Genome-wide identification of SAMS gene family in Cucurbitaceae and the role of ClSAMS1 in watermelon tolerance to abiotic stress.

S-Adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM) is widely involved in plant growth, development, and abiotic stress response. SAM synthetase (SAMS) is the key enzyme that catalyzes the synthesis of SAM from methionine and ATP. However, the SAMS gene family has not been identified and their functions have not been characterized in most Cucurbitaceae plants. Here, a total of 30 SAMS genes were identified in nine Cucurbitaceae species and they were categorized into 3 subfamilies. Physicochemical properties and gene structure analysis showed that the SAMS protein members are tightly conserved. Further analysis of the cis-regulatory elements (CREs) of SAMS genes' promoter implied their potential roles in stress tolerance. To further understand the molecular functions of SAMS genes, watermelon SAMSs (ClSAMSs) were chosen to analyze the expression patterns in different tissues and under various abiotic stress and hormone responses. Among the investigated genes, ClSAMS1 expression was observed in all tissues and found to be up-regulated by abiotic stresses including salt, cold and drought treatments as well as exogenous hormone treatments including ETH, SA, MeJA and ABA. Furthermore, knockdown of ClSAMS1 via virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) decreased SAM contents in watermelon seedings. The pTRSV2-ClSAMS1 plants showed reduced susceptibility to drought, cold and NaCl stress, indicating a positive role of ClSAMS1 in abiotic stresses tolerance. Those results provided candidate SAMS genes to regulate plant resistance against abiotic stresses in Cucurbitaceae plants.

Multitask Deep Learning Enabling a Synergy for Cadmium and Methane Mitigation with Biochar Amendments in Paddy Soils.

Biochar has demonstrated significant promise in addressing heavy metal contamination and methane (CH4) emissions in paddy soils; however, achieving a synergy between these two goals is challenging due to various variables, including the characteristics of biochar and soil properties that influence biochar's performance. Here, we successfully developed an interpretable multitask deep learning (MTDL) model by employing a tensor tracking paradigm to facilitate parameter sharing between two separate data sets, enabling a synergy between Cd and CH4 mitigation with biochar amendments. The characteristics of biochar contribute similar weightings of 67.9% and 62.5% to Cd and CH4 mitigation, respectively, but their relative importance in determining biochar's performance varies significantly. Notably, this MTDL model excels in custom-tailoring biochar to synergistically mitigate Cd and CH4 in paddy soils across a wide geographic range, surpassing traditional machine learning models. Our findings deepen our understanding of the interactive effects of Cd and CH4 mitigation with biochar amendments in paddy soils, and they also potentially extend the application of artificial intelligence in sustainable environmental remediation, especially when dealing with multiple objectives.

Venous thromboembolism in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in China: a report from the Chinese Children's Cancer Group-ALL-2015.

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a complication in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The Chinese Children's Cancer Group-ALL-2015 protocol was carried out in China, and epidemiology, clinical characteristics, and risk factors associated with VTE were analyzed. We collected data on VTE in a multi-institutional clinical study of 7640 patients with ALL diagnosed in 20 hospitals from January 2015 to December 2019. First, VTE occurred in 159 (2.08%) patients, including 90 (56.6%) during induction therapy and 108 (67.92%) in the upper extremities. T-ALL had a 1.74-fold increased risk of VTE (95% CI 1.08-2.8, P = 0.022). Septicemia, as an adverse event of ALL treatment, can significantly promote the occurrence of VTE (P < 0.001). Catheter-related thrombosis (CRT) accounted for 75.47% (n = 120); and, symptomatic VTE, 58.49% (n = 93), which was more common in patients aged 12-18 years (P = 0.023), non-CRT patients (P < 0.001), or patients with cerebral thrombosis (P < 0.001). Of the patients with VTE treated with anticoagulation therapy (n = 147), 4.08% (n = 6) had bleeding. The VTE recurrence rate was 5.03% (n = 8). Patients with VTE treated by non-ultrasound-guided venous cannulation (P = 0.02), with residual thrombus (P = 0.006), or with short anticoagulation period (P = 0.026) had high recurrence rates. Thus, preventing repeated venous puncture and appropriately prolonged anticoagulation time can reduce the risk of VTE recurrence.

Modified CFBP-bFGF targeting to ischemic brain promoted the functional recovery of cerebral ischemia.

The cerebral ischemia was one of the most common causes of disability and death worldwide. Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) was reported to have neuroprotective function as well as promoting angiogenesis in the ischemic brain, but the targeting delivery of bFGF to ischemic brain was still difficult. In present study, a specific peptide was used to modify bFGF to construct recombinant CFBP-bFGF, and CFBP-bFGF could specifically deliver to ischemic brain through binding with the upregulated protein-connective tissue growth factor (CTGF). When CFBP-bFGF was used in rats with cerebral ischemia by intravenous injection, local concentration of the bFGF in ischemic brain was significantly increased. In addition, enhanced neurons survival, increased angiogenesis, decreased neuroinflammation were observed, that improved the motor functional recovery of cerebral ischemic injury. These results demonstrated that the targeting delivery of CFBP-bFGF would be a potential therapeutic approach for cerebral ischemia.

Specific bio-functional CBD-PR1P peptide binding VEGF to collagen hydrogels promotes the recovery of cerebral ischemia in rats.

Ischemic stroke was a leading cause of death and long-term disability. It was an effective way to improve cerebral ischemia injury by promoting angiogenesis and neuroprotection. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was a potent pro-angiogenic factor, and had neuroprotective effect. A short peptide (PR1P) derived from the extracellular VEGF-binding glycoprotein-Prominin-1 was reported to specifically bind to VEGF. In order to realize sustained release of VEGF, a bio-functional peptide-CBD-PR1P was constructed, which target VEGF to collagen hydrogels to limit the diffusion of VEGF. When the collagen hydrogels loading with CBD-PR1P and VEGF were injected into the cerebral ischemic cortex, increased angiogenesis, decreased apoptosis and enhanced neurons survival were observed in the ischemic area, that promoted the motor functional recovery of cerebral ischemic injury. Thus, this targeting delivery system of VEGF provided a promising therapeutic strategy for cerebral ischemia.

Cytogenetic Characteristics of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Study of 1541 Chinese Patients Newly Diagnosed between 2001 and 2014.

OBJECTIVE: Cytogenetic abnormalities have been proven to be the most valuable parameter for risk stratification of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). However, studies on the prevalence of cytogenetic abnormalities and their correlation to clinical features in Chinese pediatric patients are limited, especially large-scale studies. METHODS: We collected the cytogenetics and clinical data of 1541 children newly diagnosed with ALL between 2001 and 2014 in four Chinese hospitals, and retrospectively analyzed their clinical features, prognosis and risk factors associated with pediatric ALL. RESULTS: All of these patients had karyotyping results, and some of them were tested for fusion genes by fluorescence in situ hybridization or reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction. Overall, 930 cases (60.4%) had abnormal cytogenetics in this study, mainly including high hyperdiploidy (HHD, n=276, 17.9%), hypodiploidy (n=74, 4.8%), t(12;21)/TEL-AML1 (n=260, 16.9%), t(1;19)/E2A-PBX1 (n=72, 4.7%), t(9;22)/BCR-ABL (n=64, 4.2%), and t(v;11q23)/MLL rearrangements (n=40, 2.6%). The distribution of each cytogenetic abnormality was correlated with gender, age, white blood cell count at diagnosis, and immunophenotype. In addition, multivariate analysis suggested that t(v;11q23)/MLL rearrangements (OR: 2.317, 95%CI: 1.219-3.748, P=0.008) and t(9;22)/BCR-ABL (OR: 2.519, 95%CI: 1.59-3.992, P<0.001) were independent risk factors for a lower event-free survival (EFS) rate in children with ALL, while HHD (OR: 0.638, 95%CI: 0.455-0.894, P=0.009) and t(12;21)/TEL-AML1 (OR: 0.486, 95%CI: 0.333-0.707, P<0.001) were independent factors of a favorable EFS. CONCLUSION: The cytogenetic characteristics presented in our study resembled other research groups, emphasizing the important role of cytogenetic and molecular genetic classification in ALL, especially in B-ALL.

Clinical characteristics of tumor lysis syndrome in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Tumor lysis syndrome (TLS) is a common and fatal complication of childhood hematologic malignancies, especially acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The clinical features, therapeutic regimens, and outcomes of TLS have not been comprehensively analyzed in Chinese children with ALL. A total of 5537 children with ALL were recruited from the Chinese Children's Cancer Group, including 79 diagnosed with TLS. The clinical characteristics, treatment regimens, and survival of TLS patients were analyzed. Age distribution of children with TLS was remarkably different from those without TLS. White blood cells (WBC) count ≥ 50 × 109/L was associated with a higher risk of TLS [odds ratio (OR) = 2.6, 95% CI = 1.6-4.5]. The incidence of T-ALL in TLS children was significantly higher than that in non-TLS controls (OR = 4.7, 95% CI = 2.6-8.8). Hyperphosphatemia and hypocalcemia were more common in TLS children with hyperleukocytosis (OR = 2.6, 95% CI = 1.0-6.9 and OR = 5.4, 95% CI = 2.0-14.2, respectively). Significant differences in levels of potassium (P = 0.004), calcium (P < 0.001), phosphorus (P < 0.001) and uric acid (P < 0.001) were observed between groups of TLS patients with and without increased creatinine. Laboratory analysis showed that older age was associated with a higher level of creatinine. Calcium level was notably lower in males. WBC count, lactate dehydrogenase, and creatinine levels were significantly higher in T-ALL subgroup, whereas procalcitonin level was higher in B-ALL children. Older age, infant, a higher level of WBC and T-ALL were risk factors TLS occurrence. Hyperleukocytosis has an impact on the severity of TLS, while renal injury may be an important feature in the process of TLS.

MCCMF: collaborative matrix factorization based on matrix completion for predicting miRNA-disease associations.

BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNAs with regulatory functions. Many studies have shown that miRNAs are closely associated with human diseases. Among the methods to explore the relationship between the miRNA and the disease, traditional methods are time-consuming and the accuracy needs to be improved. In view of the shortcoming of previous models, a method, collaborative matrix factorization based on matrix completion (MCCMF) is proposed to predict the unknown miRNA-disease associations. RESULTS: The complete matrix of the miRNA and the disease is obtained by matrix completion. Moreover, Gaussian Interaction Profile kernel is added to the miRNA functional similarity matrix and the disease semantic similarity matrix. Then the Weight K Nearest Known Neighbors method is used to pretreat the association matrix, so the model is close to the reality. Finally, collaborative matrix factorization method is applied to obtain the prediction results. Therefore, the MCCMF obtains a satisfactory result in the fivefold cross-validation, with an AUC of 0.9569 (0.0005). CONCLUSIONS: The AUC value of MCCMF is higher than other advanced methods in the fivefold cross validation experiment. In order to comprehensively evaluate the performance of MCCMF, accuracy, precision, recall and f-measure are also added. The final experimental results demonstrate that MCCMF outperforms other methods in predicting miRNA-disease associations. In the end, the effectiveness and practicability of MCCMF are further verified by researching three specific diseases.

Advancements in medical and surgical treatments of Takayasu arteritis-induced renal arteritis: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Takayasu arteritis-induced renal arteritis (TARA), commonly seen in Takayasu arteritis (TA), has become one of the main causes of poor prognosis and early mortality in patients with TA. TARA progressing into Takayasu arteritis-induced renal artery stenosis (TARAS), could lead to severe complications including malignant hypertension, cardiac-cerebral vascular disease, and ischemic nephropathy. Since there existed no guidelines on treatments, this study aimed to review the comprehensive treatments for TARA. METHODS: We searched systematically in databases including PubMed, Ovid-Medline, EMBASE, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, and SinoMed, from inception to May 2018. Literature selection, data extraction, and statistical analysis were performed. RESULTS: Eighty-two literatures were recruited focusing on medical treatments (n = 34) and surgical treatments (n = 48). We found that combined medical treatments of glucocorticoids and conventional synthetic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs could reach high rates of remission in patients with TARA, and biological disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs were preferred for refractory patients. After remission induction, surgical treatment could help reconstruct renal artery and recover renal function partly. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty was the first choice for patients with TARAS, while open surgery showed a good long-term survival. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with TARA should benefit both from medical treatments and from surgical treatments comprehensively and sequentially. Multidisciplinary team coordination is recommended especially in patients with severe complications.

The inconsistency of molecular subtypes between primary foci and metastatic axillary lymph nodes in Luminal A breast cancer patients among Chinese women, an indication for chemotherapy?

Patients with Luminal A breast cancer often have favorable prognosis, but some of these patients still have lymph node metastases, it remains unclear what the role of adjuvant chemotherapy is in Luminal A subtype with lymph node metastases. The aim of this study was to find a new method to distinguish which Luminal A patient can be benefited from chemotherapy. We retrospectively investigated the inconsistency of molecular subtypes between primary foci and metastatic axillary lymph nodes in Luminal A breast cancer patients, and analyzed the clinicopathologic characteristics, Recurrence score (RS), disease-free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS) in 146 Luminal A breast cancer patients. The discordance of molecular subtypes between primary foci and metastatic lymph nodes were explored by univariate and multivariate logistic regression. The DFS and OS were calculated by the Kaplan-Meier survival curves, and the Cox regression analyses were performed to identify independent prognostic factors for DFS and OS. In our results, the inconsistency was found in 55 patients (55/146, 37.67 %). Lymphatic vascular invasion (OR 6.402, 95 % CI 2.371-17.287, P < 0.001), lymph node stage (OR 2.147, 95 % CI 1.095-4.209, P = 0.026), and histological grade (OR 3.319, 95 % CI 1.101-8.951, P = 0.032) were significantly related to the inconsistency. The inconsistent group (non-Luminal A variations) had a poor prognosis compared with the consistent group, the DFS between the two groups was significantly different (P = 0.022), but the OS did not have obvious difference (P = 0.140). Moreover, the inconsistency was associated with high RS (P = 0.036). In conclusion, more aggressive molecular subtypes in metastatic lymph nodes, which associated with poor prognosis, were observed in Luminal A breast cancer patients, which indicate that chemotherapy is necessary for these patients.

Dietary factors and risk of pancreatic cancer: a multi-centre case-control study in China.

BACKGROUND: Pancreatic cancer is the sixth leading cause of cancer death with an increasing trend in China. Dietary intake is believed to play an important role in pancreatic cancer carcinogenesis. The aim of this paper was to evaluate associations between some dietary factors and risk of pancreatic cancer in a multi-centre case-control study conducted in China. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Cases (n=323) were ascertained from four provincial cancer hospitals. Controls (n=323) were randomly selected from the family members of patients without pancreatic cancer in the same hospitals, 1:1 matched to cases by gender, age and study center. Data were collected with a questionnaire by personal interview. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were estimated using conditional logistic regression. RESULTS: Tea intake (OR =0.49; 95%CI: 0.30-0.80) was associated with a half reduction in risk of pancreatic cancer. Reduced vegetable consumption (P trend: 0.04) was significant related to pancreatic cancer. Although no significant association was found for meat and fruit, ORs were all above or below the reference group. A protective effect was found for fruit (OR=1.73 for consumption of 1-2 times/week vs more than 3 times/week; 95%CI: 1.05-2.86). A high intake of meat was associated to a higher risk of pancreatic cancer (OR=0.59 for consumption of 1-2 times /week vs. more than 3 times /week; 95%CI: 0.35-0.97). CONCLUSIONS: The present study supports fruit consumption to reduce pancreatic cancer risk and indicates that high consumption of meat is related to an elevated risk. Direct inverse relations with tea and vegetable intake were also confirmed.

[Progress on PI3K/Akt signaling pathway regulating self-renewal and pluripotency of embryonic stem cells].

The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) and its downstream target protein kinase B (Akt/PKB) can be activated by a variety of extracellular and intracellular signals. They are important signaling molecules and key survival factors involved in cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and other cellular processes. Recently, many reports demonstrate that type I PI3K/Akt signaling pathway plays an important role in maintenance of self-renewal and pluripotency of embryonic stem (ES) cells. Further studies with regard to the self-renewal and pluripotency of ES cells and underlying molecular mechanisms are crucial to its application in cell replacement therapy, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. The present review focuses on the recent progress on the mediation of PI3K/Akt signaling pathway on the maintenance of self-renewal and pluripotency of ES cells.