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"Qin, Yuan"
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Mean platelet volume/platelet count ratio in colorectal cancer: a retrospective clinical study
Background
Mean platelet volume (MPV) is a marker of platelet activation. MPV and platelet count (PC) are negatively correlated, and their ratio (MPV/PC) is informative for the diagnosis of malignant tumors. However, the relationship between MPV/PC and colorectal cancer is unclear. This retrospective clinical study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of MPV/PC in colorectal cancer.
Methods
Hematological examinations were performed at initial diagnosis in patients with colorectal cancer (
n
= 186) or adenomatous polyp (
n
= 132) and healthy controls (
n
= 108). Hematological parameters evaluated included white blood cells, red blood cells, hemoglobin, neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, PC, and MPV. Statistical analyses included Student’s t-test, one-way ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis H test, chi-square tests, Spearman’s correlation test and receiver operating characteristic (ROC). ROC curve was used to evaluate the diagnostic values of MPV and MPV/PC in colorectal cancer.
Results
Among these groups, MPV was significantly lower in colorectal cancer than in adenomatous polyp (
p
= 0.002) and healthy controls (
p
< 0.001) but did not significantly differ between adenomatous polyp and healthy controls (
p
= 0.210). MPV/PC was lower in colorectal cancer compared with adenomatous polyp and healthy controls (
p
< 0.001) and in adenomatous polyp compared with healthy controls (
p
= 0.010). MPV did not significantly differ among colorectal cancer subgroups, while MPV/PC significantly differed between TNM stages and the presence/absence of lymph node metastasis. MPV/PC was negatively correlated with the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio(NLR) (
p
= 0.002) and platelet to lymphocyte ratio(PLR) concentration (
p
< 0.001). In the differential diagnosis between colorectal cancer and adenomatous polyp, MPV/PC produced a larger ROC curve than MPV, NLR or PLR alone. Using MPV/PC to distinguish between colorectal cancer and controls produced a larger AUC than using MPV or NLR alone.
Conclusions
MPV/PC may be useful for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer. However, further studies are warranted to include additional regions and more data, to assess the utility of MPV/PC as a novel diagnostic screening tool for colorectal cancer.
Journal Article
Canada’s crisis of primary care access: Is expanding residency training to 3 years a solution?
The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) recently recommended extending family medicine residency programs in Canada from 2 to 3 years. This recommendation aims to better equip graduates to meet societal needs, manage complexity, and address medical comorbidity through comprehensive primary care practice. However, there are important concerns to consider during this transition period. These include the potential impact on medical student interest in family medicine, as well as the effect on the number of candidates pursuing a focused area of practice. It is crucial for administrators at the CFPC and postgraduate training programs to be creative in program design to reinvigorate interest in family medicine as a career choice. While curricular renewal is important, it is not sufficient to strengthen primary care in Canada. Attention must also be given to system, organizational, and personal factors to support the provision of comprehensive and continuous primary care. Innovative thinking in educational delivery, along with addressing these factors, will attract talented physicians to the practice of family medicine.
Journal Article
Effectiveness of glucocorticoid therapy in patients with severe coronavirus disease 2019: protocol of a randomized controlled trial
At the end of 2019, a novel coronavirus outbreak causative organism has been subsequently designated the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). The effectiveness of adjunctive glucocorticoid therapy in the management of 2019-nCoV-infected patients with severe lower respiratory tract infections is not clear, and warrants further investigation.
The present study will be conducted as an open-labeled, randomized, controlled trial. We will enrol 48 subjects from Chongqing Public Health Medical Center. Each eligible subject will be assigned to an intervention group (methylprednisolone via intravenous injection at a dose of 1-2 mg/kg/day for 3 days) or a control group (no glucocorticoid use) randomly, at a 1:1 ratio. Subjects in both groups will be invited for 28 days of follow-up which will be scheduled at four consecutive visit points. We will use the clinical improvement rate as our primary endpoint. Secondary endpoints include the timing of clinical improvement after intervention, duration of mechanical ventilation, duration of hospitalization, overall incidence of adverse events, as well as rate of adverse events at each visit, and mortality at 2 and 4 weeks.
The present coronavirus outbreak is the third serious global coronavirus outbreak in the past two decades. Oral and parenteral glucocorticoids have been used in the management of severe respiratory symptoms in coronavirus-infected patients in the past. However, there remains no definitive evidence in the literature for or against the utilization of systemic glucocorticoids in seriously ill patients with coronavirus-related severe respiratory disease, or indeed in other types of severe respiratory disease. In this study, we hope to discover evidence either supporting or opposing the systemic therapeutic administration of glucocorticoids in patients with severe coronavirus disease 2019.
ClinicalTrials.gov, ChiCTR2000029386, http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=48777.
Journal Article
Mitochondrial autophagy: molecular mechanisms and implications for cardiovascular disease
Mitochondria are highly dynamic organelles that participate in ATP generation and involve calcium homeostasis, oxidative stress response, and apoptosis. Dysfunctional or damaged mitochondria could cause serious consequences even lead to cell death. Therefore, maintaining the homeostasis of mitochondria is critical for cellular functions. Mitophagy is a process of selectively degrading damaged mitochondria under mitochondrial toxicity conditions, which plays an essential role in mitochondrial quality control. The abnormal mitophagy that aggravates mitochondrial dysfunction is closely related to the pathogenesis of many diseases. As the myocardium is a highly oxidative metabolic tissue, mitochondria play a central role in maintaining optimal performance of the heart. Dysfunctional mitochondria accumulation is involved in the pathophysiology of cardiovascular diseases, such as myocardial infarction, cardiomyopathy and heart failure. This review discusses the most recent progress on mitophagy and its role in cardiovascular disease.
Journal Article
A practical guide to amplicon and metagenomic analysis of microbiome data
Advances in high-throughput sequencing (HTS) have fostered rapid developments in the field of microbiome research, and massive microbiome datasets are now being generated. However, the diversity of software tools and the complexity of analysis pipelines make it difficult to access this field. Here, we systematically summarize the advantages and limitations of microbiome methods. Then, we recommend specific pipelines for amplicon and metagenomic analyses, and describe commonly-used software and databases, to help researchers select the appropriate tools. Furthermore, we introduce statistical and visualization methods suitable for microbiome analysis, including alpha- and betadiversity, taxonomic composition, difference comparisons, correlation, networks, machine learning, evolution, source tracing, and common visualization styles to help researchers make informed choices. Finally, a stepby-step reproducible analysis guide is introduced. We hope this review will allow researchers to carry out data analysis more effectively and to quickly select the appropriate tools in order to efficiently mine the biological significance behind the data.
Journal Article
Aux/IAA14 Regulates microRNA-Mediated Cold Stress Response in Arabidopsis Roots
The phytohormone auxin and microRNA-mediated regulation of gene expressions are key regulators of plant growth and development at both optimal and under low-temperature stress conditions. However, the mechanistic link between microRNA and auxin in regulating plant cold stress response remains elusive. To better understand the role of microRNA (miR) in the crosstalk between auxin and cold stress responses, we took advantage of the mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana with altered response to auxin transport and signal. Screening of the mutants for root growth recovery after cold stress at 4 °C revealed that the auxin signaling mutant, solitary root 1 (slr1; mutation in Aux/IAA14), shows a hypersensitive response to cold stress. Genome-wide expression analysis of miRs in the wild-type and slr1 mutant roots using next-generation sequencing revealed 180 known and 71 novel cold-responsive microRNAs. Cold stress also increased the abundance of 26–31 nt small RNA population in slr1 compared with wild type. Comparative analysis of microRNA expression shows significant differential expression of 13 known and 7 novel miRs in slr1 at 4 °C compared with wild type. Target gene expression analysis of the members from one potential candidate miR, miR169, revealed the possible involvement of miR169/NF-YA module in the Aux/IAA14-mediated cold stress response. Taken together, these results indicate that SLR/IAA14, a transcriptional repressor of auxin signaling, plays a crucial role in integrating miRs in auxin and cold responses.
Journal Article
Synergistically optimized electron and phonon transport in high-performance copper sulfides thermoelectric materials via one-pot modulation
Optimizing thermoelectric conversion efficiency requires the compromise of electrical and thermal properties of materials, which are hard to simultaneously improve due to the strong coupling of carrier and phonon transport. Herein, a one-pot approach realizing simultaneous second phase and Cu vacancies modulation is proposed, which is effective in synergistically optimizing thermoelectric performance in copper sulfides. Multiple lattice defects, including nanoprecipitates, dislocations, and nanopores are produced by adding a refined ratio of Sn and Se. Phonon transport is significantly suppressed by multiple mechanisms. An ultralow lattice thermal conductivity is therefore obtained. Furthermore, extra Se is added in the copper sulfide for optimizing electrical transport properties by inducing generating Cu vacancies. Ultimately, an excellent figure of merit of ~1.6 at 873 K is realized in the Cu
1.992
SSe
0.016
(Cu
2
SnSe
4
)
0.004
bulk sample. The simple strategy of inducing compositional and structural modulation for improving thermoelectric parameters promotes low-cost high-performance copper sulfides as alternatives in thermoelectric applications.
It is hard to simultaneously improve electrical and thermal properties of materials due to the strong coupling of carrier and phonon transport. Here, the authors propose a one-pot modulation strategy for simultaneously adjusting carrier and phonon transport in copper sulfids.
Journal Article
NRT1.1B is associated with root microbiota composition and nitrogen use in field-grown rice
Nitrogen-use efficiency of indica varieties of rice is superior to that of japonica varieties. We apply 16S ribosomal RNA gene profiling to characterize root microbiota of 68 indica and 27 japonica varieties grown in the field. We find that indica and japonica recruit distinct root microbiota. Notably, indica-enriched bacterial taxa are more diverse, and contain more genera with nitrogen metabolism functions, than japonica-enriched taxa. Using genetic approaches, we provide evidence that NRT1.1B, a rice nitrate transporter and sensor, is associated with the recruitment of a large proportion of indica-enriched bacteria. Metagenomic sequencing reveals that the ammonification process is less abundant in the root microbiome of the nrt1.1b mutant. We isolated 1,079 pure bacterial isolates from indica and japonica roots and derived synthetic communities (SynComs). Inoculation of IR24, an indica variety, with an indica-enriched SynCom improved rice growth in organic nitrogen conditions compared with a japonica-enriched SynCom. The links between plant genotype and root microbiota membership established in this study will inform breeding strategies to improve nitrogen use in crops.Rice coordinates recruitment of the root microbiota to optimize nitrogen acquisition from soil.
Journal Article
High-throughput cultivation and identification of bacteria from the plant root microbiota
Cultivating native bacteria from roots of plants grown in a given environment is essential for dissecting the functions of the root microbiota for plant growth and health with strain-specific resolution. In this study, we established a straightforward protocol for high-throughput bacterial isolation from fresh root samples using limiting dilution to ensure that most cultured bacteria originated from only one microorganism. This is followed by strain characterization using a two-sided barcode polymerase chain reaction system to identify pure and heterogeneous bacterial cultures. Our approach overcomes multiple difficulties of traditional bacterial isolation and identification methods, such as obtaining bacteria with diverse growth rates while greatly increasing throughput. To facilitate data processing, we developed an easy-to-use bioinformatic pipeline called ‘Culturome’ (
https://github.com/YongxinLiu/Culturome
) and a graphical user interface web server (
http://bailab.genetics.ac.cn/culturome/
). This protocol allows any research group (two or three lab members without expertise in bioinformatics) to systematically cultivate root-associated bacteria within 8–9 weeks.
Cultivating native bacteria from fresh plant roots is essential for understanding their interaction with the host plant. This protocol describes their isolation and accurate taxonomical identification using two-sided barcode polymerase chain reaction and Illumina sequencing.
Journal Article