AIM:To explore the morbidity and risk factors of postoperative pancreatic fistula(POPF)following pancreaticoduodenectomy.METHODS:The data from 196 consecutive patients who underwent ...pancreaticoduodenectomy,performed by different surgeons,in the General Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army between January 1st,2013and December 31st,2013 were retrospectively collected for analysis.The diagnoses of POPF and clinically relevant(CR)-POPF following pancreaticoduodenectomy were judged strictly by the International Study Group on Pancreatic Fistula Definition.Univariate analysis was performed to analyze the following factors:patient age,sex,body mass index(BMI),hypertension,diabetes mellitus,serum CA19-9 level,history of jaundice,serum albumin level,blood loss volume,pancreatic duct diameter,pylorus preserving pancreaticoduodenectomy,pancreatic drainage and pancreaticojejunostomy.Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the main independent risk factors for POPF.RESULTS:POPF occurred in 126(64.3%)of the patients,and the incidence of CR-POPF was 32.7%(64/196).Patient characteristics of age,sex,BMI,hypertension,diabetes mellitus,serum CA19-9 level,history of jaundice,serum albumin level,blood loss volume,pylorus preserving pancreaticoduodenectomy and pancreaticojejunostomy showed no statistical difference related to the morbidity of POPF or CR-POPF.Pancreatic duct diameter was found to be significantly correlated with POPF rates by univariate analysis and multivariate regression analysis,with a pancreatic duct diameter≤3 mm being an independent risk factor for POPF(OR=0.291;P=0.000)and CR-POPF(OR=0.399;P=0.004).The CR-POPF rate was higher in patients without external pancreatic stenting,which was found to be an independent risk factor for CR-POPF(OR=0.394;P=0.012).Among the entire patient series,there were three postoperative deaths,giving a total mortality rate of 1.5%(3/196),and the mortality associated with pancreatic fistula was 2.4%(3/126).CONCLUSION:A pancreatic duct diameter≤3 mm is an independent risk factor for POPF.External stent drainage of pancreatic secretion may reduce CR-POPF mortality and POPF severity.
Topologically associating domains (TADs) are local chromatin interaction domains, which have been shown to play an important role in gene expression regulation. TADs were originally discovered in the ...investigation of 3D genome organization based on High-throughput Chromosome Conformation Capture (Hi-C) data. Continuous considerable efforts have been dedicated to developing methods for detecting TADs from Hi-C data. Different computational methods for TADs identification vary in their assumptions and criteria in calling TADs. As a consequence, the TADs called by these methods differ in their similarities and biological features they are enriched in. In this work, we performed a systematic comparison of twenty-six TAD callers. We first compared the TADs and gaps between adjacent TADs across different methods, resolutions, and sequencing depths. We then assessed the quality of TADs and TAD boundaries according to three criteria: the decay of contact frequencies over the genomic distance, enrichment and depletion of regulatory elements around TAD boundaries, and reproducibility of TADs and TAD boundaries in replicate samples. Last, due to the lack of a gold standard of TADs, we also evaluated the performance of the methods on synthetic datasets. We discussed the key principles of TAD callers, and pinpointed current situation in the detection of TADs. We provide a concise, comprehensive, and systematic framework for evaluating the performance of TAD callers, and expect our work will provide useful guidance in choosing suitable approaches for the detection and evaluation of TADs.
Polycomb group (PcG) proteins play important roles in animal and plant development and stress response. Polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1) and PRC2 are the key epigenetic regulators of gene ...expression, and are involved in almost all developmental stages. PRC1 catalyzes H2A monoubiquitination resulting in transcriptional silencing or activation. The PRC1 components in the green lineage were identified and evolution and conservation was analyzed by bioinformatics techniques. RING Finger Protein 1 (RING1), B lymphoma Mo-MLV insertion region 1 homolog (BMI1), Like Heterochromatin Protein 1 (LHP1) and Embryonic Flower 1 (EMF1) are the PRC1 core components and Vernalization 1 (VRN1), VP1/ABI3-Like 1/2/3 (VAL1/2/3), Alfin-like 1-7 (AL1-7), Inhibitor of growth 1/2 (ING1/2), and Early Bolting in Short Days (EBS) / Short Life (SHL) are the associated factors.
Each PRC1 subunit possesses special domain organizations, such as RING and the ring finger and WD40-associated ubiquitin-like (RAWUL) domains for RING1 and BMI1, chromatin organization modifier (CHROMO) and chromo shadow (ChSh) domains for LHP1, one or two B3 DNA binding domain(s) for VRN1, B3 and zf-CW domains for VAL1/2/3, Alfin and Plant HomeoDomain (PHD) domains for AL1-7, ING and PHD domains for ING1/2, Bromoadjacent homology (BAT) and PHD domains for EBS/SHL. Six new motifs are uncovered in EMF1. The PRC1 core components RING1 and BMI1, and the associated factors VAL1/2/3, AL1-7, ING1/2, and EBS/SHL exist from alga to higher plants, whereas LHP1 only occurs in higher plants. EMF1 and VRN1 are present only in eudicots. PRC1 components undergo duplication in the plant evolution. Most of plants carry the homologous core component LHP1, the associated factor EMF1, and several homologs in RING1, BMI1, VRN1, AL1-7, ING1/2/3, and EBS/SHL. Cabbage, cotton, poplar, orange and maize often exhibit more gene copies than other species. Domain organization analysis shows that duplicated gene functions may be of diverse.
The PRC1 core components RING1 and BMI1, and the associated factors VAL1/2/3, AL1-7, ING1/2, and EBS/SHL originate from algae. The core component LHP1 is from moss and the associated factors EMF1 and VRN1 are from dicotyledon. PRC1 components are of functional redundancy and diversity in evolution.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are coordination compounds that possess an adjustable structure and controllable function. Despite their wide applications in various industries, the use of MOFs in ...the fields of food and biomedicine is limited mainly due to their potential biological toxicity. Researchers have thus focused on developing biocompatible MOFs to address this issue. Among them, cyclodextrin-based metal-organic frameworks (CD-MOFs) have emerged as a promising alternative. CD-MOFs are novel MOFs synthesized using naturally carbohydrate cyclodextrin and alkali metal cations, and possess renewable, non-toxic, and edible characteristics. Due to their high specific surface area, controllable porosity, great biocompatibility, CD-MOFs have been widely used in various delivery systems, such as encapsulation of nutraceuticals, flavors, and antibacterial agents. Although the field of CD-MOF materials is still in its early stages, they provide a promising direction for the development of MOF materials in the delivery field. This review describes classification and structural characteristics, followed by an introduction to formation mechanism and commonly used synthetic methods for CD-MOFs. Additionally, we discuss the status of the application of various delivery systems based on CD-MOFs. Finally, we address the challenges and prospects of CD-MOF materials, with the aim of providing new insights and ideas for their future development.
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As one of the isoprenoids and widely derived from many fruits and vegetables, β-ionone (BI) has a potent inhibitory proliferation of cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. However, its exact mechanism is ...still uncompleted understood and needs to be further verified. Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), as a potential target of cancer chemoprevention, has been played pivotal roles in proliferation of tumor cells and carcinogenesis. Thus, the objective of present study was to determine that BI inhibited the activity of COX-2 in breast cancer and related to cancer cell models. Cell proliferation, DNA synthesis, the distribution of cell cycle, apoptosis induction and the expression of P38-MAPK protein were determined in MCF-7 cells by methylene blue,
3
H-thymidine (TdR) incorporation, flow cytometry, TUNEL and Western blotting assays. Quinone reductase (QR) activity was determined in murine hepatoma Hepa1c1c7 cells by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The expression of COX-2 in a phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA)-induced cell model and mammary tumor tissues was examined by Western blotting and immunohistochemistry. The results showed that BI significantly inhibited cell proliferation and DNA synthesis, arrested the distribution of cell cycle at the S phase or decreased proteins related to cell cycle such as cyclin D1 and CDK4, induced apoptosis and increased the expression of p-P38 in MCF-7 cells. BI at low doses (< 50 μmol/L) significantly increased QR activity, decreased the expression of COX-2 protein and prostaglandin E2 (PEG2) release in cell models. In addition, BI also significantly decreased the expression of COX-2 protein in rat mammary tumor tissues. Therefore, our findings indicate that BI possesses inhibitory proliferation of breast cancer cells through down-regulation of COX-2 activity.
In the hexaploid wheat genome, there are three Gα genes, three Gβ and twelve Gγ genes, but the function of Gβ in wheat has not been explored. In this study, we obtained the overexpression of
...Arabidopsis plants through inflorescence infection, and the overexpression of wheat lines was obtained by gene bombardment. The results showed that under drought and NaCl treatment, the survival rate of Arabidopsis seedlings' overexpression of
was higher than that of the wild type, while the survival rate of the related mutant
was lower than that of the wild type. The survival rate of wheat seedlings with
overexpression was higher than that of the control. In addition, under drought and salt stress, the levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and proline (Pro) in the wheat overexpression of
were higher than that of the control, and the concentration of malondialdehyde (MDA) was lower than that of the control. This indicates that
could improve the drought resistance and salt tolerance of Arabidopsis and wheat by scavenging active oxygen. Overall, this work provides a theoretical basis for wheat G-protein β-subunits in a further study, and new genetic resources for the cultivation of drought-tolerant and salt-tolerant wheat varieties.
Abstract
Single-cell clustering is a critical step in biological downstream analysis. The clustering performance could be effectively improved by extracting cell-type-specific genes. The ...state-of-the-art feature selection methods usually calculate the importance of a single gene without considering the information contained in the gene expression distribution. Moreover, these methods ignore the intrinsic expression patterns of genes and heterogeneity within groups of different mean expression levels. In this work, we present a Feature sElection method based on gene Expression Decomposition (FEED) of scRNA-seq data, which selects informative genes to enhance clustering performance. First, the expression levels of genes are decomposed into multiple Gaussian components. Then, a novel gene correlation calculation method is proposed to measure the relationship between genes from the perspective of distribution. Finally, a permutation-based approach is proposed to determine the threshold of gene importance to obtain marker gene subsets. Compared with state-of-the-art feature selection methods, applying FEED on various scRNA-seq datasets including large datasets followed by different common clustering algorithms results in significant improvements in the accuracy of cell-type identification. The source codes for FEED are freely available at https://github.com/genemine/FEED.
Controlling aeolian desertification is a key ecological target on the Tibetan Plateau, especially within the widespread river valleys. Vegetation recovery can change the near-soil surface ...characteristics, which thus may influence wind erodibility of soils. However, these potential effects are not sufficiently evaluated for aeolian sandy soils. This study selected the Shannan valley of the Yarlung Zangbo River on the southern Tibetan Plateau as a case to investigate the variations in wind erodibility of aeolian sandy soils impacted by different vegetation restoration, since many ecological measures have been implemented in recent decades in the river valley. Eight vegetated sandy lands with different restoration types and ages and two bare sandy lands (as controls) were chosen as test sites. Four vegetated sandy lands were covered by
Artemisia wellbyi
,
Hedysarum scoparium
,
Sophora moorcroftiana
, and
Populus
L. with the similar restoration age of 10 years. For
Sophora moorcroftiana
and
Populus
L. communities, two restoration ages of 6 and over 30 years were also selected respectively. Wind erodibility was reflected by wind erodible fraction (EF), mean weight diameter of dry aggregates (MWD), capillary water capacity (CWC), soil cohesion (CS), and soil penetration resistance (PR) from different aspects. A comprehensive wind erodibility index (CWEI) was further produced by a weighted summation method to combine those five indices together and comprehensively quantify the effects of vegetation restoration on wind erodibility of aeolian sandy soils. The results showed that revegetation was efficient to reduce wind erodibility of aeolian sandy soils. EF generally decreased, while MWD, CWC, CS, and PR increased after vegetation restoration on the aeolian sandy lands. The CWEI of vegetated sandy lands varied greatly from 0.850 to 0 under different restoration types and ages and decreased by 14.4% to 100% compared to the control. Under the four different restoration types,
Populus
L. had the relatively minimum CWEI, followed by
Artemisia wellbyi
,
Sophora moorcroftiana
and
Hedysarum scoparium.
With succession from 6 to over 30 years, CWEI gradually declined for both the
Populus
L. and
Sophora moorcroftiana
restored sandy lands. The decreases in wind erodibility (reflected by CWEI) on vegetated sandy lands were dominantly controlled by the improvement of soil texture and the increases of organic matter and calcium carbonate contents with vegetation restoration. The combined vegetation measure of
Populus
L. mixed with shrubs and grasses was suggested as the optimal restoration type for mitigating wind erodibility of aeolian sandy soils in the Shannan valley of the Yarlung Zangbo River.
We developed a bioelectronic communication system that is enabled by a redox signal transduction modality to exchange information between a living cell-embedded bioelectronics interface and an ...engineered microbial network. A naturally communicating three-member microbial network is 'plugged into' an external electronic system that interrogates and controls biological function in real time. First, electrode-generated redox molecules are programmed to activate gene expression in an engineered population of electrode-attached bacterial cells, effectively creating a living transducer electrode. These cells interpret and translate electronic signals and then transmit this information biologically by producing quorum sensing molecules that are, in turn, interpreted by a planktonic coculture. The propagated molecular communication drives expression and secretion of a therapeutic peptide from one strain and simultaneously enables direct electronic feedback from the second strain, thus enabling real-time electronic verification of biological signal propagation. Overall, we show how this multifunctional bioelectronic platform, termed a BioLAN, reliably facilitates on-demand bioelectronic communication and concurrently performs programmed tasks.
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