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Background: MRI is one of the most important techniques to assess the treatment response of gliomas. However, differentiating tumor recurrence (TuR) from treatment effects (TrE) remains challenging.Purpose: To compare the diagnostic performance of MR diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), arterial spin labeling (ASL), proton MR spectroscopy (MRS), and amide proton transfer (APT) imaging in differentiating between TuR and TrE in posttreatment glioma patients.Study Type: Prospective.Population: Thirty patients with suspected tumor progression.Field Strength/sequence: DWI, ASL, proton MRS, and APT imaging were performed at 3T MR.Assessment: MR indices, including ADC, relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF), ratios of Cho/Cr, Cho/NAA, and NAA/Cr and APT-weighted (APTw) effect were obtained from DWI, ASL, proton MRS, and APT imaging, respectively. Indices were measured in the contralateral normal-appearing white matter and lesions defined on the Gd-enhanced T1 w image. TuR or TrE was either determined histologically or clinically from longitudinal MRI follow-up for at least 6 months.Statistical Tests: The diagnostic performance of the indices was evaluated using Student's t-test, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and multivariate logistic regression analyses.Results: Among the 30 patients, 16 were diagnosed as having TuR and the rest having TrE. The recurrent tumors showed a significantly higher APTw effect (1.56 ± 1.14%) and rCBF (1.44 ± 0.61) compared with lesions representing treatment effects (-0.44 ± 1.34% and 0.72 ± 0.25, respectively, with P < 0.001). The areas under the curve (AUCs) were 0.87 and 0.90 for APTw and rCBF, respectively, in differentiating between TuR and TrE. Combining APTw and rCBF achieved a higher AUC of 0.93. MRS index ratios of Cho/Cr (P = 0.25), Cho/NAA (P = 0.16), and NAA/Cr (P = 0.86) and ADC (P = 0.37) showed no significant differences between TuR and TrE lesions, with AUCs lower than 0.70.Data Conclusion: Compared with DWI and MRS, ASL and APT imaging techniques showed better diagnostic capability in distinguishing TuR from TrE.Level Of Evidence: 1 Technical Efficacy: Stage 4 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2020;51:1154-1161. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flavor is an essential indicator to evaluate the quality of soymilk products, but the effects of heat treatment and β-cyclodextrin addition during soymilk processing on the entire flavor quality are not clear. In this study, the changes in the contents of critical soymilk flavor compounds during heat treatment (30-90 ℃) were investigated, and then the flavor profiles of soymilk with the addition of β-cyclodextrin (0.25%, 0.50%, 0.75%, 1.00%) at different heating periods (before heating, at 40℃, at 60 ℃, after heating) were analyzed. Results showed that, different flavor compounds varied in the sensitivity to temperature, and as the temperature increased during heat treatment, the intensity of beany flavor tended to decrease, whereas non-beany flavor was relatively enhanced. β-cyclodextrin addition could decrease the contents of critical soymilk flavor compounds, and a high concentration of β-cyclodextrin (≥0.50%) added at 60 ℃ led to the most significant decrease in the contents of critical beany flavor compounds including hexanal, hexanol, 1-octen-3-ol (P＜0.05), but trans-2-octenal, as the critical non-beany flavor compound, also suffered the greatest loss. Similar tendency was obtained according to the scores of beany odor, mushroom flavor, and sweet aroma by sensory evaluation, and the results of comprehensive scoring indicated that, the soymilk with the addition of 0.75% β-cyclodextrin at 60 ℃ during heat treatment had the best flavor quality. Since β-cyclodextrin is low-priced and safe, and the addition during soymilk processing is also easily practiced, it can be well applied in soymilk production for the improvement of flavor quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small heat shock proteins (sHsps), present from prokaryotes to eukaryotes, are a highly conserved molecular chaperone family. They play a crucial role in protecting organisms against cellular insults from single or multiple environmental stressors including heavy metal exposure, heat or cold shock, oxidative stress, desiccation, etc. Here, the toxicity of cadmium and copper, and their ability to modify the cellular growth rate at different temperatures in Escherichia coli cells were tested. Also, the response mechanism of the sHSP aggregation‐suppressing protein (AgsA) in such multiple stress conditions was investigated. The results showed that the half effect concentration (EC50) of cadmium in AgsA‐transformed E. coli cells at 37°C, 42°C, and 50°C were 11.106, 29.50, and 4.35 mg/L, respectively, and that of the control cells lacking AgsA were 5.05, 0.93, and 0.18 mg/L, respectively, while the half effect concentration (EC50) of copper in AgsA‐transformed E. coli cells at 37°C, 42°C, and 50°C were 27.3, 3.40, and 1.28 mg/L, respectively, and that of the control cells lacking AgsA were 27.7, 5.93, and 0.134 mg/L, respectively. The toxicities of cadmium and copper at different temperatures as observed by their modification of the cellular growth rate and inhibitory effects were in a dose‐dependent manner. Additionally, biochemical characterization of AgsA protein in cells subjected to cadmium and copper stresses at different temperatures implicated suppressed aggregation of cellular proteins in AgsA‐transformed E. coli cells. Altogether, our data implicate the AgsA protein as a sensitive protein‐based biomarker for metal‐induced toxicity monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To explore the application value of high-b-value and ultra-high b-value DWI in noninvasive evaluation of ischemic infarctions., Study Type: Prospective., Subjects: Sixty-four patients with clinically diagnosed ischemic lesions based on symptoms and DWI., Field Strength/sequence: 3.0 T/T2-weighted fast spin-echo, fluid-attenuated inversion recovery, pre-contrast T1-weighted magnetization prepared rapid gradient echo sequence, multi-b-value trace DWI and q-space sampling sequences., Assessment: Lesions were segmented on standard b-value DWI (SB-DWI, 1000 s/mm 2 ), high b-value DWI (HB-DWI, 4000 s/mm 2 ) and ultra-high b-value DWI (UB-DWI, 10,000 s/mm 2 ), and cumulative segmented areas were the final abnormality volumes. Normal white matter (WM) areas were obtained after binarization of segmented brain. In 47 patients, fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) at b values of 1000, 4000, and 10,000 s/mm 2 were extracted from symmetrical WM masks and lesion masks of contralateral WM (CWM) and lesion-side WM (LWM)., Statistical Tests: Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test and Pearson correlation analysis. Two-tailed P-values <0.05 were considered statistically significant., Results: Various signals of HB-/UB-DWI (hypo-, iso- or hyper-intensity) were observed in strokes compared with SB-DWI, and some areas with iso-intensity of SB-DWI manifested with hyper-intensity on HB-/UB-DWI. Abnormality volumes from SB-DWI were significantly smaller than those from HB-DWI and UB-DWI (10.32 ± 16.45 cm 3 , vs. 12.25 ± 19.71 cm 3 and 11.83 ± 19.41 cm 3 ), while no significant difference exist in volume between HB-DWI and UB-DWI (P = 0.32). In CWM, FA significantly correlated with ADC 4000 and ADC 10,000 (maximum r = -0.51 and -0.64), but did not significantly correlate with ADC 1000 (maximum r = -0.20, P = 0.17). ADC 1000 or ADC 4000 of LWM not significant correlated with FA of CWM (maximum r = -0.28, P = 0.06), while ADC 10,000 of LWM significantly correlated with FA of CWM (maximum r = -0.46)., Data Conclusion: HB- and UB-DWI have potential to be supplementary tools for the noninvasive evaluation of stroke lesions in clinics., Evidence Level: 2 TECHNICAL EFFICACY: Stage 2., (© 2024 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.)

Objective: To investigate the clinical phenotype and genetic diagnosis of an infant featuring multiple hair and hyperbilirubinemia., Methods: Conventional G-banding analysis, chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) for the patient were conducted, G-banding analyses of peripheral blood for the infant's parents were also performed., Results: We investigated an infant who carries a unbalanced, maternally inherited karyotype 46, X, der (X) t (X;1) (p11.22; q21.3) in which CMA and FISH analyses disclosed a 1q21.3q44 duplication of 93.03 Mb and Xp22.33p11.22 deletion of 54.53 Mb., Conclusion: The phenotypes of this infant can probably be attributed to the 1q21.3q44 duplication and Xp22.33p11.22 deletion, which were maternally inherited.

Objective: To investigate laryngopharyngeal reflux effect on expression of COX-2mRNA in glottis carcinoma lesion mucosa., Method: Forty cases with glottic laryngeal cancer were examined by electronic naspharyngeal laryngoscope and scored by the reflux symptom index (RSI) and the reflux finding score(RFS). Based on the scores, they were divided into two groups:glottic laryngeal cancer with positive reflux(20 cases) and glottic laryn geal cancer with negative reflux (20 cases). Ten cases with adjacent normal membrane were used as control group. The mRNA expression of CoX-2 from 40 patients was examined by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)., Result: The expression of COX 2mRNA in tumor samples was significantly higher than that in normal tissues (P < 0.05); the expression of COX-2mRNA in glottic laryngeal cancer with positive reflux was significantly higher than that in glottic laryngeal cancer with negative reflux (P < 0.05)., Conclusion: Laryngopharyngeal reflux factors may increased expression glottic carcinoma of COX-2mRNA by tissue injury, inflammation and cell malig-