[Significance of anti-Jo-1 antibody's clinical stratification in idiopathic inflammatory myopathy and disease spectrum].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the significance of anti-histidyl tRNA synthetase (Jo-1) antibody in idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) and its diseases spectrum. METHODS: We enrolled all the patients who were tested positive for anti-Jo-1 antibody by immunoblotting in Peking University People's Hospital between 2016 and 2022. And the patients diagnosed with anti-synthetase antibody syndrome (ASS) with negative serum anti-Jo-1 antibody were enrolled as controls. We analyzed the basic information, clinical characteristics, and various inflammatory and immunological indicators of the patients at the onset of illness. RESULTS: A total of 165 patients with positive anti-Jo-1 antibody were enrolled in this study. Among them, 80.5% were diagnosed with connective tissue disease. And 57.6% (95/165) were diagnosed with IIM, including ASS (84/165, 50.9%), immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy (7/165, 4.2%) and dermatomyositis (4/165, 2.4%). There were 23.0% (38/165) diagnosed with other connective tissue disease, mainly including rheumatoid arthritis (11/165, 6.7%), undifferentiated connective tissue disease (5/165, 3.0%), interstitial pneumonia with autoimmune features (5/165, 3.0%), undifferentiated arthritis (4/165, 2.4%), Sjögren's syndrome (3/165, 1.8%), systemic lupus erythematosus (3/165, 1.8%), systemic vasculitis (3/165, 1.8%), and so on. Other cases included 3 (1.8%) malignant tumor patients, 4 (2.4%) infectious cases and so on. The diagnoses were not clear in 9.1% (15 /165) of the cohort. In the analysis of ASS subgroups, the group with positive serum anti-Jo-1 antibody had a younger age of onset than those with negative serum anti-Jo-1 antibody (49.9 years vs. 55.0 years, P=0.026). Clinical manifestations of arthritis (60.7% vs. 33.3%, P=0.002) and myalgia (47.1% vs. 22.2%, P=0.004) were more common in the ASS patients with positive anti-Jo-1 antibody. With the increase of anti-Jo-1 antibody titer, the incidence of the manifestations of arthritis, mechanic hands, Gottron sign and Raynaud phenomenon increased, and the proportion of abnormal creatine kinase and α-hydroxybutyric dehydrogenase index increased in the ASS patients. The incidence of myalgia and myasthenia were significantly more common in this cohort when anti-Jo-1 antibody-positive ASS patients were positive for one and more myositis specific antibodies/myositis associated autoantibodies (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The disease spectrum in patients with positive serum anti-Jo-1 antibody includes a variety of diseases, mainly ASS. And anti-Jo-1 antibody can also be found in many connective tissue diseases, malignant tumor, infection and so on.

Epidemiololgical and etiological analysis of two clusters of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome.

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging infectious disease, caused by severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV), which is primarily transmitted via tick bites. Clusters of SFTS caused by human-to-human transmission have been reported both at home and abroad, mainly focused on the transmission or exposure modes. However, the correlation between SFTS clusters and viral genotypes has not been investigated. This study mainly reported two clusters of SFTS in Xinyang City, Henan Province, from 2022 to 2023, discussed the possible route of person-to-person transmission of SFTSV infection and analyzed the association between SFTS clusters and virus genotypes. We found that two groups of SFTSV in two clusters were clustered separately into different genotypes through viral sequence analysis of 4 confirmed patients. We also performed phylogenetic analysis, after including SFTSV sequences obtained from SFTS clusters deposited in the GenBank. Three SFTSV genotypes have been reported among cases of human-to-human transmission, suggesting that the occurrence of SFTS clusters may not be related to SFTSV genotypes. This study provided genetic evidence for revealing the chain of human-to-human transmission of SFTS clusters, indicating that contact with patients' blood is an important transmission route of SFTSV. The findings laid the foundation for preventing and controlling human-to-human transmission of SFTS.

[Effect of Polyethylene Microplastics on the Microbial Community of Saline Soils].

Mulching to conserve moisture has become an important agronomic practice in saline soil cultivation, and the effects of the dual stress of salinity and microplastics on soil microbes are receiving increasing attention. In order to investigate the effect of polyethylene microplastics on the microbial community of salinized soils, this study investigated the effects of different types (chloride and sulphate) and concentrations (weak, medium, and strong) of polyethylene (PE) microplastics (1% and 4% of the dry weight mass of the soil sample) on the soil microbial community by simulating microplastic contamination in salinized soil environments indoors. The results showed that:PE microplastics reduced the diversity and abundance of microbial communities in salinized soils and were more strongly affected by sulphate saline soil treatments. The relative abundance of each group of bacteria was more strongly changed in the sulphate saline soil treatment than in the chloride saline soil treatment. At the phylum level, the relative abundance of Proteobacteria was positively correlated with the abundance of fugitive PE microplastics, whereas the relative abundances of Bacteroidota, Actinobacteriota, and Acidobacteria were negatively correlated with the abundance of fugitive PE microplastics. At the family level, the relative abundances of Flavobacteriaceae, Alcanivoracaceae, Halomonadaceae, and Sphingomonasceae increased with increasing abundance of PE microplastics. The KEGG metabolic pathway prediction showed that the relative abundance of microbial metabolism and genetic information functions were reduced by the presence of PE microplastics, and the inhibition of metabolic functions was stronger in sulphate saline soils than in chloride saline soils, whereas the inhibition of genetic information functions was weaker than that in chloride saline soils. The secondary metabolic pathways of amino acid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, and energy metabolism were inhibited. It was hypothesized that the reduction in metabolic functions may have been caused by the reduced relative abundance of the above-mentioned secondary metabolic pathways. This study may provide a theoretical basis for the study of the effects of microplastics and salinization on the soil environment under the dual pollution conditions.

Intramolecular Hydrogen Bonding Rigidifying Flexible Bridge for Solution- and Vacuum-Processed TSCT-TADF Emitters.

To realize strong donor-acceptor face-to-face stacking for efficient through-space charge transfer-type thermally activated delayed fluorescence, a conceptually new design strategy is proposed to couple flexible bridges with adequate rigidity via built-in intramolecular hydrogen bonds (IHBs). The resulting emitter ACE-CN has a planarized benzyl methyl ether bridge self-anchored by the C-H···O IHB and shows a high photoluminescence quantum efficiency of 93%. The solution- and vacuum-processed devices exhibited high external quantum efficiencies of 11.8% and 24.7%, respectively.