Hypervirulent variants of Klebsiella pneumoniae (hvKp) that cause invasive community-acquired pyogenic liver abscess (PLA) have emerged globally. Little is known about the virulence determinants associated with hvKp, except for the virulence genes rmpA/A2 and siderophores (iroBCD/iucABCD) carried by the pK2044-like large virulence plasmid. Here, we collected most recent clinical isolates of hvKp from PLA samples in China, and performed clinical, molecular, and genomic sequencing analyses. We found that 90.9% (40/44) of the pathogens causing PLA were K. pneumoniae. Among the 40 LA-Kp, K1 (62.5%), and K2 (17.5%) were the dominant serotypes, and ST23 (47.5%) was the major sequence type. S1-PFGE analyses demonstrated that although 77.5% (31/40) of the LA-Kp isolates harbored a single large virulence plasmid varied in size, 5 (12.5%) isolates had no plasmid and 4 (10%) had two or three plasmids. Whole genome sequencing and comparative analysis of 3 LA-Kp and 3 non-LA-Kp identified 133 genes present only in LA-Kp. Further, large scale screening of the 133 genes in 45 LA-Kp and 103 non-LA-Kp genome sequences from public databases identified 30 genes that were highly associated with LA-Kp, including iroBCD, iucABCD and rmpA/A2 and 21 new genes. Then, these 21 new genes were analyzed in 40 LA-Kp and 86 non-LA-Kp clinical isolates collected in this study by PCR, showing that new genes were present 80–100% among LA-Kp isolates while 2–11% in K. pneumoniae isolates from sputum and urine. Several of the 21 genes have been proposed as virulence factors in other bacteria, such as the gene encoding SAM-dependent methyltransferase and pagO which protects bacteria from phagocytosis. Taken together, these genes are likely new virulence factors contributing to the hypervirulence phenotype of hvKp, and may deepen our understanding of virulence mechanism of hvKp.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (Hcc) has become a major cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. circular rnas (circrnas) are non-coding rnas that serve important roles in multiple cancers. However, the role of circrnas in Hcc remains largely unknown. in the present study, a circrna microarray dataset of Hcc samples, GSe97332, was downloaded from the gene expression omnibus database. Following data preprocessing, differentially expressed circrnas between Hcc tissues and normal tissues were determined using Geo2r. The circrna-mirna interactions were predicted by the miranda database. The mirTarbase database was used to search for target genes of the mirnas. a circrna-mirna-mrna network was constructed using cytoscape based on the obtained circrna, mirna and mrna. in this network, the upregulated circrna hsa_circrna_100084 was found to be involved in a competing endogenous relationship of hsa_ circrna_100084-hsa-mir-23a-5p-insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2). The differential expression of hsa_circrna_100084, hsa-mir-23a-5p and IGF2 in Hcc tissues and liver cancer cells was validated by reverse transcription-quantitative Pcr. additionally, the interactions between hsa-mir-23a-5p with hsa_circrna_100084 and IGF2 were validated by dual-luciferase reporter assays. Knocking down hsa_circrna_100084 inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of liver cancer cells, while the simultaneous overexpression of IGF2 reversed the effects of hsa_circrna_100084 knockdown. The results show that hsa_circrna_100084 could promote the expression of IGF2 by acting as a sponge of hsa-mir-23a-5p in liver cancer cells.