An emerging research: the role of hepatocellular carcinoma-derived exosomal circRNAs in the immune microenvironment

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common primary malignancy of the liver, is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death and is associated with a poor prognosis. The tumor microenvironment (TME) of HCC comprises immune, immunosuppressive, and interstitial cells with hypoxic, angiogenic, metabolic reprogramming, inflammatory, and immunosuppressive features. Exosomes are nanoscale extracellular vesicles that secrete biologically active signaling molecules such as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), microribonucleic acid (miRNA), proteins, and lipids. These signaling molecules act as messengers in the tumor microenvironment, especially the tumor immunosuppressive microenvironment. Exosomal circRNAs reshape the tumor microenvironment by prompting hypoxic stress response, stimulating angiogenesis, contributing to metabolic reprogramming, facilitating inflammatory changes in the HCC cells and inducing tumor immunosuppression. The exosomes secreted by HCC cells carry circRNA into immune cells, which intervene in the activation of immune cells and promote the overexpression of immune checkpoints to regulate immune response, leading tumor cells to acquire immunosuppressive properties. Furthermore, immunosuppression is the final result of a combination of TME-related factors, including hypoxia, angiogenesis, metabolic reprogramming, and inflammation changes. In conclusion, exosomal circRNA accelerates the tumor progression by adjusting the phenotype of the tumor microenvironment and ultimately forming an immunosuppressive microenvironment. HCC-derived exosomal circRNA can affect HCC cell proliferation, invasion, metastasis, and induction of chemoresistance. Therefore, this review aimed to summarize the composition and function of these exosomes, the role that HCC-derived exosomal circRNAs play in microenvironment formation, and the interactions between exosomes and immune cells. This review outlines the role of exosomal circRNAs in the malignant phenotype of HCC and provides a preliminary exploration of the clinical utility of exosomal circRNAs

Eosinophilia triggers changes in IL-5, eotaxin and IL-17, and acts as a prognostic biomarker for atopic dermatitis

Purpose: To investigate the implication of eosinophilia in atopic dermatitis (AD).Methods: A total of 139 AD patients from The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine between February 2013 and May 2015, were involved in this study. Scoring atopic dermatitis (SCORAD) index was used to evaluate the skin lesions. The levels of IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, IL-17, INFgamma, IP-10, eotaxin and Regulated on Activation, Normal T-cell Expressed and Secreted (RANTES), were determined with commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits. Eosinophil counts were carried out by granulocyte count method. Correlation between SCORAD scores and levels of cytokines was analyzed using the Spearman correlation method.Results: SCORAD scores significantly increased in the eosinophil-positive group when compared to eosinophil-negative group (p < 0.05). Eosinophil counts correlated with SCORAD scores in the eosinophil-positive group (p < 0.05). INF-γ, IP-10 and RANTES levels were significantly higher in the eosinophil-positive group than in eosinophil- negative group, while IL-5, eotaxin and IL-17 levels significantly decreased in eosinophil-positive group (p < 0.05). In the eosinophil-positive group, IL-5, eotaxin and IL-17 levels positively correlated with SCORAD scores.Conclusion: Eosinophilia triggers lL-5, eotaxin and IL-17 changes and acts as a prognostic biomarker for atopic dermatitis. These findings may give further insights into the pathogenesis of AD.Keywords: Atopic dermatitis, Eosinophilia, SCORAD score, Biomarker, Cytokine

GlueGen: Plug and Play Multi-modal Encoders for X-to-image Generation

Text-to-image (T2I) models based on diffusion processes have achieved remarkable success in controllable image generation using user-provided captions. However, the tight coupling between the current text encoder and image decoder in T2I models makes it challenging to replace or upgrade. Such changes often require massive fine-tuning or even training from scratch with the prohibitive expense. To address this problem, we propose GlueGen, which applies a newly proposed GlueNet model to align features from single-modal or multi-modal encoders with the latent space of an existing T2I model. The approach introduces a new training objective that leverages parallel corpora to align the representation spaces of different encoders. Empirical results show that GlueNet can be trained efficiently and enables various capabilities beyond previous state-of-the-art models: 1) multilingual language models such as XLM-Roberta can be aligned with existing T2I models, allowing for the generation of high-quality images from captions beyond English; 2) GlueNet can align multi-modal encoders such as AudioCLIP with the Stable Diffusion model, enabling sound-to-image generation; 3) it can also upgrade the current text encoder of the latent diffusion model for challenging case generation. By the alignment of various feature representations, the GlueNet allows for flexible and efficient integration of new functionality into existing T2I models and sheds light on X-to-image (X2I) generation.Comment: ICCV 202

Interprovincial reliance for improving air quality in China:A case study on black carbon aerosol

Black carbon (BC) is of global concern because of its adverse effects on climate and human health. It can travel long distances via atmospheric movement and can be geographically relocated through trade. Here, we explored the integrated patterns of BC transport within 30 provinces in China from the perspective of meteorology and interprovincial trade using the Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry (WRF/Chem) model and multiregional input-output analysis. In general, cross-border BC transport, which accounts for more than 30% of the surface concentration, occurs mainly between neighboring provinces. Specifically, Hebei contributes 1.2 μg·m(-3) BC concentration in Tianjin. By contrast, trade typically drives virtual BC flows from developed provinces to heavily industrial provinces, with the largest net flow from Beijing to Hebei (4.2 Gg). Shanghai is most vulnerable to domestic consumption with an average interprovincial consumption influence efficiency of 1.5 × 10(-4) (μg·m(-3))/(billion Yuan·yr(-1)). High efficiencies (∼8 × 10(-5) (μg·m(-3))/(billion Yuan·yr(-1))) are also found from regions including Beijing, Jiangsu, and Shanghai to regions including Hebei, Shandong, and Henan. The above source-receptor relationship indicates two control zones: Huabei and Huadong. Both mitigating end-of-pipe emissions and rationalizing the demand for pollution-intense products are important within the two control zones to reduce BC and other pollutants

(E)-4-Bromo-N′-(2-chloro­benzyl­idene)benzohydrazide

In the title compound, C14H10BrClN2O, the dihedral angle between the two benzene rings is 11.4 (2)°. In the crystal structure, mol­ecules are connected via inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds into one-dimensional chains running parallel to the c axis

Chaos-assisted broadband momentum transformation in optical microresonators

The law of momentum conservation rules out many desired processes in optical microresonators. We report broadband momentum transformations of light in asymmetric whispering gallery microresonators. Assisted by chaotic motions, broadband light can travel between optical modes with different angular momenta within a few picoseconds. Efficient coupling from visible to near-infrared bands is demonstrated between a nanowaveguide and whispering gallery modes with quality factors exceeding 10 million. The broadband momentum transformation enhances the device conversion efficiency of the third-harmonic generation by greater than three orders of magnitude over the conventional evanescent-wave coupling. The observed broadband and fast momentum transformation could promote applications such as multicolor lasers, broadband memories, and multiwavelength optical networks

High-sensitive and rapid detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection by IFN-γ release assay among HIV-infected individuals in BCG-vaccinated area

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>An accurate test for <it>Mycobacterium tuberculosis </it>infection is urgently needed in immunosuppressed populations. The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic power of enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT)-based IFN-γ release assay in detecting active and latent tuberculosis in HIV-infected population in <it>bacillus Calmette-Guerin </it>(BCG)-vaccinated area. A total of 100 HIV-infected individuals including 32 active tuberculosis patients were recruited. An ELISPOT-based IFN-γ release assay, T-SPOT.TB, was used to evaluate the <it>M. tuberculosis </it>ESAT-6 and CFP-10 specific IFN-γ response. Tuberculin skin test (TST) was performed for all recruited subjects.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The subjects were divided into group HIV+ATB (HIV-infected individuals with active tuberculosis, n = 32), group HIV+LTB (HIV-infected individuals with positive results of T-SPOT.TB assay, n = 46) and group HIV only (HIV-infected individuals with negative results of T-SPOT.TB assay and without evidence of tuberculosis infection, n = 22). In group HIV+ATB and HIV+LTB, T-SPOT.TB positive rate in subjects with TST <5 mm were 50% (16/32) and 41.3% (19/46), respectively. Individuals in group HIV+ATB and HIV+LTB with CD4+ T cells <500/μl, T-SPOT.TB showed a higher sensitivity than TST (64.5% vs. 22.6% and 62.2% vs. 29.7%, respectively, both <it>P </it>< 0.0001). In addition, the sensitivity of T-SPOT.TB assay in group HIV+ATB increased to >85% in patients with TB treatment for less than 1 month and CD4+ T cells ≥200/μl, while for patients treated for more than 3 months and CD4+ T cells <200/μl, the sensitivity was decreased to only 33.3%. Furthermore, the results could be generated by T-SPOT.TB assay within 24 hours, which was more rapid than TST with 48–72 hours.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>ELISPOT-based IFN-γ release assay is more sensitive and rapid for the diagnosis of TB infection in Chinese HIV-infected individuals with history of BCG vaccination, and could be an effective tool for guiding preventive treatment with isoniazid in latently infected people and for TB control in China.</p