Ovarian cancer is one of the most threatening diseases among women in the world. Current detection methods are expensive and lack accuracy. Thus, a fast, non-invasive biomarker for detecting ovarian cancer is urgently needed. Compelling evidences have been demonstrated that microRNAs, a large family of single-stranded and non-protein-coding RNA molecules, can serve as useful biomarkers in cancer detection. In this study, the relative expressions of microRNA-145 (miR-145) in the serum of patients with ovarian cancer and healthy controls were investigated in an independent study. Subsequently, the diagnosis and prognosis value of miR-145 as a biomarker for ovarian cancer were examined. Furthermore, we performed a meta-analysis to summarize all the results from published studies and this study. Relative expressions of miR-145 were investigated in three independent groups (malignant ovarian cancer, benign ovarian tumor, and healthy controls), comprising a total of 270 participants. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and overall survival (OS) curves were conducted to compare miR-145 level and clinical characteristics among the three groups. The results showed that relative expressions of the serum miR-145 were significantly down-regulated in patients with malignant ovarian cancer and benign ovarian cancer, compared to healthy controls (P < 0.01). Serum miR-145 levels could discriminate patients with malignant ovarian cancer from healthy controls, with a power area under the curve (AUC) of 0.82 (95 % confidence interval (CI) = 0.77-0.88). Furthermore, patients with low serum levels of miR-145 had a significantly shorter median overall survival rate (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.81, 95 % CI = 1.03-3.17, P = 0.039). The meta-analysis yields good diagnostic performances of miR-145 in various cancers, with an AUC of 0.82 (95 % CI, 0.78-0.85). In conclusion, the present study suggested that miR-145 can potentially serve as an outstanding biomarker for ovarian and other human cancers detection.
BackgroundRespiratory tract infections (RTIs) are a heavy burden on society. However, due to the complex etiology of RTIs, the clinical diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of these infections remain challenging, especially in developing countries.MethodsTo determine the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 18 respiratory pathogens, we analyzed 12,502 patients with acute respiratory infections (ARIs) by performing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on patient pharyngeal swabs.ResultsSamples positive for at least 1 pathogen were obtained from 48.42% of the total patients. Of these pathogen-positive patients, 17.99% were infected with more than 1 pathogen. Of the 18 pathogens analyzed, four were detected with a positive detection rate (PDR) > 5%: influenza A virus (IAV) > respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) >Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP) > human coronavirus (HCoV). The pathogens with the 4 highest co-infection rates (CIRs) were as follows: HCoV > human bocavirus (HBoV) > enterovirus (EV) > parainfluenza virus (PIV). The overall positive detection rate (PDR) varied significantly according to patient age, the season and year of detection, and the disease subgroup, but not according to patient sex. The individual PDRs of the pathogens followed 3 types of distributions for patient sex, 4 types of distributions for patient age, 4 types of seasonal distributions, 2 types of seasonal epidemic trends, 4 types of yearly epidemic trends, and different susceptibility distributions in the disease subgroups. Additionally, the overall CIR showed significantly different distributions according to patient sex, patient age, and the disease subgroup, whereas the CIRs of individual pathogens suggested significant preference characteristics.ConclusionIAV remains the most common pathogen among the pathogens analyzed. More effort should be directed toward the prevention and control of pathogens that show a trend of increasing incidence such as HCoV, human adenovirus (ADV), and RSV. Although clinically distinguishing specific pathogens responsible for RTIs is difficult, the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of the various RTI-causing agents could provide clues for clinicians, thereby informing decisions regarding prevention and medication and guiding appropriate public health strategies.
In the present study, we investigated the potential pathogenesis of coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3)-induced viral myocarditis and the promising protective effect of silencing RNA (small interfering RNA, siRNA). One hundred and twenty mice were included in the study, and 30 mice were intraperitoneally inoculated with CVB3 to establish an acute viral myocarditis model. The survival rate was observed for the CVB3-infected mouse model (MOD), and myocardial injury was examined by HE (hematoxylin and eosin) staining assay. Real-time PCR (RT-PCR) and Western blot assay were selected to detect the toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) expression in myocardial tissues. The TLR4 gene was silenced for the MOD mice, and the effects of this treatment were observed. The results indicate that the expression of TLR4 mRNA and the protein significantly and persistently increased during the progression of CVB3-induced myocarditis. The activities of cardiac enzymes including CK, LDH, AST, and CK-MB were also enhanced in CVB3-induced myocardial tissues. Interestingly, when the TLR4 gene was silenced, the CVB3-induced TLR4 production was significantly decreased and the severity of myocarditis was significantly lessened. In conclusion, CVB3 may induce viral myocarditis by upregulating toll-like receptor 4 expression. The viral myocarditis can be ameliorated by silencing the TLR4 gene in the CVB3 viral myocarditis model, which may be a feasible therapeutic method for treatment of viral myocarditis.
Hypertension is a pathological condition of persistent high blood pressure (BP) of which the underlying neural mechanisms remain obscure. Here, we show that the afferent nerves in perirenal adipose tissue (PRAT) contribute to maintain pathological high BP, without affecting physiological BP. Bilateral PRAT ablation or denervation leads to a long-term reduction of high BP in spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHR), but has no effect on normal BP in control rats. Further, gain- and loss-of-function and neuron transcriptomics studies show that augmented activities and remodeling of L1-L2 dorsal root ganglia neurons are responsible for hypertension in SHR. Moreover, we went on to show that calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) is a key endogenous suppressor of hypertension that is sequestered by pro-hypertensive PRAT in SHRs. Taken together, we identify PRAT afferent nerves as a pro-hypertensive node that sustains high BP via suppressing CGRP, thereby providing a therapeutic target to tackle primary hypertension.
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