Publications by authors named "Dingji Zhang"

The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant is characterized by its high transmissibility, which has caused a worldwide epidemiological event. Yet, it turns ominous once the disease progression degenerates into severe pneumonia and sepsis, presenting a horrendous lethality. To elucidate the alveolar immune or inflammatory landscapes of Omicron critical-ill patients, we performed single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) from the patients with critical pneumonia caused by Omicron infection, and analyzed the correlation between the clinical severity scores and different immune cell subpopulations.

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Article Synopsis
  • Liver ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury often occurs during surgery or trauma and is linked to hepatocyte ferroptosis—an area where the DDX/DHX helicase family may play a role.
  • Researchers employed transcriptome analysis to identify expression patterns of DDX/DHX members and used genetic models to investigate the impact of the Dhx58 gene in liver cells during I/R injury.
  • The findings indicate that the interferon IFN-α can enhance DHX58 expression, which in turn helps maintain GPX4 levels, a critical protein that protects against ferroptosis in liver cells during I/R injury, suggesting therapeutic potential for IFN-α.
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Hepatocarcinogenesis is initiated by repeated hepatocyte death and liver damage, and the underlying mechanisms mediating cell death and the subsequent carcinogenesis remain to be fully investigated. Immunoresponsive gene 1 (IRG1) and its enzymatic metabolite itaconate are known to suppress inflammation in myeloid cells, and its expression in liver parenchymal hepatocytes is currently determined. However, the potential roles of IRG1 in hepatocarcinogenesis are still unknown.

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Background: Hepatocarcinogenesis is driven by necroinflammation or metabolic disorders, and the underlying mechanisms remain largely elusive. We previously found that retinoic acid-inducible gene-I (RIG-I), a sensor for recognizing RNA virus in innate immune cells, is mainly expressed by parenchymal hepatocytes in the liver. However, its roles in hepatocarcinogenesis are unknown, which is intensively investigated in this study.

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