Oral squamous cell carcinoma is a prominent cancer worldwide, particularly in Taiwan. By integrating omics analyses in 50 matched samples, we uncover in Taiwanese patients a predominant mutation ...signature associated with cytidine deaminase APOBEC, which correlates with the upregulation of APOBEC3A expression in the APOBEC3 gene cluster at 22q13. APOBEC3A expression is significantly higher in tumors carrying APOBEC3B-deletion allele(s). High-level APOBEC3A expression is associated with better overall survival, especially among patients carrying APOBEC3B-deletion alleles, as examined in a second cohort (n = 188; p = 0.004). The frequency of APOBEC3B-deletion alleles is ~50% in 143 genotyped oral squamous cell carcinoma -Taiwan samples (27A3B
:89A3B
:27A3B
), compared to the 5.8% found in 314 OSCC-TCGA samples. We thus report a frequent APOBEC mutational profile, which relates to a APOBEC3B-deletion germline polymorphism in Taiwanese oral squamous cell carcinoma that impacts expression of APOBEC3A, and is shown to be of clinical prognostic relevance. Our finding might be recapitulated by genomic studies in other cancer types.Oral squamous cell carcinoma is a prevalent malignancy in Taiwan. Here, the authors show that OSCC in Taiwanese show a frequent deletion polymorphism in the cytidine deaminases gene cluster APOBEC3 resulting in increased expression of A3A, which is shown to be of clinical prognostic relevance.
China faces the dual challenge of mitigating climate change and preventing air pollution. The coordinated control of both problems has become an issue of widespread concern. This study combined ...environmentally extended input-output analysis and structural path analysis to analyze the CO2, SO2, NOx, black carbon, and PM2.5 emissions embodied in the production supply chain of China in 2012. The results showed that electricity and heat production, nonmetallic mineral products along with the smelting and pressing of metal were primary sources of environmental emissions from the production perspective, and construction contributed 20–38% relevant emissions from the consumption perspective. Among the 100 largest paths, 22 common critical paths accounted for 16–37% of relevant emissions, meaning that measures focusing on these shared paths will have obvious co-controlling effects. These 22 critical supply chains were mainly driven by fixed capital formation and exports. The dominant sectors included the construction, electricity and heat production, transportation and storage, and construction-materials production (nonmetallic mineral products, smelting and pressing of metal). Therefore, measures from the production-side and the consumption-side should be given equal attention to effectively co-control such emissions. Measures to decrease energy intensity, thus reducing end-of-pipe discharge in these sectors, rather than to remove specific pollutants, represent the most promising production-related measures. Moreover, slowing construction growth by guiding investments and encouraging the use or export of products with lower emissions using environmental information labels are essential consumption-related policies.
•Consumption-driven CO2, NOx, PM2.5, SO2, and BC emissions are reported.•Twenty-two common critical paths contributed relatively high emissions.•Dominant drivers and sectors in common critical paths were discerned.•Co-control policies must consider both production- and consumption-based emissions.
A porous CuI-MOF H2O⊂Cu2(L)2I2; L = 1-benzimidazolyl-3,5-bis(4-pyridyl)benzene, which can be a visual and luminescent sensor for detecting small polar aliphatic volatile organic compounds (VOCs), ...such as alcohols, ketones, and halocarbons, is reported. The naked-eye and luminescent detection limitations for these VOCs are 5 and 1 ppm, respectively.
A novel sensor array based on a (+)AuNP/AuNC nanocomposite was constructed for the selective discrimination of 10 types of Gram-negative bacteria (including 3 types of antibiotic-resistant strains) ...at a low concentration level of OD600 = 0.015. By recognizing the triple optical patterns of Gram-negative bacteria with the assistance of LDA, the sensor array is able to group the bacteria with respect to their species to each other.
In this study, the extraction of water-soluble polysaccharides from the seed coat of black soybean (BSCP) was investigated and optimized. A response surface methodology based on a Box-Behnken design ...(BBD) was used to optimize the extraction conditions as follows: extraction temperature, 100°C; ratio of water to material, 22.3 mL/g; and extraction time, 133.2 min. Under these conditions, the experimental yield of polysaccharides was 10.56%, which was consistent with the predictive yield. A novel galactomannan, BSCP-1, with a molecular weight of 7.55 × 105 Da determined by high-performance gel permeation chromatography, was isolated from the black soybean seed coat. Through gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis, BSCP-1 was identified as a galactomannan consisting of galactose, mannose and rhamnose in a molar ratio of 6.01:3.56:1.00. Cytotoxicity against the human gastric carcinoma cancer cell line was also determined.
Intestinal-type gastric adenocarcinoma (IGA) is a common phenotype of gastric cancer. Currently, few studies have constructed nomograms that may predict overall (OS) and cancer-specific survival ...(CSS) probability after surgery. This study is to establish novel nomograms for predicting the survival of IGA patients who received surgery. A total of 1814 IGA patients who received surgery between 2000 and 2018 were selected from Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database and randomly assigned to the training and validating sets at a ratio of 7:3. Then univariate and multivariate cox regression analyses were performed to screen significant indictors for the construction of nomograms. The calibration curve, the area under the receiver operating characteristic (receiver operating characteristic, ROC) curve (the area under curve, AUC), C-index, net reclassification index (NRI), integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) and decision curve analysis (DCA) curves were applied to assess the performance of the model. The significant outcomes of multivariate analysis revealed that ten variables (age, sex, race, surgery type, summary stage, grade, AJCC TNM stage, radiotherapy, number of regional nodes examined, number of regional nodes positive) were demonstrated to construct the nomogram for OS and ten variables (age, sex, race, surgery type, summary stage, grade, AJCC TNM stage, chemotherapy, number of regional nodes examined, number of regional nodes positive) for CSS. The calibration and AUC uncovered their favorable predictive performance. Subsequently, C-index, NRI, IDI and DCA curves further validated the predicative superiority of nomograms over 7th AJCC Stage System. The validated nomogram provides more reliable OS and CSS predictions for postoperative IGA patients with good accuracy, which can help surgeons in treatment decision-making and prognosis evaluation.
Depression and related mood disorders are among the world’s greatest public health problems. Previous studies have demonstrated that astilbin (AST) has broad pharmacological functions which may ...modulate numerous pathways, such as antioxidant, scavenging free radicals, anti-inflammatory and so on, similarly to some of other flavonoids. In this study, the antidepressant-like effect of AST was investigated using chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) model of depression in mice. The results showed that chronic administration of AST at doses of 10, 20 and 40 mg/kg (intraperitoneally (i.p.), 21 d) reduced depressive-like behaviors of mice in the forced swim test (FST), tail suspension test (TST) and sucrose preference test (SPT) without affecting locomotor activity. AST increased the contents of serotonin (5-HT) and dopamine (DA) in the frontal cortex of CUMS mice. Additionally, it was shown that AST treatment restored the CUMS-induced inhibition of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) 1/2 and AKT phosphorylation in the frontal cortex, conformed to the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression. Our findings suggest that AST has antidepressant activities and the mechanisms, at least in part, relate to up-regulation of monoaminergic neurotransmitters (5-HT and DA) and activation of the BDNF signaling pathway.
Microdissection testicular sperm extraction (micro-TESE) is widely used to treat nonobstructive azoospermia. However, a good prediction model is required to anticipate a successful sperm retrieval ...rate before performing micro-TESE. This retrospective study analyzed the clinical records of 200 nonobstructive azoospermia patients between January 2021 and December 2021. The backward method was used to perform binary logistic regression analysis and identify factors that predicted a successful micro-TESE sperm retrieval. The prediction model was constructed using acquired regression coefficients, and its predictive performance was assessed using the receiver operating characteristic curve. In all, 67 patients (sperm retrieval rate: 33.5%) underwent successful micro-TESE. Follicle-stimulating hormone, anti-Müllerian hormone, and inhibin B levels varied significantly between patients who underwent successful and unsuccessful micro-TESE. Binary logistic regression analysis yielded the following six predictors: anti-Müllerian hormone (odds ratio OR = 0.902, 95% confidence interval CI: 0.821-0.990), inhibin B (OR = 1.012, 95% CI: 1.001-1.024), Klinefelter's syndrome (OR = 0.022, 95% CI: 0.002-0.243), Y chromosome microdeletion (OR = 0.050, 95% CI: 0.005-0.504), cryptorchidism with orchiopexy (OR = 0.085, 95% CI: 0.008-0.929), and idiopathic nonobstructive azoospermia (OR = 0.031, 95% CI: 0.003-0.277). The prediction model had an area under the curve of 0.720 (95% CI: 0.645-0.794), sensitivity of 65.7%, specificity of 72.2%, Youden index of 0.379, and cut-off value of 0.305 overall, indicating good predictive value and accuracy. This model can assist clinicians and nonobstructive azoospermia patients in decision-making and avoiding negative micro-TESE results.
In this paper, we investigate the finite-time boundedness problems for large-scale continuous-time networked dynamical systems constituted by lots of subsystems. The interactions among these ...subsystems are arbitrary, and every subsystem has different dynamics. The linear time-varying and time-invariant cases are discussed respectively. Sufficient conditions for the design of finite-time boundedness state feedback controller are derived, which efficiently utilize the characteristic of system structure with the block-diagonal structure of system parameter matrices and the sparseness of the system topology. Sufficient conditions depending only on parameter matrices of the individual subsystem are also provided. Furthermore, sufficient conditions are provided for the design of the distributed output feedback controller with finite-time boundedness. Several numerical simulations have been used to show the validity of the derived conditions in the analysis of a large-scale networked system.
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