Objective:To investigate the expression levels, correlation, and diagnostic efficacy of peripheral blood CD8 +T lymphocyte subsets and different immune checkpoint markers in patients with Brucellosis. Method:A case-control study was conducted on 32 patients with acute phase brucellosis (27 males and 5 females, aged 36 (30, 43) years), 38 patients with chronic phase brucellosis (30 males and 8 females, aged 40 (32, 48) years), and 30 healthy controls (24 males and 6 females, aged 39 (32, 46) years), who underwent physical examination at Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region People′s Hospital from February 1, 2021 to December 31, 2023. All subjects had fasting blood sampling once in the morning. Flow cytometry was used to detect the proportion of peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets, the expression levels of CD8 +T lymphocyte surface programmed cell death receptor-1 (PD-1), T lymphocyte immunoglobulin receptor with Ig and ITIM domains (TIGIT), T cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain containing protein 3 (TIM-3), perforin and granzyme B. The changes in these indicators during the acute and chronic phases of the disease were observed, and correlation analysis was performed using Spearman′s method. Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (ROC) analysis is used to evaluate the diagnostic value of immunological indicators with differences in acute and chronic brucellosis. Results:CD3 +T lymphocyte in the chronic group (70.71%±8.78%) is significantly lower than that in the healthy control group (74.65%±7.31%) ( P<0.05), and CD4 +T lymphocyte in the acute phase group (39.52%±5.85%) is also lower than that in the healthy control group (45.10%±5.18%) ( P<0.01); while CD8 +T lymphocyte in the acute group (31.73%±5.87%) is significantly higher than that in the chronic phase group (26.75%±4.71%) ( P<0.001). There was a statistically significant difference ( P<0.001) in CD8+CD28 -T lymphocyte among the acute group (69.85% (58.62%, 78.55%)), chronic group (86.46% (73.30%, 92.52%)) and healthy control group (25.39% (20.60%,32.90%)), when compared pairwise. The expression levels of immune checkpoint PD-1, TIGIT, and TIM-3 on the surface of CD8 +T lymphocytes were higher in both the acute and chronic groups than in the healthy control group ( P<0.001). The expression level of perforin secreted by CD8 +T lymphocytes in the acute and chronic groups was lower than that in the healthy control group ( P<0.05), while the expression level of granzyme B in the acute and chronic groups was higher than that in the healthy control group ( P<0.01). The proportion of CD8 +CD28 -T lymphocytes in brucellosis patients was positively correlated with the expression levels of TIGIT and TIM-3 ( r=0.624, 0.406, P<0.001). The ROC curve combined with the proportion of CD8 +CD28 -T lymphocytes and the proportion of TIGIT on the surface of CD8 +T lymphocytes can distinguish acute and chronic brucellosis. The Area Under Curve (AUC) is 0.973, which has certain implications for clinical differentiation of patients with acute and chronic diseases. Conclusion:The CD8 +T lymphocyte subsets in patients with brucellosis exhibit dynamic changes, accompanied by changes in relevant immune checkpoint molecules, and can regulate the activation and inhibition of the immune status of brucellosis patients. The synergistic effect of CD8 +CD28 -T cells and TIGIT/TIM-3 may be a key mechanism of driving chronicity, and their combined diagnosis can serve as a clinical staging marker.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether auraptene (AUR) exerts a protective effect on acute diquat (DQ)-induced liver injury in mice and explore its underlying mechanisms. METHODS: Forty SPF-grade healthy male C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into normal control group (Control group), DQ poisoning model group (DQ group), AUR treatment group (DQ+AUR group), and AUR control group (AUR group), with 10 mice in each group. The DQ poisoning model was established via a single intraperitoneal injection of 40 mg/kg DQ aqueous solution (0.5 mL); Control group and AUR group received an equal volume of pure water intraperitoneally. Four hours post-modeling, DQ+AUR group and AUR group were administered 0.5 mg/kg AUR aqueous solution (0.2 mL) by gavage once daily for 7 consecutive days, while Control group and DQ group received pure water. Blood and liver tissues were collected after anesthesia on day 7. Liver ultrastructure was observed by transmission electron microscopy. Serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels were measured via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Hepatic glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were detected using WST-1, thiobarbituric acid (TBA), and enzymatic reaction methods, respectively. Protein expression of nuclear factor-erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (Keap1), and activated caspase-9 in liver tissues was analyzed by Western blotting. RESULTS: Transmission electron microscopy revealed that mitochondria in the Control group exhibited mild swelling, uneven distribution of matrix, and a small number of cristae fractures. In the AUR group, mitochondria showed mild swelling, with no obvious disruption of cristae structure. In the DQ group, mitochondria demonstrated marked swelling and increased volume, matrix dissolution, loss and fragmentation of cristae, and extensive vacuolization. In contrast, the DQ+AUR group showed significantly reduced mitochondrial swelling, volume increase, matrix dissolution, cristae loss and fragmentation, and vacuolization compared to the DQ group. Compared with the DQ group, the DQ+AUR group exhibited significantly lower serum AST levels (U/L: 173.45±23.60 vs. 255.33±41.51), ALT levels (U/L: 51.77±21.63 vs. 100.70±32.35), and hepatic MDA levels (μmol/g: 12.40±2.76 vs. 19.74±4.10), along with higher hepatic GSH levels (mmol/g: 37.65±14.95 vs. 20.58±8.52) and SOD levels (kU/g: 124.10±33.77 vs. 82.81±22.00), the differences were statistically significant (all P < 0.05). Western blotting showed upregulated Nrf2 expression (Nrf2/β-actin: 0.87±0.37 vs. 0.53±0.22) and HO-1 expression (HO-1/β-actin: 1.06±0.22 vs. 0.49±0.08), and downregulated Keap1 expression (Keap1/β-actin: 0.82±0.12 vs. 1.52±0.76) and activated caspase-9 expression (activated caspase-9/β-actin: 1.16±0.28 vs. 1.71±0.30) in the DQ+AUR group compared to the DQ group (all P < 0.05). CONCLUSION AUR attenuates DQ-induced acute liver injury in mice by activating the Keap1/Nrf2 signaling pathway.
Animals ; Male ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Liver/pathology* ; Chemical and Drug Induced Liver Injury/drug therapy* ; Diquat/poisoning* ; NF-E2-Related Factor 2/metabolism* ; Oxidative Stress ; Apoptosis ; Coumarins

Objective:To investigate the expression levels, correlation, and diagnostic efficacy of peripheral blood CD8 +T lymphocyte subsets and different immune checkpoint markers in patients with Brucellosis. Method:A case-control study was conducted on 32 patients with acute phase brucellosis (27 males and 5 females, aged 36 (30, 43) years), 38 patients with chronic phase brucellosis (30 males and 8 females, aged 40 (32, 48) years), and 30 healthy controls (24 males and 6 females, aged 39 (32, 46) years), who underwent physical examination at Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region People′s Hospital from February 1, 2021 to December 31, 2023. All subjects had fasting blood sampling once in the morning. Flow cytometry was used to detect the proportion of peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets, the expression levels of CD8 +T lymphocyte surface programmed cell death receptor-1 (PD-1), T lymphocyte immunoglobulin receptor with Ig and ITIM domains (TIGIT), T cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain containing protein 3 (TIM-3), perforin and granzyme B. The changes in these indicators during the acute and chronic phases of the disease were observed, and correlation analysis was performed using Spearman′s method. Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (ROC) analysis is used to evaluate the diagnostic value of immunological indicators with differences in acute and chronic brucellosis. Results:CD3 +T lymphocyte in the chronic group (70.71%±8.78%) is significantly lower than that in the healthy control group (74.65%±7.31%) ( P<0.05), and CD4 +T lymphocyte in the acute phase group (39.52%±5.85%) is also lower than that in the healthy control group (45.10%±5.18%) ( P<0.01); while CD8 +T lymphocyte in the acute group (31.73%±5.87%) is significantly higher than that in the chronic phase group (26.75%±4.71%) ( P<0.001). There was a statistically significant difference ( P<0.001) in CD8+CD28 -T lymphocyte among the acute group (69.85% (58.62%, 78.55%)), chronic group (86.46% (73.30%, 92.52%)) and healthy control group (25.39% (20.60%,32.90%)), when compared pairwise. The expression levels of immune checkpoint PD-1, TIGIT, and TIM-3 on the surface of CD8 +T lymphocytes were higher in both the acute and chronic groups than in the healthy control group ( P<0.001). The expression level of perforin secreted by CD8 +T lymphocytes in the acute and chronic groups was lower than that in the healthy control group ( P<0.05), while the expression level of granzyme B in the acute and chronic groups was higher than that in the healthy control group ( P<0.01). The proportion of CD8 +CD28 -T lymphocytes in brucellosis patients was positively correlated with the expression levels of TIGIT and TIM-3 ( r=0.624, 0.406, P<0.001). The ROC curve combined with the proportion of CD8 +CD28 -T lymphocytes and the proportion of TIGIT on the surface of CD8 +T lymphocytes can distinguish acute and chronic brucellosis. The Area Under Curve (AUC) is 0.973, which has certain implications for clinical differentiation of patients with acute and chronic diseases. Conclusion:The CD8 +T lymphocyte subsets in patients with brucellosis exhibit dynamic changes, accompanied by changes in relevant immune checkpoint molecules, and can regulate the activation and inhibition of the immune status of brucellosis patients. The synergistic effect of CD8 +CD28 -T cells and TIGIT/TIM-3 may be a key mechanism of driving chronicity, and their combined diagnosis can serve as a clinical staging marker.

Objective·To analyze the differences and classify hypertrophic cardiomyopathy(HCM)patients and healthy controls(HC)using short-axis cine cardiac magnetic resonance(CMR)images-derived radiomics features.Methods·One hundred HCM subjects were included,and fifty HC were randomly selected at 2∶1 ratio during January 2018 to December 2021 in the Department of Cardiology,Renji Hospital,Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.The CMR examinations were performed by experienced radiologists on these subjects.CVI 42 post-processing software was used to obtain left ventricular morphology and function measurements,including left ventricular ejection fraction(LVEF),left ventricular end-diastolic volume(LVEDV)and left ventricular end-diastolic mass(LVEDM).The 3D radiomic features of the end-diastolic myocardial region were extracted from short-axis images CMR cine.The distribution of the radiomic features in the two groups was analysed and machine learning models were constructed to classify the two groups.Results·One hundred and seven 3D radiomic features were selected and extracted.After exclusion of highly correlated features,least absolute shrinkage and selection operator(LASSO)was used,and a 5-fold cross-validation was performed.There were still 11 characteristics with non-zero coefficients.The K-best method was used to decide the top 8 features for subsequent analysis.Among them,four features were significantly different between the two groups(all P<0.05).Support vector machine(SVM)and random forest(RF)models were constructed to discriminate the two groups.The results showed that the maximum area under the curve(AUC)for the single-feature model(first order grayscale:entropy)was 0.833(95%CI 0.685?0.968)and the maximum accuracy for the multi-feature model was 83.3%with an AUC of 0.882(95%CI 0.705?0.980).Conclusion·There are significant differences in both left ventricular function and left ventricular morphology between HCM and HC.The 3D myocardial radiomic features of the two groups are also significantly different.Although single feature is able to distinguish the two groups,the combination of multi-features show better classification performance.

Objective To investigate the role of squalene epoxidase(SQLE)knockout in anti-tumor effect vial im-proving CD8+T cell infiltration in melanoma tumor microenvironment.Methods Both immunodeficient and immu-nocompetent mice were inoculated with SQLE knockout B16F10 cells to determine the cell-autonomous and non-au-tonomous regulation of malignancy.Antibody blockade,Luminex multiplex assays,and flow cytometry were em-ployed to explore the impact of SQLE gene knockout on the secretion of cytokines/chemokines and immune cell in-filtration.Bioinformatics analysis was conducted to validate the correlation between SQLE expression and immune infiltration as well as clinical prognosis in melanoma patients.Results Compared with immunodeficient mice,SQLE knockout significantly inhibited melanoma proliferation in immunocompetent mice and prolonged their surviv-al.SQLE knockout induced the secretion of cytokines and chemokines from tumor cells,improved CD8+T cell in-filtration in the tumor microenvironment,thereby potentiating anti-tumor immunity.Bioinformatics analysis sugges-ted a significant correlation between SQLE and its corresponding immune infiltration markers with the prognosis of melanoma patients.Conclusion SQLE regulates anti-tumor immunity by controlling cytokines and chemokines re-leasing in tumor microenvironment,thus holding promise as a novel tumor immunotherapy target and efficacy predic-tion molecular indicator.

Objective·To develop a machine learning approach for early identification of metabolic syndromes associated with inflammatory metabolic state changes in breast cancer patients after neoadjuvant therapy,using common laboratory and transthoracic echocardiography indices.Methods·Female patients with primary invasive breast cancer diagnosed at the Department of Breast Surgery,Renji Hospital,Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine,between September 2020 and September 2022,were included.General patient information,laboratory test results,and transthoracic echocardiography data were collected.After feature extraction,five machine learning algorithms,including random forest(RF),gradient boosting(GB),support vector machine(SVM),K-nearest neighbor(KNN),and decision tree(DT),were applied to construct a prediction model for the changes of the patients' metabolic state after neoadjuvant therapy,and the prediction performances of the five models were compared.Results·A total of 232 cases with valid clinical data were included,comprising 135 cases before neoadjuvant therapy and 97 cases after completing 4 cycles of neoadjuvant therapy.Feature extraction identified five key features:white blood cell count,hemoglobin,high-density lipoprotein(HDL),interleukin-2 receptor,and interleukin-8.In the multi-feature analysis,the area under the receiver operating characferistic curve(AUC)was higher in the combination of white blood cell count,hemoglobin and HDL compared to the combination of interleukin-2 receptor and interleukin-8(RF:0.928 vs 0.772,GB:0.900 vs 0.792,SVM:0.941 vs 0.764,KNN:0.907 vs 0.762,DT:0.799 vs 0.714).The RF,SVM,and GB models showed higher AUC(0.928,0.941,0.900)and accuracy(0.914,0.897,0.776).The SVM model exhibited superior accuracy in the training data compared to the RF and GB models(P=0.394,0.122 and 0.097,respectively).Conclusion·The SVM model can be used to establish a prediction model for identifying breast cancer patients at high risk of developing inflammatory metabolic state-related metabolic syndrome after neoadjuvant therapy by incorporating five common clinical indicators,namely,white blood cell count,hemoglobin,high-density lipoprotein,interleukin-2 receptor,and interleukin-8.SVM modeling may be useful for clinicians to establish individualized screening protocols based on a patient's inflammatory metabolic state.

Diphtheria toxin is an ADP-ribosyltransferase toxic to human cells. Mutation of the active site in its catalytic domain eliminates the toxicity, but retains its immunogenicity. A non-toxic mutant of diphtheria toxin known as CRM197 protein has become an ideal carrier protein for conjugate vaccines. CRM197 can further improve its immunogenicity by cross-linking with other antigens, so it has good potential to find broad applications. Unfortunately, inclusion bodies are easily formed during the expression of recombinant CRM197 protein in Escherichia coli, which greatly reduces its yield. In order to address this problem, pG-KJE8 vector carrying molecular chaperones and plasmid pET28a-CRM197, were co-expressed in Escherichia coli. The results showed that the recombinant CRM197 protein was successfully expressed and appeared largely in inclusion bodies. The molecular chaperones DnaK, DnaJ, GrpE, GroES and GroEL5 expressed can facilitate correct and rapid folding of CRM197. Furthermore, it can also improve the recovery rate of soluble CRM197 protein. The soluble expression of CRM197 was maximized upon addition of 1.0 mmol/L IPTG, 0.5 mg L-arabinose, 5.0 ng/mL tetracycline and induction at 20oC for 16 h. The soluble CRM197 protein shows good immunoreactivity, demonstrating the molecular chaperones expressed from pG-KJE8 facilitated the soluble expression of CRM197 protein in E. coli.
Bacterial Proteins ; Diphtheria Toxin/genetics* ; Escherichia coli/genetics* ; Humans ; Molecular Chaperones/genetics* ; Recombinant Proteins/genetics*