This study investigated the antimicrobial resistance of isolates from patients with refractory Helicobacter pylori. The resistance rate was 34.1% for amoxicillin, 92.7% for clarithromycin, 65.9% for ...metronidazole, 85.4% for levofloxacin, and 29.3% for rifabutin. Dual resistance to both clarithromycin and levofloxacin was found in 73.2%. The antimicrobial resistance rate of refractory H. pylori was extremely high, which had become a major consideration in therapeutic challenge.
With the aging population, the number of older patients with multiple injuries is increasing. The aim of this study was to understand the patterns and outcomes of older patients admitted to a major ...trauma centre in Hong Kong from 2006 to 2015, and investigate the performance of the trauma team activation (TTA) criteria for these elderly patients.
This was a retrospective cohort study from a university hospital major trauma centre in Hong Kong from 2006 to 2015. Patients aged 55 or above who entered the trauma registry were included. Patients were divided into those aged 55–70, and above 70. To test the performance of the TTA criteria, we defined injured patients with severe outcomes as those having any of the following: death within 30 days; the need for surgery; or the need for intensive care unit (ICU) care.
2218 patients were included over the 10 year period. The 30-day mortality was 7.5% for aged 55–70 and 17.7% for those aged above 70. The sensitivity of TTA criteria for identifying severe outcomes for those aged 55 or above was 35.6%, with 91.6% specificity. The under-triage rate was 59% for age 55–70, and 69.1% for those aged above 70.
There is a need to consider alternative TTA criteria for our geriatric trauma population, and to more clearly define the process and standards of care in Hong Kong.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNAs involved in post-trascriptional regulation of gene expression and diverse biological activities. They are crucial for self-renewal and behavior of ...embryonic stem cells, but their role in mesenchymal stem cells has been poorly understood. Recently emerging evidence suggests that miRNAs are closely involved in controlling key steps of mesenchymal stem cell differentiation into certain cell lineages. This review focuses on miRNAs identified recently that regulate mesenchymal stem cell differentiation and other activities.
Natural wood is a widely used structural building material because of its light weight and high strength, yet it is limited by the ignitability. Traditional top-down strategies can delay the burning ...time of wood-derived materials but hardly reach incombustible performance. Here, we develop a bottom-up external force-induced assembly strategy to fabricate nonburning nacre-mimetic structural materials based on the shear-thinning behavior of cellulose nanofibers, the main component of wood. The highly ordered brick-and-mortar structure endows the structural material with excellent comprehensive mechanical properties and oxygen insulation, giving it better specific flexural strength 143 MPa/(Mg m−3) and limit oxygen index (100%) than various natural woods. Furthermore, the house model, made of bioinspired structural materials, does not burn or collapse even in a butane blowtorch flame (more than 1100 °C), demonstrating its great potential as a sustainable, lightweight, strong, and safe structural building material.
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Characteristics of the tumour that affect and predict the survival outcome of patients with cancer are prognostic markers for cancer. In non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), stage is the main ...determinant of prognosis and the basis for deciding options for treatment. Patients with early-stage tumour are treated by complete surgical resection, which is curative in 40–70% of patients. That there are other factors important in determining the biology of these tumours, especially genes that have a role in metastasis, is indicated. Such factors could potentially be used to further classify patients into groups according to substages that may be treated differently. During the past decade, a large number of proteins that are putatively important in carcinogenesis and cancer biology have been studied for their prognostic value in NSCLC, but none of them have been proved to be sufficiently useful in clinical diagnosis. Several markers (epidermal growth factor receptor, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, Ki-67, p53 and Bcl-2) have been studied exhaustively. Ki-67, p53 and Bcl-2 are suggested to be important but weak prognostic markers, by meta-analyses of the results. Cyclin E, vascular endothelial growth factor A, p16INK4A, p27kip1 and β-catenin are promising candidates, but require further study in large randomised clinical trial samples by using standardised assays and scoring systems. Some issues and inconsistencies in the reported studies to date are highlighted and discussed. A guideline for a multi-phase approach for conducting future studies on prognostic immunohistochemistry markers is proposed here.
Vascular inflammation is well known for its ability to compromise the function of the blood–brain barrier (BBB). Whether inflammation on the parenchymal side of the barrier, such as that associated ...with Parkinson's‐like dopamine (DA) neuron lesions, similarly disrupts BBB function, is unknown. We assessed BBB integrity by examining the leakage of FITC‐labeled albumin or horseradish peroxidase from the vasculature into parenchyma in animals exposed to the DA neurotoxin 6‐hydroxydopamine (6OHDA). Unilateral injections of 6OHDA into the striatum or the medial forebrain bundle produced increased leakage in the ipsilateral substantia nigra and striatum 10 and 34 days following 6OHDA. Microglia were markedly activated and DA neurons were reduced by the lesions. The areas of BBB leakage were associated with increased expression of P‐glycoprotein and β3‐integrin expression suggesting, respectively, a compensatory response to inflammation and possible angiogenesis. Behavioural studies revealed that domperidone, a DA antagonist that normally does not cross the BBB, attenuated apomorphine‐induced stereotypic behaviour in animals with 6OHDA lesions. This suggests that drugs which normally have no effect in brain can enter following Parkinson‐like lesions. These data suggest that the events associated with DA neuron loss compromise BBB function.
Mutations of WD repeat domain 62 (WDR62) lead to autosomal recessive primary microcephaly (MCPH), and down-regulation of WDR62 expression causes the loss of neural progenitor cells (NPCs). However, ...how WDR62 is regulated and hence controls neurogenesis and brain size remains elusive. Here, we demonstrate that mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 3 (MEKK3) forms a complex with WDR62 to promote c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling synergistically in the control of neurogenesis. The deletion of Mekk3, Wdr62, or Jnk1 resulted in phenocopied defects, including premature NPC differentiation. We further showed that WDR62 protein is positively regulated by MEKK3 and JNK1 in the developing brain and that the defects of wdr62 deficiency can be rescued by the transgenic expression of JNK1. Meanwhile, WDR62 is also negatively regulated by T1053 phosphorylation, leading to the recruitment of F-box and WD repeat domain-containing protein 7 (FBW7) and proteasomal degradation. Our findings demonstrate that the coordinated reciprocal and bidirectional regulation among MEKK3, FBW7, WDR62, and JNK1, is required for fine-tuned JNK signaling for the control of balanced NPC self-renewal and differentiation during cortical development.
The disappearance of reactor
ν
¯
e
observed by the Daya Bay experiment is examined in the framework of a model in which the neutrino is described by a wave packet with a relative intrinsic momentum ...dispersion
σ
rel
. Three pairs of nuclear reactors and eight antineutrino detectors, each with good energy resolution, distributed among three experimental halls, supply a high-statistics sample of
ν
¯
e
acquired at nine different baselines. This provides a unique platform to test the effects which arise from the wave packet treatment of neutrino oscillation. The modified survival probability formula was used to fit Daya Bay data, providing the first experimental limits:
2.38
×
10
-
17
<
σ
rel
<
0.23
. Treating the dimensions of the reactor cores and detectors as constraints, the limits are improved:
10
-
14
≲
σ
rel
<
0.23
, and an upper limit of
σ
rel
<
0.20
(which corresponds to
σ
x
≳
10
-
11
cm
) is obtained. All limits correspond to a 95% C.L. Furthermore, the effect due to the wave packet nature of neutrino oscillation is found to be insignificant for reactor antineutrinos detected by the Daya Bay experiment thus ensuring an unbiased measurement of the oscillation parameters
sin
2
2
θ
13
and
Δ
m
32
2
within the plane wave model.
Abstract
Background
The Taiwan Human Disease iPSC Service Consortium was established to accelerate Taiwan’s growing stem cell research initiatives and provide a platform for researchers interested in ...utilizing induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology. The consortium has generated and characterized 83 iPSC lines: 11 normal and 72 disease iPSC lines covering 21 different diseases, several of which are of high incidence in Taiwan. Whether there are any reprogramming-induced recurrent copy number variant (CNV) hotspots in iPSCs is still largely unknown.
Methods
We performed genome-wide copy number variant screening of 83 Han Taiwanese iPSC lines and compared them with 1093 control subjects using an Affymetrix genome-wide human SNP array.
Results
In the iPSCs, we identified ten specific CNV loci and seven “polymorphic” CNV regions that are associated with the reprogramming process. Additionally, we established several differentiation protocols for our iPSC lines. We demonstrated that our iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes respond to pharmacological agents and were successfully engrafted into the mouse myocardium demonstrating their potential application in cell therapy.
Conclusions
The CNV hotspots induced by cell reprogramming have successfully been identified in the current study. This finding may be used as a reference index for evaluating iPSC quality for future clinical applications. Our aim was to establish a national iPSC resource center generating iPSCs, made available to researchers, to benefit the stem cell community in Taiwan and throughout the world.
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