Retinal thickness and fundus blood flow density changes in chest pain subjects with dyslipidemia.

AIM: To assess the retinal thickness and fundus blood flow density changes in chest pain patients with dyslipidemia using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA). METHODS: All subjects with chest pain as the main symptom accepted a comprehensive ophthalmological examination. According to the serum lipid levels, the participants were divided into the control group and the dyslipidemia group. The retina thickness and fundus blood flow density were determined using OCTA. RESULTS: The study enrolled 87 left eyes from 87 adults with dyslipidemia and 87 left eyes from age- and sex-matched participants without dyslipidemia. The retina of dyslipidemia subjects was significantly thinner than that of the controls in the inferior (P=0.004 and P=0.014, respectively) and temporal (P=0.015 and P=0.019, respectively) regions, both inner and outer layers. In terms of blood flow density in the macula or optic disk, there was a decreasing trend in the dyslipidemia group compared with the control group, especially in the inferior and temporal regions. CONCLUSION: Dyslipidemia may contribute to the decrease in retinal thickness and fundus blood flow density. Further validation of the association between abnormal lipid metabolism and fundus microcirculation alterations needs to be carried out in chest pain patients.

Tear dynamics testing and quantitative proteomics analysis in patients with chronic renal failure.

Ocular surface changes may develop in patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) undergoing hemodialysis. In recent years, an association of CRF with dry eye syndrome has been emphasized. However, tear proteomics of CRF patients has not been analyzed. Here, we performed systematic profiling of the tear film proteins in CRF patients through use of isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitative (iTRAQ) MS/MS, aiming to identify associations between dry eye symptoms and expression of tear proteomic changes in patients with CRF undergoing hemodialysis. Twenty CRF patients and ten healthy subjects underwent a series of ophthalmic examinations. Tear samples from the participants were analyzed by iTRAQ approach. A total of 1139 tear proteins were screened, and 212 differentially expressed proteins were identified. The pattern changes included 77 whose expression levels were upregulated (fold increase >1.2) whereas 135 others that were downregulated (fold decrease <1/1.2). Bioinformatics analysis showed that these proteins were significantly enriched in lipid metabolism, inflammatory, and immune response pathways. Furthermore, APOA1, APOA4, APOB, APOE, S100A8, S100A9, S100A4, HSP90B and other molecules were significantly changed. Our study elucidated the characteristics of tear dynamics and protein markers in CRF patients undergoing hemodialysis. Significance: Despite the association of chronic renal failure (CRF) with dry eye disease, there are no reports describing potentially important differentially expressed tear proteins in CRF patients undergoing hemodialysis. It is still a challenge to obtain a comprehensive description of the pathogenesis of dry eye in CRF patients which hinders establishing a patient specific therapeutic scheme. Our study is the first iTRAQ proteomics analysis of the tears of patients with CRF, which reveals the changes in the protein expression profile in CRF patients afflicted with dry eye disease. The identity was verified of some relevant differentially expressed proteins, and they may be candidate diagnostic markers of dry eye disease in patients with CRF. These tear film protein constituents found in hemodialysis patients can be of important clinical significance in treating this condition. SIGNIFICANCE: Despite the association of chronic renal failure (CRF) with dry eye disease, there are no reports describing potentially important differentially expressed tear proteins in CRF patients undergoing hemodialysis. It is still a challenge to obtain a comprehensive description of the pathogenesis of dry eye in CRF patients which hinders establishing a patient specific therapeutic scheme. Our study is the first iTRAQ proteomics analysis of the tears of patients with CRF, which reveals the changes in the protein expression profile in CRF patients afflicted with dry eye disease. The identity was verified of some relevant differentially expressed proteins, and they may be candidate diagnostic markers of dry eye disease in patients with CRF. These tear film protein constituents found in hemodialysis patients can be of important clinical significance in treating this condition.

[Mechanism of Algal Community Dynamics Driven by the Seasonal Water Bacterial Community in a Stratified Drinking Water Reservoir].

Phytoplankton and bacteria are crucial components of aquatic food webs, playing critical roles in the structure and function of freshwater ecosystems. However, there are few studies on how the algal and bacterial communities interact and respond to changing environmental conditions in the water reservoirs. Thus, the ecological interaction relationship between the temporal succession of the phytoplankton community and the bacterial community was investigated using 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing and a co-occurrence network in the Lijiahe Reservoir. The results showed that Bacillariophyta and Chlorophyta were also dominant taxa in the phytoplankton community. In August, Cyanobacteria replaced Bacillariophyta as the second-most dominant taxa, with an average relative abundance of 30.13%. DNA sequencing showed that Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes dominated throughout the year. Proteobacteria reached a maximum relative abundance of 71.68% in July. Acidobacteria and Deinococcus-Thermus, which were rare taxa, reached maximum relative abundances of 10.20% and 5.56%, respectively. The co-occurrence network showed that the association between algae and bacteria was mainly positive, indicating that the interaction between them may be dominated by mutualism. As a keystone taxa, Methylotenera was significantly and positively related to Chlorella. Scenedesmus was also a keystone taxa and was significantly and negatively correlated with various bacteria, such as Methylobacter, Solitalea, and Rhodoferax. An RDA analysis showed that the succession of algal and bacterial communities was significantly regulated by water temperature, pH, and conductivity, and the environmental factors explained 93.1% and 90% of the variation in the algal community and bacterial community, respectively. The results will provide a scientific basis for exploring the micro-ecological driving mechanism of the interaction between algae and bacteria in deep drinking water reservoir ecosystems.

[Water Quality and Bacterial Population Driving Mechanism of Algae Vertical Succession in Stratified Reservoir].

Phytoplankton and bacteria are important components of the aquatic food web, and play a critical role in substance circulation and energy exchange in freshwater ecosystems. The succession of algae is closely related to the metabolism and structural succession of bacterial populations in the water column. Thus, in this study, the vertical succession characteristics of phytoplankton and bacteria community structure and their coupling with water quality were investigated during an algal bloom in the Lijiahe Reservoir using high-throughput DNA sequencing and Biolog technologies. The results showed that the Lijiahe Reservoir was in the thermal stratification stage in August, and the pH, dissolved oxygen, and NH4+-N of the water column gradually decreased with depth (P<0.001). Algal cell concentration and chlorophyll a exhibited a simultaneous trend (P<0.001), and the maximum values in the surface layer were 3363.33×104 cells·L-1 and 7.03 µg·L-1, respectively. The algal community structure was dominated by Microcystis at water depths of 0 m and 3 m, and at 6 m water depth, Cyclotella replaced Microcystis as the most dominant algae, with a relative abundance of 57.28%. Biolog analysis indicated that the outbreak of Microcystis had a significant impact on bacterial metabolic activity and its relative abundance, but the diversity of bacterial population metabolic activity varied less. A total of 1420 operational taxonomic units were found by high-throughput sequencing, belonging to 10 bacterial phyla. Of these, Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria dominated in all water layers, and their relative abundances were more than 50%. The relative abundance of Chlorobi and Planctomycetes varied significantly with water depth, reaching their maxima at a depth of 6 m with values of 10.29% and 6.78%, respectively, which were both negatively correlated with algal density (P<0.05). Firmicutes and Gemmatimonadetes were positively correlated with algal density (P<0.05). A heat map fingerprint showed that the vertical distribution of the bacterial community structure of the Lijiahe Reservoir varied significantly, and with the increase in water depth, the bacterial community was more uniformly distributed and tended to diversify. Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that the vertical distribution of the bacterial and algal community structure was regulated by different water qualities, and the difference was significant. This study investigated the coupling mechanism of algal and bacterial communities during the algal bloom in the Lijiahe Reservoir, and the results provided a scientific basis for the investigation of the molecular microecological driving mechanism of water-source algal blooms.