Abstract
The Yi is one of fifty-six ethnic populations and one of the most ancient ethnic groups in China. The Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture (LYAP) in Sichuan Province has the single largest Yi ...community in China. To establish a Yi population database in the LYAP of Sichuan in China, a Goldeneye™ DNA Identification System 20A Kit with 19 autosomal STRs (short tandem repeats) was used. As a result, the total discrimination power (TDP) and the cumulative probability of exclusion (CPE) for these STRs in 1016 unrelated individuals were 0.999999999999999999999897 and 0.9999999597, respectively. Totals of 273 alleles for 19 STRs and 8–22 alleles for each locus were found. The allelic frequencies ranged from 0.0005 to 0.5084. The forensic parameter averages of these STRs were as follows: observed heterozygosity (H
obs
) of 78.44%, expected heterozygosity (H
exp
) of 79.89%, discrimination power (DP) of 92.66%, and probability of exclusion (PE) of 57.68%. Penta E presented the highest levels of H
obs
and DP, whereas TPOX showed the lowest H
obs
and DP values. Nei’s standard genetic distance matrix among 31 populations found that the nearest genetic distance to the Yi population was the Sichuan Han (0.0056). Altogether, we first reported the forensic parameters and allele frequencies of 19 autosomal STRs of the Yi group in Liangshan. These 19 STR makers could provide highly informative polymorphisms for individual identification, paternity testing and genetic population analyses.
To investigate the impact of permeability and heterogeneity on oil displacement efficiency and remaining oil distribution of chemical flooding, three groups of high and ultrahigh permeability core ...samples from an ultrahigh water-cut oilfield in western China were selected as the research objects in this study. High-pressure mercury injection, scanning electron microscopy, wettability test, and other methods were used to characterize the reservoir properties of core samples. Six groups of experiments were performed using the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) displacement imaging technology to simulate the oilfield development process considering the economic benefits. The displacement stage with the best oil displacement effect in the process of waterflooding, chemical flooding and then waterflooding was defined, and the control effect of permeability and heterogeneity on the improvement of oil displacement efficiency by polymer-surfactant binary flooding was discussed. The distribution position of remaining oil in different displacement stages was quantitatively and visually displayed, and its control factors were revealed. The research shows that during the simulation process of first waterflooding followed by chemical flooding and then waterflooding in the oilfield, the T2 spectrum signal amplitude increases the most in the two stages, one is from saturated oil flooding to 50% water cut and the other one is from 95% water cut to the end of 1 PV polymer flooding. The oil displacement efficiency increases the most, and the oil is primarily discharged from pore throats larger than 90 ms (or with pore throat radius of 8.37 μm). Compared with heterogeneity, permeability plays a more obvious controlling role in improving the oil displacement efficiency of polymer-surfactant binary flooding. The influence of fingering phenomenon on the distribution of remaining oil is most obvious in the second waterflooding, and the distribution of remaining oil with polymer slug is more obviously affected by the fingering phenomenon than that with polymer-surfactant slug. The study results provide theoretical guidance for tapping the remaining oil potential of old oilfields with high to ultrahigh permeabilities.
Loess is a kind of world-recognized problematic soil and, as a consequence, it is a major hazard in geotechnical engineering. This study examines the small to medium strain dynamic properties of ...Lanzhou intact and recompacted loess through a set of resonant column (RC) tests. The influence of soil structure on the small-strain shear modulus G0, the variations of G/G0, and damping ratio DT(%) with shear strain γ were analyzed and discussed. The test results show that the structure has an important influence on the dynamic properties of dry loess at small and medium strain, whereas, with the increase of moisture, its effect weakens. It is proved that a normalized correlation between G/G0 and γ/γ0.7 is practically identical for undisturbed and recompacted loess in Lanzhou, irrespective of soil structure, which may be useful in practical applications.
•The small to medium strain dynamic properties of Lanzhou loess with metastable structure were examined.•Structure effect reduces the ductility in dynamic response for Lanzhou loess.•The correlations between G/G0 and γ/γ0.70 could be normalized well for Lanzhou loess, irrespective of structure effect.
Atherosclerosis (AS) is a common etiology of cardiovascular disease. As an emerging functional biomarker, circular RNAs (circRNAs) are involved in various diseases, including cardiovascular disease. ...However, the mechanism of action of circ_0030042 in AS has not been reported.Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) stimulated by ox-LDL served as a cellular model of AS. Gene expression was detected using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The influence of circ_0030042 on cell viability, proliferation, and apoptosis was verified using Cell Counting Kit-8, 5-ethynyl-2′-deoxyuridine, and flow cytometry assays. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was performed to measure the contents of tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin (IL) -6, and IL-1β. Western blot assay was utilized to determine the protein levels of Bax, Bcl-2, PCNA, and regulatory factor X 7 (RFX7). The interrelationship between miR-616-3p and circ_0030042 or RFX7 was validated using dual-luciferase reporter, RNA immunoprecipitation, and RNA pull-down assays.The expression of circ_0030042 was downregulated in ox-LDL-induced HUVECs. It was found that overexpression of circ_0030042 facilitated cell proliferation, repressed apoptosis, and reduced the level of inflammatory factors in HUVECs. Circ_0030042 and miR-616-3p had a targeting relationship, and the miR-616-3p mimic eliminated the effects of overexpressed circ_0030042 on ox-LDL-induced HUVECs. RFX7 was a downstream gene of miR-616-3p and was lowly expressed in ox-LDL-induced HUVECs. The miR-616-3p inhibitor stimulated cell proliferation, arrested apoptosis, and caused a decline in the levels of inflammatory factors, whereas knockdown of RFX7 abolished the effects.Circ_0030042 weakened ox-LDL-induced HUVEC injury by regulating the miR-616-3p/RFX7 pathway, thereby influencing AS progression. Circ_0030042 is likely to be a potential biomarker for the future treatment of patients with AS.
Small-strain stiffness and damping of Lanzhou loess Song, Binghui; Tsinaris, Angelos; Anastasiadis, Anastasios ...
Soil dynamics and earthquake engineering (1984),
April 2017, 2017-04-00, 20170401, Letnik:
95
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This study examines the small-strain stress-strain properties during cyclic loading of Lanzhou loess deposits, characterized by a very high void ratio (>0.9). Torsional resonant column (RC) tests are ...performed in order to investigate the effect of water content, confining pressure, consolidation time and soil structure strength on the small-strain stiffness (G0) and damping (Dmin) of loess. It is proved that shear modulus G0 at low strain levels is very sensitive to water content while the effect of water content on small-strain damping Dmin is relatively small. As water content W approaches the plastic limit PL, there is a dramatic decrease of G0 compared to drier loess specimen; G0 has the tendency to reach a stable or constant value with further increase of water content which is more than the PL of loess. The small strain damping Dmin decreases continuously with water content for unsaturated loess and then tends to increase slightly for almost fully saturated loess. A linear relationship between G0 and confining pressure σ′m in log-log coordinates for different water contents is observed for Lanzhou loess. Similarly, Dmin decreases linearly with σ′m. A power function is proposed to describe the relationship between G0 and confining pressure σ′m where the exponent m varies with the water content of loess. G0 is also affected by the consolidation duration and a power function is proposed between normalized G0 and normalized consolidation time. G0 is finally strongly affected by the structure of loess and the type of specimen. For undisturbed loess samples, G0 is always higher than reconstituted ones and the difference decreases with the degree of saturation; for fully saturated samples the influence of the structure strength between undisturbed and reconstituted samples becomes insignificant. Likewise, Dmin of undisturbed loess is higher than that for remolded loess under the same confining pressure and the difference between them reduces with the degree of saturation as well.
•We examined the small-strain dynamic properties of Lanzhou loess with metastable structure and high void ratio (>0.9).•We found shear modulus G0 of Lanzhou loess is more sensitive to water content than damping Dmin.•A power function is proposed to describe the relationship between G0 and confining pressure σ′m.•The power equation proposed by Shibuya et al. 44 is suited to estimate the time-dependent increase of G0 for loess.•The small-strain dynamic properties (G0 and Dmin) of undisturbed loess are higher than for remolded loess.
Han is the largest of China’s 56 ethnic groups and the most populous ethnic group in the world. The Luzhou region is located in southwest China, at the junction of three provinces. The unique ...historical factors contribute to the genetic polymorphism information. Short tandem repeats (STRs) are highly polymorphic, but the polymorphism of the Y chromosomal STRs (Y-STRs) loci in the Luzhou region is still unclear. It is of great significance to provide Y-STRs genetic data for the Han population from the Luzhou areas of southwest China. A total of 910 unrelated male individuals of the Han population from the Luzhou area were recruited, and 24 Y-STRs were analyzed. The population structure and phylogenetic relationships were compared with those of another 11 related Han populations. A total of 893 different haplotypes were achieved from 910 samples, of which 877 (98.21%) haplotypes were unique. Haplotype diversity and discrimination were 0.999956 and 0.981319, respectively. The lowest genetic diversity of DYS437 is 0.4321, and the highest genetic diversity of DYS385a/b is 0.9642. Pair-to-pair genetic distance and relative probability values indicate that Luzhou Han people are close to Sichuan Han people, Guangdong Han people, and Hunan Han people, which is consistent with geographical distribution, historical influence, and economic development. The 24 Y-STR markers of the southwest Luzhou Han population were highly polymorphic, which provided us with genetic polymorphism information and enriched the population genetic database. Therefore, it is of great value to our forensic applications and population genetics research.
The Han nationality is an ancient and populous people, and different places in China may have their distinct group relationships. Luzhou area, as a crossroads of several provinces in Southwest China, ...lacks autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) research and population genetics research. In this study, 21 autosomal STR loci were evaluated in 1959 Han-Chinese individuals from Luzhou area. There was no substantial linkage disequilibrium (LD) among the 21 autosomal STR markers, and all markers were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE). The total discrimination power (TDP) and cumulative probability of exclusion (CPE) of the 21 autosomal STR loci were calculated to be 1-9.8505 × 10
and 1-1.9406 × 10
, respectively. There were 333 alleles for 21 STRs with allelic frequencies ranging from 0.00026 to 0.51302, and the number of alleles ranged from 7 in locus TPOX to 29 in locus Penta E. According to the results of population comparison and population differentiation, historical influences, geographical distribution, cultural integration, and economic development may have an impact on the Luzhou Han population and other Chinese populations. These 21 STR loci were found to enrich autosomal STR information in forensic databases and provide highly informative polymorphisms for our forensic practice in China, including personal identification and parentage testing.
SARS-Cov-2 caused the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. ADAM17 functions as a disintegrin and transmembrane metalloproteinase domain protein involved in the regulation of SARS-CoV-2 receptor ACE2. ...However, its impact on cancer patients infected with COVID-19 and its correlation with immune cell infiltration is unclear. This study compared ADAM17 expression between normal and tumor tissues based on GEPIA. The correlations between ADAM17 expression and immune cell infiltration and immunomodulators were investigated. Besides, treated drugs for targeting ADAM17 were searched in the TISDB database. We found that ADAM17 was highly conserved in many species and was mainly expressed in lung, brain, female tissues, bone marrow and lymphoid tissues. It was also highly expressed in respiratory epithelial cells of rhinitis and bronchus. ADAM17 expression in tumors was higher than that in several paired normal tissues and was negatively correlated with the prognosis of patients with malignant tumors. Interestingly, ADAM17 expression significantly correlated with immunomodulators and immune cell infiltration in normal and tumor tissues. Moreover, eight small molecules targeting ADAM17 only demonstrate therapeutic significance. These findings imply important implications for ADAM17 in cancer patients infected with COVID-19 and provide new clues for development strategy of anti-COVID-19.
As a cellular protease, transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) plays roles in various physiological and pathological processes, including cancer and viral entry, such as severe acute respiratory ...syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Herein, we conducted expression, mutation, and prognostic analyses for the TMPRSS2 gene in pan-cancers as well as in COVID-19-infected lung tissues. The results indicate that TMPRSS2 expression was highest in prostate cancer. A high expression of TMPRSS2 was significantly associated with a short overall survival in breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA), sarcoma (SARC), and uveal melanoma (UVM), while a low expression of TMPRSS2 was significantly associated with a short overall survival in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), demonstrating TMPRSS2 roles in cancer patient susceptibility and severity. Additionally, TMPRSS2 expression in COVID-19-infected lung tissues was significantly reduced compared to healthy lung tissues, indicating that a low TMPRSS2 expression may result in COVID-19 severity and death. Importantly, TMPRSS2 mutation frequency was significantly higher in prostate adenocarcinoma (PRAD), and the mutant TMPRSS2 pan-cancer group was significantly associated with long overall, progression-free, disease-specific, and disease-free survival rates compared to the wild-type (WT) TMPRSS2 pan-cancer group, demonstrating loss of functional roles due to mutation. Cancer cell lines were treated with small molecules, including cordycepin (CD), adenosine (AD), thymoquinone (TQ), and TQFL12, to mediate TMPRSS2 expression. Notably, CD, AD, TQ, and TQFL12 inhibited TMPRSS2 expression in cancer cell lines, including the PC3 prostate cancer cell line, implying a therapeutic role for preventing COVID-19 in cancer patients. Together, these findings are the first to demonstrate that small molecules, such as CD, AD, TQ, and TQFL12, inhibit TMPRSS2 expression, providing novel therapeutic strategies for preventing COVID-19 and cancers.
The
in situ
pore pressure response of silt under wave action is a complex process. However, this process has not been well studied because of limited field observation techniques. The dynamic ...response process is closely related to engineering geological hazards; thus, this process must be urgently explored. A long-term
in situ
observational study of the silt sediment pore water pressure response process under wave action was conducted in the subaqueous Yellow River Delta. The response characteristics of pore water pressure are affected by tidal level and wave height. Tidal level affects the overall trend of the pore water pressure response, while wave height influences the amplitude of the pore water pressure response. This study revealed a significant lag effect in the pore pressure response. The transient pore pressure in the seabed did not respond immediately to the wave-induced pressure stress on the seabed surface. This phenomenon may be attributed to the change in soil permeability. The maximum response depth was approximately 0.5 m with a 2 m wave height. A concept model of silt soil pore pressure response under different types of wave action was developed. The accumulation rate of the pore pressure is less than the dissipation rate; thus, the developed model highlights the oscillation pore pressure response mechanism. The highlighted response process is of considerable importance to transient liquefaction and the startup process of pore pressure response.