Publications by authors named "Zhi-chao Li"

Background: Systemic light chain amyloidosis is a rare and debilitating disease, especially for which initially presented with digestive tract involvement. Myocardial amyloidosis is highly aggressive with generally poor prognosis and often resulted in missed diagnosis or misdiagnosis with routine examination tools. Multimodality imaging play an important role in diagnosing the amyloidosis effect on multiple organs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Neoadjuvant immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy improves outcomes for patients with resectable non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and the SACTION01 trial investigates the potential enhancement of this approach by adding stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT).
  • In this phase 2 trial, 46 patients received SBRT followed by immunochemotherapy, resulting in a major pathological response (MPR) in 76% of participants, with some experiencing significant adverse effects, primarily alopecia and neutropenia.
  • The study indicates that preoperative SBRT alongside immunochemotherapy is a viable treatment strategy, although it carries risks for severe adverse events, which need careful management.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To clarify the causal relationship between obesity and male infertility through Mendelian randomization (MR) study.

Methods: We assessed the causal effect of genetically predicted body mass index (BMI) on the risk of male infertility via a two-sample MR analysis, with the BMIs of 99 998 cases and 12 746 controls as the exposure factor and genetic information on male infertility obtained from a genome-wide association study of 73 479 Europeans. In the univariable MR (UVMR) analysis of the causal relationship, we mainly used inverse variance weighting (IVW), with MR-Egger regression and weighted median filtering as the supplementary methods.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Pore size sieving, Donnan exclusion, and their combined effects seriously affect ion separation of membrane processes. However, traditional polymer-based membranes face some challenges in precisely controlling both charge distribution and pore size on the membrane surface, which hinders the ion separation performance, such as heavy metal ion removal. Herein, the heterocharged covalent organic framework (COF) membrane is reported by assembling two kinds of ionic COF nanosheets with opposite charges and different pore sizes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

One of the effective therapeutic strategies to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA)-related bone resorption is to target excessive activation of osteoclasts. We discovered that 6-O-angeloylplenolin (6-OAP), a pseudoguaianolide from Euphorbia thymifolia Linn widely used for the treatment of RA in traditional Chinese medicine, could inhibit RANKL-induced osteoclastogenesis and bone resorption in both RAW264.7 cells and BMMs from 1 μM and protect a collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) mouse model from bone destruction in vivo.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play essential roles in various biological processes, such as chromatin remodeling, post-transcriptional regulation, and epigenetic modifications. Despite their critical functions in regulating plant growth, root development, and seed dormancy, the identification of plant lncRNAs remains a challenge due to the scarcity of specific and extensively tested identification methods. Most mainstream machine learning-based methods used for plant lncRNA identification were initially developed using human or other animal datasets, and their accuracy and effectiveness in predicting plant lncRNAs have not been fully evaluated or exploited.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Exploring the libido status of male chronic headache patients and analyzing its relationship with headache symptoms, sleep, anxiety, and depression, providing reference for the comprehensive treatment of male chronic headache.

Methods: 179 patients with chronic headache who visited the Third Affiliated Hospital of Qiqihar Medical College from January 2022 to February 2023 were selected. The male Self Rated Libido Scale , Visual Analog Scale for Pain, Migraine Disability Assessment Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7, and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 were used to evaluate the libido status, headache severity, disability level, sleep quality, anxiety, and depression of the research subjects, respectively.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers analyzed physicochemical traits and combustion performances of 15 key economic tree species, finding differences in moisture content, caloric value, and fire resistance among the leaves and branches of these species.
  • * The study categorized the trees into three classes based on fire resistance, recommending the use of fire-resistant species for economic forest development and advising careful management of less fire-resistant ones to enhance overall fire prevention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on Populus, a key model for tree genomics, and addresses challenges in identifying chromosomes in hybrid poplar strains, particularly the "84K" hybrid.
  • Researchers utilized advanced sequencing techniques and developed high-quality genome assemblies of both parental species, thoroughly mapping their chromosomes and analyzing gene expression patterns at the allele level.
  • Machine learning models showed promise in predicting allele-specific expression, identifying critical genomic features influencing expression differences, and paving the way for future functional studies in Populus hybrids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

(yellowhorn) is a woody oil plant with super stress resistance and excellent oil characteristics. The yellowhorn oil can be used as biofuel and edible oil with high nutritional and medicinal value. However, genetic studies on yellowhorn are just in the beginning, and fundamental biological questions regarding its very long-chain fatty acid (VLCFA) biosynthesis pathway remain largely unknown.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • This study updates previous analyses on the use of TPF chemotherapy followed by surgery for patients with borderline resectable esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (BR-ESCC).
  • It reports on a phase 2 clinical trial involving 47 patients, with 57.4% undergoing surgery and a median overall survival (OS) of 41.9 months.
  • The findings support the effectiveness of TPF chemotherapy followed by surgery, showing a 3-year survival rate of 54.4% overall and 65.4% for patients who had successful R0 resection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - Terpenes and terpenoids are important compounds in plants that contribute to their defense and the quality of plant oils, significantly impacting commercial value.
  • - Terpene synthases are key enzymes responsible for the diversity of terpenes and studying their gene family can help improve oil-producing plants genetically.
  • - Phylogenetic analysis indicates that a significant gene fusion event occurred in the ancestor of land plants, with evidence of gene transfer between microbes and plants, highlighting the evolutionary patterns influencing terpene diversity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Hypoxic pulmonary hypertension (HPH) is a complication of lung diseases with pulmonary vascular remodeling, although the underlying molecular mechanisms have not been fully elucidated. This study investigated the underlying molecular events by using a rat HPH model and primary pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells (PMVECs).

Methods And Results: This study first established a rat HPH model and cultured PMVECs for transmission electron microscopic analysis and manipulation of 3-phosphoinositide-dependent protein kinase 1 (PDK1) or phosphatase and tensin homolog-induced kinase 1 (PINK1) expression in vitro.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Coriaria nepalensis Wall. (Coriariaceae) is a nitrogen-fixing shrub which forms root nodules with the actinomycete Frankia. Oils and extracts of C.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Lymph node dissection (LND) is crucial procedure during radical resection of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but the prognostic value of L4 LND remains elusive. To investigate the prognostic value of L4 LND in patients with left-side NSCLC who underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS).

Methods: Three hundred twelve patients who underwent VATS between Jan.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Wood decay resistance (WDR) is marking the value of wood utilization. Many trees of the Lauraceae have exceptional WDR, as evidenced by their use in ancient royal palace buildings in China. However, the genetics of WDR remain elusive.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Isopropyl 3-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-2-hydroxypropanoate (IDHP) is one of the main bioactive metabolites of the Chinese medicinal herb Danshen, which can be absorbed into blood compounds by oral administration of Compound Danshen dripping pills (CDDPs). Previous study showed that IDHP exerted anti-inflammatory effects by abolishing the secretion of proinflammatory factors stimulated by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). However, the effects of IDHP on LPS-induced acute lung injury (ALI) are not fully understood.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The genus (Ericaceae), with more than 1000 species highly diverse in flower color, is providing distinct ornamental values and a model system for flower color studies. Here, we investigated the divergence between two parental species with different flower color widely used for azalea breeding. Gapless genome assembly was generated for the yellow-flowered azalea, .

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are web-like structures formed by neutrophils, and their main function is antimicrobial defense. Moreover, NETs have numerous roles in the pathogenesis and progression of cancers. However, the potential roles of NET-related genes in renal cell carcinoma remain unclear.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cholestatic liver injury, characterized by liver fibrosis, has increasingly become a global health problem, with no effective treatment available. Hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) differentiate into myofibroblasts, leading to excessive deposition of the extracellular matrix (ECM), which is a feature of liver fibrosis. Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) has proven antifibrotic effects in chronic liver disease; however, the lack of an effective delivery system to the injury site reduces its therapeutic efficacy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Obtaining high-quality embryos is one of the key factors to improve the clinical pregnancy rate of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). So far, the clinical evaluation of embryo quality depends on embryo morphology. However, the clinical pregnancy rate is still low.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Mitochondrial permeability transition pore (PTP), a key regulator of cell life and death processes, is triggered by calcium ions (Ca) and potentiated by reactive oxygen species (ROS). Although the two modes of PTP opening, i.e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

To develop and validate internally a multivariate risk model for predicting the in-hospital mortality of patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and heart failure with mid-range ejection fraction (HFmrEF). The clinical data of 8172 inpatients with HFpEF and HFmrEF was used to establish a retrospective database. These patients, among whom 307 in-hospital deaths (3.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF