The feasibility and safety of sharp recanalization for superior vena cava occlusion in hemodialysis patients: A retrospective cohort study

Introduction: Hemodialysis catheter‐related superior vena cava (SVC) occlusions can cause considerable morbidity for patients and be challenging to treat if refractory to conventional guide wire transversal. This pilot study assessed the feasibility and safety of sharp recanalization of SVC occlusion in hemodialysis patients.Methods: This study retrospectively enrolled hemodialysis patients treated in West China Hospital diagnosed with SVC occlusion who failed traditional guide wire transversal from January 2014 to November 2017. In brief, a guide wire from the femoral approach was advanced to the lower end of the obstructive lesion to act as a target, while the stiff end of hydrophilic wire was advanced though a jugular approach. Under fluoroscopic guidance in biplane imaging, the occlusive SVC lesion was penetrated with the stiff wire that was snared and pulled through. Graded dilation of the SVC and subsequent tunneled‐cuffed catheter implantation were performed. Demographic information and clinical outcomes were recorded and evaluated.Findings: Sixteen patients with a mean age of 62 ± 13 years (13 females and 3 males) who received SVC sharp recanalization were included in this study. The sharp recanalization procedure was successfully performed in 14 patients (87.5%). Two patients were complicated with SVC laceration and hemopericardium but remained asymptomatic and required no surgical repair. One patient suffered ventricular fibrillation during procedure. Despite the return of spontaneous circulation, the patient unfortunately died of gastrointestinal tract bleeding after 3 days in ICU. Follow‐up suggested the 6‐month catheter patency to be 92.85% and 12‐month catheter patency to be 58.33%. No long‐term procedure‐related complications were recorded.Discussion: Sharp recanalization might be a feasible strategy in managing SVC occlusion in hemodialysis patients. The potential life‐threatening complications (cardiac arrhythmia and SVC laceration) necessitate strict eligibility screening, skillful operation, and avoidance of over‐dilation of SVC.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153765/1/hdi12804.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153765/2/hdi12804_am.pd

Engineering a Novel Antibody-Peptide Bispecific Fusion Protein Against MERS-CoV

In recent years, tremendous efforts have been made in the engineering of bispecific or multi-specific antibody-based therapeutics by combining two or more functional antigen-recognizing elements into a single construct. However, to the best of our knowledge there has been no reported cases of effective antiviral antibody-peptide bispecific fusion proteins. We previously developed potent fully human monoclonal antibodies and inhibitory peptides against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), a novel coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory illness with high mortality. Here, we describe the generation of antibody-peptide bispecific fusion proteins, each of which contains an anti-MERS-CoV single-chain antibody m336 (or normal human IgG1 CH3 domain as a control) linked with, or without, a MERS-CoV fusion inhibitory peptide HR2P. We found that one of these fusion proteins, designated as m336 diabody-pep, exhibited more potent inhibitory activity than the antibody or the peptide alone against pseudotyped MERS-CoV infection and MERS-CoV S protein-mediated cell-cell fusion, suggesting its potential to be developed as an effective bispecific immunotherapeutic for clinical use

Second generation androgen receptor antagonist, TQB3720 abrogates prostate cancer growth via AR/GPX4 axis activated ferroptosis

Purpose: Prostate cancer (PCa) poses a great threat to humans. The study aimed to evaluate the potential of TQB3720 in promoting ferroptosis to suppress prostate cancer, providing a theoretical basis for PCa therapy.Methods: PCa cells and nude mice models were divided into TQB3720, enzalutamide (ENZ), and control groups. Sulforhodamine B assay, colony formation assessment, organoids culture system, and the CCK8 assay were used for detecting proliferation. Western blot assay was processed to detect the expression of androgen receptor (AR), ferroptosis, and apoptosis-related genes. Flow cytometry was applied to measure the intracellular ROS levels. ELISA was performed to determine the cellular oxidized glutathione (GSSG) and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels. RT-qPCR was conducted to detect the mRNA expression of genes in AR signaling. BODIPYTM™ 581/591 was processed for detection of intracellular lipid peroxidation levels. The interaction of AR with other translational factor complex proteins was explored using Co-immunoprecipitation (Co-IP), and the chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assay was performed to detect the binding of AR-involved translational complex to downstream genes promoter. Luciferase reporter assay was conducted to examine the translation activity of GPX4 promoter, and immunohistochemistry (IHC) was conducted to analyze the levels of c-MYC, Ki-67 and AR in TQB3720-treated cancer tissues.Results: Here, we found TQB3720 inhibits the growth of prostate cancer in vitro and in vivo. TQB3720 treatment induced intracellular levels of GSSG and MDA significantly, by which hints AR antagonist caused ferroptosis-related cell death. Moreover, molecular evidence shown TQB3720 regulates downstream of AR signaling by binding AR resulting in inhibition of AR entry into the nucleus. Additional, we also proved that TQB3720 abrogates the interaction between AR and SP1 and leads to decrease GPX4 transcription.Conclusion: TQB3720 promotes ferroptosis in prostate cancer cells by reducing the AR/SP1 transcriptional complex binding to GPX4 promoter. As a result, it is suggested to be a potential drug for clinic prostate cancer treatment

Quality Scoring of the Fengyun 4A Clear Sky Radiance Product

The Clear Sky Radiance (CSR) product has been widely used instead of Level 1 (L1) geostationary imager data in data assimilation for numerical weather prediction due to its many advantages concerning superobservation methodology. In this study, CSR was produced in two water vapor channels (channels 9 and channel 10, with wavelengths at 5.8–6.7 μm and 6.9–7.3 μm) of the Advanced Geostationary Radiation Imager aboard Fengyun 4A. The root mean square error (RMSE) between CSR observations and backgrounds was used as a quality flag and was predicted by cloud cover, standard deviation (STD), surface type, and elevation of a CSR field of view (FOV). Then, a centesimal scoring system based on the predicted RMSE was set to a CSR FOV that indicates its percentile point in the quality distribution of the whole FOV. Validations of the scoring system demonstrated that the biases of the predicted RMSE were small for all FOVs and that the score was consistent with the predicted RMSE, especially for FOVs with high scores. We suggest using this score for quality control (QC) to replace the QC of cloud cover, STD, and elevation of CSR, and we propose 40 points as the QC threshold for the two channels, above which the predicted RMSE of a CSR is superior to the RMSE of averaged clear-sky L1 data

Modified Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles for COD removal in oil field produced water and regeneration

There are traces of small-sized oil droplets and anionic polyacrylamide (APAM) in the tertiary oil recovery produced water treated with traditional technology, which causes COD value of the wastewater fail to reach the latest emission limit. In this study, Fe3O4-IDA-Cu2+ magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were synthesized and residual chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal in treated oil field produced water was investigated in laboratory scale. Influence of pH, dosage of magnetic nanoparticles, and stirring time was optimized for the COD removal. After 1 h of treatment, about 66.7 % COD removal was achieved with optimized parameters. Magnetic nanoparticles reusability and stability was checked by regeneration treatment. The magnetic separation showed good reusability for six consecutive runs and COD in MNPs treated wastewater was found to be below discharge limit. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

A MOF-derived Co3O4/nitrogen-doped carbon composite for chlorine-assisted production of ethylene oxide

Ethylene oxide (EO) is one of the most crucial materials in plastic industries. The traditional catalytic process requires high temperature and pressure to produce EO. A chlorine-assisted system has been reported to produce EO, but it required noble metal catalysts, which significantly increased the cost. In this work, a MOF-derived Co3O4/nitrogen-doped carbon composite (Co3O4/NC) prepared through a two-step calcination method exhibited remarkable chlorine evolution reaction (ClER) activity as compared with a commercial RuO2 catalyst, which can be attributed to the higher specific surface area and lower resistance of its porous structure and nitrogen-doped carbon. Furthermore, the Co3O4/NC maintained a stable potential and a high faradaic efficiency throughout the 10-hour electrolysis test.This article is published as Li, Tianlei, Hengzhou Liu, Jiaqi Yu, Yifu Chen, Wenyu Huang, and Wenzhen Li. "A MOF-derived Co 3 O 4/nitrogen-doped carbon composite for chlorine-assisted production of ethylene oxide." Green Chemistry 25, no. 5 (2023): 1982-1990. DOI: 10.1039/D2GC04508G. Copyright 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry. Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0). Posted with permission

Pilot scale experiment of an innovative magnetic bar magnetic separator for chromium removal from tannery wastewater

In this research, we designed and manufactured a pilot scale magnetic separator applying in magneticnanoparticles-assisted chromium containing tannery wastewater treatment. The separator is mainly composed of 186 magnetic bars and an in-situ cleaning system. The magnetic bars arranged vertically and arbitrary three magnetic bars are arranged in an equilateral triangle. Effect of dosage of magnetic particles, pH and alkali type on chromium capture efficiency and outlet chromium concentration of chromium containing tanning wastewater in laboratory scale experiments were investigated. In pilot experiment, the separator kept continuous running 15 days for 8 h per day with magnetic nanoparticleschromium complex removed every 4 h by in-situ scraper. The treatment capacity is 16 m3/day for a device and outlet chromium concentration always less than 0.5 mg/L. The separator has simple structure and large processing capacity, and is energy-saving and easy to be scaled up. It has great potential in magnetic nanoparticles-assisted wastewater treatment. ? 2021 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Dynamic Channel Selection of Microwave Temperature Sounding Channels under Cloudy Conditions

To make better use of microwave radiance observations for data assimilation, removal of radiances contaminated by hydrometeor particles is one of the most important steps. Generally, all observations below the middle troposphere are eliminated before the analysis when precipitation is present. However, the altitude of the cloud top varies; when the weighting function peak height of a channel is higher than the altitude of the cloud top, observations are not affected by the absorption or scattering of cloud particles. Thus, the radiative transfer calculation can be performed under a clear sky scenario. In this paper, a dynamic channel selection (DCS) method was developed to determine the radiance observations unaffected by clouds under cloudy conditions in assimilation. First, the sensitivity of cloud liquid water (CLW) profiles to radiance from the microwave temperature sounding frequencies was analyzed. It was found that the impact of CLW on transmittance can be neglected where the cloud top height is below the weighting function peak height. Second, three lookup tables were devised through analysis of the impact of cloud fraction and cloud top height on radiance, which is the basis of the DCS method. The unified cloud top height of the Microwave Temperature Sounder (MWTS)-2 fields of view (FOVs) can be calculated by remapping the cloud mask and cloud top height data from the Medium Resolution Spectral Imager-2 (MERSI-2). Observations from various channels may be removed or retained based on real-time dynamic unified cloud top height data. Twelve-hour and long-term time-series brightness temperature simulation experiments both showed that an increase in the amount of observations used for data assimilation of more than 300% can be achieved by application of DCS, but this had no effect on the amount of error. Through DCS, areas of strong precipitation can be accurately identified and removed, and more observations above cloud top height can be included in the data assimilation. The application of DCS to data assimilation will greatly improve the data utilization rate, and therefore allow for more accurate characterization of upper atmospheric circulation

Antibody signatures in hospitalized hand, foot and mouth disease patients with acute enterovirus A71 infection.

Enterovirus A71 (EV-A71) infection is a major cause of severe hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) in young children. The characteristics of EV-A71 neutralizing antibodies in HFMD patients are not well understood. In this study, we identified and cloned EV-A71-neutralizing antibodies by single cell RNA and B cell receptor sequencing of peripheral blood mononuclear cells. From 145 plasmablasts, we identified two IgG1 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and six IgM mAbs that neutralized EV-A71. Four of the IgM mAbs harbor germline variable sequences and neutralize EV-A71 potently. Two genetically similar IgM antibodies from two patients have recurrent heavy chain variable domain gene usage and similar complementarity-determining region 3 sequences. We mapped the residues of EV-A71 critical for neutralization through selection of virus variants resistant to antibody neutralization in the presence of neutralizing mAbs. The residues critical for neutralization are conserved among EV-A71 genotypes. Epitopes for the two genetically similar antibodies overlap with the SCARB2 binding site of EV-A71. We used escape variants to measure the epitope-specific antibody response in acute phase serum samples from EV-A71 infected HFMD patients. We found that these epitopes are immunogenic and contributed to the neutralizing antibody response against the virus. Our findings advance understanding of antibody response to EV-A71 infection in young children and have translational potential: the IgM mAbs could potentially be used for prevention or treatment of EV-A71 infections