HCC risk is associated with sequence variation in the EnhII/BCP regions of HBV, and persistence of at-risk sequence variants is critical for HCC development.

No abstract

Human papillomavirus (HPV) 52 and 58 are oncogenic HPV types prevalent in Asia. Our study aims to explore intratypic variants of HPV 52 and 58 in Taiwan. A total of 11,923 women were enrolled from seven townships in [1991][1992]. HPV DNA in their cervical cells was detected and typed by EasyChip V R HPV blot. Among 424 participants infected with HPV 52 and/or 58, nucleotide variations were determined in cervical cell samples of 406 participants by the polymerase chain reaction sequencing of the long control region, E6 and E7 genes. Nonprototype-like variants including lineages B and C were detected in 278 (99.3%) of 280 HPV 52 samples. The prototype and prototype-like group (lineage A) of HPV58 was found in 132 (98.5%) of 134 HPV 58 samples, with sublineage A1, A2 and A3 variant in 14.2, 27.6 and 56.7%, respectively. Among women infected with single HPV 52 type, the C variant (vs. B variant) was associated with an increased prevalence of cytologically diagnosed high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion or worse lesions showing an age-adjusted odds ratio (95% confidence interval, CI) of 5.2 (1.0-27.6) and an increased prevalence of histologically confirmed high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia or more severe lesions with an age-adjusted odds ratio (95% CI) of 7.6 (1.3-43.8). It was concluded that frequency distributions of HPV 52 and 58 variants in Taiwan were different from those in European and American populations. The association between C variant of HPV 52 and prevalence of cervical neoplasia needs further validation.Oncogenic human papillomavirus (HPV) is the major cause of cervical cancer. In addition to HPV 16 and 18, HPV 52 and 58 are also considered high-risk types for cervical intraepithelial lesions (CINs) and invasive carcinoma. 1,2 The unusually high prevalence of HPV 52 and 58 has been reported in Chinese populations living in China 3,4 and Taiwan. [5][6][7][8] In a previous report of our study, the prevalence of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) or worse lesions among participants with single-type infection of HPV 16, HPV 58 and HPV 52 at study entry was 31.9, 35.7 and 13.3%, respectively. 9 The participants infected with HPV 16, HPV 58 or HPV 52 had an increased prevalence of cervical cancer and carcinoma in situ (CIS).Intratypic HPV variants are characterized by the difference of less than 2% in nucleotide sequence from the prototypic L1 gene. 10 The genetic divergence among variants can differ by as much as 5% in the noncoding long control region (LCR). 11 But a study based on the complete genome analyses of HPV 16 showed that the E5-L2 intergenic region and the E4 and E5 genes are also hypervariable. 12 In a recent study, HPV variants can be classified based on their nucleotide sequence differences with most variants differing by <3%; type-specific variant lineages are defined based on a complete genome nucleotide sequence having >1% dissimilarity with the prototype and are named according to the phylogenetic tree topologies for each individual type. 13 Previous studie...

Diet quality plays an important role in dementia prevention. It remains unclear how the joint effect of vegetable variety and diet quality affects cognition. This study aimed to explore the association of diet quality and vegetable variety with cognitive decline in older adults. This prospective cohort study (2011–2015) included 436 community-dwelling elders in Taipei. Diet quality, assessed by the modified Alternative Healthy Eating Index (mAHEI), was computed from a food frequency questionnaire at baseline (2011–2013). Vegetable variety indicated the number of different vegetable groups, adjusted for vegetable quantity. Multivariable linear and logistic regression models were used to explore the association of diet quality and vegetable variety with the decline of global and domain-specific cognition over two years. Our findings suggest that high diet quality (the highest tertile of mAHEI) was associated with a lower risk of both global cognitive decline (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 0.54, confidence interval (CI) = 0.31–0.95) and decline of attention domain (AOR = 0.56, CI = 0.32–0.99) compared with low diet quality. In elders with high vegetable variety, high diet quality was associated with a lower risk of global cognitive decline (AOR = 0.49, CI = 0.26–0.95). We therefore concluded that high diet quality along with diverse vegetable intake was associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline in older adults.