Objective: To investigate the therapeutic effect of patchouli alcohol on mice with lung-heat syndrome based on the phosphoinositide 3-kinase(PI3K)/protein kinase B(Akt)/nuclear factor-kappa B(NF-κB) signaling pathway. Methods: First, network pharmacology was used to predict the potential targets of patchouli alcohol in the treatment of lung-heat syndrome, and a "component-disease-key target" network was constructed for pathway analysis. Then, 40 BALB/c mice were assigned to the normal, lung-heat model, honeysuckle, and low-dose and high-dose patchouli alcohol groups. All groups, except the blank group, were intranasally infected with 50 μL (103 TCID50) of influenza virus solution. After two hours of infection, mice were treated once a day for seven consecutive days. The therapeutic mechanism of patchouli alcohol was explored by measuring pulmonary inflammatory factors, the PI3K/Akt/NF-κB pathway, hypothalamic fever markers (PGE2, cAMP, cGMP levels), rectal temperature, and tissue energy metabolism. Results: Network pharmacology identified 135 target genes related to patchouli alcohol and lung-heat syndrome, with the key targets being STAT3, H1F1A, and NF-κB1. In animal experiments, patchouli alcohol significantly alleviated influenza virus-induced lung inflammatory damage in mice with lung-heat syndrome, inhibited the expression of TNF-α and IL-6 in lung tissues(P<0.01), and suppressed the activation of the PI3K/Akt/NF-κB pathway. It also reduced hypothalamic levels of PGE2 and cAMP(P<0.01), suppressed the increase in rectal temperature, significantly decreased liver glycogen and pyruvate levels(P<0.01), and increased the activities of SDH, LDH, and Na+ -K+ -ATPase in the liver(P<0.01) Conclusion Patchouli alcohol improves the symptoms of lung-heat syndrome in mice by inhibiting the activation of the PI3K/Akt/NF-κB pathway, reducing proinflammatory cytokines and inflammatory damage, and regulating hypothalamic fever markers and energy metabolism.

Objective:To construct a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) assessment test (CAT) score prediction model based on a deep network fused with air data, and to explore its significance.Methods:From February 2015 to December 2017, the outdoor environmental monitoring air data near the residential area of the patients with COPD from the Respiratory Outpatient Clinics of Peking University Third Hospital, Peking University People′s Hospital and Beijing Jishuitan Hospital were collected and the daily air pollution exposure of patients was calculated. The daily CAT scores were recorded continuously. The CAT score of the patients in the next week was predicted by fusing the time series algorithm and neural network to establish a model, and the prediction accuracy of the model was compared with that of the long short-term memory model (LSTM), the LSTM-attention model and the autoregressive integrated moving average model (ARIMA).Results:A total of 47 patients with COPD were enrolled and followed up for an average of 381.60 days. The LSTM-convolutional neural networks (CNN)-autoregression (AR) model was constructed by using the collected air data and CAT score, and the root mean square error of the model was 0.85, and the mean absolute error was 0.71. Compared with LSTM, LSTM-attention and ARIMA, the average prediction accuracy was improved by 21.69%.Conclusion:Based on the air data in the environment of COPD patients, the fusion deep network model can predict the CAT score of COPD patients more accurately.

Objective:To analyze the clinical phenotypes and pathogenic gene of a Han Chinese family with enhanced S-cone syndrome (ESCS).Methods:The method of pedigree investigation was adopted.A suspected ESCS Han Chinese family including 8 members of 3 generations was recruited in Henan Eye Hospital from June to September 2021.There was one patient in the family.A thorough ophthalmic examination of the proband was carried out to evaluate the phenotypes, including visual acuity, degree of strabismus, anterior segment and fundus, autofluorescence imaging, fluorescein fundus angiography, full-field electroretinogram (ERG), multifocal ERG, optical coherence tomography.DNA was extracted from peripheral blood samples from the proband and family members.The pathogenic gene and variation were screened by whole exome sequencing (WES).The variation and co-segregation were verified by Sanger sequencing.The deleteriousness of the variation was analyzed by SIFT, Polyphen2 and MutationTaster.The pathogenicity of the variation was evaluated in accordance with the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) Standards and Guidelines.The analysis of amino acid sequence conservation was performed by SIFT.This study adhered to the Declaration of Helsinki.The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Henan Eye Hospital (No.HNEECKY-2017[6]).Written informed consent was obtained from each subject.Results:This pedigree was consistent with autosomal recessive inheritance.The proband had clinical features such as night blindness, hyperopia, accommodative esotropia, peripheral retinal pigmentation, retinoschisis, and photopic ERG responses dominated by large-amplitude waves.Variations including a compound heterozygous variation, c.671C>T: p.S224L on exon 5 and c. 955G>A: p.E319K on exon 6 of NR2E3 were identified by WES.The variations were confirmed to be consistent with co-segregation.The both loci were missense variations, the variation frequency of which was 0 in the East Asian population via the gnomAD database.The variations were predicted to be deleterious by SIFT, Polyphen2 and MutationTaster.The c.671C>T variation was recorded with unknown significance in ClinVar database, and the c.955G>A variation was an unreported new locus.According to the ACMG Standards and Guidelines, the both variations were labeled as with uncertain clinical significance, and the corresponding amino acid sequences were highly conservative across multiple species. Conclusions:This family has the clinical characteristics of ESCS and meets the genetic diagnosis criteria.Two novel variations in NR2E3 gene, c.671C>T: p.S224L and 955G>A: p.E319K, are found.

Objective:To analyze the clinic-pathological features and surgical outcomes of adult patients with hypothalamic gliomas.Methods:The adult cases pathologically confirmed as hypothalamic gliomas were analyzed from October, 2011 to January, 2022 in Beijing Tiantan Hospital.Results:There were 32 adult cases with hypothalamic gliomas, including 16 males and 16 females. Tumor was located in the hypothalamus in 6 cases, in the hypothalamus plus optic chiasma/nerve in 6 cases, in the hypothalamus plus thalamus in 9 cases, and in the hypothalamus plus the third ventricle in 11 cases. Pre-operative hydrocephalus was found in 20 cases. Five patents underwent stereotactic biopsy, 27 patients underwent craniotomy, and 11 patients underwent shunt surgery for hydrocephalus. Of 27 patients with craniotomy, trans-callosal approach was chosen for 9 patients, trans-cortical for 8 patients, via pterion approach for 4 patients, via lateral sub-frontal approach for 4 patients, via fissurae interhemisphaerica for 1 patient, and trans-sphenoidal approach for 1 patient. Twenty-two patients received gross-total or subtotal resection, 5 patients received partial resection. All the patients were pathologically confirmed, including 9 patients with high-grade and 23 patients with low-grade gliomas. Six patients died within 3 months after craniotomy, 8 patients suffered from endocrine dysfunction, 7 patients suffered from electrolyte disturbance, and 5 patients suffered from hydrocephalus. They were followed for 0.7-110.0 months, with 5-year progression-free survival rate of 63.8% and 5-year overall survival rate of 53.9% for all patients. The 5-year progression-free survival rate was 83.3% and the 5-year overall survival rate was 72.8% for low-grade gliomas.Conclusions:The peri-operative mortality is high for adult patients with hypothalamic gliomas, and protection of the hypothalamic function is important. Patients with low-grade hypothalamic gliomas have good prognoses.

The identification of tumor-related microRNAs(miRNAs)exhibits excellent promise for the early diag-nosis of cancer and other bioanalytical applications.Therefore,we developed a sensitive and efficient biosensor using polyadenine(polyA)-mediated fluorescent spherical nucleic acid(FSNA)for miRNA analysis based on strand displacement reactions on gold nanoparticle(AuNP)surfaces and electrokinetic signal amplification(ESA)on a microfluidic chip.In this FSNA,polyA-DNA biosensor was anchored on AuNP surfaces via intrinsic affinity between adenine and Au.The upright conformational polyA-DNA recognition block hybridized with 6-carboxyfluorescein-labeled reporter-DNA,resulting in fluores-cence quenching of FSNA probes induced by AuNP-based resonance energy transfer.Reporter DNA was replaced in the presence of target miRNA,leading to the recovery of reporter-DNA fluorescence.Sub-sequently,reporter-DNAs were accumulated and detected in the front of with Nafion membrane in the microchannel by ESA.Our method showed high selectivity and sensitivity with a limit of detection of 1.3 pM.This method could also be used to detect miRNA-21 in human serum and urine samples,with re-coveries of 104.0％-113.3％and 104.9％-108.0％,respectively.Furthermore,we constructed a chip with three parallel channels for the simultaneous detection of multiple tumor-related miRNAs(miRNA-21,miRNA-141,and miRNA-375),which increased the detection efficiency.Our universal method can be applied to other DNA/RNA analyses by altering recognition sequences.

A new variant of concern for SARS-CoV-2,Omicron(B.1.1.529),was designated by the World Health Organization on November 26,2021.This study analyzed the viral genome sequenc-ing data of 108 samples collected from patients infected with Omicron.First,we found that the enrichment efficiency of viral nucleic acids was reduced due to mutations in the region where the primers anneal to.Second,the Omicron variant possesses an excessive number of mutations compared to other variants circulating at the same time(median:62 vs.45),especially in the Spike gene.Mutations in the Spike gene confer alterations in 32 amino acid residues,more than those observed in other SARS-CoV-2 variants.Moreover,a large number of nonsynonymous mutations occur in the codons for the amino acid residues located on the surface of the Spike protein,which could potentially affect the replication,infectivity,and antigenicity of SARS-CoV-2.Third,there are 53 mutations between the Omicron variant and its closest sequences available in public databases.Many of these mutations were rarely observed in public databases and had a low muta-tion rate.In addition,the linkage disequilibrium between these mutations was low,with a limited number of mutations concurrently observed in the same genome,suggesting that the Omicron vari-ant would be in a different evolutionary branch from the currently prevalent variants.To improve our ability to detect and track the source of new variants rapidly,it is imperative to further strengthen genomic surveillance and data sharing globally in a timely manner.

Objective:To investigate the anti-oxidative stress effects of microRNA 125b (miR-125b) on lens epithelial cells (LECs) and its possible mechanism.Methods:Twenty-four anterior capsule specimens were collected from 24 eyes of 24 age-related cataract patients during phacoemulsification and 20 normal anterior capsule specimens were obtained from 20 eyes of 20 donors in Henan Eye Hospital from July 2018 to March 2019 under the approval of a Medical Ethics Committee of Henan Eye Hospital (No.YKYY20193151).The reverse transcription PCR and Western blot assay were employed to detect and compare the relative expression levels of miR-125b and nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) in different specimens.The human lens epithelial cell line HLEB-3 was divided into control group and oxidative stress model group.The oxidative stress models were established by coculture with different concentrations (100, 200, 400 μmol/L) of H 2O 2 for 24 hours, and the cells were cultured with normal medium without H 2O 2 in the control group.The reactive oxygen species (ROS) content was detected by DCFH-DA fluorescent probe, and the activities of total-antioxidative capability (T-AOC), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) as well as malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration were detected by ELISA, and compared among the groups.The expression levels of miR-125b and Nrf2 were detected by reverse transcription PCR and Western blot assay, respectively.The cells were transfected with miR-125b mimics, miR-125b control and miR-125b inhibitor for 24 hours, respectively, and ROS content was detected by DCFH-DA fluorescent probe and T-AOC, SOD and GSH-Px activities as well as MDA concentration were detected by ELISA and compared among different transfected groups.A dual luciferase reporter assay was used to assess an association between miR-125b and Nrf2.The expression level of Nrf2 protein was detected by Western blot assay and the expression levels of Nrf2 and Keap1 were assayed and located by immunofluorescence double staining. Results:The relative expression levels of miR-125b and Nrf2 in the normal lens anterior capsule specimens were 0.21±0.03 and 0.27±0.06, which were significantly lower than 0.89±0.05 and 0.84±0.12 in the cataract specimens, respectively ( t=15.355, P<0.05; t=18.647, P<0.05).The relative expression levels of miR-125b and Nrf2 were significantly increased in various H 2O 2 treated groups in comparison with the control group and were gradually elevated with the increase of H 2O 2 concentration (all at P<0.05).Compared with the control group, the T-AOC, SOD and GSH-Px activities were reduced, and ROS content and MDA concentration were significantly ascended (all at P<0.05).Compared with the miR-125b control group, the T-AOC, GSH-Px and SOD activities were increased, and ROS content and MDA concentration were decreased in the miR-125b mimics group (all at P<0.05).In addition, the T-AOC, GSH-Px and SOD activities were significantly weakened, and ROS content and MDA concentration were significantly increased in the miR-125b inhibitor group in comparison with the miR-125b control group (all at P<0.05).Dual luciferase reporter assay showed that miR-125b targeted to the expression of Nrf2 in the H 2O 2 model cells.The fluorescence of Nrf2 in the cytoplasm was the strongest with more nuclear transfer in the miR-125b mimics group, and the expression intensity of Keap1 in the cytoplasm was weaker.The expression of Nrf2 was the weakest with less nuclear transfer in the miR-125b inhibitor group, and the expression level of Keap1 in the cytoplasm was stronger. Conclusions:MiR-125b can enhance the anti-oxidative stress of LECs in age-related cataractous eyes probably by upregulating the expression of Nrf2 and activating the Keap1/Nrf2 signaling pathway.

Animals ; CRISPR-Cas Systems ; Gene Editing ; Humans

Objective · To evaluate the surgical outcome of RPR composite technique for complex hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM). Methods · From June 2009 to December 2015, 9 complex HOCM patients received RPR procedure. There were 6 males and 3 females with age from 22 to 63 years old and the average age of (43±19) years old. Transthorax echocardiography (TTE) showed systolic anterior motion (SAM) and at least moderate mitral valve regurgitation (MR) in all patients before operations. Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) was used to evaluate the results of procedures during operation. All the patients had been followed up since one week after operation and examined by TTE. Results · All the patients were discharged without complications. Intraoperative TEE indicated that left ventricular outflow tract pressure gradient (LVOTPG) significantly decreased from (92±14) mmHg before operation to (9±3) mmHg after operation (P<0.01). SAM in all the patients disappeared. One week after operation, TTE demonstrated remarkable reduction in the thickness of ventricular septum, LVOTPG and MR than those before operation (P<0.01). Mean follow-up was 26 months. All the patients became asymptomatic. LVOTPG remained low and MR remained mild. There were no deaths, reoperations, or any other adverse consequences. Conclusion · RPR technique is an effective surgical method to relieve LVOTO and MR of complex HOCM to lead a better life.