Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic inflammatory lung disease characterized by a persistent limitation in airflow. Gut microbiota is closely correlated with lung inflammation. ...However, gut microbiota has not been studied in patients with declining lung function, due to chronic lung disease progression.
Stool samples were obtained from 55 patients with COPD that were in stable condition at enrolment (stage 1) and at a 1-year follow-up (stage 2). After extracting stool DNA, we performed next generation sequencing to analyse the distribution of gut microbiota.
Patients were divided to control and declining lung function groups, based on whether the rate of forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV
) had declined over time. An alpha diversity analysis of initial and follow-up stool samples showed a significant difference in the community richness of microbiota in the declining function group, but not in the control group. At the phylum level, Bacteroidetes was more abundant in the control group and Firmicutes was more abundant in the declining function group. The Alloprevotella genus was more abundant in the control group than in the declining function group. At 1-year follow-up, the mean proportions of Acinetobacter and Stenotrophomonas significantly increased in the control and declining function groups, respectively.
Some community shifts in gut microbiota were associated with lung function decline in COPD patients under regular treatment. Future studies should investigate the mechanism underlying alterations in lung function, due to changes in gut bacterial communities, in COPD.
3D stacking of plasmonic nanostructures is achieved using a solvent‐assisted nanotransfer printing (S‐nTP) technique to provide extremely dense and regular hot spot arrays for highly sensitive ...surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) analysis. Moreover, hybrid plasmonic nanostructures obtained by printing the nanowires on a continuous metal film or graphene surface show significantly intensified SERS signals due to vertical plasmonic coupling.
The immune checkpoint proteins were reported to involve to host resistance to Mycobacteria tuberculosis (Mtb). Here, we evaluated 11 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in PDCD1, CTLA4, and HAVCR2 ...genes between participants with and without TB infection. Genomic DNA isolated from 285 patients with TB and 270 controls without TB infection were used to perform the genotyping assay. Odds ratios were used to characterize the association of 11 SNPs with TB risk. In this study, the various genotypes of the 11 SNPs did not differ significantly in frequency between the non-TB and TB groups. When patients were stratified by sex, however, men differed significantly from women in genotype frequencies at HAVCR2 rs13170556. Odds ratios indicated that rs2227982, rs13170556, rs231775, and rs231779 were sex-specifically associated with TB risk. In addition, the combinations of rs2227982/rs13170556 GA/TC in men and the A-C-C haplotype of rs231775-rs231777-rs231779 in women were significantly associated with TB risk. Our results indicate that rs2227982 in PDCD1 and rs13170556 in HAVCR2 are associated with increased TB susceptibility in men and that the CTLA4 haplotype appears protective against TB in women.
Support vector machine (SVM) is a popular pattern classification method with many diverse applications. Kernel parameter setting in the SVM training procedure, along with the feature selection, ...significantly influences the classification accuracy. This study simultaneously determines the parameter values while discovering a subset of features, without reducing SVM classification accuracy. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) based approach for parameter determination and feature selection of the SVM, termed PSO
+
SVM, is developed.
Several public datasets are employed to calculate the classification accuracy rate in order to evaluate the developed PSO
+
SVM approach. The developed approach was compared with grid search, which is a conventional method of searching parameter values, and other approaches. Experimental results demonstrate that the classification accuracy rates of the developed approach surpass those of grid search and many other approaches, and that the developed PSO
+
SVM approach has a similar result to GA
+
SVM. Therefore, the PSO
+
SVM approach is valuable for parameter determination and feature selection in an SVM.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic respiratory disease that reduces lung and respiratory function, with a high mortality rate. Severe and acute deterioration of COPD can easily ...lead to respiratory failure, resulting in personal, social, and medical burden. Recent studies have shown a high correlation between the gut microbiota and lung inflammation. In this study, we investigated the relationship between gut microbiota and COPD severity. A total of 60 COPD patients with varying severity according to GOLD guidelines were enrolled in this study. DNA was extracted from patients' stool and 16S rRNA data analysis conducted using high-throughput sequencing followed by bioinformatics analysis. The richness of the gut microbiota was not associated with COPD severity. The gut microbiome is more similar in stage 1 and 2 COPD than stage 3+4 COPD. Fusobacterium and Aerococcus were more abundant in stage 3+4 COPD. Ruminococcaceae NK4A214 group and Lachnoclostridium were less abundant in stage 2-4, and Tyzzerella 4 and Dialister were less abundant in stage 1. However, the abundance of a Bacteroides was associated with blood eosinophils and lung function. This study suggests that no distinctive gut microbiota pattern is associated with the severity of COPD. The gut microbiome could affect COPD by gut inflammation shaping the host immune system.
A comprehensive revision of 981 specimens of fossil cockroaches from the Lower Cretaceous laminated limestones of the Crato Formation of Northeast Brazil shows that they belong to eleven taxa, ...including
,
sp. n.,
sp. n.,
;
sp. n.,
(=
, syn.n.),
sp. n.,
(=
syn.n.),
comb. n., and
(Umenocoleidae = Cratovitismidae syn.n. = Ponopterixidae syn.n.). The family Ectobiidae is numerically most abundant in the assemblage of cockroaches of the Crato Formation (83 % of cockroaches), followed by Blattulidae (13 %) and Umenocoleidae (4 %). 79.2 % of specimens are complete and fully articulated. Members of the family Alienopteridae are probably also present. Representatives of a relatively common Mesozoic superfamily Caloblattinoidea are missing. With the exception of the endemic genera
and
and the exclusively Gondwanan genus
, all other genera were cosmopolitan. Taxonomic richness of cockroaches of the Crato Formation is thus rather low, and consists of geologically long-ranging and geographically-widespread genera, genera restricted to Gondwana, and short-ranging endemic genera found in the Crato Formation only.
Abstract Background Epidemiological studies have shown that ambient air pollution is closely associated with increased respiratory inflammation and decreased lung function. Particulate matters (PMs) ...are major components of air pollution that damages lung cells. However, the mechanisms remain to be elucidated. This study examines the effects of PMs on intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) expression and the related mechanisms in vitro and in vivo. Result The cytotoxicity, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, and monocyte adherence to A549 cells were more severely affected by treatment with O-PMs (organic solvent-extractable fraction of SRM1649b) than with W-PMs (water-soluble fraction of SRM1649b). We observed a significant increase in ICAM-1 expression by O-PMs, but not W-PMs. O-PMs also induced the phosphorylation of AKT, p65, and STAT3. Pretreating A549 cells with N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), an antioxidant, attenuated O-PMs-induced ROS generation, the phosphorylation of the mentioned kinases, and the expression of ICAM-1. Furthermore, an AKT inhibitor (LY294002), NF-κB inhibitor (BAY11–7082), and STAT3 inhibitor (Stattic) significantly down-regulated O-PMs-induced ICAM-1 expression as well as the adhesion of U937 cells to epithelial cells. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) was the most significantly changed cytokine in O-PMs-treated A549 cells according to the analysis of the cytokine antibody array. The IL-6 receptor inhibitor tocilizumab (TCZ) and small interfering RNA for IL-6 significantly reduced ICAM-1 secretion and expression as well as the reduction of the AKT, p65, and STAT3 phosphorylation in O-PMs-treated A549 cells. In addition, the intratracheal instillation of PMs significantly increased the levels of the ICAM-1 and IL-6 in lung tissues and plasma in WT mice, but not in IL-6 knockout mice. Pre-administration of NAC attenuated those PMs-induced adverse effects in WT mice. Furthermore, patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) had higher plasma levels of ICAM-1 and IL-6 compared to healthy subjects. Conclusion These results suggest that PMs increase ICAM-1 expression in pulmonary epithelial cells in vitro and in vivo through the IL-6/AKT/STAT3/NF-κB signaling pathway.
The CXC chemokine ligand‐13 (CXCL13) is a chemoattractant of B cells and has been implicated in the progression of many cancers. So far, CXCL13 and its related receptor CXCR5 have been proved to ...regulate cancer cell migration as well as tumour metastasis. However, the role of CXCL13‐CXCR5 axis in metastasis of lung cancer is still poorly understood. In this study, we found that CXCL13 and CXCR5 were commonly up‐regulated in lung cancer specimens compared with normal tissues among different cohorts. Our evidence showed that CXCL13 obviously promoted migration of lung cancer cells, and this effect was mediated by vascular cell adhesion molecule‐1 (VCAM‐1) expression. We also confirmed that CXCR5, the major receptor responsible for CXCL13 function, was required for CXCL13‐promoted cell migration. We also test the candidate components which are activated after CXCL13 treatment and found that phospholipase C‐β (PLCβ), protein kinase C‐α (PKCα) and c‐Src signalling pathways were involved in CXCL13‐promoted cell migration and VCAM‐1 expression in lung cancer cells. Finally, CXCL13 stimulated NF‐κB transcription factor in lung cancer cells, contributing to VCAM‐1 expression in translational level. These evidences propose a novel insight into lung cancer metastasis which is regulated by CXCL13.
Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) are increasingly used in sunscreens, food additives, pigments, rubber manufacture, and electronic materials. Several studies have shown that ZnO-NPs inhibit cell ...growth and induce apoptosis by the production of oxidative stress in a variety of human cancer cells. However, the anti-cancer property and molecular mechanism of ZnO-NPs in human gingival squamous cell carcinoma (GSCC) are not fully understood. In this study, we found that ZnO-NPs induced growth inhibition of GSCC (Ca9-22 and OECM-1 cells), but no damage in human normal keratinocytes (HaCaT cells) and gingival fibroblasts (HGF-1 cells). ZnO-NPs caused apoptotic cell death of GSCC in a concentration-dependent manner by the quantitative assessment of oligonucleosomal DNA fragmentation. Flow cytometric analysis of cell cycle progression revealed that sub-G1 phase accumulation was dramatically induced by ZnO-NPs. In addition, ZnO-NPs increased the intracellular reactive oxygen species and specifically superoxide levels, and also decreased the mitochondrial membrane potential. ZnO-NPs further activated apoptotic cell death via the caspase cascades. Importantly, anti-oxidant and caspase inhibitor clearly prevented ZnO-NP-induced cell death, indicating the fact that superoxide-induced mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with the ZnO-NP-mediated caspase-dependent apoptosis in human GSCC. Moreover, ZnO-NPs significantly inhibited the phosphorylation of ribosomal protein S6 kinase (p70S6K kinase). In a corollary in vivo study, our results demonstrated that ZnO-NPs possessed an anti-cancer effect in a zebrafish xenograft model. Collectively, these results suggest that ZnO-NPs induce apoptosis through the mitochondrial oxidative damage and p70S6K signaling pathway in human GSCC. The present study may provide an experimental basis for ZnO-NPs to be considered as a promising novel anti‑tumor agent for the treatment of gingival cancer.
The survival rate of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients with secondary primary malignancy (SPM) showed no significant improvement for decades, however, the impact of advances in ...diagnostic tools is rarely mentioned. This study investigated the clinical characteristic of HNSCC with SPM over a 27-year period especially from the perspective of diagnostic tools.
This study evaluated 157 HNSCC patients with SPM. The patients were divided into two groups according to the time of SPM diagnosis (Group A:1992-2003; Group B: 2004-2014). Age, gender, stage of first primary malignancy (FPM), SPM interval, overall survival, and disease-free survival were compared between groups.
Group B had significantly more SPM developed rate (p = 0.002), more SPM patients with advanced stage of FPM (p = 0.001), synchronous SPM (p = 0.006), and shorter SPM interval (p<0.001) compared to Group A. The survival rate in Group B was not significantly better than Group A.
Among patients diagnosed with HNSCC recently, more SPMs are diagnosed in a shorter time interval and in a more advanced stage. The overall advances in diagnostic tools cannot significantly improve SPM survival, however, it enables more patients to receive corresponding treatment.
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