This study aimed to comprehensively examine the association of gallstones, cholecystectomy, and cancer risk. Multivariable logistic regressions were performed to estimate the observational associations of gallstones and cholecystectomy with cancer risk, using data from a nationwide cohort involving 239 799 participants. General and gender-specific two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was further conducted to assess the causalities of the observed associations. Observationally, a history of gallstones without cholecystectomy was associated with a high risk of stomach cancer (adjusted odds ratio (aOR)=2.54, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.50-4.28), liver and bile duct cancer (aOR=2.46, 95% CI 1.17-5.16), kidney cancer (aOR=2.04, 95% CI 1.05-3.94), and bladder cancer (aOR=2.23, 95% CI 1.01-5.13) in the general population, as well as cervical cancer (aOR=1.69, 95% CI 1.12-2.56) in women. Moreover, cholecystectomy was associated with high odds of stomach cancer (aOR=2.41, 95% CI 1.29-4.49), colorectal cancer (aOR=1.83, 95% CI 1.18-2.85), and cancer of liver and bile duct (aOR=2.58, 95% CI 1.11-6.02). MR analysis only supported the causal effect of gallstones on stomach, liver and bile duct, kidney, and bladder cancer. This study added evidence to the causal effect of gallstones on stomach, liver and bile duct, kidney, and bladder cancer, highlighting the importance of cancer screening in individuals with gallstones.
Humans ; Mendelian Randomization Analysis ; Gallstones/complications* ; Female ; Male ; Cholecystectomy/statistics & numerical data* ; Middle Aged ; Risk Factors ; Aged ; Adult ; Neoplasms/etiology* ; Stomach Neoplasms/epidemiology*

Objective To evaluate the safety and efficacy of interventional embolization of middle meningeal artery(MMA)for the treatment of chronic subdural hematoma(CSDH).Methods The clinical data of 14 patients with CSDH(17 lesions in total),who were treated with simple embolization of MMA at the Yijishan Hospital of Wannan Medical College of China between July 2021 and July 2022,were retrospective analyzed.After superselective catheterization of MMA using a microcatheter was accomplished,Onyx-18 glue,a liquid embolization agent,was used to embolize the main trunk and the branches of MMA.Imaging follow-up was adopted at 30 days and 90 days after discharge from hospital to evaluate the absorption of hematoma,and the improvement of clinical symptoms was defined as the modified Rankin Scale score(mRS)being decreased≥1 point from the baseline value.Results Successful embolization of MMA was accomplished for all the 17 lesions in the 14 patients,and no procedure-related complications occurred.During the follow-up period,the clinical symptoms and signs were remarkably improved in all patients.The postoperative 90-day hematoma volume was reduced by more than 90%in 11 patients and by more than 40%in one patient,and in 2 patients the postoperative 30-day hematoma volume was reduced by more than 30%.Complete absorption of hematoma was seen in 11 patients,and partial absorption of hematoma was observed in 3 patients.Conclusion For the treatment of newly-developed or recurrent CSDH,interventional embolization of MMA is clinically safe and effective.(J Intervent Radiol,2024,32:12-16)

The early response of plant auxin gene family Aux/IAA (auxin/indole-3-acetic acid) and its interaction with auxin response factor (ARF) are important pattern to regulate plant growth and development. This work identified 28 StoIAA and 24 StoARF members based on the whole genome data of the medicinal plant Senna tora L., which were classified into 10 and 8 subfamilies, respectively. Phylogenetic tree and collinearity analysis showed that S. tora has close evolutionary relationship with the IAA and ARF homologous genes of Glycine max, Medicago truncatula, and the segment duplication events dominate the expansion of StoIAA and StoARF. Gene structure analysis showed that the vast majority of StoIAA and StoARF contain characteristic conserved domain. Transcriptome data showed that StoIAAs and StoARFs were expressed in leaves, roots and seeds, some members had tissue specific expression. The StoIAA and StoARF promoter region most contain functional elements related to stress response, growth and development, hormone induction and secondary metabolism. In addition, gene expression analysis showed that many StoIAAs and StoARFs can quickly respond to drought and salt stress and exhibited same expression patterns under both stress condition. The yeast two-hybrid experiment confirmed that StoARF8 and StoARF10 exhibit varying degrees of interaction with multiple StoIAA proteins, respectively. The above results provide a basis for further biological functional analysis of the Aux/IAA and ARF gene family of S. tora.

Redox-sensitive cysteine(RSC)thiol plays an important role in many biological processes such as photosynthesis,cellular metabolism,and transcription.Therefore,it is necessary to identify red-ox-sensitive cysteine accurately.However,traditional redox-sensitive cysteine identification is very ex-pensive and time-consuming.At present,there is an urgent need for a mathematical calculation method to identify sequence information and redox-sensitive cysteines quickly and accurately.Here,we devel-oped an effective predictor called iRSC-PseAAC,which used the dimension reduction algorithm LDA combined with the support vector machine to predict redox-sensitive cysteine sites.In the cross-validation results,the specificity(Sp),sensitivity(Sn),accuracy(Acc)and Matthews correlation coefficient(MCC)were 0.841,0.868,0.859 and 0.692 respectively.In the independent dataset results,the Sp,Sn,Acc and MCC were 0.906,0.882,0.890 and 0.767 respectively.compared with existing prediction methods,iRSC-PseAAC had obvious improvement effect.The method proposed for this study can also be used for many problems in computational proteomics.

Objective:To investigate the correlation between the levels of CC chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2) and periostin (POSTN) in serum and alveolar lavage fluid of patients with acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) complicated with respiratory virus infection and lung function.Methods:From March 2020 to March 2023, 96 patients with acute exacerbation of COPD admitted to our hospital were collected. Among them, 34 patients with concurrent respiratory virus infection were included in the infected group, and 62 patients without respiratory virus infection were included in the uninfected group. Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was applied to detect the expression levels of CCL2 and POSTN in serum and alveolar lavage fluid. Pearson method was applied to analyze the correlation between CCL2 and POSTN levels in serum and alveolar lavage fluid of infected patients and lung function indicators.Results:The levels of CCL 2 ( t=12.633, 9.253 2, 2) and POSTN ( t=12.370, 7.383) were significantly increased in the infected group compared with the uninfected group ( P<0.05). Compared with the uninfected group, the 6-minute walking test (6 MWT), peak expiratory flow rate (peak expiratory flow, PEF), forced expiratory volume at the first second (forced expiratory volume in one second, FEV 1), and the forced lung capacity (forced vital capacity, FVC), FEV 1/FVC, and maximum middle breath mean flow rate (maximal mid-expiratory flow curve, MMEF) were significantly lower ( t=14.141, 24.165, 22.421, 21.223, 5.278, 29.456, P<0.05). Correlation analysis showed that the levels of CCL2 and POSTN in the serum and alveolar lavage fluid of the infected group were negatively correlated with the levels of 6MWT, PEF, FEV1, FVC, FEV1/FVC, and MMEF ( P<0.05). Conclusions:CCL2 and POSTN levels were highly expressed in serum and alveolar lavage fluid of patients with respiratory virus infection during acute exacerbation of COPD, which were closely related to lung function.

Background/Aims: Low educational attainment is a well-established risk factor for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in developed areas. However, the association between educational attainment and the risk of NAFLD is less clear in China. Methods: A cross-sectional study including over 200,000 Chinese adults across mainland China was conducted. Information on education level and lifestyle factors were obtained through standard questionnaires, while NAFLD and advanced fibrosis were diagnosed using validated formulas. Outcomes included the risk of NAFLD in the general population and high probability of fibrosis among patients with NAFLD. Logistic regression analysis was employed to estimate the risk of NAFLD and fibrosis across education levels. A causal mediation model was used to explore the potential mediators. Results: Comparing with those receiving primary school education, the multi-adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) for NAFLD were 1.28 (1.16 to 1.41) for men and 0.94 (0.89 to 0.99) for women with college education after accounting for body mass index. When considering waist circumference, the odds ratios (95% CIs) were 0.94 (0.86 to 1.04) for men and 0.88 (0.80 to 0.97) for women, respectively. The proportions mediated by general and central obesity were 51.00% and 68.04% for men, while for women the proportions were 48.58% and 32.58%, respectively. Furthermore, NAFLD patients with lower educational attainment showed an incremental increased risk of advanced fibrosis in both genders. Conclusions In China, a low education level was associated with a higher risk of prevalent NAFLD in women, as well as high probability of fibrosis in both genders.

The clinical applications of acrosin activity are limited. We analyzed 61 578 male partners in infertile couples who visited the outpatient department of the Reproductive and Genetic Hospital of CITIC-Xiangya (Changsha, China) between August 2014 and December 2019 to determine the reference ranges and thresholds for acrosin activity in infertile Chinese men; to determine whether correlations exist between acrosin activity and age, sperm concentration, sperm morphology, or sperm motility; and to evaluate whether acrosin activity could serve as an effective prognostic indicator for choosing between in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in the clinic. The cut-off value for the normal reference range of acrosin activity for male partners in infertile couples was 24.78 μIU per 106 sperm. There was no significant association between acrosin activity and age, sperm concentration, semen volume, total sperm count, progressive motility, or total motile spermatozoa. A weak positive correlation was found between acrosin activity and normal sperm morphology. There was a statistically significant difference in abnormal acrosome morphology between the group with high acrosin activity (>24.78 μIU per 106 sperm) and the group with low acrosin activity (<24.78 μIU per 106 sperm). The group with a low IVF fertilization rate had a high index of abnormal acrosomal morphology at 21.2%, while the group with a high IVF fertilization rate had a low index of 0.2%. At an acrosin activity of <24.78 µIU per 106 sperm, in one cycle of the same patient, the fertilization rate, normal fertilization rate, and good-quality embryo rate for ICSI were significantly higher than those for IVF. Therefore, the most promising application of acrosin activity could be in the selection of ICSI over IVF for infertile male patients with complete fertilization failure or a low fertilization rate.

italic>Tussilago farfara L. is a perennial herb of Tussilago genus in the Compositae family. Its dried buds and leaves have good biological activities and have a long history of medicinal use in China and Europe. In this paper, we investigated the whole chloroplast genome characteristics, sequence duplication, structural variation and phylogeny of the Tussilago farfara L. After sequencing the Tussilago farfara L. chloroplast genome using Illumination technology, the complete Tussilago farfara L. chloroplast genome was further obtained by assembly and annotation, followed by a series of inverted repeat-large single copy/small single copy region contraction and expansion analysis, genome sequence variation, etc. The sequences of 13 homologous plants downloaded from NCBI were used to construct a neighbor-joining phylogenetic tree. The results showed that the total GC content of the chloroplast genome was 37.4% and the length was 150 300 bp; 125 genes were annotated, including 82 protein-coding genes, 35 tRNAs and 8 rRNAs; 148 (simple sequence repeats, SSR) loci were detected, and the relative synonymous codon usage showed that 31 codons out of 64 codons had a usage of >1. In the phylogenetic analysis, the chloroplast genomes of the seven species of Asteraceae, including the Yulin Tussilago farfara L., were highly conserved, and the sequence variation of the (large single-copy, LSC) and (small single-copy, SSC) regions was higher than that of the (inverted repeat, IR) region. This is in general agreement with the reported phylogeny of Yulin Tussilago farfara L. In this study, we obtained a high quality chloroplast genome and analyzed its genome characteristics, codon preference, SSR characteristics, SC/IR boundary, sequence variation and phylogeny, which can provide a basis for species identification, genetic diversity analysis and resource development of this medicinal plant.

Background/Aims: The involvement of long noncoding RNAs in the carcinogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has been well documented by substantial evidence. However, whether cytoskeleton regulator RNA (CYTOR) could affect the progression of HCC remains unclear. Methods: The relative expression of CYTOR, miR-125a-5p and HS1-associated protein X-1 (HAX-1) mRNA in HCC cells were determined via quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The viability of treated HCC cells was measured by Cell Counting Kit-8 assay. Cell apoptosis was estimated by flow cytometry analysis, assessment of caspase-9 activity and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick-end labeling staining, and Western blot of apoptosisrelated proteins. The interplay between CYTOR or HAX-1 and miR-125a-5p was validated by dual-luciferase reporter assay. Results: CYTOR was upregulated and miR-125a-5p was downregulated in HCC cells. CYTOR silencing inhibited cell proliferation and promoted cell apoptosis in HepG2 and SMMC-7721 cells.miR-125a-5p was sponged and negatively regulated by CYTOR, and HAX-1 was directly targeted and negatively modulated by miR-125a-5p. Overexpression of miR-125a-5p enhanced the repressive effects of CYTOR knockdown on HCC cells, and knockdown of HAX-1 enhanced the inhibitory effects of miR-125a-5p mimics on HCC cells. Conclusions CYTOR silencing facilitates HCC cell apoptosis in vitro via the miR-125a-5p/HAX-1 axis.