OBJECTIVE: To determine the role of Tripterygium wilfordii multiglycoside (TGW) in the treatment of psoriatic dermatitis from a cellular immunological perspective. METHODS: Mouse models of psoriatic dermatitis were established by imiquimod (IMQ). Twelve male BALB/c mice were assigned to IMQ or IMQ₊TGW groups according to a random number table. Histopathological changes in vivo were assessed by hematoxylin and eosin staining. Ratios of immune cells and cytokines in mice, as well as PAM212 cell proliferation in vitro were assessed by flow cytometry. Pro-inflammatory cytokine expression was determined using reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS: TGW significantly ameliorated the severity of IMQ-induced psoriasis-like mouse skin lesions and restrained the activation of CD45⁺ cells, neutrophils and T lymphocytes (all P<0.01). Moreover, TGW significantly attenuated keratinocytes (KCs) proliferation and downregulated the mRNA levels of inflammatory cytokines including interleukin (IL)-17A, IL-23, tumor necrosis factor α, and chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 1 (P<0.01 or P<0.05). Furthermore, it reduced the number of γ δ T17 cells in skin lesion of mice and draining lymph nodes (P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS TGW improved psoriasis-like inflammation by inhibiting KCs proliferation, as well as the associated immune cells and cytokine expression. It inhibited IL-17 secretion from γ δ T cells, which improved the immune-inflammatory microenvironment of psoriasis.
Male ; Animals ; Mice ; Tripterygium ; Psoriasis/drug therapy* ; Keratinocytes ; Skin Diseases/metabolism* ; Cytokines/metabolism* ; Imiquimod/metabolism* ; Dermatitis/pathology* ; Disease Models, Animal ; Mice, Inbred BALB C ; Skin/metabolism*

OBJECTIVE To explore the expression changes of TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB signaling pathways in olfactory disorders.METHODS There were 40 healthy BALB/c mice who were divided into an observation group and a control group,with 20 mice in each group.Detection of Toll-like receptors(TLR4),myeloid differentiation primary response gene 88(MyD88)and nuclear factor kappa B(NF-κB)in mice using quantitative reverse transcription PCR level;Detection of TLR4,MyD88 and NF-κB by Western blot(WB)test protein content;Immunohistochemical detection of the expression of mouse olfactory marker protein(OMP).RESULTS There was no significant difference in foraging time between the two groups of mice before modeling(P>0.05),after modeling,the foraging time of the observation group mice was significantly longer than that of the control group(P<0.05);The relative mRNA expression level of TLR4,MyD88 and NF-κB in the nasal epithelium of mice in the observation group was significantly higher than that of the control group(P<0.05);The protein expression of TLR4,MyD88 and NF-κB in the nasal epithelium of mice in the observation group was significantly higher than that of the control group(P<0.05);The level of OMP protein in the nasal epithelium of the observation group was significantly lower than that of the control group(P<0.05).CONCLUSION Expression reinforcement of TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB signaling pathway in a mouse model of olfactory dysfunction.

The clinical data of a patient with Klinefelter syndrome (KS) complicated by partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS) was retrospectively analyzed.The patient, a 2-month-and-22-day-old baby, was admitted to Children′s Hospital Affiliated to Zhengzhou University due to abnormal external genitalia in October 2021.Upon birth, the patient exhibited abnormal external genitalia, manifested as clitoral hypertrophy.Hormonal examinations were consistent with those of peers, while chromosomal analysis revealed 47, XXY.Due to the severe undermasculinization, whole exome sequencing was conducted, indicating a heterozygous variant of the AR gene (c.1847G>A, p.Arg616His). The patient was diagnosed with PAIS, and her elder sister was diagnosed with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome.For further treatment, a multidisciplinary comprehensive evaluation is needed.This is a rare case of KS combined with PAIS, suggesting the possibility of AR gene mutations in KS children with severe undermasculinization.

Objective To investigate the mechanism underlying gasdermin E(GSDME)-mediated pyroptosis in radiation-induced intestinal injury and to find out whether gasdermin(GSDM)family members regulate pyroptosis through similar signaling pathways.Methods Human normal colon epithelial cells(NCM460)and human colon cancer cells(HT-29)were exposed to radiation of different doses and durations before pyroptosis indicators were evaluated by observing pyroptotic bubbles,cell survival,and the cleavage of pyroptosis execution proteins.HT-29 cells overexpressing GSDME were subjected to radiation,followed by enrichment analysis of pyroptosis-related differentially expressed genes using RNA-seq.Results Radiation induced substantial pyroptosis in NCM460 cells.Overexpression of GSDME in HT-29 cells resulted in substantial radiation-induced pyroptosis.The pyroptosis state of human intestinal cells was simulated in the HT-29 model cell line.Overexpressions of GSDME-N and GSDMD-N resulted in the expression of more than 50％ of the differentially expressed genes in the pyroptosis state.Sequencing analysis showed that the genes in the pyroptosis state were mainly overrepresented in immune response,inflammatory response,and Rapl signaling pathway.Conclusion GSDME activation can mediate radiation-induced pyroptosis by producing GSDME-N fragments.GSDM family members participate in pyroptosis in a similar mode of regulation.Furthermore,radiation-induced activation of GSDME/D may regulate pyroptosis through immune response,inflammatory response,and Rap1 signaling pathway.

The patient,a 42-year-old male,with a history of hepatitis B and membranous nephropathy,had inter-mittent fever and chills 12 days before admission.In the first 2 days after admission,the patient's condition aggra-vated with redness,swelling and pain in the left scrotum and perineum.Immediate surgical debridement was per-formed.The patient had a persistent low fever,with blood and pus cultures showing Candida albicans positive,thus was diagnosed fungal necrotizing fasciitis and pyomyositis.The patient was treated with echinocandins mica-fungin(150 mg,qd)for antifungal infection,and was given encroaching dressing change,hyperbaric oxygen thera-py,nutritional support,etc.Two months after surgery,the patient's condition improved and he was discharged.The early clinical symptoms of necrotizing fasciitis and pyomyositis caused by Streptococcus spp.infection lack spe-cificity,thus are prone to be delayed.For patients with concomitant immune diseases,attention should be paid to the prevention and early treatment of complex infection.The appropriate selection of empirical antifungal agents at the early stage has clinical significance.

Aim To investigate the effect of quercetin(Que)on podocyte inflammatory injury and the under-lying mechanism.Methods MPC5 cells were divided into normal glucose group(NG),mannitol group(MA),high glucose group(HG)and high glucose+quercetin group(HG+Que).Cell proliferation and apoptosis were detected by CCK-8 and flow cytometry.The expression of SIRT1,STAT3,apoptosis-related proteins(Bax,Bcl-2,caspase-3)and pyroptosis pro-tein GSDME was detected by Western blot.The ex-pression levels of inflammatory factors(IL-6,TNF-α,IL-18,IL-1β)in cell supernatants were detected by ELISA.Then small interfering RNA technology was used to knockdown SIRT1 expression.To further eval-uate the biological significance of SIRT1 in response to high glucose and Que treatment,negative control group(HG+si-NC+Que)and SIRT1 interference group(HG+si-SIRT1+Que)were added in the presence of high glucose and Que.Results Compared with the high glucose group,40 μmol·L-1 Que could alleviate the apoptosis of MPC5 cells induced by high glucose,decrease the expression of apoptosis related protein Bax and caspase-3,as well as increase the expression of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2;ELISA results showed that Que could decrease the expression of TNF-α,IL-6,IL-1 β and IL-18 induced by high glucose.Mechanical-ly,Que could alleviate the inhibitory effect of high glu-cose on the expression of SIRT1,and further decrease the activation of STAT3 and N-GSDME,and inhibit pyroptosis.Compared with the si-NC group,si-SIRT1 group could reverse the protective effect of Que on the high glucose induced inflammatory damage of podo-cytes,the expression of apoptotic proteins Bax and caspase-3 increased,while the expression of anti-apop-totic protein Bcl-2 decreased.At the same time,the levels of inflammatory cytokines TNF-α,IL-6,IL-1 βand IL-18 in supernatants increased,and the expres-sion of STAT3 and N-GSDME increased.Conclusion Que could inhibit pyroptosis and relieve the inflam-matory damage of podocytes through SIRT1/STAT3/GSDME pathway.

Objective:To investigate the expression of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A2B1 (HNRNPA2B1) in human esophageal cancer tissues and its clinical significance.Methods:Single-cell data for esophageal cancer were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database (GSE160269 dataset, last updated on November 29, 2020) to analyze the expression of HNRNPA2B1. Transcriptional sequencing data for esophageal cancer from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, including the fragments per kilobase of transcript per million mapped reads (FPKM) quantitative data (173 samples, consisting of 162 esophageal cancer tissues and 11 adjacent normal tissues), and survival data in the phenotype category were downloaded. Analysis of FPKM quantitative data from the TCGA database for esophageal cancer was performed. The top 250 genes most correlated with HNRNPA2B1 were selected and the R4.3.0 clusterProfiler package was used to conduct Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses on the selected gene set. FPKM quantitative data from the TCGA database for esophageal cancer were imported into the CIBERSORTx website to obtain immune cell abundance scores, and the correlation between HNRNPA2B1 and the degree of immune cell infiltration was analyzed. The clinicopathological data of patients from esophageal cancer tissue microarrays including 114 cases of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma tissues and 66 cases of adjacent normal tissues were collected. The patients underwent surgery from January 2006 to December 2008, and the follow-up period extended until July 2015. Cytokeratin (CK) and HNRNPA2B1 expression in esophageal cancer tissue microarrays were detected by using multi-color immunohistochemical (mIHC) staining, and multispectral tissue imaging was conducted. The R4.3.0 survival package and survminer package in TCGA database were used to calculate the optimal cut-off value of HNRNPA2B1 expression and the proportion of CK + HNRNPA2B1 + cells in tissue microarrays was used to calculate the cut-off value of HNRNPA2B1 expression based on which patients were categorized into high and low expression groups. The overall survival (OS) of both groups was compared and the factors influencing OS were analyzed by using the Cox proportional hazards model. Results:In the GSE160269 dataset of single-cell data for esophageal cancer, the expression level of HNRNPA2B1 in tumor epithelial cells was higher than that in normal epithelial cells, and HNRNPA2B1 was highly expressed in various immune cell subtypes. The high expression level of HNRNPA2B1 was positively correlated with regulatory T cells, naive B cells and memory CD4 + T cells. GO enrichment analysis revealed that HNRNPA2B1 was primarily involved in the biological process of nuclear division, cellular components were mainly enriched in chromosomal regions, and molecular functions were mainly enriched in ATP hydrolysis activity. KEGG enrichment analysis indicated that HNRNPA2B1 was primarily involved in biological processes such as the cell cycle, spliceosome, and DNA replication. Results from mIHC and multispectral tissue imaging demonstrated that CK was predominantly expressed in the cell membranes of tumor cells and normal esophageal epithelial cells, while HNRNPA2B1 was primarily expressed in the nuclei of tumor cells and normal esophageal cells. The expression level of HNRNPA2B1 in esophageal cancer tissues was higher than that in the normal paracancerous tissues ( U = 2 984.00, P < 0.05). Results of tissue microarrays and the survival analysis on the data in the TCGA database indicated that esophageal cancer patients with low HNRNPA2B1 expression had a better OS compared to those with high expression (both P < 0.05). Cox multivariate regression analysis revealed that age ( HR = 1.919, 95% CI: 1.158-3.182, P = 0.011), TNM stage ( HR = 2.404, 95% CI: 1.374-4.207, P = 0.002), T stage ( HR = 2.349, 95% CI: 1.150-4.789, P = 0.019), and the expression of HNRNPA2B1 in tumor epithelial cells ( HR = 2.160, 95% CI: 1.280-3.647, P = 0.004) were independent factors influencing OS in esophageal cancer patients. Conclusions:The high expression of HNRNPA2B1 protein in esophageal cancer tissues may play a role in the developement and progression of esophageal cancer, serving as a crucial biological indicator for prognostic assessment of esophageal cancer.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the effects of bis (2-butoxyethyl) phthalate (BBOP) on the onset of male puberty by affecting Leydig cell development in rats. METHODS: Thirty 35-day-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly allocated to five groups mg/kg bw per day that were gavaged for 21 days with BBOP at 0, 10, 100, 250, or 500 mg/kg bw per day. The hormone profiles; Leydig cell morphological metrics; mRNA and protein levels; oxidative stress; and AKT, mTOR, ERK1/2, and GSK3β pathways were assessed. RESULTS: BBOP at 250 and/or 500 mg/kg bw per day decreased serum testosterone, luteinizing hormone, and follicle-stimulating hormone levels mg/kg bw per day (P < 0.05). BBOP at 500 mg/kg bw per day decreased Leydig cell number mg/kg bw per day and downregulated Cyp11a1, Insl3, Hsd11b1, and Dhh in the testes, and Lhb and Fshb mRNAs in the pituitary gland (P < 0.05). The malondialdehyde content in the testis significantly increased, while Sod1 and Sod2 mRNAs were markedly down-regulated, by BBOP treatment at 250-500 mg/kg bw per day (P < 0.05). Furthermore, BBOP at 500 mg/kg bw per day decreased AKT1/AKT2, mTOR, and ERK1/2 phosphorylation, and GSK3β and SIRT1 levels mg/kg bw per day (P < 0.05). Finally, BBOP at 100 or 500 μmol/L induced ROS and apoptosis in Leydig cells after 24 h of treatment in vitro (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: BBOP delays puberty onset by increasing oxidative stress and apoptosis in Leydig cells in rats. UNLABELLED The graphical abstract is available on the website www.besjournal.com.
Rats ; Male ; Animals ; Leydig Cells/metabolism* ; Testosterone ; Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3 beta/pharmacology* ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Sexual Maturation ; Testis ; Oxidative Stress ; TOR Serine-Threonine Kinases/metabolism* ; Apoptosis

Atherosclerosis (AS) is a chronic and progressive arterial disease. It is an important cause of the occurrence and development of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. With the development of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), TCM has many advantages in the therapy of AS, with less adverse reactions. Studies have shown that TCM can resist AS, and the mechanism mainly belongs to regulating lipid metabolism, anti-lipid peroxidation, anti-inflammation, anticoagulation, and protecting the structure and function of vascular endothelial cells. The mechanism of TCM for AS is warranted to be studied systematically, and the chemical components need to be further clarified.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the clinical treatment outcomes and the changes of the outcomes over time in extremely preterm twins in Guangdong Province, China. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed for 269 pairs of extremely preterm twins with a gestational age of <28 weeks who were admitted to the department of neonatology in 26 grade A tertiary hospitals in Guangdong Province from January 2008 to December 2017. According to the admission time, they were divided into two groups: 2008-2012 and 2013-2017. Besides, each pair of twins was divided into the heavier infant and the lighter infant subgroups according to birth weight. The perinatal data of mothers and hospitalization data of neonates were collected. The survival rate of twins and the incidence rate of complications were compared between the 2008-2012 and 2013-2017 groups. RESULTS: Compared with the 2008-2012 group, the 2013-2017 group (both the heavier infant and lighter infant subgroups) had lower incidence rates of severe asphyxia and smaller head circumference at birth (P<0.05). The mortality rates of both of the twins, the heavier infant of the twins, and the lighter infant of the twins were lower in the 2013-2017 group compared with the 2008-2012 group (P<0.05). Compared with the 2008-2012 group, the 2013-2017 group (both the heavier infant and lighter infant subgroups) had lower incidence rates of pulmonary hemorrhage, patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), periventricular-intraventricular hemorrhage (P-IVH), and neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (NRDS) and a higher incidence rate of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS There is a significant increase in the survival rate over time in extremely preterm twins with a gestational age of <28 weeks in the 26 grade A tertiary hospitals in Guangdong Province. The incidences of severe asphyxia, pulmonary hemorrhage, PDA, P-IVH, and NRDS decrease in both the heavier and lighter infants of the twins, but the incidence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia increases. With the improvement of diagnosis and treatment, the multidisciplinary collaboration between different fields of fetal medicine including prenatal diagnosis, obstetrics, and neonatology is needed in the future to jointly develop management strategies for twin pregnancy.
Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia/epidemiology* ; Female ; Gestational Age ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Extremely Premature ; Infant, Newborn ; Pregnancy ; Respiratory Distress Syndrome, Newborn/epidemiology* ; Retrospective Studies ; Treatment Outcome