[Review and perspective of clinical research involving chest tightness variant asthma in China].

Chest tightness variant asthma (CTVA) was first reported and named by Chinese scholars in 2013. It is a new clinical type of asthma characterized by chest tightness as the only or primary symptom, without typical asthma manifestations such as recurrent wheezing and shortness of breath, and without wheezing sounds heard during lung auscultation. The overall epidemiological data on CTVA is currently unavailable. Its pathogenesis is similar to that of typical asthma, involving eosinophilic airway inflammation. Due to the lack of typical clinical manifestations, insufficient knowledge of this disease in some clinicians and some other reasons, CTVA is susceptible to misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis. Currently, the diagnostic criteria for CTVA are: chest tightness as the only or primary symptom, without typical asthma symptoms and signs such as wheezing and shortness of breath, and with any one of the objective indicators of variable airflow limitation. Effective anti-asthma treatment is required, and other diseases that cause chest tightness, such as cardiovascular, digestive, nervous, muscular, and mental diseases should be excluded. CTVA treatment follows that of typical asthma, but the specific treatment duration is uncertain and may require long-term management. Traditional Chinese medicine has shown some therapeutic effects on CTVA. Most CTVA patients have a good prognosis after active anti-asthma treatment. This paper analyzes and summarizes the research of CTVA in China from 2013 and provides new perspectives for further exploration of CTVA.

Molecular cloning and characterization of a human brain-specific gene implicated in neuronal differentiation.

A 2.5 kb human cDNA clone containing a CAG trinucleotide repeat, designated HB20, was isolated from a human fetal brain library. Northern analysis on multi-tissue blots and various cell lines confirmed that HB20 is specifically expressed in the brain. Its expression is low in two glioma cells, moderate in a neuron precursor cell, NT2, but absent in lymphoma, cervical carcinoma, or colonic carcinoma cells. Significant increase of HB20 mRNA was shown along with retinoic acid-induced terminal differentiation of NT2 cells into neuron cells, hNT. Homology comparison of the predicted HB20 amino acid sequence with the current database revealed that it belongs to a newly recognized protein family composed of nucleosome assembly proteins and SET proto-oncogene, which has been shown to interact specifically with B-type cyclins involved in the control of cell proliferation. Together with the detection of nuclear localization signals and apparent nuclear distribution of expressed protein, HB20 is likely to be a brain-specific nuclear protein, functioning in the process of neuronal differentiation.