Transcatheter closure of rare type Ⅱ Abernethy malformation with pulmonary hypertension in children： A case report / 临床肝胆病杂志

Abernethy malformation， also known as congenital portosystemic shunts， is rare in clinical practice， with less than 300 cases reported in the global literature up to 2019. The disease can have serious complications such as pulmonary hypertension， liver tumor， and liver failure and tends to have an extremely poor prognosis， and early diagnosis and active and effective treatment can reduce and delay the onset of complications. In this case， portography combined with balloon occlusion helped to display the underdeveloped slender portal vein with dysplasia， so that the child who was formerly misdiagnosed with type Ⅰ Abernethy malformation was diagnosed with type Ⅱ Abernethy malformation， and then the child was successfully treated by transcatheter closure. This article gives a detailed report of this case.

Research progress on the mechanism of nutritional intervention in the progression of metabolic-associated fatty liver disease / 公共卫生与预防医学

Metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) is considered as a multifactorial disease including genetic, physiological, and environmental factors, in which different factors overlap in various pathways, leading to metabolic impairment and liver damage. The main risk factors for MAFLD are overweight/obesity, insulin resistance/type 2 diabetes, hypertriglyceridemia and related dietary behaviors, mainly the intake of fructose beverages. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet is an important predictor of changes in liver fat content in patients with MAFLD. There is increasing evidence that prescribing specific supplements or nutraceuticals that have been proven to have hepatoprotective effects for MAFLD patients can accelerate the improvement of liver enzymes and liver steatosis or might prevent or delay the progression of MAFLD disease.

An experimental trial of recombinant human interferon alpha nasal drops to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 in medical staff in an epidemic area

ObjectiveTo investigate the efficacy and safety of recombinant human interferon alpha (rhIFN-) nasal drops in healthy medical staff to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). MethodsA prospective, open-label study was conducted in January 21, 2020at Taihe Hospital in Shiyan City, Hubei Province. Totally, 2944 medical staff members were recruited and allocated into low-risk group or high-risk group according to whether they were directly exposed to COVID-19 patients. Participants in the low-risk group received rhIFN- nasal drops (2-3 drops/nostril/time, 4 times/day) for 28 days with first-level protection; those in the high-risk group received identical rhIFN- nasal drops combined with thymosin-1 (1.6 mg, hypodermic injection, once a week) along with secondary-level or third-level protection. The primary outcome was new-onset COVID-19 over 28 days. The secondary outcome was new-onset fever or respiratory symptoms but with negative pulmonary images. The results were compared with new-onset COVID-19 in medical staff in Hubei Province (including Wuhan) during the same period. Adverse reactions to interferon nasal drops were also observed. ResultsAmong the 2944 subjects in our study, 2415 were included in the low-risk group, including 997 doctors and 1418 nurses with average ages of 37.38 and 33.56 years, respectively; 529 were included in the high-risk group, including 122 doctors and 407 nurses with average ages of 35.24 and 32.16 years, respectively. The 28-day incidence of COVID-19 was zero in both the high and low-risk groups. The 28-day incidence of new-onset clinical symptoms with negative images for pneumonia was also zero in both the high and low-risk groups. As control, a total of 2035 medical personnel with confirmed COVID-19 from the same area (Hubei Province) was observed between January 21 to February 23, 2020. No serious adverse events were observed in our trial during the intervention period. ConclusionIn this investigator-initiated open-label study, we observed that rhIFN- nasal drops may effectively prevent COVID-19 in medical staff, as an enhancement protection on the basis of standard physical isolation. Our results also indicate that rhIFN- nasal drops have potential promise for protecting susceptible healthy people during the coronavirus pandemic.

Culture-Positive Spontaneous Ascitic Infection in Patients with Acute Decompensated Cirrhosis: Multidrug-Resistant Pathogens and Antibiotic Strategies

Relationship between Sonic hedgehog signaling pathways and radioresistance of esophageal cancer / 中国病理生理杂志

AIM:To investigate the potential role of Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling pathways in the radioresistance of esophageal cancer.METHODS:Radioresistant cell line Eca109R was established by repeating X-ray irradiation at dose of 60 Gy in total using Eca109 cells as parental cells.The radiosensitivity of the parental and radioresistant cells was confirmed by colony formation assay.The cell viability was detected by CCK-8 assay.The intracellular protein levels of Shh and Gli1 were determined by Western blot and immunofluorescence.RESULTS:The survival fractions at dose of 2 Gy for Eca109R cells and Eca109 cells were 0.937±0.013 and 0.499±0.042, respectively.The inhibitory rate of cell viability decreased gradually in the Eca109R cells (P<0.05), suggesting that the radioresistant cell line was successfully established.The results of Western blot indicated that the protein expression of Shh and Gli1 was much higher in the Eca109R cells than that in the Eca109 cells (P<0.05).Immunofluorescence staining showed that Gli1 was expressed in the cytoplasm and nucleus, and presented nuclear clustering in the Eca109R cells.The positive rate of Gil1 expression in Eca109 cells was 52.3%± 0.035%, while that in Eca109R cells was 87.6%±0.021% (P<0.05).CONCLUSION:The radioresistance of esophageal cancer may be related to the activation of Shh signaling pathways with over-expression of Gli1 and other related proteins.

Regulation of Hepatitis C Virus Replication and Gene Expression by the MAPK-ERK Pathway / 中国病毒学·英文版

The mitogen activated protein kinases-extracellular signal regulated kinases (MAPK-ERK) pathway is involved in regulation of multiple cellular processes including the cell cycle.In the present study using a Huh7 cell line Con1 with an HCV replicon,we have shown that the MAPK-ERK pathway plays a significant role in the modulation of HCV replication and protein expression and might influence IFN-α signalling.Epithelial growth factor (EGF) was able to stimulate ERK activation and decreased HCV RNA load while a MAPK-ERK pathway inhibitor U0126 led to an elevated HCV RNA load and higher NS5A protein amounts in Con1 cells.It could be further demonstrated that the inhibition of the MAPK-ERK pathway facilitated the translation directed by the HCV internal ribosome entry site.Consistently,a U0126 treatment enhanced activity of the HCV reporter replicon in transient transfection assays.Thus,the MAPK-ERK pathway plays an important role in the regulation of HCV gene expression and replication.In addition,cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) downstream of ERK may also be involved in the modulation of HCV replication since roscovitine,an inhibitor of CDKs had a similar effect to that of U0126.Modulation of the cell cycle progression by cell cycle inhibitor or RNAi resulted consistently in changes of HCV RNA levels.Further,the replication of HCV replicon in Conl cells was inhibited by IFN-α.The inhibitory effect of IFN-α could be partly reversed by pre-incubation of Con-1 cells with inhibitors of the MAPK-ERK pathway and CDKs.It could be shown that the MAPK-ERK inhibitors are able to partially modulate the expression of interferon-stimulated genes.

Recent Advances in Research on Hepadnaviral Infection in the Woodchuck Model / 中国病毒学·英文版

The woodchuck model is an excellent animal model to study hepadnaviral infection. The new progresses in this model made possible to examine the T-cell mediated immune responses in acute and chronic hepadnaviral infection. Recently, a new assay for cytotoxic T-cells based on detection of CD107 was established for the woodchuck model. In addition, new immunotherapeutic approaches based on combination of potent antiviral treatment and DNA-protein vaccines were proven to be useful for treatment of chronic hepatitis B.