While tick-borne zoonoses, such as Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis, present an increasing global concern, knowledge of their vectors’ distribution remains limited, especially for China. In this paper, we present the first comprehensive dataset of known tick species and their distributions in China, derived from peer-reviewed literature published between 1960 and 2017. We searched for journal articles, conference papers and degree thesis published in both English and Chinese, extracted geographic information associated with tick occurrence, and applied quality-control procedures to remove duplicates and ensure accuracy. The dataset contains 5731 records of geo-referenced occurrences for 123 tick species distributed over 1141 locations distinguished at four levels of scale i.e., provincial, prefectural, county, and township and finer. The most frequently reported tick species include Haemaphysalis longicornis , Dermacentor silvarum , Ixodes persulcatus , Haemaphysalis conicinna , Rhipicephalus microplus , and Rhipicephalus sanguineus sensu lato. The geographical dataset provides an improved map of where ticks inhabit China and can be used for a variety of spatial analyses of ticks and the risk of zoonoses they transmit.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a regulator for the formation and maintenance of chronic pain in various chronic disorders and has been shown to increase in the serum of women with endometriosis. However, BDNF expression in the peritoneal fluid (PF) and ectopic lesions and its role in endometriosis pain remain unclear. Thus, this study aims to determine the BDNF concentrations in serum and PFs and BDNF expression levels in ectopic lesions and endometriotic stromal cells (ESCs) of women with endometriosis (n = 60). The obtained results were then compared with those of women without endometriosis (n = 38). Brain-derived neurotrophic factor concentrations in serum and PF, as well as the BDNF expression levels in ectopic lesions and endometriotic cells, were evaluated through enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, immunohistochemical staining, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, and Western blot analysis. As a result, BDNF concentrations in serum and PF were significantly higher in women with endometriosis with pain (2284.3 ± 51.5 pg/mL, n = 23; 58.8 ± 6.4 pg/mL, n = 16) than in women with endometriosis without pain (1999.8 ± 61.1 pg/mL, n = 37; 31.7 ± 2.9 pg/mL, n = 25; P < .01). Moreover, BDNF messenger RNA (mRNA) expression levels in ectopic lesions (8.97 ± 1.44, n = 29) were significantly higher than eutopic (0.97 ± 0.14, n = 16; P < .01) and control endometrium (1.23 ± 0.19, n = 18; P < .01) and were correlated with endometriosis pain ( P < .05). Furthermore, increased BDNF mRNA and protein expression levels in ESCs induced by estradiol or interleukin 1β were removed using a phosphorylated extracellular-regulated protein kinase 1/2 inhibitor. These results suggest that BDNF may play an important role in the pathogenesis of endometriosis pain.

In conventional in vitro fertilization (IVF), complete failure of fertilization occurs in 5% to 15% of treatments. Although the causes may be unclear, sperm defects appear to be the major contributor. However, a convincing test is not yet available that can predict the risk of fertilization failure. In this study, we found that germinal angiotensin-converting enzyme (gACE) (also called testicular ACE) was undetectable in sperm from patients who had total fertilization failure (TFF) and lower fertilization rates (LFRs) by IVF based on Western blot and indirect immunofluorescence analyses. Additionally, almost all of the patients without gACE on sperm (23 of 25) manifested a TT genotype of the rs4316 single-nucleotide polymorphism of ACE. Overall, our results indicate that the absence of gACE expression is responsible for TFF and LFRs by IVF. The rs4316 polymorphism of ACE might be associated with infertility in those patients. We conclude that sperm lacking gACE may be recognized before commencing IVF and that the patients may be directed instead to consider intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

The purinergic receptor P2X ligand-gated ion channel 3 (P2X3) is crucially involved in peripheral nociceptive processes of somatic and visceral pain. Endometriosis pain is considered as a kind of inflammatory and neuropathic pain. However, whether P2X3 is involved in endometriosis pain has not been reported up to date. Here, we aimed to determine whether P2X3 expression in endometriotic lesions is involved in endometriosis pain, which is regulated by inflammatory mediators through extracellular regulated protein kinases (ERK) signalling pathway. We found that P2X3 expressions in endometriosis endometrium and endometriotic lesions were both significantly higher as compared with control endometrium (P<0.05), and both positively correlated with pain (P<0.05). The expression levels of phosphorylated –ERK (p-ERK), phosphorylated-cAMP-response element binding protein (p-CREB), and P2X3 in endometriotic stromal cells (ESCs) were all significantly increased in comparison to the initial levels after treated with interleukin (IL)-1β (P<0.05) or adenosine triphosphate (ATP) (P<0.05), respectively, and did not increase after the ESCs were pre-treated with ERK1/2 inhibitor. Additionally, P2X3 and calcitonin gene related peptide (CGRP) were co-expressed in endometriotic lesions. These obtained results suggest that P2X3 might be involved in endometriosis pain signal transduction via ERK signal pathway.

Clinical characteristics, testicular pathology, serum levels of reproductive hormones, and genetic analysis were compared among 100 azoospermic, 20 oligozoospermic cases with azoospermia factor (AZF) microdeletion, and 50 fertile males to evaluate the relationship between the AZF microdeletion regions and the azoospermia phenotype. AZF microdeletion region, testicular volume, and serum reproductive hormone levels of patients were compared against histological examination of testicular biopsies. The number of cases of AZFa, AZFb, AZFc, AZFb + c, and AZFa + b + c microdeletion was respectively 2 (1.7%), 15 (12.5%), 77 (64.2%), 24 (20.0%), and 2 (1.7%). The testicular volume of patient with AZF microdeletion was smaller (P < 0.01), while luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels were significantly higher than that of fertile individuals (P < 0.01 and P < 0.05, respectively). Among the patients, testicular volume with AZFb-microdeletion cases was larger compared to patients with AZFc or AZFb + c microdeletions (P < 0.05 and P < 0.01, respectively), whereas FSH levels were significantly lower than that of AZFc or AZFb + c microdeletions (P < 0.05). The Johnsen score of patients with an AZFb + c microdeletion was lower than that of patients with AZFb and AZFc microdeletions, but no significant difference was observed. Pathological findings of testicular biopsies poorly correlated with the pattern of AZF deletion, with the AZFc microdeletion exhibiting the most varied phenotypes. In subsequent assisted reproductive treatments, sperm from patients with an AZFc microdeletion that was obtained by testicular sperm aspiration (TESA) or microdissection testicular sperm extraction (m-TESE) were more likely to result in pregnancy. Combined with testis pathology pattern, the specific region of AZF microdeletion and hormonal assessments provide reliable prognostic information on the chance of successful sperm retrieval for assisted reproductive technologies.