Revisit gut microbiota and its impact on human health and disease.

Trillions of microbes have evolved with and continue to live on human beings. With the rapid advances in tools and technology in recent years, new knowledge and insight in cross-talk between the microbes and their hosts have gained. It is the aim of this work to critically review and summarize recent literature reports on the role of microbiota and mechanisms involved in the progress and development of major human diseases, which include obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), gout, depression and arthritis, as well as infant health and longevity.

[The effect of noninvasive positive pressure ventilation on the expression of ubiquitin-proteasome of skeletal muscle in patients with AECOPD].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of noninvasive positive pressure ventilation( NIPPy) on the gene and protein expression of biquitin-proteasome of skeletal muscle in patients with acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(AECOPD). METHODS: Seven patients with AECOPD by NIPPV were used as the study group, meanwhile, 6 patients with AECOPD who refused NIPPV was the control group. The blood gas analysis, heart rate (HR) and mean arterial pressure (MBp) were monitored before and 14 days after treatment. A skeletal muscle biopsy was performed after 14 days of therapy. The mRNA expression of ribosomal protein S21 (RPS21), Ubiquitin, Ubiquitin combined with enzyme E2 (E2), Ubiquitin ligase E3 (E3) in skeletal muscle cell were measured by RT-PCR. The protein expression of mitochondrial aconitase (AC02), protease C3 (C3), ribosomal protein SLC16 (SLC16) were detected by Western blot. RESULTS: Forteen days after treatment, the patients in NIPPV group got much better improvement in PaCO2, PaO2 and HR than that of the patients.in the control group (P < 0.05). The gene expression of RPS21,Ubiquitin, E2 and E3 in skeletal muscle cell on patients with NIPPV were obviously lower than that of the control group (P < 0.05, P < 0.01). Compared with that of the control group, the protein expression of C3 and AC2 increased significantly in the NIPPV group (P < 0.01). The protein expression of SLC16 was significantly lowered in the treated group (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: NIPPV can ameliorate the proteasome pathway and energy metabolic disorders in patients with AECOPD.

Association analyses identify three susceptibility Loci for vitiligo in the Chinese Han population.

To identify susceptibility loci for vitiligo, we extended our previous vitiligo genome-wide association study with a two-staged replication study that included 6,857 cases and 12,025 controls from the Chinese Han population. We identified three susceptibility loci, 12q13.2 (rs10876864, P(combined)=8.07 × 10(-12), odds ratio (OR)=1.18), 11q23.3 (rs638893, P(combined)=2.47 × 10(-9), OR=1.22), and 10q22.1 (rs1417210, P(combined)=1.83 × 10(-8), OR=0.88), and confirmed three previously reported loci for vitiligo, 3q28 (rs9851967, P(combined)=8.57 × 10(-8), OR=0.88), 10p15.1 (rs3134883, P(combined)=1.01 × 10(-5), OR=1.11), and 22q12.3 (rs2051582, P(combined)=2.12 × 10(-5), OR=1.14), in the Chinese Han population. The most significant single-nucleotide polymorphism in the 12q13.2 locus is located immediately upstream of the promoter region of PMEL, which encodes a major melanocyte antigen and has expression loss in the vitiligo lesional skin. In addition, both 12q13.2 and 11q23.3 loci identified in this study are also associated with other autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes and systemic lupus erythematosus. These findings provide indirect support that vitiligo pathogenesis involves a complex interplay between immune regulatory factors and melanocyte-specific factors. They also highlight similarities and differences in the genetic basis of vitiligo in Chinese and Caucasian populations.

Association analyses identify six new psoriasis susceptibility loci in the Chinese population.

We extended our previous genome-wide association study for psoriasis with a multistage replication study including 8,312 individuals with psoriasis (cases) and 12,919 controls from China as well as 3,293 cases and 4,188 controls from Germany and the United States and 254 nuclear families from the United States. We identified six new susceptibility loci associated with psoriasis in the Chinese study containing the candidate genes ERAP1, PTTG1, CSMD1, GJB2, SERPINB8 and ZNF816A (combined P < 5 × 10⁻8) and replicated one locus, 5q33.1 (TNIP1-ANXA6), previously reported (combined P = 3.8 × 10⁻²¹) in the European studies. Two of these loci showed evidence for association in the German study at ZNF816A and GJB2 with P = 3.6 × 10⁻³ and P = 7.9 × 10⁻³, respectively. ERAP1 and ZNF816A were associated with type 1 (early onset) psoriasis in the Chinese Han population (test for heterogeneity P = 6.5 × 10⁻³ and P = 1.5 × 10⁻³, respectively). Comparisons with the results of previous GWAS of psoriasis highlight the heterogeneity of disease susceptibility between the Chinese and European populations. Our study identifies new genetic susceptibility factors and suggests new biological pathways in psoriasis.