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Background Essential hypertension can cause many kinds of cardiovascular diseases. The pathogenesis of essential hypertension is very complex, and the mechanism is still unclear. The microRNAs have been identified as novel biomarkers for pre-diagnosis and prognosis of hypertension. However, the kinds of microRNAs that can be used as specific biomarkers for hypertension are unknown. Methods and results Plasma samples were isolated from Uyghur subjects with essential hypertension and the healthy individuals. Microarray was used to identify differentially expressed microRNAs. The microarray data were clustered and annotated with online software. The target genes of differentially expressed microRNAs were also analyzed. The microarray results were further verified by quantitative real-time PCR. We identified 257 microRNAs that were differentially expressed between patients with essential hypertension and the healthy individuals. These microRNAs had a total of 6580 target genes. The 47 microRNAs that had target genes, including 24 up-regulated and 23 down-regulated microRNAs, were further screened out to construct a reference set of potential microRNA biomarkers. Most of the 47 microRNAs were located at chromosome 19 (40 microRNAs) and chromosome 1 (45 microRNAs). Their target genes were mainly enriched in metal ion binding, transcription regulation, cell adhesion and junction, indicating that these candidate microRNAs may regulate mineral ion binding and cell communication process of essential hypertension. The quantitative real-time PCR results of miR-198 and miR-1183 (which were the two most significantly up-regulated microRNAs by microarray), and, miR-30e-5p and miR-144-3p (which were the two most significantly down-regulated microRNAs by microarray) were consistent with the microarray results. Conclusions A reference set of potential microRNA biomarkers that may be involved in essential hypertension is constructed. Our study may provide experimental evidence for further studying the mechanism of essential hypertension. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12944-019-1028-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Contact force (CF) monitoring can be useful in accomplishing circumferential pulmonary vein (PV) isolation for atrial fibrillation (AF). This meta-analysis aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of a CF-sensing catheter in treating AF. Randomized controlled trials or non-randomized observational studies comparing AF ablation using CF-sensing or standard non-CF (NCF)-sensing catheters were identified from PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Wanfang Data, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (January 1, 1998–2016). A total of 19 studies were included. The primary efficacy endpoint was AF recurrence within 12 months, which significantly improved using CF-sensing catheters compared with using NCF-sensing catheters [31.1% vs. 40.5%; risk ratio (RR)=0.82; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.73–0.93; p<0.05]. Further, the acute PV reconnection (10.1% vs. 24.2%; RR=0.45; 95% CI, 0.32–0.63; p<0.05) and incidence of major complications (1.8% vs. 3.1%; OR=0.59; 95% CI, 0.37–0.95; p<0.05) significantly improved using CF-sensing catheters compared with using NCF-sensing catheters. Procedure parameters such as procedure duration [mean difference (MD)=-28.35; 95% CI, -39.54 to -17.16; p<0.05], ablation time (MD=-3.8; 95% CI, -6.6 to -1.0; p<0.05), fluoroscopy duration (MD=-8.18; 95% CI, -14.11 to -2.24; p<0.05), and radiation dose (standard MD=-0.75; 95% CI, -1.32 to -0.18; p<0.05] significantly reduced using CF-sensing catheters. CF-sensing catheter ablation of AF can reduce the incidence of major complications and generate better outcomes compared with NCF-sensing catheters during the 12-month follow-up period.

To quickly and accurately identify the lawn area and boundary positions of different scenes, environments, and seasons, we propose a new semantic segmentation model PULNet and lawn boundary detection methods. Firstly, the ResNet50 network is improved to expand its effective receptive field, a Pooling pyramid (P) and an Upsampling dimensionality reduction structure (U) is constructed based on the Dilated_ResNet50 network. Secondly, a fast and accurate PULNet semantic segmentation network is proposed integrating the image Local detail information structure (L). Finally, an Eight-neighbor coding method is designed to accurately locate the border of the lawn. Experiments on the ADE20K dataset obtained the mean Intersection over Union (mIoU) and mean Pixel Accuracy (mPA) 32.86% and 75.65% respectively. The average speed is 82.7 frames per second on a platform with GTX 1080Ti GPU. Compared with the Fully Convolutional Network (FCN) the mIoU and mPA are increased by 3.47% and 4.33% respectively, and the speed is 11 times higher. The proposed method can be used for fast and accurate lawn semantic segmentation and boundary detection.

The therapeutic management and health challenges caused by atrial fibrillation (AF) differ between different groups. The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical features of patients hospitalized with AF and to explore the use of anticoagulation treatments in Han and Uygur patients in Xinjiang, northwest China. Data were collected from a retrospective descriptive study involving patients hospitalized at 13 hospitals in Xinjiang, China from Jul 1, 2014 to Jun 31, 2015. Anticoagulation management was measured according to guideline-recommended risk scores. A total of 4,181 patients with AF were included (mean age 69.5 ± 11.7 years, 41.4% females; 71.5% Han, 28.5% Uygur). The prevalence of AF in Uygur individuals may occur earlier than in Han individuals (mean age 64.9 vs 71.3, P < 0.001). Most of the hospitalized patients with AF had a high risk of stroke (CHA2DS2-VASc score ≥2; 80.6% Han vs 73.7% Uygur, P < 0.05); this risk was especially high in elderly patients. In AF patients, the application of anticoagulants according to the guidelines is far from expected, and the underutilization of anticoagulants exists in both ethnic groups.

Background The incidence of heart failure (HF) presents an escalating trend annually, second only to cancer. Few literatures are available regarding on the role of paraoxonase 2 ( PON2 ) in HF so far despite the protective role of PON2 in cardiovascular diseases. Methods PON2 expression in AC16 cells was examined with reverse transcriptase‐quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blot following angiotensin II (Ang II) challenging. After PON2 elevation, 2, 7‐dichlorofluorescein diacetate assay estimated reactive oxygen species content, related kits appraised oxidative stress, enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay evaluated inflammatory levels, and Western blot was applied to the analysis of apoptosis levels. Research on cytoskeleton was conducted by immunofluorescence (IF), and Western blot analysis of the expressions of hypertrophy‐related proteins was performed. BioGRID and GeneMania databases were used to analyze the relationship between PON2 and Calnexin ( CANX ), which was corroborated by co‐immunoprecipitation experiment. Subsequently, PON2 and CANX were simultaneously overexpressed in AC16 cells induced by Ang II to further figure out the mechanism. Results PON2 expression was depleted in Ang II‐induced AC16 cells. PON2 might mediate CANX/NOX4 signaling to inhibit oxidation, inflammatory, hypertrophy, and damage in Ang II‐induced AC16 cells. Conclusion PON2 can ease Ang II‐induced cardiomyocyte injury via targeting CANX/NOX4 signaling.

This study is to investigate the effect of home-based cardiac rehabilitation (HBCR) on quality of life, functional capacity, and readmission rates in patients with heart failure. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were screened from Cochrane Library, CINAHL, EMBASE, and MEDLINE. The intervention group received a standardized HBCR or a comprehensive rehabilitation strategy that included HBCR. The participants in the control group received CR at a medical center or usual care without CR intervention. The main outcome measurements included quality of life, exercise capacity, mortality and re-hospitalization. This meta-analysis included 20 RCTs, in which 16 studies compared HBCR with usual care, and 4 studies compared HBCR with center-based CR. In comparison with the usual care, HBCR improved the total quality of life score [MD=-5.85, 95 % CI (-9.76, -1.94), P=0.003, I2=75 %]. Patients with HBCR and usual care were significantly different in VO 2 max [MD=1.05 mL/kg/min, 95 % CI (0.35, 1.75), P=0.003, I2=46 %]. However, VO 2 max of patients with HBCR was not significantly different from those with center-based CR [MD=0.08 mL/kg/min, 95 % CI (-1.29, 1.44), P=0.91, I2=0 %]. There was statistically significant difference in the 6-min Walk Distance between usual care and HBCR (for distance [MD=11.84, 95 % CI (7.41, 16.28), P<0.00001, I2=0 %]; and for feet [MD=98.93, 95 % CI (26.79, 171.08), P=0.007, I2=56 %]). However, there was no significant difference in 6-min Walk Distance between patients with HBCR and center-based CR [MD=12.45, 34.72), P=0.27, I2=0 %] , or in anxiety and depression between patients with usual care and HBCR (for anxiety, [MD=-0.25, 95 % CI (-0.56, 0.05), P=0.11, I2=0 %]; for depression, [MD=-0.18, 95 % CI (-0.51, 0.16), P=0.30, I2=0 %] . No significant difference was found in death number [RR=1.04, 95 % CI (0.55, 1.98), P=0.90, I2=0 %] or in the number of re-hospitalization [RR=0.88, 95 % CI (0.66, 1.18), P=0.40, I2=0 %] between usual care and HBCR. For patients with heart failure, compare with usual care and center-based CR, HBCR can improve the total quality of life. Compare with usual care, HBCR can improve VO2max and 6-min Walk Distance, but compare with centerbased CR, there are no differences in mortality, re-hospitalization rate or incidence of anxiety and depression. Additionally, centerbased CR and HBCR showed similar outcomes and medical costs.