Publications by authors named "Z-K Zhou"

The lack of a robust system to reproducibly propagate HRV-C, a family of viruses refractory to cultivation in standard cell lines, has substantially hindered our understanding of this common respiratory pathogen. We sought to develop an organoid-based system to reproducibly propagate HRV-C, and characterize virus-host interaction using respiratory organoids. We demonstrate that airway organoids sustain serial virus passage with the aid of CYT387-mediated immunosuppression, whereas nasal organoids that more closely simulate the upper airway achieve this without any intervention.

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Lytic cell death culminates in plasma membrane rupture, which releases large intracellular molecules to augment the inflammatory response. Plasma membrane rupture is mediated by the effector membrane protein ninjurin-1 (NINJ1), which polymerizes and ruptures the membrane via its hydrophilic face. How NINJ1 is restrained under steady-state conditions to ensure cell survival remains unknown.

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Selective degradation of cyclin-dependent kinases 12 and 13 (CDK12/13) emerges as a new potential therapeutic approach for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and other human cancers. While several proteolysis-targeting chimera (PROTAC) degraders of CDK12/13 were reported, none are orally bioavailable. Here, we report the discovery of as a potent, selective, and orally bioavailable CDK12/13 PROTAC degrader.

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Psoralen is a main active molecule of the traditional Chinese herb medicine Fructus Psoraleae. Our previous studies have shown that psoralen induced liver injury through the endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) signaling pathways. In this article, we studied whether the ERS inhibitor, 4-phenylbutyrate acid (4-PBA) could inhibit the liver toxicity caused by psoralen, and explored the underlying mechanisms.

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  • Cervical artery dissection (CeAD) is a leading cause of ischemic strokes in young adults, and this study explored the effects of intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) on patients with CeAD and stroke symptoms.
  • Analyzed data from the STOP-CAD study, it found that IVT significantly improved functional independence after 90 days in patients without increasing the risk of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage.
  • The results suggest that IVT is a beneficial treatment for eligible patients with CeAD, aligning with current medical guidelines on its use.
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  • Isobavachin (IBA) is a dihydroflavonoid with potential healh benefits, but its hepatotoxic effects need more research.
  • The study evaluated IBA’s impact on liver cell viability, revealing it has dose-dependent toxic effects and induces autophagy in specific liver cells.
  • Findings suggest that IBA inhibits key signaling proteins related to cell survival, but targeting certain pathways could help mitigate its liver toxicity, offering insights for clinical prevention and treatment.
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Chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL) has different epidemiology in Chinese vs. Western patients, but there are few studies of CLL/SLL in large populations of Chinese patients. ALPINE is a global phase 3 trial investigating Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitors zanubrutinib vs.

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Background: The Gastrodia elata Bl. is an orchid, and its growth demands the presence of Armillaria species. The strong competitiveness of Armillaria species has always been a concern of major threat to other soil organisms, thus disrupting the equilibrium of soil biodiversity.

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  • - Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) is a deadly virus with a high fatality rate and no available antiviral treatments, prompting the WHO to prioritize its study.
  • - Researchers discovered that baloxavir, an anti-influenza drug that targets a viral mechanism common to both influenza and CCHFV, can inhibit CCHFV in cell cultures but struggles with effective oral administration.
  • - A new compound called baloxavir sodium was created to improve solubility and bioavailability, showing promising results in increasing survival rates and reducing viral loads in mice, suggesting potential for clinical use against CCHFV with further development.
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Intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) of bladder cancer (BLCA) contributes to therapy resistance and immune evasion affecting clinical prognosis. The molecular and cellular mechanisms contributing to BLCA ITH generation remain elusive. It is found that a TM4SF1-positive cancer subpopulation (TPCS) can generate ITH in BLCA, evidenced by integrative single cell atlas analysis.

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Ammonia is a crucial component in the production of fertilizers and various nitrogen-based compounds. Now, the lithium-mediated nitrogen reduction reaction (Li-NRR) has emerged as a promising approach for ammonia synthesis at ambient conditions. The proton shuttle plays a critical role in the proton transfer process during Li-NRR.

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Background: Small, randomized trials of patients with cervical artery dissection showed conflicting results regarding optimal stroke prevention strategies. We aimed to compare outcomes in patients with cervical artery dissection treated with antiplatelets versus anticoagulation.

Methods: This is a multicenter observational retrospective international study (16 countries, 63 sites) that included patients with cervical artery dissection without major trauma.

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  • The study highlights challenges in comparing metabolomic data across different labs due to diverse methodologies.
  • The Quartet Project established a set of four metabolite reference materials and comprehensive data through targeted and untargeted analysis, revealing variability in data reliability among labs.
  • The findings offer the research community critical resources and methodologies to improve inter-laboratory accuracy and data integration for future metabolomics studies.
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Parkinson's disease (PD) is a prevalent neurodegenerative disorder that presents a diagnostic challenge due to symptom overlap with other disorders. Neuromelanin (NM) imaging is a promising biomarker for PD, but adoption has been limited, in part due to subpar performance at standard MRI field strengths. We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic utility of ultra-high field 7T NM-sensitive imaging in the diagnosis of PD versus controls and essential tremor (ET), as well as NM differences among PD subtypes.

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Background: The relationship between heart failure (HF) and atrial fibrillation (AF) is clear, with up to half of patients with HF progressing to AF. The pathophysiological basis of AF in the context of HF is presumed to result from atrial remodeling. Upregulation of the transcription factor FOG2 (friend of GATA2; encoded by ) is observed in human ventricles during HF and causes HF in mice.

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Eucommiae Cortex is one of important traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) used in Asia for preventing and treating osteoporosis induced by estrogen deficiency. However, the low exposure of prototype components in Eucommiae Cortex in vivo is difficult to interpret its efficacy. Under the guidance of UPLC-Q/TOF-MS, 42 metabolites including 32 lignans and 10 phenolics, 21 of which were new compounds, were isolated from rat urine and feces after oral administration of aqueous extract of E.

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This paper deals with a two-species chemotaxis-competition system involving singular sensitivity and indirect signal production: $ \begin{equation*} \begin{cases} u_{t} = \nabla\cdot(D(u)\nabla u)-\chi_1\nabla\cdot(\frac{u}{z^{k}}\nabla z)+\mu_1 u(1-u-a_1v), &x\in\Omega,\ t>0,\\ v_{t} = \nabla\cdot(D(v)\nabla v)-\chi_2\nabla\cdot(\frac{v}{z^{k}}\nabla z)+\mu_2 v(1-v-a_2 u), &x\in\Omega,\ t>0,\\ w_{t} = \Delta w-w+u+v,&x\in\Omega,\ t>0,\\ z_{t} = \Delta z-z+w,&x\in\Omega,\ t>0,\\ \end{cases} \end{equation*} $ where $ \Omega\subset R^{n} $ is a convex smooth bounded domain with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions. The diffusion functions $ D(u), D(v) $ are assumed to fulfill $ D(u)\geq(u+1)^{\theta_1} $ and $ D(v)\geq(v+1)^{\theta_2} $ with $ \theta_1, \theta_2 > 0 $, respectively. The parameters are $ k\in (0, \frac{1}{2})\cup (\frac{1}{2}, 1] $, $ \chi_ {i} > 0, (i = 1, 2) $.

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Background: Renal ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) is one of the main causes of acute kidney injury (AKI), for which there is currently no effective treatment. Recently, the interaction between endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and pyroptosis during AKI has been investigated.

Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate the protective effects of Gypenoside XVII (GP-17) against I/R-induced renal injury.

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Background: Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is the most common cause of preventable blindness in preterm infants. First-line treatments include intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB) or laser photocoagulation (LPC).

Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate neurodevelopmental safety of IVB compared to LPC for ROP.

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Airway epithelium repair after infection consists of wound repair, re-synthesis of the extracellular matrix (ECM), and tight junction proteins. In humans, EPs 7630 obtained from roots reduces the severity and duration of acute respiratory tract infections. The effect of EPs 7630 on tissue repair of rhinovirus-16 (RV-16) infected and control human airway epithelial cells was assessed for: (i) epithelial cell proliferation by manual cell counts, (ii) epithelial wound repair by "scratch assay", (iii) ECM composition by Western-blotting and cell-based ELISA, and (iv) epithelial tight junction proteins by Western-blotting.

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A robust in vitro model of the human respiratory epithelium, including the alveolar and the airway epithelium, is essential for understanding the biology and pathology of the human respiratory system. We previously described a protocol to derive human lung organoids from primary lung tissues. We now describe a protocol to induce bidirectional differentiation to generate mature alveolar or airway organoids.

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Vaccines have relieved the public health burden of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and globally inactivated vaccines are most widely used. However, poor vaccination accessibility and waning immunity maintain the pandemic, driving emergence of variants. We developed an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 (I-SARS-CoV-2) vaccine based on a viral isolate with the Spike mutation D614G, produced in Vero cells in a scalable bioreactor, inactivated with β-propiolactone, purified by membrane-based steric exclusion chromatography, and adjuvanted with MF59-like adjuvant AddaVax.

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The Million Veteran Program (MVP) uses the posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms (PTSD) Checklist 17 (PCL-17) self-report to assess PTSD. Existing literature suggests that the five-factor dysphoric arousal model best represents the PTSD symptom clusters; this can be tested within MVP, one of the largest samples collected with suitable data. We compared factor models within MVP across genetically defined subsamples (ancestry [European, African, admixed American, and East Asian], sex) via multi-group confirmatory factor analyses in a sample of 279,897 participants.

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