Chinese researchers have revealed the anti-cancer characteristic of neutrophils (中性粒细胞) — a type of white blood cells—and the related molecular regulation mechanism, providing new insights into cancer diagnosis and treatment. The discovery, made by researchers at the Shanghai Institute of Immunity and Infection under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Fudan University, was published in Cell on Tuesday.
Neutrophils are the most abundant white blood cells in the human body. As the first line of defence against infections, they play a key role in anti-infection immunity. The researchers collected neutrophils from 143 patients with 17 different types of cancer and analyzed them. They revealed that neutrophils can adopt at least 10 highly specialized and distinct functional states related to inflammation (炎症) , blood vessel formation and—most excitingly—presenting antigens (抗体) to activate powerful cancer-killing T cells.
“We were surprised to find such complexity and different roles within neutrophils, which have been ignored for so long,” said Zhang Xiaoming, a researcher at the Institute. “What is especially remarkable is their newly discovered capacity to act as antigen-presenting cells, gathering T cells against cancer. In addition, the abundance of antigen-presenting neutrophils is associated with improved condition across many cancer types revealed in this study,” he said.
“This completely changes how we perceive neutrophils in the context of cancer,” said Gao Qiang, a professor at Fudan University. “Now we know we could employ the diverse hidden identities of neutrophils to strengthen the effectiveness of immunotherapy (免疫疗法). We’re thrilled to further explore the potential benefits of these newly uncovered mechanisms in clines.”
The study emphasizes the value of single-cell sequencing approaches to reveal new functional dimension even within seemingly well-understood immune cells. Tapping into the hidden potential of neutrophils may provide new insights into cancer diagnosis and treatment.
1. How was the anti-cancer function of neutrophils discovered?| A．By referring to previous research. |
| B．By collecting and analyzing data. |
| C．By seeking guidance from experts. |
| D．By observing patients with inflammation. |
| A．Getting together T cells when needed. |
| B．Preventing the formation of antigens. |
| C．Speeding up the blood flow. |
| D．Distinguishing different types of cancer. |
| A．Positive. | B．Doubtful. | C．Worried. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Blood Cells Successfully Fight Against Severe Cancer |
| B．China Makes Great Progress in Fighting Against Diseases |
| C．Further Research Is Needed to Fight Against Cancer |
| D．Researchers Discover New Cancer-fighting Mechanism |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Cosmetic surgery (整容手术) is not something to be entered into lightly. Unfortunately, in this modern world, we have become confused by very narrow standards of beauty. Images of stars who never seem to age are seen everywhere these days. We forget the fact that most of these images are the result of super photo manipulation (处理), driven by the extremely powerful beauty industry. We are all different — why should we all look the same? Isn’t there more to life than having surgery in order to have the same boring face that everybody else wants to have?
—Dr Elisabeth McKenna, Psychologist
Yes, it’s not real! That’s what I told my friends when they started asking me about my nose job. I’d always been sensitive to my nose, but it took me a long time before I decided to go for cosmetic surgery. I took advice from several doctors and after careful consideration I finally decided to have it done. I had been saving money from my part-time job and my parents helped me out with the rest. It was quite expensive but I don’t regret a penny of it. In fact I wish I’d had it done a few years ago. I’ m sure I wouldn’t have been laughed at so much at school.
—Debbie Caron, Student
It makes me really angry to think of the millions of people who spend much money on cosmetic surgery. Surgery should be carried out for medical purposes, not vanity (虚荣心). I would rather all the money spent on cosmetic surgery was used to treat people around the world who are in need but can’t get proper medical treatment. Furthermore, there are thousands of under-qualified doctors out there who only care about getting as rich as possible as quickly as possible. They don’t care about the psychological and physical damage they do. The whole industry makes me sick. We should do something to stop it.
—Danny Glass, Student
1. What does Dr Elisabeth McKenna suggest?| A．Don’t be fooled by “perfection”. |
| B．Cosmetic surgery often goes wrong. |
| C．The beauty industry needs improving. |
| D．It’s unnecessary to set new standards of beauty. |
| A．More friends. | B．More worries. |
| C．More self-confidence. | D．More job opportunities. |
| A．They should be treated as patients. |
| B．They hurt themselves psychologically and physically. |
| C．They can have a new start. |
| D．They waste money and medical resources. |
【推荐2】Transplant (移植) recipient John Bell knows exactly where to find his first heart-the damaged one he lived with for 72 years. It’s floating in a container of formaldehyde (福尔马林) at a large storage facility at Baylor University Medical Center, along with hundreds of other human hearts. When he returns to the hospital for a checkup with his cardiologist (心脏病专家), Bell expects to stop by to pay his old heart a visit. Why? Because at Baylor, he can do something almost no one else in the world has ever done. He can hold his heart in his hands.
“It was fairly emotional, that first encounter,” says Bell. “I can’t actually explain why.”
Bell is one of more than 70 heart-transplant patients who have participated in Baylor’s Heart-to-Heart program. It was launched in 2014 by William C. Roberts, MD. Baylor is unique in allowing transplant patients to “meet” their old hearts. “Probably 99.5 percent of hospitals throw the hearts away after they send out a report,” Dr. Roberts says. “We keep them all.” They are used for further research.
The Heart-to-Heart program happened almost by accident. With all those organs stored on the hospital’s shelves, Dr. Roberts would sometimes take a curious patient to visit his or her old ticker. But the doctor discovered that the visits could provide a kind of teachable moment. “Many of the patients are overweight, and I show them the fat on the heart,” says Dr. Roberts. “Some people have so much fat on their hearts that they float in a container of water.”
There’s a larger lesson too. “I try to stress to these people that they are very lucky. They are one of the few that get a heart,” he says. There are an estimated six million Americans living with heart failure, but only 2,000 to 3,000 receive hearts each year in the United States.
1. Why does Bell want to visit his old heart?| A．He intends to take it back home. |
| B．He expects to observe and hold it. |
| C．He wants to compare his with that of others. |
| D．He thinks it is a good chance to learn about oneself. |
| A．Friend. | B．Enemy. |
| C．Heart. | D．Part. |
| A．Dr. Roberts is an excellent teacher |
| B．Most people are overweight in the U.S. |
| C．The Heart-to-Heart program is important |
| D．Hearts are in great need in the U.S. |
【推荐3】It was a cold March day in High Point, North Carolina. The girls on the Wesleyan Academy softball were waiting for their next turns at bat during practice, stamping their feet to stay warm. Eighth-grader Taylor Bisbee shivered(发抖) a little as she watched her teammate Paris White play. The two didn’t know each other well — Taylor had just moved to town a month or so before.
Suddenly, Paris fell to the ground,“Paris’s eyes rolled back,” Taylor says. “She started shaking. I knew it was an emergency.”
It certainly was, Paris had suffered a sudden heart failure. Without immediate medical care, Paris would die. At first, no one moved. The girls were in shock. Then the softball coach shouted out, “Does anyone know CPR?”
CPR is a life-saving technique. To do CPR, you press on the sick person’s chest so that blood moves through the body and takes oxygen to organs. Without oxygen the brain is damaging quickly.
Amazingly, Taylor had just taken a CPR course the day before. Still, she hesitated. She didn’t think she knew it well enough. But when no one else came forward, Taylor ran to Paris and began doing CPR. “It was scary. I knew it was the difference between life and death,” says Taylor.
Taylor’s swift action helped her teammates calm down. One girl called 911. Two more ran to get the school nurse, who brought a defibrillator, an electronic devices(器械) that can shock the heart back into work. Luck stayed with them: Paris’ heartbeat returned.
“I know I was really lucky,” Paris says now. “Most people don’t survive this. My team saved my life.”
Experts say Paris is right: For a sudden heart failure, the single best chance for survival is having someone nearby step in and do CPR quickly.
Today, Paris is back on the softball team. Taylor will apply to college soon. She wants to be a nurse. “I feel more confident in my actions now,” Taylor says. “I know I can act under pressure in a scary situation.”
What happened to Paris on a March day?
| A．She caught a bad cold. |
| B．She had a sudden heart problem. |
| C．She was knocked down by a ball. |
| D．She shivered terribly during practice. |
【推荐1】As one of the world’s most popular cultural mediums, cinema is at the leading position at the Taihu World Cultural Forum(论坛), an annual event that aims to improve cultural exchanges. So far this year, Chinese box office has already topped 58 billion yuan, the China Film Administration said. This indicates that China, the world’s second-largest movie market, is closing the gap with the United States, the world’s top cinema market.
Cao Yin, director of the program center at China Movie Channel, said that China has 67,000 cinema screens. the most of any country, and the number is expected to increase to 80,000 by the end of next year. Saying that China has signed coproduction agreements with 22 countries (including the United States, Canada, Japan. India etc.) ,Cao added it has deepened cinematic exchanges between Chinese filmmakers and their foreign counterparts (同行).
With the country’s huge native market, which produced more than 1,000 films in 2019, Hong Kong director Stanley Tong said he believes foreign filmmakers will increasingly seek cooperation with China. “International coproduction will become an important platform to send Chinese stories oversea and give us a broader vision of creation,” Tong said.
Recently, over 80 percent of the world’s top 100 highest box-office titles have been action films. Tong said the films, in which plots are basically secondary to shining stunts (特技), is one of the easiest ways to appeal to foreign audiences. But it has been a decades-long struggle for Chinese filmmakers to sell their stories overseas. When asked what kinds of Chinese films would have the most global appeal. Yan Zhaozhu, chairman of the Taihu World Cultural Forum, said stories that address universal issues, such as environmental protection and climate change, are perhaps the best options.
1. What is the purpose of the Taihu World Cultural Forum?| A．To strengthen cultural exchanges. |
| B．To build more cinemas in China. |
| C．To invite more tourists to Taihu. |
| D．To attract more international investment. |
| A．Chinese box office has already overtaken the United States so far |
| B．The screens of Chinese cinemas will be world-leading in the future |
| C．China has signed the most coproduction agreements with other countries |
| D．There will be more and more cooperations between Chinese filmmakers and other countries. |
| A．Easy. | B．Disappointed. |
| C．Challenged. | D．Confused. |
| A．Box Office: Unclear Future |
| B．China: Top Second Movie Market |
| C．Cinema: The Leading Cultural Position |
| D．Chinese Filmmakers: Severe Competition Situation |
【推荐2】Beth Shapiro will lead the scientific efforts to resurrect (复活) the dodo at Colossal Biosciences, founded by tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm. Scientists hope to recover the dodo if they gather enough DNA to create a clone to implant in the eggs of closely related modern pigeon.
Dodo, an odd-looking flightless bird lived on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean until the late 17th century. The arrival of sailors brought with them invasive species like rats and practices like hunting. They doomed the dodo, which showed no fear of humans, to extinction in the space of just a few decades.
Now, a team of scientists wants to bring back the dodo. They hope the project will open up new techniques for bird conservation.
“It’s our responsibility to bring stories and to bring excitement to people in the way that motivates them to think about the extinction crisis that’s going on right now,” said Beth Shapiro.
Shapiro said that she had already completed a key first step in the project based on genetic material taken out from dodo remains in Denmark. The next step was to compare the genetic information with the dodo’s closest bird relatives in the pigeon family.
The following work that’s needed to resurrect the animal – programming cells from a living relative of the dodo with the lost bird’s DNA – will be significantly more difficult. Shapiro said she hopes to adapt an existing technique that has already been used to create a chicken fathered by a duck.
However, Shapiro said that perfecting these synthetic(合成的)biology tools will have wider implications for bird conservation. The techniques could allow scientists to move specific genetic traits between bird species to help protect them as habitats shrink and the climate warms. Shapiro thought the technology which works in chickens would be amazing to get this to work in lots of different birds across the bird tree of life because that will be hugely impactful for bird conservation.
Whether or not Colossal and its team of scientists are ultimately successful in their quest to bring back the dodo and the technological breakthroughs they may generate, they have investors excited. Colossal also announced Tuesday that it has raised an additional US$150 million, bringing the total amount of funding raised since the company launched in 2021 to US$225 million.
1. What does the underlined word “doomed” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Destroyed. | B．Rescued. | C．Hunted. | D．Fed. |
| A．Taking out genetic material from dodo remains. |
| B．Comparing genetic information with the dodo’s relatives. |
| C．Programming its living relative’s cells with dodo’s DNA. |
| D．Adapting an existing technique to create a chicken. |
| A．Scientists can change a duck into a chicken. |
| B．Synthetic biology tools will shrink bird habitats. |
| C．Protection of birds will benefit from the technology. |
| D．The project will bring back the dodo soon. |
| A．To show the project is promising. |
| B．To evidence the technology is predictable. |
| C．To imply the funding is insufficient. |
| D．To prove the breakthrough is admirable. |
But history has a way of uncovering its secrets. On Nov. 5, this year, three members of a family from Finland arrived at Halifax and laid fresh flowers at the grave. “This is our baby,” says Magda Schleifer, 68, a banker. She grew up hearing stories about a great-aunt named Maria Panula, 42, who had sailed on the Titanic for America to be reunited with her husband. According to the information Mrs. Schleifer had gathered, Panula gave up her seat on a lifeboat to search for her five children -- including a 13-month-old boy named Eino from whom she had become separated during the final minutes of the crossing. "We thought they were all lost in the sea," says Schleifer.
Now, using teeth and bone pieces taken from the baby's grave, scientists have compared the DNA from the Unknown Child with those collected from members of five families who lost relatives on the Titanic and never recovered the bodies. The result of the test points only to one possible person: young Eino. Now, the family sees: no need for a new grave. "He belongs to the people of Halifax," says Schleifer. "They've taken care of him for 90 years. "
Adapted from People, November 25, 2002
1. The baby travelled on the Titanic with his___________.
| A．mother | B．parents | C．aunt | D．relatives |
| A．Schleiferi | B．Eino. | C．Magda. | D．Panula. |
Nov. 5__ .
| A．1912 | B．1954 | C．2002 | D．2004 |
| A．the unknown baby's body was taken from the north Atlantic |
| B．the unknown baby was buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia |
| C．people found out who the unknown baby was |
| D．people took care of the unknown baby for 90 years |
