Publications by authors named "Z-Z Cheng"

Article Synopsis
  • The study developed an intranasal COVID-19 vaccine called RBD-HR, which consists of a receptor binding domain-derived protein and a special oil-in-water adjuvant for enhanced immune response.
  • Testing in mice and rats showed that the vaccine generated strong and long-lasting immune responses, producing high levels of neutralizing antibodies against specific SARS-CoV-2 variants for at least six months.
  • Additionally, the intranasal administration of the vaccine resulted in effective mucosal and systemic immunity, and when used as a booster after mRNA vaccines, it provided better immune responses and protection against live virus challenges.
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  • This study analyzes fibroblast cells from 517 human samples across 11 tissue types, revealing different fibroblast subpopulations that change in response to inflammation and cancer.
  • Researchers identified four distinct myofibroblast subpopulations, noting that some, like LRRC15 and MMP1, promote tumor growth while others, such as PI16, might have anti-tumor effects.
  • The findings improve our understanding of fibroblast roles in tumors and hint at new therapeutic strategies targeting specific fibroblast types to enhance cancer treatment outcomes.
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Aviation mutagenesis is a fast and efficient breeding method. In this study, we analyzed the effect of aviation mutagenesis on volatile compounds and odor characteristics in Dahongpao fresh leaves and gross tea for the first time. The results showed that aviation mutagenesis significantly increased the total volatile compounds of Dahongpao fresh leaves and gross tea.

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Objective: To evaluate the clinical outcomes in the carriers of insertional translocation (IT).

Design: Retrospective case series.

Setting: University-affiliated reproductive medical center.

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Background And Purpose: Accurate pretreatment diagnosis and assessment of spinal vascular malformations using spinal CTA are crucial for patient prognosis, but the postprocessing reconstruction may not be able to fully depict the lesions due to the complexity inherent in spinal anatomy. Our purpose was to explore the application value of the spinal subtraction and bone background fusion CTA (SSBBF-CTA) technique in precisely depicting and localizing spinal vascular malformation lesions.

Materials And Methods: In this retrospective study, patients (between November 2017 and November 2022) with symptoms similar to those of spinal vascular malformations were divided into diseased (group A) and nondiseased (group B) groups.

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  • Advanced unstable atherosclerotic plaques have higher levels of necroptotic cell death compared to stable plaques, contributing to necrotic core formation, a key factor in cardiovascular diseases.
  • Researchers found that the protein Ripk3 activates the microRNA miR-223-3p, which creates a negative feedback loop to limit necroptotic cell death in foamy macrophages.
  • In experiments with knockout mice, a deficiency in the gene associated with miR-223-3p led to accelerated atherosclerosis, but this effect was reversible with necroptosis inhibitors, highlighting the protective role of miR-223-3p in atherosclerosis.
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Preeclampsia (PE) is the leading cause of maternal and fetal mortality globally and may trigger dementia later in life in mothers and their offspring. However, the etiological drivers remain elusive. Cis P-tau is an early etiological driver and blood biomarker in pre-clinical Alzheimer's and after vascular or traumatic brain injury, which can be targeted by stereo-specific antibody, with clinical trials ongoing.

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Ovarian cancer (OC) is an aggressive gynecological tumor usually diagnosed with widespread metastases and ascites. Here, we depicted a single-cell landscape of the OC ecosystem with five tumor-relevant sites, including omentum metastasis and malignant ascites. Our data reveal the potential roles of ascites-enriched memory T cells as a pool for tumor-infiltrating exhausted CD8 T cells and T helper 1-like cells.

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Rationale And Objectives: We aim to develop a CT-based deep learning (DL) system for fully automatic segmentation of regional muscle volume and measurement of the spatial intermuscular fat distribution of the gluteus maximus muscle.

Materials And Methods: A total of 472 subjects were enrolled and randomly assigned to one of three groups: a training set, test set 1, and test set 2. For each subject in the training set and test set 1, we selected six slices of the CT images as the region of interest for manual segmentation by a radiologist.

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Direct seawater electrolysis is promising for sustainable hydrogen gas (H) production. However, the chloride ions in seawater lead to side reactions and corrosion, which result in a low efficiency and poor stability of the electrocatalyst and hinder the use of seawater electrolysis technology. Here we report a corrosion-resistant RuMoNi electrocatalyst, in which the in situ-formed molybdate ions on its surface repel chloride ions.

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  • Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a diverse group of tumors, with most being aggressive high-grade types, but a minority classified as non-high-grade and exhibiting less aggressive behavior.
  • A study examined 18 non-high-grade TNBCs, mostly with apocrine features, and found that they had low Ki-67 levels, with only 11% showing lymph node metastasis and no recurrences during an average follow-up of 38 months.
  • The tumors showed distinct genetic profiles, particularly involving the PI3K-PKB/Akt and RTK-RAS pathways, indicating that non-high-grade TNBCs are a unique subgroup with specific clinical behaviors that may require tailored treatment approaches.
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Purpose: To assess the association of optic capillary perfusion with decline in the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and to clarify its added value.

Design: Prospective, observational cohort study.

Methods: Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus without diabetic retinopathy (non-DR) underwent standardized examinations annually during a 3-year follow-up period.

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Cardiac models have become increasingly obtainable and affordable with the optimization of human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte (hPSC-CM) differentiation. However, these CMs are immature compared to their counterparts. Here we study the cellular phenotype of hPSC-CMs by comparing their single-cell gene expression and functional profiles in three engineered cardiac tissue configurations: human ventricular (hv) cardiac anisotropic sheet, cardiac tissue strip, and cardiac organoid chamber (hvCOC), with spontaneously aggregated 3D cardiac spheroids (CS) as control.

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The omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 have substantial ability to escape infection- and vaccine-elicited antibody immunity. Here, we investigated the extent of such escape in nine convalescent patients infected with the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 during the first wave of the pandemic. Among the total of 476 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) isolated from peripheral memory B cells, we identified seven mAbs with broad neutralizing activity to all variants tested, including various omicron subvariants.

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EMERGING-CTONG 1103 showed improved progression-free survival (PFS) with neoadjuvant erlotinib vs. chemotherapy for patients harbouring EGFR sensibility mutations and R0 resected stage IIIA-N2 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (NCT01407822). Herein, we report the final results.

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Background: Hypertension can lead to podocyte damage and subsequent apoptosis, eventually resulting in glomerulosclerosis. Although alleviating podocyte apoptosis has clinical significance for the treatment of hypertensive nephropathy, an effective therapeutic target has not yet been identified. The function of septin4, a proapoptotic protein and an important marker of organ damage, is regulated by post-translational modification.

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Accurate differentiation of intramedullary spinal cord tumors and inflammatory demyelinating lesions and their subtypes are warranted because of their overlapping characteristics at MRI but with different treatments and prognosis. The authors aimed to develop a pipeline for spinal cord lesion segmentation and classification using two-dimensional MultiResUNet and DenseNet121 networks based on T2-weighted images. A retrospective cohort of 490 patients (118 patients with astrocytoma, 130 with ependymoma, 101 with multiple sclerosis [MS], and 141 with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders [NMOSD]) was used for model development, and a prospective cohort of 157 patients (34 patients with astrocytoma, 45 with ependymoma, 33 with MS, and 45 with NMOSD) was used for model testing.

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Purpose: To investigate the relationship between choriocapillaris flow deficit percentage (CC FD%) by swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography (SS-OCTA) and 3-year risk of diabetic retinopathy (DR) progression and diabetic macular edema (DME) development.

Design: Prospective, observational cohort study.

Methods: A total of 903 participants with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) without DR or with mild nonproliferative DR (NPDR) free of DME at baseline were followed up annually for 3 years.

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Background: Emerging evidence highlighted vascular injury in aggravating radiation-induced brain injury (RIBI), a common complication of radiotherapy. This study aimed to delineate the pathological feature of cerebral small vessel and investigate the functional roles of Notch signaling in RIBI.

Methods: Brain tissue and functional MRI from RIBI patients were collected and analyzed for radiation-induced vasculopathy.

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The different variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have attracted most public concern because they caused "wave and wave" COVID-19 pandemic. The initial step of viral infection is mediated by the SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S) protein, which mediates the receptor recognition and membrane fusion between virus and host cells. Neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) targeting the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 have become promising candidates for clinical intervention strategy, while multiple studies have shown that different variants have enhanced infectivity and antibody resistance.

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Introduction: The ability of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) to differentiate pancreatic cancer from other benign pancreatic lesions is unsatisfactory. This study explored the diagnostic value of KRAS gene mutations and plasma circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in patients with pancreatic cancer.

Methods: The prospective cohort study comprised 149 consecutive patients with solid pancreatic lesions who underwent endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA).

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Background: The risk/benefit tradeoff of dual antiplatelet therapy after percutaneous coronary intervention may vary in East Asian patients as compared with their non-East Asian counterparts.

Methods: The double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized TWILIGHT trial (Ticagrelor With Aspirin or Alone in High-Risk Patients After Coronary Intervention) enrolled patients undergoing high-risk percutaneous coronary intervention. After 3 months of treatment with ticagrelor plus aspirin, event-free and adherent patients remained on ticagrelor and were randomly assigned to receive aspirin or placebo for 1 year.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A new high-resolution analysis technique improved the determination of jagged end lengths by using methylation at non-CpG cytosine sites, overcoming limitations of previous methods.
  • * The research revealed that urinary DNA jagged ends showed a periodic pattern (10-nt) that was more prominent in patients with renal cell carcinoma and decreased with heparin treatment, indicating potential interaction with histones.
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The intelligent wearable sensors promote the transformation of the health care from a traditional hospital-centered model to a personal portable device-centered model. There is an urgent need of real-time, multi-functional, and personalized monitoring of various biochemical target substances and signals based on the intelligent wearable sensors for health monitoring, especially wound healing. Under this background, this review article first reviews the outstanding progress in the development of intelligent, wearable sensors designed for continuous, real-time analysis, and monitoring of sweat, blood, interstitial fluid, tears, wound fluid, etc.

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