Long non-coding RNAs (LncRNAs) are dysregulated in multiple human cancers and they are highly involved in tumor progression. Previous studies have identified the oncogenic lncRNA HOXD cluster ...antisense RNA 1 (HOXD-AS1) in human cancers, while its roles in cervical cancer (CC) remain unclear. Herein we intended to characterize the implication of HOXD-AS1 in CC.
qRT-PCR was applied to examine the relative expression of HOXD-AS1 in CC tissues, cell lines and transfected cells. Wound healing and transwell assays were applied to detect cell migration and invasion alteration. The targeting relationship between miRNA and mRNA/lncRNA was determined by dual luciferase reporter, qRT-PCR and western blot assays.
HOXD-AS1 was overexpressed in CC tissues and cell lines. Its higher level predicted worse prognosis of CC patients. SiRNA mediated knockdown of HOXD-AS1 repressed CC cell migration and invasion, and its overexpression did the opposite. Mechanistically, HOXD-AS1 acted as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) to sponge miR-877-3p and led to upregulation of FGF2, a target of miR-877-3p. Importantly, either miR-877-3p overexpression or FGF2 inhibition could abolish the migration and invasion promotion induced by HOXD-AS1.
HOXD-AS1 functions as a tumor-promoting lncRNA via the miR-877-3p/FGF2 axis in CC. HOXD-AS1 might be a promising therapeutic target as well as a novel prognostic biomarker for CC.
In the present study, indoor and outdoor air samples were collected using four types of air samplers often used for airborne bacterial sampling. These air samplers included two solid impactors ...(BioStage and RCS), one liquid impinger (BioSampler), and one filter sampler with two kinds of filters (a gelatin and a cellulose acetate filter). The collected air samples were further processed to analyze the diversity and abundance of culturable bacteria and total bacteria through standard culture techniques, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) fingerprinting and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis.
The DGGE analysis indicated that the air samples collected using the BioStage and RCS samplers have higher culturable bacterial diversity, whereas the samples collected using the BioSampler and the cellulose acetate filter sampler have higher total bacterial diversity. To obtain more information on the sampled bacteria, some gel bands were excised and sequenced. In terms of sampling efficiency, results from the qPCR tests indicated that the collected total bacterial concentration was higher in samples collected using the BioSampler and the cellulose acetate filter sampler.
In conclusion, the sampling bias and efficiency of four kinds of air sampling systems were compared in the present study and the two solid impactors were concluded to be comparatively efficient for culturable bacterial sampling, whereas the liquid impactor and the cellulose acetate filter sampler were efficient for total bacterial sampling.
► In this study, air samples were collected using four types of air samplers. ► The BioStage and RCS samplers have higher sampling efficiency for culturable bacterial diversity. ► The BioSampler and the cellulose acetate filter sampler have higher sampling efficiency for total bacterial diversity.
The quality control of fetal sonographic (FS) images is essential for the correct biometric measurements and fetal anomaly diagnosis. However, quality control requires professional sonographers to ...perform and is often labor-intensive. To solve this problem, we propose an automatic image quality assessment scheme based on multitask learning to assist in FS image quality control. An essential criterion for FS image quality control is that all the essential anatomical structures in the section should appear full and remarkable with a clear boundary. Therefore, our scheme aims to identify those essential anatomical structures to judge whether an FS image is the standard image, which is achieved by 3 convolutional neural networks. The Feature Extraction Network aims to extract deep level features of FS images. Based on the extracted features, the Class Prediction Network determines whether the structure meets the standard and Region Proposal Network identifies its position. The scheme has been applied to 3 types of fetal sections, which are the head, abdominal, and heart. The experimental results show that our method can make a quality assessment of an FS image within less a second. Also, our method achieves competitive performance in both the segmentation and diagnosis compared with state-of-the-art methods.
Chemotherapy is an important component in the treatment paradigm for breast cancers. However, the resistance of cancer cells to chemotherapeutic agents frequently results in the subsequent recurrence ...and metastasis. Identification of molecular markers to predict treatment outcome is therefore warranted. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether expression of circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) can predict clinical outcome in breast cancer patients treated with adjuvant chemotherapy.
Circulating miRNAs in blood serum prior to treatment were determined by quantitative Real-Time PCR in 56 breast cancer patients with invasive ductal carcinoma and pre-operative neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) immunostaining and TUNEL were performed in surgical samples to determine the effects of chemotherapy on cancer cell proliferation and apoptosis, respectively. Among the miRNAs tested, only miR-125b was significantly associated with therapeutic response, exhibiting higher expression level in non-responsive patients (n = 26, 46%; p = 0.008). In addition, breast cancers with high miR-125b expression had higher percentage of proliferating cells and lower percentage of apoptotic cells in the corresponding surgical specimens obtained after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Increased resistance to anticancer drug was observed in vitro in breast cancer cells with ectopic miR-125b expression; conversely, reducing miR-125b level sensitized breast cancer cells to chemotherapy. Moreover, we demonstrated that the E2F3 was a direct target of miR-125b in breast cancer cells.
These data suggest that circulating miR-125b expression is associated with chemotherapeutic resistance of breast cancer. This finding has important implications in the development of targeted therapeutics for overcoming chemotherapeutic resistance in novel anti-cancer strategies.
The combination of submerged plants and snails can combat eutrophication of freshwater systems by suppressing algal growth and assimilating nutrients. By consuming epiphytes, snails can benefit the ...growth of submerged plants. However, the efficiency of this phytoremediation strategy may depend on the microbes associated with the plants and snails. In this study, we compared the epiphytic bacterial communities on submerged plants (
and
) and intestinal bacterial communities of a snail,
found on these plants using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Epiphytic bacterial communities were similar between the two plant species and snails shared a high proportion of snail intestinal bacterial OTUs (75%) and genera (85%) with plants they grazed on. However, significant variations of Bray-Curtis distances differentiated epiphytic and intestinal bacterial communities. In addition, between the top 50 genera shared by intestinal and epiphytic bacterial communities, more Spearman correlations were detected within bacterial communities associated with snails than between communities associated with plants (190
. 143), and the correlations in epiphytic bacterial networks were more concentrated on certain genera, indicating they possessed distinct bacterial networks. This suggests the bacterial communities associated with snails do not depend strongly on the plant they graze on, which may be important for better understanding the role of snails in aquatic eco-restoration.
Calcium (Ca), potassium (K) and magnesium (Mg) may be involved in the occurrence and development of glaucoma by influencing the retinal oxidative stress and regulate blood pressure. However, ...epidemiological opinions on dietary intake of macroelement related to glaucoma are inconsistent. Herein, this study aims to explore the association between dietary Ca, K, and Mg consumption and glaucoma. Data of 7,042 adults aged greater than or equal to40 years old who received the glaucoma examinations were extracted from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database from 2005 to 2008 in this cross-sectional study. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used to explore the association between dietary Ca, K, and Mg intake and glaucoma with the odd ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). We also investigated this relationship in individuals of different age, with/without hypertension and visual field defect (VFD). There were 502 (8.11%) participants had glaucoma. After adjusted for covariables, we found that enough dietary Ca consumption was related to a decreased risk of glaucoma OR = 0.59, 95%CI: (0.42-0.81), whether in persons with/without hypertension (all P<0.05). In particular, dietary K intake may be a potential protect factor for glaucoma in non-hypertension populations OR = 0.47, 95%CI: (0.22-0.99), P = 0.049. Additionally, hypertension/non-hypertension persons who aged <65 years old or with/without VFD should all pay attention to the enough dietary supplement of Ca, K, and Mg according to their own circumstances. Enough dietary Ca, K, and Mg consumption may be potential protect factors of glaucoma that could provide some dietary reference for developing targeted glaucoma prevention and control measures.
Spintronics in halide perovskites has drawn significant attention in recent years, due to their highly tunable spin-orbit fields and intriguing interplay with lattice symmetry. Here, we perform ...first-principles calculations to determine the spin relaxation time (T
) and ensemble spin dephasing time (Formula: see text) in a prototype halide perovskite, CsPbBr
. To accurately capture spin dephasing in external magnetic fields we determine the Landé g-factor from first principles and take it into account in our calculations. These allow us to predict intrinsic spin lifetimes as an upper bound for experiments, identify the dominant spin relaxation pathways, and evaluate the dependence on temperature, external fields, carrier density, and impurities. We find that the Fröhlich interaction that dominates carrier relaxation contributes negligibly to spin relaxation, consistent with the spin-conserving nature of this interaction. Our theoretical approach may lead to new strategies to optimize spin and carrier transport properties.
Solid state quantum defects are promising candidates for scalable quantum information systems which can be seamlessly integrated with the conventional semiconductor electronic devices within the 3D ...monolithically integrated hybrid classical-quantum devices. Diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center defects are the representative examples, but the controlled positioning of an NV center within bulk diamond is an outstanding challenge. Furthermore, quantum defect properties may not be easily tuned for bulk crystalline quantum defects. In comparison, 2D semiconductors, such as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), are promising solid platform to host a quantum defect with tunable properties and a possibility of position control. Here, we computationally discover a promising defect family for spin qubit realization in 2D TMDs. The defects consist of transition metal atoms substituted at chalcogen sites with desirable spin-triplet ground state, zero-field splitting in the tens of GHz, and strong zero-phonon coupling to optical transitions in the highly desirable telecom band.
Colon cancer is one of the most prevalent malignancies that lead to high occurrence of cancer-related deaths. Currently, chemotherapies and radiotherapies remain the primary treatments for advanced ...colon cancer. Despite the initial effectiveness, a fraction of colon cancer patients developed cisplatin resistance, resulting in therapeutic failure. The long non-coding RNA differentiation antagonizing non-coding RNA (DANCR) has been shown to be upregulated in multiple cancers, indicating an oncogenic role of DANCR. This study aims to elucidate the roles of DANCR in regulating cisplatin (CDDP) resistance of colon cancer. We found DANCR was significantly upregulated in colon cancer tissues and cells compared with normal colon tissues and cells. DANCR was upregulated in cisplatin-resistant colon cancer cells. Moreover, overexpression of DANCR significantly desensitized colon cancer cells to cisplatin. On the other way, silencing DANCR dramatically overrode CDDP resistance of colon cancer cells. Bioinformatics prediction revealed DANCR could bind to seeding region of miR-125b-5p as a competitive endogenous RNA. This interference was further validated by luciferase assay. Moreover, we detected a negative correlation between DANCR and miR-125b-5p in colon cancer patient tissues: miR-125b-5p was clearly downregulated in colon cancer tissues and cells. Overexpression of miR-125b-5p significantly sensitized cisplatin-resistant cells. Interestingly, we observed the cisplatin-resistant cells were associated with a significantly increased glycolysis rate. We further identified glycolysis enzyme, hexokinase 2 (HK2), as a direct target of miR-125b-5p in colon cancer cells. Rescue experiments showed overexpression of miR-125b-5p suppressed cellular glycolysis rate and increased cisplatin sensitivity through direct targeting the 3′ UTR of HK2. Importantly, silencing endogenous DANCR significantly induced the miR-125b-5p/HK2 axis, resulting in suppression of the glycolysis rate and increase in cisplatin sensitivity of colon cancer cell. Expectedly, these processes could be further rescued by inhibiting miR-125b-5p in the DANCR-silenced cells. Finally, we validated the DANCR-promoted cisplatin resistance via the miR-125b-5p/HK2 axis from an
in vivo
xenograft mice model. In summary, our study reveals a new mechanism of the DANCR-promoted cisplatin resistance, presenting the lncRNA-DANCR–miR-125b-5p/HK2 axis as a potential target for treating chemoresistant colon cancer.
•A miniaturized AES system was constructed with a PD microplasma as excitation source to enhance sample introduction and excitation efficiency.•Chemical vapor generation was used for sample ...introduction which significantly reduced matrix interference.•Trace mercury in TCM drugs was detected with satisfactory analytical results.•This PD-CVG-AES system provides several advantages including simple, highly efficient, and cost-effective.
A miniaturized analysis system based on a low power point discharge (PD) microplasma is described for mercury detection in Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM) by chemical vapor generation atomic emission spectrometry (CVG-AES). The PD microplasma utilized a stainless-steel hollow needle as one of the electrodes, which also acts as the channel for the plasma gas and Hg vapor to enter the discharge region. This design allows the Hg vapor all transported and confined into the microplasma by internal diffusion, which helps to improve the sample introduction efficiency and excitation efficiency. Because of the efficient matrix separation by CVG, high selectivity and stability can be realized with this system. Under the optimized conditions, the limit of detection (LOD) was found to be 0.15 ng mL−1. The RSD (n = 7) was 2.7% for 5 ng mL−1 of Hg2+. The proposed technique has been applied to the investigation of Hg content in TCM drugs with satisfactory analytical results. The method provides several advantages including simple, high sensitivity, compactness and cost-effectiveness for mercury assay in TCM.
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