Cortical Signature of Patients with HBV-related Cirrhosis without Overt Hepatic Encephalopathy: a Morphometric Analysis

Previous studies have shown that patients with hepatitis B virus-related cirrhosis (HBV-RC) without overt hepatic encephalopathy (OHE) are associated with a varying degree of cognitive dysfunction. Several resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have been conducted to explore the neural correlates of such cognitive deficits, whereas little effort has been made to investigate the cortical integrity in cirrhotic patients without OHE. Here, using cortical thickness, surface area and local gyrification index (lGI), this study performed a comprehensive analysis on the cortical morphometry of patients with HBV-RC without OHE (HBV-RC-NOHE) versus matched healthy controls. Compared with healthy controls, we found significantly increased cortical thickness in the bilateral lingual and parahippocampal gyrus, right posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, peri-calcarine sulcus and fusiform gyrus in patient with HBV-RC-NOHE, which may closely relate to be the low-grade brain edema. Cortical gyrification analysis showed significantly increased lGI in the left superior and inferior parietal cortex as well as lateral occipital cortex, which was speculated to be associated with disruptions in white matter connectivity and sub-optimal intra-cortical organization. In addition, the mean cortical thickness/lGI of the regions with structural abnormalities was shown to be negatively correlated with psychometric hepatic encephalopathy score (PHES) of the patients with HBV-RC-NOHE. These morphological changes may serve as potential markers for the preclinical diagnosis and progression of HBV-RC-NOHE

Genome-wide identification of microRNAs and their targets in wild type and phyB mutant provides a key link between microRNAs and the phyB-mediated light signaling pathway in rice

Phytochrome B (phyB), a member of the phytochrome family in rice, plays important roles in regulating a range of developmental processes and stress responses. However, little information about the mechanisms involved in the phyB-mediated light signaling pathway has been reported in rice. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) also perform important roles in plant development and stress responses. Thus, it is intriguing to explore the role of miRNAs in the phyB-mediated light signaling pathway in rice. In this study, comparative high-throughput sequencing and degradome analysis were used to identify candidate miRNAs and their targets that participate in the phyB-mediated light signaling pathway. A total of 720 known miRNAs, 704 novel miRNAs and 1,957 target genes were identified from the fourth leaves of wild-type (WT) and phyB mutant rice at the five-leaf stage. Among them, 135 miRNAs showed differential expression, suggesting that the expression of these miRNAs is directly or indirectly under the control of phyB. In addition, 32 out of the 135 differentially expressed miRNAs were found to slice 70 genes in the rice genome. Analysis of these target genes showed that members of various transcription factor families constituted the largest proportion, indicating miRNAs are probably involved in the phyB-mediated light signaling pathway mainly by regulating the expression of transcription factors. Our results provide new clues for functional characterization of miRNAs in the phyB-mediated light signaling pathway, which should be helpful in comprehensively uncovering the molecular mechanisms of phytochrome-mediated photomorphogenesis and stress responses in plants