简介:AbstractIn vitro maturation (IVM) has been used in clinical settings for 30 years. The merits of IVM include that it needs a relatively small amount of hormones and short treatment period. However, because the effectiveness of IVM is lower than that of controlled ovarian hyperstimulation, there are few centers routinely use IVM, and it is only applicable to a few special populations. In this article, several oocyte sources related to IVM have been discussed and the effects of gonadotropin priming and triggering on IVM are described. Furthermore, we have reviewed the optimization of IVM culture conditions in recent years along with the effects of IVM on genes of oocytes and cumulus cells and the obstetric and neonatal outcomes. We aim to provide indications for future improvement of IVM technology so that the success rates of IVM technology in special populations can be improved. We hope that this mild and natural protocol can be applied to more populations, including individuals with normal ovulation.
简介:AbstractPatient-derived tumor organoids (PDOs) currently represent important modeling tools in pre-clinical investigation of malignancies. Organoid cultures conserve the genetic and phenotypic characteristics of the original tumor and maintain its heterogeneity, allowing their application in many research fields. PDOs derived from colorectal cancer (CRC) have been used for genetic modeling to investigate the function of driver genes. Some researchers have been exploring the value of CRC PDOs in chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and radiotherapy response prediction. The successful generation of PDOs derived from CRC could deepen our understanding of CRC biology and provide novel tools for cancer modeling, for realizing precision medicine by assessing specimens from individual patients ex vivo. The present review discusses recently reported advances in CRC PDOs and the challenges they face as pre-clinical models in CRC research.
简介:AbstractThe main challenge in the field of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is antibiotic resistance, which influences the efficacy of eradication regimens. Bismuth-containing quadruple therapy has been confirmed as an effective regimen for eradicating H. pylori, especially in strains with antibiotic resistance. High-dose proton-pump inhibitor-amoxicillin dual therapy could decrease the use of unnecessary antibiotics, which is a promising alternative approach. Adjuvant therapy (specific probiotic or vitamin) also showed good results, although more evidence is needed. Novel anti-H. pylori drugs are needed, and the establishment of the H. pylori database is an effective way to acknowledge the real-time information of H. pylori management. This review provides the recent progress of H. pylori treatment, and further studies are needed to address the role of different regimens in improving H. pylori eradication rate, especially in strains with antibiotics resistance.
简介:AbstractBrucellosis is a neglected zoonosis. It causes acute febrile illness and a potentially debilitating chronic infection in humans, and livestock infection has substantial socioeconomic impact. Over the past two decades, improvements have been made to better understand the various aspects of human and animal brucellosis. Meanwhile, especially in the developing world, immense challenges that remain in controlling and eradicating brucellosis are novel diagnostics tools and efficacious vaccines. Here, we will focus on the remarkable issues on epidemiological survey, as well as the priority and challenge of brucellosis in China. Brucellosis will be controlled with meaningful collaboration between local and public partnerships effectively applying a One Health framework.
简介:AbstractSkin diseases were characterized by various types and high incidence, which seriously affect people’s health. At present, skin pathogenesis research and the therapeutic drug development for skin diseases are limited by the lack of reasonable research models that recapitulate the development of skin diseases. Organoids are three-dimensionally cultured cell populations derived from skin stem cells, which exhibits the ability of multicell assembly and the similar histological characteristics with the living tissues and organs. This article reviews the establishment of normal skin organoids and skin tumor organoids, and summarizes the application of skin organoids in the evaluation of drug sensitivity, pathological mechanism research, and individualized treatment. In addition, the advantages and limitations of organoids in skin disease research are also discussed, which provides a basis for revealing the pathogenesis of skin diseases and developing preventive and therapeutic drugs for skin diseases.
简介:AbstractAs an innovative in vitro culture model, organoids have been established by cell sorting and subsequent culture in three-dimensional culture systems. Organoids can be derived from induced pluripotent stem cells or organ-restricted adult stem cells. Compared with traditional two-dimensional cell culture models and patient-derived xenograft models, organoids possess long-term genetic stability and can better retain the characteristics of source tissues or organs. These advantages have led to the increased use of ovarian and fallopian tube organoids in various fields of research, including cell differentiation and development, establishment of disease occurrence and progression models, tissue regeneration and reconstruction, individual drug screening, immune cell co-culture, and maternal-fetal medicine. This review briefly summarizes the recent progress in the application of ovarian and fallopian tube organoids in the field of obstetrics and gynecology.
简介:AbstractGlioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary malignancy of the central nervous system in adults. The prognosis for late-stage glioblastoma (World Health Organization grade IV astrocytic glioma) is very poor. Novel treatment options are sought after and evaluated by clinicians and researchers, and remarkable advances have been made in surgical techniques, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. However, the treatment of glioblastoma remains extremely difficult and it can extend the lives of patients by only a few months. There has been notable progress in the field of immunotherapy, particularly with the use of tumor vaccines, for treating glioblastoma; especially peptide vaccines and cell-based vaccines such as dendritic cell vaccines and tumor cell vaccines. However, the results of the current clinical trials for vaccination are not satisfactory. This article reviews the progress in the development of vaccines for glioblastoma.
简介:AbstractNephrotic syndrome is a relatively common clinical disease. Associated dyslipidemia is a risk factor for the occurrence and development of cardiovascular and renal diseases that might gradually develop into atherosclerosis, glomerulosclerosis or tubulointerstitial injury. It also confers an elevated risk of complications such as thromboembolism. If not properly controlled over the long term, dyslipidemia will become a key factor in a poor prognosis. Furthermore, dyslipidemia correlates with an increase in hepatic compensatory synthetic lipoprotein levels and a decrease in lipoprotein clearance, which can be sourced to the downregulation of hepatic and lipoprotein lipase activities in endothelial cells, muscle, and adipose tissue, and clinically characterized as hypertriglyceridemia or hypercholesterolemia. However, further investigations into the mechanism(s) of dyslipidemia are needed, with the resultant detailed perspectives and analyses substantially aiding the further development of treatment guidelines. Currently, statins represent the most popular type of pharmaceutical intervention because they lower hepatic cholesterol production and promote the absorption of low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol from the bloodstream, followed by second-line and other potential therapies to regulate the expression of specific receptors.
简介:AbstractPsoriasis is considered a systemic disease associated with metabolic abnormalities, and it is important to understand the mechanisms by which metabolism affects pathophysiological processes both holistically and systematically. Metabolites are closely related to disease phenotypes, especially in systemic diseases under multifactorial modulation. The emergence of metabolomics has provided information regarding metabolite changes in lesions and circulation and deepened our understanding of the association between metabolic reprogramming and psoriasis. Metabolomics has great potential for the development of effective biomarkers for clinical diagnosis, therapeutic monitoring, prediction of the efficacy of psoriasis management, and further discovery of new metabolism-based therapeutic targets.
简介:AbstractMechanical power of ventilation, currently defined as the energy delivered from the ventilator to the respiratory system over a period of time, has been recognized as a promising indicator to evaluate ventilator-induced lung injury and predict the prognosis of ventilated critically ill patients. Mechanical power can be accurately measured by the geometric method, while simplified equations allow an easy estimation of mechanical power at the bedside. There may exist a safety threshold of mechanical power above which lung injury is inevitable, and the assessment of mechanical power might be helpful to determine whether the extracorporeal respiratory support is needed in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. It should be noted that relatively low mechanical power does not exclude the possibility of lung injury. Lung size and inhomogeneity should also be taken into consideration. Problems regarding the safety limits of mechanical power and contribution of each component to lung injury have not been determined yet. Whether mechanical power-directed lung-protective ventilation strategy could improve clinical outcomes also needs further investigation. Therefore, this review discusses the algorithms, clinical relevance, optimization, and future directions of mechanical power in critically ill patients.
简介:AbstractThe regeneration capacity of cardiomyocytes (CMs) is retained in neonatal mouse hearts but is limited in adult mouse hearts. Myocardial infarction (MI) in adult hearts usually leads to the loss of large amounts of cardiac tissue, and then accelerates the process of cardiac remodeling and heart failure. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the potential mechanisms of CM regeneration in the neonates and develop potential therapies aimed at promoting CM regeneration and cardiac repair in adults. Currently, studies indicate that a number of mechanisms are involved in neonatal endogenous myocardial regeneration, including cell cycle regulators, transcription factors, non-coding RNA, signaling pathways, acute inflammation, hypoxia, protein kinases, and others. Understanding the mechanisms of regeneration in neonatal CMs after MI provides theoretical support for the studies related to the promotion of heart repair after MI in adult mammals. However, several difficulties in the study of CM regeneration still need to be overcome. This article reviews the potential mechanisms of endogenous CM regeneration in neonatal mouse hearts and discusses possible therapeutic targets and future research directions.
简介:AbstractGastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide. Its incidence ranks the 5th among all malignant tumors globally, and it is the 3rd leading cause of death among patients with cancer. Surgical treatment is the first choice in clinical practice. However, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and other treatment methods have also become research hotspots at home and abroad with the development of individualized precision therapy in recent years, besides traditional radiotherapy and chemotherapy. At present, targeted therapy and immunotherapy are methods used for treating GC, and they have important clinical application value and prospects. This study aimed to review the research progress of targeted therapy and immunotherapy for GC, focusing on its mechanism of action and related important clinical trials, hoping to provide references for the clinical treatment of GC.
简介:AbstractMalignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a rare and aggressive malignant disease. Currently, the platinum doublet of pemetrexed and cisplatin is the standard first-line treatment for unresectable MPM. However, recent promising results of immunotherapy have markedly changed the landscape of MPM treatment. Further, the ongoing innovative therapeutic strategies are expected to expand the range of treatment options; however, several questions remain unanswered. First, establishing predictive biomarkers with high potency is urgently needed to optimize the patient selection process. Second, further exploration of the combination algorithm is expected to unveil more effective and safe regimens. Moreover, other dilemmas, such as the resistance mechanism of immunotherapy and the role of immunotherapy in perioperative settings, still warrant further exploration.
简介:AbstractEtiology of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), a complicated three-dimensional spinal deformity with early-onset, receives continuous attention but remains unclear. To gain an insight into AIS pathogenesis, this review searched PubMed database up to June 2019, using key words or medical subject headings terms including "adolescent idiopathic scoliosis," "scoliosis," "pathogenesis," "etiology," "genetics," "mesenchymal stem cells," and their combinations, summarized existing literatures and categorized the theories or hypothesis into nine aspects. These aspects include bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell studies, genetic studies, tissue analysis, spine biomechanics measurements, neurologic analysis, hormone studies, biochemical analysis, environmental factor analysis, and lifestyle explorations. These categories could be a guidance for further etiology or treatment researches to gain inspiration.
简介:AbstractDecidualization is a special type of differentiation of endometrial stromal cells into secretory decidualized cells, which is closely related to the occurrence of menstruation and establishment of pregnancy. Decidualization abnormalities can cause female infertility and abortion, and the decidualization model in vitro is an important tool for studying relevant mechanisms. This article summarizes several in vitro decidualization models in recent research from three aspects, including the selection of model cells and culture systems, evaluation of decidualization markers, and induction schemes. These models can be appropriately selected and applied in specific endometrium-related disease models, such as endometriosis, recurrent pregnancy loss, and preeclampsia.
简介:AbstractBone cement, consisting of polymethyl methacrylate, is a bioinert material used for prothesis fixation in joint arthroplasty. To treat orthopedic infections, such as periprosthetic joint infection, antibiotic-loaded bone cement (ALBC) was introduced into clinical practice. Recent studies have revealed the limitations of the antibacterial effect of ALBC. Moreover, with the increase in high infection risk patients and highly resistant microbes, more researches and modification of ALBC are required. This paper reviewed latest findings about ALBC for most popular and destructive pathogens, summarized the influence of antibiotic kind, drug dosage, application method, and environment towards characteristic of ALBC. Subsequently, new cement additives and clinical applications of ALBC in joint arthroplasty were also discussed.
简介:AbstractMore evidences show that microRNAs play an important role in the pathogenesis of inflammation and autoimmune diseases including Lichen planus, and are an attractive therapeutic target. MicroRNA family plays an important role in the regulation of gene expression, which involves cell proliferation, apoptosis, growth, differentiation and metabolism, vascularization, immune response and other biological processes. The changes of expression profile and expression level are closely related to the occurrence and development of many diseases, such as tumor, inflammatory disease and autoimmune disease relevant. However, there are few reports on microRNA in the pathogenesis of LP. This review summarizes the research advance of microRNAs (microRNAs -137, microRNAs -125b, microRNAs -138, microRNAs-27b, microRNAs -203) and their downstream proteins in LP.