The clinical features,imaging data and prognosis of 2 patients with spinal cord infarction were summarized.Both patients presented with acute onset paraplegia and urinary retention.Spinal MRI showed high T2 signal and limited diffusion in the spinal cord.Patient 1 had spinal inflammatory changes and disc calcification and herniation at the T6 level.Cervical disc herniation was found in case 2 and the spinal lesions were all adjacent to the spinal infarct plane,but could not directly cause acute or chronic spinal cord compression.The clinical manifestations of two patients were acute stroke events.After the diagnosis of spinal cord infarction was confirmed,anti-platelet aggregation or anticoagulation and rehabilitation therapy were given,and the limb function of the patients gradually recovered to close to normal.The incidence of fibrocartilage embolism(FCE)associated with spinal disc disease is rare,and there is no consensus on treatment.This case provides experience and broadens thinking for the diagnosis,treatment and prognosis of spinal cord infarction.

Objective:To analyze the prognosis of glucose metabolism and its impacting factors at 6-12 weeks postpartum in patients with abnormal blood glucose during pregnancy.Methods:In this cross-sectional study, a total of 192 patients with abnormal blood glucose during pregnancy enrolled and delivered in the maternity clinic of Daxing Teaching Hospital of Capital Medical University from December 1, 2019 to December 31, 2020 were collected. The 75 g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was applied for diabetes screening at 6-12 weeks after delivery. According to the results of postpartum blood glucose, the patients were divided into two groups: postpartum normal blood glucose group (148 cases) and abnormal blood glucose group (44 cases). Hypothesis testing was used to compare the clinical data before, during and after the pregnancy between the two groups. Multi-factor logistic regression was performed to analyze the influencing factors of postpartum abnormal blood glucose in patients with abnormal blood glucose during pregnancy.Results:Among the 192 patients with abnormal blood glucose during pregnancy, the incidence of postpartum abnormal blood glucose was 22.92% (44/192), including 6 cases of diabetes mellitus (DM) (13.64%), 38 cases of impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) (86.36%). Neck circumference, waist circumference, multiparous women and insulin use during pregnancy in postpartum abnormal blood glucose group were all significantly higher than those in postpartum normal blood glucose group [34.25(33.00, 36.00) vs 33.55 (32.00, 35.00) cm, 87.00 (82.00, 93.00) vs 84.00 (78.00, 90.00) cm, 54.55% vs 37.16%, 18.18% vs 6.76%] (all P<0.05). Neck circumference ( OR=1.315, 95% CI: 1.026-1.685), multiparous women ( OR=2.261, 95% CI: 1.057-4.836), insulin use during pregnancy ( OR=3.767, 95% CI: 1.236-11.478) were positively correlated with the occurrence of postpartum abnormal blood glucose (all P<0.05). Conclusions:The incidence of postpartum abnormal blood glucose is high at 6-12 weeks postpartum in patients with abnormal blood glucose during pregnancy. Neck circumference, waist circumference, parity and insulin use during pregnancy are important impacting factors of postpartum abnormal blood glucose.

Dysregulation of histone deacetylases (HDACs) is closely related to tumor development and progression. As promising anticancer targets, HDACs have gained a great deal of research interests and two decades of effort has led to the approval of five HDAC inhibitors (HDACis). However, currently traditional HDACis, although effective in approved indications, exhibit severe off-target toxicities and low sensitivities against solid tumors, which have urged the development of next-generation of HDACi. This review investigates the biological functions of HDACs, the roles of HDACs in oncogenesis, the structural features of different HDAC isoforms, isoform-selective inhibitors, combination therapies, multitarget agents and HDAC PROTACs. We hope these data could inspire readers with new ideas to develop novel HDACi with good isoform selectivity, efficient anticancer effect, attenuated adverse effect and reduced drug resistance.

Objective:To explore the effect of mind mapping based on evidence-based theme in health education of patients undergoing thoracentesis and drainage.Methods:From September 2020 to December 2021, 78 patients with pleural effusion and thoracentesis drainage diagnosed by infection in Beijing Chaoyang Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University were selected by convenience sampling as the research object. The patients from September 2020 to March 2021 were set as the control group, and the patients from May to December 2021 were set as the observation group, with 39 cases each. The control group was given traditional health education, while the observation group received evidence-based health education with mind mapping. The health education knowledge examination score, self-care ability, adverse event rate and nursing satisfaction were compared between the two groups.Results:The scores of health education knowledge examination in the observation group were higher than those in the control group before , 24 hours after catheterization and before decannulation, with statistically significant differences ( P<0.01) . The total score and each dimension score of self-care ability in the observation group were higher than those in the control group, with statistically significant differences ( P<0.01) . The incidence of adverse events in the observation group was lower than that in the control group, and the score of Nursing Satisfaction Questionnaire was higher than that in the control group, with statistical differences ( P<0.05) . Conclusions:The mind mapping on the basis of evidence-based themes can effectively improve patients' health education knowledge and self-care ability, reduce the incidence of adverse events, and increase nursing satisfaction.

SARS-CoV-2 infection causes complicated clinical manifestations with variable multi-organ injuries, however, the underlying mechanism, in particular immune responses in different organs, remains elusive. In this study, comprehensive transcriptomic alterations of 14 tissues from rhesus macaque infected with SARS-CoV-2 were analyzed. Compared to normal controls, SARS-CoV-2 infection resulted in dysregulation of genes involving diverse functions in various examined tissues/organs, with drastic transcriptomic changes in cerebral cortex and right ventricle. Intriguingly, cerebral cortex exhibited a hyperinflammatory state evidenced by significant upregulation of inflammation response-related genes. Meanwhile, expressions of coagulation, angiogenesis and fibrosis factors were also up-regulated in cerebral cortex. Based on our findings, neuropilin 1 (NRP1), a receptor of SARS-CoV-2, was significantly elevated in cerebral cortex post infection, accompanied by active immune response releasing inflammatory factors and signal transmission among tissues, which enhanced infection of the central nervous system (CNS) in a positive feedback way, leading to viral encephalitis. Overall, our study depicts a multi-tissue/organ transcriptomic landscapes of rhesus macaque with early infection of SARS-CoV-2, and provides important insights into the mechanistic basis for COVID-19-associated clinical complications.
Animals ; COVID-19/genetics* ; Macaca mulatta ; SARS-CoV-2/genetics* ; Transcriptome

Dopamine is the precursor of a variety of natural antioxidant compounds. In the body, dopamine acts as a neurotransmitter that regulates a variety of physiological functions of the central nervous system. Thus, dopamine is used for the clinical treatment of various types of shock. Dopamine could be produced by engineered microbes, but with low efficiency. In this study, DOPA decarboxylase gene from Sus scrofa (Ssddc) was cloned into plasmids with different copy numbers, and transformed into a previously developed L-DOPA producing strain Escherichia coli T004. The resulted strain was capable of producing dopamine from glucose directly. To further improve the production of dopamine, a sequence-based homology alignment mining (SHAM) strategy was applied to screen more efficient DOPA decarboxylases, and five DOPA decarboxylase genes were selected from 100 candidates. In shake-flask fermentation, the DOPA decarboxylase gene from Homo sapiens (Hsddc) showed the highest dopamine production (3.33 g/L), while the DOPA decarboxylase gene from Drosophila Melanogaster (Dmddc) showed the least residual L-DOPA concentration (0.02 g/L). In 5 L fed-batch fermentations, production of dopamine by the two engineered strains reached 13.3 g/L and 16.2 g/L, respectively. The residual concentrations of L-DOPA were 0.45 g/L and 0.23 g/L, respectively. Finally, the Ssddc and Dmddc genes were integrated into the genome of E. coli T004 to obtain genetically stable dopamine-producing strains. In 5 L fed-batch fermentation, 17.7 g/L of dopamine was produced, which records the highest titer reported to date.
Animals ; Dopa Decarboxylase/genetics* ; Dopamine/biosynthesis* ; Drosophila melanogaster/genetics* ; Escherichia coli/metabolism* ; Humans ; Metabolic Engineering

Ivy sign, as a relatively specific sign in moyamoya disease, has certain clinical value for the diagnosis, preoperative evaluation, and prognostic evaluation of moyamoya disease. However the pathophysiological mechanism of ivy sign is still unclear and this phenomenon is affected by many factors. In this paper, the domestic and foreign literature about ivy sign of moyamoya disease was collected and analyzed and the correlation between different factors and ivy sign was summarized to provide a basis for further study on the correlation between ivy sign and various influencing factors.

p-coumaric acid is an important natural phenolic compound with a variety of pharmacological activities, and also a precursor for the biosynthesis of many natural compounds. It is widely used in foods, cosmetics and medicines. Compared with the chemical synthesis and plant extraction, microbial production of p-coumaric acid has many advantages, such as energy saving and emission reduction. However, the yield of p-coumaric acid by microbial synthesis is too low to meet the requirements of large-scale industrial production. Here, to further improve p-coumaric acid production, the directed evolution of tyrosine ammonia lyase (TAL) encoded by Rhodotorula glutinis tal gene was conducted, and a high-throughput screening method was established to screen the mutant library for improve the property of TAL. A mutant with a doubled TAL catalytic activity was screened from about 10,000 colonies of the mutant library. There were three mutational amino acid sites in this TAL, namely S9Y, A11N, and E518A. It was further verified by a single point saturation mutation. When S9 was mutated to Y, I or N, or A11 was mutated to N, T or Y, the catalytic activity of TAL increased by more than 1-fold. Through combinatorial mutation of three types of mutations at the S9 and A11, the TAL catalytic activity of S9Y/A11N or S9N/A11Y mutants were significantly higher than that of other mutants. Then, the plasmid containing S9N/A11Y mutant was transformed into CP032, a tyrosine-producing E. coli strain. The engineered strain produced 394.2 mg/L p-coumaric acid, which is 2.2-fold higher than that of the control strain, via shake flask fermentation at 48 h. This work provides a new insight for the biosynthesis study of p-coumaric acid.
Ammonia-Lyases/genetics* ; Escherichia coli/genetics* ; Propionates ; Rhodotorula ; Tyrosine/genetics*

Objective:To explore the feasibility of CT angiography (CTA) in investigating vascular dilatation of anterior choroidal artery (AChA) and posterior communicating artery (PComA) in patients with Moyamoya syndrome (MMS).Methods:From July 2017 to July 2018, the clinical and imaging data of MMS patients with brain CTA and DSA performed were analyzed retrospectively. According to DSA results, 71 MMS patients were divided into unilateral MMS group (20 cases, 20 hemispheres) and bilateral MMS group (51 cases, 102 hemispheres). There were 20 cases in unilateral MMS group, 10 males and 10 females, with an average age of (45±9) years; 51 cases in bilateral MMS group, 24 males and 27 females, with an average age of (44±12) years. The hemispheres were divided into dilated group and non-dilated group according to the dilatation of AChA or PComA. Kappa analysis was used to evaluate the consistency of two inspection methods to judge the expansion of AChA. The lumen diameters of PComA, P1 and P2 segments of posterior cerebral artery were measured on CTA images, and the ratio of PComA/P1 and PComA/P2 were calculated. The repeatability of CTA measures was evaluated by intra-group correlation coefficient. Independent sample t-test was used to compare CTA measurement results between PComA dilated group and non-dilated group, and ROC curve was drawn to calculate the best threshold for diagnosis of PComA expansion. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of CTA measures were calculated. Results:The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of CTA diagnosis of AChA expansion inunilateral MMS were all 100.00%. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of CTA diagnosis of AChA expansionin bilateral MMS were 90.00%, 93.90%, 93.14%, 78.26% and 97.47%. Compared with DSA, there was no significant difference in the diagnostic performance of AChA expansion between single and bilateral MMS diagnosed by CTA ( P>0.05). The two methods had strong consistency (Kappa value was 1.00 and 0.79 respectively, P<0.01). A total of 46 patients (69 cerebral hemispheres) were included in the evaluation of PComA. PComA/P1 (1.09±0.41) and PComA/P2 (0.86±0.13) in the dilated group were significantly higher than those in the non-dilated group (0.71±0.21 for PComA/P1 and 0.75±0.23 for PComA/P2). The differences were statistically significant ( t=-4.59, -2.50, P<0.05). The best threshold in diagnosing PComA expansion was 0.87 (PComA/P1) and 0.76 (PComA/P2), and the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 84.62%, 83.33%, 84.06%, 86.84%, 80.65% and 79.49%, 60.00%, 71.01%, 72.09% and 69.23%, respectively. Compared with DSA, the Kappa value of CTA measures in diagnosis of PComA expansion was 0.68 (PComA/P1) and 0.40 (PComA/P2), respectively, and the difference was statistically significant ( P<0.05). Conclusions:CTA has a strong consistency with DSA in evaluating the AChA expansion in MMS. When the PComA/P1 ratio on CTA is greater than 0.87, it can be used as the diagnosis criterion for PComA expansion.

Objective:To discuss the clinical and electrophysiological characteristics of propriospinal myoclonus (PSM).Methods:The clinical and electrophysiological characteristics of four patients diagnosed as PSM in the Electroencephalography Monitoring Center, Department of Neurology, Xijing Hospital, the Air Force Military Medical University from April 2018 to July 2019 were studied. All patients were accorded with diagnostic criteria of PSM that international classification of sleep disorders-3 edition recommended and were followed up.Results:There were three males and one female in the four patients. The age of onset was ranged from 43 to 55 years. The course was from eight months to three years, and the follow-up time was from three months to one year. The clinical features of the four patients were characteristically paroxysmal tic or shaking of the neck, trunk or limbs, with short duration and great frequency. All patients accepted 24-hour video electroencephalography monitoring. No epileptic discharge was recorded during the monitoring. The burst activity of deltoid, quadriceps or rectus abdominis muscle was monitored by surface electromyography at the onset of myoclonus. All patients were treated with clonazepam. Three patients had an obvious curative effect and one patient had no effect.Conclusions:The clinical manifestation of PSM is similar to seizures. There is no epileptic discharge, and only the burst activity of muscles is monitored at the onset. Most patients have significant effect on clonazepam.