Establishment and application of autoverification system for HbA1c testing.

Introduction: This study aimed to determine autoverification rules for routine glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) analysis based on high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) principle. Laboratory information system (LIS) and Bio-Rad D-100 Advisor software (Bio-Rad, Hercules, USA) with graphics recognition function were carriers for the autoverification system.

Materials And Methods: A total of 105,126 HbA1c results, including 98,249 HbA1c matching fast plasma glucose (FPG) results of real-world data from May 2019 to June 2020, were collected to determine autoverification rules including flags, delta checks, reporting limits, and logical rules.

Class-Incremental Learning: A Survey.

Deep models, e.g., CNNs and Vision Transformers, have achieved impressive achievements in many vision tasks in the closed world.

PI3Kγ in B cells promotes antibody responses and generation of antibody-secreting cells.

The differentiation of naive and memory B cells into antibody-secreting cells (ASCs) is a key feature of adaptive immunity. The requirement for phosphoinositide 3-kinase-delta (PI3Kδ) to support B cell biology has been investigated intensively; however, specific functions of the related phosphoinositide 3-kinase-gamma (PI3Kγ) complex in B lineage cells have not. In the present study, we report that PI3Kγ promotes robust antibody responses induced by T cell-dependent antigens.

DAB2IP inhibits glucose uptake by modulating HIF-1α ubiquitination under hypoxia in breast cancer.

Metabolic reprogramming has become increasingly important in tumor biology research. The glucose metabolic pathway is a major energy source and is often dysregulated in breast cancer. DAB2IP is widely reported to be a tumor suppressor that acts as a scaffold protein to suppress tumor malignancy in breast cancer.

Impact of Memory T Cells on SARS-COV-2 Vaccine Response in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients faced an elevated mortality rate from SARS-CoV-2 infection, ranging between 10-40%. The SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines are important tools in preventing severe disease, yet their efficacy in the post-transplant setting remains unclear, especially in patients subjected to myeloablative chemotherapy and immunosuppression. We evaluated the humoral and adaptive immune responses to the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination series in 42 HSCT recipients and 5 healthy controls.

ALKBH5 modulates hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell energy metabolism through mA modification-mediated RNA stability control.

N-methyladenosine (mA) RNA modification controls numerous cellular processes. To what extent these post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms play a role in hematopoiesis has not been fully elucidated. We here show that the mA demethylase alkB homolog 5 (ALKBH5) controls mitochondrial ATP production and modulates hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) fitness in an mA-dependent manner.

Comparison of Direct and Extraction Immunoassay Methods With Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry Measurement of Urinary Free Cortisol for the Diagnosis of Cushing's Syndrome.

Background: Twenty-four-hour urinary free cortisol (UFC) measurement is the initial diagnostic test for Cushing's syndrome (CS). We compared UFC determination by both direct and extraction immunoassays using Abbott Architect, Siemens Atellica Solution, and Beckman DxI800 with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). In addition, we evaluated the value of 24-hr UFC measured by six methods for diagnosing CS.

Combination of Chest Computed Tomography Value and Clinical Laboratory Data for the Prognostic Risk Evaluation of Patients with COVID-19.

Objective: This study aims to investigate the independent prognostic factors of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and thereafter construct a related prognostic model.

Methods: The subjects were screened following the COVID-19 diagnostic criteria. The independent prognostic factors were selected based on the indicators, including medical history, clinical manifestation, laboratory tests, imaging examination and clinical prognosis.

Toxicities associated with immune checkpoint inhibitors: a systematic study.

Background: Available evidence shows that the incidence of toxicities associated with cancer immunotherapy, such as programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) and programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1)-related toxicities, is estimated to be between 0.3 and 1.3%.

Comparison of GLIM and PG-SGA for predicting clinical outcomes of patients with esophageal squamous carcinoma resection.

Objective: to determine the validity of the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) against the Patient Generated-Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) as a gold standard tool in malnutrition diagnosis, and to assess the impact of malnutrition diagnosed using GLIM and PG-SGA on the clinical outcomes of patients with esophageal squamous carcinoma (ESCC) resection. Methods: we prospectively analyzed 182 patients with ESCC who underwent radical esophagectomy. Preoperative malnutrition was diagnosed using GLIM and PG-SGA, and the postoperative clinical outcomes, including postoperative complications, postoperative chest tube indwelling time, length of stay and total hospitalization cost, were recorded.

Proteomic Profiling of Cryoglobulinemia.

Objective: We aimed to explore and identify candidate protein biomarkers of cryoglobulinemia (CGE) in disease control patients with negative cryoglobulin (DC) or healthy controls (HCs).

Methods: The tandem mass tag (TMT)-labeled serum quantitative proteomics approach was used to identify differentially expressed proteins between the CGE and DC groups. Ingenuity pathway analysis was used for functional annotation of differentially expressed proteins.

SRSF1 Deficiency Impairs the Late Thymocyte Maturation and the CD8 Single-Positive Lineage Fate Decision.

The underlying mechanisms of thymocyte development and lineage determination remain incompletely understood, and the emerging evidences demonstrated that RNA binding proteins (RBPs) are deeply involved in governing T cell fate in thymus. Serine/arginine-rich splicing factor 1 (SRSF1), as a classical splicing factor, is a pivotal RBP for gene expression in various biological processes. Our recent study demonstrated that SRSF1 plays essential roles in the development of late thymocytes by modulating the T cell regulatory gene networks post-transcriptionally, which are critical in response to type I interferon signaling for supporting thymocyte maturation.

Hypertension Induced by Combination Therapy of Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Global Clinical Trials.

Nowadays, due to the limitation of single therapy, combination therapy for cancer treatments has become important strategy. With the advancement of research on cardiotoxicities induced by anti-cancer treatment, among which cancer treatment-induced hypertension is the most frequent case. However, due to the small sample size and the absence of comparison (single-arm study alone), these studies have limitations to produce a feasible conclusion.

SRSF1 plays a critical role in invariant natural killer T cell development and function.

Invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells are highly conserved innate-like T lymphocytes that originate from CD4CD8 double-positive (DP) thymocytes. Here, we report that serine/arginine splicing factor 1 (SRSF1) intrinsically regulates iNKT cell development by directly targeting Myb and balancing the abundance of short and long isoforms. Conditional ablation of SRSF1 in DP cells led to a substantially diminished iNKT cell pool due to defects in proliferation, survival, and TCRα rearrangement.

Development and Validation of a Prognostic Gene Signature in Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma.

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), one of the most common urologic cancer types, has a relatively good prognosis. However, clinical diagnoses are mostly done during the medium or late stages, when mortality and recurrence rates are quite high. Therefore, it is important to perform real-time information tracking and dynamic prognosis analysis for these patients.

SRSF1 serves as a critical posttranscriptional regulator at the late stage of thymocyte development.

The underlying mechanisms of thymocyte maturation remain largely unknown. Here, we report that serine/arginine-rich splicing factor 1 (SRSF1) intrinsically regulates the late stage of thymocyte development. Conditional deletion of SRSF1 resulted in severe defects in maintenance of late thymocyte survival and a blockade of the transition of TCRβCD24CD69 immature to TCRβCD24CD69 mature thymocytes, corresponding to a notable reduction of recent thymic emigrants and diminished periphery T cell pool.

Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of cancer patients with COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis of global data.

There are minimal data regarding the prevalence of cancer in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), as well as the incidence of severe illness and rate of mortality in COVID-19 patients with cancer. PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science were systematically searched, from database inception to July 15, 2020, for studies of patients with COVID-19 that included information regarding comorbid cancer. In total, 109 eligible global studies were included in this systematic review.

METTL3-dependent mA modification programs T follicular helper cell differentiation.

T follicular helper (T) cells are specialized effector CD4 T cells critical to humoral immunity. Whether post-transcriptional regulation has a function in T cells is unknown. Here, we show conditional deletion of METTL3 (a methyltransferase catalyzing mRNA N-methyladenosine (mA) modification) in CD4 T cells impairs T differentiation and germinal center responses in a cell-intrinsic manner in mice.

The kinase PDK1 is critical for promoting T follicular helper cell differentiation.

The kinase PDK1 is a crucial regulator for immune cell development by connecting PI3K to downstream AKT signaling. However, the roles of PDK1 in CD4 T cell differentiation, especially in T follicular helper (Tfh) cell, remain obscure. Here we reported PDK1 intrinsically promotes the Tfh cell differentiation and germinal center responses upon acute infection by using conditional knockout mice.

Breast cancer exosomes contribute to pre-metastatic niche formation and promote bone metastasis of tumor cells.

Breast cancer preferentially develops osteolytic bone metastasis, which makes patients suffer from pain, fractures and spinal cord compression. Accumulating evidences have shown that exosomes play an irreplaceable role in pre-metastatic niche formation as a communication messenger. However, the function of exosomes secreted by breast cancer cells remains incompletely understood in bone metastasis of breast cancer.

Exploring the stage-specific roles of Tcf-1 in T cell development and malignancy at single-cell resolution.

Tcf-1 (encoded by Tcf7) not only plays critical roles in promoting T cell development and differentiation but also has been identified as a tumor suppressor involved in preventing T cell malignancy. However, the comprehensive mechanisms of Tcf-1 involved in T cell transformation remain poorly understood. In this study, Tcf7 mice were crossed with Vav-cre, Lck-cre, or Cd4-cre mice to delete Tcf-1 conditionally at the beginning of the HSC, DN2-DN3, or DP stage, respectively.

YTHDF1 Promotes Gastric Carcinogenesis by Controlling Translation of .

N-methyladenosine (mA) is the most prevalent internal RNA modification in mammals that regulates homeostasis and function of modified RNA transcripts. Here, we aimed to investigate the role of YTH mA RNA-binding protein 1 (YTHDF1), a key regulator of mA methylation in gastric cancer tumorigenesis. Multiple bioinformatic analyses of different human cancer databases identified key mA-associated genetic mutations that regulated gastric tumorigenesis.

Prevalence of metabolic syndrome among ethnic groups in China.

Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is common in China, which has a multi-ethnic population of 1·3 billion. We set out to determine the prevalence of MetS and its components in different ethnic groups.

Methods: This nationwide cross-sectional survey involved 24,796 participants from eight ethnicities in six provinces in China from 2008 to 2011.

Vancomycin-associated acute kidney injury in Hong Kong in 2012-2016.

Background: To study the incidence of vancomycin-associated acute kidney injury (VA-AKI) in Hong Kong and identify risk factors for VA-AKI.

Method: Patients with vancomycin prescription and blood level measurement in 2012-2016 were identified using the Hong Kong Hospital Authority Clinical Data Analysis and Reporting System. Acute kidney injury was defined using KDIGO criteria.