Advances in four-dimensional flow cardiovascular magnetic resonance (4D flow CMR) have allowed quantification of left ventricular (LV) and right ventricular (RV) blood flow. We aimed to (1) ...investigate age and sex differences of 4D flow CMR-derived LV and RV relative flow components and kinetic energy (KE) parameters indexed to end-diastolic volume (KEiEDV) in healthy subjects; and (2) assess the effects of age and sex on these parameters.
We performed 4D flow analysis in 163 healthy participants (42% female; mean age 43 ± 13 years) of a prospective registry study (NCT03217240) who were free of cardiovascular diseases. Relative flow components (direct flow, retained inflow, delayed ejection flow, residual volume) and multiple phasic KEiEDV (global, peak systolic, average systolic, average diastolic, peak E-wave, peak A-wave) for both LV and RV were analysed.
Compared with men, women had lower median LV and RV residual volume, and LV peak and average systolic KEiEDV, and higher median values of RV direct flow, RV global KEiEDV, RV average diastolic KEiEDV, and RV peak E-wave KEiEDV. ANOVA analysis found there were no differences in flow components, peak and average systolic, average diastolic and global KEiEDV for both LV and RV across age groups. Peak A-wave KEiEDV increased significantly (r = 0.458 for LV and 0.341 for RV), whereas peak E-wave KEiEDV (r = − 0.355 for LV and − 0.318 for RV), and KEiEDV E/A ratio (r = − 0.475 for LV and − 0.504 for RV) decreased significantly, with age.
These data using state-of-the-art 4D flow CMR show that biventricular flow components and kinetic energy parameters vary significantly by age and sex. Age and sex trends should be considered in the interpretation of quantitative measures of biventricular flow.
Clinical trial registration https://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT03217240.
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DOBA, GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The development and progression of CRC are regarded as a complicated network and progressive event including genetic and/or epigenetic alterations. Recent researches revealed that MicroRNAs are ...biomarkers and regulators of CRC progression. Analyses of published microarray datasets revealed that miR-450b-5p was highly up-regulated in CRC tissues. In addition, high expression of miR-450b-5p was significantly associated with KRAS mutation. However, the role of miR-450b-5p in the progression of CRC remains unknown. Here, we sought to validate the expression of miR-450b-5p in CRC tissues and investigate the role and underlying mechanism of miR-450b-5p in the progression of CRC. The results revealed that miR-450b-5p was up-regulated in CRC tissues, high expression level of miR-450b-5p was positively associated with poor differentiation, advanced TNM classification and poor prognosis. Moreover, miR-450b-5p was especially high in KRAS-mutated cell lines and could be up-regulated by KRAS/AP-1 signaling. Functional validation revealed that overexpression of miR-450b-5p promoted cell proliferation and tumor growth while inhibited apoptosis of CRC cells. Furthermore, we demonstrated that miR-450b-5p directly bound the 3'-UTRs of SFRP2 and SIAH1, and activated Wnt/β-Catenin signaling. In conclusion, miR-450b-5p induced by oncogenic KRAS is required for colorectal cancer progression. Collectively, our work helped to understand the precise role of miR-450b-5p in the progression of CRC, and might promote the development of new therapeutic strategies against CRC.
Gender may be related with the outcome of patients with acute traumatic brain injury (TBI). We explored the effect of gender on the outcome of 7145 patients with acute TBI. There was no statistical ...difference between male and female sex in the causes of trauma, age, Glasgow Coma Scale score, computed tomgraphy findings, and surgical management. The mortality of 7145 patients with acute TBI in males and females was 7.48% and 7.22%, respectively, with the corresponding unfavorable outcomes of 16.05% and 17.23%, respectively (
> 0.05 in both cases). The mortality of 1626 patients with severe TBI in males and females was 19.68% and 20.72%, respectively, with the corresponding unfavorable outcomes of 46.96% and 48.85%, respectively (
> 0.05 in both cases). Our data suggest that sex does not play a role in the outcome of patients with acute TBI.
Extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma sarcoma is extremely rare in clinical practice. These cells consist of both epithelial and mesenchymal cells. Patient-derived cell lines that maintain tumor ...characteristics are valuable tools for studying the molecular mechanisms associated with carcinosarcoma. However, cholangiocarcinoma sarcoma cell lines are not available in cell banks.
To establish and characterize a new extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma sarcoma cell line, namely CBC2T-2.
We conducted a short tandem repeat (STR) test to confirm the identity of the CBC2T-2 cell line. Furthermore, we assessed the migratory and invasive properties of the cells and performed clonogenicity assay to evaluate the ability of individual cells to form colonies. The tumorigenic potential of CBC2T-2 cells was tested
using non-obese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficient (NOD/SCID) mice. The cells were injected subcutaneously and tumor formation was observed. In addition, immunohistochemical analysis was carried out to examine the expression of epithelial marker CK19 and mesenchymal marker vimentin in both CBC2T-2 cells and xenografts. The CBC2T-2 cell line was used to screen the potential therapeutic effects of various clinical agents in patients with cholangiocarcinoma sarcoma. Lastly, whole-exome sequencing was performed to identify genetic alterations and screen for somatic mutations in the CBC2T-2 cell line.
The STR test showed that there was no cross-contamination and the results were identical to those of the original tissue. The cells showed round or oval-shaped epithelioid cells and mesenchymal cells with spindle-shaped or elongated morphology. The cells exhibited a high proliferation ratio with a doubling time of 47.11 h. This cell line has migratory, invasive, and clonogenic abilities. The chromosomes in the CBC2T-2 cells were polyploidy, with numbers ranging from 69 to 79. The subcutaneous tumorigenic assay confirmed the
tumorigenic ability of CBC2T-2 cells in NOD/SCID mice. CBC2T-2 cells and xenografts were positive for both the epithelial marker, CK19, and the mesenchymal marker, vimentin. These results suggest that CBC2T-2 cells may have both epithelial and mesenchymal characteristics. The cells were also used to screen clinical agents in patients with cholangiocarcinoma sarcoma, and a combination of paclitaxel and gemcitabine was found to be the most effective treatment option.
We established the first human cholangiocarcinoma sarcoma cell line, CBC2T-2, with stable biogenetic traits. This cell line, as a research model, has a high clinical value and would facilitate the understanding of the pathogenesis of cholangiocarcinoma sarcoma.
Emphysema is the main pathological feature of COPD and also is the focus of the related research. Although several emphysema animal models have been established, exact comparison of findings is ...seldom. The present study aimed to compare cigarette smoke (CS) exposure-induced emphysema model and intraperitoneal injection of cigarette smoke extract (CSE)-induced emphysema model to evaluate the effectiveness of the two different modeling methods.
Six-week-old male C57BL/6 J mice were used and randomly divided into two groups: CS exposure and intraperitoneal injection of CSE. Each group was subdivided into two subgroups: control and CS or CSE. Lung function, mean linear intercept (MLI), destructive index (DI), apoptotic index (AI), total and differential cells count in broncholavolar lavage fluid (BALF), SOD and IL-6 concentration in serum were measured.
Compared with their respective controls, lung function was significantly decreased in CS and CSE groups (P < 0.01); MLI, DI, and AI of lung tissue were significantly higher in CS and CSE groups (P < 0.01); total number of leukocytes, the number and percentage of neutrophils (NEUs), and the number of macrophages (MAC) in BALF were significantly higher in CS and CSE groups (P < 0.01); SOD concentration in serum was significantly decreased in CS and CSE groups (P < 0.01); IL-6 concentration in serum was significantly increased in in CS and CSE groups (P < 0.01). There was no significant difference between CS group and CSE group in any of the parameters described above.
Both CS exposure and intraperitoneal injection of CSE could induce emphysema and the effectiveness of the two different modeling methods were equal.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
BACKGROUNDCytochrome P450 family 8 subfamily B member 1 (CYP8B1) generates 12α-hydroxylated bile acids (BAs) that are associated with insulin resistance in humans.METHODSTo determine whether reduced ...CYP8B1 activity improves insulin sensitivity, we sequenced CYP8B1 in individuals without diabetes and identified carriers of complete loss-of-function (CLOF) mutations utilizing functional assays.RESULTSMutation carriers had lower plasma 12α-hydroxylated/non-12α-hydroxylated BA and cholic acid (CA)/chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA) ratios compared with age-, sex-, and BMI-matched controls. During insulin clamps, hepatic glucose production was suppressed to a similar magnitude by insulin, but glucose infusion rates to maintain euglycemia were higher in mutation carriers, indicating increased peripheral insulin sensitivity. Consistently, a polymorphic CLOF CYP8B1 mutation associated with lower fasting insulin in the AMP-T2D-GENES study. Exposure of primary human muscle cells to mutation-carrier CA/CDCA ratios demonstrated increased FOXO1 activity, and upregulation of both insulin signaling and glucose uptake, which were mediated by increased CDCA. Inhibition of FOXO1 attenuated the CDCA-mediated increase in muscle insulin signaling and glucose uptake. We found that reduced CYP8B1 activity associates with increased insulin sensitivity in humans.CONCLUSIONOur findings suggest that increased circulatory CDCA due to reduced CYP8B1 activity increases skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity, contributing to increased whole-body insulin sensitization.FUNDINGBiomedical Research Council/National Medical Research Council of Singapore.
The stimulator of interferon genes (STING) is a key adaptor protein mediating innate immune defense against DNA viruses. To investigate the role of STING in acute exacerbation of idiopathic pulmonary ...fibrosis (AE-IPF), we isolated primary peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients and healthy controls (HCs). Raw264.7 and A549 cells were infected with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1). Mice with bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis were infected with HSV-1 to stimulate acute exacerbation of the lung fibrosis. Global gene expression profiling revealed a substantial downregulation of interferon-regulated genes (downstream of STING) in the AE-IPF group compared with the HC and stable IPF groups. The PBMCs of the AE-IPF group showed significantly reduced STING protein levels, increased levels of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress markers, and elevated apoptosis. HSV-1 infection decreased STING expression and stimulated the ER stress pathways in Raw264.7 and A549 cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner. HSV-1 infection exacerbated the bleomycin-induced lung injury in mice. In the primary bone marrow-derived macrophages of mice treated with bleomycin and HSV-1, STING protein expression was substantially reduced; ER stress was stimulated. Tauroursodeoxycholic acid, a known inhibitor of ER stress, partially reversed those HSV-1-mediated adverse effects in mice with bleomycin-induced lung injury. STING levels in PBMCs increased after treatment in patients showing improvement but remained at low levels in patients with deterioration. Viral infection may trigger ER stress, resulting in STING deficiency and AE-IPF onset.
Abstract
Natural products (NPs) and their derivatives are important resources for drug discovery. There are many in silico target prediction methods that have been reported, however, very few of them ...distinguish NPs from synthetic molecules. Considering the fact that NPs and synthetic molecules are very different in many characteristics, it is necessary to build specific target prediction models of NPs. Therefore, we collected the activity data of NPs and their derivatives from the public databases and constructed four datasets, including the NP dataset, the NPs and its first-class derivatives dataset, the NPs and all its derivatives and the ChEMBL26 compounds dataset. Conditions, including activity thresholds and input features, were explored to access the performance of eight machine learning methods of target prediction of NPs, including support vector machines (SVM), extreme gradient boosting, random forests, K-nearest neighbor, naive Bayes, feedforward neural networks (FNN), convolutional neural networks and recurrent neural networks. As a result, the NPs and all their derivatives datasets were selected to build the best NP-specific models. Furthermore, the consensus models, as well as the voting models, were additionally applied to improve the prediction performance. More evaluations were made on the external validation set and the results demonstrated that (1) the NP-specific model performed better on the target prediction of NPs than the traditional models training on the whole compounds of ChEMBL26. (2) The consensus model of FNN + SVM possessed the best overall performance, and the voting model can significantly improve recall and specificity.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Salicylic acid (SA) plays a critical role in plant defense against pathogen attack. The SA-induced viral defense in plants is distinct from the pathways mediating bacterial and fungal defense, which ...is pathogenesis-related protein-independent but involves an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 1 (RDR1)-mediated RNA silencing mechanism and/or an alternative oxidase (AOX)-associated defense pathway. However, the relationship between these two viral defense-related pathways remains unclear. In this study, Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) inoculation onto Solanum lycopersicum (tomato) leaves induced a rapid induction of the SlAOX1a transcript level as well as the total and CN-resistant respiration at 0.5 dpi, followed by an increase in SlRDR1 gene expression at 1 dpi in the upper uninoculated leaves. Silencing SlRDR1 using virus-induced gene silencing system significantly reduced SlRDR1 expression and tomato defense against TMV but had no evident effect on SlAOX1a transcription. Conversely, silencing SlAOX1a not only effectively reduced the AOX1a transcript level, but also blocked the TMV-induced SlRDR1 expression and decreased the basal defense against TMV. Furthermore, the application of an exogenous AOX activator on empty vector-silenced control plants greatly induced the accumulation of SlRDR1 and SlAOX1a transcript and reduced TMV viral RNA accumulation, but failed to have such effects on SlRDR1-silenced plants. Moreover, RDR1-overexpressed transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana plants enhanced defense against TMV than the empty vector-transformed plants, but these effects were not affected by the exogenous AOX activator or inhibitor. These results indicate that RDR1 is involved in the AOX-mediated defense pathway against TMV infection and plays a crucial role in enhancing RNA silencing to limit virus systemic spread.
To investigate the role and the underlying mechanism of scaffold attachment factor B (
) in the progression of colorectal cancer (CRC).
SAFB expression was analyzed in the Cancer Outlier Profile ...Analysis of Oncomine and in 175 paraffin-embedded archived CRC tissues. Gene Ontology analyses were performed to explore the mechanism of
in CRC progression. Western blot, RT-PCR, luciferase assay, and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) were used to detect the regulation of transforming growth factor-β-activated kinase 1 (
) and NF-κB signaling by
The role of SAFB in invasion, metastasis, and angiogenesis was investigated using
and
assays. The relationship between SAFB and TAK1 was analyzed in CRC tissues.
SAFB was downregulated in CRC tissues, and low expression of SAFB was significantly associated with an aggressive phenotype and poorer survival of CRC patients. The downregulation of SAFB activated NF-κB signaling by targeting the
promoter. Ectopic expression of SAFB inhibited the development of aggressive features and metastasis of CRC cells both
and
The overexpression of TAK1 could rescue the aggressive features in SAFB-overexpressed cells. Furthermore, the expression of SAFB in CRC tissues was negatively correlated with the expression of TAK1- and NF-κB-related genes.
Our results show that
regulated the activity of NF-κB signaling in CRC by targeting
This novel mechanism provides a comprehensive understanding of both SAFB and the NF-κB signaling pathway in the progression of CRC and indicates that the SAFB-TAK1-NF-κB axis is a potential target for early therapeutic intervention in CRC progression.
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