Publications by authors named "Ziming Han"

Residual antimicrobial agents in wastewater and solid waste from antimicrobial manufacturing facilities can potentially contaminate environments. The World Health Organization has established technical guidelines for managing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in pharmaceutical wastewater and solid waste. However, the scarcity of publicly available data on antimicrobial manufacturing processes impedes the development of effective mitigation strategies.

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Intestinal infections affect approximately 450 million people globally, predominantly impacting children and immunocompromised individuals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) due to inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) conditions, poverty, malnutrition, and low literacy. In Kenya, the prevalence of intestinal infections is elevated by warm tropical climates and socioeconomic factors. This scoping review evaluates the national prevalence, risk factors, and contamination sources of intestinal protozoa in Kenya, using a One Health approach to synthesize existing data from various human, animal, and environmental studies.

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Introduction: The establishment of a high-throughput quantification approach for waterborne pathogenic protozoa and helminths is crucial for rapid screening and health risk assessment.

Methods: We developed a high-throughput quantitative polymerase chain reaction (HT-qPCR) assay targeting 19 waterborne protozoa and 3 waterborne helminths and validated its sensitivity, specificity, and repeatability. The assay was then applied to test various environmental media samples.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study evaluates the effectiveness of a deep learning-based AI model for automatically delineating clinical target volume (CTV) and organs at risk (OARs) in lung cancer patients receiving postoperative radiotherapy (PORT), addressing the challenges of manual delineation.
  • - A comparison was made among three contouring techniques: unmodified AI auto-segmentation, fully manual delineation by junior residents, and AI-assisted delineation, with the latter proving to be the most accurate and efficient according to various metrics.
  • - Results showed that AI-assisted delineation significantly outperformed both unmodified AI and manual methods in terms of accuracy, leading to improved consistency in OAR delineation and overall contouring effectiveness.
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Mobile tet(X)-variant genes confer resistance to a wide range of tetracyclines, including the antibiotic of last-resort, tigecycline, raising significant concerns regarding their potential spread cross-environmental dissemination. However, the bacterial hosts and environmental spread of these genes remain poorly understood. Herein, a retrospective study unveiled the prevalence of tet(X)-variant genes (ranging from tet(X3) to tet(X6)) in activated sludge samples from five municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) from 2013 to 2021.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study explores how antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) change with the seasons in a wastewater treatment plant in Beijing, revealing significant seasonal patterns, especially in winter and spring when high-risk ARGs are most abundant.
  • Advanced technologies, including metagenomics and machine learning models, were employed to understand the relationship between ARGs and bacterial communities, identifying key biomarkers linked to these seasonal variations.
  • The research highlights the influence of specific bacterial genera, particularly those associated with human health risks, on the prevalence of high-risk ARGs, offering insights for better management of wastewater sludge disposal.
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Wastewaters serve as significant reservoirs of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Despite the evidence of antimicrobial resistance in wastewaters and river water in Kathmandu, direct linkage between them is not discussed yet. This study investigated the prevalence of extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing bacteria and associated resistance genes in wastewaters and river water.

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Plasmids are the primary vectors for intercellular transfer of the oxazolidinone and phenicol cross-resistance gene optrA, while insertion sequences (ISs) are mobile genetic elements that can mobilize plasmid-borne optrA intracellularly. However, little is known about how the IS-mediated intracellular mobility facilitates the dissemination of the optrA gene between plasmid categories that vary in transfer abilities, including non-mobilizable, mobilizable, and conjugative plasmids. Here, we performed a holistic genomic study of 52 optrA-carrying plasmids obtained from searches guided by the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database.

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Upgrading municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWTPs) has been implemented in many megacities of China to reduce the discharges of nutrients and other pollutants and improve water quality of highly urbanized rivers. However, the contribution of MWTP discharge to bacterial hazards in the receiving rivers after upgrades has been largely unknown. In this study, high-throughput sequencing and shotgun metagenomics were applied to investigate the changes in the abundance, composition, potential risks, and contributions of bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) from effluent to receiving river after upgrading the third-largest MWTP in China with denitrification biofilters, ultrafiltration, ozonation, and disinfection processes.

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Antibiotic fermentation residue (AFR) is nutrient-rich solid waste generated from fermentative antibiotic production process. It is demonstrated that AFR contains high-concentration of remaining antibiotics, and thus may promote antibiotic resistance development in receiving environment or feeding farmed animals. However, the dominate microorganisms and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in AFRs have not been adequately explored, hampering understanding on the potential antibiotic resistance risk development caused by AFRs.

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In recent years, the CRISPR/Cas9 system has become a rapidly advancing gene editing technology with significant advantages in various fields, particularly biomedicine. Liver cancer is a severe malignancy that threatens human health and is primarily treated with surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. However, surgery may not be suitable for advanced cases of liver cancer with distant metastases.

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Animal manures have been demonstrated to enhance antibiotic resistance in agricultural soils. However, little is known about the effects of plant-derived fertilizer on soil antibiotic resistome. Herein, metagenomic sequencing was used to investigate the effects of a plant-derived fertilizer processed from sugarcane and beet on soil antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in a soybean field along crop growth stages.

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Article Synopsis
  • * It reveals that Ery-A and its related compounds account for a notable portion of the residual antibacterial activity in wastewater treatment, with Ery-A alone contributing 24.2 - 36.0%.
  • * The research highlights that the accumulation of these antibiotics can disrupt the treatment process, stressing the need for improved biodegradation methods to effectively manage Ery-A-related compounds and resistance gene discharge.
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The potential toxicity of microplastics (MPs) and hydrophilic pharmaceuticals to aquatic organisms has recently raised great public concern, yet their combined effects on aquatic organisms remain largely unknown. Herein, the combined effects of MPs and the commonly prescribed amitriptyline hydrochloride (AMI) on the intestinal tissue and gut microbiota of zebrafish (Danio rerio) were investigated. Adult zebrafish were exposed to microplastics (polystyrene, PS, 440 µg/L), AMI (2.

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The extensive use of florfenicol in poultry industry results in the emergence of optrA gene, which also confers resistance to clinically important antibiotic linezolid. This study investigated the occurrence, genetic environments, and removal of optrA in enterococci in mesophilic (37 °C) and thermophilic (55 °C) anaerobic digestion systems, and a hyper-thermophilic (70 °C) anaerobic pretreatment system for chicken waste. A total of 331 enterococci were isolated and analyzed for antibiotic resistance against linezolid and florfenicol.

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While acute kidney injury (AKI) has been reported after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) in children, the incidence of this condition in the pediatric population has not been fully addressed. To assess the incidence of pediatric AKI after HCT treatment,we conducted a systematic literature review. Databases PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and WOS were searched as of June 2022 to identify studies on the incidence and the risk of death in AKI children undergoing HCT.

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The (X4) gene is a clinically important tigecycline resistance gene and has shown high persistence in livestock-related environments. However, the bacterial hosts of (X4) remain unknown due to the lack of appropriate approaches. Herein, a culture-independent and high-throughput epicPCR (emulsion, paired isolation, and concatenation polymerase chain reaction) method was developed, optimized, and demonstrated for the identification of bacterial hosts carrying (X4) from environmental samples.

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Erythromycin fermentation residue (EFR) is a solid waste generated from the fermentation process of erythromycin A production. Some byproducts are produced during the fermentation process of erythromycin A production, and erythromycin A can also undergo hydrolysis and biodegradation reactions in the environment with the formation of transformation products. Herein, an accurate analytical method was established and validated to quantify erythromycin A, two byproducts and five hydrolysis or biodegradation products, in solid or semi-solid media of waste EFR and the amended soil.

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The emergence of plasmid-mediated tigecycline-resistant genes [tet(X3)to tet(X6)] in animals and humans has raised serious concerns over their possible cross-environmental dissemination. However, behavior of these emerging mobile tet(X)-variant genes in manure treatment processes, particularly for different composting treatments, has not yet been studied. Here, we explored the environmental behavior of mobile tet(X)-variant genes in two typical manure composting treatments and amended soils based on a large-scale molecular investigation across eight provinces in China.

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Amitriptyline (AMI), the most commonly prescribed tricyclic antidepressant, is widely detected in water environments. Exposure to AMI may lead to diverse adverse effects on aquatic organisms, but little is known about the effect of short-term exposure to AMI on the gut microbiota of aquatic organisms and their recovery characteristics. In the present study, adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) were exposed to AMI (0, 2.

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Isolated hyperchloridrosis (HYCHL; OMIM 143860) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder caused by biallelic mutations in the gene, which is characterized by abnormally high levels of salt in sweat that can lead to dehydration associated with low levels of sodium in the blood. To date, only four variants of the gene have been identified to be associated with HYCHL. Here, we presented a rare Chinese case of HYCHL in an infant with decreased food intake, mild diarrhea, severe dehydration, and hypovolemic shock who was hospitalized in our department three times.

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Planting rice is an effective way to reclaim salt-affected soils, but overapplying nitrogen fertilizer has resulted in a large loss in the amounts of soil dissolved nitrogen (SDN) from paddy fields. While the dynamic of SDN and its response to changes in soil physicochemical properties by planting rice are well-studied in non-salt-affected soils, little is known about the relationship between the SDN and soil physicochemical properties in reclaimed salt-affected soils. To fill this knowledge gap, soil samples were collected from bare salt-affected soils and three paddy fields with different reclaimed years (4, 9, 20) in six soil layers.

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The prevalence and interactions with biofilm and disinfectant of opportunistic pathogens in drinking water supply systems (DWSSs) have been extensively interpreted. In contrast, the large geographical distribution and in situ removal of opportunistic pathogens are overlooked aspects. Here, paired source and tap water samples of 36 parallel DWSSs across China were collected, with five common waterborne pathogens characterized by qPCR.

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Chlorinated paraffins (CPs) have been widely used as halogenated flame retardants and plasticizers since the mid-20th century. The prevalence of CPs in soil has been widely reported, but the distribution pattern of CPs in urbanized zones and their association with multiple socioeconomic variables have not been adequately explored. Herein, short-chain and medium-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs and MCCPs) were investigated in surface soil samples from Tianjin, China, a typical urbanized area.

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