Publications by authors named "Heng Zhao"

Objectives: To examine the ocular biometric parameters and predict the annual growth rate of the physiological axial length (AL) in Chinese preschool children aged 4-6 years old.

Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study included 1090 kindergarten students (1090 right eyes) between the ages of 4 and 6 years from Pinggu and Chaoyang District, Beijing. Dioptre values were ascertained following cycloplegic autorefraction.

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Solar-driven CO reduction to value-added C chemicals is thermodynamically challenging due to multiple complicated steps. The design of active sites and structures for photocatalysts is necessary to improve solar energy efficiency. In this work, atomically dispersed Ru-O sites in RuInO are constructed by interior lattice anchoring of Ru.

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Due to the complex pathogenic and immune escape mechanisms of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), especially the failure of induced immune responses to block the initial cell-to-cell transmission of the virus from skin cells to neurons, the body struggles to establish effective prevention and control methods, resulting in the failure of currently developed vaccines. Previous studies have highlighted the crucial roles of surface glycoproteins and nucleocapsid proteins in activating the body's immune defense system against HSV-1 infection. In this study, recombinant adenoviruses were used as vectors to generate adenoviruses carrying the nucleocapsid protein genes UL18 and UL25, as well as the surface glycoprotein gene gB.

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The Banna miniature inbred pig (BN) is an intensively inbred line for biomedical research and xenotransplantation due to its low individual variation and stable genetic background. Although it is originated from the Diannan miniature pig (DN), substantial genetic changes have actually occurred. However, the lack of a BN reference genome has limited studies on the complete genomic architecture and utilization as a biomedical model.

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  • Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are important in targeted therapies due to their specificity and low side effects, making their CDR sequencing essential.
  • A new mass spectrometry strategy (MCI-MDMS) using ultraviolet photodissociation (UVPD) allows for greater sequence coverage of mAbs, achieving over 95% with complete CDR coverage.
  • This method not only improves sequencing accuracy but also enables reliable identification of post-translational modifications, providing a valuable tool for developing therapeutic mAbs and related biopharmaceuticals.
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Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is an aggressive malignancy among malignant tumours, with a high incidence globally. LINC01614, a long non-coding RNA, has been identified as an essential regulator in multiple cancer types. However, its biological functions and underlying molecular mechanisms in CRC remain largely unknown.

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  • The study investigates how to effectively assess muscle involvement in children with Becker muscular dystrophy using quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI).
  • It compares different qMRI parameters (fat fraction, T1, and T2) between affected children and healthy controls, finding that fat fraction in the gluteus maximus is the most effective marker.
  • The results suggest that measuring fat fraction can predict functional decline in these children, making it a valuable biomarker for monitoring disease progression.
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The tRNA methyltransferase DNMT2 (TRDMT1) plays a crucial role in various biological functions; however, its role in cancer, particularly in liver cancer, remains incompletely understood. In this study, we demonstrate that high DNMT2 expression is negatively correlated with prognosis in clinical liver cancer patients. A series of in vitro and in vivo experiments showed that DNMT2 promotes the proliferation, colony formation, and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma cells.

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Green and high-performance biomass-based adsorbents have a good application prospect for the removal of heavy metals. At present, the preparation of chitosan/lignin biomass adsorbents mainly adopts dissolution-drying method, and the obtained adsorbents show relatively poor adsorption performance for heavy metals. To overcome this problem, a novel chitosan/lignin hydrogel (CSL) is prepared by a simple one-pot method through the Mannich reaction.

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is distributed worldwide and primarily isolated from soil, feces, and decaying plants. The genus was initially classified into Absidiaceae and then Mucoraceae, and currently belongs to Cunninghamellaceae and is further divided into s.s.

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  • The study examines a genus that has only been known to host two species for over fifty years, highlighting the recent discovery of 17 new species since 2015.
  • It analyzes various aspects including distribution, substrate, and morphology of all known species while proposing six new species based on phylogenetic and morphological data.
  • A comprehensive taxonomy and phylogeny is provided, including a synoptic key for 24 species, marking a significant advancement in the understanding of this genus.
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This study was to explore whether docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) protects against ischemic stroke in diabetic mice and its mechanisms. DHA was administered to mice and its effects on stroke outcomes in type 1 diabetes mellitus were assessed 24 h and 3 days post-reperfusion using RNA sequencing, flow cytometry, multiplex immunoassays, and western-blotting analysis. In diabetic mice, DHA administration post-ischemic stroke significantly reduced cerebral infarct size, brain edema, and neurological impairments.

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Background And Objective: Stroke poses a critical health issue without effective neuroprotection. We explore ischemic postconditioning's (IPostC) potential to mitigate stroke-induced brain injury, focusing on its interaction with disulfidptosis, a novel cell death pathway marked by protein disulfide accumulation. We aim to clarify IPostC's protective mechanisms against stroke through gene sequencing and experimental analysis in mice.

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Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals exhibit temporal-frequency-spatial multi-domain feature, and due to the nonplanar nature of the brain surface, the electrode distributions follow non-Euclidean topology. To fully resolve the EEG signals, this study proposes a temporal-frequency-spatial multi-domain feature fusion graph attention network (GAT) for motor imagery (MI) intention recognition in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients.The proposed model uses phase-locked value (PLV) to extract spatial phase connectivity information between EEG channels and continuous wavelet transform to extract valid EEG information in the time-frequency domain.

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Background: Reducing mortality among those infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) remains a critical challenge in clinic. The objective of this study was to analyze the effect of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine on the prognosis of individuals infected with the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2.

Methods: In a single-center, retrospective cohort study, all adult patients with COVID-19 from designated hospital in Xi'an, China, during the Delta outbreak from December 2021 to January 2022 were enrolled.

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Stroke, a major neurological disorder and a leading cause of disability and death, often inflicts damage upon other organs, particularly the kidneys. While chronic kidney disease (CKD) has long been established as a significant risk factor for cerebrovascular disease, stroke can induce renal dysfunction, manifesting as acute kidney injury (AKI) or CKD. Mounting clinical and basic research evidence supports the existence of a bidirectional brain-kidney crosstalk following stroke, implicating specific mechanisms and pathways in stroke-related renal dysfunction.

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Background: Medulloblastoma (MB) is a malignant pediatric central nervous system tumor that is prone to leptomeningeal metastasis. Currently, apart from magnetic resonance imaging and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cytology, there are no reliable biomarkers for MB progression. Cytokines are key proteins in signaling pathways in the tumor microenvironment and are closely related to tumor recurrence and progression.

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  • - Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization (FISH) is a method for identifying macromolecules using DNA or RNA probes with fluorescent tags, allowing visualization of specific sequences in cells through microscopy.
  • - The analysis of FISH images is challenging due to the large number of cells and complex nucleic acid arrangements, often requiring time-consuming manual processing that can lead to errors.
  • - The proposed solution integrates medical imaging with deep learning to create an automated system that quickly detects fluorescent spots, outperforming traditional models like YOLO in accuracy, which is important for assessing cellular traits in cancer diagnosis.
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Improving nanomedicine uptake by tumor cells is key to achieving intracellular drug delivery. In this study, we found that methyl-β-cyclodextrin (MβCD) can significantly promote the intracellular accumulation of nanoparticulated α-linolenic acid-paclitaxel conjugates (ALA-PTX NPs) via enhanced clathrin-mediated endocytosis and limited degradation in lysosomes. Our in vitro results indicated that MβCD not only reduced the plasma membrane cholesterol content and increased plasma membrane fluidity, leading to ALA-PTX NPs being more easily incorporated into the plasma membrane, further enhancing membrane fluidity and making the plasma membrane more susceptible to tensile deformation, forming intracellular vesicles to enhance ALA-PTX NP cellular uptake, but also destroyed lysosomes and then limited ALA-PTX NPs' degradation in lysosomes.

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  • Synthetic musks (SMs) are found in personal care products and can accumulate in estuarine environments, but their distribution factors at a large scale in China are not well understood.
  • A study collected sediment samples from 18 estuaries and analyzed fourteen factors affecting SM distribution, revealing a significant influence from human activities such as population density and economic factors, while also noting a correlation with total organic carbon and water quality.
  • The findings highlight that SMs are widespread in Chinese estuarine sediments and suggest they could serve as indicators for water quality, marking a first step in understanding emerging organic chemicals in these environments.
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Background And Objectives: Medical risks are considered to endanger patients and impact the health care system. Such iatrogenic risks necessitate hospitals taking a more proactive method to quantitatively analyze medical risk, and then to implement more targeted precautions. To address this problem, a novel quantitative risk assessment framework is proposed and further applied in radiotherapy risk assessment.

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Phototherapy is a low-risk alternative to traditional antibiotics against drug-resistant bacterial infections. However, optimizing phototherapy agents, refining treatment conditions, and addressing misuse of agents, remain a formidable challenge. This study introduces a novel concept leveraging the unique customizability of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to house size-matched dye molecules in "single rooms".

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  • Early-diverging fungi have been understudied compared to higher fungi, hindering our understanding of the fungal kingdom, prompting research into their diversity in China.
  • The study identifies three new species of early-diverging fungi, utilizing both phylogenetic and morphological analyses to characterize these taxa.
  • Additionally, a key for the morphological identification of these fungi in Asia is provided, increasing the total known species in China to 12.
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Aim: To describe the distribution of ocular biometrics and to evaluate its associations with refractive error and to assess the contribution from ocular parameters to refractive error among Chinese myopic children.

Methods: This cross-sectional study evaluated subjects aged 8-12y. Keratometry, ocular biometry, and cycloplegic autorefraction were performed on each subject.

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Background: We aimed to develop multiple machine learning models to predict the risk of early intracranial aneurysms (IAs) rupture, evaluate and compare the performance of predictive models.

Methods: Information related to patients diagnosed with IA by CT angiography and clinicians in Central hospital of Dalian University of Technology from January 2010 to June 2022 was collected, including clinical characteristics, blood indicators and IA morphological parameters. IA with rupture or maximum growth ≥ 0.

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