Demographic dynamics and molecular evolution of the rare and endangered subsect. Gerardianae of Pinus: insights from chloroplast genomes and mitochondrial DNA markers.

MAIN CONCLUSION: The divergence of subsect. Gerardianae was likely triggered by the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and adjacent mountains. Pinus bungeana might have probably experienced expansion since Last Interglacial period. Historical geological and climatic oscillations have profoundly affected patterns of nucleotide variability, evolutionary history, and species divergence in numerous plants of the Northern Hemisphere. However, how long-lived conifers responded to geological and climatic fluctuations in East Asia remain poorly understood. Here, based on paternally inherited chloroplast genomes and maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA markers, we investigated the population demographic history and molecular evolution of subsect. Gerardianae (only including three species, Pinus bungeana, P. gerardiana, and P. squamata) of Pinus. A low level of nucleotide diversity was found in P. bungeana (π was 0.00016 in chloroplast DNA sequences, and 0.00304 in mitochondrial DNAs). The haplotype-based phylogenetic topology and unimodal distributions of demographic analysis suggested that P. bungeana probably originated in the southern Qinling Mountains and experienced rapid population expansion since Last Interglacial period. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that P. gerardiana and P. squamata had closer genetic relationship. The species divergence of subsect. Gerardianae occurred about 27.18 million years ago (Mya) during the middle to late Oligocene, which was significantly associated with the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and adjacent mountains from the Eocene to the mid-Pliocene. The molecular evolutionary analysis showed that two chloroplast genes (psaI and ycf1) were under positive selection, the genetic lineages of P. bungeana exhibited higher transition and nonsynonymous mutations, which were involved with the strongly environmental adaptation. These findings shed light on the population evolutionary history of white pine species and provide striking insights for comprehension of their species divergence and molecular evolution.

Circ_HIPK3 alleviates CoCl2-induced apoptotic injury in neuronal cells by depending on the regulation of the miR-222-3p/DUSP19 axis.

Circular RNA (circRNA) homeodomain-interacting protein kinase 3 (circ_HIPK3) has recently reported as regulator in spinal cord injury (SCI). The regulatory mechanism of circ_HIPK3 in SCI was further researched in this study. Circ_HIPK3 expression was inhibited by CoCl2 in AGE1.HN cells. The CoCl2-induced cell cycle arrest, cell proliferation inhibition and apoptosis promotion were mitigated by overexpression of circ_HIPK3. Circ_HIPK3 could target miR-222-3p and circ_HIPK3 repressed the CoCl2-induced neuronal cell injury by sponging miR-222-3p. DUSP19 was a target gene of miR-222-3p and circ_HIPK3 affected the expression of DUSP19 via binding to miR-222-3p. The regulation of circ_HIPK3 in CoCl2-induced injury of AGE1.HN cells was associated with the upregulation of DUSP19. Circ_HIPK3 acted as a pathogenic inhibitor in the progression of SCI via the miR-222-3p-mediated DUSP19 upregulation.

Predicting the Mortality and Readmission of In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Patients With Electronic Health Records: A Machine Learning Approach.

BACKGROUND: In-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) is associated with high mortality and health care costs in the recovery phase. Predicting adverse outcome events, including readmission, improves the chance for appropriate interventions and reduces health care costs. However, studies related to the early prediction of adverse events of IHCA survivors are rare. Therefore, we used a deep learning model for prediction in this study. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to demonstrate that with the proper data set and learning strategies, we can predict the 30-day mortality and readmission of IHCA survivors based on their historical claims. METHODS: National Health Insurance Research Database claims data, including 168,693 patients who had experienced IHCA at least once and 1,569,478 clinical records, were obtained to generate a data set for outcome prediction. We predicted the 30-day mortality/readmission after each current record (ALL-mortality/ALL-readmission) and 30-day mortality/readmission after IHCA (cardiac arrest [CA]-mortality/CA-readmission). We developed a hierarchical vectorizer (HVec) deep learning model to extract patients' information and predict mortality and readmission. To embed the textual medical concepts of the clinical records into our deep learning model, we used Text2Node to compute the distributed representations of all medical concept codes as a 128-dimensional vector. Along with the patient's demographic information, our novel HVec model generated embedding vectors to hierarchically describe the health status at the record-level and patient-level. Multitask learning involving two main tasks and auxiliary tasks was proposed. As CA-mortality and CA-readmission were rare, person upsampling of patients with CA and weighting of CA records were used to improve prediction performance. RESULTS: With the multitask learning setting in the model learning process, we achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic of 0.752 for CA-mortality, 0.711 for ALL-mortality, 0.852 for CA-readmission, and 0.889 for ALL-readmission. The area under the receiver operating characteristic was improved to 0.808 for CA-mortality and 0.862 for CA-readmission after solving the extremely imbalanced issue for CA-mortality/CA-readmission by upsampling and weighting. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated the potential of predicting future outcomes for IHCA survivors by machine learning. The results showed that our proposed approach could effectively alleviate data imbalance problems and train a better model for outcome prediction.

Magnetic bead-based salivary peptidome profiling analysis for severe early childhood caries.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the differential salivary protein expression profiles between children with severe early childhood caries (S-ECC) and caries-free (CF) children at the age of 3 years. METHODS: We used matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) combined with weak cation exchange magnetic beads, and peptide mass fingerprints were created by scanning mass spectrometry signals. Salivary samples from 20 children were analyzed (10 for each group). RESULTS: Eleven protein peaks were significantly different (p < 0.05) between the two groups. Eight of these peaks were higher in the S-ECC group and three were higher in the CF group. To establish a diagnostic model for discrimination between the two groups, we chose three peptides (3,186.2, 3,195.8 and 3,324.8 Da) that exhibited the best fitted curve, by which the two groups were better separated when compared with other combinations. CONCLUSIONS: The salivary biomarkers identified revealed significant differences between the CF and the S-ECC group. Our results provide novel insight into the salivary protein profile of preschool-age children with dental caries and may lead to the development of a new strategy for screening high-risk populations.

[Analysis of volatile sulfur compounds production of oral cavity in preschool children and influencing factors].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence of volatile sulfur compounds(VSC) in oral cavity of preschool children, and to analyze related factors, thus to provide scientific basis for the prediction and treatment of halitosis. METHODS: The VSC content (hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, dimethyl sulfide) of 170 preschool children (4 to 6 years old) was detected by a portable gas chromatograph OralChromaTM. The status of the oral health was evaluated. The living habits and other aspects were obtained through questionnaires from the children's parents. A soft package for social statistics version 13.0 (SPSS 13.0) was used in which univariate analysis and multivariate analysis were utilized to analyze the related factors of halitosis in children. RESULTS: In the study, 34.4% of the total subjects had excessive VSC. Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) [(1.59 ± 2.41) ng/10 mL] and total VSC concentration [(2.14 ± 4.42) ng/10 mL] in the girls were significantly higher (P<0.05) than those in the boys. The tongue coating score had a significant positive correlation with H2S [tongue coating area (1.68 ± 2.48) ng/10 mL,tongue coating thickness (2.18 ± 2.69) ng/10 mL] and total VSC concentration [tongue coating area, (2.26 ± 4.31) ng/10 mL,tongue coating thickness (2.41 ± 3.02) ng/10 mL , P<0.01]. The site number of DI-S ≥ 2 had a significant positive correlation with methyl mercaptan (CH3SH) and dimethyl sulfide [(CH3)2S] concentration (P<0.01). The concentration of H2S [(1.19 ± 1.62) ng/10 mL] in children, whose mother had a higher degree of education, was statistically lower (P<0.01). The children who took dessert or sweat drinks more frequently had lower H2S [(1.04 ± 1.55) ng/10 mL, P<0.05] concentration, while CH3SH and (CH32)S concentration [(0.29 ± 1.92) ng/10 mL, (0.37 ± 2.06) ng/10 mL, P<0.05) were higher in the children with mouth-breath habit. CONCLUSION: A high prevalence of halitosis was noted in preschool children. Gender, tongue coating index, debris index-simplified, status of the mother's education, frequency of eating dessert or sweat drinks and dry mouth breath were related with halitosis of preschool children. The different related factors resulted in changes of each VSC concentration.

[Retracted] siRNA­mediated inhibition of endogenous brain­derived neurotrophic factor gene modulates the biological behavior of HeLa cells.

Subsequently to the publication of the above article and a Corrigendum that was published to indicate corrections made to Fig. 7 (DOI: 10.3892/or.2021.7922; published online on January 5, 2021), a concerned reader drew the Editor's attention to the fact that, comparing between a pair of panels in the Figure, there was an overlapping section of data; moreover, this overlapping section contained apparent anomalies that could not be easily accounted for through a straightforward re­use of one of the data panels. The authors conceded that there was partial duplication between the images shown in Fig. 7B and F, although they were unable to access the related raw data as the experiments had been performed almost 10 years ago. Secondly, the authors informed the Editor that the corresponding author did not know he was on the author list at the time of submission. Although the authors' were granted permission to publish the Corrigendum, the Editor now considers that the paper should be retracted on account of the uncertainties in the presented revised data and the authors' admission concerning the corresponding author. Therefore, this paper has been retracted from the Journal. The authors are in agreement with the decision to retract the article. The Editor apologizes for any inconvenience caused. [Oncology Reports 37: 2751­2760, 2017; DOI: 10.3892/or.2017.5569].

[The Chinese medicine syndrome features of ulcerative colitis by using fluorescence intensity of auto fluorescence imaging].

OBJECTIVE: To study the Chinese medicine (CM) syndrome features of ulcerative colitis (UC) by using fluorescence intensity (the ratio of green to red, G/R ratio) of auto fluorescence imaging, thus providing objective evidences for the CM syndrome typing of UC. METHODS: Totally 49 patients were recruited. They were typed as Dachang damp-heat syndrome (19 cases), Pi-Wei qi deficiency syndrome (30 cases), and the healthy control group (21 cases) on the bases of mucosal morphology of white light endoscopy (WLE) and the G/R ratio of AFI. RESULTS: Compared with the healthy control group (1.227 +/- 0.137), the G/R ratio in Dachang damp-heat syndrome (0.915 +/- 0.114) and Pi-Wei qi deficiency syndrome (1.147 +/- 0.137) decreased with statistical difference (P < 0.05, P < 0.01). Of them, it was lower in Dachang damp-heat syndrome group (P < 0.01). The case number was mainly dominated in moderate endoscopic index (EI) (11 cases) and severe EI (5 cases) in Dachang damp-heat syndrome group. The case number was mainly dominated in the remission phase (17 cases) and mild EI (7 cases) in Pi-Wei qi deficiency syndrome group. The G/R ratio of the remission phase was higher than that of the active phase (1.220 vs. 0.963, P < 0.01). There was statistical difference in the G/R ratio of the mild EI (1.044), the moderate EI (0.967), and the severe EI (0.830) (P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The inflammation degree of Dachang damp-heat syndrome was more severe than that of Pi-Wei qi deficiency syndrome. AFI could better reflect the inflammation degree of UC.

Porous {P6Mo18O73}-type Poly(oxometalate) Metal-Organic Frameworks for Improved Pseudocapacitance and Electrochemical Sensing Performance.

{P6Mo18} poly(oxometalate) (POM) clusters have huge steric hindrance and limited active oxygen atoms, which make them difficult to combine with metal-organic units to form three-dimensional (3D) porous structures. Therefore, functionalization of such POMs has always been a bottleneck that is difficult to break through. In this study, {P6Mo18} POM was successfully grafted on a lock-like metal-organic chain to generate a multiporous coordination polymer, [{Na(H2O)(H2btb)}{Cu4I(H2O)(pz)5Cl}{H2Sr⊂P6Mo2VMo16VIO73}]·3H2O (1) (pz = pyrazine; btb = 1,4-bis(1,2,4-triazole) butane). Meanwhile, a zero-dimensional (0-D) control compound with only btb ligands as counterions, (H4btb)[H4Sr⊂P6Mo2VMo16VIO73]·3H2O (2), was also obtained via a hydrothermal reaction. Compound 1 represents the first basket-type 3D poly(oxometalate) metal-organic framework (POMOF) assembly, which possesses interpenetrating pores and complex topology. 1-GO-CPE displays improved supercapacitor (SC) performance (the specific capacitance of 929.4 F g-1 at a current density of 3 A g-1 with 94.1% of cycle efficiency after 5000 cycles) compared with 2-GO-CPE and most reported POMOF electrode materials, which may be due to the outstanding redox capability of basket-POM, introduction of metal-organic chains, intersecting pores, and excellent conductivity of graphene. An asymmetric SC device with 1-GO-CPE as the negative electrode exhibits an energy density of 29.7 Wh kg-1 with a power density of 3148.2 W kg-1 and long-lasting cycling life. In addition, 1-GO-GCE as an electrochemical sensor responds to dopamine (DA) at a voltage of 0.40 V and shows lower detection limits (0.19 µM (signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) = 3)), higher selectivity, and good reproducibility in the linear range of 0.56 µM to 0.24 mM. The ability to accurately detect the content of DA in biological samples further proves the feasibility of the sensor in practical applications.

Data-Driven and Machine-Learning Methods to Project Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic Trend in Eastern Mediterranean.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has become a major public health crisis worldwide, and the Eastern Mediterranean is one of the most affected areas. Materials and Methods: We use a data-driven approach to assess the characteristics, situation, prevalence, and current intervention actions of the COVID-19 pandemic. We establish a spatial model of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic to project the trend and time distribution of the total confirmed cases and growth rate of daily confirmed cases based on the current intervention actions. Results: The results show that the number of daily confirmed cases, number of active cases, or growth rate of daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 are exhibiting a significant downward trend in Qatar, Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia under the current interventions, although the total number of confirmed cases and deaths is still increasing. However, it is predicted that the number of total confirmed cases and active cases in Iran and Iraq may continue to increase. Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic in Qatar, Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia will be largely contained if interventions are maintained or tightened. The future is not optimistic, and the intervention response must be further strengthened in Iran and Iraq. The aim of this study is to contribute to the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[Corrigendum] siRNA-mediated inhibition of endogenous brain­derived neurotrophic factor gene modulates the biological behavior of HeLa cells.

Following the publication of this article, an interested reader drew to the authors' attention that, in Fig. 7 on p. 2757, sections of the data panels in Fig. 7A and B, showing the results of the non­transfected HeLa cell (Pnon group) and pGenesil­1­transfected HeLa cell (P0 group) experiments respectively, were strikingly similar. Both the Pnon and the P0 groups were control groups; upon re­examining their original data, the authors have realized that, when uploading the images, the data shown in Fig. 7B for the pGenesil­1­transfected HeLa cells (P0 group) were selected incorrectly. The authors were able to locate the data that were intended to have been shown in Fig. 7B; moreover, the text describing the number of migrated cells in the Results section also requires a correction. In the 'Downregulation of BDNF expression suppresses the migratory and invasive capabilities of HeLa cells' subsection, the text on lines 9­11 of this paragraph should be changed to the following (changed text is highlighted in bold): 'Migrated cells/field in the PBDNF1 group (37±17) were significantly less than those in the Pnon (105±31) and P0 (86±27) groups'. Likewise, the same correction to the text has been made to the Figure legend, as shown opposite. The revised version of Fig. 7, showing the correct data for Fig. 7B, is shown opposite. The authors are grateful to the Editor of Oncology Reports for allowing them the opportunity to publish this Corrigendum, and all of the authors agree to the publication of this Corrigendum. The authors sincerely apologize for this mistake, and regret any inconvenience this mistake has caused. [the original article was published on Oncology Reports 37: 2751-2760, 2017; DOI: 10.3892/or.2017.5569].

[Observation on the ultrastructure of Spirometra mansoni plerocercoid].

Plerocercoids of Spirometra mansoni were collected from muscles of the frogs. Specimens were treated following the routine procedure, embedded, sliced and stained. The ultrastructure of plerocercoid was observed with transmission electron microscopy. It was found that the wall of plerocercoid consisted of tegument and parenchyma. Thornshape microtriches distributed over the outer surface of the tegument. Matrix zone had a lot of granular discoidal bodies, vesicles, mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum. Most of the mitochondria were near the basal membrane. Parenchyma zone consisted of muscular layer, tegument cells, parenchymal cells, excretory system, and so on. Many cytoplasmic pathways of tegumentary cells stretch into muscular layer, suggesting that the tegument may be the absorptive site of nutrients.

Identification of Potential Key Agents for Targeting RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase of SARS-CoV-2 by Integrated Analysis and Virtual Drug Screening.

BACKGROUND: RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) is the key enzyme responsible for the SARS-CoV-2 replication process and catalyzes the synthesis of complementary minus strand RNA and genomic plus strand RNA, often recognized as good targets for antiviral drugs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A systematic screening of existing antiviral compounds, family analysis, conserved domain analysis, three-dimensional structure modeling, drug virtual screening, and bioassays were performed to identify agents that potentially targeted RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of SARS-CoV-2. RESULTS: Four thousand nine hundred and forty seven antiviral lead compounds were selected and evaluated by systematic screening. Of these, 359 agents were screened by family analysis and conserved domain analysis. They were further analyzed by three-dimensional structure modeling, virtual drug screening, and bioassays. The results identified 102 agents with potential for repurposing to target the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of SARS-CoV-2. CONCLUSION: This study identified 102 key agents with potential anti-SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase function and prospects of rapid clinical application for the treatment of COVID-19.

miR-140-3p exhibits repressive functions on preosteoblast viability and differentiation by downregulating MCF2L in osteoporosis.

Previous research manifested that miR-140-3p was a latent biomarker for osteoporosis. Nevertheless, the mechanism of miR-140-3p in osteoporosis is still not clear and needs ulteriorly studying. The purpose of our paper was to ulteriorly probe the underlying mechanism of miR-140-3p on osteoporosis. Firstly, based on the data acquired from GEO database, we found that miR-140-3p was highly expressed; meanwhile, MCF2L was lowly expressed in osteoporosis patients. Upregulation/downregulation of miR-140-3p by miR-140-3p mimic/inhibitor restrained/promoted MC3T3-E1 cell viability and differentiation. However, miR-140-3p over-expression/downregulation accelerated/repressed MC3T3-E1 cell apoptosis. MCF2L was forecasted as a target of miR-140-3p by miRanda, miRWalk, and TargetScan miRNA target gene prediction software. Luciferase reporter assay confirmed that MCF2L could be directly targeted by miR-140-3p. Moreover, we identified that the expression of MCF2L was negatively regulated by miR-140-3p. From rescue assays, we discovered that knockdown of MCF2L weakened the promoting influence of miR-140-3p ablation on MC3T3-E1 cell viability and differentiation, and receded the suppressing impact of miR-140-3p reduction on MC3T3-E1 cell apoptosis. Above all, this research disclosed that miR-140-3p repressed preosteoblast viability and differentiation while promoted preosteoblast apoptosis via targeting MCF2L. Our discoveries might afford a theoretical basis of developing a latent novel target for osteoporosis therapy.

Cervical kyphosis in asymptomatic populations: incidence, risk factors, and its relationship with health-related quality of life.

BACKGROUND: Cervical kyphosis has been pointed out in asymptomatic populations. The purposes of this study were (1) to investigate the incidence of cervical kyphosis in asymptomatic populations, (2) to identify risk factors related to cervical kyphosis, and (3) to assess the relationship between cervical kyphosis and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). METHODS: A cohort of 235 asymptomatic volunteers' records was retrospectively analyzed. Radiographic parameters of the coronal and sagittal planes were measured in the full-length spine x-ray. All patients were classified into two groups based on the cervical lordosis angle: cervical lordosis (CL) and cervical kyphosis (CK). HRQOL was evaluated by EQ-5D and SF-36 (PCS and MCS) questionnaires. RESULTS: CK was observed in 90 of 235 (38.3%) participants. There was a significant difference with regard to age between volunteers with CK and CL (32.23 ± 8.12 vs. 42.12 ± 6.14, p < 0.05). Several parameters had a significant relationship with CK, including TK, T1 slope, TIA, SVA, and CT. Logistic regression analysis identified age, TK, T1 slope, and SVA as independent risk factors of CK. In addition, there was a negative correlation between CK and the parameters of HRQOL (EQ-5D, - 0.63; PCS, - 0.68; MCS, - 0.59). CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of CK in normal populations is 38.3%. Some spinal parameters are related to CK. CK is associated with the HRQOL.

Identification of hub genes associated with postmenopausal osteoporosis by Gibbs sampling method.

Underlying pivotal pathways were identified to reveal potential key genes correlated with postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMOP). The pathways were enriched by Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) with genes intersection greater than 5 based on gene expression profile data, and the acquired pathways were then transformed to Markov chain (MC). Gibbs sampling was conducted to obtain a new MC. Moreover, the average probabilities of each pathway in normal and PMOP were computed via an MC Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm, and differential pathways were identified based on probabilities more than 0.7. In addition, frequencies of appearance of pathway genes were counted via MCMC and the hub genes were achieved with the probabilities of gene expression efficiencies in two states. Judging by the gene intersection more than 5, overall 280 pathways were determined. After Gibbs sampling, 2 differential pathways were obtained on the basis of probabilities more than 0.7. Moreover, the hub genes comprising TNNC1, MYL2, and TTN were achieved according to probabilities more than 0.7. The identified pathways and the three hub genes probably are useful for developing approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of PMOP in future preclinical and clinical applications.

The Predictive Potentiality of Salivary Microbiome for the Recurrence of Early Childhood Caries.

The aim of this study was to investigate the variation of the salivary microbiota in the recurrence of early childhood caries (ECC), and to explore and verify the potential microbial indicators of ECC recurrence. Saliva samples from kindergarten children were tracked every 6 months for 1 year. Finally, in total 28 children and 84 samples were placed on the analysis phase: 7 children with ECC recurrence made up the ECC-recurrence (ER) group, 6 children without ECC recurrence constituted the non-ECC-recurrence (NER) group, and 15 children who kept ECC-free were set as the ECC-free (EF) group. DNA amplicons of the V3-V4 hypervariable region of the bacterial 16S rDNA were generated and sequencing was performed using Illumina MiSeq PE250 platform. No statistically significant differences of the Shannon indices were found in both cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons. Furthermore, both principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) and heatmap plots demonstrated that the salivary microbial community structure might have potentiality to predict ECC recurrence at an early phase. The relative abundance of Fusobacterium, Prevotella, Leptotrichia, and Capnocytophaga differed significantly between the ER and NER groups at baseline. The values of area under the curve (AUC) of the four genera and their combined synthesis in the prediction for ECC recurrence were 0.857, 0.833, 0.786, 0.833, and 0.952, respectively. The relative abundance of Fusobacterium, Prevotella, Leptotrichia, and Capnocytophaga and their combination showed satisfactory accuracy in the prediction for ECC recurrence, indicating that salivary microbiome had predictive potentiality for recurrence of this disease. These findings might facilitate more effective strategy to be taken in the management of the recurrence of ECC.

Longitudinal investigation of salivary proteomic profiles in the development of early childhood caries.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate differentially expressed salivary peptides in the development of early childhood caries (ECC) in 3-4 year-old children. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eighty-two caries-free children at baseline were followed-up for 1year, during which period 15 of them had developed ECC (Group C), whilst another 15 cases out of the 31 individuals who remained healthy were marked as Group H. Stimulated whole saliva samples were collected at 0, 6 and 12 months, and analyzed using weak cation exchange magnetic beads combined with matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Corresponding peptide mass fingerprints were obtained to develop a discriminating model for ECC development. Q-Exactive mass spectrometry was then performed to identify the possible proteins where these peptides might derive from. RESULTS: Nine peptide peaks were found to be significantly different in Group C among the three sampling time points and might correlate with development of caries. Levels of three of them increased over time, whilst that of the other six decreased gradually. We chose three peptides (1346.6, 2603.5 and 3192.8Da) which exhibited the best capability of classification, to establish a model for children at high risk of caries. One peptide (1346.6Da) was identified to be salivary histatin-rich peptide. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that peptidomic methods can be applied to help identify new candidate biomarkers for the occurrence and development of ECC. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: The change of salivary peptides may be an indicator of ECC, facilitating more effective measures to be taken in prevention of this disease.

siRNA-mediated inhibition of endogenous brain­derived neurotrophic factor gene modulates the biological behavior of HeLa cells.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is expressed in a number of neural and non-neuronal tumors. The present study investigated the effect of endogenous BDNF on the biological behavior of cervix cancer cells using small interfering RNA (siRNA). HeLa, a cervix cancer cell line with high expression of BDNF, was used as a living model to screen out the effective sequences of short hairpin RNA of the BDNF gene, and the effects of RNA interference on proliferation, apoptosis, migration and invasion of these cells were evaluated. Among the 4 siRNAs examined, siRNA1 caused a 99% reduction in the relative BDNF mRNA level, while a 58% decrease in the relative BDNF protein level (p<0.01) was noted, and thus this siRNA was selected as the most efficient for use in the present study. In subsequent experiments, MTT assay revealed that BDNF silencing caused marked inhibition of HeLa cell proliferation while Hoechst 33258 staining assay demonstrated apoptosis-related changes in cell morphology. Downregulation of BDNF expression induced cell cycle arrest in the G1 phase as shown by flow cytometry. As indicated by Transwell migration and invasion assays, downregulation of BDNF expression suppressed the migratory and invasive capabilities of the HeLa cells. Together, our data revealed that BDNF modulates the proliferation, apoptosis, migratory and invasive capabilities of HeLa cells. BDNF siRNA may represent a novel therapy or drug target for preventing the tumorigenesis of cervical cancer.

The characteristics of adolescent pregnancy in Wenzhou from 2015 to 2019 / 预防医学

Objective@#To learn the characteristics of adolescent pregnancy in Wenzhou from 2015 to 2019, so as to provide basis for protecting adolescent physical and mental health. @*Methods@#Data of demographic characteristics, pregnancy and delivery outcomes of the women aged under 19 years ( adolescent pregnant ) and 20 to 34 years ( right-age pregnant ) who delivered in Wenzhou from 2015 to 2019 were collected from Wenzhou Maternal and Child Health Information Management System. The incidence of pregnancy complication, comorbidity and adverse delivery outcomes of adolescent pregnant women was compared with that of right-age pregnant women.@*Results@#Among 536 753 parturients reported in Wenzhou from 2015 to 2019, there were 22 419 ( 4.18% ) of adolescent pregnancy and 430 163 ( 80.14% ) of right-age pregnancy. The average age of adolescent pregnant women was (18.11±0.82) years ( range, 10-19 years ). The majority of adolescent pregnant women were migrant population (19 437 cases, 86.70%), had an education level of junior high school and below ( 18 594 cases, 82.94% ), and had no occupation (19 192 cases, 85.61%). The incidence rates of anemia, gestational diabetes, postpartum hemorrhage, perineal laceration and premature delivery in adolescent pregnant women increased from 2015 to 2019 ( all P<0.05 ). The incidence rates of gestational diabetes, anemia, gestational hypertension, placental abruption, postpartum hemorrhage, perineal laceration, premature delivery, low birth weight, fetal death and stillbirth were 1.65%, 11.76%, 0.19%, 0.26%, 3.19%, 24.52%, 6.03%, 5.53%, 0.50% and 0.04% in adolescent pregnant women, which were significant different from 5.49%, 8.94%, 0.13%, 0.01%, 0.17%, 23.46%, 4.66%, 3.08%, 0.26% and 0.01% in the right-age pregnant women, respectively ( all P<0.05 ). @*Conclusions@#The adolescent pregnant population in Wenzhou are mainly migrant population with lower education level and no occupation. The incidence rates of pregnancy complication, comorbidity and adverse birth outcomes in adolescent pregnant population are higher than those in right-age pregnant population, and are increasing year by year.