Diagnostic accuracy and microbial profiles of tuberculous pleurisy: a comparative study of metagenomic next generation sequencing and GeneXpert Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Introduction: There is a clinical challenge in diagnosing tuberculous pleurisy accurately and promptly, highlighting the urgent need for a rapid and sensitive diagnostic method. This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) and GeneXpert Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) for identifying tuberculous pleurisy and analyzing the microbial profiles of both tuberculous and non-tuberculous pleural effusions. Methods: The study enrolled 31 patients with suspected tuberculous pleurisy, of which 15 were confirmed to have tuberculous pleurisy and subsequently allocated to the tuberculous pleurisy group (TP group), while the remaining 16 individuals were assigned to the non-tuberculous pleurisy group (NTP group). mNGS and GeneXpert MTB were performed on pleural effusion samples, and the diagnostic accuracy of both tests was compared. We employed established formulas to compute crucial indicators, including sensitivity, specificity, missed diagnosis rate, misdiagnosed rate, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV). Results: The results showed that both tests had high specificity (100%) and positive predictive value (100%) for detecting tuberculous pleurisy, along with comparable sensitivity (46.67% for mNGS and 40.0% for GeneXpert MTB). Further analysis of the combined efficacy of mNGS and GeneXpert MTB showed that the combined test had a sensitivity of 66.67% and a specificity of 100%. mNGS analysis revealed that MTB was detected in 7 out of 15 patients with tuberculous pleural effusions, while non-tuberculous pleural effusions were associated with a diverse range of microbial genera and species. The most frequently detected genera at the microbial genus level in the NTP group were Microbacterium spp. (6/16), Prevotella spp. (5/16), and Campylobacter spp. (5/16). Discussion: These findings suggest that mNGS and GeneXpert MTB are useful diagnostic tools for identifying patients with tuberculous pleurisy, and mNGS can provide valuable insights into the microbial profiles of both tuberculous and non-tuberculous pleural effusions.

Ultrahigh bandwidth measuring approach of an I-FOG based on axial magnetic sensitivity.

The bandwidth is one of the key indicators of the interferometric fiber optic gyroscope (I-FOG) in the application with high frequency jitter. The traditional bandwidth measurement equipment, such as the angular vibration table, can only provide angular vibrations of hundreds of hertz and cannot meet the measurement needs of a high bandwidth gyro. We propose an approach, with which a signal of several thousand hertz can be provided and can measure a high bandwidth of I-FOGs. The bandwidth measurement approach is based on the axial magnetic sensitivity. We present the measurement principle, derive the axial magnetic sensitivity expression of the fiber coil in I-FOGs, and demonstrate the bandwidth measuring system. With this system, the bandwidth of an I-FOG is measured and the experimental result shows that the bandwidth is ∼10 kHz. It is proved that this new, to the best of our knowledge, approach is capable of testing the bandwidth of the I-FOG at ultrahigh frequencies.

Intracranial complete response to toripalimab and anlotinib in a patient with recurrent brain metastases of small cell lung cancer after failure of second-line maintenance therapy: a case report.

Background: Approximately 10-25% of patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) have brain metastases at the time of diagnosis. Radiotherapy is a common treatment for brain metastases, but the relapse rates are high. Accumulating evidence suggests that immunotherapy may have a better therapeutic effect for brain metastases. Here, we reported a patient with limited-stage SCLC and relapsed brain metastases who achieved sustained intracranial complete response (CR) to programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) inhibitor toripalimab and multikinase inhibitor anlotinib. Case Description: A 59-year-old female patient developed brain metastases after initial treatment for limited stage SCLC. CR of brain lesions was achieved after intensity-modulated radiation therapy followed by chemotherapy with irinotecan plus lobaplatin and concurrent anlotinib. PD-1 inhibitor sintilimab combined with anlotinib were given as maintenance therapy. Small and asymptomatic brain lesions relapsed 2.5 months after achieving CR. Another three cycles of sintilimab combined with anlotinib failed to control the relapsed brain lesions. Following two cycles of another PD-1 inhibitor toripalimab combined with anlotinib, the relapsed brain metastases disappeared. Then the patient received another seven cycles of this regimen with sustained CR, and no serious adverse reactions occurred. Interestingly, the primary lung tumor achieved sustained CR from the end of initial treatment to the last follow-up. Conclusions: This case suggests that toripalimab in combination with anlotinib may be a promising treatment option for patients with brain metastases from SCLC.

Investigating the evolution process of lung adenocarcinoma via random walk and dynamic network analysis.

Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is a typical disease regarded as having multi-stage progression. However, many existing methods often ignore the critical differences among these stages, thereby limiting their effectiveness for discovering key biological molecules and biological functions as signals at each stage. In this study, we propose a method to discover the evolution between biological molecules and biological functions by investigating the multi-stage biological molecules of LUAD. The method is based on the random walk algorithm and the Monte Carlo method to generate clusters as the modules, which were used as subgraphs of the differentiated biological molecules network in each stage. The connection between modules of adjacent stages is based on the measurement of the Jaccard coefficient. The online gene set enrichment analysis tool (DAVID) was used to obtain biological functions corresponding to the individual important modules. The core evolution network was constructed by combining the aforementioned two networks. Since the networks here are all dynamic, we also propose a strategy to visualize the dynamic information together in one network. Eventually, 12 core modules and 11 core biological functions were found through such evolutionary analyses. Among the core biological functions that we obtained, six functions are related to the disease, the biological function of neutrophil chemotaxis is not directly associated with LUAD but can serve as a predictor, two functions may serve as a predictive signal, and two functions need to be verified through more biological evidence. Compared with two alternative design methods, the method proposed in this study performed more efficiently.

Machine learning-assisted prediction of pneumonia based on non-invasive measures.

Background: Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs that is characterized by high morbidity and mortality. The use of machine learning systems to detect respiratory diseases via non-invasive measures such as physical and laboratory parameters is gaining momentum and has been proposed to decrease diagnostic uncertainty associated with bacterial pneumonia. Herein, this study conducted several experiments using eight machine learning models to predict pneumonia based on biomarkers, laboratory parameters, and physical features. Methods: We perform machine-learning analysis on 535 different patients, each with 45 features. Data normalization to rescale all real-valued features was performed. Since it is a binary problem, we categorized each patient into one class at a time. We designed three experiments to evaluate the models: (1) feature selection techniques to select appropriate features for the models, (2) experiments on the imbalanced original dataset, and (3) experiments on the SMOTE data. We then compared eight machine learning models to evaluate their effectiveness in predicting pneumonia. Results: Biomarkers such as C-reactive protein and procalcitonin demonstrated the most significant discriminating power. Ensemble machine learning models such as RF (accuracy = 92.0%, precision = 91.3%, recall = 96.0%, f1-Score = 93.6%) and XGBoost (accuracy = 90.8%, precision = 92.6%, recall = 92.3%, f1-score = 92.4%) achieved the highest performance accuracy on the original dataset with AUCs of 0.96 and 0.97, respectively. On the SMOTE dataset, RF and XGBoost achieved the highest prediction results with f1-scores of 92.0 and 91.2%, respectively. Also, AUC of 0.97 was achieved for both RF and XGBoost models. Conclusions: Our models showed that in the diagnosis of pneumonia, individual clinical history, laboratory indicators, and symptoms do not have adequate discriminatory power. We can also conclude that the ensemble ML models performed better in this study.

Pathogenesis of sarcopenia in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common pulmonary disease characterized by persistent respiratory symptoms and airflow obstruction. In addition to lung diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is often associated with other organ diseases, and sarcopenia is one of the common diseases. In recent years, multiple factors have been proposed to influence muscle dysfunction in COPD patients, including systemic and local inflammation, oxidative stress, hypoxia, hypercapnia, protein synthesis, catabolic imbalance, nutritional changes, disuse, ageing, and the use of medications such as steroids. These factors alone or in combination can lead to a reduction in muscle mass and cross-sectional area, deterioration of muscle bioenergy metabolism, defects in muscle repair and regeneration mechanisms, apoptosis and other anatomical and/or functional pathological changes, resulting in a decrease in the muscle's ability to work. This article reviews the research progress of possible pathogenesis of sarcopenia in COPD.

Comparative genome anatomy reveals evolutionary insights into a unique amphitriploid fish.

Triploids are rare in nature because of difficulties in meiotic and gametogenic processes, especially in vertebrates. The Carassius complex of cyprinid teleosts contains sexual tetraploid crucian carp/goldfish (C. auratus) and unisexual hexaploid gibel carp/Prussian carp (C. gibelio) lineages, providing a valuable model for studying the evolution and maintenance mechanism of unisexual polyploids in vertebrates. Here we sequence the genomes of the two species and assemble their haplotypes, which contain two subgenomes (A and B), to the chromosome level. Sequencing coverage analysis reveals that C. gibelio is an amphitriploid (AAABBB) with two triploid sets of chromosomes; each set is derived from a different ancestor. Resequencing data from different strains of C. gibelio show that unisexual reproduction has been maintained for over 0.82 million years. Comparative genomics show intensive expansion and alterations of meiotic cell cycle-related genes and an oocyte-specific histone variant. Cytological assays indicate that C. gibelio produces unreduced oocytes by an alternative ameiotic pathway; however, sporadic homologous recombination and a high rate of gene conversion also exist in C. gibelio. These genomic changes might have facilitated purging deleterious mutations and maintaining genome stability in this unisexual amphitriploid fish. Overall, the current results provide novel insights into the evolutionary mechanisms of the reproductive success in unisexual polyploid vertebrates.

Relationship between tumor mutational burden, gene mutation status, and clinical characteristics in 340 cases of lung adenocarcinoma.

Tumor mutational burden (TMB) is an emerging predictive marker of response to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies. We evaluated the correlation between clinical indicators and high-throughput sequencing results and TMB in lung adenocarcinoma patients, with the aim of finding simpler and more economical factors as surrogate markers for TMB. The medical records, next-generation sequencing data, and immunohistochemistry results of 340 lung adenocarcinoma patients who were admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University between 2019 and 2020 were collected. The mutated genes were screened for, and the obtained mutated genes were subjected to functional enrichment analysis using R software. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was also constructed, and significant modules in the network were identified. Gene Ontology (GO) analyses were performed for the core genes. Univariate and multivariate correlation analyses were performed to judge the correlation between gene mutations and TMB. Genes with a junction mutation rate >1 were selected to construct PPI network and 13 high-connection core genes were screened. The results of GO enrichment analysis showed that the biological processes related to mutant core genes mainly included mitotic cell cycle and cell aging. Subsequently, ATM (p = 0.006) and PIK3CA (p = 0.008) mutation positivity were identified by univariate and multivariate correlation analysis, while TP53 (p = 0.003) and EGFR (p = 0.008) mutation negativity were significantly associated with elevated TMB. The results of this study demonstrate that ATM- and PIK3CA-positive and EGFR-negative mutation status are strongly associated with high levels of TMB and have the potential to be predictive biomarkers of response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in lung adenocarcinoma patients.

Evaluation of the Therapeutic Outcomes of Antibiotic Regimen Against Carbapenemase-Producing Klebsiella pneumoniae: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background: Carbapenemase-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae (CpKP) has been implicated as an increasing threat to public health. CpKP is a ubiquitous, opportunistic pathogen that causes both hospital and community acquired infections. This organism hydrolyzes carbapenems and other ß-lactams and thus, leading to multiple resistance to these antibiotics. Despite the difficult to treat nature of infections caused by CpKP, little has been discussed on the mortality, clinical response and microbiological success rates associated with various antibiotic regimen against CpKP. This meta-analysis was designed to fill the paucity of information on the clinical impact of various antibiotic therapeutic regimens among patients infected with CpKP. Materials and Methods: Literature in most English databases such as Medline through PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and EMBASE, were searched for most studies published between the years 2015-2020. Data were analyzed using the R studio 2.15.2 statistical software program (metaphor and meta Package, Version 2) by random-effects (DerSimonian and Laird) model. Results: Twenty-one (21) studies including 2841 patients who had been infected with CpKP were analysed. The overall mortality rate was 32.2% (95%CI = 26.23-38.87; I 2 = 89%; p-value ≤ 0.01, Number of patients = 2716). Pooled clinical and microbiological success rates were 67.6% (95%CI = 58.35-75.64, I 2 = 22%, p-value = 0.25, Number of patients = 171) and 74.9% (95%CI = 59.02-86.09, I 2 = 53%, p-value = 0.05, Number of patients = 121), respectively. CpKP infected patients treated with combination therapy are less likely to die as compared to those treated with monotherapy (OR = 0.55, 95%CI = 0.35-0.87, p-value = 0.01, Number of patients = 1,475). No significant difference existed between the mortality rate among 60years and above patients vs below 60years (OR = 0.84, 95%CI = 0.28-2.57, p-value = 0.76, 6 studies, Number of patients = 1,688), and among patients treated with triple therapy vs. double therapy (OR = 0.50, 95%CI = 0.21-1.22, p-value = 0.13, 2 studies, Number of patients = 102). When compared with aminoglycoside-sparing therapies, aminoglycoside-containing therapies had positive significant outcomes on both mortality and microbiological success rates. Conclusion: New effective therapies are urgently needed to help fight infections caused by this organism. The effective use of various therapeutic options and the strict implementation of infection control measures are of utmost importance in order to prevent infections caused by CpKP. Strict national or international implementation of infection control measures and treatment guidelines will help improve healthcare, and equip governments and communities to respond to and prevent the spread of infectious diseases caused by CpKP.

Sinusoidal Phase-Modulated Angle Interferometer for Angular Vibration Measurement.

Primary angular vibration calibration devices based on laser interferometers play a crucial role in evaluating the dynamic performance of inertial sensing devices. Here, we propose a sinusoidal phase-modulated angle interferometer (SPMAI) to realize angular vibration measurements over a frequency range of 1-1000 Hz, in which the sinusoidal measurement retro-reflector (SMR) and the phase generation carrier (PGC) demodulation algorithm are adopted to track the dynamic angle variation. A comprehensive theoretical analysis is presented to reveal the relationship between demodulation performance of the SPMAI and several factors, such as phase modulation depth, carrier phase delay and sampling frequency. Both the simulated and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed SPMAI can achieve an angular vibration measurement with amplitude of sub-arcsecond under given parameters. Using the proposed SPMAI, the frequency bandwidth of an interferometric fiber-optic gyroscope (IFOG) is successfully determined to be 848 Hz.

Modified homodyne laser interferometer based on phase modulation for simultaneously measuring displacement and angle.

Many researchers from scientific and industrial fields have devoted their efforts to the laser interferometer, aiming to improve the measurement accuracy and extend the practical applications. Here, we present a modified homodyne laser interferometer based on phase modulation for simultaneously measuring displacement and angle. The active sawtooth wave phase modulation enhances immunity of this interferometer to the environmental fluctuations and laser power drift. Based on polarized optic theory and the sinusoidal measurement retro-reflector, a modified Michelson-type interferometer configuration is designed to simultaneously measure displacement and angle. Phase difference between the reference and measurement interference signals can be obtained using the sawtooth wave phase modulation and zero crossing detection technique, where the real-time displacement and angle values can be derived directly. Experimental results demonstrate our proposed interferometer has good static and dynamic performance.

Comparative mitogenome analyses uncover mitogenome features and phylogenetic implications of the subfamily Cobitinae.

BACKGROUND: Loaches of Cobitinae, widely distributed in Eurasian continent, have high economic, ornamental and scientific value. However, the phylogeny of Cobitinae fishes within genera or family level remains complex and controversial. Up to now, about 60 Cobitinae mitogenomes had been deposited in GenBank, but their integrated characteristics were not elaborated. RESULTS: In this study, we sequenced and analyzed the complete mitogenomes of a female Cobits macrostigma. Then we conducted a comparative mitogenome analysis and revealed the conserved and unique characteristics of 58 Cobitinae mitogenomes, including C. macrostigma. Cobitinae mitogenomes display highly conserved tRNA secondary structure, overlaps and non-coding intergenic spacers. In addition, distinct base compositions were observed among different genus and significantly negative linear correlation between AT% and AT-skew were found among Cobitinae, genus Cobitis and Pangio mitogenomes, respectively. A specific 3 bp insertion (GCA) in the atp8-atp6 overlap was identified as a unique feature of loaches, compared to other Cypriniformes fish. Additionally, all protein coding genes underwent a strong purifying selection. Phylogenetic analysis strongly supported the paraphyly of Cobitis and polyphyly of Misgurnus. The strict molecular clock predicted that Cobitinae might have split into northern and southern lineages in the late Eocene (42.11 Ma), furthermore, mtDNA introgression might occur (14.40 Ma) between ancestral species of Cobitis and ancestral species of Misgurnus. CONCLUSIONS: The current study represents the first comparative mitogenomic and phylogenetic analyses within Cobitinae and provides new insights into the mitogenome features and evolution of fishes belonging to the cobitinae family.

In situ detection of plasma exosomal microRNA for lung cancer diagnosis using duplex-specific nuclease and MoS2 nanosheets.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) encapsulated in tumor-derived exosomes are becoming ideal biomarkers for the early diagnosis and prognosis of lung cancer. However, the accuracy and sensitivity are often hampered by the extraction process of exosomal miRNA using traditional methods. Herein, this study developed a fluorogenic quantitative detection method for exosomal miRNA using the fluorescence quenching properties of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets and the enzyme-assisted signal amplification properties of duplex-specific nuclease (DSN). First, a fluorescently-labeled nucleic acid probe was used to hybridize the target miRNA to form a DNA/RNA hybrid structure. Under the action of the DSN, the DNA single strand in the DNA/RNA hybrid strand was selectively digested into smaller oligonucleotide fragments. At the same time, the released miRNA target triggers the next reaction cycle, so as to achieve signal amplification. Then, MoS2 was used to selectively quench the fluorescence of the undigested probe leaving the fluorescent signal of the fluorescently-labeled probe fragments. The fluorometric signals for miRNA-21 had a maximum excitation/emission wavelength of 488/518 nm. Most importantly, the biosensor was then applied for the accurate quantitative detection of miRNA-21 in exosome lysates extracted from human plasma and this method was able to successfully distinguish lung cancer patients from healthy people. This biosensor provides a simple, rapid, and a highly specific quantitative method for exosomal miRNA and has promising potential to be used in the early diagnosis of lung cancer.

Glochidiol, a natural triterpenoid, exerts its anti-cancer effects by targeting the colchicine binding site of tubulin.

Glochidiol has been shown to have potentially antiproliferative activity in vitro, however its anticancer mechanisms specifically against lung cancer remain unknown. This study aimed to investigate the anti-lung cancer effects of glochidiol in HCC-44 cells in vitro and in vivo. In the present study, glochidiol was found to have potent antiproliferative activity against lung cancer cell lines NCI-H2087, HOP-62, NCI-H520, HCC-44, HARA, EPLC-272H, NCI-H3122, COR-L105 and Calu-6 with IC50 values of 4.12 µM, 2.01 µM, 7.53 µM, 1.62 µM, 4.79 µM, 7.69 µM, 2.36 µM, 6.07 µM and 2.10 µM, respectively. In vivo, glochidiol was found to effectively inhibit lung cancer HCC-44 xenograft tumor growth in nude mice. Docking analysis found that glochidiol forms hydrogen bonds with residues of tubulin. Glochidiol was also found to inhibit tubulin polymerization in vitro with an IC50 value of 2.76 µM. Immunofluorescence staining and EBI competition assay suggest that glochidiol may interact with tubulin by targeting the colchicine binding site. Thus, glochidiol might be a novel colchicine binding site inhibitor with the potential to treat lung cancer.

Light depolarization based on dispersion degree of polarization.

The dispersion degree of polarization, a new definition of the depolarization degree of partially polarized beams, is first proposed, to the best of our knowledge, to measure the performance of fiber depolarizers. First, the description of the polarization based on the Poincaré sphere is introduced. Then, the modified Delaunay triangulation algorithm is introduced, and the calculation formula of the dispersion degree of polarization is given based on this algorithm. The experimental device was set up, and the dispersion degree of polarization of the depolarized light after the fiber depolarizer was measured to be 47.3%. The components and proportions of polarization in the depolarized light were also obtained. Compared with the degree of polarization, the dispersion degree of polarization can quantitatively analyze the light polarization evaluation in the time dimension and provide a numerical reference for improving the depolarizer, thus increasing the fiber sensor's accuracy.

Expression of UBE2C in lung adenocarcinoma based on database analysis and its clinical significance. / 基于数据库挖掘UBE2Cåœ¨è‚ºè ºç™Œä¸­çš„è¡¨è¾¾åŠå ¶ä¸´åºŠæ„ä¹‰.

OBJECTIVES: To analyze the expression level of ubiquitin conjugating enzyme E2C (UBE2C) in lung adenocarcinoma and its clinical significance. METHODS: The differences in mRNA and protein expression levels of UBE2C in normal lung tissues and lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) tissues were determined with the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Oncomine, and human protein atlas (HPA) databases. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to evaluate the diagnostic value of UBE2C in LUAD. The correlation between UBE2C and LUAD clinicopathological parameters, as well as its relationship with LUAD prognosis was analyzed based on TCGA, International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), and cbioPortal databases. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used to analyze the possible pathways of UBE2C in the progression of LUAD. RESULTS: The mRNA expression level of UBE2C was higher in LUAD tissues than in the normal lung tissues (P<0.01) and it was positively correlated with TNM and N stages (both P<0.05). The UBE2C protein expression level was also increased in LUAD tissues than in the normal lung tissues (P<0.01). ROC curve analysis indicated that UBE2C could be used as an auxiliary diagnostic index for LUAD (AUC=0.969, 95% CI 0.953 to 0.984, P<0.01). Survival analysis showed that the overall survival (OS) of UBE2C high expression group was significantly lower than that of low expression group (P<0.05). The OS of LUAD patients with UBE2C change was lower than that of patients without change (P<0.01). UBE2C was highly expressed in the gene set relevant to cell cycle, p53 signaling pathway, DNA mismatch repair, and DNA replication (all P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The expression level of UBE2C is significantly up-regulated in LUAD tissues. The high expression or genetic alteration of UBE2C indicates poor prognosis in LUAD patients. UBE2C can be used as a potential molecular diagnostic marker for LUAD and a potential target for LUAD treatment.

A population-base survey on knowledge, attitude and awareness of the general public on antibiotic use and resistance.

OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to assess the awareness and knowledge of antibiotic usage and antibiotic resistance among the general public in the Cape Coast metropolis of Ghana. It also tries to decipher whether the level of education and the professional status of an individual has a positive association with the level of knowledge on antibiotic resistance. METHODS: A population-base survey involving members of the public was conducted from August to November 2019. A structured questionnaire was developed to collect data from 632 respondents. Data were analyzed through SPSS v.21 using Chi square statistics and multivariate regression. Differences in knowledge were evaluated using ANOVA and the assumption of equal variance was tested with Levene statistics. RESULTS: The response rate was 74.3%. Lower educational status group had a greater knowledge level (39.7%) on antibiotic resistance. Despite the high score, the lowest educational status group, (M = 1.82, SD = 0.769), middle educational status group (M = 1.98, SD = 0.748), and the high educational status group (M = 1.88, SD = 0.773) were not significantly different from each other with regard to their general knowledge level on antibiotic resistance (P < 0.05). The study revealed that, working in the healthcare sector is a major contributor to the level of knowledge on antibiotic resistance. CONCLUSION: Given the scale of the issue on antibiotic resistance and the fact that attempts to resolve it will involve efforts on the part of all, it is important that the public is aware of the importance of the issue of antibiotic resistance, its implications and what they can do to address it. The level of knowledge among respondents with lower educational status should be enough evidence to introduce more educational campaigns on antibiotic resistance.

Involvement of Two Paralogous Methoprene-Tolerant Genes in the Regulation of Vitellogenin and Vitellogenin Receptor Expression in the Rice Stem Borer, Chilo suppressalis.

Besides the function of preventing metamorphosis in insects, the juvenile hormone (JH) plays a role in female reproduction; however, the underlying mechanism is largely unknown. The methoprene-tolerant (Met) protein belongs to a family of basic helix-loop-helix-Per-Arnt-Sim (bHLH-PAS) transcription factors and functions as the JH intracellular receptor. In this study, two full length cDNAs encoding Met (CsMet1 and CsMet2) were isolated from the rice stem borer, Chilo suppressalis. Structural analysis revealed that both CsMet1 and CsMet2 exhibited typical bHLH, PAS-A, PAS-B, and PAC (PAS C terminal motif) domains. Comparative analysis of transcript level using reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) revealed that CsMet1 was predominant in almost all examined developmental stages and tissues. Treatment with methoprene in vivo induces the transcription of both CsMet1 and CsMet2. Notably, injection of dsCsMet1 and dsCsMet2 suppressed the expression levels of vitellogenin (CsVg) and Vg receptor (CsVgR). These findings revealed the potential JH signaling mechanism regulating C. suppressalis reproduction, and provided evidence that RNAi-mediated knockdown of Met holds great potential as a control strategy of C. suppressalis.

Development of a machine learning-based multimode diagnosis system for lung cancer.

As an emerging technology, artificial intelligence has been applied to identify various physical disorders. Here, we developed a three-layer diagnosis system for lung cancer, in which three machine learning approaches including decision tree C5.0, artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector machine (SVM) were involved. The area under the curve (AUC) was employed to evaluate their decision powers. In the first layer, the AUCs of C5.0, ANN and SVM were 0.676, 0.736 and 0.640, ANN was better than C5.0 and SVM. In the second layer, ANN was similar with SVM but superior to C5.0 supported by the AUCs of 0.804, 0.889 and 0.825. Much higher AUCs of 0.908, 0.910 and 0.849 were identified in the third layer, where the highest sensitivity of 94.12% was found in C5.0. These data proposed a three-layer diagnosis system for lung cancer: ANN was used as a broad-spectrum screening subsystem basing on 14 epidemiological data and clinical symptoms, which was firstly adopted to screen high-risk groups; then, combining with additional 5 tumor biomarkers, ANN was used as an auxiliary diagnosis subsystem to determine the suspected lung cancer patients; C5.0 was finally employed to confirm lung cancer patients basing on 22 CT nodule-based radiomic features.

Identification and transcriptional response of ATP-binding cassette transporters to chlorantraniliprole in the rice striped stem borer, Chilo suppressalis.

BACKGROUND: As the largest transporter gene family in metazoans, ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters regulate the efflux of a broad spectrum of substrates from the cytoplasm to the outside of the cell. In arthropods, ABC transporters are involved in phase III of the detoxification process, and play important roles in the metabolism and transport of insecticides. RESULTS: We identified 54 ABC transporters from the genome and transcriptome of Chilo suppressalis, one of the most damaging pests of rice in China. The identified ABC transporters were classified into eight subfamilies (ABCA to ABCH) based on NCBI BLAST and phylogenetic analysis. Synergism studies showed that treatment with verapamil, a potent inhibitor of ABC transporters, resulted in significantly increased toxicity of chlorantraniliprole against C. suppressalis larvae. Among the 21 tested ABC genes, three ABC transporter genes including CsABCC8, CsABCG1C and CsABCH1 were significantly upregulated after chlorantraniliprole treatment. CONCLUSION: ABC transporters play important roles in the detoxification and transport of chlorantraniliprole in C. suppressalis. The results from our study provide valuable information on C. suppressalis ABC transporters, and are helpful in understanding the roles of ABC transporters in chlorantraniliprole resistance mechanisms in C. suppressalis and other insect pests. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry.