Performance of Aptima HPV E6/E7 mRNA Test for Detection of Cervical Lesions in a Large Chinese Population

Background: We aimed to examine the effectiveness of Aptima HPV E6/E7 mRNA test for detection of cervical lesions in a large Chinese population. Methods: Overall, 4,350 women, who received simultaneously Aptima HPV E6/E7 mRNA test and HPV DNA test, followed by cervical biopsy in the Department of Gynecology of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Jiangsu Province, China from 2016-2020, were recruited. The detection of cervical lesions was compared between Aptima HPV E6/E7 mRNA test and HPV DNA test. Results: Overall, HPV DNA test exhibited a higher detection of all cervical lesions than Aptima HPV E6/E7 mRNA test (P0.05). Conclusion: Aptima HPV E6/E7 mRNA test gradually improves the detection of cervical lesions with disease severity, and shows a higher specificity, positive and negative prediction rates and comparable sensitivity for detection of clinical cervical lesions as compared with HPV DNA test

PCDHGB7 hypermethylation-based Cervical cancer Methylation (CerMe) detection for the triage of high-risk human papillomavirus-positive women:a prospective cohort study

BackgroundImplementation of high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) screening has greatly reduced the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer. However, a triage strategy that is effective, noninvasive, and independent from the subjective interpretation of pathologists is urgently required to decrease unnecessary colposcopy referrals in hrHPV-positive women.MethodsA total of 3251 hrHPV-positive women aged 30–82 years (median = 41 years) from International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital were included in the training set (n = 2116) and the validation set (n = 1135) to establish Cervical cancer Methylation (CerMe) detection. The performance of CerMe as a triage for hrHPV-positive women was evaluated.ResultsCerMe detection efficiently distinguished cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or worse (CIN2 +) from cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 1 or normal (CIN1 −) women with excellent sensitivity of 82.4% (95% CI = 72.6 ~ 89.8%) and specificity of 91.1% (95% CI = 89.2 ~ 92.7%). Importantly, CerMe showed improved specificity (92.1% vs. 74.9%) in other 12 hrHPV type-positive women as well as superior sensitivity (80.8% vs. 61.5%) and specificity (88.9% vs. 75.3%) in HPV16/18 type-positive women compared with cytology testing. CerMe performed well in the triage of hrHPV-positive women with ASC-US (sensitivity = 74.4%, specificity = 87.5%) or LSIL cytology (sensitivity = 84.4%, specificity = 83.9%).ConclusionsPCDHGB7 hypermethylation-based CerMe detection can be used as a triage strategy for hrHPV-positive women to reduce unnecessary over-referrals.Trial registrationChiCTR2100048972. Registered on 19 July 2021.<br/

Flexible Phase Change Material Fiber: A Simple Route to Thermal Energy Control Textiles

A flexible hollow polypropylene (PP) fiber was filled with the phase change material (PCM) polyethylene glycol 1000 (PEG1000), using a micro-fluidic filling technology. The fiber’s latent heat storage and release, thermal reversibility, mechanical properties, and phase change behavior as a function of fiber drawing, were characterized. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results showed that both enthalpies of melting and solidification of the PCM encased within the PP fiber were scarcely influenced by the constraint, compared to unconfined PEG1000. The maximum filling ratio of PEG1000 within the tubular PP filament was ~83 wt.%, and the encapsulation efficiencies and heat loss percentages were 96.7% and 7.65% for as-spun fibers and 93.7% and 1.53% for post-drawn fibers, respectively. Weak adherence of PEG on the inner surface of the PP fibers favored bubble formation and aggregating at the core–sheath interface, which led to different crystallization behavior of PEG1000 at the interface and in the PCM matrix. The thermal stability of PEG was unaffected by the PP encasing; only the decomposition temperature, corresponding to 50% weight loss of PEG1000 inside the PP fiber, was a little higher compared to that of pure PEG1000. Cycling heating and cooling tests proved the reversibility of latent heat release and storage properties, and the reliability of the PCM fiber

Phase Change Energy Storage Elastic Fiber: A Simple Route to Personal Thermal Management

A novel thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) PCFs possessing a high loaded ratio and high elasticity was simply prepared by vacuum absorption following wet spinning, then coated by waterborne polyurethane (WPU). Octadecane (OCC), hexadecanol (HEO), and stearic acid (SA), which have different tendencies to form hydrogen bonds with TPU, were selected as PCMs, and their thermal behavior, thermal storge properties, and elasticity were systematically studied, respectively. The hierarchical pore structure though from the sheath to the core part of TPU filaments weakened the influence of the nonfreezing layer and hydrogen bond on the crystallization behavior of PCMs. The resulting HEO/TPU fiber has the highest enthalpy of 208.1 J/g compared with OCC and SA. Moreover, the HEO/TPU fiber has an elongation at break of 354.8% when the phase change enthalpy is as high as 177.8 J/g and the phase change enthalpy is still 174.5 J/g after fifty cycles. After ten tensile recovery cycles, the elastic recovery rate of HEO/TPU fiber was only 71.3%. When the HEO in the fiber was liquid state, the elastic recovery rate of HEO/TPU fiber promoted to 91.6%. This elastic PCFs have excellent thermal cycle stability, elastic recovery, and temperature sensitivity. It has great application potential in the fields of flexible wearable devices, intelligent fabrics, and temperature sensors

Do women with high-risk HPV E6/E7 mRNA test positivity and NILM cytology need colposcopy?

Abstract Purpose This study aimed to assess the value of an HPV E6/E7 mRNA assay and HPV 16 18/45 genotype assay combined with age stratification for triaging women negative for intraepithelial lesions or malignancy (NILM) cytology. Methods From January 2017 to December 2021, a total of 162,309 eligible women underwent cervical cancer screening at the Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical University, China. Excluding those with negative HPV E6/E7 mRNA, abnormal and unsatisfactory cytology, and those who failed to undergo colposcopy, 6,845 women were ultimately included in our study. We analysed the triage guidance for different subtypes of HPV in the presence of NILM cytology. Results Among 162,309 women, 19,834 (12.2%) were positive for HPV E6/E7 mRNA. Of the 6,845 women included in the study, 1,941 (28.4%), 561 (8.2%), 55 (0.8%) and 4,288 (62.6%) tested positive for HPV 16, HPV 18/45, HPV16/18/45 or other HR-HPV genotypes, respectively. The proportions of LSIL+ (including LSIL, HSIL and ICC) and HSIL+ (including HSIL and ICC) pathological results in the HPV 16/18/45 + group were 57% and 34.1%, respectively, higher than 36.3% and 11% in the other HR-HPV + group (χ2 = 653.214, P  0.05). The above results were consistent after stratification according to age. Conclusion The rate of histopathological abnormalities was still high for the other HR-HPV subtypes with NILM cytology, although the rate of histopathological abnormalities was much higher for the HPV 16/18/45 positive subtypes. Therefore, colposcopy should be performed in women with HPV E6/E7 mRNA positivity and NILM cytology, regardless of age and HPV genotype

Folic Acid-Modified Fluorescent-Magnetic Nanoparticles for Efficient Isolation and Identification of Circulating Tumor Cells in Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer (OC) is a lethal disease occurring in women worldwide. Due to the lack of obvious clinical symptoms and sensitivity biomarkers, OC patients are often diagnosed in advanced stages and suffer a poor prognosis. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), released from tumor sites into the peripheral blood, have been recognized as promising biomarkers in cancer prognosis, treatment monitoring, and metastasis diagnosis. However, the number of CTCs in peripheral blood is low, and it is a technical challenge to isolate, enrich, and identify CTCs from the blood samples of patients. This work develops a simple, effective, and inexpensive strategy to capture and identify CTCs from OC blood samples using the folic acid (FA) and antifouling-hydrogel-modified fluorescent-magnetic nanoparticles. The hydrogel showed a good antifouling property against peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). The FA was coupled to the hydrogel surface as the targeting molecule for the CTC isolation, held a good capture efficiency for SK-OV-3 cells (95.58%), and successfully isolated 2&ndash;12 CTCs from 10 OC patients&rsquo; blood samples. The FA-modified fluorescent-magnetic nanoparticles were successfully used for the capture and direct identification of CTCs from the blood samples of OC patients

Transcriptional Differences in Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) Seeds at the Freshly Harvested, After-ripening and Newly Germinated Seed Stages: Insights into the Regulatory Networks of Seed Dormancy Release and Germination.

Seed dormancy and germination are the two important traits related to plant survival, reproduction and crop yield. To understand the regulatory mechanisms of these traits, it is crucial to clarify which genes or pathways participate in the regulation of these processes. However, little information is available on seed dormancy and germination in peanut. In this study, seeds of the variety Luhua No.14, which undergoes nondeep dormancy, were selected, and their transcriptional changes at three different developmental stages, the freshly harvested seed (FS), the after-ripening seed (DS) and the newly germinated seed (GS) stages, were investigated by comparative transcriptomic analysis. The results showed that genes with increased transcription in the DS vs FS comparison were overrepresented for oxidative phosphorylation, the glycolysis pathway and the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, suggesting that after a period of dry storage, the intermediates stored in the dry seeds were rapidly mobilized by glycolysis, the TCA cycle, the glyoxylate cycle, etc.; the electron transport chain accompanied by respiration was reactivated to provide ATP for the mobilization of other reserves and for seed germination. In the GS vs DS pairwise comparison, dozens of the upregulated genes were related to plant hormone biosynthesis and signal transduction, including the majority of components involved in the auxin signal pathway, brassinosteroid biosynthesis and signal transduction as well as some GA and ABA signal transduction genes. During seed germination, the expression of some EXPANSIN and XYLOGLUCAN ENDOTRANSGLYCOSYLASE genes was also significantly enhanced. To investigate the effects of different hormones during seed germination, the contents and differential distribution of ABA, GAs, BRs and IAA in the cotyledons, hypocotyls and radicles, and plumules of three seed sections at different developmental stages were also investigated. Combined with previous data in other species, it was suggested that the coordination of multiple hormone signal transduction nets plays a key role in radicle protrusion and seed germination

General information and inter-group analysis of age and integrity index.

<p>General information and inter-group analysis of age and integrity index.</p

Clinical value of ALU concentration and integrity index for the early diagnosis of ovarian cancer: A retrospective cohort trial

<div><p>CA125 amounts have a large overlap in ovarian cancer and benign diseases. We conducted a retrospective cohort trial to assess the clinical value of circulating cell-free DNA concentration and integrity index for the diagnosis of ovarian cancer. A total of 150 patients were recruited. Plasma samples of 24 ovarian cancer patients, 12 benign ovarian cysts, and 12 healthy controls were assessed. By amplifying short ALU-115 repeat and long ALU-219 fragments, circulating cell-free DNA concentrations and integrity index were measured. Plasma ALU-219 fragment levels and integrity index were significantly higher in the ovarian cancer group compared with the benign disease and healthy control groups (p = 0.023 and p = 0.004, respectively). These findings indicated that plasma ALU-219 levels and integrity may have a clinical value in the early diagnosis of ovarian cancer.</p></div

General information and inter-group analysis of ALU-115 /ALU-219 /CA-125.

<p>General information and inter-group analysis of ALU-115 /ALU-219 /CA-125.</p