Objectives:To investigate the effect of the expression of low-density lipoprotein receptor associated protein (LDLR) on the vascular abnormalities in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its mechanisms.Methods:Based on the information of Oncomine Cancer GeneChip database, we analyzed the correlation between the expression level of LDLR and the expression level of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and CD31 in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues. Lentiviral transfection of short hairpin RNA target genes was used to construct LDLR-knockdown MHCC-97H and HLE hepatocellular carcinoma cells. The differential genes and their expression level changes in LDLR-knockdown hepatocellular carcinoma cells were detected by transcriptome sequencing, real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and protein immunoblotting. The gene-related signaling pathways that involve LDLR were clarified by enrichment analysis. The effect of LDLR on CEA was assessed by the detection of CEA content in conditioned medium of hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Angiogenesis assay was used to detect the effect of LDLR on the angiogenic capacity of human umbilical vein endothelial cells, as well as the role of CEA in the regulation of angiogenesis by LDLR. Immunohistochemical staining was used to detect the expression levels of LDLR in 176 hepatocellular carcinoma tissues, and CEA and CD31 in 146 hepatocellular carcinoma tissues, and analyze the correlations between the expression levels of LDLR, CEA, and CD31 in the tissues, serum CEA, and alanine transaminase (ALT).Results:Oncomine database analysis showed that the expressions of LDLR and CEA in the tissues of hepatocellular carcinoma patients with portal vein metastasis were negatively correlated ( r=-0.64, P=0.001), whereas the expressions of CEA and CD31 in these tissues were positively correlated ( r=0.46, P=0.010). The transcriptome sequencing results showed that there were a total of 1 032 differentially expressed genes in the LDLR-knockdown group and the control group of MHCC-97H cells, of which 517 genes were up-regulated and 515 genes were down-regulated. The transcript expression level of CEACAM5 was significantly up-regulated in the cells of the LDLR-knockdown group. The Gene Ontology (GO) function enrichment analysis showed that the differential genes were most obviously enriched in the angiogenesis function. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) signaling pathway enrichment analysis showed that the relevant pathways involved mainly included the cellular adhesion patch, the extracellular matrix receptor interactions, and the interactions with the extracellular matrix receptors. The CEA content in the conditioned medium of the LDLR-knockdown group was 43.75±8.43, which was higher than that of the control group (1.15±0.14, P＜0.001). The results of angiogenesis experiments showed that at 5 h, the number of main junctions, the number of main segments, and the total area of the lattice formed by HUVEC cells cultured with the conditioned medium of MHCC-97H cells in the LDLR-knockdown group were 295.3±26.4, 552.5±63.8, and 2 239 781.0±13 8211.9 square pixels, which were higher than those of the control group (113.3±23.5, 194.8±36.5, and 660 621.0±280 328.3 square pixels, respectively, all P＜0.01).The number of vascular major junctions, the number of major segments, and the total area of the lattice formed by HUVEC cells cultured in conditioned medium with HLE cells in the LDLR-knockdown group were 245.3±42.4, 257.5±20.4, and 2 535 754.5±249 094.2 square pixels, respectively, which were all higher than those of the control group (113.3±23.5, 114.3±12.2, and 1 565 456.5±219 259.7 square pixels, respectively, all P＜0.01). In the conditioned medium for the control group of MHCC-97H cells,the number of main junctions, the number of main segments, and the total area of the lattice formed by the addition of CEA to cultured HUVEC cells were 178.9±12.0, 286.9±12.3, and 1 966 990.0±126 249.5 spixels, which were higher than those in the control group (119.7±22.1, 202.7±33.7, and 1 421 191.0±189 837.8 square pixels, respectively). The expression of LDLR in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues was not correlated with the expression of CEA, but was negatively correlated with the expression of CD31 ( r=-0.167, P=0.044), the level of serum CEA ( r=-0.061, P=0.032), and the level of serum ALT (r=-0.147, P=0.05). The expression of CEA in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues was positively correlated with the expression of CD31 ( r=0.192, P=0.020). The level of serum CEA was positively correlated with the level of serum ALT ( r=0.164, P=0.029). Conclusion:Knocking down LDLR can promote vascular abnormalities in HCC by releasing CEA.

Objectives:To investigate the effect of the expression of low-density lipoprotein receptor associated protein (LDLR) on the vascular abnormalities in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its mechanisms.Methods:Based on the information of Oncomine Cancer GeneChip database, we analyzed the correlation between the expression level of LDLR and the expression level of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and CD31 in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues. Lentiviral transfection of short hairpin RNA target genes was used to construct LDLR-knockdown MHCC-97H and HLE hepatocellular carcinoma cells. The differential genes and their expression level changes in LDLR-knockdown hepatocellular carcinoma cells were detected by transcriptome sequencing, real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and protein immunoblotting. The gene-related signaling pathways that involve LDLR were clarified by enrichment analysis. The effect of LDLR on CEA was assessed by the detection of CEA content in conditioned medium of hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Angiogenesis assay was used to detect the effect of LDLR on the angiogenic capacity of human umbilical vein endothelial cells, as well as the role of CEA in the regulation of angiogenesis by LDLR. Immunohistochemical staining was used to detect the expression levels of LDLR in 176 hepatocellular carcinoma tissues, and CEA and CD31 in 146 hepatocellular carcinoma tissues, and analyze the correlations between the expression levels of LDLR, CEA, and CD31 in the tissues, serum CEA, and alanine transaminase (ALT).Results:Oncomine database analysis showed that the expressions of LDLR and CEA in the tissues of hepatocellular carcinoma patients with portal vein metastasis were negatively correlated ( r=-0.64, P=0.001), whereas the expressions of CEA and CD31 in these tissues were positively correlated ( r=0.46, P=0.010). The transcriptome sequencing results showed that there were a total of 1 032 differentially expressed genes in the LDLR-knockdown group and the control group of MHCC-97H cells, of which 517 genes were up-regulated and 515 genes were down-regulated. The transcript expression level of CEACAM5 was significantly up-regulated in the cells of the LDLR-knockdown group. The Gene Ontology (GO) function enrichment analysis showed that the differential genes were most obviously enriched in the angiogenesis function. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) signaling pathway enrichment analysis showed that the relevant pathways involved mainly included the cellular adhesion patch, the extracellular matrix receptor interactions, and the interactions with the extracellular matrix receptors. The CEA content in the conditioned medium of the LDLR-knockdown group was 43.75±8.43, which was higher than that of the control group (1.15±0.14, P＜0.001). The results of angiogenesis experiments showed that at 5 h, the number of main junctions, the number of main segments, and the total area of the lattice formed by HUVEC cells cultured with the conditioned medium of MHCC-97H cells in the LDLR-knockdown group were 295.3±26.4, 552.5±63.8, and 2 239 781.0±13 8211.9 square pixels, which were higher than those of the control group (113.3±23.5, 194.8±36.5, and 660 621.0±280 328.3 square pixels, respectively, all P＜0.01).The number of vascular major junctions, the number of major segments, and the total area of the lattice formed by HUVEC cells cultured in conditioned medium with HLE cells in the LDLR-knockdown group were 245.3±42.4, 257.5±20.4, and 2 535 754.5±249 094.2 square pixels, respectively, which were all higher than those of the control group (113.3±23.5, 114.3±12.2, and 1 565 456.5±219 259.7 square pixels, respectively, all P＜0.01). In the conditioned medium for the control group of MHCC-97H cells,the number of main junctions, the number of main segments, and the total area of the lattice formed by the addition of CEA to cultured HUVEC cells were 178.9±12.0, 286.9±12.3, and 1 966 990.0±126 249.5 spixels, which were higher than those in the control group (119.7±22.1, 202.7±33.7, and 1 421 191.0±189 837.8 square pixels, respectively). The expression of LDLR in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues was not correlated with the expression of CEA, but was negatively correlated with the expression of CD31 ( r=-0.167, P=0.044), the level of serum CEA ( r=-0.061, P=0.032), and the level of serum ALT (r=-0.147, P=0.05). The expression of CEA in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues was positively correlated with the expression of CD31 ( r=0.192, P=0.020). The level of serum CEA was positively correlated with the level of serum ALT ( r=0.164, P=0.029). Conclusion:Knocking down LDLR can promote vascular abnormalities in HCC by releasing CEA.

Glioma is a primary brain tumor with high incidence rate. High-grade gliomas (HGG) are those with the highest degree of malignancy and the lowest degree of survival. Surgical resection and postoperative adjuvant chemoradiotherapy are often used in clinical treatment, so accurate segmentation of tumor-related areas is of great significance for the treatment of patients. In order to improve the segmentation accuracy of HGG, this paper proposes a multi-modal glioma semantic segmentation network with multi-scale feature extraction and multi-attention fusion mechanism. The main contributions are, (1) Multi-scale residual structures were used to extract features from multi-modal gliomas magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); (2) Two types of attention modules were used for features aggregating in channel and spatial; (3) In order to improve the segmentation performance of the whole network, the branch classifier was constructed using ensemble learning strategy to adjust and correct the classification results of the backbone classifier. The experimental results showed that the Dice coefficient values of the proposed segmentation method in this article were 0.909 7, 0.877 3 and 0.839 6 for whole tumor, tumor core and enhanced tumor respectively, and the segmentation results had good boundary continuity in the three-dimensional direction. Therefore, the proposed semantic segmentation network has good segmentation performance for high-grade gliomas lesions.
Attention ; Glioma/diagnostic imaging* ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods* ; Semantics

Objective:To evaluate the status and influencing factors of psychiatric comorbidities of patients with epilepsy (PWEs) in Hubei province during the outbreak of COVID-19.Methods:From February 23, 2020 to March 5, 2020, a network questionnaire survey (including demographic characteristics, seizures, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7 score, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 score, Insomnia Severity Index score) was conducted among 570 PWEs who visited the Epilepsy Center of Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology during April 1, 2019 and January 20, 2020. SPSS 22.0 software was used for correlation analysis of sociodemographic characteristics, epilepsy related factors, perceived threat to the COVID-19 and psychiatric comorbidity (depression, anxiety and insomnia) of PWEs during the COVID-19 epidemic.Results:A total of 362 valid questionnaires were included for analysis (the response rate was 63.51%,362/570). Thirty-four (9.4%), forty-seven (13.0%) and seventy-one (19.6%) patients suffered from anxiety, depression and insomnia, respectively. Patients with seizure frequency ≥2 times/month before the epidemic ( OR=3.395,95% CI 1.561-7.384, P=0.002), poor subjective quality of life during the epidemic ( OR=10.753,95% CI 1.938-59.654, P=0.024), and moderate to severe worry about bad impact of the epidemic on epilepsy ( OR=3.077, 95% CI 1.382-6.853, P=0.006) were more likely to be anxious. Patients with poor subjective quality of life during the epidemic ( OR=6.188, 95% CI 1.317-29.079, P=0.021) were more likely to be depressed. Patients with COVID-19 related symptoms ( OR=3.609, 95% CI 1.674-7.778, P=0.001), children ( OR=3.090, 95% CI 1.759-5.431, P<0.001), seizure frequency ≥2 times/month before the epidemic ( OR=1.907, 95% CI 1.017-3.575, P=0.044), and moderate to severe worry about unanticipated seizures ( OR=2.555, 95% CI 1.370-4.764, P=0.003) were more likely to suffer from insomnia. Conclusions:During the COVID-19 epidemic, parts of PWEs suffered from anxiety, depression and insomnia. PWEs with poor subjective quality of life, high frequency of epileptic seizures before the epidemic, excessive worry about bad impact of the epidemic on epilepsy and excessive worry about unanticipated seizures were prone to anxiety, depression and insomnia.

Objective:To understand the agglutination characteristics of different subtypes of avian influenza viruses, we selected erythrocytes from different sources to find suitable erythrocytes for influenza environmental sample detection.Methods:Different subtypes of avian influenza viruses, which were isolated from environmental sample between 2009 and 2016 in China, were selected to do hemagglutination assay using 5 animal erythrocytes (chicken, turkey, guinea pig, horse, and sheep). Flow cytometry was used to detect expression level and type of sialic acid receptors of different erythrocytes, and the characteristics of the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the viral hemagglutinin protein were analyzed by amino acid sequence.Results:In this study, a total of 28 strains of avian influenza virus including 14 subtypes were detected. The result showed that all viruses could agglutinate with turkey and guinea pig erythrocytes and the rest three erythrocytes were unable to produce agglutination with some viruses; among them, one H9N2 virus (A/environment/Anhui/43762/2015) did not agglutinate with chicken erythrocytes, one H1N1 virus (A/environment/Shandong/76972/2014) and two H9N2 viruses (A/environment/Chongqing/79449/2014 and A/environment/Anhui/43762/2015) did not agglutinate with horse erythrocytes, two viruses of H9N2 (A/environment/Chongqing/79449/2014 and A/environment/Anhui/43762/2015) and two viruses of H13N8 (A/environment/Qinghai Lake/166/2012 and A/environment/Qinghai Lake/13/2012) did not agglutinate with sheep erythrocytes. The result of flow cytometry showed that two sialic acid receptors, α-2, 3 and α-2, 6, were detected on the surface of erythrocytes of turkey, chicken and guinea pig, but the expression ratios of the two receptors were different. Only the expression of α-2, 3 sialic acid receptors was detected in horse and sheep erythrocytes. Sequence analysis suggested that amino acid substitution in key regions of viral hemagglutinin protein RBD may be an important factor affecting the binding properties of different erythrocytes.Conclusions:Our result suggested that turkey and guinea pig erythrocytes are the most sensitive in the hemagglutination test. Receptor expression and type of erythrocytes from different sources can significantly affect the agglutination reaction of different subtypes of avian influenza virus, and the amino acid changes in key regions of RBD can also affect the result of agglutination reaction.

With the rapid development of network structure, convolutional neural networks (CNN) consolidated its position as a leading machine learning tool in the field of image analysis. Therefore, semantic segmentation based on CNN has also become a key high-level task in medical image understanding. This paper reviews the research progress on CNN-based semantic segmentation in the field of medical image. A variety of classical semantic segmentation methods are reviewed, whose contributions and significance are highlighted. On this basis, their applications in the segmentation of some major physiological and pathological anatomical structures are further summarized and discussed. Finally, the open challenges and potential development direction of semantic segmentation based on CNN in the area of medical image are discussed.

Objective:To evaluate the efficacy and safety of comprehensive treatment based on radiotherapy for patients with leptomeningeal metastases (LM) in this prospective study.Methods:A total of 93 patients diagnosed with LM admitted to our hospital undergoing whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT) or craniospinal irradiation (CSI) with or without simultaneous boost from 2014 to 2017 were enrolled. The dynamic changes of clinical signs and symptoms, enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), cerebrospinal fluid cytology and liquid biopsy detection were recorded. The primary endpoint was overall survival (OS), the secondary endpoints were local control (LC), intracranial progress-free survival (IPFS), brain metastasis specific survival (BMSS) and toxicity.Results:The major primary disease was non-small cell lung cancer. The whole cohort received WBRT with boost (40 Gy in 20 fractions (f) for WBRT and 60 Gy in 20 f for boost), focal radiation to LM, WBRT and CSI (40 Gy in 20 f or 50 Gy in 25 f for WBRT and 36 Gy in 20 f for CSI). For 20 patients, tumor cells were identified and intrathecal chemotherapy was performed. Sixty-three patients received target therapy. The median follow-up time was 33.8 months. The 1-year OS, LC and IPFS was 62.4%, 77.2% and 52.6%, respectively. The median survival time was 15.9 months, and the median BMSS was 42.2 months. Treatment-related grade 3-4 adverse events were rare and only 8 cases was observed to have grade 3 hematological toxicity.Conclusion:Reasonable comprehensive treatment including precise radiotherapy, intrathecal chemotherapy and targeted therapy can be well tolerated and prolong the survival time of LM patients.

Objective To evaluate the role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) in exogenous protectin D1 ( PD1)-induced reduction of endotoxin-induced acute lung injury (ALI) in mice. Methods Thirty-two clean-grade healthy male BABL∕C mice, weighing 20-25 g, aged 6-8 weeks, were divided into 4 groups (n＝8 each) using a random number table method: sham operation group (group S), ALI group, PD1 group and PPARγ antagonist GW9662 group. Mice underwent oral tra-cheal intubation, normal saline was instilled, and 1 h later normal saline was injected via the tail vein in group S. Mice underwent oral tracheal intubation, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) 3 mg∕kg was instilled, and 1 h later normal saline was injected via the tail vein in group ALI. Mice underwent oral tracheal intubation, LPS 3 mg∕kg was instilled, and 1 h later PD1 200 ng was injected via the tail vein in group PD1. Mice un-derwent oral tracheal intubation, LPS 3 mg∕kg was instilled, and 1 h later GW9662 1 mg∕kg and PD1 200 ng were injected via the tail vein in group GW9662. Mice were sacrificed at 24 h after intratracheal instilla-tion of LPS, the left lung was lavaged with phosphate buffer solution, and the broncho-alveolar lavage fluid (BALF) was collected for determination of neutrophil count and concentrations of interleukin-1beta ( IL-1β), tumor necrosis factor-alpha ( TNF-α) and IL-6 ( by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay). Right lung tissues were obtained and cut into sections which were stained with haematoxylin and eosin and exam-ined with a light microscope for microscopic examination of the pathological changes which were scored (lung injury score) and for determination of the expression of PPARγ in lung tissues. Results Compared with group S, the neutrophil counts in BALF, concentrations of IL-1β, TNF-α and IL-6 and lung injury score were significantly increased, and the expression of PPARγ was down-regulated in group ALI ( P＜0. 01). Compared with group ALI, the neutrophil counts in BALF, concentrations of IL-1β, TNF-α and IL-6 and lung injury score were significantly decreased, and the expression of PPARγ was up-regulated in group PD1 (P＜0. 01). Compared with group PD1, the neutrophil counts in BALF, concentrations of IL-1β, TNF-α and IL-6 and lung injury score were significantly increased, and the expression of PPARγ was down-regulated in group GW9662 ( P＜0. 01). Conclusion PPARγ activation is involved in exogenous protectin D1-induced reduction of LPS-induced ALI in mice.

Objective: To investigate the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of rs3130542 and rs4821116 in the HLA-C and UBE2L3 genes and the effect of telbivudine antiviral therapy during pregnancy in HBeAg-positive mothers through a large-sample control study, and to provide a basis for the development of individualized blocking strategies for pregnant women with a high viral load. Methods: The genotypes of rs3130542 and rs4821116 were determined for 312 pregnant women with a high viral load who received telbivudine antiviral therapy during the second or third trimester of pregnancy, and the dominant model, recessive model, and additive model were used to analyze the association between the genotypes of these two loci and the reduction in HBV DNA load. The Shapiro-Wilk test and the Levene test were used to evaluate data normality and homogeneity of variances, and the t-test or the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test was selected based on data type and was used for the comparison of means between groups. The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was used to determine the genotype of SNPs, and the dominant model, recessive model, and additive model were used for analysis. Results: Mothers with an AA/AG genotype of rs3130542 in the HLA-C gene had a significantly higher probability of HBV DNA load ≥10³ IU/ml at the time of delivery (P < 0.05) and a significantly higher risk of failure in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, no matter whether they started to take telbivudine at week 24 or 28 of pregnancy. The association between the genotype of rs4821116 in the UBE2L3 gene and the reduction in viral load in pregnant women needed to be confirmed by studies with a larger sample size. Conclusion Pregnant women with a high viral load and an AA/AG genotype of rs3130542 in the HLA-C gene tend to have poor response to antiviral therapy during pregnancy, and early antiviral intervention is recommended for such patients.

Objective To design a visual terrain classification algorithm to facilitate the robot to make appropriate movement strategy by perceiving the surrounding environment.Methods Bag of words (BOW) and support vector machine (SVM) were used to develop a simple and effective terrain classification algorithm.The BOW model involved in feature extraction,codebook generation and feature coding.The mid-level feature developed by BOW model was then fed into SVM classifier to obtain the terrain classification result.Results The quadruped robot platform was applied to performing visual terrain classification experiment in the natural environment.The test environment included floor,asphalt,sand and grass.Good experimental results were achieved,and the classification accuracy was above 90％ (the beat was 97.54％ for grass).Conclusion The algorithm can effectively and accurately distinguish all kinds of terrains,with high accuracy and good stability.The key frame selection method needs researching in the future.