Single-cell analyses identify distinct and intermediate states of zebrafish pancreatic islet development.

Pancreatic endocrine islets are vital for glucose homeostasis. However, the islet developmental trajectory and its regulatory network are not well understood. To define the features of these specification and differentiation processes, we isolated individual islet cells from TgBAC(neurod1:EGFP) transgenic zebrafish and analyzed islet developmental dynamics across four different embryonic stages using a single-cell RNA-seq strategy.

DNA-AuNP networks on cell membranes as a protective barrier to inhibit viral attachment, entry and budding.

Viral infections have caused numerous diseases and deaths worldwide. Due to the emergence of new viruses and frequent virus variation, conventional antiviral strategies that directly target viral or cellular proteins are limited because of the specificity, drug resistance and rapid clearance from the human body. Therefore, developing safe and potent antiviral agents with activity against viral infection at multiple points in the viral life cycle remains a major challenge.

Acute gastroenteritis outbreak caused by a GII.6 norovirus.

Aim: To report an acute gastroenteritis outbreak caused by a genogroup 2 genotype 6 (GII.6) strain norovirus in Shanghai, China.

Methods: Noroviruses are responsible for approximately half of all reported gastroenteritis outbreaks in many countries.

Using zebrafish as the model organism to understand organ regeneration.

The limited regenerative capacity of several organs, such as central nervous system (CNS), heart and limb in mammals makes related major diseases quite difficult to recover. Therefore, dissection of the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying organ regeneration is of great scientific and clinical interests. Tremendous progression has already been made after extensive investigations using several model organisms for decades.

[Establishment and application of multiplex PCR for non-O157 H7 STEC virulence genes detection].

Objective: Traditional detection approaches for non-O157 STEC are both time and labour consuming in diseases surveillance. Virulence genes detection based on multiplex PCR could not only improve the detection efficiency but also increase the accuracy.

Methods: Six virulence genes of non-O157:H7 (stx1, stx2, eae, hly, etpD, katP6) were detected by two groups of trebling PCRs.

Metal-enhanced fluorescence of nano-core-shell structure used for sensitive detection of prion protein with a dual-aptamer strategy.

Metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) as a newly recognized technology is widespread throughout biological research. The use of fluorophore-metal interactions is recognized to be able to alleviate some of fluorophore photophysical constraints, favorably increase both the fluorophore emission intensity and photostability. In this contribution, we developed a novel metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) and dual-aptamer-based strategy to achieve the prion detection in solution and intracellular protein imaging simultaneously, which shows high promise for nanostructure-based biosensing.

[Zebrafish as the model system to study organogenesis and regeneration].

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) is becoming more and more popular as a model organism to study vertebrate organogenesis and regeneration, taking the advantage of its extra-uterine development, transparency, strong regeneration ability and suitability for the large scale genetic screen. In the past decades, a series of useful methods have been established in zebrafish, which allows studies of important questions in developmental biology including cell fate determination, differentiation, morphogenesis, and regeneration after tissue/organ injury. Recently, using large scale mutagenesis screen and improved live imaging techniques, many questions that had not been well understood in mice have been successfully investigated in zebrafish.

Aptamer-mediated nanoparticle-based protein labeling platform for intracellular imaging and tracking endocytosis dynamics.

Although nanoparticles have been widely used as optical contrasts for cell imaging, the complicated prefunctionalized steps and low labeling efficiency of nanoprobes greatly inhibit their applications in cellular protein imaging. In this study, we developed a novel and general strategy that employs an aptamer not only as a recognizer for protein recognition but also as a linker for nanoreporter targeting to specifically label membrane proteins of interest and track their endocytic pathway. With this strategy, three kinds of nanoparticles, including gold nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles, and quantum dots (QDs), have been successfully targeted to the membrane proteins of interest, such as nucleolin or prion protein (PrP(C)).

[Sealing of tracheoesophageal fistula using Sigma covered mental stents].

Objective: To explore the possibilities and efficiency of Sigma covered stents for the treatment of tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF).

Methods: Between 2006 and 2009, 10 Sigma covered mental stents had been placed by guidance of bronchoscopy and/or fluoroscopy in 8 patients with 9 tracheoesophageal fistulas. Among them, 7 fistulas were caused by cancer and 2 by mechanical damage.

[Research on Zhejiang blood information network and management system].

This research was aimed to develop the first level blood information centralized database and real time communication network at a province area in China. Multiple technology like local area network database separate operation, real time data concentration and distribution mechanism, allopatric backup, and optical fiber virtual private network (VPN) were used. As a result, the blood information centralized database and management system were successfully constructed, which covers all the Zhejiang province, and the real time exchange of blood data was realised.