Urogenital Chlamydia trachomatis ( Ct) infection is a serious sexually transmitted disease worldwide. The early diagnosis and treatment of Ct infection is critical for disease control. This review summarized the progress in the development of methods for detecting Ct infection and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of various methods. The emerging omics techniques in recent years are expected to be new tools for the detection of Ct infection. It is necessary to develop the omics techniques into rapid and accurate point-of-care tests that can be carried out in various testing environments for more effective patient management and disease control.

Humans ; Dermatitis, Atopic/drug therapy* ; Resorcinols/therapeutic use* ; Stilbenes/therapeutic use* ; Double-Blind Method ; Treatment Outcome ; Severity of Illness Index

Persistent Chlamydia trachomatis urogenital tract infection may lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and tubal infertility in women, and urethritis, epididymitis and other complications in men, which is a hotspot and chanllenge in disease control at home and abroad. In recent years, many researches have shown that Chlamydia trachomatis aberrant reticulate body may be one of the major causes of persistent infection. This review summarized the genomic and proteomic characteristics of Chlamydia trachomatis aberrant reticulate body induced under various conditions in vitro, aiming to elucidating its role in antimicrobial resistance. The identification of persistent infection-related factors, providing new diagnostic targets for the detection of subclinically refractory long-term infections, is a prerequisite for finding appropriate methods to diagnose and treat the complications of Chlamydia trachomatis infection and is crucial for identifying new targets in the post-genomic era.

Background::Urticaria is a common skin disease characterized by episodes of wheals, and it has a negative effect on patients’ quality of life. Large-scale population-based epidemiological studies of urticaria are scarce in China. The aim of this survey was to determine the prevalence, clinical forms, and risk factors of urticaria in the Chinese population.Methods::This survey was conducted in 35 cities from 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities of China. Two to three communities in each city were selected in this investigation. Participants completed questionnaires and received dermatological examinations. We analyzed the prevalence, clinical forms, and risk factors of urticaria.Results::In total, 44,875 questionnaires were distributed and 41,041 valid questionnaires were collected (17,563 male and 23,478 female participants). The lifetime prevalence of urticaria was 7.30%, with 8.26% in female and 6.34% in male individuals ( P < 0.05). The point prevalence of urticaria was 0.75%, with 0.79% in female and 0.71% in male individuals ( P < 0.05). Concomitant angioedema was found in 6.16% of patients. Adults had a higher prevalence of urticaria than adolescents and children. Living in urban areas, exposure to pollutants, an anxious or depressed psychological status, a personal and family history of allergy, thyroid diseases, and Helicobacter pylori infection were associated with a higher prevalence of urticaria. Smoking was correlated with a reduced risk of urticaria. Conclusion::This study demonstrated that the lifetime prevalence of urticaria was 7.30% and the point prevalence was 0.75% in the Chinese population; women had a higher prevalence of urticaria than men. Various factors were correlated with urticaria.

The emergence of a large number of drug-resistant bacteria has brought severe challenges to clinical anti-infection treatment. Phage therapy is considered to be a very promising method to cope with this dilemma, which has been explored and applied in many disciplines. Its efficacy has also been confirmed in clearing skin and mucous membrane infections, and it has become a hot spot in international research. The use of phage cocktails, phage lysozymes and phage proteins has shown good efficacy in the treatment of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella, Bacillus proteus, etc. This review summarizes the background, characteristics, development of phage therapy, and its application and prospects in skin and genitourinary tract infections.

Proteases are enzymes that cleave and hydrolyse the peptide bonds between two specific amino acid residues of target substrate proteins. Protease-controlled proteolysis plays a key role in the degradation and recycling of proteins, which is essential for various physiological processes. Thus, solving the substrate identification problem will have important implications for the precise understanding of functions and physiological roles of proteases, as well as for therapeutic target identification and pharmaceutical applicability. Consequently, there is a great demand for bioinformatics methods that can predict novel substrate cleavage events with high accuracy by utilizing both sequence and structural information. In this study, we present Procleave, a novel bioinformatics approach for predicting protease-specific substrates and specific cleavage sites by taking into account both their sequence and 3D structural information. Structural features of known cleavage sites were represented by discrete values using a LOWESS data-smoothing optimization method, which turned out to be critical for the performance of Procleave. The optimal approximations of all structural parameter values were encoded in a conditional random field (CRF) computational framework, alongside sequence and chemical group-based features. Here, we demonstrate the outstanding performance of Procleave through extensive benchmarking and independent tests. Procleave is capable of correctly identifying most cleavage sites in the case study. Importantly, when applied to the human structural proteome encompassing 17,628 protein structures, Procleave suggests a number of potential novel target substrates and their corresponding cleavage sites of different proteases. Procleave is implemented as a webserver and is freely accessible at http://procleave.erc.monash.edu/.

Objective To assess the efficacy and side effects of intravesical instillation of BCG after transurethral resection of the bladder tumor (TURBT) in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) patients.Methods The clinical data of patients treated with BCG 120 mg per course induced perfusion or more after TURBT from December 2013 to October 2016 in 18 hospitals of northeast China region,were analyzed retrospectively.The first part,data of 106 patients with moderate,high-risk NMIBC were collected.A total of 83 patients were male,while the other 23 patients were female.The average age was 66.7 years old.The clinical staging were T1 in 86(81.1％) cases,Ta in 20(18.9％) cases and carcinoma in situ in 6 (5.7％) patients.Intravesical instillation of BCG was executed after transurethral resection of the bladder tumor.The incidence rate of recurrence and progression during more than 6 months' follow-up time were observed.Multivariate analyses were done by using logistic analysis and Cox proportional hazards regression model with Kaplan-Meier method.The second part,treatment compliance of 276 patients with bladder cancer,including moderate/high-risk NMIBC in 263 cases,moderate/high-risk NMIBC followed with renal pelvis/ureteral carcinoma in 8 cases were and moderate/high-risk NMIBC with renal pelvis/ureteral carcinoma in 5 cases who treated with BCG after the surgeries,were observed.Patients consisted of 211 males and 65 females with average age of 68.3 years.Results With a median follow-up of 12 months,9 (8.5％) patients experienced tumor recurrence and 2 (1.9％) patients were found progression in the first part.The one-year cancer free recurrence rate of the patients was 91.5％.Statistically significant prognostic factors for recurrence identified by multivariable analyses were prior recurrence of the tumors (OR =3.214,95％CI0.804-12.845,P =0.099).In the second port,an incidence rate of adverse effects was 64.1％ (177/276).The Ⅲ/Ⅳ degree complications were occurred in 11 patients and satisfactory outcomes achieved with active treatment.A total of 36 patients withdrawal with the major causes were recurrence and progression of bladder tumor in 12 cases (4.4 ％),9 cases (3.3 ％) with economic reasons and 11 cases (4.0％) with serious complications.Conclusions NMIBC patients treated with intravesical BCG therapy have approving cancer free recurrence rates and acceptable adverse effects.Prior recurrence may be prognostic factor of recurrence after intravesical BCG therapy.

Objective To certify that Chlamydia can spread from the genital tract to the gastrointestinal tract for long-lasting colonization.Methods Totally,120 female C57BL/6J mice aged 5-6 weeks were divided into 4 experimental groups to be inoculated with purified Chlamydia muridarum (C.muridarum) elementary bodies in the vagina (n =35),gastric area (n =30),anus and rectum (n =30),retro-orbital venous plexus (n =5) respectively.Moreover,corresponding negative groups inoculated with sucrose phosphate glutamate buffer (n =5) were set up for each experimental group.On days 3,7,and every 7 days,vaginal and rectal discharges were collected with swabs from the mice,and the number of live C muridarum orgnisms in exfoliated cells infected with C muridarum in the swabs was determined.Indirect immunofluorescence assay and quantitative PCR (qPCR) were performed to determine the number of live chlamydial organisms and the copy number of chlamydial genomes in the mouse genital tract (vagina,uterus,oviduct and ovary),gastrointestinal tract (stomach,small intestine,cecum,colon,rectum)and parenteral tissues (heart,liver,spleen,lung,kidney) on days 7,14,28,56 and 105 after the inoculation.The number of live chlamydial organisms and copy number of chlamydial genomes were transformed logarithmically with a base of 10.The degree of hydrosalpinx and inflammation in the genital tract,and histopathological changes of the gastrointestinal tract were observed.The infectivity and virulence of C.muridarum in the genital tract and gastrointestinal tract were evaluated in the intragastric inoculation group and intra-anal and intrarectal inoculation group on days 28 and 56 after the inoculation.Blood samples were obtained from the mouse caudal vein in the retro-orbital venous plexus inoculation group on days 3,5,7,10 and 14 after the inoculation,the number of live chlamydial organisms and the copy number of chlamydial genomes in the blood samples were determined,and chlamydial infectivity in the genital tract and gastrointestinal tract was evaluated on day 56.Results On day 7 after the inoculation in the vagina,both C.muridarum live organisms and genomes were detected in the genital tract,gastrointestinal tract and parenteral tissues of all the mice.The largest common logarithm of the number of C.muridarum inclusion forming units (IFU) was observed in the vagina (6.26 ± 0.56),with the common logarithm of the copy number of chlamydial genomes in the vagina being 7.30 ± 0.23,and the common logarithms of the number of Chlamydia IFU and genomic copy were 2.60 ± 1.95 and 4.87 ± 0.09 respectively in the rectum.On day 28,no live Chlamydia was detected in the heart,lung or other parenteral tissues,while live Chlamydia could be found in the genital tract and gastrointestinal tract.The common logarithms of the number of Chlamydia IFU and genomic copy were 3.47 ± 1.06 and 5.80 ± 1.49 respectively in the vagina,and 4.00 ±0.35 and 5.14 ± 0.81 respectively in the rectum.On day 56,live Chlamydia could only be detected in the gastrointestinal tract.On day 105,live Chlamydia and its genomes could be still detected in the gastrointestinal tract,and the common logarithms of the number of Chlamydia IFU and genomic copy could be up to 2.60 ± 0.65 and 4.29 ± 0.57 respectively in the rectum.On days 28 and 56 after the inoculation,both live Chlamydia and its genomes could be detected in the gastrointestinal tract of all the mice in the intragastric inoculation group and intra-anal and intrarectal inoculation group.Chlamydia could survive in the blood for about 14 days in the retro-orbital venous plexus inoculation group,and live Chlamydia was detected in anal-rectal swabs in all the mice on day 14.On day 56 after the intravaginal inoculation with C.muridarum,severe hydrosalpinx,chronic inflammation and oviduct dilation occurred in the genital tract of 5 mice,but there was no obvious infiltration of inflammatory cells in the gastrointestinal tract,and inflammatory pathological changes were not observed in the gastrointestinal tract of mice after inoculation with Chlamydia through other routes either.Conclusion The infection with Chlamydia in the genital tract can lead to systemic dissemination,and Chlamydia can be spread to the gastrointestinal tract,and colonize and survive in the gastrointestinal tract for a long time.

Objective To systematically evaluate the efficacy of azithromycin and doxycycline in the treatment of genital Chlamydia trachomatis infection.Methods Databases including Cochrane library,PubMed,EMBASE,CBMdisc,CNKI and Wanfang were searched from January 1,1980 to October 2017 for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing the efficacy of azithromycin versus doxycycline in the treatment of genital Chlamydia trachomatis infection.In these RCTs,negative microbiological findings were defined as cure.Patients in the treatment group were treated with azithromycin,and those in the control group were treated with doxycycline.Two researchers independently extracted data and evaluated the quality of these RCTs.Statistical analysis was done by using Stata 12.0 software.Results A total of 24 research reports were enrolled,including 24 RCTs and 2 369 patients.There were 1 302 patients in the azithromycin group and 1 067 in the doxycycline group.Meta-analysis showed that there was a significant difference in the microbiological response rate between the treatment group and the control group.A fixedeffect model was used to combine the response rate,and showed that the response rate to doxycycline was superior to that to azithromycin,with a risk difference of 2.8％ (95％ CI,0.9％-4.6％).Conclusion The microbiological response rate to azithromycin is lower than that to doxycycline in the treatment of genital Chlamydia trachomatis infection,but more RCTs are required to confirm the clinical efficacy of doxycycline.

Objective To investigate the correlation between serum vitamin D level in human body and Chlamydia trachomatis (Ct) genitourinary tract infection. Methods This study enrolled 174 outpa-tients (male: 95, female: 79, 20-49 years) infected with Ct and 380 healthy subjects (male: 211, female:169, 20-49 years) in Tianjin from November 1, 2016 to March 15, 2017. Blood samples were collected from all subjects after fasting overnight and the time points for sample collection in the Ct infection group were before and after a course of antibiotic treatment. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25-(OH)D] levels were measured with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). PCR assay was used to assess the recovery in those patients one month after a course of treatment. Two case-control studies were respectively conducted, in which 161 patients and 161 healthy subjects as well as 41 uncured patients and 41 cured patients were randomly selected and matched for gender and age. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS19. 0. Re-sults The two case-control studies showed that vitamin D deficiency was a risk factor for both Ct genital tract infection and poor efficacy, of which the adjusted ORs were 2. 281 (95％ CI: 1. 438, 3. 619) and 7. 266 (95％ CI: 2. 551, 21. 036). Among all subjects aged 20-39, male patients had lower 25-(OH)D level in serum than healthy men [(40. 10±17. 93) nmol/ L vs (53. 72±18. 00) nmol/ L, P< 0. 01] and fe-male patients also had lower 25-(OH)D level in serum than healthy women [(35. 71±19. 99) nmol/ L vs (45. 42±16. 08) nmol/ L, P<0. 01]. The levels of 25-(OH)D in uncured male and female patients were re-spectively lower than those in cured male and female patients [(30. 50±14. 53) nmol/ L vs (41. 32±17. 24) nmol/ L; (29. 47±16. 66) nmol/ L vs (41. 37±21. 03) nmol/ L; both P<0. 05]. Conclusion Vitamin D deficiency related to Ct infection in human genitourinary tract and poor prognosis. Lower serum vitamin D levels might increase the risk of Ct genitourinary tract infection and reduce the efficacy of treatment.