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Oxidative stress has been suggested to play a key role in Parkinson's disease, but inconsistent results were found in clinical studies. This study sought to quantitatively summarize the blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) oxidative stress marker data in PD patients. We performed a systematic search of PubMed and Web of Science, and studies were included if they provided data on peripheral blood and CSF oxidative stress marker concentrations in PD patients and healthy control (HC) subjects. Data were extracted by three independent investigators from 80 included studies encompassing 7,212 PD patients and 6,037 HC subjects. Of the 22 oxidative stress markers analyzed, random effects meta-analysis showed that blood concentrations of 8-OhdG, MDA, nitrite, and ferritin were increased in patients with PD compared with HC subjects. In contrast, we showed that blood levels of catalase, uric acid, glutathione, and total-cholesterol were significantly down-regulated in patients with PD when compared with controls. There were no significant differences between PD patients and HC subjects for blood, Mn, Cu, Zn, Fe, SOD, albumin, glutathione peroxidase, vitamin E, ceruloplasmin, triglycerides, lactoferrin, transferrin, LDL-cholesterol, and HDL-cholesterol. Due to the limited number of CSF studies with small sample size, this meta-analysis only showed non-significant association between CSF 8-OhdG and PD. The findings of our meta-analysis demonstrated higher blood concentrations of 8-OhdG, MDA, nitrite and ferritin, and lower blood concentrations of catalase, uric acid, glutathione and total-cholesterol in PD patients, strengthening the clinical evidence that PD is accompanied by increased oxidative stress.

Background: Estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) is a common treatment method for menopausal syndrome; however, its therapeutic value for the treatment of neurological diseases is still unclear. Epidemiological studies were performed, and the effect of postmenopausal ERT on treating neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), was summarized through a meta-analysis. Methods: Twenty-one articles were selected using a systematic searching of the contents listed on PubMed and Web of Science before June 1, 2019. Epidemiological studies were extracted, and relevant research data were obtained from the original articles based on the predefined inclusion criteria and data screening principles. The Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Version 2 software was used to pool effective size, test heterogeneity, conduct meta-regression and subgroup analysis, and to calculate publication bias. Results: Our results showed that ERT significantly decreased the risk of onset and/or development of AD [odds ratio (OR): 0.672; 95% CI: 0.581-0.779; P < 0.001] and PD (OR: 0.470; 95% CI: 0.368-0.600; P < 0.001) compared with the control group. A subgroup and meta-regression analysis showed that study design and measure of effect were the source of heterogeneity. Age, sample size, hormone therapy ascertainment, duration of the treatment, or route of administration did not play a significant role in affecting the outcome of the meta-analysis. Conclusion: We presented evidence here to support the use of estrogen therapy for the treatment of AD and PD.

Genetic variants conferring risk for schizophrenia (SCZ) have been extensively studied, but the role of posttranscriptional mechanisms in SCZ is not well studied. Here we performed the first genome-wide microRNA (miRNA) expression profiling in serum-derived exosome from 49 first-episode, drug-free SCZ patients and 46 controls and identified miRNAs and co-regulated modules that were perturbed in SCZ. Putative targets of these SCZ-affected miRNAs were enriched strongly for genes that have been implicated in protein glycosylation and were also related to neurotransmitter receptor and dendrite (spine) development. We validated several differentially expressed blood exosomal miRNAs in 100 SCZ patients as compared with 100 controls by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. The potential regulatory relationships between several SCZ-affected miRNAs and their putative target genes were also validated. These include hsa-miR-206, which is the most upregulated miRNA in the blood exosomes of SCZ patients and that previously reported to regulate brain-derived neurotrophic factor expression, which we showed reduced mRNA and protein levels in the blood of SCZ patients. In addition, we found 11 miRNAs in blood exosomes from the miRNA sequence data that can be used to classify samples from SCZ patients and control subjects with close to 90% accuracy in the training samples, and approximately 75% accuracy in the testing samples. Our findings support a role for exosomal miRNA dysregulation in SCZ pathophysiology and provide a rich data set and framework for future analyses of miRNAs in the disease, and our data also suggest that blood exosomal miRNAs are promising biomarkers for SCZ.

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A new fluorescence probe constructed with a multifunctional nanocomposite, FeO-ZnS:Mn/SiO-NH, was successfully synthesized and then used to detect folic acid in real serum samples. The nanocomposite was characterized by fluorescence spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, and physical property measurement system. With the addition of analyte, the FeO-ZnS:Mn/SiO-NH composite and folic acid formed a new complex because cross-linking of the amino and carboxyl groups participated in the condensation reaction. Then, the energy of quantum dots was transferred to the complex and led to quenching of the fluorescence. Moreover, the fluorescence intensity decreased significantly as the concentration of folic acid increased, and the fluorescence quenching ratio F/F was related to the folic acid concentration in the range from 0.1 to 5 μg mL. This method was used for detecting folic acid in real serum samples and gave recoveries in the range of 89.0%-96.0%, with relative standard deviations of 1.2%-3.9%. The detection limit was 9.6 ng mL (S/N = 3). These satisfactory and simple results showed the great potential of this fluorescence probe in the field of pharmaceutical analysis.