Publications by authors named "Shilin Zhao"

Parathyroid gland (PG) auto-transplantation is performed to preserve the function of de-vascularized or unintentionally removed PGs, however, little has been published about the technique and outcomes in children. In our study, we aimed to present the results of PG auto-transplantation in children undergoing thyroidectomy or parathyroidectomy at a tertiary single institution. A retrospective review identified 14 patients (<18 years of age) who underwent PG auto-transplantation from January 2000 to December 2022.

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Background: Lymphatic collecting vessels in the kidney are critical in clearing interstitial fluid, macromolecules, and infiltrating immune cells. Dysfunction of the lymphatic vessels can disrupt this process and exacerbate injury-associated inflammation in many disease conditions. We previously found that sodium accumulates within the kidney interstitium during proteinuric kidney injury and elevated sodium environments stimulate isolevuglandin production in antigen-presenting cells, stimulating T cells, and modulating inflammatory responses.

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Background And Aims: Individuals with steatotic liver disease (SLD) are at high cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, but approaches to characterise and mitigate this risk are limited. By investigating relations, and shared metabolic pathways, of hepatic steatosis/fibrosis and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), we sought to identify new avenues for CVD risk reduction in SLD.

Methods: In Framingham Heart Study (FHS) participants (N = 2722, age 54 ± 9 years, 53% women), vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE) was performed between 2016-2019 to assess hepatic steatosis (continuous attenuation parameter [CAP]) and fibrosis (liver fibrosis measure [LSM]).

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Enteropathogenic (EPEC) is a bacterium that causes attaching/effacing (A/E) lesions and serious diarrheal disease, a major health issue in developing countries. EPEC pathogenicity results from the effect of virulence factors and dysregulation of host responses. Polyamines, including spermidine, play a major role in intestinal homeostasis.

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Hepatic steatosis is a central phenotype in multi-system metabolic dysfunction and is increasing in parallel with the obesity pandemic. We use a translational approach integrating clinical phenotyping and outcomes, circulating proteomics, and tissue transcriptomics to identify dynamic, functional biomarkers of hepatic steatosis. Using multi-modality imaging and broad proteomic profiling, we identify proteins implicated in the progression of hepatic steatosis that are largely encoded by genes enriched at the transcriptional level in the human liver.

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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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Article Synopsis
  • The study examines how natural organic matter (NOM) interacts with iron minerals in sediment, influencing groundwater iodine levels in the Hetao Basin.
  • Researchers found that areas with high-iodine groundwater had specific microbial processes, like biodegradation and sulfate reduction, contributing to this enrichment.
  • The type of sediment matters: confined sandy sediments had less iodine due to different iron mineral compositions, highlighting the role of organic compounds in the transformation of iron and iodine in groundwater.
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Given expanding studies in epidemiology and disease-oriented human studies offering hundreds of associations between the human "ome" and disease, prioritizing molecules relevant to disease mechanisms among this growing breadth is important. Here, we link the circulating proteome to human heart failure (HF) propensity (via echocardiographic phenotyping and clinical outcomes) across the lifespan, demonstrating key pathways of fibrosis, inflammation, metabolism, and hypertrophy. We observe a broad array of genes encoding proteins linked to HF phenotypes and outcomes in clinical populations dynamically expressed at a transcriptional level in human myocardium during HF and cardiac recovery (several in a cell-specific fashion).

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  • * Patients with Crohn's disease show higher levels of the enzymes related to hypusination in their colon cells, yet deleting these enzymes in immune cells of mice does not affect inflammation or cancer development in models of colitis.
  • * Findings suggest that while targeting the hypusine pathway might be beneficial for gut health in inflammatory bowel disease, focusing on myeloid cell hypusination is unlikely to improve colitis or related cancer outcomes.
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Cystic fibrosis-related diabetes (CFRD), the most common comorbidity in cystic fibrosis (CF), leads to increased mortality by accelerating the decline in lung function. Tg transgenic mice overexpressing the epithelial sodium channel β subunit exhibit spontaneous CF-like lung disease, including airway mucus obstruction and chronic inflammation. Here, we established a chronic CFRD-like model using Tg mice made diabetic by injection of streptozotocin (STZ).

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Objective: The aim of this study was to compare clinical and craniometric outcomes of patients treated for hydrocephalus following fetal myelomeningocele repair (fMMR) via a ventriculoperitoneal shunt (VPS) or endoscopic third ventriculostomy with choroid plexus cauterization (ETV/CPC).

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of children who were treated for hydrocephalus following fMMR via VPS or ETV with or without CPC (ETV ± CPC) at Vanderbilt between 2012 and 2021. The primary outcomes were treatment failure and time to failure (TTF).

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Despite the wide effects of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) on metabolic, cardiovascular, pulmonary and neurological health, challenges in the feasibility and reproducibility of CRF measurements have impeded its use for clinical decision-making. Here we link proteomic profiles to CRF in 14,145 individuals across four international cohorts with diverse CRF ascertainment methods to establish, validate and characterize a proteomic CRF score. In a cohort of around 22,000 individuals in the UK Biobank, a proteomic CRF score was associated with a reduced risk of all-cause mortality (unadjusted hazard ratio 0.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates over 2,000 young adults to identify metabolic factors that contribute to weight gain during early adulthood, rather than relying solely on BMI "snapshots."
  • - A unique metabolic signature was found, correlating with an average BMI increase of 2.6% over approximately 20 years for each standard deviation increase in the score, highlighting significant metabolic influences on weight gain.
  • - The research emphasizes the intricate nature of metabolic regulation in weight gain and advises caution when using traditional epidemiological or genetic measures in metabolic studies.
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Introduction: There are multiple historic reports linking lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) in children with food allergies (FA), but contemporary studies are sparse. The objective of this study was to evaluate a potential link between FA and LUTS in the pediatric population. We hypothesized that children with FAs are more likely to have LUTS.

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Background: Hypertension is characterized by CD8 (cluster differentiation 8) T cell activation and infiltration into peripheral tissues. CD8 T cell activation requires proteasomal processing of antigenic proteins. It has become clear that isoLG (isolevuglandin)-adduced peptides are antigenic in hypertension; however, IsoLGs inhibit the constitutive proteasome.

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Article Synopsis
  • Green fruit detection is crucial for orchard yield estimation and resource management, but accurate methods are lacking due to challenges like color similarity with backgrounds and limited datasets.
  • The study introduces an improved YOLOv5 model (YOLOv5-AT), integrating data augmentation and innovative blocks to enhance detection accuracy of green fruits like green oranges, tomatoes, and persimmons.
  • Results showed the YOLOv5-AT achieved detection accuracies of 84.6%, 98.0%, and 85.1% respectively, and demonstrated effective performance even with only 50% of the dataset, highlighting its potential to boost agricultural efficiency.
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Background: Between 2005 and 2014, Ghana's Wilms tumor (WT) 2-year disease-free survival of 44% trailed behind that of high-income countries. This study aimed to uncover social determinants of health leading to preventable WT death in Ghana.

Methods: WT patient records (2014-2022) at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH; Ghana) were reviewed retrospectively.

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Background: Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is a common and clinically heterogeneous arrythmia. Machine learning (ML) algorithms can define data-driven disease subtypes in an unbiased fashion, but whether the AF subgroups defined in this way align with underlying mechanisms, such as high polygenic liability to AF or inflammation, and associate with clinical outcomes is unclear.

Methods: We identified individuals with AF in a large biobank linked to electronic health records (EHR) and genome-wide genotyping.

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Unlabelled: Medical professionals such as physicians and veterinarians are responsible for appropriate antimicrobial prescription (AMP) and use. Although seemingly straightforward, the factors influencing antibiotic prescription, a category of antimicrobials, are complex. Many studies have been conducted in the past two decades on this subject.

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Background: Preeclampsia is a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy characterized by widespread vascular inflammation. It occurs frequently in pregnancy, often without known risk factors, and has high rates of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. Identification of biomarkers that predict preeclampsia and its cardiovascular sequelae before clinical onset, or even before pregnancy, is a critical unmet need for the prevention of adverse pregnancy outcomes.

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