A close association between peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ2 (PPAR-γ2) and the development of diabetic retinopathy (DR) has been previously suggested. Herein, a meta-analysis was ...conducted to explore the association between
polymorphisms and DR risk by performing a systematic search and quantitative analysis. Overall, fourteen articles involving 10,527 subjects were included. The pooled results did not reveal an association between
rs1801282 C/G and DR susceptibility in the overall population (e.g., the dominant model: CG+GG vs. CC, OR=0.85, 95% CI=0.69-1.06, P=0.15, I
=62.9%). Furthermore, heterogeneity tests, cumulative analyses, sensitivity analyses, and publication bias analyses were conducted and showed that the results were robust. Similarly, race-based subgroup analyses and other subgroup analyses did not reveal an association between the rs1801282 C/G and DR susceptibility. In addition, no significant association was observed between
rs3856806 C/T polymorphism and DR risk (e.g., the dominant model: CT+TT vs. CC, OR=1.12, 95%CI=0.91-1.37, P=0.28, I
=27.0%). Overall, based on the current sample size and the level of evidence presented in the study, the results suggest that
gene polymorphisms are not associated with DR risk.
Postmenopausal osteoporosis is a bone metabolism disease that is caused by an imbalance between bone-resorbing osteoclast and bone-forming osteoblast actions. Herein, we describe the role of ...troxerutin (TRX), a trihydroxyethylated derivative of rutin, in ovariectomy (OVX)-induced osteoporosis and its effects on the regulation of osteoclasts and osteoblasts.
In vivo, OVX female mice were intraperitoneally injected with either saline, 50 mg/kg TRX, or 150 mg/kg TRX for 6 weeks and then sacrificed for micro-computed tomography analyses, histological analyses, and biomechanical testing. In vitro, RAW264.7 cell-derived osteoclasts and MC3T3-E1 cell-derived osteoblasts were treated with different concentrations of TRX to examine the effect of TRX on osteoclastogenesis and bone resorption, as well as on osteogenesis and mineralization.
In this study, we demonstrated that TRX prevented cortical and trabecular bone loss in ovariectomized mice by reducing osteoclastogenesis and promoting osteogenesis in vivo. In vitro, TRX inhibited the formation and activity of RAW264.7-derived osteoclasts and the expression of nuclear factor of activated T-cells 1 and cathepsin K. Meanwhile, TRX improved the osteogenesis and mineralization of MC3T3-E1 by enhancing the expression of Runt-related transcription factor 2, Osterix, and collagen type 1 alpha 1.
Our data demonstrated that TRX could prevent OVX-induced osteoporosis and be used in a novel treatment for postmenopausal osteoporosis.
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Osteoporosis is a common health problem worldwide caused by an imbalance of bone formation vs. bone resorption. However, current therapeutic approaches aimed at enhancing bone formation or ...suppressing bone resorption still have some limitations. In this study, we demonstrated for the first time that cepharanthine (CEP, derived from
Hayata) exerted a protective effect on estrogen deficiency-induced bone loss. This protective effect was confirmed to be achieved through inhibition of bone resorption
, rather than through enhancement of bone formation
. Furthermore, the
study revealed that CEP attenuated receptor activator of nuclear factor κB ligand (RANKL)-induced osteoclast formation, and suppressed bone resorption by impairing the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)-AKT signaling pathways. The inhibitory effect of CEP could be partly reversed by treatment with anisomycin (a JNK and p38 agonist) and/or SC79 (an AKT agonist)
. Our results thus indicated that CEP could prevent estrogen deficiency-induced bone loss by inhibiting osteoclastogenesis. Hence, CEP might be a novel therapeutic agent for anti-osteoporosis therapy.
Global tuberculosis (TB) control is encumbered by the lack of a rapid and simple detection method for diagnosis, especially in low-resource areas. An isothermal amplification method, hyperbranched ...rolling circle amplification (HRCA), was optimized to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) in clinical sputum specimens.
A clinical validation study was performed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of HRCA. In order to analyze the detection limit of HRCA under optimal conditions, the method was initially used to detect purified H37Rv strain DNA and culture suspensions. Next, three strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) and eight strains of non-tuberculosis mycobacterium (NTM) were analyzed in order to evaluate specificity. Sputum specimens from 136 patients with diagnosed pulmonary TB, 38 lung cancer patients, and 34 healthy donors were tested by HRCA to validate the clinical application of HRCA for the rapid detection of Mtb.
The detection limit of HRCA for purified H37Rv DNA and culture suspensions was 740 aM and 200cfu/ml, respectively. The results of all MTC strains were positive in contrast to the NTM specimens which were all negative. The detection sensitivity for the 136 sputum specimens from TB patients was 77.2% (105/136), which was slightly lower than that of quantitative real-time PCR(79.4%, 108/136) and culture (80.9%,110/136). The sensitivity of all three methods was statistically higher than smear microscopy (44.9%, 61/136). The overall specificity of HRCA was 98.6% (71/72) which was similar to that of quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and smear/culture methods (100%, 72/72).
Use of the HRCA assay for detection of Mtb within clinical sputum specimens was demonstrated to be highly sensitive and specific. Moreover, the performance of HRCA is simple and cost-effective compared with qRT-PCR and is less time consuming than culture. Therefore, HRCA is a promising TB diagnostic tool that can be used routinely in low-resource clinical settings.
Video event detection is an effective way to automatically understand the semantic content of the video. However, due to the mismatch between low-level visual features and high-level semantics, the ...research of video event detection encounters a number of challenges, such as
how to extract the suitable information from video
,
how to represent the event
,
how to build up reasoning mechanism to infer the event according to video information
. In this paper, we propose a novel event detection method. The method detects the video event based on the semantic trajectory, which is a high-level semantic description of the moving object’s trajectory in the video. The proposed method consists of three phases to transform low-level visual features to middle-level raw trajectory information and then to high-level semantic trajectory information. Event reasoning is then carried out with the assistance of semantic trajectory information and background knowledge. Additionally, to release the users’ burden in manual event definition, a method is further proposed to automatically discover the event-related semantic trajectory pattern from the sample semantic trajectories. Furthermore, in order to effectively use the discovered semantic trajectory patterns, the associative classification-based event detection framework is adopted to discover the possibly occurred event. Empirical studies show our methods can effectively and efficiently detect video events.
Several studies have been performed to investigate the association between SMAD3 gene polymorphism and osteoarthritis (OA), but the results were inconclusive. This study aims to determine whether ...SMAD3 polymorphism is associated with risk of OA.
A comprehensive literature search in PubMed, Embase, and ISI Web of Science for relevant studies was performed. After extracting data from eligible studies, we chose the fixed or random effect model according to the heterogeneity test. Estimation of publication bias and sensitivity analysis were conducted to confirm the stability of this meta-analysis.
In total, 10 studies from 6 articles with 5093 OA patients and 5699 controls were enrolled in this meta-analysis. The combined results revealed significant association between SMAD3 rs12901499 polymorphism and the risk of OA (allele model: OR 1.21, 95% CI 1.07-1.38). Subgroup analysis revealed that G allele increased the risk of OA in Caucasians, but not in Asians (allele model: Caucasians: OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.18-1.44; Asians: OR 1.24, 95% CI 0.95-1.61). And the pooled results revealed significant association between SMAD3 rs12901499 polymorphism and both knee and hip OA (knee OA: OR 1.18, 95% CI 1.04-1.34; hip OA: OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.18-1.44).
The current meta-analysis revealed that the G variant of SMAD3 rs12901499 polymorphism increased the risk of OA in Caucasians. Further well-designed studies with larger sample size in different ethnic populations are required to confirm these results.
A novel photoresponsive functional monomer bearing a siloxane polymerisable group and azobenzene moieties was synthesized. This monomer was then used to prepare photoresponsive molecularly imprinted ...polymers (MIP), which have specific binding sites for 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) through hydrogen bonding moieties. The binding affinity of the imprinted recognition sites was switchable by alternate irradiations with ultraviolet and visible light, suggesting that azobenzene groups located inside the binding sites could be used as chemical sensors and the trans–cis isomerization could regulate the affinity for the 2,4-D. In addition, the concentration of the 2,4-D was able to be quantified by monitoring the trans-to-cis photoisomerization rate constant.
Breast cancer (BC) is the leading cancer affecting Chinese women; however, the immune microenvironment between molecular subtypes is less reported. This study aimed to investigate the distribution of ...tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) subpopulations, especially exhausted CD4
and CD8
TILs in Chinese BC patients.
A total of 133 patients with breast invasive ductal carcinoma were recruited consecutively from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013, and TILs were detected in H&E-stained sections. Expression profiling of PD-1, CD4, and CD8 was determined by immunohistochemistry on 4 µm formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue sections. The distribution of TILs was analyzed based on hormone receptor status and molecular subtypes.
PD-1
, CD4
, and CD8
TILs distributed differently based on molecular subtypes. Compared to Luminal A, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients had more PD-1
TILs (39/high-power field HPF vs 11/HPF), PD-1
helper T (CD4
) cells (28/HPF vs 10/HPF), and PD-1
cytotoxic (CD8
) T-cells (3/HPF vs 2/HPF).
TILs are distributed differently based on molecular subtypes. TNBC patients exhibit more PD-1
exhausted TILs, representing an inhibitory immune microenvironment. PD-1/PD-L1 pathway is a potential therapeutic target of TNBC.
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