Publications by authors named "K-L Liu"

Background: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a highly prevalent and malignant form of esophageal tumor associated with high rates of patient mortality for which there remains a persistent lack of effective targets for therapeutic interventional efforts. This study was developed with the goal of exploring the expression and functional role of RBM15 in ESCC.

Methods: This study was developed with the goal of exploring the expression and functional role of RBM15 in ESCC.

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Background: Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) and olfactory dysfunction (OD) are prevalent disease complications in people with cystic fibrosis. These understudied comorbidities significantly impact quality of life. The impact of highly effective modulator therapy (HEMT) in young children with cystic fibrosis (YCwCF) on these disease complications is unknown.

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Background: Although the information on the validation status of electronic sphygmomanometer (ES) devices in use in health care institutions and households is much more clinically relevant than that of ES models available on the market, it remains insufficient.

Methods: A national survey was conducted across all administrative regions of mainland China to assess the validation status of ESs. Fifty-eight cities were selected with stratification by municipality, provincial capital, and other cities, and health care institutions and households in each city were chosen by convenience to identify ES devices in use according to the study protocol.

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Chromosomal instability (CIN) is common in solid tumours and fuels evolutionary adaptation and poor prognosis by increasing intratumour heterogeneity. Systematic characterization of driver events in the TRACERx non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cohort identified that genetic alterations in six genes, including FAT1, result in homologous recombination (HR) repair deficiencies and CIN. Using orthogonal genetic and experimental approaches, we demonstrate that FAT1 alterations are positively selected before genome doubling and associated with HR deficiency.

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Based on the success of cancer immunotherapy, personalized cancer vaccines have emerged as a leading oncology treatment. Antigen presentation on MHC class I (MHC-I) is crucial for the adaptive immune response to cancer cells, necessitating highly predictive computational methods to model this phenomenon. Here, we introduce HLApollo, a transformer-based model for peptide-MHC-I (pMHC-I) presentation prediction, leveraging the language of peptides, MHC, and source proteins.

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Hodgkin Reed-Sternberg (HRS) cells of classic Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL), like many solid tumors, elicit ineffective immune responses. However, patients with cHL are highly responsive to PD-1 blockade, which largely depends on HRS cell-specific retention of MHC class II and implicates CD4 T cells and additional MHC class I-independent immune effectors. Here, we utilize single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial analysis to define shared circulating and microenvironmental features of the immune response to PD-1 blockade in cHL.

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Abstract: Local anesthetics as a part of intraarticular therapies (IATs) are widely used for treating knee osteoarthritis (KOA). Whether substitution of liposomal bupivacaine (LB) for lidocaine is safe and effective in reducing incidence of injection-emergent adverse events after IATs remains unclear.

Methods: We recruited outpatients who had a clinical diagnosis of KOA and decided to receive IATs from November 2023 to April 2024.

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Background: Dixon-based magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) intramuscular proton density fat fraction (PDFF) is a potentially useful imaging biomarker of muscle quality. However, multi-vendor, multi-site reproducibility of intramuscular PDFF quantification, required for large clinical studies, can be strongly dependent on acquisition and processing. The purpose of this study was (I) to develop a 6-point Dixon MRI-based acquisition and processing technique for reproducible multi-vendor, multi-site quantification of thigh intramuscular PDFF; and (II) to evaluate the ability of the technique to detect differences in thigh muscle status between operated .

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Purpose: Mutations in the gene that encodes the enzyme acid sphingomyelinase (ASMase) are associated with Niemann-Pick disease, a lysosomal storage disorder. Mice that lack ASMase (ASMase-/-) exhibit age-related retinal degeneration and large increases in accumulation of lipofuscin in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). We examined which lipid species accumulate in the retina and the RPE of ASMase-/- mice and whether the retinal degeneration is associated with impaired photoreceptor metabolism and retinyl chromophore processing.

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Existing microbiota databases are biased toward adult samples, hampering accurate profiling of the infant gut microbiome. Here, we generated a metagenome-assembled genome inventory for children (MAGIC) from a large collection of bulk and viral-like particle-enriched metagenomes from 0 to 7 years of age, encompassing 3,299 prokaryotic and 139,624 viral species-level genomes, 8.5% and 63.

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: Androgen receptor (AR) expression and signaling are critical for the progression of prostate cancer and have been the therapeutic focus of prostate cancer for over 50 years. While a variety of agents have been developed to target this axis, many of these fail due to the emergent expression of AR RNA splice variants, such as AR-V7, that can signal independently of ligand binding. Other therapies, such as vaccination against prostate-specific antigens, have achieved FDA approvals but have fallen short of being incorporated as standard-of-care therapies for advanced prostate cancer.

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Introduction: Determining lines of therapy (LOT) using real-world data is crucial to inform clinical decisions and support clinical research. Existing rules for determining LOT in patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (mNSCLC) do not incorporate the growing number of targeted therapies used in treatment today. Therefore, we propose rules for determining LOT from real-world data of patients with mNSCLC treated with targeted therapies.

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  • Tranexamic acid, an antifibrinolytic agent, was tested in a study on patients with intracerebral hemorrhage who had ongoing bleeding (spot signs) to assess its effect on hematoma growth when administered within 4.5 hours of onset.
  • A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted, evaluating randomized trials comparing tranexamic acid to a placebo, specifically including 162 participants with follow-up imaging.
  • Results showed that tranexamic acid treatment did not significantly reduce hematoma growth compared to placebo, with a slightly lower growth rate in the treatment group, but overall outcomes suggested continued monitoring and assessment of safety was needed.
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  • Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive movement disorder becoming more common due to an aging population, and researchers aimed to explore rare genetic variants that could help explain its development.
  • Whole-exome sequencing was conducted on a large group of PD cases and controls of Asian ancestry, revealing significant links between the genes GBA1 and SMPD1 and the risk of developing PD, confirmed in additional samples.
  • The research found that specific SMPD1 variants that reduced enzyme activity were particularly associated with PD risk, with a prominent Asian-specific variant being common among carriers.
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The Hippo pathway is commonly altered in cancer initiation and progression; however, exactly how this pathway becomes dysregulated to promote human cancer development remains unclear. Here we analyze the Hippo somatic mutations in the human cancer genome and functionally annotate their roles in targeting the Hippo pathway. We identify a total of 85 loss-of-function (LOF) missense mutations for Hippo pathway genes and elucidate their underlying mechanisms.

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Background And Purpose: The underlying transcriptomic signatures driving brain functional alterations in MS and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) are still unclear.

Materials And Methods: Regional fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) values were obtained and compared among 209 patients with MS, 90 patients with antiaquaporin-4 antibody (AQP4)+ NMOSD, 49 with AQP4- NMOSD, and 228 healthy controls from a discovery cohort. We used partial least squares (PLS) regression to identify the gene transcriptomic signatures associated with disease-related fALFF alterations.

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  • NPIs significantly reduced asthma exacerbations and viral infections in pediatric patients during their enforcement from March 2020 to December 2022.
  • A total of 5,758 asthma exacerbations were recorded, with a 50% decline during NPIs, while 87% of the 70,682 respiratory tests returned positive for pathogens but showed decreased rates for some viruses.
  • After the NPIs ended, asthma exacerbations returned to pre-pandemic levels, and an unexpected spike in respiratory syncytial virus infections highlighted the importance of ongoing monitoring.
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Transfer RNA halves (tRHs) have various biological functions. However, the biogenesis of specific 5'-tRHs under certain conditions remains unknown. Here, we report that inositol-requiring enzyme 1α (IRE1α) cleaves the anticodon stem-loop region of tRNA to produce 5'-tRHs (5'-tRH-Gly) with highly selective target discrimination upon endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress.

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  • The study investigated factors influencing the asymmetry of the knee adduction moment (KAM) during walking in patients with unilateral knee osteoarthritis (KOA).
  • A total of 148 patients were analyzed, with 60.8% categorized into a KAM asymmetry group based on their asymmetry index (ASI) values.
  • Key factors positively correlated with KAM asymmetry included female gender, older age, higher BMI, greater varus angles, and severe pain levels, while knee-extension strength and income had negative correlations with KAM asymmetry.
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Cancer cells adeptly manipulate the tumor microenvironment (TME) to evade host antitumor immunity. However, the role of cancer cell-intrinsic signaling in shaping the immunosuppressive TME remains unclear. Here, we found that the Hippo pathway in cancer cells orchestrates the TME by influencing the composition of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs).

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  • Dual immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) using CTLA4 and PD-(L)1 inhibitors shows improved anti-tumor effectiveness and immune toxicity compared to PD-(L)1 inhibitors alone in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.
  • Patients with mutations in STK11 and/or KEAP1 genes benefit more from the combination treatment compared to those receiving only PD-(L)1 inhibitors, as shown in the POSEIDON trial.
  • The loss of KEAP1 serves as a strong predictor for the success of dual ICB, as it leads to a more favorable outcome by changing the tumor's immune environment to better engage CD4 and CD8 T cells for anti-tumor activity. *
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Background: Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory condition characterized by chronic, disabling gastrointestinal symptoms that can have detrimental effects on psychological, social, and professional quality of life. Few studies have examined patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and economic outcomes among individuals with varying UC severity and across different racial/ethnic groups.

Methods: This cross-sectional study assessed sociodemographic data, PROs, and economic outcomes for participants from the National Health and Wellness Survey (2018, 2019, and 2020) with UC.

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  • Researchers developed a microbiome-based diagnostic test for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) by analyzing 5,979 fecal samples, identifying significant bacterial alterations related to IBD.* ! * The study created diagnostic models using ten bacterial species for ulcerative colitis and nine for Crohn's disease, achieving high accuracy (areas under the curve >0.90) in distinguishing IBD from healthy controls.* ! * A new multiplex droplet digital PCR test was also developed, which outperformed the standard fecal calprotectin test, indicating the potential for a noninvasive multibacteria biomarker panel in IBD diagnosis.* !
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Disruption of the class I human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecules has important implications for immune evasion and tumor evolution. We developed major histocompatibility complex loss of heterozygosity (LOH), allele-specific mutation and measurement of expression and repression (MHC Hammer). We identified extensive variability in HLA allelic expression and pervasive HLA alternative splicing in normal lung and breast tissue.

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  • Oncolytic adenoviruses are being studied for their ability to kill cancer cells and modulate the immune response, but their potential immunosuppressive effects need further investigation.
  • This study shows that type V adenoviruses can change the behavior of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) and increase regulatory T cells (Tregs) in the tumor microenvironment, which can hinder immune responses against tumors.
  • Thymosin alpha 1 (Tα1) can reprogram these macrophages to support anti-tumor activity and enhance the effectiveness of the adenovirus in fighting cancer, indicating a promising direction for future cancer therapies.
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