OBJECTIVE: To investigate the biological behavior, differentiation ability, and differential gene expression of lymph node mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and reactive lymphoid hyperplasia (RLH), providing a theoretical basis for clinical chemotherapy resistance. METHODS: Lymph node MSCs from patients with DLBCL and RLH were separated, passaged and cultured. The cell morphology and growth status were observed. Flow cytometry was performed to detect the immune phenotype of MSCs. The in vitro directed differentiation ability of the two types of MSCs was observed. High-throughput sequencing was used to analyze the differential gene expression and enrichment of two groups of MSCs. RESULTS: The lymph node MSCs of patients with DLBCL and RLH had similar cell morphology and growth characteristics, and both groups of MSCs expressed CD90, CD105, and CD73 on the cell surface. Compared with lymph node MSCs derived from patients with RLH, lymph node MSCs derived from DLBCL patients showed stronger osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation abilities. High-throughput sequencing results displayed that lymph node MSCs derived from DLBCL patients significantly upregulated some genes such as TOP2A, LFNG, GRIA3, SEC14L2, SPON2, AURKA, LRRC15, FOXD1, HOXC9, CDC20 and remarkably downregulated some genes such as TBC1D8, LDLR, PCDHAC2, POLH, PKP2, ANKRD37, DMKN, HSD11B1, ARHGAP20, PTGS1,etc. CONCLUSION Lymph node MSCs in DLBCL patients exhibit unique biological behavior and gene expression profiles, which may be closely related to clinical chemotherapy resistance.
Humans ; Mesenchymal Stem Cells/cytology* ; Lymphoma, Large B-Cell, Diffuse/pathology* ; Cell Differentiation ; Lymph Nodes/pathology* ; Pseudolymphoma/pathology*

Ischemic stroke (IS) is a globally life-threatening disease. Presently, few therapeutic medicines are available for treating IS, and rt-PA is the only drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US. In fact, many agents showing excellent neuroprotection but no blood flow-improving activity in animals have not achieved ideal clinical efficacy, while thrombolytic drugs only improving blood flow without neuroprotection have limited their wider application. To address these challenges and meet the huge unmet clinical need, we have designed and identified a novel compound AAPB with dual effects of neuroprotection and cerebral blood flow improvement. AAPB significantly reduced cerebral infarction and neural function deficit in tMCAO rats, pMCAO rats, and IS rhesus monkeys, as well as displayed exceptional safety profiles and excellent pharmacokinetic properties in rats and dogs. AAPB has now entered phase I of clinical trials fighting IS in China.

Patent foramen ovale(PFO)is a congenital heart disease with a relatively high prevalence in the population.Past studies have clarified its association with strokes and recognized the significance of PFO closure for PFO-related strokes.In recent years,research on diseases related to PFO has gradually increased and deepened our understanding.Meanwhile,the number of closure treatments for PFO in China has also significantly increased.This article reviews the latest research progress in the PFO field for the year 2023,mainly including the expansion of the spectrum of PFO-related diseases(such as epilepsy,unexplained syncope,etc.),exploration of the mechanisms of disease,and means of risk assessment.Regarding PFO closure treatment,this article introduces the latest research results concerning the effects of closure and prognosis,as well as the relationship between closure treatment and atrial fibrillation.China has always been in a leading position in the development of new devices for PFO closure,and this article also introduces the latest achievements in this area.

To addresses the issues of low contrast and inaccurate segmentation of tiny vessels in retinal images,a U-shaped network incorporating multi-level residuals and three-space attention mechanism is proposed.In encoding stage,a multi-level residual module is added after inputting original images for preserving image features,and additionally,batch normalization and Dropout are integrated into the residual module to prevent vanishing gradient and feature data redundancy within the deep network.In decoding stage,a three-space attention mechanism is adopted to assign different weights to the features from the original images,down-sampled images,and up-sampled images,thus enhancing feature texture and position information,and achieving precise segmentation of tiny blood vessels.Experimental results on a public color fundus image dataset demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves higher accuracy(0.985),specificity(0.991),sensitivity(0.829),and AUC(0.985)than the existing algorithms.Moreover,the vessel maps obtained by the comparison with the gold standard are of significant reference value in clinic.

To address the challenge of unclear features and difficulties in pulmonary nodule CT image detection,an efficient attention feature pyramid network is proposed.The network firstly employs a feature pyramid of multi-scale feature fusion as the backbone network for effectively preserving both low-and high-level features,and uses the depthwise separable convolutional neural network to extract feature information.Then,the attention mechanism is integrated into the backbone network for assigning weights to salient feature information.Finally,the proposed algorithm is applied to Lung-PET-CT-Dx dataset and Luna16 dataset,and the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has higher precision,recall rate and mAP value than the existing comparative algorithms,substantiating its superiority in pulmonary nodule detection.

Constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome refers to the chronic functional intestinal syndrome characterized by the clinical meanifestations of abdominal pain or abdominal distension,and changes in bowel habits,which is a recurrent refractory disease.In the clinical practice,the patients with prolonged or senile constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome usually have the manifestations of constipation,difficulty in defecation,abdominal pain or bloating,but without fever,thirsty,or irritability,and their pathogenesis is due to the failure of kidney yin in storage and then the detached ministerial fire floats over the large intestine and secretly consumes the body fluid.The patients with prolonged or senile constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome can be differentiated as the syndrome of yin failing to store yang and floating of deficient yang,and therapy of subsiding yang can be used for the treatment by adopting the modification of Sancai Fengsui Decoction(mainly composed of Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma,Asparagi Radix,Rehmanniae Radix Preparata,Phellodendri Chinensis Cortex,Amomi Fructus,and Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma),which can achieve remarkable efficacy.

Activation of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2(Nrf2)by Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1(Keap1)alkylation plays a central role in anti-inflammatory therapy.However,activators of Nrf2 through alkylation of Keap1-Kelch domain have not been identified.Deoxynyboquinone(DNQ)is a natural small molecule discovered from marine actinomycetes.The current study was designed to investigate the anti-inflammatory effects and molecular mechanisms of DNQ via alkylation of Keap1.DNQ exhibited signif-icant anti-inflammatory properties both in vitro and in vivo.The pharmacophore responsible for the anti-inflammatory properties of DNQ was determined to be the α,β-unsaturated amides moieties by a chemical reaction between DNQ and N-acetylcysteine.DNQ exerted anti-inflammatory effects through activation of Nrf2/ARE pathway.Keap1 was demonstrated to be the direct target of DNQ and bound with DNQ through conjugate addition reaction involving alkylation.The specific alkylation site of DNQ on Keap1 for Nrf2 activation was elucidated with a synthesized probe in conjunction with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.DNQ triggered the ubiquitination and subsequent degra-dation of Keap1 by alkylation of the cysteine residue 489(Cys489)on Keap1-Kelch domain,ultimately enabling the activation of Nrf2.Our findings revealed that DNQ exhibited potent anti-inflammatory capacity through α,β-unsaturated amides moieties active group which specifically activated Nrf2 signal pathway via alkylation/ubiquitination of Keap1-Kelch domain,suggesting the potential values of targeting Cys489 on Keap1-Kelch domain by DNQ-like small molecules in inflammatory therapies.

Objective: This study aimed to determine the predictive performance of non-contrast CT (NCCT) signs for hemorrhagic growth after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) when stratified by onset-to-imaging time (OIT). Materials and Methods: 1488 supratentorial ICH within 6 h of onset were consecutively recruited from six centers between January 2018 and August 2022. NCCT signs were classified according to density (hypodensities, swirl sign, black hole sign, blend sign, fluid level, and heterogeneous density) and shape (island sign, satellite sign, and irregular shape) features. Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate the association between NCCT signs and three types of hemorrhagic growth: hematoma expansion (HE), intraventricular hemorrhage growth (IVHG), and revised HE (RHE). The performance of the NCCT signs was evaluated using the positive predictive value (PPV) stratified by OIT. Results: Multivariable analysis showed that hypodensities were an independent predictor of HE (adjusted odds ratio [95% confidence interval] of 7.99 [4.87–13.40]), IVHG (3.64 [2.15–6.24]), and RHE (7.90 [4.93–12.90]). Similarly, OIT (for a 1-h increase) was an independent inverse predictor of HE (0.59 [0.52–0.66]), IVHG (0.72 [0.64–0.81]), and RHE (0.61 [0.54– 0.67]). Blend and island signs were independently associated with HE and RHE (10.60 [7.36–15.30] and 10.10 [7.10–14.60], respectively, for the blend sign and 2.75 [1.64–4.67] and 2.62 [1.60–4.30], respectively, for the island sign). Hypodensities demonstrated low PPVs of 0.41 (110/269) or lower for IVHG when stratified by OIT. When OIT was ≤ 2 h, the PPVs of hypodensities, blend sign, and island sign for RHE were 0.80 (215/269), 0.90 (142/157), and 0.83 (103/124), respectively. Conclusion Hypodensities, blend sign, and island sign were the best NCCT predictors of RHE when OIT was ≤ 2 h. NCCT signs may assist in earlier recognition of the risk of hemorrhagic growth and guide early intervention to prevent neurological deterioration resulting from hemorrhagic growth.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of endoscopic transnasal surgery for sinonasal and skull base adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC), and to analyze the prognostic factors. Methods: Data of 82 patients (43 females and 39 males, at a median age of 49 years old) with sinonasal and skull base ACC who were admitted to XuanWu Hospital, Capital Medical University between June 2007 and June 2021 were analyzed retrospectively. The patients were staged according to American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) 8th edition. The disease overall survival(OS) and disease-free survival(DFS) rates were calculated by Kaplan-Meier analysis. Cox regression model was used for multivariate prognostic analysis. Results: There were 4 patients with stage Ⅱ, 14 patients with stage Ⅲ, and 64 patients with stage Ⅳ. The treatment strategies included purely endoscopic surgery (n=42), endoscopic surgery plus radiotherapy (n=32) and endoscopic surgery plus radiochemotherapy (n=8). Followed up for 8 to 177 months, the 5-year OS and DFS rates was 63.0% and 51.6%, respectively. The 10-year OS and DFS rates was 51.2% and 31.8%, respectively. The multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that late T stage and internal carotid artery (ICA) involvement were the independent prognostic factors for survival in sinonasal and skull base ACC (all P<0.05). The OS of patients who received surgery or surgery plus radiotherapy was significantly higher than that of patients who received surgery plus radiochemotherapy (all P<0.05). Conclusions: Endoscopic transonasal surgery or combing with radiotherapy is an effective procedure for the treatment of sinonasal and skull base ACC. Late T stage and ICA involvement indicate poor prognosis.
Male ; Female ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; Carcinoma, Adenoid Cystic/surgery* ; Retrospective Studies ; Skull Base/pathology* ; Disease-Free Survival ; Prognosis

Polysialic acid(PSA)is a homopolymer consisting of N-acetylneuraminic monomers linked by α-2,8 and(or)α-2,9 glucoside bonds.As an endogenous polysaccharide,PSA has good biocompatibility,biodegradability,high hydrophilicity,non-immunogenicity,long-term circulation,easy modification and specific targeting to selectins.In the field of drug delivery research,PSA not only can be connected with small molecule drugs,active peptides or proteins,but also can be grafted or electrostatic cross-linked with polymers to build a variety of drug delivery systems,such as nanogels,polymer micelles,liposomes,etc.It has shown great potential value in the treatment of various disease models such as tumors,inflammatory diseases and neurological diseases.In this paper,the biological functions of PSA,the classification of drug delivery systems based on PSA and its application progress were reviewed,in order to provide reference for further application and research of PSA.