BACKGROUND:Mitochondrial autophagy is closely related to the occurrence and development of steroid-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head(SONFH),but specific biomarkers and regulatory mechanisms remain unclear. OBJECTIVE:To identify the key biomarkers of mitochondrial autophagy in steroid-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head using machine learning algorithms and to conduct an immune infiltration analysis. METHODS:The SONFH datasets GSE123568 and GSE74089 were downloaded from the GEO database,serving as the training and validation sets,respectively.Differentially expressed genes between SONFH and control groups were selected,and weighted gene co-expression network analysis was performed.Mitochondrial autophagy-related genes were obtained from MitoCarta3.0 and intersected with differentially expressed genes and module genes.Two machine learning algorithms were utilized to identify key genes of SONFH mitochondrial autophagy,and validated using an external validation set.CIBERSORT and immune infiltration analysis were employed to assess the proportion of immune cells,and ssGSEA was used to analyze the correlation between mitochondrial autophagy genes and immune cells. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Differential analysis identified a total of 1 163 differentially expressed genes,including 663 upregulated genes and 500 downregulated genes.Weighted gene co-expression network analysis identified 4 key modules,comprising 1 412 module genes.Intersection with mitochondrial autophagy genes yielded 39 intersecting genes as disease-related mitochondrial autophagy genes.Gene ontology enrichment analysis showed that the biological processes were mainly related to heme metabolism,mitochondrial transport,nucleotide bisphosphate metabolism and thioester metabolism,and the cellular components were mainly related to mitochondrial matrix,mitochondrial outer membrane,organelle outer membrane and mitochondrial inner membrane,and the molecular functions were mainly related to fatty acid ligase activity,iron-sulfur cluster binding,and cofactor A ligase activity.Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analysis mapped out a total of six pathways,which were mainly related to fatty acid degradation,mitochondrial autophagy,butyric acid metabolism,fatty acid biosynthesis and cofactor biosynthesis.Through LASSO regression and RFE-SVM algorithm analysis,four intersecting genes(ALDH5A1,FBXL4,MCL1,and STOM)were identified.The receiver operating characteristic curves of the four core genes and the diagnostic column chart validation set were all greater than 0.9.The occurrence and development of SONFH were related to immune cells such as dendritic cells,bone marrow-derived suppressor cells,regulatory T cells,and central memory CD8 T cells.To conclude,the four key mitochondrial autophagy genes ALDH5A1,FBXL4,MCL1,and STOM play a crucial role in the progression of SONFH through osteoclast differentiation and immune mechanisms.Additionally,all four genes have good disease prediction efficacy and can serve as biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of SONFH.

BACKGROUND:The pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis has not yet been fully clarified,and recent studies have shown that mitophagy is associated with rheumatoid arthritis,but the key mechanisms need to be explored in depth.OBJECTIVE:To identify and validate the core interaction genes of mitophagy in rheumatoid arthritis using multiple machine learning algorithms and to analyze its immunoregulatory process.METHODS:The rheumatoid arthritis transcriptome expression dataset GSE15573 was retrieved from the GEO database as an independent training set,with the GSE97779 and GSE55235 collections used as independent validation sets.The differentially expressed genes of rheumatoid arthritis were screened using the training set,and"WGCNA"analysis was also performed.Then we downloaded the mitophagy-related genes from the"MitoCarta3.0"database,and intersected them with the differentially expressed genes of rheumatoid arthritis and the genes in the"WGCNA"analysis module to obtain the rheumatoid arthritis-mitophagy-related genes,and then analyzed the related genes for functional enrichment to clarify the cellular pathways.Feature genes were initially identified using the"Random Forest"and"Lasso"algorithms.The overlapping genes from these two methods were further refined using the"GMM"algorithm to identify the core interaction genes between rheumatoid arthritis and mitophagy.A predictive model was then developed and validated using an external dataset.Finally,"CIBERSORT"was employed to analyze the proportions and interactions of immune cell subsets during immune infiltration,while"ssGSEA"was used to examine the associations between the rheumatoid arthritis-mitophagy core interaction genes and immune cell subsets."ssGSEA"was also utilized to analyze the"GO"and"KEGG"biological pathways of the core interaction genes.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:(1)Totally 807 differentially expressed genes in rheumatoid arthritis were obtained by differential analysis,1 208 genes were selected from two feature modules by"WGCNA"analysis,1136 genes were sorted out from the MitoCarta 3.0 database,and 53 HUB genes were obtained from the intersection of the three genes as rheumatoid arthritis-mitophagy related genes.(2)The results of functional enrichment analysis of related genes showed that the cellular processes were mainly related to mitophagy,peroxisome metabolism,cellular senescence,and necroptosis.(3)The three machine learning algorithms identified four rheumatoid arthritis-mitophagy core interaction genes(DNAJA3,C12orf65,AKR7A2,and PDHB).The area under the curve of nomoscore was 0.989,and the area under the curve values of rheumatoid arthritis-mitophagy core interaction genes verified by the receiver operating characteristic curve of external patient samples were all greater than 0.7.(5)Immunoregulatory analysis showed that the mitophagy process in rheumatoid arthritis was closely associated with memory B cells,M0 macrophages,activated memory CD4 T cells,and resting memory CD4 T cells.(6)The biological pathway analysis revealed that the core interaction genes were strongly associated with 821"GO"pathways(|cor|＞0.8,P＜0.001)and 48"KEGG"pathways(|cor|＞0.8,P＜0.001).The key biological processes identified were related to mitochondrial DNA metabolic process,mitochondrial DNA repair,mitochondrial DNA replication,mitochondrial genome maintenance,positive regulation of mitochondrial depolarization,and positive regulation of mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization involved in apoptotic signaling pathway.To conclude,DNAJA3,C12orf65,AKR7A2,and PDHB are the core interaction genes of the mitophagy process in rheumatoid arthritis,which play key roles in disease progression by participating in specific immune processes and have precise and predictive effects on the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.

BACKGROUND:The pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis has not yet been fully clarified,and recent studies have shown that mitophagy is associated with rheumatoid arthritis,but the key mechanisms need to be explored in depth.OBJECTIVE:To identify and validate the core interaction genes of mitophagy in rheumatoid arthritis using multiple machine learning algorithms and to analyze its immunoregulatory process.METHODS:The rheumatoid arthritis transcriptome expression dataset GSE15573 was retrieved from the GEO database as an independent training set,with the GSE97779 and GSE55235 collections used as independent validation sets.The differentially expressed genes of rheumatoid arthritis were screened using the training set,and"WGCNA"analysis was also performed.Then we downloaded the mitophagy-related genes from the"MitoCarta3.0"database,and intersected them with the differentially expressed genes of rheumatoid arthritis and the genes in the"WGCNA"analysis module to obtain the rheumatoid arthritis-mitophagy-related genes,and then analyzed the related genes for functional enrichment to clarify the cellular pathways.Feature genes were initially identified using the"Random Forest"and"Lasso"algorithms.The overlapping genes from these two methods were further refined using the"GMM"algorithm to identify the core interaction genes between rheumatoid arthritis and mitophagy.A predictive model was then developed and validated using an external dataset.Finally,"CIBERSORT"was employed to analyze the proportions and interactions of immune cell subsets during immune infiltration,while"ssGSEA"was used to examine the associations between the rheumatoid arthritis-mitophagy core interaction genes and immune cell subsets."ssGSEA"was also utilized to analyze the"GO"and"KEGG"biological pathways of the core interaction genes.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:(1)Totally 807 differentially expressed genes in rheumatoid arthritis were obtained by differential analysis,1 208 genes were selected from two feature modules by"WGCNA"analysis,1136 genes were sorted out from the MitoCarta 3.0 database,and 53 HUB genes were obtained from the intersection of the three genes as rheumatoid arthritis-mitophagy related genes.(2)The results of functional enrichment analysis of related genes showed that the cellular processes were mainly related to mitophagy,peroxisome metabolism,cellular senescence,and necroptosis.(3)The three machine learning algorithms identified four rheumatoid arthritis-mitophagy core interaction genes(DNAJA3,C12orf65,AKR7A2,and PDHB).The area under the curve of nomoscore was 0.989,and the area under the curve values of rheumatoid arthritis-mitophagy core interaction genes verified by the receiver operating characteristic curve of external patient samples were all greater than 0.7.(5)Immunoregulatory analysis showed that the mitophagy process in rheumatoid arthritis was closely associated with memory B cells,M0 macrophages,activated memory CD4 T cells,and resting memory CD4 T cells.(6)The biological pathway analysis revealed that the core interaction genes were strongly associated with 821"GO"pathways(|cor|＞0.8,P＜0.001)and 48"KEGG"pathways(|cor|＞0.8,P＜0.001).The key biological processes identified were related to mitochondrial DNA metabolic process,mitochondrial DNA repair,mitochondrial DNA replication,mitochondrial genome maintenance,positive regulation of mitochondrial depolarization,and positive regulation of mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization involved in apoptotic signaling pathway.To conclude,DNAJA3,C12orf65,AKR7A2,and PDHB are the core interaction genes of the mitophagy process in rheumatoid arthritis,which play key roles in disease progression by participating in specific immune processes and have precise and predictive effects on the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.

BACKGROUND:The etiology of osteoarthritis is varied and its pathogenesis is still unclear.As bioinformatics has been deepening in recent years,increasing studies have found that the aberrant expression of long non-coding RNAs(lncRNAs)and microRNAs(miRNAs)in joint tissues may mediate the downstream signaling pathways involved in the development of osteoarthritis. OBJECTIVE:To review the mechanism of lncRNA in the development of osteoarthritis and the therapeutic effects of monomers and active compounds derived from traditional Chinese medicine that modulate lncRNA and downstream signaling pathways in osteoarthritis. METHODS:We searched CNKI,WanFang,VIP,and PubMed using the search terms of"long non-coding RNA,knee osteoarthritis,miRNA,chondrocytes,signaling pathway,and traditional Chinese medicine"in Chinese and English,respectively.The search time was from the inception of each database to March 2023.A total of 61 articles were included according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:The pathogenesis of knee osteoarthritis involves a complex molecular regulatory network,including aberrant expression of lncRNAs and miRNAs in cartilage tissues,which may lead to apoptosis of chondrocytes,degradation of cartilage extracellular matrix,and production of large amounts of pro-inflammatory cytokines.These changes interact with each other to cause degeneration of articular cartilage and progression of osteoarthritis.Therefore,further in-depth studies are needed to reveal the fine mechanisms of the molecular regulatory network.The mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of osteoarthritis mainly focuses on regulating the expression of lncRNA and miRNA,thereby alleviating chondrocyte apoptosis and extracellular matrix degradation,promoting cell proliferation,and slowing down the development of osteoarthritis.

Objective:To evaluated the safety and feasibility of dissection of lymph nodes posterior to right recurrent laryngeal nerve (ⅥB compartment) in endoscopic thyroidectomy through gasless axillary posterior approach.Methods:A total of 350 cases with right lobe papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) who underwent endoscopic lobectomy, isthmusectomy and central compartment neck dissection via gasless axillary posterior approach based at the Department of General Surgery, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University from June 2020 to December 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. Summarize the clinical, pathological characteristics, and postoperative complications of the patients. SPSS 25.0 was used for statistical analysis of the data.Results:All 350 patients underwent endoscopic surgery successfully, with no conversion to open surgery. There were 303 females and 47 males, with an average age of (36.3±9.2) years. Of those, 287 patients were in pT1a stage, 62 in pT1b stage, and one patient in pT2 stage. There was no T3 or T4 stage patient. The mean numbers of yielded lymph nodes in right central compartment and ⅥB compartment were 8.11±4.65 (range, 1-31) and 2.62±1.86 (range, 1-12), respectively. ⅥB compartment metastasis was detected in 52 (14.86%) of 350 patients. The incidence of transient recurrent laryngeal nerve injury was 0.86%(3/350). Postoperative hematoma occurred in three patients (0.86%).Conclusion:The dissection of ⅥB compartment in endoscopic thyroidectomy through gasless axillary posterior approach is safe and feasible in selected PTC patients