Evaluation of Retinal Microvascular Features in Patients with Amblyopia Based on Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND: The performance of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in macular microvasculature of patients with amblyopia has been widely studied, but these studies have yielded different and controversial results. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to investigate retinal microvascular features in patients with amblyopia undergoing OCTA. METHODS: PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science were searched for published articles comparing the retinal microvascular features between individuals with amblyopia and controls until April 2022. The mean difference with a 95% confidence interval was used to assess continuous variables. RESULTS: The analysis included 17 studies. The whole vessel density of the superficial capillary plexus (SCPVD) was lower in amblyopic eyes (AE) than in normal eyes (NE) in 3 × 3 mm2 scans, while the perifoveal vessel density of superficial and deep capillary plexus was lower in 6 × 6 mm2 scans. The whole, parafoveal vessel density of deep capillary plexus (DCPVD) and parafoveal SCPVD were lower in both scans. The comparison between AE and fellow eyes (FE) revealed no statistical difference in all quadrants except the parafoveal and perifoveal SCPVD and the foveal DCPVD. Additionally, SCPVD in all quadrants except the fovea and DCPVD in all quadrants except the parafoveal were higher in FE compared to NE. No significant difference was found in the foveal avascular area between AE and NE, AE and FE, or NE and FE. CONCLUSIONS: The retinal vessel density of superficial and deep capillary plexus in AE and FE was lower than in NE, and differences were more likely discovered using 6 × 6 mm2 scans. Consequently, OCTA might be explored as a diagnostic tool to identify and monitor patients with amblyopia.

Graduates' affective transfer of research skills and evidence based practice from university to employment in clinics.

BACKGROUND: This research sought to determine the impact of explicit program-based development of skills associated with research and Evidence Based Practice (EBP) on the attitudes and sustained behaviours of graduates subsequently employed in clinics. Systematic reviews have shown that university teaching of EBP and research skills rarely result in transfer of commensurate attitudes and sustained behaviours of students to their subsequent studies or to employment. Studies have therefore called for detailed exploration of what may enable this transfer of knowledge and skills to attitudes and behaviours. In keeping with these calls, this paper presents a fine-grained qualitative study of graduates' research skills and EBP in clinics with particular reference to pertinent attitudes, values and behaviours sustained, or further developed, one year after program completion. METHODS: The study revolved around employed graduates of a Bachelor of Oral Health (BOH) program, which used the Research Skill Development (RSD) framework to structure the explicit, coherent and cyclic development of the skills associated with research in multiple semesters of the degree. One year after their completion of the BOH program, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine employed graduates, three from each of three consecutive cohorts, to gain their professional perspectives on their research skills and EBP developed at university and then used in clinics. While the pre-determined interview questions focused on employed graduates' knowledge and skills, the attitudes and values around research skills and EBP emerged spontaneously. RESULTS: Graduates that were interviewed relayed in detail their attitudes and values associated with research skills and EBP when asked about their work in clinics, even though the affective elements were not specifically elicited. In the employment context, the positive affective aspects of the skills associated with research and EBP that graduates discussed were pronounced, and this contrasted with working graduates retrospective view of university research skills and EBP. CONCLUSIONS: The richness of affective interaction with patients was a factor that enabled the interviewed graduates to transfer university knowledge and skills into attitudes and behaviours associated with EBP. We recommend similar fine-grained qualitative research to further develop constructs that enable quantification of the interplay of cognitive and affective facets in researching and EBP.

Discovery and characterization of the evolution, variation and functions of diversity-generating retroelements using thousands of genomes and metagenomes.

BACKGROUND: Diversity-generating retroelements (DGRs) are a unique family of retroelements that generate sequence diversity of DNA to benefit their hosts by introducing variations and accelerating the evolution of target proteins. They exist widely in bacteria, archaea, phage and plasmid. However, our understanding about DGRs in natural environments was still very limited. RESULTS: We developed an efficient computational algorithm to identify DGRs, and applied it to characterize DGRs in more than 80,000 sequenced bacterial genomes as well as more than 4,000 human metagenome datasets. In total, we identified 948 non-redundant DGRs, which expanded the number of known DGRs in bacterial genomes and human microbiomes by about 55%, and provided a much more comprehensive reference for the study of DGRs. Phylogenetic analysis was done for identified DGRs. The putative target genes of DGRs were searched, and the functions of these target genes were investigated with a comprehensive alignment against the nr database. CONCLUSIONS: DGR system is a powerful and universal mechanism to generate diversity. DGR evolution is closely associated with the living environment and their cassette structures. Furthermore, it may impact a wide range of functional processes in addition to receptor-binding. These results significantly improved our understanding about DGRs.

Association between the CYP2E1 polymorphisms and lung cancer risk: a meta-analysis.

The previous, published data on the association between CYP2E1 RsaI (rs2031920), DraI (rs6413432) polymorphisms and lung cancer risk remained controversial. Hence, we performed a meta-analysis to investigate the association between lung cancer and CYP2E1 RsaI (5,074 cases and 6,828 controls from 34 studies), and CYP2E1 DraI (2,093 cases and 2,508 controls from 16 studies) in different inheritance models. Overall, significantly decreased lung cancer risk was observed (dominant model: odds ratio (OR) 0.80, 95 % confidence interval (95 % CI) 0.71-0.90; heterozygote model: OR 0.80, 95 % CI 0.70-0.90; additive model: OR 0.82, 95 % CI 0.72-0.94) when all the eligible studies were pooled into the meta-analysis of CYP2E1 RsaI polymorphism. In further stratified and sensitivity analyses, significantly decreased lung cancer risk was found among Asians (dominant model: OR 0.81, 95 % CI 0.71-0.93; heterozygous model: OR 0.81, 95 % CI 0.69-0.95), population-based studies (dominant model: OR 0.69, 95 % CI 0.54-0.88; recessive model: OR 0.39, 95 % CI 0.16-0.91; additive model: OR 0.67, 95 % CI 0.53-0.84; homozygous model: OR 0.34, 95 % CI 0.14-0.80; heterozygous model: OR 0.70, 95 % CI 0.54-0.91), hospital-based studies (dominant model: OR 0.80, 95 % CI 0.69-0.93; additive model: OR 0.84, 95 % CI 0.70-1.00; heterozygous model: OR 0.80, 95 % CI 0.68-0.95), lung AC (heterozygous model: OR 0.84, 95 % CI 0.71-1.00), smokers (dominant model: OR 0.72, 95 % CI 0.55-0.94), and non-smokers (dominant model: OR 0.74, 95 % CI 0.61-0.91). There was no significant association between CYP2E1 DraI polymorphism and the risk of lung cancer when all the eligible studies were pooled into the meta-analysis. However, in further stratified and sensitivity analyses, significant association was observed among smokers (dominant model: OR 0.49, 95 % CI 0.35-0.69). In summary, this meta-analysis indicates that CYP2E1 RsaI polymorphism is associated with lung cancer risk among Asians, CYP2E1 RsaI polymorphism may be associated with lung adenocarcinoma risk, and CYP2E1 RsaI and DraI polymorphisms may be associated with decreased lung cancer risk in smokers.

Dosage compensation in the process of inactivation/reactivation during both germ cell development and early embryogenesis in mouse.

Ohno proposed that dosage compensation in mammals evolved as a two-step mechanism involving X-inactivation and X-upregulation. While X-inactivation is well characterized, it remains to further analysis whether upregulation of the single activated X chromosome in mammals occurs. We obtained RNA-seq data, including single-cell RNA-seq data, from cells undergoing inactivation/reactivation in both germ cell development and early embryogenesis stages in mouse and calculated the X: A ratio from the gene expression. Our results showed that the X: A ratio is always 1, regardless of the number of X chromosomes being transcribed for expressed genes. Furthermore, the single-cell RNA-seq data across individual cells of mouse preimplantation embryos of mixed backgrounds indicated that strain-specific SNPs could be used to distinguish transcription from maternal and paternal chromosomes and further showed that when the paternal was inactivated, the average gene dosage of the active maternal X chromosome was increased to restore the balance between the X chromosome and autosomes. In conclusion, our analysis of RNA-seq data (particularly single-cell RNA-seq) from cells undergoing the process of inactivation/reactivation provides direct evidence that the average gene dosage of the single active X chromosome is upregulated to achieve a similar level to that of two active X chromosomes and autosomes present in two copies.

Gastric juice miR-129 as a potential biomarker for screening gastric cancer.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play crucial roles during the occurrence and development of gastric cancer. Conventional serological tests for screening gastric cancer have limits on sensitivity and specificity. Several miRNAs in peripheral blood have been used as biomarkers of gastric cancer. However, most of these miRNAs are shared by several types of cancer. Thanks to the tissue specificity of gastric juice, here we examined the feasibility of using gastric juice miR-129-1/2, which are aberrantly expressed in gastric cancer, to screen gastric cancer. Total of 141 gastric juices samples from gastric cancer, gastric ulcer, atrophic gastritis, and minimal gastritis patients or subjects with normal mucosa were collected by gastroscopy. The gastric juice miR-129-1/2 levels were detected by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was constructed for differentiating patients with gastric cancer from patients with benign gastric diseases. We showed that, compared with patients with benign gastric diseases, patients with gastric cancer had significantly lower levels of gastric juice miR-129-1-3p and miR-129-2-3p. The areas under ROC curve (AUC) were 0.639 and 0.651 for miR-129-1-3p and miR-129-2-3p, respectively. Using the parallel combination test, the AUC was up to 0.656. In summary, our results suggest that gastric juice miR-129-1-3p and miR-129-2-3p are potential biomarkers for the screening gastric cancer, and the detection of gastric juice miRNAs is a convenient non-invasion method for the diagnosis of gastric cancer.