[Objective] To compare the diagnostic accuracy of three imaging modalities, inlducing CT urography (CTU), contrast-enhanced MRI (CE-MRI), and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in the qualitative diagnosis of renal space-occupying lesions. [Methods] A retrospective analysis was performed on 542 patients with renal lesions confirmed by surgical pathology in our hospital during Jan.2019 and May 2024.The diagnostic results of CTU, CE-MRI and CEUS were compared and analyzed based on the patients' clinical and pathological data. [Results] The diagnostic accuracy rate of CTU, CE-MRI and CEUS were 84.50%, 83.14% and 86.14%, respectively.For the 161 patients who underwent all three examinations, CEUS was significantly more accurate than CTU (84.16% vs. 77.02%, P=0.018), while there was no significant difference between CTU or CEUS and CE-MRI (79.81%) (P>0.05). Further analysis found that for lesions ≤4 cm, the accuracy of the three examinations was as follows: CEUS=CTU 79.55%, CE-MRI 76.14%, with no significant difference (P>0.05). However, for lesions >4 cm, CEUS ranked the first, followed by CE-MRI and CTU (89.73% vs. 84.25% vs. 73.97%), and CEUS and CE-MRI were better than CTU (P<0.05). Additionally, for the diagnosis of clear cell renal carcinoma and benign renal space-occupying lesions, there was no statistically significant difference among the three imaging modalities (P>0.05), while for the qualitative diagnosis of non-clear cell renal carcinoma, CEUS ranked the first, followed by CE-MRI and CTU (83.87% vs. 74.19% vs. 56.45%), and CE-MRI and CEUS were better than CTU (P<0.05). [Conclusion] All of them have important diagnostic value, and the appropriate selection should be based on patients' specifc conditions.CEUS and CE-MRI are more accurate in the qualitative diagnosis of renal space-occupying lesions than CTU, especially for large lesions and non-clear cell carcinoma.

Coronary restenosis is an important cause of poor long-term prognosis in patients with coronary heart disease. Here, we show that lysine methyltransferase SMYD2 expression in the nucleus is significantly elevated in serum- and PDGF-BB-induced vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs), and in tissues of carotid artery injury-induced neointimal hyperplasia. Smyd2 overexpression in VSMCs (Smyd2-vTg) facilitates, but treatment with its specific inhibitor LLY-507 or SMYD2 knockdown significantly inhibits VSMC phenotypic switching and carotid artery injury-induced neointima formation in mice. Transcriptome sequencing revealed that SMYD2 knockdown represses the expression of serum response factor (SRF) target genes and that SRF overexpression largely reverses the inhibitory effect of SMYD2 knockdown on VSMC proliferation. HDAC3 directly interacts with and deacetylates SRF, which enhances SRF transcriptional activity in VSMCs. Moreover, SMYD2 promotes HDAC3 expression via tri-methylation of H3K36 at its promoter. RGFP966, a specific inhibitor of HDAC3, not only counteracts the pro-proliferation effect of SMYD2 overexpression on VSMCs, but also inhibits carotid artery injury-induced neointima formation in mice. HDAC3 partially abolishes the inhibitory effect of SMYD2 knockdown on VSMC proliferation in a deacetylase activity-dependent manner. Our results reveal that the SMYD2-HDAC3-SRF axis constitutes a novel and critical epigenetic mechanism that regulates VSMC phenotypic switching and neointimal hyperplasia.

ObjectiveTo investigate the short-term knee function recovery of patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA) after discharge and analyze its related factors. MethodsFrom December, 2022 to April, 2023, 140 adult patients who underwent TKA in Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital and being about to be discharged were selected as the survey subjects using convenient sampling. Potential influencing factors were selected based on a literature review. They were investigated with general information questionnaire, Rehabilitation Exercise Compliance Scale, Self-Efficacy Scale for Rehabilitation Exercise (SER), Visual Analog Scale for pain (VAS), and joint range of motion measurements before discharge, and were investigated with the Hospital for Special Surgery Knee Score (HSS) one month after discharge. ResultsA total of 130 patients finished follow-up. One month after discharge, the HSS score ranged from 40 to 82, with an average of (70.89±6.26). Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that Body Mass Index (B = -0.423, 95%CI -0.622 to -0.224, P < 0.001), pre-discharge VAS (B = -1.016, 95%CI -1.198 to -0.113, P = 0.028), rehabilitation exercise compliance (B = 0.267, 95%CI 0.121 to 0.413, P < 0.001), SER (B = 0.478, 95%CI 0.315 to 0.642, P < 0.001), and knee joint flexion contracture angle (B = -0.251, 95%CI -0.414 to -0.088, P = 0.003) could influence HSS score one month after discharge (R² = 0.615, F =17.106, P < 0.001). ConclusionPatients after TKA have recovered well in short time after discharge, however, there is still significant room for improvement. Clinical healthcare providers should design and implement appropriate interventions based on related factors to improve the function.

Tripterygium wilfordii is widely used in the treatment of autoimmune system diseases, but its obvious reproductive toxicity limits the clinical application and promotion of the drug. At present, there is no clear solution to the reproductive injury of Tripterygium wilfordii. TCM believes that its reproductive toxicity lies in its properties of pungent, bitter, and cold. Long-term use can dry liver and blood, hurt liver and yang, consume kidney essence, damage kidney and yang, destroy the balance of qi and blood, yin and yang in the internal organs, and cause infertility. Based on the relationship between liver and kidney and human reproductive function, this article proposed to understand the reproductive toxicity of Tripterygium wilfordii from the perspective of "Yi and Gui homology", and explored the method of reducing the reproductive toxicity of Tripterygium wilfordii according to the thought of "treating liver and kidney together", in order to expand the theoretical thinking of TCM for the safe clinical application of this drug.

The prevalence of periodontal disease in Chinese population is more than 90％.The present treatment techniques can only control the development of the disease,inducement of bone tissue regeneration is a promising strategy and a challenge for the treatment.Exosomes are multivesicle structures derived from endosomes.More and more studies have been conducted on their application in perio-dontal regeneration.This paper reviews the application of exosome in periodontal regeneration in recent years,which is expected to pro-vide new idea for periodontal regeneration therapy.

Objective:To analyze the status of respiratory pathogen detection and the clinical features in children with Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (MPP). Methods:A prospective, multicenter study was conducted to collect clinical data, including medical history, laboratory examinations and multiplex PCR tests of children diagnosed with MPP from 4 hospitals in China between November 15 th and December 20 th, 2023. The multiplex PCR results and clinical characteristics of MPP children in different regions were analyzed. The children were divided into severe and mild groups according to the severity of the disease. Patients in the severe group were further divided into Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP) alone and Multi-pathogen co-detection groups based on whether other pathogens were detected besides MP, to analyze the influence of respiratory pathogen co-detection rate on the severity of the disease. Mann-Whitney rank sum test and Chi-square test were used to compare data between independent groups. Results:A total of 298 children, 136 males and 162 females, were enrolled in this study, including 204 children in the severe group with an onset age of 7.0 (6.0, 8.0) years, and 94 children in the mild group with an onset age of 6.5 (4.0, 7.8) years. The level of C-reactive protein, D-dimer, lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) were significantly higher (10.0 (5.0, 18.0) vs. 5.0 (5.0, 7.5) mg/L, 0.6 (0.4, 1.1) vs. 0.5 (0.3, 0.6) mg/L, 337 (286, 431) vs. 314 (271, 393) U/L, Z=2.02, 2.50, 3.05, all P<0.05), and the length of hospitalization was significantly longer in the severe group compared with those in mild group (6.0 (6.0, 7.0) vs. 5.0 (4.0, 6.0) d, Z=4.37, P<0.05). The time from onset to admission in severe MPP children was significantly shorter than that in mild MPP children (6.0 (5.0, 9.5) vs. 9.0 (7.0, 13.0) d, Z=2.23, P=0.026). All patients completed the multiplex PCR test, with 142 cases (47.7%) MPP children detected with 21 pathogens including adenovirus 25 cases (8.4%), human coronavirus 23 cases (7.7%), rhinovirus 21 cases (7.0%), Streptococcus pneumoniae 21 cases (7.0%), influenza A virus 18 cases (6.0%). The pathogens with the highest detection rates in Tianjin, Shanghai, Wenzhou and Chengdu were Staphylococcus aureus at 10.7% (8/75), adenovirus at 13.0% (10/77), adenovirus at 15.3% (9/59), and both rhinovirus and Haemophilus influenzae at 11.5% (10/87) each. The multi-pathogen co-detection rate in severe MPP children was significantly higher than that in mild MPP group (52.9% (108/204) vs. 36.2% (34/94), χ2=10.62, P=0.005). Among severe MPP children, there are 89 cases in the multi-pathogen co-detection group and 73 cases in the simple MPP group. The levels of LDH, D-dimer and neutrophil counts in the multi-pathogen co-detection group were significantly higher than those in the simple MPP group (348 (284, 422) vs. 307 (270, 358) U/L, 0.8 (0.5, 1.5) vs. 0.6 (0.4, 1.0) mg/L, 4.99 (3.66, 6.89)×10 9vs. 4.06 (2.91, 5.65)×10 9/L, Z=5.17, 4.99, 6.11, all P<0.05). Conclusions:The co-detection rate of respiratory pathogens, LDH and D-dimer in children with severe MPP were higher than those with mild MPP. Among severe MPP children the stress response of children in co-detection group was more serious than that of children with simple MPP.

Objective To analyze the causal relationship between Sjogren's syndrome(SS)and primary biliary cholangitis(PBC)and abnormal liver function by two-sample Mendelian randomization.Methods From the ge-nome-wide association study,single nucleotide polymorphisms of SS,PBC,alkaline phosphatase,alanine amin-otransferase,aspartate aminotransferase,γ-glutamyltransferase,direct bilirubin and total bilirubin levels were extrac-ted as instrumental variables.Inverse-variance weighted(IVW)analysis was used as the main analysis,supplemen-ted by weighted median,MR-Egger,weighted mode,and simple mode.And a series of sensitivity analyses were car-ried out to verify the robustness of the results.Results The IVW analysis results of PBC on SS were as follows:P=8.57E-11,OR=1.185 9,95％CI=1.126 4-1.248 5;IVW analysis of PBC on SS(P＞0.05).IVW analysis results of SS on alkaline phosphatase were as follows:P=0.041 5,Beta=-0.007 2,95％CI=-0.014 0--0.000 3;IVW analysis results of SS on alanine aminotransferase,aspartate aminotransferase,γ-glutamyltransferase,direct bilirubin,total bilirubin levels showed no statistically significant difference.Conclusion PBC can significantly increase the risk of SS,but SS cannot be proved to have a causal effect on the occurrence of PBC.SS has a potential effect on re-ducing alkaline phosphatase levels,but it is not proved that SS has causal relationship with alanine aminotransferase,aspartate aminotransferase,γ-glutamyltransferase,direct bilirubin,total bilirubin levels.

Objective:This study aims to evaluate the performance of digital PCR (dPCR) detecting multiple and single copies genes of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) for nucleic acid quantification and explore their applicability in clinical settings.Methods:Compared the sensitivity, specificity, precision, lower limit of detection (LoD), and linearity for multicopy BamHI-W dPCR and single-copy EBNA1 dPCR systems. Linear regression analysis using the least squares method was employed to evaluate the linearity. Additionally, we analyzed plasma samples from 182 patients with suspected EBV-related diseases between January and July 2022 at the Southern Medical University Southern Hospital, using both dPCR and quantitative PCR (qPCR) for EBV DNA quantification. Linear regression analysis using the least squares method was conducted to assess their quantitative correlation.Results:The dPCR systems for both multicopy and single-copy genes showed excellent linearity ( R 2 values of 0.992 and 0.997, respectively, both P<0.001). The LoD were 188 IU/ml for BamHI-W gene and 358 IU/ml for EBNA1 gene dPCR systems. The logarithmic coefficient of variation ( CV) values for high-concentration samples (1 000 000 IU/ml) were 0.34% and 0.21% for the BamHI-W gene and EBNA1 gene dPCR assays, respectively, while for low-concentration samples (5 000 IU/ml) were 0.98% and 0.64%, respectively. In the detection of seven common clinical infectious pathogens and EBV positive samples, only EBV-positive samples yielded positive signals in the dPCR detection system, with no cross-reaction with other pathogens. In 182 samples, the positive detection rates were 47.80% (87/182) for BamHI-W gene and 35.16% (64/182) for EBNA1 gene dPCR, compared to 43.41% (79/182) for qPCR. Linear correlation analysis with qPCR showed R2 values of 0.837 for BamHI-W gene and 0.763 for EBNA1 gene dPCR (both P<0.001). The BamHI-W gene copy number ranged from 3 to 18 copies per clinical sample, with patient-specific variations. There was a high consistency in viral load trends between the multicopy BamHI-W gene and single-copy EBNA1 gene dPCR systems within individual patients. Conclusions:The dPCR methods detecting EBV multiple and single copies genes showed high sensitivity, specificity, precision, and quantitative accuracy, suitable for clinical sample analysis. The multicopy BamHI-W gene dPCR method notably enhances detection sensitivity and can be used as a supplement to current EBV DNA load detection methods, especially in low-concentration samples. For within-patient EBV DNA monitoring, the multicopy gene method proves more effective, while inter-patient comparisons might necessitate single-copy gene methods or normalize them using the same standard.

Dracaena marginata is a widely cultivated horticultural plant in the world, which has high ornamental and medicinal value. In this study, the whole genome of leaves from D. marginata was sequenced by Illumina HiSeq 4000 platform. The chloroplast genome were assembled for functional annotation, sequence characteristics and phylogenetic analysis. The results showed that the chloroplast genome of D. marginata composed of four regions with a size of 154 926 bp, which was the smallest chloroplast genome reported for Dracaena species to date. A total of 132 genes were identified, including 86 coding genes, 38 tRNA genes and 8 rRNA genes. Codon bias analysis found that the codon usage bias was weak and there was a bias for using A/U base endings. 46 simple sequence repeat and 54 repeats loci were detected in the chloroplast genome, with the maximum detection rate in the large single copy region and inverted repeat region, respectively. The inverted repeats boundaries of D. marginata and Dracaena were highly conserved, whereas gene location differences occurred. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that D. serrulata and D. cinnabari form a monophyletic clade, which was the closest relationship and conformed to the morphological classification characteristics. The analysis of the chloroplast genome of D. marginata provides important data basis for species identification, genetic diversity and chloroplast genome engineering of Dracaena.
Phylogeny ; Dracaena ; Genome, Chloroplast/genetics* ; Base Sequence ; Genes, Plant

Background/Aims: Mean nocturnal baseline impedance (MNBI) is a new reflux metric for mucosal integrity. It remains unclear whether MNBI can help identify evidence against pathological reflux by the Lyon Consensus in patients with refractory gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) symptoms. Methods: Three hundred and forty-nine patients with refractory GERD symptoms enrolled in this study were subjected to high-resolution manometry, 24-hour multichannel intraluminal impedance-pH (MII-pH) monitoring, and endoscopy. Conventional indexes (ie, reflux events and acid exposure time) and the novel index (MNBI) of MII-pH monitoring were extracted and analyzed. The value of MNBI in diagnosing patients with evidence against pathologic reflux was evaluated by receiver-operating-characteristic analysis. Results: There were 102 (29.2%) patients with evidence against pathologic reflux, 149 (42.7%) with inconclusive or borderline evidence and 98 (28.1%) with conclusive evidence for pathologic reflux. The MNBI was significantly higher while the proportion of pathological MNBI was significantly lower in subjects with evidence against pathologic reflux than in patients with inconclusive or borderline evidence and in patients with conclusive evidence for pathologic reflux (2444.3 [1977.9-2997.4] vs 1992.8 [1615.5-2253.6] and vs 1772.3 [758.6-2161.3], both P < 0.001; 42.2% vs 79.7% and vs 80.0%, both P < 0.05). When identifying evidence against pathologic reflux in patients with refractory GERD symptoms, the MNBI yielded an area under the curve of 0.749 (P < 0.001) at a cutoff value of 1941.8 Ω. Conclusions The MNBI has a good diagnostic value for evidence against pathological reflux in patients with refractory GERD symptoms. For its simplicity and reproducibility, we believe that MNBI should be referred to in reports of impedance-pH tracings by physicians.