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Background: Growing evidence shows a significant association between intestinal flora and allergic diseases, specifically atopic dermatitis (AD), allergic rhinitis (AR), and allergic asthma (AA). However, the causality has not yet been clarified. Objective: We conducted a bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization (TSMR) analysis to study the causal relationships between intestinal flora classification and AD, AR, or AA. Materials and methods: We obtained summary data of intestinal flora, AD, AR, and AA from a genome-wide association research. The inverse-variance weighted method is the primary method for analyzing causality in the TSMR analysis. Several sensitivity analyses were conducted to examine the stability of TSMR results. Reverse TSMR analysis was also performed to assess whether there was a reverse causality. Results: A total of 7 bacterial taxa associated with AD, AR, and AA were identified by the current TSMR analysis. Specifically, the genus Dialister(P=0.034)and genus Prevotella(P=0.047)were associated with a higher risk of AD, whereas class Coriobacteriia (P=0.034) and its child taxon, order Coriobacteriales (P=0.034) and family Coriobacteriaceae (P=0.034), all had a protective effect on AR. In addition, the family Victivallaceae (P=0.019) was identified as a risk factor for AR. We also noticed a positive association between the genus Holdemanella (P=0.046) and AA. The reverse TSMR analysis didn't suggest any evidence of reverse causality from allergic diseases to the intestinal flora. Conclusion: We confirmed the causal relationship between intestinal flora and allergic diseases and provided an innovative perspective for research on allergic diseases: targeted regulation of dysregulation of specific bacterial taxa to prevent and treat AD, AR, and AA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ischemic stroke (IS) is a multifactorial disease caused by the interaction of multiple environmental and genetic risk factors, and it is the most common cause of disability. The immune microenvironment and inflammatory response participate in the whole process of IS occurrence and development. Therefore, the rational use of relevant markers or characteristic pathways in the immune microenvironment will become one of the important therapeutic strategies for the treatment of IS. We collected peripheral blood samples from 10 patients diagnosed with IS at the First Affiliated Hospital of Gannan Medical University and First Affiliated Hospital, Jinan" University, and from 10 normal people. The GSE16561 dataset was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. xCell, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), single-sample GSEA (ssGSEA) and immune-related gene analysis were used to evaluate the differences in the immune microenvironment and characteristic pathways between the IS and control groups of the two datasets. xCell analysis showed that the IS-24h group had significantly reduced central memory CD8+ T cell, effector memory CD8+ T cell, B cell and Th1 cell scores and significantly increased M1 macrophage and macrophage scores. GSEA showed that the IS-24h group had significantly increased inflammation-related pathway activity(myeloid leukocyte activation, positive regulation of tumor necrosis factor biosynthetic process, myeloid leukocyte migration and leukocyte chemotaxis), platelet-related pathway activity(platelet activation, signaling and aggregation; protein polymerization; platelet degranulation; cell-cell contact zone) and pathology-related pathway activity (ERBB signaling pathway, positive regulation of ERK1 and ERK2 cascade, vascular endothelial growth factor receptor signaling pathway, and regulation of MAP kinase activity). Immune-related signature analysis showed that the macrophage signature, antigen presentation-related signature, cytotoxicity-related signature, B cell-related signature and inflammation-related signature were significantly lower in the IS-24h group than in the control group. In this study, we found that there were significant differences in the immune microenvironment between the peripheral blood of IS patients and control patients, as shown by the IS group having significantly reduced CD8+ Tcm, CD8+ Tem, B cell and Th1 cell scores and significantly increased macrophage and M1 macrophage scores. Additionally, inflammation-related, pathological, and platelet-related pathway activities were significantly higher in the IS group than in the control group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has already become a global threat to the human population. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations. Ocular abnormalities have been reported in association with COVID-19, but the nature of the impairments was not specified. Here, we report a case of a female patient diagnosed with glaucoma on re-hospitalization for ocular complications two months after being discharged from the hospital upon recovery from COVID-19. Meanwhile, the patient was found re-positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the upper respiratory tract. The infection was also diagnosed in the aqueous humor through immunostaining with antibodies against the N protein and S protein of SARS-CoV-2. Considering the eye is an immune-privileged site, we speculate that SARS-CoV-2 survived in the eye and resulted in the patient testing re-positive for SARS-CoV-2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]