Publications by authors named "Zongcheng Li"

Hematopoiesis originates in the yolk sac, which forms prior to the establishment of blood circulation and exhibits distinct developmental processes between primates and mice. Despite increasing appreciation of yolk sac hematopoiesis for its lifelong contribution to the adult hematopoietic system and its regulatory roles in organogenesis, cross-species differences, particularly before the onset of blood circulation, remain incompletely understood. In this study, we constructed an integrative cross-species transcriptome atlas of pre-circulation hematopoiesis in humans, monkeys ( ), and mice.

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Article Synopsis
  • A small number of embryonic aortic endothelial cells transition into hemogenic endothelial cells (HECs), which are crucial for producing hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs).
  • Researchers found that ribosome biogenesis (RiBi) activity is significantly higher in HECs compared to nearby endothelial cells and is essential for the formation of HSCs.
  • Disruption of RiBi in HECs blocked HSC generation, while a transcription factor named Runx1 plays a key role in enhancing RiBi during this transition, suggesting that targeting RiBi could improve strategies for HSC regeneration.
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Background: The effect of surgery on advanced prostate cancer (PC) is unclear and predictive model for postoperative survival is lacking yet.

Methods: We investigate the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, to collect clinical features of advanced PC patients. According to clinical experience, age, race, grade, pathology, T, N, M, stage, size, regional nodes positive, regional nodes examined, surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, history of malignancy, clinical Gleason score (composed of needle core biopsy or transurethral resection of the prostate specimens), pathological Gleason score (composed of prostatectomy specimens) and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) are the potential predictive variables.

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Understanding hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) heterogeneity is crucial for treating malignant blood disorders. Compared with mice, we have limited knowledge of the heterogeneity of human HSCs. Fortunately, non-human primates (NHPs) have become the best animal models for studying human HSCs.

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Article Synopsis
  • Understanding the evolution and molecular behavior of CAR-T cells after they are infused into patients is crucial for improving therapy tactics for B-ALL.
  • A detailed study analyzed 7,578 CAR-T cells from 26 B-ALL patients, identifying eight distinct CAR-T cell subtypes and linking them to treatment outcomes, with certain subtypes associated with longer remission and others indicating potential relapse.
  • The research also highlights factors triggering the transformation of CAR-T cells into less effective subtypes and suggests ways to enhance their functional capabilities, paving the way for better management of leukemia.
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Introduction: Intrathymic T-cell development is a coordinated process accompanied by dynamic changes in gene expression. Although the transcriptome characteristics of developing T cells in both human fetal and postnatal thymus at single-cell resolution have been revealed recently, the differences between human prenatal and postnatal thymocytes regarding the ontogeny and early events of T-cell development still remain obscure. Moreover, the transcriptional heterogeneity and posttranscriptional gene expression regulation such as alternative polyadenylation at different stages are also unknown.

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Prior to the generation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from the hemogenic endothelial cells (HECs) mainly in the dorsal aorta in midgestational mouse embryos, multiple hematopoietic progenitors including erythro-myeloid progenitors and lymphoid progenitors are generated from yolk sac HECs. These HSC-independent hematopoietic progenitors have recently been identified as major contributors to functional blood cell production until birth. However, little is known about yolk sac HECs.

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This article is involved in chaos criteria and chaotification schemes on one kind of first-order partial difference equations having non-periodic boundary conditions. Firstly, four chaos criteria are achieved by constructing heteroclinic cycles connecting repellers or snap-back repellers. Secondly, three chaotification schemes are obtained by using these two kinds of repellers.

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We consider the Poisson equation by collocation method with linear barycentric rational function. The discrete form of the Poisson equation was changed to matrix form. For the basis of barycentric rational function, we present the convergence rate of the linear barycentric rational collocation method for the Poisson equation.

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Composite solid electrolytes are considered to be the crucial components of all-solid-state lithium batteries, which are viewed as the next-generation energy storage devices for high energy density and long working life. Numerous studies have shown that fillers in composite solid electrolytes can effectively improve the ion-transport behavior, the essence of which lies in the optimization of the ion-transport path in the electrolyte. The performance is closely related to the structure of the fillers and the interaction between fillers and other electrolyte components including polymer matrices and lithium salts.

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In the aorta of mid-gestational mouse embryos, a specialized endothelial subpopulation termed hemogenic endothelial cells (HECs) develops into hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), through a conserved process of endothelial-to-hematopoietic transition (EHT). EHT is tightly controlled by multiple intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms. Nevertheless, the molecular regulators restraining this process remain poorly understood.

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Hypothesis: Selenium (Se)-containing compound is sensitive to redox stimulation, showing hydrophobic-hydrophilic reversible transition. Introduction of such compound into honeycomb film could confer on it redox-switchable surface wettability, which is expected to control cell adhesion/detachment behavior.

Experiments: Didodecyl selenide was designed and mixed with polystyrene to prepare honeycomb films using "breath figure" method.

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Arteriogenesis rather than unspecialized capillary expansion is critical for restoring effective circulation to compromised tissues in patients. Deciphering the origin and specification of arterial endothelial cells during embryonic development will shed light on the understanding of adult arteriogenesis. However, during early embryonic angiogenesis, the process of endothelial diversification and molecular events underlying arteriovenous fate settling remain largely unresolved in mammals.

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The gene activity underlying cell differentiation is regulated by a diverse set of transcription factors (TFs), histone modifications, chromatin structures and more. Although definitive hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are known to emerge via endothelial-to-hematopoietic transition (EHT), how the multi-layered epigenome is sequentially unfolded in a small portion of endothelial cells (ECs) transitioning into the hematopoietic fate remains elusive. With optimized low-input itChIP-seq and Hi-C assays, we performed multi-omics dissection of the HSC ontogeny trajectory across early arterial ECs (eAECs), hemogenic endothelial cells (HECs), pre-HSCs and long-term HSCs (LT-HSCs) in mouse embryos.

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Characterization of functional T cell clusters is key to developing strategies for immunotherapy and predicting clinical responses in leukemia. Here, single-cell RNA sequencing is performed with T cells sorted from the peripheral blood of healthy individuals and patients with B cell-acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL). Unbiased bioinformatics analysis enabled the authors to identify 13 T cell clusters in the patients based on their molecular properties.

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Unlabelled: The demand for network visualization of relationships between nodes attributed to different categories grows in various biomedical research scenarios, such as gene regulatory networks, drug-target networks, ligand-receptor interactions and association networks of multi-omics elements. Elegantly visualizing the relationships between nodes with complex metadata of nodes and edges appended may inspire new insights. Here, we developed the crosslink R package, tailored for network visualization of grouped nodes, to provide a series of flexible functions for generating network diagrams.

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Whereas the critical roles of innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) in adult are increasingly appreciated, their developmental hierarchy in early human fetus remains largely elusive. In this study, we sorted human hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells, lymphoid progenitors, putative ILC progenitor/precursors and mature ILCs in the fetal hematopoietic, lymphoid and non-lymphoid tissues, from 8 to 12 post-conception weeks, for single-cell RNA-sequencing, followed by computational analysis and functional validation at bulk and single-cell levels. We delineated the early phase of ILC lineage commitment from hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells, which mainly occurred in fetal liver and intestine.

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During embryogenesis, hematopoietic stem progenitor cells (HSPCs) are believed to be derived from hemogenic endothelial cells (HECs). Moreover, arterial feature is proposed to be a prerequisite for HECs to generate HSPCs with lymphoid potential. Although the molecular basis of hematopoietic stem cell-competent HECs has been delicately elucidated within the embryo proper, the functional and molecular characteristics of HECs in the extraembryonic yolk sac (YS) remain largely unresolved.

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Article Synopsis
  • Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is linked to abnormal activation of the MAPK pathway, and studying myeloid cells from patients can help better understand the disease.
  • A study of 217 pediatric LCH patients found that a decrease in certain immune cells correlated with more severe disease symptoms, suggesting immune system changes are important in LCH progression.
  • By analyzing genetic and cellular responses to treatment with a BRAF inhibitor, researchers identified potential pathways for improving clinical approaches and personalized medicine for LCH patients.
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Current understanding of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) development comes from mouse models is considered to be evolutionarily conserved in human. However, the cross-species comparison of the transcriptomic profiles of developmental HSCs at single-cell level is still lacking. Here, we performed integrative transcriptomic analysis of a series of key cell populations during HSC development in human and mouse, including HSC-primed hemogenic endothelial cells and pre-HSCs in mid-gestational aorta-gonad-mesonephros (AGM) region, and mature HSCs in fetal liver and adult bone marrow.

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Bioinspired honeycomb-like porous films with switchable properties have drawn much attention recently owing to their potential application in scenarios in which the conversion between two opposite properties is required. Herein, the CO-gas-triggered ON/OFF switching wettability of biocompatible polylactic acid (PLA) honeycomb porous films is fabricated. Highly ordered porous films with diameters between 2.

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Human skeletal stem cells (SSCs) have been discovered in fetal and adult long bones. However, the spatiotemporal ontogeny of human embryonic SSCs during early skeletogenesis remains elusive. Here we map the transcriptional landscape of human limb buds and embryonic long bones at single-cell resolution to address this fundamental question.

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Macrophages are the first cells of the nascent immune system to emerge during embryonic development. In mice, embryonic macrophages infiltrate developing organs, where they differentiate symbiotically into tissue-resident macrophages (TRMs). However, our understanding of the origins and specialization of macrophages in human embryos is limited.

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