Publications by authors named "Junhua Pan"

Article Synopsis
  • 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) is commonly used to treat colon cancer but often faces issues like drug resistance and poor effectiveness, highlighting the need for new therapies like Fengliao Changweikang (FLCWK).
  • This study investigated how FLCWK could enhance 5-FU's effectiveness by manipulating the pregnane X receptor (PXR) in colon cancer cells, revealing that while higher PXR levels increased therapeutic response, they also boosted resistance.
  • The combination of FLCWK and 5-FU was found to reduce the expression of P-glycoprotein, reverse resistance mechanisms, and effectively inhibit colon cancer progression in mouse models, suggesting FLCWK's potential in improving
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  • - DNA polymerases are key targets for drugs, but there's still a lack of understanding about how their changing shapes affect drug resistance.
  • - Cryoelectron microscopy (cryo-EM) was used to capture the structure of herpes simplex virus polymerase in various shapes while bound to DNA and interacting with antiviral drugs.
  • - Findings suggest that drug resistance can occur through changes in the polymerase's shape, rather than through direct effects on how drugs bind, offering insights into how some antivirals can better target their enzyme.
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Eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV) is the most virulent alphavirus that infects humans, and many survivors develop neurological sequelae, including paralysis and intellectual disability. Alphavirus spike proteins comprise trimers of heterodimers of glycoproteins E2 and E1 that mediate binding to cellular receptors and fusion of virus and host cell membranes during entry. We recently identified very-low density lipoprotein receptor (VLDLR) and apolipoprotein E receptor 2 (ApoER2) as cellular receptors for EEEV and a distantly related alphavirus, Semliki Forest virus (SFV).

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Diabetic retinopathy is the major cause of blindness in diabetic patients, with limited treatment options that do not always restore optimal vision. Retinal nerve degeneration and vascular degeneration are two primary pathological processes of diabetic retinopathy. The retinal nervous system and vascular cells have a close coupling relationship.

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1,5-Anhydroglucitol (1,5-AG) is sensitive to short-term glucose fluctuations and postprandial hyperglycemia, which has great potential in the clinical application of diabetes as a nontraditional blood glucose monitoring indicator. A large number of studies have found that 1,5-AG can be used to screen for diabetes, manage diabetes, and predict the perils of diabetes complications (diabetic nephropathy, diabetic cardiovascular disease, diabetic retinopathy, diabetic pregnancy complications, diabetic peripheral neuropathy, etc.).

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  • This paper looks at how China's carbon trading policy can help make the environment better by encouraging green inventions and reducing pollution.
  • It uses data from 30 places in China from 2003 to 2019 to see if this policy actually works.
  • The results show that the policy does help improve the environment more in western China compared to the east, and the research can guide future plans to use carbon trading across the country.
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Chlorothalonil (CTL) is widely used in agricultural production and antifoulant additive globally due to its broad spectrum and non-systemic properties, resulting in its widespread existence in foods, soil and water. Extensive evidence demonstrated that exposure to CTL induced adverse effects on organisms and in particular its reproductive toxicity has been attracted public concern. However, the influences of CTL on oocyte maturation is mysterious so far.

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Article Synopsis
  • Alphaviruses are RNA viruses spread by arthropods, with eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV) being highly virulent and often leading to severe neurological issues in survivors.
  • Researchers identified two brain-expressed proteins, VLDLR and ApoER2, as cellular receptors for EEEV and another alphavirus, Semliki Forest virus (SFV).
  • Using cryo-electron microscopy, the study revealed that EEEV and SFV bind to VLDLR using different methods, indicating that various alphaviruses can utilize the same receptor through unique interactions, potentially allowing for broader viral adaptability.
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Background: Drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), especially multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), constitutes a major obstacle to fulfill end TB strategy globally. Although fluoroquinolones (FQs), linezolid (LZD) and bedaquiline (BDQ) were classified as Group A drugs for MDR-TB treatment, our knowledge of the prevalence of TB which were resistant to Group A drugs in China is quite limited.

Methods: In this study, we conducted a prospective multicenter surveillance study in China to determine the proportion of TB patients that were resistant to Group A drugs.

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Background: Sputum culture result at the sixth month is essential for predicting therapeutic response to longer multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) regimens. This study aimed to construct a predictive model using cavity-based radiomics to predict sputum status at the sixth month for MDR-TB patients treated with longer regimens.

Methods: This retrospective study recruited 315 MDR-TB patients treated with longer regimens from two centers (250 patients from center 1 and 65 patients from center 2), who were divided into persistently positive and conversion to negative sputum culture groups according to sputum results.

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Objectives: Potential reverse causality and unmeasured confounding factors are common biases in most neuroimaging studies on tinnitus and central correlates. The causal association of tinnitus with neuroimaging features also remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the causal relationship of tinnitus with neuroplastic alterations using Mendelian randomization.

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Background: Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) has become a powerful tool for pathogen detection, but the value of human sequencing reads generated from it is underestimated.

Methods: A total of 138 patients with pleural effusion (PE) were diagnosed with tuberculous pleurisy (TBP, N = 82), malignant pleural effusion (MPE, N = 35), or non-TB infection (N = 21), whose PE samples all underwent mNGS analysis. Clinical TB tests including culture, Acid-Fast Bacillus (AFB) test, Xpert, and T-SPOT, were performed.

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Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by () and remains a major health threat worldwide. However, a detailed understanding of the immune cells and inflammatory mediators in -infected tissues is still lacking. Tuberculous pleural effusion (TPE), which is characterized by an influx of immune cells to the pleural space, is thus a suitable platform for dissecting complex tissue responses to infection.

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Background: Nocardia species can cause local or disseminated infection. Prompt diagnosis and appropriate treatment of nocardiosis are required, because it can cause significant morbidity and mortality. Knowledge of local species distribution and susceptibility patterns is important to appropriate empiric therapy.

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Background: In this study, we utilized whole genome sequencing (WGS) of clinical extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (EDR-TB) strains collected during 2014-2020 in Beijing to detect clustered strains.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted by inclusion of EDR-TB patients with positive cultures in Beijing between 2014 and 2020.

Results: A total of 95 EDR-TB patients were included in our analysis.

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Doxorubicin (DOX) is a broad-spectrum chemotherapeutic drug used in clinical treatment of malignant tumors. It has a high anticancer activity but also high cardiotoxicity. The aim of this study was to explore the mechanism of Tongmai Yangxin pills (TMYXPs) in ameliorating DOX-induced cardiotoxicity through integrated metabolomics and network pharmacology.

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This study systematically investigated the performance of MeltPro and next-generation sequencing in the diagnosis of fluoroquinolone (FQ) resistance among multidrug-resistant tuberculosis patients and explored the relationship between nucleotide alteration and the level of phenotypic susceptibility to FQs. From March 2019 to June 2020, a feasibility and validation study with both MeltPro and next-generation sequencing was performed in 126 patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Using phenotypic drug susceptibility testing as the gold standard, 95.

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Background: Breast cancer is a common cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Chemotherapy plays an indispensable role in the conventional treatment of breast cancer, bringing some physical burdens and discomfort on cancer patients. Consequently, more and more patients turn to seeking the help of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), mainly traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

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Background And Objective: Imbalance of oxidative stress has been detected in a range of fibrotic diseases. Melatonin as an indoleamine hormone plays an important role in regulating the circadian rhythm of human, while in recent years, its antioxidant effect has also attracted increasing attention. This study aimed to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis to comprehensively evaluate the antioxidant effect of melatonin in animal models of fibrosis.

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False negative interferon-γ release assay (IGRA) results constitute the major dilemma for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) infections. Herein, we conducted a cohort study to compare the host immunological response to TB-specific antigens between active TB patients with positive and negative IGRA results and control groups. A total of 274 laboratory-confirmed TB patients were included in our analysis, consisting of 221 were IGRA positive and 53 were IGRA negative.

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Background: Pulmonary non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) infection has become a public health concern in China and around the world. The objective of this study was to describe the longitudinal changes in the frequency and diversity of NTM in northern China.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data on mycobacterium species in Beijing Chest Hospital from January 2014 to December 2021.

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Gastric cancer (GC) is usually diagnosed in an advanced stage at the first visit due to the atypical clinical symptoms. The low surgical resection rate and chemotherapy sensitivity result in dismal survival. Therefore, it is urgent to develop novel biomarkers with high sensitivity and specificity to accurately assess the prognosis of GC patients.

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Background: Acute liver injury can occur at any stage of sepsis and is an important sign of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS). Studies have shown that agmatine (AGM) can effectively improve liver injury caused by sepsis. However, due to the numerous metabolites and metabolic pathways of AGM in the human body, its mechanism in treating septic liver injury is unclear.

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Article Synopsis
  • Many studies have looked at how different variants of SARS-CoV-2 affect the body's neutralizing antibodies, especially after these variants become the dominant strains.
  • This research highlights that the virus can undergo multiple mutations at once in the receptor binding domain (RBD), making it harder for antibodies, from vaccines or treatments, to neutralize the virus.
  • Additionally, a specific antibody was found to neutralize various variants, but the virus can still develop ways to evade this by adding sugar molecules to its structure, suggesting that escape variants will keep emerging as SARS-CoV-2 evolves.
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Many individuals mount nearly identical antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2. To gain insight into how the viral spike (S) protein receptor-binding domain (RBD) might evolve in response to common antibody responses, we studied mutations occurring during virus evolution in a persistently infected immunocompromised individual. We use antibody Fab/RBD structures to predict, and pseudotypes to confirm, that mutations found in late-stage evolved S variants confer resistance to a common class of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies we isolated from a healthy COVID-19 convalescent donor.

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