Aim To investigate the role of RNF8 in the proliferation,invasion and migration of hepatocellular carcinoma and in the promotion of epithelial-mesenchy-mal transition(EMT);to clarify the regulatory mecha-nism of RNF8 on hepatocellular carcinoma cells.Methods Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of RNF8 and RhoA in human hepatocel-lular carcinoma tissues and adjacent tissues;Western blot and RT-PCR were used to detect the expression levels of RNF8 and RhoA in human normal hepatocytes and hepatocellular carcinoma cells.RNF8 was overex-pressed in HepG2 cells,and siRNA interference was used to downregulate the expression of RNF8.The cell experimental groups were as follows:control group(Control,normal HepG2 cells),RNF8 overexpression group,RNF8 low expression group(siRNA RNF8),RNF8 overexpression+Rhosin(20 μmol·L-1,RhoA blocker)group.The cell proliferation ability was detected by CCK-8 method;the cell migration ability was detected by scratch test;the cell invasion ability was detected by Transwell test;finally,the expression levels of RNF8,RhoA,PCNA,CyclinD1,N-cadherin,vimentin,Slug,and E-cadherin proteins and mRNA were detected by Western blot and RT-PCR.Results The expression of RNF8 and RhoA in liver cancer tissues and liver cancer cells significantly increased;after RNF8 knockdown,the proliferation,migration,in-vasion and EMT of liver cancer cells were significantly inhibited,while overexpression of RNF8 significantly increased the proliferation,migration,invasion ability of liver cancer cells and promoted EMT.RhoA showed a positive correlation with knockdown and overexpression of RNF8.When RNF8 was overexpressed and RhoA blocker was given at the same time,the phenomenon of overexpression of RNF8 increasing the proliferation,mi-gration,invasion ability and promoting EMT of liver cancer cells was significantly reversed.Conclusions RNF8 can promote the proliferation,migration,invasion and EMT of liver cancer cells,and at the same time promote the expression of RhoA.RNF8 promotes the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma by regulating RhoA to promote EMT.

To perform the phylogenetic characterization of an isolated porcine rotavirus(PoRV)and investigate its pathogenicity in suckling mice and piglets.A G4P[23]genotype PoRV strain JSJR2023 was successfully isolated from the diarrheic piglet feces through propagation in MA104 cells.The viral proliferation kinetics were analyzed using TCID50 assays,followed by complete genome sequencing through Sanger sequencing platforms.Comprehensive genotyping and phylogenetic reconstruction were conducted using MEGA7.0 with maximum likelihood algorithms.Pathogenicity was assessed in the following animal models:5-day-old C57BL/6 mice and 3-day-old piglets.Multidimensional evaluation included clinical monitoring(diarrhea scoring,growth parameters),virological detection,and histopathological analysis of intestinal tissues.The virus strain JSJR2023 could replicate efficiently in MA104 cells,achieving peak titers of 107.5 TCID50/mL.Whole genome genotype analysis showed that the strain belonged to G4-P[23]-I5-R1-C1-M1-A8-N1-T1-E1-H1.Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the VP3 and NSP4 genes of JSJR2023 strain were most closedrelated to human species rotaviruses,suggesting genetic reassortment between human and porcine RV strains.The animal experiments in suckling mice showed that the JSJR2023 strain infection caused diarrhea symptoms,intestinal edema and congestion,and shedding of intestinal villus epithelial cells.The pathogenicity experiments in piglets showed that compared with the control group,the challenged group of pig-lets had severe diarrhea symptoms,accompanied by reduced appetite and listlessness.Post-mortem examination revealed that the intes-tines were significantly thinner,congested,and filled with yellow watery contents.The challenged piglets showed typical pathological changes such as thinning of the intestinal wall and shortening and shedding of intestinal villi.In conclusion,this study successfully iso-lated a human-porcine recombinant G4P[23]PoRV strain and established the infection models in suckling mice and piglets,providing important tools for investigating the pathogenic mechanism of PoRV,evaluating vaccines and developing antiviral drug.

Objective To comprehensively analyze the clinical characteristics and risk factors of children with refractory mycoplasma pneumonia(RMPP),precisely identify the joint predictors in these children,and construct a prediction model.This aims to offer a scientific foundation for the early identification of RMPP and the formulation of accurate treatment and medication strategies.Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on the clinical data of 282 children diagnosed with mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia(MPP)who were admitted to the Pediatric Department of the Seventh Medical Center of the Chinese People's Liberation Army General Hospital between August 1,2023,and February 29,2024.Among these children,119 with RMPP were classified into the RMPP group,while the remaining 163 with general MPP(GMPP)were assigned to the GMPP group.The clinical data of both groups,encompassing age,gender,duration of fever,symptoms,laboratory test indices,chest imaging data,complications,etc.,were compared.A logistic probability model(LogP model)for joint application was constructed.The discriminatory ability of the model was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve,and the calibration of the model was assessed by means of a calibration curve.Results In comparison with the GMPP group,children in the RMPP group exhibited a significantly longer duration of fever(P=0.002).Moreover,they had a higher incidence of complications,including myocardial damage and coagulation dysfunction(P<0.05).Regarding inflammatory markers,the levels of C-reactive protein(CRP),procalcitonin(PCT),and lactate dehydrogenase(LDH)were notably elevated in the RMPP group(P<0.05),whereas the level of albumin(Alb)was lower(P=0.001).In the RMPP group,the levels of interleukin-2(IL-2),interleukin-5(IL-5),interleukin-8(IL-8),interleukin-1β(IL-1β),and D-Dimer were increased,while the levels of interleukin-6(IL-6)and interleukin-17(IL-17)were decreased(P<0.05).Chest computed tomography(CT)scans revealed a higher proportion of lung consolidation,pleural effusion,and atelectasis in the RMPP group(P<0.05).Multivariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that CRP,total bilirubin(T-BIL),LDH,IL-17,and prothrombin time(PT)were independent risk factors for RMPP(P<0.05).The receiver operating characteristic(ROC)predictive model established based on these factors had an area under the curve(AUC)of 0.787(95%confidence interval[CI]:0.693～0.880),with a cutoff value of 0.421,a sensitivity of 0.786,and a specificity of 0.660.The calibration curve indicated that the predicted probability matched well with the reference probability,and there was no statistical difference in the results of the Hosmer-Lemeshow test(P>0.05).Conclusions The clinical features of children with RMPP are predominantly characterized by prolonged fever,moderate lung lesions,other organ injuries,and high inflammatory markers.CRP,T-BIL,LDH,IL-17,and PT can act as independent risk factors for RMPP.

Combined with elastic network model(ENM),the perturbation response scanning(PRS)has emerged as a robust technique for pinpointing allosteric interactions within proteins.Here,we proposed the PRS analysis of drug-target networks(DTNs),which could provide a promising avenue in network medicine.We demonstrated the utility of the method by introducing a deep learning and network perturbation-based framework,for drug repurposing of multiple sclerosis(MS).First,the MS comorbidity network was constructed by performing a random walk with restart algorithm based on shared genes between MS and other diseases as seed nodes.Then,based on topological analysis and functional annotation,the neurotransmission module was identified as the"therapeutic module"of MS.Further,perturbation scores of drugs on the module were calculated by constructing the DTN and introducing the PRS analysis,giving a list of repurposable drugs for MS.Mechanism of action analysis both at pathway and structural levels screened dihydroergocristine as a candidate drug of MS by targeting a serotonin receptor of se-rotonin 2B receptor(HTR2B).Finally,we established a cuprizone-induced chronic mouse model to evaluate the alteration of HTR2B in mouse brain regions and observed that HTR2B was significantly reduced in the cuprizone-induced mouse cortex.These findings proved that the network perturbation modeling is a promising avenue for drug repurposing of MS.As a useful systematic method,our approach can also be used to discover the new molecular mechanism and provide effective candidate drugs for other complex diseases.

Objective:To investigate the relationship between screen time and content, and the mental health status of adolescents. The findings will inform the formulation of targeted intervention policies to enhance adolescent mental health.Methods:Between September and November 2023, 5 197 students from 64 junior high, senior high, and vocational schools across 13 districts in Wuhan were recruited, using the stratified whole-cluster random sampling to investigate their screen behavior and mental health status. Mental health status was measured using the Mental Health Inventory for Chinese Middle School Students (MMHI-60). A generalized additive model was used to explore the nonlinear association between screen time and mental health status. Additionally, a mixed-effects model was utilized to explore the dose-response associations between average daily total screen time, screen time for different content types, and adolescents' mental health status and the impact of the proportion of different screen contents on mental health outcomes.Results:The age of the participants was (14.40±1.48) years, with 56.07% being boys. The MMHI-60 score averaged 1.73±0.70. The M( Q1,Q3) for daily total screen time was 50.00 (0.00,128.57) minutes. The M( Q1,Q3) for screen time dedicated to gaming, studying, socializing, and watching videos were 0.00 (0.00, 20.00), 8.57 (1.64, 44.50), 4.28 (0.00, 30.00), and 0.00 (0.00, 25.71) minutes, respectively. A non-linear association was observed between average daily screen time and adolescent mental health problem score, 0-1 hour of daily screen time was beneficial for adolescent mental, compared to no screen time. However, screen time exceeding 1 hour was detrimental, with the negative impact increasing alongside screen time duration. When total daily screen time was held constant, the proportion of time spent on gaming ( β=0.14, 95% CI: 0.05-0.23, P=0.003) and video ( β=0.21, 95% CI: 0.09-0.28, P<0.001) was positively correlated with mental health problems, whereas the proportion of time spent on studying was negatively correlated with mental health problems ( β=-0.17, 95% CI: -0.24 - -0.11, P<0.001). Conclusions:Moderate screen time is advantageous for adolescent mental health. However, it is crucial to minimize the proportion of screen time dedicated to video and gaming activities to mitigate potential adverse effects.

Testicular histology based on testicular biopsy is an important factor for determining appropriate testicular sperm extraction surgery and predicting sperm retrieval outcomes in patients with azoospermia. Therefore, we developed a deep learning (DL) model to establish the associations between testicular grayscale ultrasound images and testicular histology. We retrospectively included two-dimensional testicular grayscale ultrasound from patients with azoospermia (353 men with 4357 images between July 2017 and December 2021 in The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China) to develop a DL model. We obtained testicular histology during conventional testicular sperm extraction. Our DL model was trained based on ultrasound images or fusion data (ultrasound images fused with the corresponding testicular volume) to distinguish spermatozoa presence in pathology (SPP) and spermatozoa absence in pathology (SAP) and to classify maturation arrest (MA) and Sertoli cell-only syndrome (SCOS) in patients with SAP. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUCs), accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity were used to analyze model performance. DL based on images achieved an AUC of 0.922 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.908-0.935), a sensitivity of 80.9%, a specificity of 84.6%, and an accuracy of 83.5% in predicting SPP (including normal spermatogenesis and hypospermatogenesis) and SAP (including MA and SCOS). In the identification of SCOS and MA, DL on fusion data yielded better diagnostic performance with an AUC of 0.979 (95% CI: 0.969-0.989), a sensitivity of 89.7%, a specificity of 97.1%, and an accuracy of 92.1%. Our study provides a noninvasive method to predict testicular histology for patients with azoospermia, which would avoid unnecessary testicular biopsy.
Humans ; Male ; Azoospermia/diagnostic imaging* ; Deep Learning ; Testis/pathology* ; Retrospective Studies ; Adult ; Ultrasonography/methods* ; Sperm Retrieval ; Sertoli Cell-Only Syndrome/diagnostic imaging*

The use of wastewater analysis, or wastewater-based epidemiology, to assess and monitor the situation of drug abuse is now widely used at home and abroad. However, there is currently a lack of effective evaluation methods and effective ways of comparison, supervision and standardization, which is not conducive to the analysis and comparisons of data in different countries and regions. Quality control techniques can control the laboratory's analytical errors, safeguard the consistency and comparability of identification conclusions, and promote the further improvement of the level and capacity of urban drug governance, thus playing significant roles. This paper provides an overview of sample collection, sample preservation and transportation, laboratory analysis, back-calculation of drug use and external laboratory quality control in the process of wastewater analysis, with a view to exploring more comprehensive scientific and objective methods and approaches suitable for examining and evaluating qualitative and quantitative analysis of drugs in wastewater among laboratories.

Aim To investigate the role of RNF8 in the proliferation,invasion and migration of hepatocellular carcinoma and in the promotion of epithelial-mesenchy-mal transition(EMT);to clarify the regulatory mecha-nism of RNF8 on hepatocellular carcinoma cells.Methods Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of RNF8 and RhoA in human hepatocel-lular carcinoma tissues and adjacent tissues;Western blot and RT-PCR were used to detect the expression levels of RNF8 and RhoA in human normal hepatocytes and hepatocellular carcinoma cells.RNF8 was overex-pressed in HepG2 cells,and siRNA interference was used to downregulate the expression of RNF8.The cell experimental groups were as follows:control group(Control,normal HepG2 cells),RNF8 overexpression group,RNF8 low expression group(siRNA RNF8),RNF8 overexpression+Rhosin(20 μmol·L-1,RhoA blocker)group.The cell proliferation ability was detected by CCK-8 method;the cell migration ability was detected by scratch test;the cell invasion ability was detected by Transwell test;finally,the expression levels of RNF8,RhoA,PCNA,CyclinD1,N-cadherin,vimentin,Slug,and E-cadherin proteins and mRNA were detected by Western blot and RT-PCR.Results The expression of RNF8 and RhoA in liver cancer tissues and liver cancer cells significantly increased;after RNF8 knockdown,the proliferation,migration,in-vasion and EMT of liver cancer cells were significantly inhibited,while overexpression of RNF8 significantly increased the proliferation,migration,invasion ability of liver cancer cells and promoted EMT.RhoA showed a positive correlation with knockdown and overexpression of RNF8.When RNF8 was overexpressed and RhoA blocker was given at the same time,the phenomenon of overexpression of RNF8 increasing the proliferation,mi-gration,invasion ability and promoting EMT of liver cancer cells was significantly reversed.Conclusions RNF8 can promote the proliferation,migration,invasion and EMT of liver cancer cells,and at the same time promote the expression of RhoA.RNF8 promotes the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma by regulating RhoA to promote EMT.

This study was aimed at establishing a method of ultra-fast quantitative PCR for Brucella detection.We used an exogenous recombinant plasmid as the internal reference and targeted the T4SS secretion system,an important Brucella viru-lence factor,to design specific primers and probes.The sensitivity,specificity,and repeatability of this method were evaluated,and a standard curve was constructed.The coincidence rate of detection findings with this method versus quantitative PCR was determined.This method markedly decreased the detection time to only 10 minutes.The standard curve demonstrated a good linear relationship(Y=-3.410 7x+38.357,R2=0.998 5)with a low minimum detection limit of 10 copies/μL.The method exhibited good specificity and did not specifically amplify several common clinical bacteria other than Brucella.The de-tection of three concentrations of positive plasmids yielded coefficients of variation(CVs)of 0.20％to 0.91％,thus demonstra-ting the method's excellent repeatability.Furthermore,140 clinical samples were analyzed concurrently with the fluorescence PCR method,which yielded a 100％compliance rate and consistent results.Our findings indicated that the Brucella ultra-fast quantitative PCR was ultrafast;had high sensitivity,high specificity,and good specificity;and can be used for the clinical de-tection of Brucella and emergency investigation of epidemics.Therefore,this method is valuable for the early diagnosis of Bru-cella.

Barrett's esophagus(BE),a precancerous state of esophageal adenocarcinoma,poses a major challenge for prevention and treatment owing to its complex mechanism of inflammation-cancer transformation and the lack of effective clinical treatment and torsion strategies.Building upon the"preventing disease progression"theory,this study aimed to address the critical clinical challenge of intercepting the pathological progression during the inflammation-cancer transformation of BE by proposing an innovative"two critical nodes-three stages"pathomechanism framework.The pathogenesis of BE originates from liver depression and qi stagnation.The pathological progression evolves through two critical nodes:liver depression transforming into heat and heat transforming into blood stasis,representing a three-stage evolutionary pattern of qi stagnation,heat transformation,and blood stasis formation.Acidic bile salts,acting as a pathogenic toxin,permeate the entire process and catalyze carcinogenesis.Based on this understanding,the therapeutic principles of"treatment from the liver"and"truncation and torsion"were established,emphasizing stage-specific interventions.For the qi stagnation stage,treatment focuses on soothing the liver and regulating qi,as well as moistening,harmonizing,and descending the qi.This is achieved by combining modified Chaihu Shugan Powder with Xuanfu Daizhe Decoction,while using pungent and drying herbs cautiously and supplementing them with light and floral herbs.In the heat transformation stage,the strategy aims to clear the liver and drain heat while protecting yin and harmonizing the stomach,employing modified Huaganjian combined with Yiguanjian and supplemented with Jinlingzi Powder to clear depressed fire.For the blood stasis formation stage,treatment involves activating blood and resolving stasis,combined with supporting healthy qi and removing toxins.This is achieved using a modified Gexia Zhuyu Decoction,supplemented with Liujunzi Decoction,and additions such as Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae and turtle carapace to disperse nodules and reduce masses.This theoretical framework establishes a diagnostic and therapeutic model characterized by the integration of disease mechanisms with pathology and the mutual reference of macro-level signs with micro-level indicators.It provides a comprehensive clinical practice pathway,complete with principles,methods,formulas,and herbs,for the stage-specific interception of inflammation-cancer transformation in BE using traditional Chinese medicine.