Circular RNAs are a class of regulatory RNA transcripts, which are ubiquitously expressed in eukaryotes. In the current study, we evaluate the function of a novel circRNA derived from the β-catenin ...gene locus, circβ-catenin.
Circβ-catenin is predominantly localized in the cytoplasm and displays resistance to RNase-R treatment. We find that circβ-catenin is highly expressed in liver cancer tissues when compared to adjacent normal tissues. Silencing of circβ-catenin significantly suppresses malignant phenotypes in vitro and in vivo, and knockdown of this circRNA reduces the protein level of β-catenin without affecting its mRNA level. We show that circβ-catenin affects a wide spectrum of Wnt pathway-related genes, and furthermore, circβ-catenin produces a novel 370-amino acid β-catenin isoform that uses the start codon as the linear β-catenin mRNA transcript and translation is terminated at a new stop codon created by circularization. We find that this novel isoform can stabilize full-length β-catenin by antagonizing GSK3β-induced β-catenin phosphorylation and degradation, leading to activation of the Wnt pathway.
Our findings illustrate a non-canonical function of circRNA in modulating liver cancer cell growth through the Wnt pathway, which can provide novel mechanistic insights into the underlying mechanisms of hepatocellular carcinoma.
Abstract
Motivation
Linkage disequilibrium (LD) decay is of great interest in population genetic studies. However, no tool is available now to do LD decay analysis from variant call format (VCF) ...files directly. In addition, generation of pair-wise LD measurements for whole genome SNPs usually resulting in large storage wasting files.
Results
We developed PopLDdecay, an open source software, for LD decay analysis from VCF files. It is fast and is able to handle large number of variants from sequencing data. It is also storage saving by avoiding exporting pair-wise results of LD measurements. Subgroup analyses are also supported.
Availability and implementation
PopLDdecay is freely available at https://github.com/BGI-shenzhen/PopLDdecay.
A new approach was designed to synthesize tin‐nanoparticles encapsulated in elastic hollow carbon spheres (TNHCs) with uniform size, in which tin nanoparticles with a diameter <100 nm were ...encapsulated in one thin hollow carbon sphere. The content of tin is up to over 70% by weight, andthe void volume inside the TNHCsis as high as 70–80%, which can accommodate the volume after expansion. This tin‐based nanocomposite exhibits a great potential as an anode materials for lithium‐ion batteries.
Hepatitis D virus (HDV) is a defective virus that completes its life cycle only with hepatitis B virus (HBV). The HBV with HDV super-infection has been considered as one of the most severe forms of ...the chronic viral hepatitis. However, there is a scarcity of data on the global burden of HDV infection.
We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and China Knowledge Resource Integrated databases from 1 January 1977 to 31 December 2016. We included studies with a minimum sample size of 50 patients. Our study analysed data from a total of 40 million individuals to estimate the prevalence of HDV by using Der-Simonian Laird random-effects model. The data were further categorised according to risk factors.
From a total of 2717 initially identified studies, only 182 articles from 61 countries and regions met the final inclusion criteria. The overall prevalence of HDV was 0.98% (95% CI 0.61 to 1.42). In HBsAg-positive population, HDV pooled prevalence was 14.57% (95% CI 12.93 to 16.27): Seroprevalence was 10.58% (95% CI 9.14 to 12.11) in mixed population without risk factors of intravenous drug use (IVDU) and high-risk sexual behaviour (HRSB). It was 37.57% (95% CI 29.30 to 46.20) in the IVDU population and 17.01% (95% CI 10.69 to 24.34) in HRSB population.
We found that approximately 10.58% HBsAg carriers (without IVDU and HRSB) were coinfected with HDV, which is twofold of what has been estimated before. We also noted a substantially higher HDV prevalence in the IVDU and HRSB population. Our study highlights the need for increased focus on the routine HDV screening and rigorous implementation of HBV vaccine programme.
A ship motion time series (SMTS) exhibits obvious periodicity under the effects of periodic wave and strong nonlinearity owing to wind, ocean currents, and the load of ship itself, which make ...accurate forecasting difficult. To improve forecasting accuracy, this investigation divides the SMTS into a periodic term and a nonlinear term and forecasts each term separately. First, the periodogram estimation method (PEM) is implemented to forecast the periodic term. Then, owing to the strong nonlinearity of SMTS, the LSSVR model is used to forecast the nonlinear residual term that is generated by the PEM. On account of parameters that determine the predictive accuracy of the LSSVR model, the chaotic cloud particle swarm optimization (CCPSO) algorithm is introduced to optimize the parameters of the LSSVR model. Finally, combining the PEM, LSSVR model, and CCPSO algorithm, a hybrid forecasting method for SMTS, PEM&LSSVR-CCPSO, is developed. Subsequently, SMTS data for two ships that are sailing on the ocean are used as a numerical example, and thus, the forecasting performance of the presented method is evaluated. The results of the analysis demonstrate that the proposed hybrid SMTS forecasting scheme has better forecasting performance than classical forecasting models that are considered herein.
•A novel floating platform motion forecasting model is proposed.•A novel chaotic efficient bat algorithm is proposed to receive optimized parameter.•The ensemble empirical mode decomposition ...algorithm is proposed to decompose floating platform motion data.•The proposed hybrid kernel based support vector regression model receives higher forecasting accuracy.
This paper presents a model for forecasting the motion of a floating platform with satisfactory forecasting accuracy. First, owing to the complex nonlinear characteristics of a time series of floating platform motion data, a support vector regression model with a hybrid kernel function is used to simulate the motion of a floating platform. Second, the proposed chaotic efficient bat algorithm, based on the chaotic, niche search, and evolution mechanisms, is used to optimize the parameters of the hybrid kernel-based support vector regression model. Third, the ensemble empirical mode decomposition algorithm is utilized to decompose the original floating platform motion time series into a series of intrinsic mode functions and residuals. The ultimate forecasting results are obtained by summing the outputs of these functions. Subsequently, motion data for a real floating platform are used to evaluate the reliability and effectiveness of the proposed model.
Porphyry copper deposits account for more than 80% of the world’s total Cu resources. However, the formation mechanism and controlling factors of porphyry copper deposits remain obscure. Previous ...studies have revealed that porphyry copper deposits are usually associated with oxidized, calc-alkalic, adakitic shallow intrusive rocks. Here we show that hematite–magnetite intergrowths are commonly found in porphyry copper deposits, suggesting high and fluctuating oxygen fugacity (fO2). Oxidation promotes the destruction of sulfides in the magma source, and thereby increases initial chalcophile element concentrations. Sulfide remains undersaturated during the evolution of oxidized sulfur-enriched magmas where sulfate is the dominant sulfur species, leading to high chalcophile element concentrations in evolved magmas. The final porphyry copper mineralization is controlled by sulfate reduction, which starts with magnetite crystallization, accompanied by decreasing pH and correspondingly increasing fO2. Hematite forms once sulfate reduction lowers the pH sufficiently and the fO2 reaches the hematite–magnetite oxygen fugacity buffer, which in turn increases the pH for a given fO2. The oxidation of ferrous iron during the crystallization of magnetite and hematite is the causal process of sulfate reduction and consequent mineralization. Therefore, the initial pH and fO2 ranges of porphyries favorable for porphyry copper mineralization are defined by the hematite–magnetite oxygen fugacity buffer and SO42−–HS−–S3− reaction lines. Adakitic rocks have higher initial contents of copper, sulfur and iron than normal arc rocks, and thus are the best candidates for porphyry copper deposits. These provide a plausible explanation for the formation of copper porphyry deposits. The hematite–magnetite intergrowth marks the upper limits of fO2 favorable for the mineralization, and thus may be a powerful tool for future prospecting of large porphyry copper deposits.
Two-dimensional (2D) metal-organic frameworks have exhibited a range of fascinating attributes, of interest to numerous fields. Here, a calcium-based metal-organic framework with a 2D layered ...structure has been designed. Dual emissions relating to intralayer excimers and interlayer trapped excitons are produced, showing excitation-dependent shifting tendency, characteristic of a low dimensional semiconductor nature. Furthermore, the layer stacking by weak van der Waals forces among dynamically coordinated DMF molecules enables exfoliation and morphology transformation, which can be achieved by ultrasound in different ratios of DMF/H
O solvents, or grinding under appropriate humidity conditions, leading to nano samples including ultrathin nanosheets with single or few coordination layers. The cutting down of layer numbers engenders suppression of interlayer exciton-related emission, resulting in modulation of the overall emitting color and optical memory states. This provides a rare prototypical model with switchable dual-channel emissions based on 2D-MOFs, in which the interlayer excitation channel can be reversibly tuned on/off by top-down exfoliation and morphology transformation.
Abstract
The triangular correlation heatmap aiming to visualize the linkage disequilibrium (LD) pattern and haplotype block structure of SNPs is ubiquitous component of population-based genetic ...studies. However, current tools suffered from the problem of time and memory consuming. Here, we developed LDBlockShow, an open source software, for visualizing LD and haplotype blocks from variant call format files. It is time and memory saving. In a test dataset with 100 SNPs from 60 000 subjects, it was at least 10.60 times faster and used only 0.03–13.33% of physical memory as compared with other tools. In addition, it could generate figures that simultaneously display additional statistical context (e.g. association P-values) and genomic region annotations. It can also compress the SVG files with a large number of SNPs and support subgroup analysis. This fast and convenient tool will facilitate the visualization of LD and haplotype blocks for geneticists.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK