Context: Coptidis rhizome (CR), also known as Huanglian in Chinese, is the rhizome of Coptis chinensis Franch., C. deltoidea C.Y. Cheng et Hsiao, or C. teeta Wall (Ranunculaceae). It has been widely ...used to treat bacillary dysentery, diabetes, pertussis, sore throat, aphtha, and eczema in China.
Objectives: The present paper reviews the latest advances of CR, focusing on the botany, phytochemistry, traditional usages, pharmacokinetics, pharmacology and toxicology of CR and its future perspectives.
Methods: Studies from 1985 to 2018 were reviewed from books; PhD. and MSc. dissertations; the state and local drug standards; PubMed; CNKI; Scopus; the Web of Science; and Google Scholar using the keywords Coptis, Coptidis Rhizoma, Huanglian, and goldthread.
Results: Currently, 128 chemical constituents have been isolated and identified from CR. Alkaloids are the characteristic components, together with organic acids, coumarins, phenylpropanoids and quinones. The extracts/compounds isolated from CR cover a wide pharmacological spectrum, including antibacterial, antivirus, antifungal, antidiabetic, anticancer and cardioprotective effects. Berberine is the most important active constituent and the primary toxic component of CR.
Conclusions: As an important herbal medicine in Chinese medicine, CR has the potential to treat various diseases. However, further research should be undertaken to investigate the clinical effects, toxic constituents, target organs and pharmacokinetics, and to establish criteria for quality control, for CR and its related medications. In addition, the active constituents, other than alkaloids, in both raw and processed products of CR should be investigated.
Acoustic metamaterials with artificial microstructures are attractive to realize intriguing functions, including efficient waveguiding, which requires large impedance mismatches to realize total side ...reflection with negligible transmission and absorption. While large impedance mismatch can be readily realized in an air environment, acoustic waveguiding in an underwater environment remains elusive due to insufficient impedance mismatch of state‐of‐the‐art metamaterials. Here, a superhydrophobic acoustic metasurface of microstructured poly(vinylidene fluoride) membrane, referred to as a “meta‐skin” insulator, which is able to confine acoustic waves in an all‐angle and wide spectrum range due to tremendous impedance mismatch at stable air/water interfaces, viz., the Cassie–Baxter state is demonstrated. By utilizing the meta‐skin insulator with broadband and high throughput, orbital‐angular‐momentum multiplexing at a high spectral efficiency and binary coding along large‐angle bending channels for bit‐error‐free acoustic data transmission in an underwater environment are demonstrated. Very different from optical and/or electrical cable communications, acoustic waves can be simply and effectively coupled into remote meta‐skin acoustic fibers from free space, which is technologically significant for long‐haul and anti‐interference communication. This work can enlighten many fluidic applications based on efficient waveguiding, such as in vivo ultrasound medical treatment and imaging.
Underwater acoustic wave confinement in an all‐angle and wide spectrum range can be realized in a meta‐skin insulator due to the tremendous impedance mismatch originating from the stable Cassie–Baxter state. Acoustic‐wave‐based underwater orbital‐angular‐momentum multiplexing and binary coding are implemented, which is promising for long‐haul and anti‐interference communication. This work also benefits in vivo ultrasound medical treatment and imaging.
microRNA-19a-3p (miR-19a-3p) has been reported to regulate cell proliferation in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but its role in HCC metastasis remains unknown. In this study, miR-19a-3p was noted to ...be upregulated in HCC specimens and cell lines. Aberrant expression of miR-19a-3p stimulated HCC cell metastasis, and phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) was shown to be a direct target of miR-19a-3p. miR-19a-3p-mediated HCC metastasis was reversed by restoration of PTEN or could be imitated by silencing of PTEN. Modulation of miR-19a-3p also altered expression of phosphorylated Akt, a downstream mediator of PTEN. Moreover, aberrant expression of miR-19a-3p induced sorafenib resistance by regulating the PTEN/Akt pathway. In conclusion, ectopic expression of miR-19a-3p contributes to HCC metastasis and chemoresistance by modulating PTEN expression and the PTEN-dependent pathways.
In order to process the high-dimensionally complicated problems, the intelligence systems need to go deeper to learn high-level data representation. In this article, based on the stacked ...generalization principle, a multilayered stacked learning system is proposed. Like the deep networks, the proposed system is organized in a layer-by-layer way with evolving fuzzy systems (EFSs) as its base-building units. Each EFS is designed as an autoencoder (AE) to learn the simpler data representation, then multiple EFS-based AEs are stacked in a feedforward manner for learning more complex data representation. Since there exists the redundant or irrelevant information in the new data representation, which may limit high generalization, a novel feature compressing layer is followed by each EFS-based AE to refine the new data representation and reduce the feature dimension via very sparse random projection (VSRP). The proposed system is featured in the following merits: 1) more expressive and complex data representation can be learned in a stacked multilayer architecture; 2) manually tuning the structure of each AE is avoided in every layer since the EFS can self-adapt both its structure and parameters online; 3) the resulting system can avoid overfitting and obtain higher generalization by removing redundant or irrelevant information via VSRP; 4) the steady-state error analysis of the proposed system is studied based on the separable approximation property, which guarantees the learning convergence of the resulting system. Our experimental results on various benchmark datasets indicate the efficacy of the proposed system.
Angio-associated migratory cell protein (AAMP) is a protein that participates in cell migration and is reported to be involved in cancer progression. However, the molecular mechanism of AAMP in ...pan-cancer is not known.
We used multi-omics data, such as TIMER, TCGA, GTEx, CPTAC, HPA, and cBioPortal to analyze AAMP expression, and gene alteration in pan-cancer. Univariate Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier were utilized to explore prognostic significance of AAMP expression level. We applied Spearman analysis to investigate the correlation between AAMP and TMB, MSI, immune cell infiltration, immune checkpoints. Moreover, we mainly studied liver hepatocellular carcinoma(LIHC) to explore AAMP expression, clinical significance, and prognosis. Cox regression analysis was used to study independent factor to predict prognosis for AAMP in LIHC. GSEA was utilized to investigate the biological function for AAMP in LIHC.
AAMP was overexpressed in most cancers, and high AAMP expression was associated with worse overall survival (OS), disease-specific survival (DSS), and progress-free interval (PFI) for LIHC and adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC). Moreover, AAMP had the highest mutation frequency in uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC). AAMP was correlated with TMB and MSI in esophageal carcinoma (ESCA), stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD), lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC), and thyroid carcinoma (THCA). Then, we focus on LIHC to investigate the expression and prognosis of AAMP. AAMP overexpression was related to histological grade and pathological stage in LIHC. Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that AAMP overexpression was an independent adverse prognostic marker for LIHC. AAMP expression was correlated with immune cell infiltration and immune checkpoints in LIHC. Function enrichment analysis indicated the participation of AAMP in the cell cycle and DNA replication.
AAMP was a latent prognostic indicator for pan-cancer and had high potential as a biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of LIHC.
Evolving fuzzy systems (EFSs) are a type of adaptive fuzzy rule-based systems which can self-adapt both their structures and parameters simultaneously. However, the existing EFSs suffer from two ...drawbacks: 1) classical EFSs usually use all input features to model systems, resulting in lengthy fuzzy rules; 2) some redundant information in fuzzy rules may hinder high generalization. To address these two issues, a promising method is proposed in this paper by combining very sparse random projection (VSRP) with a class of EFSs based-on data clouds, called VSRP-AnYa-EFS. The proposed method introduces: 1) a random sparse-Bernoulli (RSB) matrix based-on VSRP is utilized to compress the lengthy antecedent part into a tighter form, triggering a feature-reduction mechanism. By employing VSRP in RSB matrix, some redundant information in fuzzy rules can be filtered; 2) Local learning is used for consequent parameter optimization to suit decoupled behavior of rules after redundant information between rules is deleted. By adopting VSRP and local learning, the proposed VSRP-AnYa-EFS owns a compact structure and fast learning speed. Numerical examples presented in this paper demonstrate that the proposed method can significantly reduce training time from hours to minutes while the accuracy can be improved up to 5%.
Background
Calcium‐binding tyrosine phosphorylation‐regulated protein (CABYR) is a group of isoforms produced by alternative splicing and is overexpressed in human malignancies including ...hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the prognostic value and biological functions of its major protein isoforms, named CABYR‐a/b (combined CABYR‐a and CABYR‐b), in HCC remain to be established.
Methods
CABYR‐a/b expression was detected in HCC tissues and cell lines by quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction and Western blot analysis. The correlation of CABYR‐a/b expression with clinical characteristics and its prognosis impact were determined by statistical analysis. Finally, the biological functions and molecular mechanism of CABYR‐a/b were also investigated using molecular biology approaches.
Results
The present research found that CABYR‐a/b was markedly elevated in HCC specimens and cell lines. Upregulated CABYR‐a/b level had positive association with tumor size and differentiation in patients. Moreover, cases with elevated CABYR‐a/b level had poorer overall survival (OS) and disease‐free survival (DFS) than those with reduced CABYR‐a/b level. Multivariate analysis and prognostic nomograms demonstrated that CABYR‐a/b overexpression was an independent predictive indicator for OS and DFS. The calibration curve for the odds of OS and DFS demonstrated that the prediction by nomograms was in excellent accordance with actual situation. CABYR‐a/b downregulation suppressed cell proliferation and induced G1‐phase arrest via decreasing cyclin D1 and cyclin dependent kinase 4, while promoted apoptosis by reducing B‐cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl‐2) and increasing Bcl‐2‐associated death promoter.
Conclusion
Our research indicates that CABYR‐a/b exerts an oncogenic effect on HCC development and may become a new prognostic indicator for patients with HCC.
The present study has established that calcium‐binding tyrosine phosphorylation‐regulated protein (CABYR‐a/b) overexpression is an independent prognostic factor for overall survival and disease‐free survival in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The calibration curve for probability of survival indicates excellent agreement between prediction by nomograms and actual observation. Mechanistically, CABYR‐a/b suppresses cell proliferation through regulating cyclin D1 and CDK4, and promotes cell apoptosis through modulating Bcl‐2 and BAD, thus functioning as an oncogene in HCC.
Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is the main cause of leg pain in middle‑aged and elderly individuals. Hyaluronic acid (HA), as well as curcuminoid, has been used in the treatment of knee OA. In the present ...study, HA/chitosan nanoparticles (CNPs) were prepared for the delivery of curcuminoid, in order to investigate whether HA and curcuminoid can act synergistically as a better treatment option. The knee OA model was established by the Hulth method, and a knee OA chondrocyte model was constructed by the co‑induction of interleukin‑1β and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)‑α. The drug loading capacity of HA/CNP for the delivery of curcuminoid was measured by an ultraviolet assay, and the cytotoxicity to chondrocytes was measured by an MTT assay. Collagen II was detected by immunofluorescence, and the expression levels of nuclear factor (NF)‑κB and inflammation‑related genes in cartilage tissue and chondrocytes were detected. Chondrocyte proliferation was determined by an EdU assay, and chondrocyte apoptosis was determined by flow cytometry. The Mankin pathological score of the Outerbridge classification was obtained. The results demonstrated that the optimum drug loading capacity of HA/CNP for the delivery of curcuminoid was 38.44%, with a good sustained release function. HA/CNP treatment resulted in inhibition of the NF‑κB pathway, as well as the expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)‑1 and MMP‑13, but it increased collagen II expression. HA/CNP for the delivery of curcuminoid significantly decreased the Outerbridge classification and Mankin pathological scores to close to normal until the 4th week. Furthermore, it was also observed that all the effects of HA/CNP on the delivery of curcuminoid were more prominent compared with the effects of HA or curcuminoid treatment individually. Taken together, these findings demonstrated that HA/CNP for the delivery of curcuminoid may suppress inflammation and chondrocyte apoptosis in knee OA via repression of the NF‑κB pathway.
The type and placement of chest tube for patients undergoing uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomy remains controversial. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy and safety of a ...novel technique in which a pigtail catheter was used alone as the chest tube and placed near the incision for chest drainage after uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomy and extended lymphadenectomy.
A total of 217 patients undergoing uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomy were retrospectively reviewed and divided into two groups. In group A, a 12-Fr pigtail catheter with several side ports was placed next to the uniportal wound. In group B, a conventional 20-Fr chest tube was placed through the uniportal wound itself. Postoperative complications related to chest tube placement and patients' subjective satisfaction were compared between the two groups. Postoperative pain management effect and other clinical outcomes such as duration of chest drainage and postoperative stay were also compared.
There were 112 patients in group A and 105 patients in group B. A significantly lower incidence of wound complications was found in group A postoperatively (p = 0.034). The pain score on coughing in group A was significantly lower than that in group B on postoperative day two (POD2) (p = 0.021). There was no significant difference of other clinical outcomes such as duration of chest drainage and postoperative stay as well as major complications between the two groups.
Placing a 12-Fr pigtail catheter alone next to the uniportal wound for chest drainage might be effective and safe after uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomy and extended lymphadenectomy.
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