Publications by authors named "Z-M Cheng"

Setting up a global SARS-CoV-2 surveillance system requires an understanding of how virus isolation and propagation practices, use of animal or human sera, and different neutralisation assay platforms influence assessment of SARS-CoV-2 antigenicity. In this study, with the contribution of 15 independent laboratories across all WHO regions, we carried out a controlled analysis of neutralisation assay platforms using the first WHO International Standard for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (source: NIBSC). Live virus isolates (source: WHO BioHub or individual labs) or spike plasmids (individual labs) for pseudovirus production were used to perform neutralisation assays using the same serum panels.

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  • Overbiopsy is a significant concern in prostate cancer diagnostics, prompting the development of a new urine tumor DNA algorithm called utLIFE to help avoid unnecessary procedures.
  • In clinical tests with a training group and a validation cohort, the utLIFE-PC model demonstrated high accuracy with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.967 and 0.929, respectively, along with strong sensitivity and specificity.
  • The model outperforms traditional prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests and other single-dimensional biomarkers, highlighting its potential to enhance prostate cancer diagnostics and reduce unnecessary biopsies.
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Background: Play is an indispensable and meaningful activity in children's daily life. Research has shown that autistic children often exhibit differences in play development. The core traits of autism, such as distinct patterns in social interaction and communication, focused interests, and repetitive behaviors, frequently manifest in their play.

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  • The study focused on creating a deep learning (DL) model to aid in the detection and diagnosis of cerebral aneurysms, both with and without human involvement.
  • The DL model was trained on data from 3,829 patients and tested on 484 patients, comparing performance between the model, human radiologists, and a combination of both.
  • Results showed significant improvements in diagnostic speed and accuracy for radiologists when assisted by the DL model, particularly benefiting junior radiologists.
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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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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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Limited understanding of the immunopathogenesis of human herpesvirus 6B (HHV-6B) has prevented its acceptance as a pulmonary pathogen after hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT). In this prospective multicenter study of patients undergoing bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) for pneumonia after allogeneic HCT, we test blood and BAL fluid (BALF) for HHV-6B DNA and mRNA transcripts associated with lytic infection and perform RNA-seq on paired blood. Among 116 participants, HHV-6B DNA is detected in 37% of BALs, 49% of which also have HHV-6B mRNA detection.

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Alternative splicing (AS) is prevalent in cancer, generating an extensive but largely unexplored repertoire of novel immunotherapy targets. We describe soform peptides from NA splicing for mmunotherapy target creening (IRIS), a computational platform capable of discovering AS-derived tumor antigens (TAs) for T cell receptor (TCR) and chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapies. IRIS leverages large-scale tumor and normal transcriptome data and incorporates multiple screening approaches to discover AS-derived TAs with tumor-associated or tumor-specific expression.

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As SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and other variants of concern (VOCs) continue spreading worldwide, development of antibodies and vaccines to confer broad and protective activity is a global priority. Here, we report on the identification of a special group of nanobodies from immunized alpaca with potency against diverse VOCs including Omicron subvariants BA.1, BA.

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SARS-CoV-2 spread in humans results in continuous emergence of new variants, highlighting the need for vaccines with broad-spectrum antigenic coverage. Using inter-lineage chimera and mutation-patch strategies, we engineered a recombinant monomeric spike variant (STFK1628x) that contains key regions and residues across multiple SAR-CoV-2 variants. STFK1628x demonstrated high immunogenicity and mutually complementary antigenicity to its prototypic form (STFK).

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Introduction: Early detection of colorectal cancer (CRC) by screening programs is crucial because survival rates worsen at advanced stages. However, the currently used screening method, the fecal immunochemical test (FIT), suffers from a high number of false-positives and is insensitive for detecting advanced adenomas (AAs), resulting in false-negatives for these premalignant lesions. Therefore, more accurate, noninvasive screening tools are needed.

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Tissue-specific antigens can serve as targets for adoptive T cell transfer-based cancer immunotherapy. Recognition of tumor by T cells is mediated by interaction between peptide-major histocompatibility complexes (pMHCs) and T cell receptors (TCRs). Revealing the identity of peptides bound to MHC is critical in discovering cognate TCRs and predicting potential toxicity.

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Background: The authors compare the effectiveness and safety of endovascular treatment (EVT) versus best medical management (BMM) in strokes attributable to acute basilar artery occlusion (BAO).

Methods: The present analysis was based on the ongoing, prospective, multicenter ATTENTION (Endovascular Treatment for Acute Basilar Artery Occlusion) trial registry in China. Our analytic sample comprised 2134 patients recruited at 48 sites between 2017 and 2021 and included 462 patients who received BMM and 1672 patients who received EVT.

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The CRISPR-Cas type V-I is a family of Cas12i-containing programmable nuclease systems guided by a short crRNA without requirement for a tracrRNA. Here we present an engineered Type V-I CRISPR system (Cas12i), ABR-001, which utilizes a tracr-less guide RNA. The compact Cas12i effector is capable of self-processing pre-crRNA and cleaving dsDNA targets, which facilitates versatile delivery options and multiplexing, respectively.

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Tailoring Shockley surface-state (SS) electrons utilizing complex interfacial supramolecular tessellations was explored by low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy, combined with computational modelling using electron plane wave expansion (EPWE) and empirical tight-binding (TB) methods. Employing a recently introduced gas-mediated on-surface reaction protocol, three distinct types of open porous networks comprising paired organometallic species as basic tectons were selectively synthesized. In particular, these supramolecular networks feature semiregular Archimedean tilings, providing intricate quantum dots (QDs) coupling scenarios compared to hexagonal porous superlattices.

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Background: In patients undergoing mechanical thrombectomy (MT), adjunctive antithrombotic might improve angiographic reperfusion, reduce the risk of distal emboli and reocclusion but possibly expose patients to a higher intracranial hemorrhage risk. This study evaluated the safety and efficacy of combined MT plus eptifibatide for acute ischemic stroke.

Methods: This was a propensity-matched analysis of data from 2 prospective trials in Chinese populations: the ANGEL-ACT trial (Endovascular Treatment Key Technique and Emergency Workflow Improvement of Acute Ischemic Stroke) in 111 hospitals between November 2017 and March 2019, and the EPOCH trial (Eptifibatide in Endovascular Treatment of Acute Ischemic Stroke) in 15 hospitals between April 2019 and March 2020.

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  • Single-cell RNA sequencing has shown that there is a lot of molecular diversity in gene expression during spermatogenesis, but it doesn’t provide a clear picture of how these processes work in the actual environment of seminiferous tubules.
  • By utilizing Slide-seq, a technology for spatial transcriptomics, researchers have created a detailed atlas of gene expression patterns in mouse and human testes at near-single-cell resolution.
  • The study reveals significant differences in the cellular environment of spermatogenesis between mice and humans, and it highlights how diabetes can disrupt the spatial organization of seminiferous tubules, potentially leading to male infertility.
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  • A clinical trial investigated whether therapeutic-dose anticoagulation could improve outcomes for critically ill patients with severe Covid-19 compared to standard thromboprophylaxis.
  • The study found no significant difference in organ support-free days between the two groups, with the anticoagulation group showing a median of 1 day compared to 4 days for the usual-care group.
  • The trial was halted due to a high probability of futility, with similar hospital discharge survival rates and a slightly higher occurrence of major bleeding in the anticoagulation group.
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Background: Thrombosis and inflammation may contribute to the risk of death and complications among patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). We hypothesized that therapeutic-dose anticoagulation may improve outcomes in noncritically ill patients who are hospitalized with Covid-19.

Methods: In this open-label, adaptive, multiplatform, controlled trial, we randomly assigned patients who were hospitalized with Covid-19 and who were not critically ill (which was defined as an absence of critical care-level organ support at enrollment) to receive pragmatically defined regimens of either therapeutic-dose anticoagulation with heparin or usual-care pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis.

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Background And Purpose: The benefit of endovascular treatment (EVT) for large vessel occlusion in clinical practice in developing countries like China needs to be confirmed. The aim of the study was to determine whether the benefit of EVT for acute ischemic stroke in randomized trials could be generalized to clinical practice in Chinese population.

Methods: We conducted a prospective registry of EVT at 111 centers in China.

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Objective: To identify common genetic variants associated with the presence of brain microbleeds (BMBs).

Methods: We performed genome-wide association studies in 11 population-based cohort studies and 3 case-control or case-only stroke cohorts. Genotypes were imputed to the Haplotype Reference Consortium or 1000 Genomes reference panel.

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Early detection has the potential to reduce cancer mortality, but an effective screening test must demonstrate asymptomatic cancer detection years before conventional diagnosis in a longitudinal study. In the Taizhou Longitudinal Study (TZL), 123,115 healthy subjects provided plasma samples for long-term storage and were then monitored for cancer occurrence. Here we report the preliminary results of PanSeer, a noninvasive blood test based on circulating tumor DNA methylation, on TZL plasma samples from 605 asymptomatic individuals, 191 of whom were later diagnosed with stomach, esophageal, colorectal, lung or liver cancer within four years of blood draw.

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GPCR kinase 2-interacting protein-1 (GIT1) is a scaffold protein that plays an important role in cell adaptation, proliferation, migration, and differentiation; however, the role of GIT1 in the regulation of neuronal death after spinal cord injury remains obscure. Here, we demonstrate that GIT1 deficiency remarkably increased neuronal apoptosis and enhanced JNK/p38 signaling, which resulted in stronger motor deficits by ischemia-reperfusion in vivo, consistent with the finding of oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation-induced neuronal injury in vitro. After treatment with JNK and p38 inhibitors, abnormally necroptotic cell death caused by GIT1 knockdown could be partially rescued, with the recovery of neuronal viability, which was still poorer than that in control neurons.

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mutant tumors are largely recalcitrant to targeted therapies. Genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs) of mutant cancer recapitulate critical aspects of this disease and are widely used for preclinical validation of targets and therapies. Through comprehensive profiling of exomes and matched transcriptomes of >200 G12D-initiated GEMM tumors from one lung and two pancreatic cancer models, we discover that significant intratumoral and intertumoral genomic heterogeneity evolves during tumorigenesis.

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Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between single-nucleotide polymorphisms and chronic postsurgical pain.

Methods: Using GoldenGate genotyping assays, we genotyped 638 polymorphisms within 54 pain-related genes in 1,152 surgical patients who were enrolled in our Persistent Pain after Surgery Study. Patients were contacted by phone to determine whether they had chronic postsurgical pain at 12 months.

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