In December 2019, a new type viral pneumonia cases occurred in Wuhan, Hubei Province; and then named "2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)" by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 12 January 2020. For it is a never been experienced respiratory disease before and with infection ability widely and quickly, it attracted the world's attention but without treatment and control manual. For the request from frontline clinicians and public health professionals of 2019-nCoV infected pneumonia management, an evidence-based guideline urgently needs to be developed. Therefore, we drafted this guideline according to the rapid advice guidelines methodology and general rules of WHO guideline development; we also added the first-hand management data of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University. This guideline includes the guideline methodology, epidemiological characteristics, disease screening and population prevention, diagnosis, treatment and control (including traditional Chinese Medicine), nosocomial infection prevention and control, and disease nursing of the 2019-nCoV. Moreover, we also provide a whole process of a successful treatment case of the severe 2019-nCoV infected pneumonia and experience and lessons of hospital rescue for 2019-nCoV infections. This rapid advice guideline is suitable for the first frontline doctors and nurses, managers of hospitals and healthcare sections, community residents, public health persons, relevant researchers, and all person who are interested in the 2019-nCoV.

Background— Aging and aging-related disorders impair the survival and differentiation potential of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and limit their therapeutic efficacy. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) may provide an alternative source of functional MSCs for tissue repair. This study aimed to generate and characterize human iPSC-derived MSCs and to investigate their biological function for the treatment of limb ischemia. Methods and Results— Human iPSCs were induced to MSC differentiation with a clinically compliant protocol. Three monoclonal, karyotypically stable, and functional MSC-like cultures were successfully isolated using a combination of CD24 − and CD105 + sorting. They did not express pluripotent-associated markers but displayed MSC surface antigens and differentiated into adipocytes, osteocytes, and chondrocytes. Transplanting iPSC-MSCs into mice significantly attenuated severe hind-limb ischemia and promoted vascular and muscle regeneration. The benefits of iPSC-MSCs on limb ischemia were superior to those of adult bone marrow MSCs. The greater potential of iPSC-MSCs may be attributable to their superior survival and engraftment after transplantation to induce vascular and muscle regeneration via direct de novo differentiation and paracrine mechanisms. Conclusions— Functional MSCs can be clonally generated, beginning at a single-cell level, from human iPSCs. Patient-specific iPSC-MSCs can be prepared as an “off-the-shelf” format for the treatment of tissue ischemia.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) occurs with high frequency in Asian populations, especially among people of Cantonese ancestry. In areas with high incidence, NPC clusters in families, which suggests that both geography and genetics may influence disease risk. Although the HLA-Bw46 locus is associated with increased risk of NPC, no predisposing genes have been identified so far. Here we report the results of a genome-wide search carried out in families at high risk of NPC from Guangdong Province, China. Parametric analyses provide evidence of linkage to the D4S405 marker on chromosome 4 with a logarithm of odds for linkage (lod) score of 3.06 and a heterogeneity-adjusted lod (hlod) score of 3.21. Fine mapping with additional markers flanking D4S405 resulted in a lod score of 3.54 and hlod score of 3.67 for the region 4p15.1-q12. Multipoint nonparametric linkage analysis gives lod scores of 3.54 at D4S405 (P = 5.4 x 10(-5)) and 4.2 at D4S3002 (P = 1.1 x 10(-5)), which is positioned 4.5 cM away from D4S405. When Epstein Barr virus antibody titer was included as a covariate, the lod scores reached 4.70 (P = 2.0 x 10(-5)) and 5.36 (P = 4.36 x 10(-6)) for D4S405 and D4S3002, respectively. Our findings provide evidence of a major susceptibility locus for NPC on chromosome 4 in a subset of families.

The recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after minimally invasive therapy is frequent. Adoptive immunotherapy is thought to be an effective method to lower recurrence and metastasis rates of malignant tumors. Therefore, 85 HCC patients after transcatheter arterial chemoembolization and radiofrequency ablation therapy were randomized to immunotherapy group and no adjuvant therapy group. Autologous cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells were transfused via hepatic artery to the patients. The alteration of levels of lymphocyte subsets in peripheral blood of patients was examined by flow cytometry. All patients were screened by computed tomography every 2 months to observe the tumor recurrent conditions. After CIK cell infusions, the percentages of CD3+, CD4+, CD56+, CD3+CD56+ cells, and CD4+/CD8+ ratio increased from 68.6+/-11.0%, 31.1+/-9.0%, 15.6+/-7.9%, 5.2+/-3.1%, and 1.1+/-0.5 to 70.7+/-10.1%, 33.5+/-8.0%, 18.4+/-9.4%, 5.9+/-2.8%, and 1.3+/-0.7, respectively (P<0.05); whereas the percentage of CD8 cells decreased from 31.1+/-7.8% to 28.6+/-8.3% (P<0.05). The 1-year and 18-month recurrence rates of the study group were 8.9% and 15.6%, compared with 30.0% and 40.0% of the control group (both P value<0.05). The data suggest that CIK cell transfusion is an effective treatment. It can boost the immunologic function in HCC patients and plays an important role in reducing the recurrence rate of HCC.

BackgroundThe ARID1A gene encodes adenine-thymine (AT)-rich interactive domain-containing protein 1A, which participates in chromatin remodeling. ARID1A has been showed to function as a tumor suppressor in various cancer types. In the current study, we investigated the expression and prognosis value of ARID1A in primary gastric cancer. Meanwhile, the biological role of ARID1A was further investigated using cell model in vitro.Methodology/Principal FindingsTo investigate the role of ARID1A gene in primary gastric cancer pathogenesis, real-time quantitative PCR and western blotting were used to examine the ARID1A expression in paired cancerous and noncancerous tissues. Results revealed decreased ARID1A mRNA (P = 0.0029) and protein (P = 0.0015) expression in most tumor-bearing tissues compared with the matched adjacent non-tumor tissues, and in gastric cancer cell lines. To further investigate the clinicopathological and prognostic roles of ARID1A expression, we performed immunohistochemical analyses of the 224 paraffin-embedded gastric cancer tissue blocks. Data revealed that the loss of ARID1A expression was significantly correlated with T stage (P = 0.001) and grade (P = 0.006). Consistent with these results, we found that loss of ARID1A expression was significantly correlated with poor survival in gastric cancer patients (P = 0.003). Cox regression analyses showed that ARID1A expression was an independent predictor of overall survival (P = 0.029). Furthermore, the functions of ARID1A in the proliferation and colony formation of gastric cell lines were analyzed by transfecting cells with full-length ARID1A expression vector or siRNA targeting ARID1A. Restoring ARID1A expression in gastric cancer cells significantly inhibited cell proliferation and colony formation. Silencing ARID1A expression in gastric epithelial cell line significantly enhanced cell growth rate.Conclusions/SignificanceOur data suggest that ARID1A may play an important role in gastric cancer and may serve as a valuable prognostic marker and potential target for gene therapy in the treatment of gastric cancer.

Our data indicated that IDO may be a novel favorable prognostic indicator and candidate adjuvant therapeutic target for HCC.

The biological role of interleukin-37 (IL-37) in cancer is large unknown. Through immunohistochemical detection using 163 primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) clinical specimens, we found the expression of IL-37 was decreased in tumor tissues, and the expression level was negatively correlated with tumor size. High expression of IL-37 in HCC tumor tissues was associated with better overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). IL-37 expression in tumor tissues was positively associated with the density of tumor-infiltrating CD57+ natural killer (NK) cells, but not with the CD3+ and CD8+ T cells. Consistently, in vitro chemotaxis analysis showed that IL-37- overexpressing HCC cells could recruit more NK cells. The in vivo mouse model experiments also revealed that overexpression IL-37 in HCC cells significantly delayed tumor growth and recruited more NK cells into tumors tissues. Our finding suggested that IL-37 might play an important role for the prognosis of HCC patients via regulating innate immune-action.

BackgroundThe role of IL-17 producing cells in tumors is controversial. In the present study, we investigated the prognostic value of measuring tumor-infiltrating IL-17 producing cell levels in human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).Methodology/Principal FindingsImmunohistochemical staining was performed to investigate the levels of IL-17+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), as well as CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) and CD57+ natural killer (NK) cells from 181 ESCC patients. The prognostic value of measuring the densities of IL-17+TILs and the correlation with CTLs and NK was evaluated. IL-17 producing cells were detected in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma tissues. The IL-17 producing cells were major CD4 positive, but Foxp3 negative. The median level of IL-17+TILs was 3.90 cells/high power microscopic field (HPF). The density of IL-17 producing cells correlated negatively with T stage (P = 0.042). The higher densities of tumor infiltrating IL-17+ lymphocytes were associated with better overall survival (P = 0.031). Furthermore, we found that there were positive correlations between levels of IL-17 producing cells and the densities of CD8+cells, as well as CD57+cells (r = 0.198, P = 0.008 for CD8+ cells and r = 0.261, P<0.001 for CD57+ cells, respectively). The prognosis analysis also showed that the higher levels of CD8+ CTLs and CD57+ NK cells correlated with better overall survival of ESCC patients.ConclusionsOur study suggests that tumor infiltrating IL-17 producing cells in ESCC patients may have protective roles in the tumor microenvironment and may be treated as a prognostic marker for ESCC patients.