外泌体作为靶向治疗载体的研究进展

外泌体是来源于细胞内膜的纳米级的囊泡，包含有核酸、蛋白和脂质等生命物质，作为一种细胞间交流的机制，在生命活动中发挥着重要作用。相对于脂质体载体，外泌体更稳定，生物相容性好，免疫原性低，而且可以渗透生物屏障，例如血脑屏障、胎盘屏障等。重点介绍外泌体载体靶向性的基础、外泌体载体装载负荷的方法及外泌体载体目前的应用进展和前景。     

支持向量机法及其在中药研究中的应用

在中医药现代化进程中，有效地结合现代科学技术手段对传统中医药进行更为合理的分析是一个重要研究方向。计算机科学技术与人工智能算法在中医药研究领域已取得长足发展，尤其是分类算法所具有的快速鉴别和分析能力，使其在复杂的中医药研究体系中发挥举足轻重的作用。对支持向量机分类算法及其结合其他算法在解决中医药相关领域问题方面及成果进行综述，以相关智能算法为基础探讨中医药研究过程中的诸多难题，为推动中医药现代化进程提供支撑。     

ONRAB® oral rabies vaccine is shed from,but does not persist in,captive mammals

ONRAB® is a human adenovirus rabies glycoprotein recombinant vaccine developed to control rabies in wildlife. To support licensing and widespread use of the vaccine, safety studies are needed to assess its potential residual impact on wildlife populations. We examined the persistence of the ONRAB® vaccine virus in captive rabies vector and non-target mammals. This research complements work on important rabies vector species (raccoon, striped skunk, and red fox) but also adds to previous findings with the addition of some non-target species (Virginia opossum, Norway rats, and cotton rats) and a prolonged period of post vaccination monitoring (41 days). Animals were directly inoculated orally with the vaccine and vaccine shedding was monitored using quantitative real-time PCR applied to oral and rectal swabs. ONRAB® DNA was detected in both oral and rectal swabs from 6 h to 3 days post-inoculation in most animals, followed by a resurgence of shedding between days 17 and 34 in some species. Overall, the duration over which ONRAB® DNA was detectable was shorter for non-target mammals, and by day 41, no animal had detectable DNA in either oral or rectal swabs. All target species, as well as cotton rats and laboratory-bred Norway rats, developed robust humoral immune responses as measured by competitive ELISA, with all individuals being seropositive at day 31. Similarly, opossums showed good response (89% seropositive; 8/9), whereas only one of nine wild caught Norway rats was seropositive at day 31. These results support findings of other safety studies suggesting that ONRAB® does not persist in vector and non-target mammals exposed to the vaccine. As such, we interpret these data to reflect a low risk of adverse effects to wild populations following distribution of ONRAB® to control sylvatic rabies.     

延安地区泌尿系结石成分分析的研究

目的利用红外光谱法测定延安大学附属医院泌尿外科手术获得的泌尿系结石成分,探讨延安地区泌尿系结石成分与年龄、性别等关系,比较上、下尿路结石成分特点,分析延安地区泌尿系结石发生的流行病学情况,为临床制定有效的个体化治疗及预防措施提供参考依据。方法收集2013年1月至2017年1月在延安大学附属医院泌尿外科治疗1984例尿路结石患者的年龄、性别、结石部位等临床资料,对比分析延安地区泌尿系结石在不同年龄、不同性别、不同解剖部位的分布特点。结果在1984例泌尿系结石的患者中,按每10岁年龄大小分组排序,统计各年龄阶段泌尿系结石发病情况,男性患者有1346例,女性患者有638例,男性年龄(50.23±14.48)岁,女性年龄(47.87±14.51)岁,男、女患者比例约2.11∶1。在66~75岁年龄段,尿路结石发病率性别差异具有统计学意义(P<0.05)。结石成分以混合性结石为主,以混合性结石为主,共1582例,占79.76%。其中1665例(83.92%)为上尿路结石,上、下尿路结石的比例为5.22∶1,其余为肾结石合并膀胱结石。上尿路结石中男性1062例,女性603例,男女比例为1.76∶1;下尿路结石中男性284例,女性35例,男女比例为8.11∶1。青壮年(年龄≤45岁)泌尿系结石患者草酸钙为主结石、感染性结石多见;中老年(年龄>45岁)泌尿系结石者草酸钙为主结石、尿酸类结石多见。感染性结石患者性别差异具有统计学意义(P<0.05)。结论在延安地区男性较女性更容易患泌尿系结石。同时,不同年龄段结石构成成分具有差异。对于年龄≤45岁患者,主要以草酸钙为主结石、感染性结石多见,这与结石整体发病率基本一致;而对于年龄>45岁患者,主要以草酸钙为主结石、尿酸性结石多见。表明对于不同年龄段的结石患者,可以根据上述结果在结石的预防和治疗上综合考量,给予明确而更加合理的治疗。     

Multidimensional Ultrasound Doppler Signal Analysis for Fetal Activity Monitoring

Fetal activity parameters such as movements, heart rate and the related parameters are essential indicators of fetal wellbeing, and no device provides simultaneous access to and sufficient estimation of all of these parameters to evaluate fetal health. This work was aimed at collecting these parameters to automatically separate healthy from compromised fetuses. To achieve this goal, we first developed a multi-sensor–multi-gate Doppler system. Then we recorded multidimensional Doppler signals and estimated the fetal activity parameters via dedicated signal processing techniques. Finally, we combined these parameters into four sets of parameters (or four hyper-parameters) to determine the set of parameters that is able to separate healthy from other fetuses. To validate our system, a data set consisting of two groups of fetal signals (normal and compromised) was established and provided by physicians. From the estimated parameters, an instantaneous Manning-like score, referred to as the ultrasonic score, was calculated and was used together with movements, heart rate and the associated parameters in a classification process employing the support vector machine method. We investigated the influence of the sets of parameters and evaluated the performance of the support vector machine using the computation of sensibility, specificity, percentage of support vectors and total classification error. The sensitivity of the four sets ranged from 79% to 100%. Specificity was 100% for all sets. The total classification error ranged from 0% to 20%. The percentage of support vectors ranged from 33% to 49%. Overall, the best results were obtained with the set of parameters consisting of fetal movement, short-term variability, long-term variability, deceleration and ultrasound score. The sensitivity, specificity, percentage of support vectors and total classification error of this set were respectively 100%, 100%, 35% and 0%. This indicated our ability to separate the data into two sets (normal fetuses and pathologic fetuses), and the results highlight the excellent match with the clinical classification performed by the physicians. This work indicates the feasibility of detecting compromised fetuses and also represents an interesting method of close fetal monitoring during the entire pregnancy.     

Reduced regional homogeneity and neurocognitive impairment in patients with moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea

BackgroundNeurocognitive dysfunction and abnormal regional homogeneity (ReHo) have been reported in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). However, little is known about whether brain functional alteration could be used to differentiate from healthy controls (HCs) and its correlation with neurocognitive impairment.MethodsThirty-three treatment-naive patients with moderate-to-severe OSA and 22 HCs with matched age, sex and education underwent the evaluation of Epworth sleepiness scale, neurocognitive function, full night polysomnography and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. ReHo, support vector machine, and correlation with neurocognitive function were administrated to analyze the data.ResultsCompared with HCs, patients with OSA showed decreased ReHo in the bilateral superior frontal gyrus (FG), bilateral superior medial prefrontal cortex (PFC)/right supplementary motor area (SMA), left middle FG, and right precentral/postcentral gyrus. Negative correlations were observed between the ReHo values in the left superior FG/middle FG and apnea hypopnea index, oxygen desaturation index in the OSA group. The scores of Stroop word test, Stroop color-word test, symbol coding test were all negatively correlated with the ReHo values in the right precentral gyrus/postcentral gyrus in patients. Scores of the animal naming fluency test were positively correlated with the ReHo values in the left superior FG/middle FG in patients. Moreover, support vector machine analysis showed the ReHo values in the left superior FG/middle FG or bilateral superior medial PFC/right SMA both could discriminate patients from HCs with good accuracies, sensitivities, and specificities (85.45%, 87.88%, 81.82% and 81.82%, 84.85%, 77.27%, respectively).ConclusionDysfunction in the frontal lobe is a potentially pivotal neuro-pathophysiological mechanism of neurocognitive impairment in patients with moderate-to-severe OSA. And significantly lower ReHo values in the left superior FG/middle FG and/or superior medial PFC/SMA are promising imaging biomarkers to discriminate moderate-to-severe patients with OSA from HCs.