapy. Six of 8 patients showed good responses to levetiracetam (LEV) monotherapy or in combination with other antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). Vigabatrin (VGB) was applied to 5 patients with epileptic spasms and 4 of them showed response. All patients showed different degrees of developmental delay while four of them showed autistic features. STXBP1 gene mutations were identified in all cases and there were 15 types of gene variations, including 8 missense mutations, 1 nonsense mutation, 5 frame shift mutations and 1 complex mutation. Five novel mutations were unreported before, including c.1193A>G, c.172delG, c.1769C>T, c.1038_1039delCC, c.348_351dupTGAA.Conclusions:Development delay and epilepsy are the major and independent clinical phenotypes in children with STXBP1 encephalopathy. The variation of STXBP1 gene is mainly de novo. Levetiracetam and vigabatrin may be more effective in epilepsy control than other AEDs.

Objective: To investigate the pathogenic characteristics of viral encephalitis in children living in Hebei province. Methods: We randomly collected cerebrospinal fluid specimens from a total of 399 children diagnosed with viral encephalitis in Hebei Children′s Hospital from May to December 2017. Real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR and Sanger sequencing were used to detect viral nucleic acids in cerebrospinal fluid by an automatic laboratory station. Statistical analysis was performed on the experimental data using SPSS 21.0 software and the clinical data were analyzed. Comparison of infection rates of EV encephalitis in different months, using line × column chi-square test. The MRI and EEG positive rates of different viral encephalitis and viral encephalitis patients not infected with the virus were analyzed by Fisher′s exact probability test. The positive rate of infection with different viruses and non-virus agents was analyzed by Fisher′s exact probability test. Results: The result showed that 80 of 399 samples were positive, and the positive rate was 20.05%. It included 22 cases of enterovirus, 4 cases of influenza A virus, 3 cases of mumps virus, 2 cases of herpes simplex virus type 1, 1 case of herpes simplex virus type 2, 4 cases of EB virus, 7 cases of cytomegalovirus, 7 cases of herpes zoster virus, 8 cases of adenovirus, 14 cases of human herpesvirus type 6. Eight cases had combined viral infection. Eight cases had concurrent infections: 3 cases had enterovirus and herpesvirus type 6 concurrent infection, 1 case had enterovirus and Japanese encephalitis virus concurrent infection and 1 case had herpes simplex virus type 2 and adenovirus, 1 case had influenza A virus herpesvirus type 6, 1 case had mumps virus and herpesvirus type 6, 1 case had mumps virus and herpesvirus type 6, 1 case had herpes simplex virus type 1 and herpes zoster virus concurrent infections. Children with EV viral encephalitis in Hebei Province were highly prevalent in May and June (P=0.016). HHV6 virus encephalitis was more susceptible to infection than non-HHV6 virus (P=0.016); The rate of MRI positive findings in patients with different viral encephalitis was not statistically significant (P>0.05). The result of EEG of different viral encephalitis were P>0.05, which was not statistically significant. Conclusions EV was the most common pathogen of children with viral encephalitis in Hebei province. Encephalitis caused by influenza A virus cannot be ignored in clinical practice.