ObjectiveTo explore the efficacy and mechanisms of Sini San in the treatment of depression and liver injury based on gut microbiota. MethodsThirty-two male Sprague-Dawley （SD） rats were randomly divided into a normal group， model group （M）， Sini San group （MS， 2.5 g·kg^-1）， and fluoxetine group （MF， 2 mg·kg^-1）. Except for the normal group， rats in the other three groups were subjected to chronic unpredictable mild stress （CUMS）. After 8 weeks， the open-field test and sucrose preference test were conducted. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay （ELISA） was used to detect serum corticosterone （CORT）， adrenocorticotropic hormone （ACTH）， corticotropin-releasing factor （CRF）， lipopolysaccharide （LPS）， Zonulin， interleukin-6 （IL-6）， tumor necrosis factor-α （TNF-α）， interleukin-1β （IL-1β）， γ-aminobutyric acid （GABA） levels in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex， and brain-derived neurotrophic factor （BDNF） levels in the hippocampus. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction （Real-time PCR） was used to detect hippocampal BDNF mRNA expression. Serum alanine aminotransferase （ALT） and aspartate aminotransferase （AST） levels were measured using the ultraviolet lactate dehydrogenase method. The ultrastructure of the intestinal epithelium was observed by electron microscopy， and gut microbiota in rat feces were analyzed using 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing. ResultsCompared with the normal group， the sucrose preference of rats in the model group was significantly reduced （P0.01）， whereas it was significantly increased in the Sini San group compared with the model group （P0.05）. Compared with the normal group， hippocampal GABA protein levels and BDNF mRNA expression in the model group were significantly decreased （P0.05）， and compared with the model group， both were significantly increased in the Sini San group （P0.05， P0.01）. Compared with the normal group， serum LPS and Zonulin levels in the model group were significantly increased （P0.05， P0.01）， and compared with the model group， Zonulin levels in the Sini San group were significantly decreased （P0.05）. No obvious changes were observed in the ultrastructure of the jejunal mucosa among groups. Compared with the normal group， widened and blurred tight junctions， sparse and shortened microvilli， and mitochondrial swelling with cristae disruption in epithelial cells were observed in the ileal and colonic mucosa of the model group， which were markedly improved in the Sini San and fluoxetine groups. The results of 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing showed that Sini San improved CUMS-induced dysbiosis of Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria. Correlation analysis indicated that Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria were significantly correlated with depression-related indicators， liver function， and intestinal mucosal permeability. ConclusionSini San exerts antidepressant and hepatoprotective effects by improving Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria and inhibiting the increase in intestinal mucosal permeability in CUMS rats.

ObjectiveTo explore the efficacy and mechanisms of Sini San in the treatment of depression and liver injury based on gut microbiota. MethodsThirty-two male Sprague-Dawley （SD） rats were randomly divided into a normal group， model group （M）， Sini San group （MS， 2.5 g·kg^-1）， and fluoxetine group （MF， 2 mg·kg^-1）. Except for the normal group， rats in the other three groups were subjected to chronic unpredictable mild stress （CUMS）. After 8 weeks， the open-field test and sucrose preference test were conducted. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay （ELISA） was used to detect serum corticosterone （CORT）， adrenocorticotropic hormone （ACTH）， corticotropin-releasing factor （CRF）， lipopolysaccharide （LPS）， Zonulin， interleukin-6 （IL-6）， tumor necrosis factor-α （TNF-α）， interleukin-1β （IL-1β）， γ-aminobutyric acid （GABA） levels in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex， and brain-derived neurotrophic factor （BDNF） levels in the hippocampus. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction （Real-time PCR） was used to detect hippocampal BDNF mRNA expression. Serum alanine aminotransferase （ALT） and aspartate aminotransferase （AST） levels were measured using the ultraviolet lactate dehydrogenase method. The ultrastructure of the intestinal epithelium was observed by electron microscopy， and gut microbiota in rat feces were analyzed using 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing. ResultsCompared with the normal group， the sucrose preference of rats in the model group was significantly reduced （P<0.01）， whereas it was significantly increased in the Sini San group compared with the model group （P<0.05）. Compared with the normal group， hippocampal GABA protein levels and BDNF mRNA expression in the model group were significantly decreased （P<0.05）， and compared with the model group， both were significantly increased in the Sini San group （P<0.05， P<0.01）. Compared with the normal group， serum LPS and Zonulin levels in the model group were significantly increased （P<0.05， P<0.01）， and compared with the model group， Zonulin levels in the Sini San group were significantly decreased （P<0.05）. No obvious changes were observed in the ultrastructure of the jejunal mucosa among groups. Compared with the normal group， widened and blurred tight junctions， sparse and shortened microvilli， and mitochondrial swelling with cristae disruption in epithelial cells were observed in the ileal and colonic mucosa of the model group， which were markedly improved in the Sini San and fluoxetine groups. The results of 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing showed that Sini San improved CUMS-induced dysbiosis of Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria. Correlation analysis indicated that Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria were significantly correlated with depression-related indicators， liver function， and intestinal mucosal permeability. ConclusionSini San exerts antidepressant and hepatoprotective effects by improving Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria and inhibiting the increase in intestinal mucosal permeability in CUMS rats.

BACKGROUND: Over 20 million colonoscopies are performed in China annually. An automatic clinical decision support system (CDSS) with accurate semantic recognition of colonoscopy reports and guideline-based is helpful to relieve the increasing medical burden and standardize the healthcare. In this study, the CDSS was built under a hierarchical-label interpretable classification framework, trained by a state-of-the-art transformer-based model, and validated in a multi-center style. METHODS: We conducted stratified sampling on a previously established dataset containing 302,965 electronic colonoscopy reports with pathology, identified 2041 patients' records representative of overall features, and randomly divided into the training and testing sets (7:3). A total of five main labels and 22 sublabels were applied to annotate each record on a network platform, and the data were trained respectively by three pre-training models on Chinese corpus website, including bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT)-base-Chinese (BC), the BERT-wwm-ext-Chinese (BWEC), and ernie-3.0-base-zh (E3BZ). The performance of trained models was subsequently compared with a randomly initialized model, and the preferred model was selected. Model fine-tuning was applied to further enhance the capacity. The system was validated in five other hospitals with 3177 consecutive colonoscopy cases. RESULTS: The E3BZ pre-trained model exhibited the best performance, with a 90.18% accuracy and a 69.14% Macro-F1 score overall. The model achieved 100% accuracy in identifying cancer cases and 99.16% for normal cases. In external validation, the model exhibited favorable consistency and good performance among five hospitals. CONCLUSIONS The novel CDSS possesses high-level semantic recognition of colonoscopy reports, provides appropriate recommendations, and holds the potential to be a powerful tool for physicians and patients. The hierarchical multi-label strategy and pre-training method should be amendable to manage more medical text in the future.
Humans ; Colonoscopy/methods* ; Deep Learning ; Decision Support Systems, Clinical ; Female ; Male

Addressing the enduring challenge of evaluating traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs), the integrated evidence chain-based effectiveness evaluation of TCMs (Eff-iEC) has emerged. This paper explored its capacity through a demonstration study that evaluated the effectiveness evidence of six commonly used anti-hepatic fibrosis Chinese patent medicines (CPMs), including Biejiajian Pill (BP), Dahuang Zhechong Pill (DZP), Biejia Ruangan Compound (BRC), Fuzheng Huayu Capsule (FHC), Anluo Huaxian Pill (AHP), and Heluo Shugan Capsule (HSC), using both Eff-iEC and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system. The recognition of these CPMs within the TCM academic community was also assessed through their inclusion in relevant medical documents. Results showed that the evidence of BRC and FHC received higher assessments in both Eff-iEC and GRADE system, while the assessments for others varied. Analysis of community recognition revealed that Eff-iEC more accurately reflects the clinical value of these CPMs, exhibiting superior evaluative capabilities. By breaking through the conventional pattern of TCMs effectiveness evaluation, Eff-iEC offers a novel epistemology that better aligns with the clinical realities and reasoning of TCMs, providing a coherent methodology for clinical decision-making, new drug evaluations, and health policy formulation.

Approximately 20% to 30% of the global workforce is engaged in shift work. As a significant cause of circadian disruption, shift work is closely associated with an increased risk for periodontitis. Nevertheless, how shift work-related circadian disruption functions in periodontitis remains unknown. Herein, we employed a simulated shift work model constructed by controlling the environmental light-dark cycles and revealed that shift work-related circadian disruption exacerbated the progression of experimental periodontitis. RNA sequencing and in vitro experiments indicated that downregulation of the core circadian protein brain and muscle ARNT-like protein 1 (BMAL1) and activation of the Gasdermin D (GSDMD)-mediated pyroptosis were involved in the pathogenesis of that. Mechanically, BMAL1 regulated GSDMD-mediated pyroptosis by suppressing NOD-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome signaling through modulating nuclear receptor subfamily 1 group D member 1 (NR1D1), and inhibiting Gsdmd transcription via directly binding to the E-box elements in its promoter. GSDMD-mediated pyroptosis accelerated periodontitis progression, whereas downregulated BMAL1 under circadian disruption further aggravated periodontal destruction by increasing GSDMD activity. And restoring the level of BMAL1 by circadian recovery and SR8278 injection alleviated simulated shift work-exacerbated periodontitis via lessening GSDMD-mediated pyroptosis. These findings provide new evidence and potential interventional targets for circadian disruption-accelerated periodontitis.
Pyroptosis/physiology* ; ARNTL Transcription Factors/metabolism* ; Animals ; Periodontitis/etiology* ; Mice ; Phosphate-Binding Proteins/metabolism* ; Shift Work Schedule/adverse effects* ; Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins/metabolism* ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Male ; Disease Models, Animal ; Gasdermins

The ethics committee of organ transplantation technology and clinical application in a hospital has encountered some difficulties and typical cases in its review work and practice for many years. Sometimes, it is difficult to make a decision in these dilemmas. Based on the previous experience of the hospital in the ethical review of organ donation and transplantation, combined with two typical cases, this paper discussed and analyzed two review points of whether the voluntary unpaid donation and the principle of informed consent were met, and whether the risk-benefit ratio was reasonable, and put forward relevant ethical and legal countermeasure for further research by institutional ethics committees and other parties, in order to provide reference for discussing the practical problems and ethical confusion of ethical review of organ donation and transplantation.

Objective:To detect the expression of Toll-like receptor 7(TLR7)in blood neutrophils of patients with allergic rhi-nitis(AR),allergic asthma(AA)and allergic rhinitis combined with allergic asthma(ARA)before and after allergen challenge.Methods:A total of 44 AR,36 AA,19 ARA patients and 19 healthy control(HC)were recruited,the extracts of Artemisia siever-siana wild allergen(ASWE),house dust mite allergen(HDME)and Platanus pollen allergen(PPAE)were used to challenge periph-eral blood of HC as well as the patients,the expression of TLR7 in neutrophils was detected by flow cytometry.Results:In a resting state,compared with HC,upregulated expression of TLR7 in neutrophils in patients with airway allergy:the percentage of TLR7+neu-trophils in AR,AA,ARA patients increased 6 times,3.18 times and 6.15 times,respectively,and the mean fluorescence intensity(MFI)of TLR7 expression in neutrophil in ARA was enhanced by 24%.The results of allergen challenge tests showed that the expres-sion of neutrophils TLR7 did not change in HC subjects after the allergen challenge,whereas the expression of TLR7 in neutrophils of patients with airway allergy was upregulated after the allergens challenge.After HDME and PPAE challenge,the percentage of TLR7+neutrophils in peripheral of AR patients increased by 8.40%and 33.03%,respectively,and the MFI of TLR7 enhanced by 29.62%and 35.72%,respectively.After ASWE and PPAE challenge.The percentage of TLR7+neutrophils in peripheral of AA pa-tients increased by 59.18%and 1.06 times,respectively,and the MFI of TLR7 enhanced by 68.93%and 47.33%,respectively.How-ever,after HDME stimulation only enhanced the MFI of neutrophil TLR7 in AA patients by 66.14%;after HDME challenge,the per-centage of TLR7 and MFI in peripheral blood neutrophils of patients with ARA increased by 21.05%and 35.61%,respectively,while after PPAE challenge,the percentage of TLR7+cells in patients with ARA increased by 20.07%.Conclusion:The expression of TLR7 in blood neutrophils is increased in patients with allergic airway diseases after allergen stimulation,suggesting that allergens may be involved in the occurrence and development of allergic airway diseases by inducing TLR7 expression changes in neutrophils.

Objective To analyze the effect of roxadustat and human erythropoietin injection on hemodialysis patients.Methods Data of the patients who received hemodialysis treatment in Emergency General Hospital from December 2021 to December 2023 were selected and the patients were divided into the test group(treated with oral roxadustat)and the control group(treated with human erythropoietin subcutaneous injection)according to the treatment schemes.The levels of hemoglobin(HB),hematocrit(HCT),erythropoietin(EPO),transferrin saturation(TSAT),unsaturated iron binding capacity(UIBC),ferritin(SF),fibroblast growth factor-23(FGF-23),NADPH oxidase 2(NOX2),advanced protein oxidation product(AOPP),P-selectin(CD62P),C-reactive protein(CRP),interleukin-1β(IL-1β),interleukin-6(IL-6),claudin-1(CLDN-1)and the incidence of adverse reactions were compared between the two groups.Results A total of 80 patients were included,with 40 patients in each group.After treatment,the levels of Hb,HCT,SF,TSAT and CLDN-1 in the test group were higher than those in the control group,while the levels of EPO,UIBC,FGF-23,AOPP,NOX2,CD62P,CRP,IL-1 β and IL-6 in the test group were lower than those in the control group(P＜0.05).The incidence of adverse reactions in the test group was lower than that in the control group(P＜0.05).Conclusion Compared with human erythropoietin injection,roxadustat can significantly correct the anemia state of hemodialysis patients,regulate the iron metabolism,improve the inflammation and the oxidative stress response,and has high effectiveness and safety.