Clinical Evaluation of a Metagenomics-Based Assay for Pneumonia Management.

Clinical value of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) in pneumonia management is still controversial. A prospective study was conducted to evaluate the clinical impact of PneumoSeq in 57 immunocompetent (ICO) and 75 immunocompromised (ICH) pneumonia patients. The value of PneumoSeq for both etiological and clinical impact investigation in pneumonia was assessed.

Longitudinal virological changes and underlying pathogenesis in hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Guangzhou, China.

Prolonged viral RNA shedding and recurrence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients have been reported. However, the clinical outcome and pathogenesis remain unclear. In this study, we recruited 43 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients.

Clinical metagenomics assessments improve diagnosis and outcomes in community-acquired pneumonia.

Background: Identifying the causes of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is challenging due to the disease's complex etiology and the limitations of traditional microbiological diagnostic methods. Recent advances in next generation sequencing (NGS)-based metagenomics allow pan-pathogen detection in a single assay, and may have significant advantages over culture-based techniques.

Results: We conducted a cohort study of 159 CAP patients to assess the diagnostic performance of a clinical metagenomics assay and its impact on clinical management and patient outcomes.

A panel of extracellular vesicle long noncoding RNAs in seminal plasma for predicting testicular spermatozoa in nonobstructive azoospermia patients.

Study Question: Whether the testis-specific extracellular vesicle (EV) long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in seminal plasma could be utilized to predict the presence of testicular spermatozoa in nonobstructive azoospermia (NOA) patients?

Summary Answer: Our findings indicate that the panel based on seminal plasma EV lncRNAs was a sensitive and specific method in predicting the presence of testicular spermatozoa and may improve clinical decision-making of NOA.

What Is Known Already: The adoption of sperm retrieval techniques, especially microdissection testicular sperm extraction (mTESE), in combination with ICSI has revolutionized treatment for NOA. However, there are no precise and noninvasive methods for predicting whether there are testicular spermatozoa in NOA patients before mTESE.

Mechanism of synergy of BH3 mimetics and paclitaxel in chronic myeloid leukemia cells: Mcl-1 inhibition.

Paclitaxel is an alternative chemotherapeutic agent for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) when primary or secondary resistance of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) is emerging, because paclitaxel could bypass the apoptotic deficiencies linked to p53 and fas ligand pathways in CML. However, high levels of Bcl-2 family proteins in CML could resist paclitaxel-induced apoptosis. Herein, we utilized two BH3 mimetics ABT-737 and S1 to study the potential of BH3 mimetics in combination with paclitaxel in treatment of CML cells and illustrated the mechanism by which BH3 mimetics synergize with paclitaxel.

A novel BH3 mimetic efficiently induces apoptosis in melanoma cells through direct binding to anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins, including phosphorylated Mcl-1.

The Bcl-2 family modulates sensitivity to chemotherapy in many cancers, including melanoma, in which the RAS/BRAF/MEK/ERK pathway is constitutively activated. Mcl-1, a major anti-apoptotic protein in the Bcl-2 family, is extensively expressed in melanoma and contributes to melanoma's well-documented chemoresistance. Here, we provide the first evidence that Mcl-1 phosphorylation at T163 by ERK1/2 and JNK is associated with the resistance of melanoma cell lines to the existing BH3 mimetics gossypol, S1 and ABT-737, and a novel anti-apoptotic mechanism of phosphorylated Mcl-1 (pMcl-1) is revealed.

Resistance to BH3 mimetic S1 in SCLC cells that up-regulate and phosphorylate Bcl-2 through ERK1/2.

Background And Purpose: B cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) is a central regulator of cell survival that is overexpressed in the majority of small-cell lung cancers (SCLC) and contributes to both malignant transformation and therapeutic resistance. The purpose of this work was to study the key factors that determine the sensitivity of SCLC cells to Bcl-2 homology domain-3 (BH3) mimetic S1 and the mechanism underlying the resistance of BH3 mimetics.

Experimental Approaches: Western blot was used to evaluate the contribution of Bcl-2 family members to the cellular response of SCLC cell lines to S1.

S1 kills MCF-7/ADR cells more than MCF-7 cells: A protective mechanism of endoplasmic reticulum stress.

Drug resistance in chemotherapy for breast cancer is associated with high levels of P-glycoprotein (P-gp) as well as endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. In this paper, we aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a pan-BH3 mimetic S1 on drug-resistant MCF-7/ADR cells, and the roles of S1-induced ER stress in cell death. S1 exhibited greater and faster mitochondrial apoptosis in MCF-7/ADR cells than in MCF-7 cells.