This study aimed to explore the prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) among patients in Guangzhou city, South China, and to identify susceptible patient populations and analyze the causes of ...infection differences.
From May 2020 to May 2022, a total of 637 sera were collected from patients, and 205 sera were collected from health participants as health control. All sera were examined by colloidal gold kits to detect the positivity of antibodies against T. gondii. And the positivity of antibodies in sera was confirmed with ARCHITECT i2000SR system.
The prevalence of T. gondii infection in patients was 7.06% (45/637), which was lower than the prevalence in health participants 4.88% (10/205). Among patients, 34 (5.34%) were positive only for IgG, 10 (1.57%) were only for IgM, and 1 (0.16%) was positive for both IgG and IgM. There was a significant difference in prevalence between male and female patients, but not among different age groups or diseases groups. The prevalence of T. gondii infection in diseases groups varied. The prevalence was relatively high in patients with the disorders of thyroid gland and the malignant neoplasms of digestive organs, which suggests that caution should be taken to avoid T. gondii infection in these patients. Surprisingly, the prevalence was quite low in diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (DLBC) patients. This may be due to the overexpression of TNF-α in tumor tissues of DLBC patients and the higher protein level of TNF-α in sera of DLBC patients.
This study provides a systematic exploration of the prevalence of T. gondii infection in patients in a tertiary hospital. Our data contributes to a better understanding of the epidemic investigation of T. gondii among patients in South China, which can help the prevention and treatment of the disease caused by T. gondii infection.
Adenylate kinase 2 (AK2) is a phosphotransferase that catalyzes the reversible reaction 2ADP(GDP) ↔ ATP(GTP) + AMP and influences cellular energy homeostasis. However, the role of AK2 in regulating ...cell proliferation remains unclear because AK2 has been reported to be involved in either cell proliferation or cell apoptosis in different cell types of various organisms.
This study reports AK2 promotion of cell proliferation using the lepidopteran insect Helicoverpa armigera and its epidermal cell line HaEpi as models. Western blot analysis indicates that AK2 constitutively expresses in various tissues during larval development. Immunocytochemistry analysis indicates that AK2 localizes in the mitochondria. The recombinant expressed AK2 in E. coli promotes cell growth and viability of HaEpi cell line by 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. AK2 knockdown in larvae by RNA interference causes larval growth defects, including body weight decrease and development delay. AK2 knockdown in larvae also decreases the number of circulating haemocytes. The mechanism for such effects might be the suppression of gene transcription involved in insect development caused by AK2 knockdown.
These results show that AK2 regulates cell growth, viability, and proliferation in insect growth and development.
To investigate distribution and drug resistance of pathogens of bloodstream infection in patients with hematological malignancies, in order to provide reference for clinical infection control and ...treatment.
The clinical information of blood culture patients in the hematology department of our hospital from January 2016 to December 2021 was reviewed. They were divided into transplantation group and non-transplantation group according to whether they had undergone hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The types of pathogens and their drug resistance were analyzed.
Two hundred and ninety-nine positive strains of pathogenic bacteria were detected. In the transplantation group, Gram-negative bacteria accounted for 68.5% (50/73), Gram-positive bacteria accounted for 6.8% (5/73), and fungi accounted for 24.7% (18/73). The resistance rate of
to the third-generation cephalosporins was 77.8%, and 11.5% to carbapenems. The resistance rate of
to the third-generation cephalosporins was 50.0%, and 56.2% to carbapenems.
Synthesis, conformational analysis, and host-guest chemistry of a conformationally adaptive macrocycle with ester linkers was investigated.
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•A new conformationally adaptive macrocycle ...is designed and synthesized.•The host exhibits five distinct conformations with significant energy barriers between these conformations.•It displays moderate binding affinities towards organic cationic guests.
Ester tub4arene, a conformationally adaptive macrocycle with interconvertible cavities, has been synthesized and characterized. Its conformational complexity was analyzed, and its binding ability to organic cations was studied by 1H NMR spectroscopy and UV–vis spectroscopy. The conformational conversion of the host can be achieved by binding a suitable guest. The binding performance of such adaptable receptors may have significant implications for the molecular recognition processes occurring in natural settings.
Innate immunity is the first line of defense by a host against invading pathogens. Several signaling pathways participate in the immune response, one of which is the Janus kinase (JAK)/signal ...transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) pathway. Various evidences have been provided to suggest that the JAK/STAT pathway is involved in both antibacterial and antiviral immunities. In this study, the full-length cDNA and gene sequence of
STAT
(designated as
FcSTAT
) was cloned from the Chinese white shrimp,
Fenneropenaeus chinensis
. Phylogenetic analysis reveals that the FcSTAT is clustered with STAT5s and STAT6s from vertebrates and STATs from invertebrates. Quantitative real-time PCR exhibited that the
FcSTAT
had a wide distribution in all detected tissues and developmental stages. Time course analysis of the transcription level after WSSV challenge showed a noticeably early up-regulation of
FcSTAT
in hemocytes, hepatopancreas, and intestines. The expression levels of
FcSTAT
increased corresponding to
Vibrio anguillarum
stimulation in both hemocytes and hepatopancreas as well. All these imply that the JAK/STAT pathway participates in the immune response against bacteria and virus in
F. chinensis
.
To explore the etiological factors of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BP-PV).
The clinical data of 145 patients with BPPV were retrospectively reviewed. The impacts of gender and age on BPPV ...were analyzed. The relationship between the onset of BPPV and the internal ear ischemia was also explored.
The abnormality rate of auditory brainstem response (ABR) under high stimulus rate was 59.3% (86/145) in all the patients with, including 22.1% (32/145) in male and 37.2% (54/ 145) in female (P > 0.05). The abnormality rate of ABR under high stimulus rate were 37.9% (55/145) and 21.4% (31/145) in middle-aged (30-55 years) and old ( > 55 years) patients, respectively (P > 0.05).
The onset of BPPV may relate to ischemic internal ear but is not relevant with gender and age.
This paper reports a severe case of
infection during routine sputum smear examinations, due to cough and shortness of breath, so as to improve clinicians' awareness of strongyloidiasis to avoid and ...reduce misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis.
To develop 22 Chinese Mandarin monosyllable lists with good psychometrical equivalence. This study was to evaluate the test-retest reliability of these lists when it was used in speech recognition ...test in normal hearing dialectal speakers.
Seven cities including Dalian, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Fuzhou and Xiamen were selected as testing centers which contain 6 typical Chinese dialectal regions including north of China, East of China, north of Fujian, south of Fujian, Guangdong and mid-south of China. At each center, 22 local normal hearing people were selected to join this study. Every participant was tested by each recognition test of all 22 lists twice in two sessions and same test order respectively. The second run of testing was carried out within 10 days-1 month since first run of testing.
There was a significant correlations between scores obtained at the two sessions (r = 0.682, P < 0.01). Paired student-t test had shown that a gross score of all dialectal participants was significantly hi
AIM To investigate the role of nuclear division cycle(NDC)80in human hepatocellular carcinogenesis.METHODS NDC80 gene expression was analyzed by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain ...reaction in 47paired hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)and adjacent tissues.The HCC cell line SMMC-7721 was transfected with lentivirus to silence endogenous NDC80 gene expression,which was confirmed by real-time polymerase chain reaction and western blotting.The effects of NDC80silencing on SMMC-7721 cell proliferation were evaluated by Cellomics Array Scan VTI imaging.Cell cycle analysis and apoptosis were detected with flow cytometry.Colony formation was assessed by fluorescence microscopy.RESULTS NDC80 expression levels in HCC tissues were significantly higher than those in the adjacent tissues.Functional studies demonstrated that NDC80 silencing significantly reduced SMMC-7721 cell proliferation and colony formation.Knockdown of NDC80 resulted in increased apoptosis and cell cycle arrest at S-phase.NDC80 contributed to HCC progression by reducing apoptosis and overcoming cell cycle arrest. CONCLUSION Elevated expression of NDC80 may play a role in promoting the development of HCC.
Let G be the complexification of the real Lie algebra so(3) and A = Ct1^±1, t2^±1 be the Lau-ent polynomial algebra with commuting variables. Let L:(t1, t2, 1) = G c .A be the twisted multi-loop Lie ...algebra. Recently we have studied the universal central extension, derivations and its vertex operator representations. In the present paper we study the automorphism group and bosonic representations ofL(t1, t2, 1).