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Abstract Little attention was paid to the prevalence of depression in Chinese juvenile delinquents who are studied in correctional work-study schools. Hence, the present study aimed to test the unique, mediating and moderating effects of negative life events, self-esteem, rumination and parental divorce on depression among Chinese juvenile delinquents. A total of 236 juvenile delinquents aged between 12 and 17 years old (M = 14.68 SD = 1.30) were recruited to accomplish a battery of self-report questionnaires concerning their negative life events, self-esteem, rumination, depression and demographic profile. The descriptive analysis showed that there was a positive correlation between negative life events and depression in Chinese juvenile delinquents. Moreover, the results from the structural model indicated that self-esteem and rumination played separate and sequential mediating roles between negative life events and depression. In addition, parental divorce had a moderating effect between negative life events and self-esteem in the model. These results suggest that the prevalence of depression among Chinese juvenile delinquents can be reduced through modification of the ruminative way of thinking, improving their self-esteem when they encounter a number of negative life events. Furthermore, more attention should be paid to the juvenile delinquents who experienced parental divorce.

Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are commonly used to lessen symptoms in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). However, the effects of PPI therapy on the gastrointestinal microbiota in GERD patients remain unclear. We examined the association between the PPI usage and the microbiota present in gastric mucosal and fecal samples from GERD patients and healthy controls (HCs) using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. GERD patients taking PPIs were further divided into short-term and long-term PPI user groups. We showed that PPI administration lowered the relative bacterial diversity of the gastric microbiota in GERD patients. Compared to the non-PPI-user and HC groups, higher abundances of Planococcaceae, Oxalobacteraceae, and Sphingomonadaceae were found in the gastric microbiota from the PPI-user group. In addition, the Methylophilus genus was more highly abundant in the long-term PPI user group than in the short-term PPI-user group. Despite the absence of differences in alpha diversity, there were significant differences in the fecal bacterial composition of between GERD patients taking PPIs and those not taking PPIs. There was a higher abundance of Streptococcaceae, Veillonellaceae, Acidaminococcaceae, Micrococcaceae, and Flavobacteriaceae present in the fecal microbiota from the PPI-user group than those from the non-PPI-user and HC groups. Additionally, a significantly higher abundance of Ruminococcus was found in GERD patients on long-term PPI medication than that on short-term PPI medication. Our study indicates that PPI administration in patients with GERD has a significant effect on the abundance and structure of the gastric mucosal microbiota but only on the composition of the fecal microbiota. Keywords: Microbiota, Gastroesophageal reflux disease, Proton pump inhibitors, Gastric mucosal, Fecal

Therapies for Tourette syndrome (TS) are insufficient, and novel therapies are needed. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has been a potential therapy for several neurological diseases. Here, we report a preliminary study to investigate the effects of FMT on patients with TS. Five patients with TS received a single administration of FMT via endoscopy. Tic symptoms were assessed by Yale Global Tic Severity Scale-Total Tic Score (YGTSS-TTS) and adverse effects were recorded at week 8 following FMT. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) levels and 14 cytokines levels were measured. The microbiota profile in feces were analyzed by shotgun metagenomics. Four patients (4/5) responded positively to FMT (YGTSS-TTS reduction rate >25%) at week 8 with high safety. The levels of LPS and cytokines varied after FMT. FMT shifted the composition of the gut microbiota in patients close to that of the donor and continuously changed the abundance of Bacteroides coprocola, Dialister succinatiphilus and Bacteroides vulgatus. The restoration of B.coprocola was correlated with the improvement in tic symptoms (Spearman R = −0.900, P = 0.037). In conclusion, FMT was indicated a potential effective and safe alternative for patients with TS. However, larger clinical trials are needed to confirm the influence of microbiota in TS.Trial Registration:chictr.org.cn Identifier: ChiCTR-IIR-17011871, URL: http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=19941.

Aim: To establish an inducible liver injury mouse model and transplant human hepatocytes to obtain liver-humanized mice., Methods: We crossed three mouse strains, including albumin (Alb)-cre transgenic mice, inducible diphtheria toxin receptor (DTR) transgenic mice and severe combined immune deficient (SCID)-beige mice, to create Alb-cre/DTR/SCID-beige (ADSB) mice, which coincidentally harbor Alb-cre and DTR transgenes and are immunodeficient. As the Cre expression is driven by the liver-specific promoter Alb (encoding ALB), the DTR stop signal flanked by two loxP sites can be deleted in the ADSB mice, resulting in DTR expression in the liver. ADSB mice aged 8-10 wk were injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) with diphtheria toxin (DT) and liver damage was assessed by serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level. Two days later, mouse livers were sampled for histological analysis, and human hepatocytes were transplanted into the livers on the same day. A human ALB enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was performed 7, 14, 21 and 28 d after transplantation. Human CD68 immunohistochemistry was performed 30 and 90 d after transplantation., Results: We crossed Alb-cre with DTR and SCID-beige mice to obtain ADSB mice. These mice were found to have liver damage 4 d after i.p. injection of 2.5 ng/g bodyweight DT. Bodyweight began to decrease on day 2, increased on day 7, and was lowest on day 4 (range, 10.5%-13.4%). Serum ALT activity began to increase on day 2 and reached a peak value of 289.7 ± 16.2 IU/mL on day 4, then returned to background values on day 7. After transplantation of human liver cells, peripheral blood human ALB level was 1580 ± 454.8 ng/mL (range, 750.2-3064.9 ng/mL) after 28 d and Kupffer cells were present in the liver at 30 d in ADSB mice., Conclusion: Human hepatocytes were successfully repopulated in the livers of ADSB mice. The inducible mouse model of humanized liver in ADSB mice may have functional applications, such as hepatocyte transplantation, hepatic regeneration and drug metabolism., Competing Interests: Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflicts of interest exist in this study.

Aim: To explore Chinese physicians' perceptions towards fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) and to provide information and an assessment of FMT development in China., Methods: A self-administered questionnaire was developed according to the FMT practice guidelines and was distributed to physicians in hospitals via Internet Research Electronic Data Capture (REDcap) software and electronic mails to assess their attitudes toward and knowledge of FMT. The questionnaire included a brief introduction of FMT that was followed by 20 questions. The participants were required to respond voluntarily, under the condition of anonymity and without compensation. Except for the fill-in-the-blank questions, all of the other questions were required in the REDcap data collection systems, and the emailed questionnaires were completed based on eligibility., Results: Up to December 9, 2014, 844 eligible questionnaires were received out of the 980 distributed questionnaires, with a response rate of 86.1%. Among the participants, 87.3% were from tertiary hospitals, and there were 647 (76.7%) gastroenterologists and 197 (23.3%) physicians in other departments (non-gastroenterologists). Gastroenterologists' awareness of FMT prior to the survey was much higher than non-gastroenterologists' (54.3 vs 16.5%, P < 0.001); however, acceptance of FMT was not statistically different (92.4 vs 87.1%, P = 0.1603). Major concerns of FMT included the following: acceptability to patients (79.2%), absence of guidelines (56.9%), and administration and ethics (46.5%). On the basis of understanding, the FMT indications preferred by physicians were recurrent Clostridium difficile infection (86.7%), inflammatory bowel disease combined with Clostridium difficile infection (78.6%), refractory ulcerative colitis (70.9%), ulcerative colitis (65.4%), Crohn's disease (59.4%), chronic constipation (43.7%), irritable bowel syndrome (39.1%), obesity (28.1%) and type 2 diabetes (23.9%). For donor selection, the majority of physicians preferred individuals with a similar gut flora environment to the recipients. 76.6% of physicians chose lower gastrointestinal tract as the administration approach. 69.2% of physicians considered FMT a safe treatment., Conclusion: Chinese physicians have awareness and a high acceptance of FMT, especially gastroenterologists, which provides the grounds and conditions for the development of this novel treatment in China. Physicians' greatest concerns were patient acceptability and absence of guidelines.