Publications by authors named "Aimin Yang"

Environmental exposure to heavy metals may adversely affect lung function particularly in the elderly. However, limited data are available directly evaluating the relationship of heavy metal exposures with lung function in Chinese elderly. We aimed to investigate the associations between plasma metals and lung function among Chinese elderly residents.

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Aims: We aimed to use the Mendelian randomisation (MR) design to investigate the potential causal effects of glucokinase (GK) activation on frailty-related outcomes and to explore the potential mediating effects of metabolic and inflammatory biomarkers.

Materials And Methods: Seventeen independent single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located within the GCK gene and significantly correlated with the glycated haemoglobin (HbA) level were used as genetic proxies for the effect of GK activation. We employed two-sample MR analysis to assess the relationship between genetically proxied GK activation and multifactorial frailty-related outcomes (frailty index, grip strength, walking pace, appendicular lean mass [ALM] and telomere length) We also explored the potential mediating effects using two-step MR.

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Background: Few studies evaluated the effectiveness of COVID-19 antivirals specifically in the asthma population This study assessed short- and long-term effects of nirmatrelvir/ritonavir versus molnupiravir in asthma population.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study on adult asthma patients infected with COVID-19, using real-world data obtained from the health officials in Hong Kong. Key inclusion criteria were infection with COVID-19 between March 16, 2022, and Oct 30, 2023, age ≥ 18 years, previous asthma diagnosis, and prescription history of an asthma medication.

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The phase separation of the cargo receptor sequestome-1/p62 (SQSTM1/p62) is a critical mechanism for assembling signaling complexes in autophagy. During this process, p62 undergoes phase separation upon binding to polyubiquitin chains, concentrating ubiquitinated substrates within p62 droplets. These droplets further gather membrane sources and core autophagy machineries to facilitate autophagosome formation.

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Objective: Patient-level simulation models, mainly developed in Western populations, capture complex interactions between risk factors and complications to predict the long-term effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of novel treatments and identify high-risk subgroups for personalized care. However, incidence of outcomes varies significantly by ethnicity and region. We used high-quality, patient-level register data to develop the Chinese Diabetes Outcomes Model (CDOM) for predicting incident and recurrent events in type 2 diabetes (T2D).

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Limited studies compared the effectiveness of nirmatrelvir/ritonavir and molnupiravir against a control group on post-COVID-19 conditions. Our study examined the association of nirmatrelvir/ritonavir and molnupiravir with post-acute mortality and hospitalizations among outpatients using real-world outpatient records of COVID-19 designated clinics in Hong Kong. This is an observational study using a target trial emulation framework, involving nirmatrelvir-ritonavir versus no antiviral treatment (Trial 1) and molnupiravir versus no antiviral treatment (Trial 2).

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In China, due to the risks of hypothyroidism after radioiodine treatment, radioiodine is not commonly used as a first-line treatment. In this study, factors influencing the development of hypothyroidism after I therapy for Graves' hyperthyroidism were evaluated. This was a retrospective study with a 12-month follow-up.

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Autophagy is a lysosome-dependent cellular degradation pathway that responds to a variety of environmental and cellular stresses, which is defective in aging and age-related diseases, therefore, targeting autophagy with small-molecule activators has potential therapeutic benefits. In this study, we successfully completed the first total synthesis of Ivesinol, an identified antibacterial natural product, and efficiently constructed a library of its analogs. To measure the effect of Ivesinol analogs on autophagic activity, we performed cell imaging-based screening approach, and observed that several Ivesinol analogs exhibited potent autophagy-regulating activity.

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Objective: We examined incremental healthcare costs (inpatient and outpatient) related to complications in Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) during the year of occurrence and post-event years, utilizing the Joint Asia Diabetes Evaluation (JADE) Register cohort of Hong Kong Chinese patients with T2D between 2007 and 2019.

Research Design And Methods: 19,440 patients with T2D underwent structured evaluation utilizing the JADE platform with clinical outcomes data retrieved from territory-wide electronic medical records including inpatient, outpatient and emergency care. Two-part model was adopted to account for skewed healthcare costs distribution.

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Aims/hypothesis: Insulin requirements in the human body undergo continuous changes in response to growth and development. We assessed the life course relationships between insulin demand and insulin adequacy.

Methods: Three independent Chinese cohorts (204 children, aged [mean ± SD] 7.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study explores how cardiovascular health (CVH), measured by the Life's Essential 8 (LE8) score, influences the effectiveness of fish oil supplements in reducing cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality among middle-aged and older individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D).
  • It analyzed data from 19,003 T2D participants in the UK Biobank and found that regular fish oil users with better CVH had a significantly reduced risk of CVD mortality, while those with poorer CVH did not see any benefits.
  • The results suggest that individuals with low CVH levels may not receive cardiovascular benefits from fish oil, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive approach to lifestyle improvement for better
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Aims/hypothesis: Type 2 diabetes is a complex and heterogeneous disease and the aetiological components underlying the heterogeneity remain unclear in the Chinese and East Asian population. Therefore, we aimed to investigate whether specific pathophysiological pathways drive the clinical heterogeneity in type 2 diabetes.

Methods: We employed newly developed type 2 diabetes hard-clustering and soft-clustering pathway-specific polygenic risk scores (psPRSs) to characterise individual genetic susceptibility to pathophysiological pathways implicated in type 2 diabetes in 18,217 Chinese patients from Hong Kong.

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Background: The effect of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir on post-COVID-19 outcomes for individuals who are immunocompromised is understudied. We aimed to examine the association of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir with post-acute sequelae and mortality among patients who are immunocompromised and admitted to hospital with COVID-19.

Methods: We did a retrospective cohort study using territory-wide electronic health records from the Hong Kong Hospital Authority and Hong Kong Department of Health.

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While previous research examined coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) antiviral-vaccine interactions through exploratory subgroup analysis, none specifically designed for examining this interaction or its impact on post-acute outcomes. This study examined the interaction between nirmatrelvir-ritonavir and complete COVID-19 vaccination on reducing the risk of post-acute outcomes among COVID-19 patients. We followed COVID-19 patients hospitalized between 11 March 2022 and 10 October 2023, until 31 October 2023 in Hong Kong.

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Recently, evidence has indicated that CTNNB1 is important in a variety of malignancies. However, how CTNNB1 interacts with immune cell infiltration remains to be further investigated. In this study, we focused on the correlations between CTNNB1 and tumorigenesis, tumor progression, mutation, phosphorylation, and prognosis via gene expression profiling interaction analysis; TIMER 2.

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The severe acute respiratory syndrome virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) seriously impacted public health. The evolutionarily conserved viral chymotrypsin-like main protease (M) is an important target for anti-SARS-CoV-2 drug development. Previous studies have shown that the eight N-terminal amino acids (N8) of SARS-CoV M are essential for its dimerization, and are used to design inhibitors against SARS-CoV M dimerization.

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Aims: The objective of this prospective cohort study on the incidence of metabolic diseases and risk factors in Shunde (Speed-Shunde cohort) was to evaluate the incidence of cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome and metabolic-associated multimorbidity, such as diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease in Shunde, Foshan, Guangdong, China. Additionally, the study sought to identify the potential determinants that may impact the development of these conditions and the potential consequences that may result.

Methods And Results: In the Speed-Shunde cohort, data were gathered via questionnaires, physical measurements, and laboratory analyses encompassing demographic data, behavioural tendencies, anthropometric assessments, controlled attenuation parameters, and liver stiffness measurement utilizing vibration-controlled transient elastography, as well as serum and urine detection (such as oral 75 g glucose tolerance tests, haemoglobin A1c levels, lipid profiles, liver and renal function tests, urinary microalbumin, and creatinine levels).

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Hypoxia is a common feature of lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC), and hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) overexpression is associated with poor clinical outcome in LUSC. NADH dehydrogenase 1 alpha subcomplex subunit 4-like 2 (NDUFA4L2) is a recently identified target of HIF-1, but its roles in LUSC remain unclear. Herein, the expression and regulatory mechanisms of NDUFA4L2 were investigated in LUSC, and the influences on LUSC cell oxidative metabolism and survival of NDUFA4L2 were determined.

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As one of the most important tasks of natural language processing, textual emotion classification (TEC) aims to recognize and detect all emotions contained in texts. However, most existing methods are implemented using deep learning approaches, which may suffer from long training time and low convergence. Motivated by these challenges, in this paper, we provide a new solution for TEC by using cascading broad learning (CBL) and sentence embedding using a masked and permuted pre-trained language model (MPNet), named CBLMP.

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S-acylation of proteins allows their association with membranes. Here, we present a protocol for establishing a platform for membrane affinity evaluation of S-acylated proteins in vitro. We describe steps for preparing lipid-maleimide compounds, mCherry-p62 recombinant proteins, and total cellular membranes.

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Article Synopsis
  • * The formation of autophagosomes is regulated by ATG proteins, particularly ATG16L1, which interacts with specific complexes to facilitate a crucial lipidation process for effective autophagy.
  • * This study reveals that the palmitoylation of ATG16L1 (a lipid modification) at a specific site is vital for enhancing the formation of complexes necessary for lipidation of LC3, thereby promoting autophagosome creation and autophagy efficiency.
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Objectives: There is relatively scarce data regarding the association between primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) and incident diabetes in large population-based longitudinal studies. We aimed to evaluate the risk of incident diabetes in individuals with and without PHPT and investigate the association between serum calcium concentrations and the risk of incident diabetes in patients with PHPT.

Methods: We included 2749 PHPT patients and 13,745 age, sex and index year matched non-PHPT individuals during 2000-2019.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates the complex origins of chronic kidney disease (CKD) by analyzing kidney and blood cells from both healthy and CKD-affected rats using advanced single-cell transcriptome sequencing.
  • - Key findings highlight that certain intrinsic kidney cell populations (MPCs and PTs) showed significant changes in the CKD group, and metabolic pathways related to fatty acid metabolism were enriched in proximal tubule cells.
  • - Further experiments revealed reduced expression of the gene HAO2 in CKD, linked to increased lipid droplets and decreased ATP levels, indicating HAO2's potential role in renal metabolism and energy regulation in kidney disease.
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Article Synopsis
  • Evidence-based guidelines emphasize the importance of systematically gathering data to ensure quality healthcare, especially in managing conditions like type 2 diabetes, where metformin has been a cornerstone treatment for over 60 years.
  • Despite some debates over its first-line status, metformin is widely recommended in conjunction with newer medications due to its proven cardiovascular and renal benefits, particularly when treatment is started early to avoid complications.
  • Recent findings highlight interactions between metformin, gut microbiota, and dietary components, which can influence both its effectiveness and side effects, such as gastrointestinal issues and vitamin B12 deficiency.
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Metals have been proved to be one of risk factors for chronic kidney disease (CKD) and diabetes, but the effect of mixed metal co-exposure and potential interaction between metals are still unclear. We assessed the urine and whole blood levels of cadmium (Cd), manganese (Mn), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), and renal function in 3080 adults from National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES) (2011-2018) to explore the effect of mixed metal exposure on CKD especially in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Weighted quantile sum regression model and Bayesian Kernel Machine Regression model were used to evaluate the overall exposure impact of metal mixture and potential interaction between metals.

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