Spectral imaging is a technology that integrates conventional imaging and spectroscopy to get both spatial and spectral information from an object. Although this technology was originally developed for remote sensing, it has been extended to the biomedical engineering field as a powerful analytical tool for biological and biomedical research. This review introduces the basics of spectral imaging, imaging methods, current equipment, and recent advances in biomedical applications. The performance and analytical capabilities of spectral imaging systems for biological and biomedical imaging are discussed. In particular, the current achievements and limitations of this technology in biomedical engineering are presented. The benefits and development trends of biomedical spectral imaging are highlighted to provide the reader with an insight into the current technological advances and its potential for biomedical research.

We conducted a systematic review of the epidemiology of high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infections in mainland Chinese women to provide a general profile for the application and subsequent effectiveness evaluation of HPV vaccines. The PubMed, Web of Science, Medline (Ovid), China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang databases were used for the literature search. The epidemiological studies published from January 2000 to June 2018 on high-risk HPVs in mainland Chinese women were investigated to systematically evaluate their epidemiological status. A total of 198 eligible studies were included. The results of metaanalysis showed that the overall infection rate of high-risk HPVs in mainland Chinese women was 19.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 17.1%-20.9%), and the top 5 subtypes with the highest infection rates were 16, 52, 58, 53, and 18. The overall infection rates of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia I (CINI), CINII+, and cervical cancer patients were 59.6% (95% CI, 52.7%-66.4%), 84.8% (95% CI, 81.2%-88.5%), and 89.9% (95% CI, 86.6%-93.1%), respectively. The high-risk HPV infections and common subtypes in women of various ages in various regions were different, and the high-risk HPVs and subtypes in cervical cancer patients in various regions were also different. In conclusion, we systematically analyzed the HPV infections in women who live on the Chinese mainland. The epidemiology of high-risk HPVs in mainland Chinese women is basically consistent with that for the rest of the world. The HPV vaccines currently licensed in China could cover the major prevalent high-risk HPV subtypes in China, providing a basis for the development of cervical cancer screening strategy and the vaccine implementation in China.

Germline BRCA1/2 mutations is common in Chinese ovarian cancer patients. This study implies that all ovarian patients should be tested for gBRCAm status regardless of family history and histopathology.

A hyperspectral imaging system to measure and analyze the reflectance spectra of the human tongue with high spatial resolution is proposed for tongue tumor detection. To achieve fast and accurate performance for detecting tongue tumors, reflectance data were collected using spectral acousto-optic tunable filters and a spectral adapter, and sparse representation was used for the data analysis algorithm. Based on the tumor image database, a recognition rate of 96.5% was achieved. The experimental results show that hyperspectral imaging for tongue tumor diagnosis, together with the spectroscopic classification method provide a new approach for the noninvasive computer-aided diagnosis of tongue tumors.

The symptoms of vaginal candidiasis exacerbate in the second half of the menstrual cycle in the premenopausal women when the serum estradiol level is elevated. Estradiol has been shown to inhibit Th17 differentiation and production of antifungal interleukin-17 (IL-17) cytokines. However, little is known about the mechanisms. In the present study, we used mouse splenocytes and found that estradiol inhibited Th17 differentiation through down-regulation of Rorγt mRNA and protein expression. Estradiol activated ERα to recruit repressor of estrogen receptor activity (REA) and form ERα/REA complex. This complex bound to three estrogen response element (ERE) half-sites on the Rorγt promoter region to suppress Rorγt expression. Estradiol induced Rea mRNA and protein expression in mouse splenocytes. Using Rea siRNA to knockdown Rea expression enhanced Rorγt expression and Th17 differentiation. On the other hand, histone deacetylase (HDAC) 1 and 2 bound to the three ERE half-sites, independent of estradiol. HDAC inhibitor MS-275 dose- and time-dependently increased Rorγt expression, and subsequently enhanced Th17 differentiation. In 15 healthy premenopausal women, high serum estradiol levels are correlated with low RORγT mRNA levels and high REA mRNA levels in the vaginal lavage. These results demonstrate that estradiol up-regulates REA expression and recruits REA via ERα to the EREs on the RORγT promoter region, thus inhibiting RORγT expression and Th17 differentiation. This study suggests that the estradiol-ERα-REA axis may be a feasible target in the management of recurrent vaginal candidiasis.

No abstract

PurposeInterleukin-17 (IL-17) is a proinflammatory cytokine that plays important roles in inflammation, autoimmunity, and cancer. The purpose of this study was to determine if IL-17 indirectly regulates macrophage differentiation through up-regulation of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression in the cancer cell lines.Materials and MethodsHuman cervical cancer HeLa, human lung cancer A549, and mouse prostate cancer Myc-CaP/CR cell lines were treated with recombinant IL-17; Western blot analysis, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis were utilized to examine the cellular responses.ResultsIL-17 up-regulated expression of COX-2 mRNA and protein in HeLa, A549, and Myc- CaP/CR cell lines. IL-17’s effects were mediated through nuclear factor-κB and ERK1/2 signaling pathways as the inhibitors of these pathways could inhibit IL-17- induced COX-2 expression. The conditional medium obtained from the cancer cells contained prostaglandin E2, the levels of which were increased by IL-17 treatment. When treated with the conditional medium, particularly with the IL-17-induced conditional medium, mouse RAW264.7 macrophages and human THP-1 monocytes expressed higher levels of IL-10 (a marker of M2 macrophages) than inducible nitric oxide synthase or tumor necrosis factor α (markers of M1 macrophages). In contrast, when RAW264.7 and THP-1 cells were treated directly with IL-17, expression of these marker genes was not markedly changed.ConclusionThe results of this study suggest that IL-17 indirectly promotes M2 macrophage differentiation through stimulation of the COX-2/PGE2 pathway in the cancer cells, thus IL-17 plays an indirect role in regulating the tumor immune microenvironment.

Automatic tongue area segmentation is crucial for computer aided tongue diagnosis, but traditional intensity-based segmentation methods that make use of monochromatic images cannot provide accurate and robust results. We propose a novel tongue segmentation method that uses hyperspectral images and the support vector machine. This method combines spatial and spectral information to analyze the medical tongue image and can provide much better tongue segmentation results. The promising experimental results and quantitative evaluations demonstrate that our method can provide much better performance than the traditional method.