A rare case of monozygotic triplets with Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Twins with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) have been widely studied. We report the first rare case of monozygotic triplets with DMD who shared consistent phenotypes, including delayed motor and language milestones, muscle wasting and weakness, joint contracture, and lumbar lordosis. Muscle magnetic resonance imaging and biopsy revealed the similar muscle injury characteristics and dystrophin absence. Short tandem repeat analysis confirmed monozygosity. A de novo mutation (exon 49–52 deletion) was found in the triplets but not in their mother. Treatment included prednisone, idebenone, and rehabilitation management. At the 2-year follow-up, motor function had deteriorated, and muscle fatty infiltration was more extensive and severe. Our case offers a unique opportunity for genetic and therapeutic research. Furthermore, it highlights the critical role of genetic factors in DMD phenotypes and provides a potential choice for treatment observations.     

Circulating CCL20: A potential biomarker for active vitiligo together with the number of Th1/17 cells

Background

Vitiligo is an autoimmune disease with varying pathological features. Activation of the CCL20-CCR6 axis plays an important role in chronic inflammatory diseases. However, whether CCL20-CCR6 and Th1/17 cells are indicative of active vitiligo is unclear.

载三氧化二砷脑胶质瘤靶向纳米递药系统i RGD/TGN-PEG-PAMAM/ATO的构建及体外研究

目的以树状大分子为载体材料并修饰血脑屏障(blood brain barrier,BBB)靶向短肽TGN和肿瘤靶向短肽i RGD构建脑胶质瘤靶向递药系统(i RGD/TGN-PEG-PAMAM/ATO),旨在解决三氧化二砷(arsenictrioxide,As2O3,ATO)在治疗脑胶质瘤过程中分布缺乏特异性、透BBB难等问题,使其具有更好抗脑胶质瘤作用。方法核磁共振图谱(1H-NMR)、透射电子显微镜(TEM)等考察载体的理化性质;电感耦合等离子发射光谱(ICP)、透析袋法分析其包封率及体外释放情况;通过激光共聚焦及流式细胞仪分析i RGD、TGN对细胞摄取的影响;MTT法考察纳米载体对脑微血管内皮细胞(HBMEC)和脑胶质瘤U87细胞的毒性及BBB模型中递药系统抑制U87细胞生长的情况。结果成功合成了i RGD/TGN-PEG-PAMAM载体,其形态规整,大小均匀,测得其粒径(24.87±0.84)nm,电位(17.26±1.64)m V;该载体对HBMEC和U87细胞均具有较小的毒性;递药系统i RGD/TGN-PEG-PAMAM/ATO的包封率为(71.92±1.17)%,体外释放表明ATO经载体包载后呈现一种缓慢释放趋势,且在酸性条件下更有利于ATO的释放;细胞摄取结果提示iRGD/TGN的修饰有利于U87细胞对递药系统的摄取;体外跨BBB抑制U87细胞生长实验结果表明,i RGD/TGN-PEG-PAMAM/ATO组具有更好的跨BBB抑制U87细胞生长效果。结论 i RGD/TGN-PEG-PAMAM/ATO脑胶质瘤靶向递药系统具有较好的体外跨BBB抑制U87细胞生长的效果,为脑胶质瘤治疗提供了新的策略。     

Protective mechanism of Wnt4 gene on Parkinson’s disease (PD) transgenic Drosophila

Objective: The main pathological change of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is progressive degeneration and necrosis of dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain, forming a Lewy body in many of the remaining neurons. Studies have found that in transgenic Drosophila, mutations in the PTEN-inducible kinase 1 (PINK1) gene may cause indirect flight muscle defects in Drosophila, and mitochondrial structural dysfunction as well.

Methods: In this study, Wnt4 gene overexpression and knockdown were performed in PINK1 mutant PD transgenic Drosophila, and the protective effect of Wnt4 gene on PD transgenic Drosophila and its possible mechanism were explored. The Wnt4 gene was screened in the previous experiment; And by using the PD transgenic Drosophila model of the MHC-Gal4/UAS system, the PINK1 gene could be specifically activated in the Drosophila muscle tissue.

Results: In PINK1 mutation transgenic fruit flies, the Wnt4 gene to study its implication on PD transgenic fruit flies’ wing normality and flight ability. We found that overexpression of Wnt4 gene significantly reduced abnormality rate of PD transgenic Drosophila and improved its flight ability, and then, increased ATP concentration, enhanced mitochondrial membrane potential and normalized mitochondrial morphology were found. All of these findings suggested Wnt4 gene may have a protective effect on PD transgenic fruit flies. Furthermore, in Wnt4 gene overexpression PD transgenic Drosophila, down-regulation autophagy and apoptosis-related proteins Ref(2)P, Pro-Caspase3, and up-regulation of Beclin1, Atg8a, Bcl2 protein were confirmed by Western Blotting.

Conclusion: The results imply that the restoring of mitochondrial function though Wnt4 gene overexpression in the PINK1 mutant transgenic Drosophila may be related to autophagy and/or apoptosis.     

龙葵当归三棱汤治疗卵巢癌临床疗效及对免疫指标及炎性因子的影响

目的探讨龙葵当归三棱汤对卵巢癌患者的临床疗效及免疫指标及炎性因子的影响。方法选取2016年11月-2018年12月60例卵巢癌患者进行研究,随机分为试验组和对照组各30例,对照组采用单纯紫杉醇加顺铂化疗治疗,试验组在对照组的基础上进行龙葵当归三棱汤治疗,比较两组患者的总有效率、血清肿瘤标志物水平[CA125、癌胚抗原(CEA)]变化、以及Th1、Th2、Th1/Th2、调节性T淋巴细胞(Treg)及炎症因子[白细胞介素-2(IL-2)、白细胞介素-6(IL-6)、白细胞介素-10(IL-10)]及干扰素(INF-γ)和不良反应。结果试验组的总有效率90.0%(27/30)明显高于对照组76.7%(23/30),差异具有统计学意义(P<0.05);试验组CA125、CEA、IL-2、IL-6、INF-γ均明显低于对照组,IL-10明显高于对照组,差异具有统计学意义(P<0.05);试验组的Th1、Th1/Th2均明显高于对照组(P<0.05),试验组的Th2、Treg明显低于对照组(P<0.05);试验组的不良反应率6.7%(2/30)明显低于对照组33.3%(10/30)(P<0.05)。结论龙葵当归三棱汤可以有效的改善卵巢癌的临床疗效,提高患者的免疫力,降低炎性反应和化疗的不良反应。     

Analysis of Stroke Detection during the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Natural Language Processing of Radiology Reports

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to decreases in neuroimaging volume. Our aim was to quantify the change in acute or subacute ischemic strokes detected on CT or MR imaging during the pandemic using natural language processing of radiology reports.MATERIALS AND METHODS:We retrospectively analyzed 32,555 radiology reports from brain CTs and MRIs from a comprehensive stroke center, performed from March 1 to April 30 each year from 2017 to 2020, involving 20,414 unique patients. To detect acute or subacute ischemic stroke in free-text reports, we trained a random forest natural language processing classifier using 1987 randomly sampled radiology reports with manual annotation. Natural language processing classifier generalizability was evaluated using 1974 imaging reports from an external dataset.RESULTS:The natural language processing classifier achieved a 5-fold cross-validation classification accuracy of 0.97 and an F1 score of 0.74, with a slight underestimation (−5%) of actual numbers of acute or subacute ischemic strokes in cross-validation. Importantly, cross-validation performance stratified by year was similar. Applying the classifier to the complete study cohort, we found an estimated 24% decrease in patients with acute or subacute ischemic strokes reported on CT or MR imaging from March to April 2020 compared with the average from those months in 2017–2019. Among patients with stroke-related order indications, the estimated proportion who underwent neuroimaging with acute or subacute ischemic stroke detection significantly increased from 16% during 2017–2019 to 21% in 2020 (P = .01). The natural language processing classifier performed worse on external data.CONCLUSIONS:Acute or subacute ischemic stroke cases detected by neuroimaging decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, though a higher proportion of studies ordered for stroke were positive for acute or subacute ischemic strokes. Natural language processing approaches can help automatically track acute or subacute ischemic stroke numbers for epidemiologic studies, though local classifier training is important due to radiologist reporting style differences.

There is much concern regarding the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the quality of stroke care, including issues with hospital capacity, clinical resource re-allocation, and the safety of patients and clinicians.^1,2 Previous reports have shown that there have been substantial decreases in stroke neuroimaging volume during the pandemic.^3,4 In addition, acute ischemic infarcts have been found on neuroimaging studies in many hospitalized patients with COVID-19, though the causal relationship is unclear.^5,6 Studies like these and other epidemiologic analyses usually rely on the creation of manually curated databases, in which identification of cases can be time-consuming and difficult to update in real-time. One way to facilitate such research is to use natural language processing (NLP), which has shown utility for automated analysis of radiology report data.⁷ NLP algorithms have been developed previously for the classification of neuroradiology reports for the presence of ischemic stroke findings and acute ischemic stroke subtypes.^8,9 Thus, NLP has the potential to facilitate COVID-19 research.In this study, we developed an NLP machine learning model that classifies radiology reports for the presence or absence of acute or subacute ischemic stroke (ASIS), as opposed to chronic stroke. We used this model to quantify the change in ASIS detected on all CT or MR imaging studies performed at a large comprehensive stroke center during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We also evaluated NLP model generalizability and different training strategies using a sample of radiology reports from a second stroke center.     

A small molecule LS-1-2F promotes the endocytosis of macromolecules into tumor cells

In the previous research, we found that anticancer agent LS-1-2F could cause the vacuolation of tumor cells. Herein we investigated the effect of compound LS-1-2F on the endocytosis of macromolecules, including fluorescence quantum dots, human serum albumin, single-stranded RNA, and monoclonal antibody, into tumor cells. We found that LS-1-2F could accelerate the endocytosis of these large molecules by laser confocal microscope and flow cytometry. The effect of LS-1-2F on the improvement of the internalization efficiency of Herceptin biosimilar was particularly significant. Promoting endocytosis will help increase the efficiency of liquid-phase drug uptake in drug-resistant cancer cells and could potentially facilitate the use of drugs in nanoparticle delivery vehicles.