Glycated serum protein is independently associated with progressive infarction in patients with acute ischemic stroke.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the relationship between glycated serum protein (GSP) and progressive infarction (PI). METHODS: From April 2017 to December 2020, we recruited 477 patients within 48 hours after the onset of acute ischemic stroke into this case-control study. Demographic characteristics, clinical information, and laboratory and neuroimaging data were recorded after admission. RESULTS: PI occurred in 144 (30.8%) patients. Patients with PI had higher initial National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) scores, higher discharge NIHSS scores, higher modified Rankin scale scores at 3 months after onset, higher GSP levels, lower prothrombin times, and lower creatinine levels than patients without PI. The likelihood of PI increased with increases in the GSP quartile. Multiple regression analysis revealed that high GSP levels (>2.14 mmol/L) were independently associated with PI. Subgroup analyses identified high GSP levels as an independent predictor of PI in patients with large artery atherosclerosis (third quartile: odds ratio [OR] = 3.793; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.555-9.250; fourth quartile: OR = 2.675; 95% CI = 1.056-6.776) and anterior circulation small vessel occlusion (fourth quartile: OR = 13.859; 95% CI = 2.024-94.885). CONCLUSIONS: GSP might be an independent predictor for PI in certain patients with acute ischemic stroke.

Combinations of plasma cfDNA concentration, integrity and tumor markers are promising biomarkers for early diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer.

Background: Circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) concentration and integrity as noninvasive biomarkers play an important role in cancer diagnosis, prognosis and therapy monitoring. However, few studies have been conducted on the combination of plasma cfDNA concentration, integrity and tumor markers (CEA, CA125, NSE and CYFRA21-1) for cancer detection. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the diagnostic value of combining plasma cfDNA concentration, integrity and tumor markers in early detection of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Plasma cfDNA concentration from 50 healthy controls and 84 NSCLC patients were assessed by quantitative real-time PCR of ALU repeated sequence. Plasma cfDNA integrity was calculated as the ratio of long to short fragments (ALU115/60). Results: Plasma cfDNA concentration (ALU60 and ALU115) and integrity ALU115/60 were significantly higher in NSCLC patients with stage III/IV than in healthy controls (p = 0.0002, p < 0.0001, and p = 0.0093, respectively). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for discriminating NSCLC patients from healthy controls had an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.936 (95 % CI, 0.939-0.996). Moreover, the combination of plasma cfDNA concentration, integrity and tumor markers (CEA, CA125, NSE and CYFRA21-1) had higher diagnostic performance than either plasma cfDNA concentration alone, integrity alone or tumor markers alone, with sensitivity, specificity and AUC value of 94.05%, 90.00% and 0.968, respectively. These results demonstrated that the combination of plasma cfDNA concentration, integrity and tumor markers could significantly improve the diagnostic accuracy of NSCLC. Conclusion: Combination of plasma cfDNA concentration, integrity and tumor markers is a promising biomarker for early diagnosis of NSCLC.

COVID-19 CT ground-glass opacity segmentation based on attention mechanism threshold.

The ground glass opacity (GGO) of the lung is one of the essential features of COVID-19. The GGO in computed tomography (CT) images has various features and low-intensity contrast between the GGO and edge structures. These problems pose significant challenges for segmenting the GGO. To tackle these problems, we propose a new threshold method for accurate segmentation of GGO. Specifically, we offer a framework for adjusting the threshold parameters according to the image contrast. Three functions include Attention mechanism threshold, Contour equalization, and Lung segmentation (ACL). The lung is divided into three areas using the attention mechanism threshold. Further, the segmentation parameters of the attention mechanism thresholds of the three parts are adaptively adjusted according to the image contrast. Only the segmentation regions restricted by the lung segmentation results are retained. Extensive experiments on four COVID datasets show that ACL can segment GGO images at low contrast well. Compared with the state-of-the-art methods, the similarity Dice of the ACL segmentation results is improved by 8.9%, the average symmetry surface distance ASD is reduced by 23%, and the required computational power F L O P s are only 0.09% of those of deep learning models. For GGO segmentation, ACL is more lightweight, and the accuracy is higher. Code will be released at https://github.com/Lqs-github/ACL.

Inhibitory effect of berberine hydrochloride against Candida albicans and the role of the HOG-MAPK pathway.

Berberine hydrochloride (BH), an active component of Coptis chinensis and other plant taxa, has broad antimicrobial activity and may be useful for the treatment of Candida infections. In this study, the mechanisms underlying the inhibitory effect of BH against Candida albicans were evaluated, with a focus on the high-osmolarity glycerol mitogen-activated protein kinase (HOG-MAPK) pathway, which regulates multiple physiological functions. BH (256 and 64 µg ml-1) significantly increased intracellular glycerol and ROS levels in C. albicans, inhibited germ tube and hyphal formation, and increased chitin and ß-1,3-glucan exposure on the cell wall. The inhibitory effect of BH was positively correlated with its concentration, and the inhibitory effect of 256 µg ml-1 BH was greater than that of 4 µg ml-1 fluconazole (FLC). Furthermore, RT-PCR analysis showed that 256 and 64 µg ml-1 BH altered the HOG-MAPK pathway in C. albicans. In particular, the upregulation of the core genes, SLN1, SSK2, HOG1, and PBS2 may affect the expression of key downstream factors related to glycerol synthesis and osmotic pressure (GPD1), ROS accumulation (ATP11 and SOD2), germ tube and hyphal formation (HWP1), and cell wall integrity (CHS3 and GSC1). BH affects multiple biological processes in C. albicans; thus, it can be an effective alternative to conventional azole antifungal agents.

Inhibition of berberine hydrochloride on Candida albicans biofilm formation.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the inhibitory effect of berberine hydrochloride (BH) on Candida albicans (C.albicans) ATCC10231 biofilm formation. RESULTS: This paper found a positive correlation between the concentration of BH and its inhibitory effect on the cellular activity of early biofilms because we found that 128 and 32 µg/mL BH significantly inhibited biofilm formation (P < 0.05). BH significantly inhibited the cellular activity in early biofilms, destroyed the microscopic morphology of C.albicans and reduced the thickness of the biofilm. Both 128 and 32 µg/mL concentration solutions of BH significantly inhibited biofilm formation (P < 0.05). We found that the inhibitory effect of BH solution was positively correlated with its concentration and 128 µg/mL BH was better than 4 µg/mL fluconazole. Additionally, the results of RT-PCR indicated that 128 and 32 µg/mL BH inhibited the expression of EFG1, HWP1, ECE1, and ALS1 (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The efficacy of BH in inhibiting the formation of C.albicans biofilm by killing the cells in the biofilm and destroying its structure; and the mechanism may be to down-regulate the expression of EFG1, HWP1, ECE1, and ALS1 in hyphae formation, thereby, retarding the morphological transformation of C. albicans.