Publications by authors named "Lijuan Meng"

β-1,3-Glucans form the major carbohydrate component of fungal cell walls, playing a vital role in cell viability, stress response, virulence, and even healthy functions such as immuno-enhancement. The elongation and branching of β-1,3-glucans is a mystery. More evidence proved the β-1, 3-glucantransferases belonging to GH72 or GH17 family to branch and remodel the synthesized linear β-1, 3-glucan chain by cleaving its internal β-1, 3-linkage and transfer the cleaved fragment to the nonreducing end of another β-1, 3-glucan acceptor.

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Developing electrocatalysts for the N reduction reaction (NRR) with high activity, high selectivity, and low cost is urgently required to enhance the NH yield rate. Based on first-principles calculations, we predict a series of new transition metal boride TMB (TM = Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, and Co) monolayers and investigate their magnetoelectronic and electrocatalytic properties. The results reveal that VB and CoB favor ferromagnetic coupling, while TiB, CrB, MnB, and FeB display antiferromagnetic ordering.

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Background: Kawasaki Disease (KD) is a pediatric vasculitic disorder characterized by systemic small vasculitis, notably coronary arteritis, with unclear pathogenesis. This explorative case-control study investigated the association between folic acid (FA), vitamin D3 (VD3), and vitamin B12 (VB12) levels and the different types of Kawasaki Disease, as well as the incidence of coronary artery lesions (CALs).

Methods: In this explorative case control study, 365 KD children admitted to our hospital from January 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 were included as the KD group.

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Patients with advanced gastric cancer typically face a grim prognosis. This phase 1a (dose escalation) and phase 1b (dose expansion) study investigated safety and efficacy of first-line camrelizumab plus apatinib and chemotherapy for advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma. The primary endpoints included maximum tolerated dose (MTD) in phase 1a and objective response rate (ORR) across phase 1a and 1b.

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The abundance of Fusobacterium nucleatum (F. nucleatum) is highly associated with the development and poor prognosis of colorectal cancer (CRC), which is regarded as a promising target for CRC. However, until now, the novel strategy to clear F.

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Background: Liver ischemia reperfusion (IR) injury is a common cause of liver dysfunction in patients post liver partial resection and liver transplantation. However, the cellular defense mechanisms underlying IR are not well understood. Macrophage mediated sterile inflammation plays critical roles in liver IR injury.

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Purpose: Prolonged exposure to low dose-rate radiation (LDRR) is of growing concern to public health. Recent evidences indicates that LDRR causes deleterious health effects and is closely related to miRNAs. The aim of our study is to investigate the relationship between miRNAs and DNA damage caused by LDRR.

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Fungal α/β-glucans have significant importance in cellular functions including cell wall structure, host-pathogen interactions and energy storage, and wide application in high-profile fields, including food, nutrition, and pharmaceuticals. Fungal species and their growth/developmental stages result in a diversity of glucan contents, structures and bioactivities. Substantial progresses have been made to elucidate the fine structures and functions, and reveal the potential molecular synthesis pathway of fungal α/β-glucans.

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Ferroptosis, a term coined by Dixon et al. in 2012, refers to an iron-dependent form of regulated cell death driven by an overload of lipid peroxides on cellular membranes. It is morphologically and mechanistically distinct from apoptosis and other types of regulated cell death.

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Background: Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute pediatric vasculitis affecting genetically susceptible infants and children. Although the pathogenesis of KD remains unclear, growing evidence links genetic susceptibility to the disease.

Methods: To explore the genes associated with susceptibility in KD, we applied whole-exome sequencing to KD and control subjects from Yunnan province, China.

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Multiferroic van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures (HSs) prepared by combining different ferroic materials offer an exciting platform for next-generation nanoelectronic devices. In this work, we investigate the magnetoelectric coupling properties of multiferroic vdW HSs consisting of a magnetic TMBr (TM = V-Ni) monolayer and a ferroelectric GaSSe monolayer using first-principles theory calculations. It is found that the magnetic orderings in the magnetic TMBr layers are robust and the band alignment of these TMBr/GaSSe HSs can be altered by reversing the polarization direction of the ferroelectric layer.

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Background & Aims: Liver ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury represents a major risk factor in both partial hepatectomy and liver transplantation. Nerve injury-induced protein 1 (Ninj1) is widely recognized as an adhesion molecule in leukocyte trafficking under inflammatory conditions, but its role in regulating sterile inflammation during liver IR injury remains unclear.

Methods: Myeloid Ninj1-deficient mice were generated by bone marrow chimeric models using Ninj1 knockout mice and wild-type mice.

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The electronic and magnetic properties of graphene/MoS heterostructures intercalated with 3 transition metal (TM) atoms at different concentrations have been systematically investigated by first principles calculations. The results showed that all the studied systems are thermodynamically stable with large binding energies of about 3.72 eV-6.

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Circular RNAs (CircRNAs) are a class of noncoding RNAs formed by backsplicing during cotranscriptional and posttranscriptional processes, and they widely exist in various organisms. CircRNAs have multiple biological functions and are associated with the occurrence and development of many diseases. While the biogenesis and biological function of circRNAs have been extensively studied, there are few studies on circRNA degradation and only a few pathways for specific circRNA degradation have been identified.

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Fixing nitrogen (N ) by electrosynthesis method has become a promising way to ammonia (NH ) production, nevertheless, developing electrocatalysts combining long-term stable and low-cost feathers are still a great challenge to date. Using comprehensive first-principles calculations, we herein investigate the potential of a new class of two-dimensional (2D) transition metal tri-borides (TMB s) as nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) electrocatalysts, and explore the effect of magnetic orders on the NRR. Our results show that the TMB s can sufficiently activate N and convert it to NH .

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β-1,3-Glucan synthases play key roles in glucan synthesis, cell wall assembly, and growth of fungi. However, their multi-transmembrane domains (over 14 TMHs) and large molecular masses (over 100 kDa) significantly hamper understanding of their catalytic characteristics and mechanisms. In the present study, the 5841-bp gene encoding the 221.

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Gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) is a rare pregnancy-related gynecological malignancy caused by abnormal proliferation of placental trophoblastic cells. It can invade the uterine muscle layer and metastasize early, more common in women of childbearing age. GTN is invasive and can destroy surrounding tissues and blood vessels, causing massive bleeding in uterus and metastatic sites (such as lung, liver, brain, etc.

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Reprogramming of metabolism is becoming a novel hallmark of cancer. This study aims to perform bioinformatics analysis of metabolism-related genes in bladder cancer, and to construct a signature of metabolism-related genes for predicting the prognosis. A total of 373 differentially expressed metabolism-related genes were identified from TCGA database.

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Despite the prevalence of breast cancer (BC), over half of BC cases are unrelated to known risk factors, which highlights the importance of uncovering more cancer-related factors. Currently, the microbiota has been proven to be a potent modulator of the tumor environment in BC, which regulates the immune balance in tumor-related networks. Through a large amount of data accumulation, the microbiota has shown many possibilities to reveal more insights into the development or control of BC.

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Purpose: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HC) has emerged as one of the most prevalent malignancies on a global scale. Recently, immunotherapy has achieved favorable effectiveness in the management of multiple cancers. However, there are limited therapeutic options for advanced HC.

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Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins C (HnRNP C) is part of the hnRNP family of RNA-binding proteins. The relationship between hnRNP C and cancers has been extensively studied, and dysregulation of hnRNP C has been found in many cancers. According to existing public data, hnRNP C could promote the maturation of new heterogeneous nuclear RNAs (hnRNA s, also referred to as pre-mRNAs) into mRNAs and could stabilize mRNAs, controlling their translation.

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Gut microbiota stimulate and shape the body's adaptive immune response through bacterial components and its active metabolites, which orchestrates the formation and maintenance of the body's immune homeostasis. In addition, the imbalances in microbiota-adaptive immunity contribute to the development of tumor and the antitumor efficiency of a series of antitumor therapies at the preclinical and clinical levels. Regardless of significant results, the regulation of gut microbiota on adaptive immunity in immune homeostasis and tumors needs a more thorough understanding.

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Sixteen oligosaccharide monomers with the degree of polymerization 3 to 18 (DP 3 to DP 18) and three active fractions (DP 3-9, DP 8-11, and DP 11-17) were separated from Atractylodes lancea (Thunb.) DC. by optimized fast protein liquid chromatography coupled with refractive index detector (FPLC-RID) and preparation hydrophilic interaction chromatography (Pre-HILIC).

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Background: Considering the increase in the proportion of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) cases among all lung cancers and its considerable contribution to cancer-related deaths worldwide, we sought to identify novel oncogenes to provide potential targets and facilitate a better understanding of the malignant progression of LUAD.

Methods: The results from the screening of transcriptome and survival analyses according to the integrated Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data were combined, and a promising risk biomarker called meiotic nuclear divisions 1 (MND1) was selectively acquired. Cell viability assays and subcutaneous xenograft models were used to validate the oncogenic role of MND1 in LUAD cell proliferation and tumor growth.

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Background And Objective: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common form of hematological malignancy in adults. We aimed to investigate the efficacy of different treatment measures and prognostic factors for elderly patients with AML.

Methods: The clinical data of 65 newly diagnosed elderly patients with AML were retrospectively analyzed.

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