Objective To investigate the combined effect of berberine （BBR） and fluconazole （FLC） on FLC-tolerant Candida albicans in vitro. Methods The sensitivity of 8 strains of Candida albicans to FLC was assessed by determining their minimal inhibitory concentration （MIC） using broth microdilution method. FLC-tolerant strains were screened from FLC-sensitive strains by disk diffusion assay. The effect of BBR combined with FLC on FLC-tolerant Candida albicans was investigated by disk diffusion assay. Results All eight strains of Candida albicans exhibited sensitivity to FLC, with minimal inhibitory concentration （MIC₅₀） values below 0.5 μg/ml. Strains Y0109, 9821, 7879, 7654, and 9296 displayed colony growth in the inhibition zone after 48 h of constant temperature incubation, indicating FLC tolerance. When strains Y0109 and 9821 were subjected to a combination of BBR and FLC, the number of colonies within the inhibition zone decreased progressively with the increase of BBR concentration following a 48 h constant temperature culture. The inhibition zone became clear with the increasing of BBR concentration and increased with the increase of FLC loading, which showed a dose-dependent relationship. Conclusion The BBR combined with FLC demonstrated efficacy against FLC-tolerant strains.

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to investigate the prophylactic effects of caloric restriction (CR) on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced septic cardiomyopathy (SCM) and to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the cardioprotective actions of CR. This research aims to provide innovative strategies and theoretical support for the prevention of SCM. MethodsA total of forty-eight 8-week-old male C57BL/6 mice, weighing between 20-25 g, were randomly assigned to 4 distinct groups, each consisting of 12 mice. The groups were designated as follows: CON (control), LPS, CR, and CR+LPS. Prior to the initiation of the CR protocol, the CR and CR+LPS groups underwent a 2-week acclimatization period during which individual food consumption was measured. The initial week of CR intervention was set at 80% of the baseline intake, followed by a reduction to 60% for the subsequent 5 weeks. After 6-week CR intervention, all 4 groups received an intraperitoneal injection of either normal saline or LPS (10 mg/kg). Twelve hours post-injection, heart function was assessed, and subsequently, heart and blood samples were collected. Serum inflammatory markers were quantified using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The serum myocardial enzyme spectrum was analyzed using an automated biochemical instrument. Myocardial tissue sections underwent hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining and immunofluorescence (IF) staining. Western blot analysis was used to detect the expression of protein in myocardial tissue, including inflammatory markers (TNF-α, IL-9, IL-18), oxidative stress markers (iNOS, SOD2), pro-apoptotic markers (Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, CASP3), and SIRT3/SIRT6. ResultsTwelve hours after LPS injection, there was a significant decrease in ejection fraction (EF) and fractional shortening (FS) ratios, along with a notable increase in left ventricular end-systolic diameter (LVESD). Morphological and serum indicators (AST, LDH, CK, and CK-MB) indicated that LPS injection could induce myocardial structural disorders and myocardial injury. Furthermore, 6-week CR effectively prevented the myocardial injury. LPS injection also significantly increased the circulating inflammatory levels (IL-1β, TNF-α) in mice. IF and Western blot analyses revealed that LPS injection significantly up-regulating the expression of inflammatory-related proteins (TNF-α, IL-9, IL-18), oxidative stress-related proteins (iNOS, SOD2) and apoptotic proteins (Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, CASP3) in myocardial tissue. 6-week CR intervention significantly reduced circulating inflammatory levels and downregulated the expression of inflammatory, oxidative stress-related proteins and pro-apoptotic level in myocardial tissue. Additionally, LPS injection significantly downregulated the expression of SIRT3 and SIRT6 proteins in myocardial tissue, and CR intervention could restore the expression of SIRT3 proteins. ConclusionA 6-week CR could prevent LPS-induced septic cardiomyopathy, including cardiac function decline, myocardial structural damage, inflammation, oxidative stress, and apoptosis. The mechanism may be associated with the regulation of SIRT3 expression in myocardial tissue.

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 explore clinical effect of single small incision with honeycomb titanium plate in treating acute acromioclavicular dislocation.Methods The clinical data of 40 patients with acute acromioclavicular dislocation admitted from December 2019 to December 2021 were retrospectively analyzed and divided into two groups according to different surgical methods.Among them,20 patients were fixed with single small incision with honeycomb titanium plate(titanium plate group),including 11 males and 9 females,aged from 23 to 65 years old with an average of(47.40±12.58)years old;12 patients on the left side,8 patients on the right side;11 patients with type Ⅲ,3 patients with type Ⅳ,and 6 patients with type Ⅴ according to Rockwood classification.Twenty patients were fixed with clavicular hook plate(clavicular hook group),including 8 males and 12 females,aged from 24 to 65 years old with an average of(48.40±12.08)years old;12 patients on the left side,8 patients on the right side;10 patients with type Ⅲ,2 patients with type Ⅳ,and 8 patients with type V according to Rockwood classifica-tion.Operative time,incision length,intraoperative blood loss,hospital stay,visual analogue scale(VAS)and Constant-Murley score of shoulder joint function were compared between two groups.Anteroposterior radiographs of the affected shoulder joint were recorded before,immediately and 6 months after surgery,and the coracoclavicular distance was measured and compared.Results Both groups of patients were successfully completed operation without serious complications.All patients were fol-lowed up for 6 to 15 months with an average of(11.9±4.8)months.There were no incisional infection,internal plant fracture or failure,bone tunnel fracture and other complications occurred.The incision length of titanium plate group(35.90±3.14)mm was significantly shorter than that of clavicular hook group(49.30±3.79)mm(P＜0.05).There were no significant difference in operative time,intraoperative blood loss and hospital stay between two groups(P＞0.05).At 1 and 3 months after operation,VAS of titanium plate group was lower than that of clavicular hook group(P＜0.05).Connstant-Murley scores in titanium plate group at 1,3 and 6 months after operation were(86.80±1.36),(91.60±2.32)and(94.90±2.22),respectively;and in clavicular hook group were(78.45±5.47),(85.55±2.01)and(90.25±1.92),which were higher than that of clavicular hook group(P＜0.05).There was no significant difference in coracoclavicular distance between two groups immediately and 6 months after op-eration(P＞0.05).Conclusion For the treatment of acute acromioclavicular joint dislocation,single small incision combined with honeycomb titanium plate have advantages of shorter incision,fast recovery of shoulder joint function without the second operation,and has good satisfaction of patient.

To understand the distribution of ticks in the Wuwei Region,enrich tick species data,and provide a basis for the prevention of tick-borne diseases,tick were collected using flagging and tick-picking methods during the highest activity period from April to September in 2021 and 2022 in the mountainous areas of Wuwei City.The ticks were identified based on morpho-logical and molecular biological characteristics,and characteristic sequences were obtained.A systematic evolutionary tree was constructed using the neighbor-joining method in MEGA 11.0 software.In total,7 342 ticks collected in Wuwei,which be-longed to 5 species from 4 genera with in the Ixodidae family,which included Dermacentor nuttalli,Hyalomma asiaticum,Ixodes canisuga,Haemaphysalis longicornis and Haema-physalis danieli.Ticks of the same species clustered together into the same branch of an evolutionary tree.In the Wuwei Re-gion,five common tick species are found across various habi-tats,with each habitat featuring different distributions of tick species and populations.The Dermacentor nuttalli is the dom-inant tick species in this area.

As a unique gene in the genome,FLASH(FADD-like interleukin-1β-converting enzyme asso-ciated huge protein)/CASP8AP2 is involved in multiple cellular processes,including apoptosis,histone gene pre-mRNA processing,transcriptional regulation,and cell cycle progression.Clinical studies have shown that FLASH is a valuable prognostic marker for acute lymphoblastic leukemia,and a crucial factor for the survival of various cancer cells.Therefore,in-depth research into the function of FLASH may offer new perspectives for the treatment of related diseases.Our previous research identified FLASH as a bind-ing partner of p53,demonstrating that FLASH enhances the transcriptional activity of p53.Here we fur-ther investigate the molecular mechanisms of the interaction between FLASH and p53,revealing that the p53-K386R mutation(SUMOylation residue)attenuated its interaction with FLASH(aa 51-200)and FLASH-SIM(SUMO-interacting motif)(aa 1 534-1 806)significantly.However,SUMO can bind to FLASH-SIM directly,instead of FLASH(aa 51-200).Subsequent research shows that overexpression of FLASH in cells enhances global SUMO1 conjugation and p53-SUMO1 conjugation,therefore providing a plausible explanation for the underlying mechanism of FLASH enhancing the transcriptional activity of p53.Since promyelocytic leukemia protein nuclear body(PML NB)serves as subcellular reactors for SUMO conjugation within the cell,and the PML Ⅳ isoform can specifically enhance the SUMO modifica-tion of p53,we have investigated the interaction between FLASH and PML Ⅳ,and elucidated the struc-tural basis of their interaction:both FLASH-N3A(501-802)and FLASH-C2(1 807-1 981)bind to PML Ⅳ(aa 228-633).Further investigations reveal that they can synergistically enhance global SUMO1 modification as well as SUMO1 modification of p53.The interaction between FLASH and tumor suppres-sors p53 or PML Ⅳ enriches our understanding of its function and reveals the potential mechanism of FLASH in tumor development,therefore offering novel insights into cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Objective:To investigate two cases of rare pathogenic genes,initiation codon mutations in HBA2 gene,combined with Southeast Asian deletion and their family members to understand the relationship of HBA2:c.2T＞C and HBA2:c.2delT mutations with clinical phenotype.Methods:The peripheral blood of family members was obtained for blood cell analysis and capillary electrophoresis hemoglobin analysis.Gap-PCR and reverse dot blotting(RDB)were used to detect common types of mutations in α-thalassaemia gene.Sanger sequencing was used to analyze HBA1 and HBA2 gene sequence.Results:Two proband genotypes were identified as--SEA/αα with HBA2:c.2T＞C and--SEA/αα with HBA2:c.2delT.HBA2:c.2T＞C/WT and HBA2:c.2delT/WT was detected in family members.They all presented with microcytic hypochromic anemia.Conclusion:When HBA2:c.2T＞C and HBA2:c.2delT are heterozygous that can lead to static α-thalassemia phenotype,and when combined with mild α-thalassemia,they can lead to the clinical manifestations of hemoglobin H disease.This study provides a basis for genetic counseling.

Objective:This study aims to assess the status of catastrophic health expenditure(CHE)among elderly households in China,analyze the evolving inequality trends of CHE,and identify the contributing factors.Methods:Utilizing data from the China Family Panel Studies(2012-2020),we employed Logit regression and multiple linear regression to estimate the factors influencing CHE,Furthermore,we utilized the concentration index and its decomposition method to examine the disparities in CHE and the respective impacts of associated factors.Results:The findings reveal a heightened vulnerability among elderly households,with discernible income-related inequalities and a rising trend.Economic factors.Household savings,per capita income,and net worth,as well as the health status of the elderly and their membership in elderly-oriented organizations,positively contribute to the inequality in catastrophic health expenditure.Conversely,the presence of a partner exhibits a negative influence.Conclusion:These results underscore the need for policy interventions that address these contributing factors and effectively provide economic risk mitigation for the elderly population.

Objective To propose a sperm classification model based on convolutional neural network to enhance the accuracy of sperm morphological classification.Methods A FT-EfficientNet model was constructed using EfficientNetB0 as the base model,which was fine-tuned by data preprocessing enhancement,transfer learning and cosine decay.Classification experi-ments were performed on the sperm public datasets SCIAN-Morpho and HuSHeM,and the datasets were segmented and vali-dated using 5-fold cross-validation.The classification results by the FT-EfficientNet model were compared with those by the cascade ensemble of support vector machines(CE-SVM)model,the adaptive patch-based dictionary learning(APDL)model,fine tuning of visual geometry group(FT-VGG)model,morphological classification of human sperm heads(MH-HSH)model and transfer learning(TL)model.Ablation experiments were performed in the SCIAN-Morpho dataset to verify the effect of different fine-tuning methods on the model.Results The FT-EfficientNet model proposed had the accuracy,precision and F1 score on the SCIAN-Morpho validation set being 64.1％,63.8％and 64.8％,respectively,which were better than CE-SVM,APDL,FT-VGG and MC-HSH models.The recall rate of the model proposed(65.2％)was slightly lower than that of MC-HSH model(68.0％).The accuracy,precision,F1 score and recall rate on the HuSHeM validation set was 95.4％,95.8％,95.4％and 96.0％,respectively,which were slightly lower than those of TL model while better than those of CE-SVM,APDL,FT-VGG and MC-HSH models.Ablation experiments showed the FT-EfficientNet model behaved the best in fine-tuning.Conclusion The sperm classification model based on convolutional neural network facilitates sperm morphology classification with high accuracy and performance.[Chinese Medical Equipment Journal,2024,45(10):7-13]

Abstract: Objective　To investigate the influencing factors related to the recent transmission of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in Hainan Province, with the goal of providing an epidemiological basis for the region's prevention and control strategies, as well as clinical decision-making regarding MDR-TB. Methods Clinical respiratory specimens from MDR-TB patients treated at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University from July 2019 to June 2021 were collected for mycobacterial isolation and cultivation. Isolates of multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MDR-MTB) identified through proportional drug-susceptibility screening were subjected to whole-genome sequencing (WGS). In conjunction with clinical and epidemiological data, factors influencing recent MDR-TB transmission were analyzed. Results A total of 202 MDR-TB patients were included in the study, primarily distributed across 18 cities and counties of Hainan Province (excluding Sansha City), and the patients were predominantly male. Phylogenetic analysis of the MDR-MTB strains showed that 56.4% (114/202) belonged to Lineage 2.2 (Beijing), 27.2% (55/202) to Lineage 2.1 (non-Beijing), 13.4% (27/202) to Lineage 4 (Euro-American), and 3.0% (6/202) to Lineage 1 (Indo-Oceanic). Through genetic distance analysis, 42 strains of MDR-MTB were found to be grouped into 15 clusters, with a clustering rate of 20.8%, indicating a significant level of recent transmission. Analysis of transmission-related factors revealed that non-agricultural occupations, initial treatment, and unmarried status were positively correlated with recent MDR-TB transmission, while older age and a history of smoking were negatively correlated. Notably, Lineage 2.2 (Beijing) showed a higher likelihood of MDR-TB transmission compared to Lineage 2.1 (non-eijing). Multivariate logistic regression analysis further identified that patients receiving initial treatment were an independent risk factor for recent MDR-TB transmission. Conclusions MDR-TB in Hainan Province exhibits distinctive genetic diversity, with Lineage 2.2 (Beijing) being the predominant epidemic strain. Recent transmission of MDR-TB in Hainan Province is associated with non-agricultural occupations, initial treatment, unmarried status, and Lineage 2.2 (Beijing), with the initial treatment being a likely independent risk factor for transmission. These findings offer vital clues for controlling MDR-TB and are expected to guide the formulation of targeted prevention and control strategies to reduce the transmission of the MDR-TB epidemic.