China has been at the forefront of innovation, investing heavily in scientific research. BioMed Central is proud to serve as a connection between authors of the region and the world. Check out the editor’s choice of publications from China across many and varied subjects, featuring some of the best research China has to offer.
Enjoy the sumptuous “academic feast” BioMed Central is offering and help spread the word! 新春快乐！
Research
Authored by Kai Wang et al.
HIV transmission among people who inject drugs (PWID) is high in Yunnan and Guangxi provinces in southwest China. To address this epidemic, Population Services International (PSI) and four cooperating agencies implemented a comprehensive harm reduction model delivered through community-based drop-incenters (DiC) and peer-led outreach to reduce HIV risk among PWID...
Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control
Short report
Authored by Aiqiang Xu et al.
Hand hygiene is an important element of the WHO multimodal strategy for healthcare-associated infection control, whereas compliance of hand hygiene among healthcare workers (HCWs) remains a challenge to sustain. In order to increase the hand hygiene compliance of HCWs, a quality control circle (QCC) program was carried out in our hospital, and the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) method was applied for 12 months...
Research
Authored by Ruiping Wang and Liping Zhu et al.
China is the biggest tobacco producer and consumer in the world. Raising cigarette taxes and increasing tobacco retail prices have been prove as effective strategies to reduce tobacco consumption and the prevalence of smoking in western countries. But in China, it is uncertain how an increase of cigarette retail price will influence the tobacco consumption...
Debate
Addressing antimicrobial resistance in China: policy implementation in a complex context
Authored by Xiaoyun Liang et al.
The effectiveness of antibiotics in treating bacterial infections is decreasing in China because of the widespread development of resistant organisms. Although China has enacted a number of regulations to address this problem, but the impact is very limited. This paper investigates the implementation of these regulations through the lens of complex adaptive systems (CAS). It presents the findings from reviews of relevant policy documents and published papers. The paper identifies different types of agent and explores their interaction with regard to the use of antibiotics and their responses to changes of the regulations...
Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy
Research
Multi-dimensional self-esteem and substance use among Chinese adolescents
Authored by Cynthia ST Wu et al.
Substance use among adolescents has caused worldwide public health concern in recent years. Overseas studies have demonstrated an association between adolescent self-esteem and substance use, but studies within a Chinese context are limited. A study was therefore initiated to: (1) explore the 30 days prevalence of substance use (smoking, drinking, and drugs) among male and female adolescents in Hong Kong...
Research
A feasibility study on using smartphones to conduct short-version verbal autopsies in rural China
Authored by Lijing L. Yan et al.
Currently there are two main sources of mortality data with cause of death assignments in China. Both sources–the Ministry of Health-Vital Registration system and the Chinese Disease Surveillance Point system–present their own challenges. A new approach to cause of death assignment is a smartphone-based shortened version of a verbal autopsy survey...
Research
Urbanization and health in China, thinking at the national, local and individual levels
Authored by Tao Lin et al.
China has the biggest population in the world, and has been experiencing the largest migration in history, and its rapid urbanization has profound and lasting impacts on local and national public health. Under these conditions, a systems understanding on the correlation among urbanization, environmental change and public health and to devise solutions at national, local and individual levels are in urgent need...
International Journal for Equity in Health
Research
Geographic distribution of hospital beds throughout China: a county-level econometric analysis
Authored by David Shallcross et al.
Geographical distribution of healthcare resources is an important dimension of healthcare access. Little work has been published on healthcare resource allocation patterns in China, despite public equity concerns...
Journal of Hematology & Oncology
Review
CCR9 in cancer: oncogenic role and therapeutic targeting
Authored by Qiuping Zhang et al.
Cancer is currently one of the leading causes of death worldwide and is one of the most challenging major public health problems. The main challenges faced by clinicians in the management and treatment of cancer mainly arise from difficulties in early diagnosis and the emergence of tumor chemoresistance and metastasis...
Review
Third-generation inhibitors targeting EGFR T790M mutation in advanced non-small cell lung cancer
Authored by Delong Liu et al.
The tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) against epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) are widely used in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, EGFR T790M mutation leads to resistance to most clinically available EGFR TKIs...
Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research
Review
Molecular targeted therapy for the treatment of gastric cancer
Authored by Zhen Yang and Nonghua Lu et al.
Despite the global decline in the incidence and mortality of gastric cancer, it remains one of the most common malignant tumors of the digestive system. Although surgical resection is the preferred treatment for gastric cancer, chemotherapy is the preferred treatment for recurrent and advanced gastric cancer patients who are not candidates for reoperation. The short overall survival and lack of a standard chemotherapy regimen make it important to identify novel treatment modalities for gastric cancer...
Research
MicroRNA-224 sustains Wnt/β-catenin signaling and promotes aggressive phenotype of colorectal cancer
Authored by Wenting Liao et al.
Growing evidence suggests that Wnt/β-catenin pathway plays an important role in CRC development, progression and metastasis. Aberrant miR-224 expression has been reported in CRC. However, the mechanism of miR-224 promotes both proliferation and metastatic ability largely remains unclear...
Technical advance
Authored by Robert S. Seitz et al.
Recently, a gene expression algorithm, TNBCtype, was developed that can divide triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) into molecularly-defined subtypes. The algorithm has potential to provide predictive value for TNBC subtype-specific response to various treatments...
World Journal of Surgical Oncology
Research
Decreased miR-198 expression and its prognostic significance in human gastric cancer
Authored by Di Kong et al.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been proved to play important roles in the tumorigenesis and development of human gastric cancer (GC). Our study aims to investigate the expression and clinical significance of miR-198 in GC patients.
Research
MicroRNA-505 functions as a tumor suppressor in endometrial cancer by targeting TGF-α
Authored by Yang Zhao et al.
Endometrial carcinoma (EC) is one of the most lethal gynecologic cancers. Patients frequently have regional or distant metastasis at diagnosis. MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that participate in numerous biological processes. Recent studies have demonstrated that miR-505 is associated with several types of cancer; however, the expression and function of miR-505 have not been investigated in EC.
Review
Interleukin-6: an emerging regulator of pathological pain
Authored by Da-Wei Ye et al.
Interleukin-6 is an inflammatory cytokine with wide-ranging biological effects. It has been widely demonstrated that neuroinflammation plays a critical role in the development of pathological pain. Recently, various pathological pain models have shown elevated expression levels of interleukin-6 and its receptor in the spinal cord and dorsal root ganglia...
Research
Authored by Zhen Wang et al.
Overactivated microglia is involved in various kinds of neurodegenerative diseases. Suppression of microglial overactivation has emerged as a novel strategy for treatment of neuroinflammation-based neurodegeneration. In the current study, anti-inflammatory effects of oxytocin (OT), which is a highly conserved nonapeptide with hormone and neurotransmitter properties, were investigated in vitro and in vivo…
Research article
Early-life stress leads to impaired spatial learning and memory in middle-aged ApoE4-TR mice
Authored by Xiao-chun Chen et al.
Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) is a major lipid carrier that supports lipid transport and injury repair in the brain. The APOE ε4 allele is associated with depression, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia; however, the precise molecular mechanism through which ApoE4 influences the risk of disease development remains unknown…
Research
Authored by Qun-Yong Zhou et al.
The temporal organization of activity/rest or sleep/wake rhythms for mammals is regulated by the interaction of light/dark cycle and circadian clocks. The neural and molecular mechanisms that confine the active phase to either day or night period for the diurnal and the nocturnal mammals are unclear...
Research
Authored by Huili Han et al.
Sleep deprivation during pregnancy is a serious public health problem as it can affect the health of pregnant women and newborns. However, it is not well studied whether sleep deprivation at different stages of pregnancy has similar effects on emotional and cognitive functions of the offspring, and if so, the potential cellular mechanisms also remain poorly understood…
Behavioral and Brain Functions
Review
Authored by Galina Y. Zheleznyakova et al.
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays an important role in nervous system development and function and it is well established that BDNF is involved in the pathogenesis of a wide range of psychiatric disorders. Recently, numerous studies have associated the DNA methylation level of BDNF promoters with certain psychiatric phenotypes. In this review, we summarize data from current literature as well as from our own analysis with respect to the correlation of BDNF methylation changes with psychiatric disorders and address questions about whether DNA methylation related to the BDNF can be useful as biomarker for specific neuropsychiatric disorders…
Research
Authored by Hongzhu Li and Changing Xu et al.
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S), a third member of gasotransmitter family along with nitric oxide and carbon monoxide, generated from mainly catalyzed by cystathionine-lyase, possesses important functions in the cardiovascular system. Ischemic post-conditioning (PC) strongly protects against the hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R)-induced injury and apoptosis of cardiomyocytes…
Research
Authored by Pei-Yuan Qian et al.
Post-translational modification (PTM) of proteins is one important strategy employed by bacteria for environmental adaptation. However, PTM profiles in deep-sea microbes remain largely unexplored...
Research
Skin fungal community and its correlation with bacterial community of urban Chinese individuals
Authored by Patrick K. H. Lee et al.
High-throughput sequencing has led to increased insights into the human skin microbiome. Currently, the majority of skin microbiome investigations are limited to characterizing prokaryotic communities, and our understanding of the skin fungal community (mycobiome) is limited, more so for cohorts outside of the western hemisphere. Here, the skin mycobiome across healthy Chinese individuals in Hong Kong are characterized...
Research
Visualization of the 3D structures of small organisms via LED-SIM
Authored by Xingke Yang et al.
Innovative new techniques that aid in the visualization of microscopic anatomical structures have improved our understanding of organismal biology significantly. It is often challenging to observe internal 3D structures, despite the use of techniques such as confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM), micro-computed tomography (Micro-CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) and others...
Research
Authored by Junjie Yang et al.
Overexpression of Pim-1 in stem/progenitor cells stimulated cell cycling and enhanced cardiac regeneration in vivo. We proposed that hypoxic preconditioning could increase survival of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) via upregulation of Pim-1 and aimed to determine the microRNAs that modulate the expression of Pim-1...
Research
Authored by Fa-Ming Chen, Songtao Shi and Yan Jin et al.
Periodontitis, which progressively destroys tooth-supporting structures, is one of the most widespread infectious diseases and the leading cause of tooth loss in adults. Evidence from preclinical trials and small-scale pilot clinical studies indicates that stem cells derived from periodontal ligament tissues are a promising therapy for the regeneration of lost/damaged periodontal tissue…