Tuberculosis (TB), one of the ancient and deadliest diseases, is a chronic immune disorder caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection. Due to the lack of ideal diagnostic and therapeutic markers, TB is still posing a major health, social, and economic burden worldwide. Circular RNA (circRNA), a newly discovered endogenous RNA, is abundant and stable in the cytoplasm and has tissue specificity. More and more studies suggested circRNA is involved in a variety of human pathological and physiological processes. Recently, several studies have confirmed circRNAs not only existed in the serum but also could serve as ideal biomarkers for detecting diseases since the circRNAs have continuous, stable, and covalently closed circular structures and are not easily degraded by nucleases. In this study, we screened the circRNA expression profiles in active TB serum samples and healthy volunteers serum samples by circRNA microarrays. Then, we performed qRT-PCR to verified the dysregulated circRNAs and ROC curve analysis to evaluate the value of circRNAs for TB diagnosis. The results showed circRNA_051239, circRNA_029965, and circRNA_404022 could serve as biomarkers for TB diagnosis.

Background. Paraquat is a widely used nonselective and fast-acting contact herbicide worldwide. This study identified the early predictor of mortality in patients with acute paraquat poisoning. Methods. Twenty-nine patients with acute paraquat poisoning admitted at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital from January 2018 to August 2020 were included in this study. The early predictor of mortality in patients with acute paraquat poisoning based on the blood tests was identified by correlation, logistic regression, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses. Result. 15 of the 29 patients died after poisoning. Compared to the survivors, the neutrophilic granulocyte ratio, leukocyte count, ALB, and Crea of the nonsurvivors were significantly higher with p value < 0.05, while the lymphocyte ratio and eGFR(MDRD) of the nonsurvivors were remarkably lower with p value < 0.01. Moreover, the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) was remarkably upregulated in the nonsurvivors. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the neutrophilic granulocyte ratio, lymphocyte ratio, leukocyte count, ALB, Crea, eGFR(MDRD), and NLR to predict the mortality in patients with acute paraquat poisoning was 0.8905 (95% CI: 0.7589-1.022), 0.8643 (95% CI: 0.7244-1.004), 0.8500 (95% CI: 0.7133-0.9867), 0.7286 (95% CI: 0.5338-0.9233), 0.8167 (95% CI: 0.6620-0.9713), 0.8714 (95% CI: 0.7330-1.010), and 0.8667 (95% CI: 0.7277-1.006), respectively. More interestingly, we also evaluated the diagnostic values of the different combinations of six blood test biomarkers by logistic regression analysis. According to the results of the logistic regression analysis, the AUCs for the combination of the neutrophilic granulocyte ratio, leukocyte count, and eGFR(MDRD) were the largest with 0.986 (95% CI: 0.952-1), and the sensitivity and specificity were 100% and 100%. Conclusion. This study demonstrated that the combination of the neutrophilic granulocyte ratio, leukocyte count, and eGFR(MDRD) could serve as an ideal early predictor of mortality in patients with acute paraquat poisoning. However, further research is needed to draw a clear conclusion.

The rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) is of great significance for the control and treatment of TB. However, TB remains a major healthy, social, and economic burden worldwide because of the lack of ideal diagnostic biomarkers. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis)-encoded small RNA (sRNA) is a class of regulation small RNA. Several studies have identified M. tuberculosis encoded-sRNAs in the serum/plasm of M. tuberculosis-infected patients. Small extracellular vesicles are small membrane vesicles secreted by many cell types during physiological and pathological conditions. Recent evidence has indicated that most of the nucleic acids in the serum/plasma are packaged in the small extracellular vesicles and could serve as ideal diagnostic biomarkers. In this study, we attempted a novel approach for TB diagnosis: targeting small extracellular vesicles M. tuberculosis encoded sRNA (sRNA) by qRT-PCR. The results showed that M. tuberculosis-encoded ASdes and MTB-miR5 only existed in tuberculosis patients and have the potential to serve as a sensitive and accurate methodology for TB diagnosis.

To date, more than one million out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) sufferers are newly diagnosed each year worldwide, which leads to a substantial public health burden as a result of its high morbidity and mortality. 1 Despite the great progress achieved in resuscitation and critical care management, the prognosis of OHCA sufferers remains poor. Brain injury, including hypoxic-ischaemic brain injury (HIBI) and ischaemia-reperfusion brain injury, is a major cause of death among comatose OHCA patients after the restoration of spontaneous