Collagen triple helix repeat containing 1 (CTHRC1), a secreted glycoprotein, is widely expressed in many tissues. It has been recently defined as a novel marker for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a ...systemic inflammatory disorder. However, the precise role of CTHRC1 in other chronic inflammatory diseases, like periodontal disease, remains unclear. This research aimed to explore the presence of CTHRC1 in periodontal inflammation, determine the precise role in inflammatory response modulation in periodontal ligament cells (PDLCs), and explore its underlying mechanisms.
In vivo
gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) and gingivae were obtained from healthy people and chronic periodontitis patients. Maxillary tissues of mice with or without ligature-induced periodontitis were immunostained for CTHRC1.
In vitro
human PDLCs were treated with tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) to mimic the inflammatory environment. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) was used to silence CTHRC1. SB203580 was used to inhibit the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. CTHRC1 was highly expressed in GCF and gingival tissues of periodontitis patients. Animal models also revealed the same tendency. CTHRC1 knockdown promoted inflammatory cytokine production and activated the p38 MAPK signaling pathway in PDLCs. Inhibiting the p38 MAPK signaling pathway partially attenuated the inflammatory responses. This study revealed that CTHRC1 was highly expressed in periodontitis and suggested that CTHRC1 might play an important role in modulating periodontal inflammation.
Uterine fluid contains a high concentration of
HCO
3
-
which plays an essential role in sperm capacitation and fertilization. In addition, the
HCO
3
-
concentration in uterine fluid changes ...periodically during the estrous cycle. It is well-known that the endometrial epithelium contains machineries involving the apical SLC26 family anion exchangers for secreting
HCO
3
-
into the uterine fluid. In the present study, we find for the first time that the electroneutral Na
+
/
HCO
3
-
cotransporter NBCn1 is expressed at the apical membrane of the endometrial epithelium. The protein abundance of the apical NBCn1 and that of the apical SLC26A4 and SLC26A6 are reciprocally regulated during the estrous cycle in the uterus. NBCn1 is most abundant at diestrus, whereas SLC26A4/A6 are most abundant at proestrus/estrus. In the ovariectomized mice, the expression of uterine NBCn1 is inhibited by β-estradiol, but stimulated by progesterone, whereas that of uterine SLC26A4/A6 is stimulated by β-estradiol.
In vivo
perfusion studies show that the endometrial epithelium is capable of both secreting and reabsorbing
HCO
3
-
. Moreover, the activity for
HCO
3
-
secretion by the endometrial epithelium is significantly higher at estrus than it is at diestrus. The opposite is true for
HCO
3
-
reabsorption. We conclude that the endometrial epithelium simultaneously contains the activity for
HCO
3
-
secretion involving the apical SLC26A4/A6 and the activity for
HCO
3
-
reabsorption involving the apical NBCn1, and that the acid-base homeostasis in the uterine fluid is regulated by the finely-tuned balance of the two activities.
The selection of open prostatectomy (OP) over transurethral laser surgery is controversial for large volume prostates. Thus, we aim to compare the efficacy and safety of transurethral laser versus ...OP, and provide the latest evidence of clinical practice for large-sized benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).
This meta-analysis used Review Manager V5.3 software and the systematic literature search of Cochrane Library, Embase, PubMed, and Web of Science datasets was performed for citations published from 2000 to 2020 that compared transurethral laser with OP for the treatment of large BPH. Variables of interest assessing the two techniques included clinical characteristics, and the perioperation-, effectiveness-, and complication-related outcomes.
The meta-analysis included twelve studies containing 1,514 patients, with 792 laser and 722 OP. The transurethral laser group was associated with shorter hospital stay and catheterization duration, and less hemoglobin decreased in the perioperative variables. There was no significant difference in the international prostate symptom score, post-void residual urine volume, maximum flow rate, and quality of life score. Transurethral laser group had a significantly lower incidence of blood transfusion than OP group (odds ratio, 0.10; 95% confidence interval, 0.05 to 0.19; p<0.001; I²=8%), and no statistical differences were found with respect to the other complications.
Both OP and transurethral laser prostatectomy are effective and safe treatments for large prostate adenomas. With these advantages of less blood loss and transfusion, and shorter catheterization time and hospital stay, laser may be a better choice for large BPH.
There is strong scientific evidence linking obesity and overweight to the risk of various cancers and to cancer survivorship. Nevertheless, the existing online information about the relationship ...between obesity and cancer is poorly organized, not evidenced-based, of poor quality, and confusing to health information consumers. A formal knowledge representation such as a Semantic Web knowledge base (KB) can help better organize and deliver quality health information. We previously presented the OC-2-KB (Obesity and Cancer to Knowledge Base), a software pipeline that can automatically build an obesity and cancer KB from scientific literature. In this work, we investigated crowdsourcing strategies to increase the number of ground truth annotations and improve the quality of the KB.
We developed a new release of the OC-2-KB system addressing key challenges in automatic KB construction. OC-2-KB automatically extracts semantic triples in the form of subject-predicate-object expressions from PubMed abstracts related to the obesity and cancer literature. The accuracy of the facts extracted from scientific literature heavily relies on both the quantity and quality of the available ground truth triples. Thus, we incorporated a crowdsourcing process to improve the quality of the KB.
We conducted two rounds of crowdsourcing experiments using a new corpus with 82 obesity and cancer-related PubMed abstracts. We demonstrated that crowdsourcing is indeed a low-cost mechanism to collect labeled data from non-expert laypeople. Even though individual layperson might not offer reliable answers, the collective wisdom of the crowd is comparable to expert opinions. We also retrained the relation detection machine learning models in OC-2-KB using the crowd annotated data and evaluated the content of the curated KB with a set of competency questions. Our evaluation showed improved performance of the underlying relation detection model in comparison to the baseline OC-2-KB.
We presented a new version of OC-2-KB, a system that automatically builds an evidence-based obesity and cancer KB from scientific literature. Our KB construction framework integrated automatic information extraction with crowdsourcing techniques to verify the extracted knowledge. Our ultimate goal is a paradigm shift in how the general public access, read, digest, and use online health information.
Introduction Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) play an important role in the prevention of cell and tissue fibrosis. Senescence may decrease the function of MSCs during recovery from tissue and organ ...damage. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) released from MSCs contribute to the repair of kidney injury. We explored the influence of senescence on EVs derived from MSCs (MSC-EVs) and detected the protective effects of MSC-EVs expressing low levels of miR-294/miR-133 derived from old rats against chronic kidney disease (CKD). Methods The effects of MSC-EVs derived from 3-month-old and 18-month-old male Fisher 344 rats on renal fibrosis were explored in a unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) model. pLV-miR-294/pLV-miR-133 mimic/inhibitor were injected into young and old rats before UUO to detect the effects of miR-294/miR-133, which were decreased in MSC-EVs and sera from old rats, on renal function in CKD. Transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1)-induced human renal proximal tubular epithelial (HK2) cells were used to imitate the pathological process of renal fibrosis in vitro. Western blotting was used to assess the expression of epithelial/mesenchymal markers and phosphorylation of proteins in HK2 cells. Results The inhibition of UUO-induced CKD by MSC-EVs was weaker in old rats than in young rats. Downregulation of miRNAs (miR-294 and miR-133) in both MSC-EVs and sera from old rats obviously attenuated UUO-induced renal injury in old rats. miR-294 and miR-133 overexpression mitigated TGF-beta1-mediated epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in HK2 cells, and the obvious increase in the phosphorylation of both SMAD2/3 and ERK1/2 induced by TGF-beta1 was prevented in miR-294- and miR-133-overexpressing HK2 cells. Conclusions The ability of MSC-EVs to inhibit renal fibrosis decreased with age. miR-294/miR-133 in MSC-EVs and sera had an important effect on renal fibrosis in old rats and on EMT in HK2 cells. Furthermore, miR-294/miR-133 overexpression prevented SMAD2/3 and ERK1/2 phosphorylation in HK2 cells during TGF-beta1-mediated EMT. These findings show that miR-294/miR-133 may be therapeutic in renal fibrosis and related renal dysfunction in elderly individuals. Keywords: Extracellular vesicle, Mesenchymal stromal cell, miRNAs, Old, Chronic kidney disease
To investigate the incidence, distribution, and spread pattern of retropharyngeal lymph node (RLN) involvement in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) by using magnetic resonance imaging ...(MRI).
The MR images of 275 patients with newly diagnosed NPC were reviewed retrospectively. Nodes were classified as metastatic based on size criteria, the presence of nodal necrosis, and extracapsular spread.
Retropharyngeal lymph node involvement was detected in 175 (63.6%) patients. Metastatic RLNs were seen at the following levels: occipital bone, 24 (9.6%) nodes; C1, 157 (62.5%) nodes; C1/2, 40 (15.9%) nodes; C2, 27 (10.8%) nodes; C2/3, 1 (0.4%) node; and C3, 2 (0.8%) nodes. The incidence of RLN involvement was equal to the incidence of cervical lymph node involvement (81.4% vs. 81.4%) in 215 patients with nodal metastases. A significantly higher incidence of metastatic RLNs was observed in the presence of oropharynx, prestyloid parapharyngeal space, post-styloid parapharyngeal space, longus colli muscle, medial pterygoid muscle, levator muscle of velum palatini, tensor muscle of velum palatini, Level II node, Level III node, and Level V node involvement. A significantly lower incidence of metastatic RLNs was found in T1, N0, and Stage I disease. Conversely, no significant difference in the incidence of metastatic RLNs was observed between T1, 2, and, 3; N2 and N3; or Stage II, III, and IV disease.
There is an orderly decrease in the incidence of metastatic lateral RLNs from the C1 to C3 level. Metastatic RLNs associate well with involvement of certain structures in early stage primary tumors and lymph node metastases of the upper jugular chain (Level II, Level III nodes) and the posterior triangle (Level V nodes). Both RLNs and cervical Level II nodes appear to be the first-echelon nodes in NPC.
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•Thiourea leaching with mechanical activation was proposed to extract gold from calcine.•The addition of CMN can effectively prevent the passivation by sulfur and the agglomeration of ...particles.•The mechanism of CMN and mechanical activation is revealed.•This process proposed in this work can efficiently and cleanly extract gold.•This process has a potential application in industry.
Non-cyanide gold leaching serves as a promising green approach for eliminating cyanide utilization and the resulting environmental pollution from cyanide use. In this work, thiourea leaching combined with mechanical activation was employed to extract gold from a refractory gold concentrate calcine. The optimal reaction conditions were determined as: 2.5 g/L thiourea, 2 g/L Fe3+, 0.6 g/L CMN, 45 Hz input frequency, liquid to solid ratio (L/S) of 4, temperature of 40 °C, and leaching time of 55 min. Addition of sodium lignosulfonate increased gold extraction from 93.6% to 96.5%. Mechanical activation proved to be a promising method to reduce the particle size of minerals, which effectively increases the specific surface area and pore diameter of minerals and thus strengthens the leaching reaction. Furthermore, CMN is capable of preventing particle agglomeration and the coating by a sulfur passivation layer, which enhances gold extraction efficiency. Additionally, a pilot-scale test was conducted to validate the reliability of this novel technique. The pilot-scale tests proved this method to be an efficient process for gold extraction with opportunities for scaling up.
Deficits in the flexibility of the quadriceps are one of the risk factors for developing knee joint disorders. No studies have investigated the changes in the stiffness of the quadriceps muscle among ...patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate changes in the stiffness of specific-muscle of the quadriceps in patients with knee OA and their relationship with functional ability. Twenty-five patients with knee OA and 25 healthy, asymptomatic subjects were recruited in this study. The stiffness of the vastus lateralis (VL), vastus medialis (VM) and rectus femoris (RF) in all participants was evaluated using MyotonPRO at 60° and 90° flexion of the knee joint. The results of this study showed a greater VL stiffness in patients with knee OA than in healthy subjects at both 60° and 90° of knee flexion (
< 0.05). Significant differences in VL, VM and RF stiffness were obtained at different knee joint angles in individuals with and without knee OA (
< 0.05). In addition, there was a positive correlation between VL stiffness and the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) scores in patients with Knee OA (60° of knee flexion:
= 0.508,
= 0.010; 90° of knee flexion:
= 0.456,
= 0.022). These results indicate that there is an increase in VL stiffness in patients with knee OA compared with healthy, asymptomatic subjects, and the quadriceps stiffness was increased with knee flexion in both healthy subjects and patients with knee OA. VL stiffness is associated with WOMAC scores in patients with knee OA.
Five new guaiane dimers, xylopidimers A–E (1–5), were isolated and identified from the roots of Xylopia vielana. The structures of 1–5 were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis and further confirmed ...by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. On the basis of the results of single-crystal X-ray analysis, 1–5 showed different carbon skeletons. Among these compounds, the unique connecting patterns of 1 and 2 caused significant differences on their carbon skeletons, which have not been reported. Moreover, 3–5 were also three new guaiane dimers. Among these compounds, 4 exhibited potent inhibitory activity against the production of nitric oxide with an IC50 value of 4.59 μM in RAW264.7 cells stimulated by lipopolysaccharide.
This work investigated the selective removal of arsenic from a lead‑antimony‑zinc-containing high arsenic dust in alkaline solution. The effects of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) concentration, temperature, ...leaching time, liquid-solid ratio (L/S) and the presence of elemental sulfur on the dissolution of arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), lead (Pb) and Zinc (Zn) in NaOH solution were studied. The results show that the addition of elemental sulfur can effectively restrain the leaching of lead, antimony and zinc from high arsenic dust. Antimony trioxide (Sb2O3), arsenic trioxide (As2O3), basic lead arsenate Pb5(AsO4)3OH and zinc arsenate Zn3(AsO4)2 in the raw materials were converted into sodium antimonate hydrate NaSb(OH)6, lead sulfide (PbS) and zinc sulfide (ZnS). Arsenic existed in the leaching solution in the form of AsO33− or AsO43−. 99.8% of Arsenic was leached under the optimized conditions, while about 98.2% of antimony, 99.9% of lead and 99.8% of zinc remained in the leach residue with the arsenic concentration less than 0.1%. In addition, the kinetics of arsenic leaching from high arsenic dust was investigated, with the calculated apparent activation energy of 7.62 kJ/mol. The results show that arsenic leaching is a diffusion-controlled process in the solid film, and the solid film was inferred as the lead sulfide, zinc sulfide and sodium antimonate hydrate. This study provides an efficient, clean and environmental-friendly method for arsenic separation from high arsenic dust, together with recovering valuable metals. It is expected to be a promising alternative for recycling various As-Pb-Sb-Zn-containing complicated materials.
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•A selective removal of arsenic from lead‑antimony-zinc-containing high arsenic dust in NaOH-S system was proposed.•NaOH-S system could solve the problem of high antimony leaching efficiency in the process of arsenic removal in NaOH-Na2S system.•98.17% of Sb, 99.85% of Pb and 99.75% of Zn remained in the leaching residue with the arsenic concentration less than 0.1%.•The behavior of sulfur, arsenic, lead, antimony and zinc were analyzed.•The leaching kinetics investigation suggests that the arsenic selective leaching is a diffusion-controlled process in the solid film.
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