The Association of Serum Complement C1q with Coronary Artery Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is one of the leading causes of death in middle-aged and elderly people, and its incidence has been increasing in recent years. An in-depth understanding of the pathogenesis of CAD is important to ensure the health of CAD patients.

Objective: To analyze the association of serum complement C1q with CAD," you could say something like "The objective of this meta-analysis is to investigate the relationship between serum complement C1q levels and the presence of CAD, aiming to provide insights for clinical diagnosis and treatment.

A spatially resolved single-cell genomic atlas of the adult human breast.

The adult human breast is comprised of an intricate network of epithelial ducts and lobules that are embedded in connective and adipose tissue. Although most previous studies have focused on the breast epithelial system, many of the non-epithelial cell types remain understudied. Here we constructed the comprehensive Human Breast Cell Atlas (HBCA) at single-cell and spatial resolution.

A spatially resolved single cell genomic atlas of the adult human breast.

The adult human breast comprises an intricate network of epithelial ducts and lobules that are embedded in connective and adipose tissue. While previous studies have mainly focused on the breast epithelial system, many of the non-epithelial cell types remain understudied. Here, we constructed a comprehensive Human Breast Cell Atlas (HBCA) at single-cell and spatial resolution.

Preneoplastic stromal cells promote BRCA1-mediated breast tumorigenesis.

Women with germline BRCA1 mutations (BRCA1) have increased risk for hereditary breast cancer. Cancer initiation in BRCA1 is associated with premalignant changes in breast epithelium; however, the role of the epithelium-associated stromal niche during BRCA1-driven tumor initiation remains unclear. Here we show that the premalignant stromal niche promotes epithelial proliferation and mutant BRCA1-driven tumorigenesis in trans.

scEpiLock: A Weakly Supervised Learning Framework for -Regulatory Element Localization and Variant Impact Quantification for Single-Cell Epigenetic Data.

Recent advances in single-cell transposase-accessible chromatin using a sequencing assay (scATAC-seq) allow cellular heterogeneity dissection and regulatory landscape reconstruction with an unprecedented resolution. However, compared to bulk-sequencing, its ultra-high missingness remarkably reduces usable reads in each cell type, resulting in broader, fuzzier peak boundary definitions and limiting our ability to pinpoint functional regions and interpret variant impacts precisely. We propose a weakly supervised learning method, scEpiLock, to directly identify core functional regions from coarse peak labels and quantify variant impacts in a cell-type-specific manner.

InsuLock: A Weakly Supervised Learning Approach for Accurate Insulator Prediction, and Variant Impact Quantification.

Mapping chromatin insulator loops is crucial to investigating genome evolution, elucidating critical biological functions, and ultimately quantifying variant impact in diseases. However, chromatin conformation profiling assays are usually expensive, time-consuming, and may report fuzzy insulator annotations with low resolution. Therefore, we propose a weakly supervised deep learning method, InsuLock, to address these challenges.

Integrated Single-Cell Transcriptomics and Chromatin Accessibility Analysis Reveals Regulators of Mammary Epithelial Cell Identity.

The mammary epithelial cell (MEC) system is a bilayered ductal epithelium of luminal and basal cells, maintained by a lineage of stem and progenitor populations. Here, we used integrated single-cell transcriptomics and chromatin accessibility analysis to reconstruct the cell types of the mouse MEC system and their underlying gene regulatory features in an unbiased manner. We define differentiation states within the secretory type of luminal cells, which forms a continuous spectrum of general luminal progenitor and lactation-committed progenitor cells.

Defining Epidermal Basal Cell States during Skin Homeostasis and Wound Healing Using Single-Cell Transcriptomics.

Our knowledge of transcriptional heterogeneities in epithelial stem and progenitor cell compartments is limited. Epidermal basal cells sustain cutaneous tissue maintenance and drive wound healing. Previous studies have probed basal cell heterogeneity in stem and progenitor potential, but a comprehensive dissection of basal cell dynamics during differentiation is lacking.

Elevated MIC Values of Imidazole Drugs against Aspergillus fumigatus Isolates with TR/L98H/S297T/F495I Mutation.

The use of azole fungicides in agriculture is believed to be one of the main reasons for the emergence of azole resistance in Though widely used in agriculture, imidazole fungicides have not been linked to resistance in This study showed that elevated MIC values of imidazole drugs were observed against isolates with TR/L98H/S297T/F495I mutation, but not among isolates with TR/L98H mutation. Short-tandem-repeat (STR) typing analysis of 580 isolates from 20 countries suggested that the majority of TR/L98H/S297T/F495I strains from China were genetically different from the predominant major clade comprising most of the azole-resistant strains and the strains with the same mutation from the Netherlands and Denmark. Alignments of sterol 14α-demethylase sequences suggested that F495I in was orthologous to F506I in and F489L in , which have been reported to be associated with imidazole resistance.

Epidemiology and Molecular Characterizations of Azole Resistance in Clinical and Environmental Aspergillus fumigatus Isolates from China.

Azole resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus has emerged as a worldwide public health problem. We sought here to demonstrate the occurrence and characteristics of azole resistance in A. fumigatus from different parts of China.

Upregulation of kallikrein‑related peptidase 5 is associated with the malignant behavior of colorectal cancer.

Kallikrein-related peptidase 5 (KLK5) is a serine protease that has exhibited upregulated expression in numerous types of human cancer. The present study assessed KLK5 expression in colorectal cancer (CRC) tissues, in order to determine its association with clinicopathological data and prognosis. The mRNA and protein expression levels of KLK5 were detected using reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction, immunohistochemistry and enzyme‑linked immunosorbent assay, respectively.

Characteristics of qacA/B-positive Staphylococcus aureus isolated from patients and a hospital environment in China.

Objectives: This study was designed to demonstrate the characteristics of qacA/B-positive Staphylococcus aureus in China.

Methods: One hundred and forty-five MRSA and 178 MSSA from clinical specimens from seven hospitals in different regions of China, 70 MRSA from superficial sites of patients and 106 MRSA from environmental samples from an ICU were collected and screened for the presence of the qacA/B gene. The qacA/B-positive isolates and 72 randomly selected qacA/B-negative control isolates were further characterized by MLST, spa typing and detection of toxin genes, as well as antimicrobial and chlorhexidine susceptibility.

Mutant prevention concentrations of levofloxacin, pazufloxacin and ciprofloxacin for A. baumannii and mutations in gyrA and parC genes.

Fluoroquinolones are antimicrobial agents that are widely used clinically, but the increasing resistance of Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii) to these agents is a matter of concern. We investigated mutant prevention concentrations (MPCs) of three fluoroquinolones, levofloxacin (LVX), pazufloxacin (PAZ) and ciprofloxacin (CIP).

Characterization of Staphylococcus aureus from distinct geographic locations in China: an increasing prevalence of spa-t030 and SCCmec type III.

Staphylococcus aureus belongs to one of the most common bacteria causing healthcare and community associated infections in China, but their molecular characterization has not been well studied. From May 2011 to June 2012, a total of 322 non-duplicate S. aureus isolates were consecutively collected from seven tertiary care hospitals in seven cities with distinct geographical locations in China, including 171 methicillin sensitive S.

The identification, typing, and antimicrobial susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from mink with hemorrhagic pneumonia.

The biological characteristics and molecular epidemiology of Pseudomonas aeruginosa associated with mink hemorrhagic pneumonia from Shandong province of eastern China were determined in this study. From 2010 to 2011, 30 mink P. aeruginosa isolates were identified from lung, fecal and feed samples of clinical cases and subjected to serotyping, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) using SpeI.

Pathogenic analysis of Vibrio alginolyticus infection in a mouse model.

Vibrio alginolyticus is a Gram-negative halophilic bacterium and has been recognized as an opportunistic pathogen to both humans and marine animals. So far, most studies have been focused on marine animals and few reports have been aimed at mammals, including human. In this study, we first established a mouse model to understand the pathogenic mechanism of V.

Direct serum and tissue assay for EGFR mutation in non-small cell lung cancer by high-resolution melting analysis.

Biological therapy with epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) have noted promising outcomes for patients with non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), especially those with mutated EGFR. Tissue EGFR gene mutation testing can predict the benefit of taking a first-line EGFR-TKI, thus, allowing the physician to prescribe the most suitable therapy. Unfortunately, most lung cancer patients, especially NSCLC patients present with advanced disease that is surgically unresectable.

Treatment of dairy wastewater by two-stage membrane operation with ultrafiltration and nanofiltration.

Treatment of dairy wastewater by a two-stage membrane process with ultrafiltration (UF) and nanofiltration (NF) was investigated. The results showed that the flux of UF was higher at pH = 4.6 than that at pH = 8 because the resistance of the fouling membrane was lower at the isoelectric point of protein (pH = 4.

RGD-dependent mechanotransduction of suspension cultured Taxus cell in response to shear stress.

Plant cells cultured in bioreactors are strongly influenced by mechanical forces. However, the molecular mechanism of plant cell mechanoreception has maintained unclear. In animal cells, the Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) motif can be found in proteins of the extracellular matrix.

Nitric oxide mediates inactivation of glutathione S-transferase in suspension culture of Taxus cuspidata during shear stress.

The importance of nitric oxide (NO) in regulating plant cell responses to environmental stresses is becoming evident. Here the possible role of NO in suspension cultures of Taxus cuspidata under shear stress was investigated in a Couette-type shear reactor. It was found that shear stress with 190 s(-1) caused NO generation in 8 h.