Publications by authors named "Shaoli Cai"

The intestinal microbiota and fecal metabolome have been shown to play a vital role in human health, and can be affected by genetic and environmental factors. We found that individuals with Down syndrome (DS) had abnormal serum cytokine levels indicative of a pro-inflammatory environment. We investigated whether these individuals also had alterations in the intestinal microbiome.

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Article Synopsis
  • DNA methylation changes are linked to cancer, and a chemical called zebularine may help treat it by improving immune responses.
  • Zebularine boosts a specific immune pathway that helps the body fight cancer without damaging DNA.
  • In experiments with mice, zebularine reduced tumors and worked better when combined with other therapies, showing the importance of the immune system in fighting cancer.
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Background: African swine fever (ASF) leads to high mortality in domestic pigs and wild boar and is caused by the African swine fever virus (ASFV). Currently, no vaccine is commercially available for prevention, and the epidemic is still spreading. Here, we constructed a recombinant pseudorabies virus (PRV) (PRV-ΔgE/ΔgI/ΔTK-(CD2v)) that expresses the CD2v protein of ASFV and evaluated its effectiveness and safety as a vaccine candidate in mice.

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Cyclic GMP-AMP (cGAMP) synthase (cGAS) is a major DNA sensor responsible for cytosolic DNA-mediated innate immune response. Inhibition of cGAS may be an effective strategy for treating autoimmune diseases such as Aicardi-Goutieres syndrome and systemic lupus erythematosus. Compound C (also known as Dorsomorphin) has been annotated as a potent and reversible inhibitor for AMPKs as well as ALK protein kinases.

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Recent studies indicate that pregnancy upregulated non-ubiquitous calmodulin kinase (PNCK) is significantly up-regulated in breast and renal carcinomas. However, the expression profile and its biological relevance of PNCK in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) have not been elucidated. The expression level of PNCK was detected in specimens of NPC (n=10) and normal tissues (n=10) by real-time PCR and immunohistochemistry.

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Sepsis is defined as "a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a host's dysfunctional response to infection". Although the treatment of sepsis has developed rapidly in the past few years, sepsis incidence and mortality in clinical treatment is still climbing. Moreover, because of the diverse manifestations of sepsis, clinicians continue to face severe challenges in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of patients with sepsis.

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Purpose: Pancreatic cancer is characterized by a hypoxic microenvironment and resistance to most currently available treatment modalities. Prolyl hydroxylase domain 3 (PHD3) is a rate-limiting enzyme that regulates the degradation of hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs) and is deregulated in pancreatic cancer cells. Whether such alteration of PHD3 expression contributes to the sustained growth and radioresistance of pancreatic cancer cells remains largely unknown.

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Background: To investigate the treatment failure pattern and factors influencing locoregional recurrence of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and examine patient survival with re-irradiation (re-RT) after primary radiotherapy.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 87 ESCC patients treated initially with radiotherapy. Failure patterns were classified into regional lymph node recurrence only (LN) and primary failure with/without regional lymph node recurrence (PF).

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Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is the first identified human oncogenic DNA virus in the gamma-herpesvirus family. EBV triggers a cascade events of innate immune responses through Toll-like receptor signaling including the production of type I interferons and the activation of functional autophagy. However, EBV has developed much more elaborate and sophisticated strategies for subverting and escaping the host immune system, such as limiting its own gene expression, activing the host ubiquitin-specific protease system, and interfering ubiquitin modification.

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We have developed a rapid and high throughput lipase-ANS (8-Anilino-l-naphthalenesulfonic acid) assay to evaluate the thermo-stability of lipases based on the ANS fluorescence signal's increasing and shifting when this small fluorescence probes binds to lipase. The testing lipase samples were incubated at a temperature range of 25 degrees C to 65 degrees C for 30 min before mixed with ANS solution (0.20 mg/mL lipase and 0.

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In order to improve the thermostability of the Penicillium expansum Lipase (PEL), the lipase encoding genes was mutated by site-directed mutagenesis. A recombinant vector pAO815-ep8-K55R which contain double mutant genes was constructed by overlap extension PCR using the cDNA of a random-mutant lipase ep8 (a single site mutant) as the template and two special primers were used to generate another mutation site K55R. The recombinant vector was transformed into Pichia pastoris GS115 by electroporation and the recombinant mutant GS-pAO815-ep8- K55R can secret double-mutant lipase PEL-ep8-K55R-GS into the medium when it was induced by Methanol.

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