The glutathione (GSH) system is considered to be one of the most powerful endogenous antioxidant systems in the cardiovascular system due to its key contribution to detoxifying xenobiotics and scavenging overreactive oxygen species (ROS). Numerous investigations have suggested that disruption of the GSH system is a critical element in the pathogenesis of myocardial injury. Meanwhile, a newly proposed type of cell death, ferroptosis, has been demonstrated to be closely related to the GSH system, which affects the process and outcome of myocardial injury. Moreover, in facing various pathological challenges, the mammalian heart, which possesses high levels of mitochondria and weak antioxidant capacity, is susceptible to oxidant production and oxidative damage. Therefore, targeted enhancement of the GSH system along with prevention of ferroptosis in the myocardium is a promising therapeutic strategy. In this review, we first systematically describe the physiological functions and anabolism of the GSH system, as well as its effects on cardiac injury. Then, we discuss the relationship between the GSH system and ferroptosis in myocardial injury. Moreover, a comprehensive summary of the activation strategies of the GSH system is presented, where we mainly identify several promising herbal monomers, which may provide valuable guidelines for the exploration of new therapeutic approaches.

Because the breast cancer is an important factor that threatens women’s lives and health, early diagnosis is helpful for disease screening and a good prognosis. Exosomes are nanovesicles, secreted from cells and other body fluids, which can reflect the genetic and phenotypic status of parental cells. Compared with other methods for early diagnosis of cancer (such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating tumor DNA), exosomes have a richer number and stronger biological stability, and have great potential in early diagnosis. Thus, it has been proposed as promising biomarkers for diagnosis of early-stage cancer. However, distinguishing different exosomes remain is a major biomedical challenge. In this paper, we used predictive Convolutional Neural model to detect and analyze exosomes of normal and cancer cells with surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). As a result, it can be seen from the SERS spectra that the exosomes of MCF-7, MDA-MB-231 and MCF-10A cells have similar peaks (939, 1145 and 1380 cm[Formula: see text]). Based on this dataset, the predictive model can achieve 95% accuracy. Compared with principal component analysis (PCA), the trained CNN can classify exosomes from different breast cancer cells with a superior performance. The results indicate that using the sensitivity of Raman detection and exosomes stable presence in the incubation period of cancer cells, SERS detection combined with CNN screening may be used for the early diagnosis of breast cancer in the future.

Genetic diagnostic methods for evaluation of chimerism after HSCT, such as STR-PCR and XY-FISH, have limited sensitivity. When donor chimerism is in the micro range (< 1%), deviations in the accuracy of assessment are the most significant disadvantage of these common methods. We developed a highly sensitive method that applies SNPs based on NGS in order to explore the value of donor cell microchimerism in microtransplantation (MST). This improved SNP-NGS approach has higher sensitivity (0.01–0.05%) and only requires a small amount of DNA (8–200 ng). We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 48 patients with AML who received HLA-mismatched stem cell MST at our center to assess the impact of microchimerism on clinical prognosis. Patients whose duration of microchimerism was > 10.5 months (median) had a relapse rate of 26.1%, and had better 5-year LFS and OS (73.4% and 82.6%). In contrast, patients whose duration of microchimerism was < 10.5 months had a higher relapse rate (69.6%), and their 5-year LFS and OS were 30.4% and 43.5%. In conclusion, duration of donor chimerism is highly valuable for assessment of survival and prognosis in patients with AML who have received HLA-mismatched stem cell MST, especially the intermediate-risk group.

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Metal-semiconductor nanocomposites have gain more and more attention as novel surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates due to the coupling Raman enhancement mechanism between the nanocomponents. Herein, Au@palladium oxide (Au@PdOx) nanohybrids...

Background: Gastrointestinal (GI) tract graft-vs-host disease (GvHD) is a major cause of post-allo-HCT morbidity and mortality. Patients with steroid-refractory GI-GvHD face a poor prognosis and limited therapeutic options. Here, we report an interim analysis on the safety and efficacy of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) in treating steroid-refractory GI-GvHD.Methods: We did a non-randomized, open-label, phase 1 clinical study on patients with grade IV steroid-refractory GI-GvHD. FMT efficacy was evaluated using indexes of abdominal pain, diarrhea and bloody purulent stool at 14 and 21 days after the diagnosis of steroid-refractory GI-GvHD. The primary outcomes referred to clinical complete remission or partial remission. Secondary outcomes referred to EFS (event free survival) and OS (overall survival) at Day 90 and the end of the research. Safety was evaluated according to adverse events during FMT and the whole follow-up period. The study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov as #NCT03148743.Results: A total of 56 patients with steroid-refractory GI-GvHD were enrolled. Of them, 24 patients with grade IV steroid-refractory GI-GvHD were assigned to FMT and 18 to the control group. The characteristics of the two group patients at baseline were similar. At Day 14 after FMT, 13 (54.2%) patients in FMT group and none (0%) of 18 control group achieved clinical remission (p<0.05), while 20(83%) patients in FMT group and 7(39%) in control group showed effective response (clinical remission+partial remission) (RR 7.86, 95% CI 1.88–32.9; p=0.005). At Day 21, the clinical remission was significantly greater in FMT group than in control group (14 (58.3%) of 24 vs 3(16%) of 18; RR 6.0, 95% CI 1.22–29.45; p=0.027). Within a follow up of 90 days, the FMT group showed better OS (HR, 7.0; 95% CI, 1.53-32.08; p=0.012). At the end of the research, the median survival time was >600 days in FMT group and 107 days in control group (HR, 4.73; 95% CI, 1.58-14.14; p=0.005). Both the EFS (HR, 0.24; 95% CI, 0.06-0.95; p=0.055) and OS (HR, 5.97; 95% CI, 1.52-23.43; p=0.01) kept increasing during the follow-up in FMT group. Overall, the mortality rate was lower in FMT group (HR, 5.97; 95% CI, 1.52-23.43; p=0.01). No difference was observed in the occurrence of other side effects, such as hemorrhagic cystitis, infection of bacteria & fungi, CMV&EBV, septicemia, TMA, cardiac events, thrombocytopenia and epilepsy.Conclusions: The diversity of intestinal microbiota can be affected by allo-HSCT. FMT is effective and safe in treating grade IV steroid refractory GI–GvHD.

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