FAR knockout significantly inhibits Chilo suppressalis survival and transgene expression of double-stranded FAR in rice exhibits strong pest resistance.

Chilo suppressalis is one of the most prevalent and damaging rice pests, causing significant economic losses each year. Chemical control is currently the primary method of controlling C. suppressalis. However, the indiscriminate use of chemical insecticides increases pest resistance, pollutes the environment and poses a significant health threat to humans and livestock, highlighting the need to find safer, more pest-specific and more effective alternatives to pest control. Plant-mediated RNA interference (RNAi) is a promising agricultural pest control method that is highly pest-specific and has less of an impact on the environment. Using multi-sgRNAs/Cas9 technology to delete Fatty acyl-CoA reductase (FAR) of C. suppressalis in the G0 generation, we show that downregulating FAR transcription may significantly increase the mortality rate and darken the epidermis of C. suppressalis compared with the control. Subsequently, we developed dsFAR transgenic rice lines using Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation and then screened three strains expressing dsFAR at high levels using transcriptional level analysis. Using transgenic rice stems, a laboratory feeding bioassay indicated that at least one line (L#10) displayed a particularly high level of insect resistance, with an insect mortality rate of more than 80%. In the field trials, dsFAR transgenic rice displayed high levels of resistance to C. suppressalis damage. Collectively, these results suggest the potential of a new environment-friendly, species-specific strategy for rice pest management.

Impact of intraoperative allogenic and autologous transfusion on immune function and prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

The effect of intraoperative blood transfusion on the immune function and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has not been fully investigated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of intraoperative autologous blood transfusion and allogeneic blood transfusion on immune function and prognosis in surgically treated HCC patients. One hundred fourteen primary hepatic carcinoma patients who would undergo selective operations were divided into two groups, 35 patients in the experimental group received intraoperative autologous blood transfusion and 79 patients in the control group received allogeneic blood transfusion. The amount of serum T lymphocyte subsets, natural killer (NK) cells and immunoglobulin before and after operation, as well as the recurrence-free survival (RFS) were compared. Results shown that, there was no significant difference in the level of immunocytes and immunoglobulin between the two groups before treatment (P > .05). At 1 day after surgery, there were significant differences in T lymphocyte, NK cells and immunoglobulin levels before and after transfusion. CD3+, CD4+, CD4+/CD8+, and NK cells in autologous transfusion group were significantly higher than those in allogeneic transfusion group (P < .05); the level of IgG, IgM, and IgA in allogeneic transfusion group were significantly lower than those before operation (P < .05), the level of IgG, IgM, and IgA in autologous transfusion group did not significantly fluctuate, and significantly higher than those of allogeneic transfusion group (P < .05). At 5 days after surgery, all indexes of autologous transfusion group recovered to the preoperative level, the levels of CD3+, CD4+, CD4+/CD8+, NK cells, IgG, IgM, and IgA were significantly higher than those of allogeneic transfusion group (P < .05). The follow-up results showed that the RFS of autologous transfusion group was significantly higher than that of allogeneic transfusion group (P < .05). In conclusion, compared with allogeneic blood transfusion, intraoperative autologous blood transfusion possessed less impact on immune function, it may even improve immune function and RFS in HCC patients after surgery. Therefore, HCC patients should be recommended to receive autologous blood transfusion instead of allogeneic blood transfusion when they need blood transfusion during the perioperative period.

Prevalence of postmastectomy pain syndrome and associated risk factors: A large single-institution cohort study.

Postmastectomy pain syndrome (PMPS) is a frequent complication of breast surgery, and is considered a chronic neuropathic pain in the side of surgery which persists more than 3 months. We conducted a retrospective analysis of the largest reported cohort to investigate the prevalence of PMPS and to analyze its associated risk factors as well as the influence on quality of life (QoL). Two thousand thirty-three surgically-treated female patients diagnosed between 2012 and 2017 with early-stage breast cancer were asked to complete a questionnaire survey about their current chronic neuropathic pain problems and quality of life. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were applied to determine the associated risk factors of PMPS. Results have shown that 1983 (97.5%) patients responded and completed a questionnaire survey. Among them, PMPS was found in 28.2% of patients. In univariate analysis, age≤35 years, tumor staging, history of chronic pain, total mastectomy, and axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) were significantly correlated with PMPS (P < .05). Multivariate analysis showed that age≤35 years, history of chronic pain, total mastectomy, and ALND were the independent risk factors of PMPS. QoL outcomes have shown that the global QoL score, physical function score, role function score, and social function score in the PMPS group were reduced in the PMPS group (P < .05), while the difference in emotional function score and cognitive function score showed no statistical significance (P > .05). Besides, patients with PMPS have worse body image, sexual enjoyment, and more breast symptoms. In conclusion, PMPS is linked with a high incidence among breast cancer patients, and has a considerable negative influence on the quality of life. In addition, age, total mastectomy, ALND, and history of chronic pain are the independent risk factors of PMPS.