Publications by authors named "Zhiyu Cao"

Chromatin is partially structured through the effects of biological motors. "Swimming motors" such as RNA polymerases and chromatin remodelers are thought to act differentially on the active parts of the genome and the stored inactive part. By systematically expanding the many-body master equation for chromosomes driven by swimming motors, we show that this nonuniform aspect of motorization leads to heterogeneously folded conformations, thereby contributing to chromosome compartmentalization.

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  • * Using a model of neural stem cells exposed to oxidative stress, researchers found that curcumin reduces harmful oxidative markers, indicating its protective effects against cell damage.
  • * The results suggest that curcumin might help protect against oxidative stress by inhibiting autophagy and deactivating certain signaling pathways, highlighting its potential for Alzheimer's treatment.
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Background: Heterogeneity of cerebral atrophic rate commonly exists in mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which may be associated with microglia-involved neuropathology and have an influence on cognitive outcomes.

Objective: We aim to explore the heterogeneity of cerebral atrophic rate among MCI and its association with plasma proteins related to microglia activity, with further investigation of their interaction effects on long-term cognition.

Subjects: A total of 630 MCI subjects in the ADNI database were included, of which 260 subjects were available with baseline data on plasma proteins.

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An array of motor proteins consumes chemical energy in setting up the architectures of chromosomes. Here, we explore how the structure of ideal polymer chains is influenced by two classes of motors. The first class which we call "swimming motors" acts to propel the chromatin fiber through three-dimensional space.

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When cells are stressed, DNA from energy-producing mitochondria can leak out and drive inflammatory immune responses if not cleared. Cells employ a quality control system called autophagy to specifically degrade damaged components. We discovered that mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM)-a protein that binds mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)-helps to eliminate leaked mtDNA by interacting with the autophagy protein LC3 through an autolysosomal pathway (we term this nucleoid-phagy).

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  • Disturbances in the microbiota-gut-brain axis could play a role in the development of Alzheimer's disease, highlighting the importance of gut health.
  • Magnesium-L-threonate has shown protective effects on learning and memory in Alzheimer's model mice and can modify gut microbiota by decreasing Allobaculum and increasing Bifidobacterium and Turicibacter.
  • The treatment also improved intestinal barrier function and is associated with pathways linked to neurodegenerative diseases, suggesting its potential clinical benefits in treating Alzheimer's disease through gut-brain connections.
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Background: Medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA) is a diagnostic marker for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the accuracy of quantitative MTA (QMTA) in diagnosing early AD is unclear. This study aimed to investigate the accuracy of QMTA and its related components (inferior lateral ventricle [ILV] and hippocampus) with MTA in the early diagnosis of MCI and AD.

Methods: This study included four groups: normal (NC), MCI stable (MCIs), MCI converted to AD (MCIs), and mild AD (M-AD) groups.

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Recent developments in nonequilibrium thermodynamics, known as thermodynamic uncertainty relations, limit the system's accuracy by the amount of free-energy consumption. A transport efficiency, which can be used to characterize the capacity to control the fluctuation by means of energy cost, is a direct result of the thermodynamic uncertainty relation. According to our previous research, biochemical systems consume much lower energy cost by noise-induced oscillations to keep almost equal efficiency to maintain precise processes than that by normal oscillations.

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Mandal and Jarzynski have proposed a fully autonomous information heat engine, consisting of a demon, a mass, and a memory register interacting with a thermal reservoir. This device converts thermal energy into mechanical work by writing information to a memory register or, conversely, erasing information by consuming mechanical work. Here, we derive a speed limit inequality between the relaxation time of state transformation and the distance between the initial and final distributions, where the combination of the dynamical activity and entropy production plays an important role.

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Biochemical oscillations, regulating the timing of life processes, need to consume energy to achieve good performance on crucial functions, such as high accuracy of the phase period and high sensitivity to external signals. However, it is a great challenge to precisely estimate the energy dissipation in such systems. Here, based on the stochastic normal form theory, we calculate the Pearson correlation coefficient between the oscillatory amplitude and phase, and a trade-off relation between transport efficiency and phase sensitivity can then be derived, which serves as a tighter form than the estimator resulting from the conventional thermodynamic uncertainty relation.

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Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder without effective therapy and lack diagnosis strategy for preclinical AD patients. There is an urgent need for development of both early diagnosis and therapeutic intervention of AD.

Results: Herein, we developed a nanotheranostics platform consisting of Curcumin (Cur), an anti-inflammatory molecule, and superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) nanoparticles encapsulated by diblock 1,2-dio-leoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine-n-[poly(ethylene glycol)] (DSPE-PEG) that are modified with CRT and QSH peptides on its surface.

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Background: White matter hyperintensities (WMHs) and regional brain lobe atrophy coexist in the brain of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the association between them in patients with AD still lacks comprehensive investigation and solid imaging data support.

Objective: We explored whether WMHs can promote the pathological process of AD by aggravating atrophy in specific brain regions and tried to explain the regional specificity of these relationships.

Methods: A sample of 240 adults including 180 normal controls (NCs) and 80 cases with AD were drawn from the ADNI database.

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Background And Objective: Early identification is important for timely Alzheimer's disease (AD) treatment. Apolipoprotein E ε4 allele (APOE-ε4) is an important genetic risk factor for sporadic AD. The AD-Resemblance Atrophy Index (RAI)-a structural magnetic resonance imaging-derived composite index-was found to predict the risk of progression from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to AD.

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Background: Oxidative stress results in the production of excess reactive oxygen species (ROS) and triggers hippocampal neuronal damage as well as occupies a key role in the pathological mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). A recent study confirmed that magnesium had an inhibitory effect against oxidative stress-related malondialdehyde . However, whether Magnesium-L-threonate (MgT) is capable of suppressing oxidative stress damage in amyloid β (Aβ)-treated HT22 cells and the AD mouse model still remains to be investigated.

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Various microswimmers move along circles rather than straight lines due to their swimming mechanisms, body shapes, or hydrodynamic effects. In this paper, we adopt the concepts of stochastic thermodynamics to analyze circle swimmers confined to a two-dimensional plane and study the trade-off relations between various physical quantities, such as precision, energy cost, and rotational speed. Based on these findings, we predict principles and strategies for designing microswimmers of special optimized functions under limited energy resource conditions, which will bring new experimental inspiration for designing smart motors.

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Article Synopsis
  • MRI can objectively show brain atrophy in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, and a new index called AD-Resemblance Atrophy Index (AD-RAI) may improve the accuracy of identifying AD compared to traditional methods.
  • A study involving 50 AD patients and 50 age- and gender-matched normal controls (NC) was conducted to evaluate the performance of AD-RAI using MRI data.
  • Results showed that AD-RAI achieved high accuracy (91%), sensitivity (88%), specificity (96%), and a strong area under the ROC curve (92%), proving to be more effective than measuring individual brain structures for diagnosing AD.
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Background: The differential diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) is difficult due to the overlaps of clinical symptoms. Structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) presents distinct brain atrophy and potentially helps in their differentiation. In this study, we aim at deriving a novel integrated index by leveraging the volumetric measures in brain regions with significant difference between AD and FTD and developing an MRI-based strategy for the differentiation of FTD and AD.

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BACKGROUND Serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) has been proved to be a negative prognostic factor for several malignancies, but its clinical significance in gastric cancer (GC) patients has not been sufficiently studied. In the present retrospective study, we investigated the effect of serum ALP on disease-free survival (DFS) after radical gastrectomy. MATERIAL AND METHODS We included 491 GC patients receiving radical gastrectomy at the Chinese People's Liberation Army 309th Hospital.

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Background: Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (GBP) is the main surgical procedure used in type 2 diabetes. The objective of this study was to evaluate the different types of GBP in treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Methods: Patients with type 2 diabetes were randomly divided into two groups: those who underwent gastrojejunal loop anastomosis bypass and those who underwent gastrojejunal Roux-en-Y bypass.

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A newly developed high irradiance laser ionization orthogonal time-of-flight mass spectrometer (LI-O-TOFMS) was employed for the elemental analysis of residues, which were prepared by evaporating mixed salt solutions. The residues were first characterized in terms of shape and elemental distribution. In TOFMS detection, all of the metal elements in the residue can be observed in the spectra.

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Objective: To investigate the effect of superselective intra-arterial infusion chemotherapy in the treatment of advanced recurrent cancer in the remnant stomach after previous partial gastrectomy.

Methods: Eighteen patients with advanced recurrent cancer in the remnant stomach that were non-resectable as confirmed in the operations were included in this study, who subsequently received superselective intra-arterial infusion chemotherapy.

Results: Improvement of the symptoms to various degrees were achieved in all patients after the therapy, with the total rate of tumor reduction of 77.

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Objective: To evaluate the value of infusion chemotherapy by pump implantation via hepatic artery or portal vein or both (double-pump chemotherapy, DPC) for hepatic metastasis from colorectal cancer.

Methods: Thirty patients with hepatic metastasis from colorectal cancer were divided into three groups: 1. Group I-DPC (12 patients).

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Synopsis of recent research by authors named "Zhiyu Cao"

  • - Zhiyu Cao's research spans several areas including the interplay between microglial activity and cognitive changes in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and innovative therapeutic approaches for Alzheimer's disease, demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of neurobiology and the gut-brain axis.
  • - Recent findings highlight the heterogeneity in cerebral atrophy among MCI patients, revealing interactions with plasma proteins influencing cognitive decline, along with the therapeutic potential of Magnesium-L-threonate in modulating the microbiota-gut-brain axis to alleviate Alzheimer’s symptoms.
  • - Cao's work also explores advanced methodologies for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease through neuroimaging techniques and the role of biochemical mechanisms in cellular functions, indicative of a multidisciplinary approach to tackling neurodegenerative disorders.

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