Recent experimental and observational research has suggested that childhood allergic asthma and other conditions may be the result of prenatal exposure to environmental contaminants, such as ...di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP). In a previous epidemiological study, we found that ancestral exposure (F0 generation) to endocrine disruptors or the common plasticizer DEHP promoted allergic airway inflammation via transgenerational transmission in mice from generation F1 to F4. In the current study, we employed a MethylationEPIC Beadchip microarray to examine global DNA methylation in the human placenta as a function of maternal exposure to DEHP during pregnancy. Interestingly, global DNA hypomethylation was observed in placental DNA following exposure to DEHP at high concentrations. Bioinformatic analysis confirmed that DNA methylation affected genes related to neurological disorders, such as autism and dementia. These results suggest that maternal exposure to DEHP may predispose offspring to neurological diseases. Given the small sample size in this study, the potential role of DNA methylation as a biomarker to assess the risk of these diseases deserves further investigation.
•Fibronectin was efficiently fixed on the surface of PHBV via air plasma treatment.•Fibronectin fixed on PHBV enhanced the attachment and growth of EPCs and HUVECs.•The attached EPCs and HUVECs ...exhibited correct gene expression and function.•The attached EPCs and HUVECs exhibited excellent anti-coagulation ability.•PHBV-FN is a highly promising scaffold for vascular tissue engineering.
Display omitted
Vascular diseases are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The combination of the natural polymer poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) with essential extracellular matrix proteins such as fibronectin (FN) or collagen (COL) using various methods (coating, grafting and air plasma) to create small-diameter vascular grafts holds significant promise in the field of vascular tissue engineering.
The final data from this study indicated that after conjugation, the films maintained a smooth surface area and preserved morphology. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were employed to assess the cytotoxicity, biocompatibility, and proliferation potential of cell lines treated with the synthesized films. The FN-binding PHBV and COL-binding PHBV films exhibited remarkable cell biocompatibility and cell proliferation rates. Furthermore, the treated cells exhibited specific gene expressions, including VEGFR-2, vWF, CD31, CD34, and CD133. Additionally, at specified time points, the cell retention rate and anti-coagulation ability of EPCs and HUVECs cultured on various PHBV films were tested, yielding successful outcomes.
The results suggested that FN-binding PHBV films represent an ideal bio-based polymer for applications in vascular tissue engineering.
We present a deep convolutional neural network for breast cancer screening exam classification, trained, and evaluated on over 200000 exams (over 1000000 images). Our network achieves an AUC of 0.895 ...in predicting the presence of cancer in the breast, when tested on the screening population. We attribute the high accuracy to a few technical advances. 1) Our network's novel two-stage architecture and training procedure, which allows us to use a high-capacity patch-level network to learn from pixel-level labels alongside a network learning from macroscopic breast-level labels. 2) A custom ResNet-based network used as a building block of our model, whose balance of depth and width is optimized for high-resolution medical images. 3) Pretraining the network on screening BI-RADS classification, a related task with more noisy labels. 4) Combining multiple input views in an optimal way among a number of possible choices. To validate our model, we conducted a reader study with 14 readers, each reading 720 screening mammogram exams, and show that our model is as accurate as experienced radiologists when presented with the same data. We also show that a hybrid model, averaging the probability of malignancy predicted by a radiologist with a prediction of our neural network, is more accurate than either of the two separately. To further understand our results, we conduct a thorough analysis of our network's performance on different subpopulations of the screening population, the model's design, training procedure, errors, and properties of its internal representations. Our best models are publicly available at https://github.com/nyukat/breast_cancer_classifier .
Gallic acid (GA) has been reported to have beneficial effects on cancer, vascular calcification, and diabetes-induced myocardial dysfunction. We hypothesized that GA controls hypertension via ...oxidative stress response regulation in an animal model for essential hypertension. Spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) were administered GA for 16 weeks. GA treatment lowered elevated systolic blood pressure in SHRs through the inhibition of vascular contractility and components of the renin-angiotensin II system. In addition, GA administration reduced aortic wall thickness and body weight in SHRs. In SHRs, GA attenuated left ventricular hypertrophy and reduced the expression of cardiac-specific transcription factors. NADPH oxidase 2 (Nox2) and GATA4 mRNA expression was induced in SHR hearts and angiotensin II-treated H9c2 cells; this expression was downregulated by GA treatment. Nox2 promoter activity was increased by the synergistic action of GATA4 and Nkx2-5. GA seems to regulate oxidative stress by inhibiting the DNA binding activity of GATA4 in the rat Nox2 promoter. GA reduced the GATA4-induced Nox activity in SHRs and angiotensin II-treated H9c2 cells. GA administration reduced the elevation of malondialdehyde levels in heart tissue obtained from SHRs. These findings suggest that GA is a potential therapeutic agent for treating cardiac hypertrophy and oxidative stress in SHRs.
OBP-301 is an oncolytic adenovirus modified to replicate within cancer cells and lyse them. This open-label, non-comparative, phase I dose-escalation trial aimed to assess its safety and optimal ...dosage in 20 patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. Good tolerance was shown with a maximum tolerated dose of 6 × 1012 viral particles. The most common treatment-emergent adverse events were influenza-like illness, pyrexia, fatigue, decreased platelet count, abdominal distension, and anemia. Cohorts 4 and 5 had approximately 50% higher levels of CD8+ T cells in the peripheral blood after injection. The best target response occurred in 14 patients, 4 of whom had progressive disease. Multiple intratumoral injections of OBP-301 were well tolerated in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. The stable disease rate for the injected tumors was greater than the overall response rate, even with no obvious tumor response. OBP-301 might have a greater impact on local response as histological examination revealed that the presence of OBP-301 was consistent with the necrotic area at the injection site. Increased infiltration of CD8+ T cells and <1% PD-L1 expression were observed in tumors after injection. Improved antitumor efficacy might be achieved in future studies via viral injection with volume adjustment and in combination with other immuno-therapeutics.
Display omitted
Heo and colleagues find that the stable disease rate for injected tumors was greater than overall response rate, and OBP-301 was well tolerated. OBP-301 injection modulates the tumor microenvironment. Despite multiple prior HCC therapies, patients had acceptable ECOG performance statuses and liver function.
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) or cancer-initiating cells (CICs) are key factors for tumor generation and metastasis. We investigated a filtration method to enhance CSCs (CICs) from colon carcinoma HT-29 ...cells and primary colon carcinoma cells derived from patient colon tumors using poly(lactide-co-glycolic acid)/silk screen (PLGA/SK) filters. The colon carcinoma cell solutions were permeated via porous filters to obtain a permeation solution. Then, the cell cultivation media were permeated via the filters to obtain the recovered solution, where the colon carcinoma cells that adhered to the filters were washed off into the recovered solution. Subsequently, the filters were incubated in the culture media to obtain the migrated cells via the filters. Colon carcinoma HT-29 cells with high tumorigenicity, which might be CSCs (CICs), were enhanced in the cells in the recovered solution and in the migrated cells based on the CSC (CIC) marker expression, colony-forming unit assay, and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) production. Although primary colon carcinoma cells isolated from colon tumor tissues contained fibroblast-like cells, the primary colon carcinoma cells were purified from fibroblast-like cells by filtration through PLGA/SK filters, indicating that the filtration method is effective in purifying primary colon carcinoma cells.
Automatic Content-Aware Color and Tone Stylization Joon-Young Lee; Sunkavalli, Kalyan; Zhe Lin ...
2016 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR),
2016-June
Conference Proceeding
Open access
We introduce a new technique that automatically generates diverse, visually compelling stylizations for a photograph in an unsupervised manner. We achieve this by learning style ranking for a given ...input using a large photo collection and selecting a diverse subset of matching styles for final style transfer. We also propose an improved technique that transfers the global color and tone of the chosen exemplars to the input photograph while avoiding the common visual artifacts produced by the existing style transfer methods. Together, our style selection and transfer techniques produce compelling, artifact-free results on a wide range of input photographs, and a user study shows that our results are preferred over other techniques.
Piceatannol, a resveratrol metabolite, is a phenolic compound found in red wine and grapes. We investigated the effect of piceatannol on renal fibrosis and histone deacetylase (HDAC) expression in a ...mouse model of unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO). Fibrosis was established by UUO and piceatannol was intraperitoneally injected for 2 weeks. Piceatannol suppressed extracellular matrix (ECM) protein deposition including collagen type I and fibronectin as well as connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) in UUO kidneys. However, the expressions of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) marker genes, such as N-cadherin and E-cadherin, were not changed in the kidneys after UUO. Masson's trichrome staining and fluorescence immunostaining showed that piceatannol administration attenuated collagen deposition in UUO kidneys. HDAC1, HDAC4, HDAC5, HDAC6, and HDAC10 protein expression was upregulated in UUO kidneys, whereas that of HDAC8 was downregulated. Piceatannol treatment significantly reduced HDAC4 and HDAC5 protein expression. Further, piceatannol attenuated phosphorylation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38-MAPK) in UUO kidneys, but not that of transforming growth factor beta1-Smad2/3. These results suggest that class I HDACs and class IIa/b HDACs are involved in renal fibrosis development. Piceatannol may be a beneficial therapeutic agent for treating renal fibrosis via reduction of HDAC4 and HDAC5 protein expression or suppression of the p38-MAPK signaling pathway.
Analyses of data from genome-wide association studies on unrelated individuals have shown that, for human traits and diseases, approximately one-third to two-thirds of heritability is captured by ...common SNPs. However, it is not known whether the remaining heritability is due to the imperfect tagging of causal variants by common SNPs, in particular whether the causal variants are rare, or whether it is overestimated due to bias in inference from pedigree data. Here we estimated heritability for height and body mass index (BMI) from whole-genome sequence data on 25,465 unrelated individuals of European ancestry. The estimated heritability was 0.68 (standard error 0.10) for height and 0.30 (standard error 0.10) for body mass index. Low minor allele frequency variants in low linkage disequilibrium (LD) with neighboring variants were enriched for heritability, to a greater extent for protein-altering variants, consistent with negative selection. Our results imply that rare variants, in particular those in regions of low linkage disequilibrium, are a major source of the still missing heritability of complex traits and disease.
PDF
