Xueli Bai

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Epigenetic reprogramming and escape from terminal differentiation are poorly understood enabling characteristics of liver cancer. Keratin 19 (KRT19), classically known to form the intermediate filament cytoskeleton, is a marker of stemness and worse prognosis in liver cancer. This study aimed to address the functional roles of KRT19 in liver tumorigenesis and to elucidate the underlying mechanisms. APPROACH AND RESULTS: Using multiplexed genome editing of hepatocytes in vivo, we demonstrated that KRT19 promoted liver tumorigenesis in mice...

BACKGROUND: Fungal bloodstream infection (fBSI) following pediatric liver transplantation present a significant challenge; however, there remains a paucity of guidance regarding antifungal prophylaxis in this population. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of universal antifungal prophylaxis and propose a desirable strategy. METHODS: We enrolled 604 pediatric patients who underwent liver transplantation between 2020 and 2023, including 242 patients with empirical prophylaxis and 362 patients with universal prophylaxis...

Emerging evidence has implicated an important role of synapse-associated protein-97 (SAP97)-regulated GluA1-containing AMPARs membrane trafficking in cocaine restate and in contextual episodic memory of schizophrenia. Herein, we investigated the role of SAP97 in neuropathic pain following lumbar 5 spinal nerve transection (SNT) in rats. Our results showed that SNT led to upregulation of SAP97, enhanced the interaction between SAP97 and GluA1, and increased GluA1-containing AMPARs membrane trafficking in the dorsal horn...

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis(TB) remains a pressing public health challenge, with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) emerging as a major threat. And healthcare authorities require reliable epidemiological evidence as a crucial reference to address this issue effectively. The aim was to offer a comprehensive epidemiological assessment of the global prevalence and burden of MDR-TB from 1990 to 2019. METHODS: Estimates and 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) for the age-standardized prevalence rate (ASPR), age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR), age-standardized disability-adjusted life years rate (ASR of DALYs), and age-standardized death rate (ASDR) of MDR-TB were obtained from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2019 database...

BACKGROUND: Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a disease characterized by chronic relapsing-remitting inflammatory disorders and is associated with environmental changes. AIM: To explore the disease patterns of Chinese UC patients and to determine controllable related environmental factors. METHODS: This multicentre cross-sectional study was performed using a questionnaire survey. Data on clinical characteristics and environmental factors were collected...

BACKGROUND: Increasing evidence have elucidated that PBX3 played a crucial role in cancer initiation and progression. PBX3 was differentially expressed in many cancer types. However, PBX3 potential involvement in gliomas remains to be explored. METHODS: The expression level of PBX3 in glioma tissues and glioma cells, and its correlation with clinical features were analyzed by data from TCGA, GEPIA, CGGA and CCLE. Univariable survival and Multivariate Cox analysis was used to compare several clinical characteristics with survival...

Segmentation of pancreatic tumors on CT images is essential for the diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer. However, low contrast between the pancreas and the tumor, as well as variable tumor shape and position, makes segmentation challenging. To solve the problem, we propose a Position Prior Attention Network (PPANet) with a pseudo segmentation generation module (PSGM) and a position prior attention module (PPAM). PSGM and PPAM maps pancreatic and tumor pseudo segmentation to latent space to generate position prior attention map and supervises location classification...

Lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs), which are characterized by genetic and metabolic lysosomal dysfunctions, constitute over 60 degenerative diseases with considerable health and economic burdens. However, the mechanisms driving the progressive death of functional cells due to lysosomal defects remain incompletely understood, and broad-spectrum therapeutics against LSDs are lacking. Here, we found that various gene abnormalities that cause LSDs, including Hexb, Gla, Npc1, Ctsd and Gba, all shared mutual properties to robustly autoactivate neuron-intrinsic cGAS-STING signalling, driving neuronal death and disease progression...

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study is to describe the current situation and forecast the trends of co-infection between the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and drug-susceptible tuberculosis (DS-TB) in different countries, across various age groups and genders. METHODS: We obtained data on the number of cases, age-standardized incidence rate, age-standardized prevalence rate, age-standardized rate of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), and age-standardized death rate from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2019 database...

Accurate diagnosis and staging are crucial for selecting treatment for patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). The desmoplastic responses associated with PDAC are often characterized by hypometabolism. Here, we investigated 18 F-fibroblast activation protein inhibitor (FAPI)-04 PET/CT in evaluation of PDAC and compared the findings with those obtained using 18 F-FDG. Methods: Sixty-two PDAC patients underwent 18 F-FAPI-04 PET/CT and 18 F-FDG PET/CT. Identification of primary lesions, lymph node (LN) metastasis, and distant metastasis (DM) by these methods was evaluated, and TNM staging was performed...

Accumulating evidence suggests that cancer-associated fibroblast (CAF) macroautophagy/autophagy is crucial in tumor development and may be a therapeutic target for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). However, the role of CAF autophagy during immune surveillance and cancer immunotherapy is unclear. The present study revealed that the inhibition of CAF autophagy suppresses in vivo tumor development in immune-deficient xenografts. This deletion compromises anti-tumor immunity and anti-tumor efficacy both in vitro and in vivo by upregulating CD274/PDL1 levels in an immune-competent mouse model...

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Studies have shown that the cardio/cerebrovascular toxicity of ambient PM2.5 is related to its bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Currently, only a few studies have reported the relationship between PM2.5 -bound PAHs and promoted blood coagulation and thrombosis, but there isn't a consistent conclusion. Therefore, we conducted a prospective panel study to investigate the association. Thirty-three young healthy adults participated in sixteen repeated visits from 2014 to 2018 in Tianjin, China. During each visit, three pro-thrombotic biomarkers: ADAMTS13 (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motif 13), D-dimer and Myeloperoxidase (MPO) were measured...

Systemic treatment is a main way for pancreas cancer patients that are ineligible for surgery. A subgroup of patients showed good response to systemic treatment and the rest received limited benefits. CT images provide a non-invasive way to assess the treatment response. Alternative non-image methods include radiology analysis, tumor marker analysis and combination analysis. To combine the image and non-image data, we propose the Siamese Delta Network with Multimodality Fusion (SDN-MF) to predict systemic treatment response in an end-to-end way...

Ultrasound and ultraviolet light have good inactivation performance against pathogens in sewage. In this study, the inactivation mechanisms of 60 kHz ultrasound and ultraviolet radiation against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) were studied from the perspectives of cell phenotype and transcriptome for the first time. The results showed that both ultrasound and ultraviolet treatments had adverse impacts on the cellular morphology of S. aureus to varying degrees at cellular level. The transcriptomic analysis revealed that there were 225 and 1077 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the ultrasound and ultraviolet treatments, respectively...

OBJECTIVE: Several clinical studies have shown an association between polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and asthma; however, the molecular link between these conditions remains unclear. In this study, we conducted a reanalysis and repurposing of existing databases in order to depict the common key genes, related signaling pathways, and similarity of the immune microenvironment between PCOS and asthma. METHODS: PCOS and asthma data sets were downloaded, and common signal pathways were identified by using gene set enrichment analysis...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most prevalent subtypes of primary liver cancer, with high mortality and poor prognosis. Immunotherapy has revolutionized treatment strategies for many cancers. However, only a subset of patients with HCC achieve satisfactory benefits from immunotherapy. Therefore, a reliable biomarker that could predict the prognosis and immunotherapy response in patients with HCC is urgently needed. Taurine plays an important role in many physiological processes. However, its participation in the occurrence and progression of liver cancer and regulation of the composition and function of various components of the immune microenvironment remains elusive...

Glucose metabolism is essential for the activation, differentiation and function of T cells and proper glucose metabolism is required to maintain effective T cell immunity. Dysregulation of glucose metabolism is a hallmark of cancer, and the tumour microenvironment (TME2 ) can create metabolic barriers in T cells that inhibit their anti-tumour immune function. Targeting glucose metabolism is a promising approach to improve the capacity of T cells in the TME. The efficacy of common immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs3 ) and adoptive cell transfer (ACT4 ), can be limited by T-cell function, and the treatment itself can affect T-cell metabolism...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the underlying regulatory effects of methionine enkephalin (MENK) on osteosarcoma. METHODS: The Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, clone formation, wound healing, transwell assay, and flow cytometry were performed to measure the effects of MENK on the proliferation, migration, invasion, and apoptosis of MG-63 and Saos-2 cells. Opiate growth factor receptor expression (OGFr) in cells was stably knocked down using siRNA. A tumor model was established by inoculating MG-63 cells into mice...

AIMS: To designed a new model using pre-transplant data to predict post-transplant mortality for Chinese population and compared its performance to that of existing models. METHODS: In this multicenter study, 544 recipients of liver transplants for non-tumor indications were enrolled in the training group and 276 patients in the validation group. The new Simplified Mortality Prediction Scores (SMOPS) model was compared to the MELD and four existing models using the C-statistic...