The gut microbiota has diverse and essential roles in host metabolism, development of the immune system and as resistance to pathogen colonization. Perturbations of the gut microbiota, termed gut ...dysbiosis, are commonly observed in diseases involving inflammation in the gut, including inflammatory bowel disease, infection, colorectal cancer and food allergies. Importantly, the inflamed microenvironment in the gut is particularly conducive to blooms of Enterobacteriaceae, which acquire fitness benefits while other families of symbiotic bacteria succumb to environmental changes inflicted by inflammation. Here we summarize studies that examined factors in the inflamed gut that contribute to blooms of Enterobacterieaceae, and highlight potential approaches to restrict Enterobacterial blooms in treating diseases that are otherwise complicated by overgrowth of virulent Enterobacterial species in the gut.
The objectives of this study were to propose a clinical prognostic scoring system applicable for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) and to evaluate the prognostic validity of the American Joint ...Committee on Cancer (AJCC) 7th edition staging system.
Retrospective univariate and multivariate survival analyses were conducted for 344 patients with ICC who underwent hepatectomy. A simple clinical prognostic scoring system (Fudan score) was developed based on the independent predictors. The prognostic validity was assessed in 74 patients with unresected tumors and compared with the AJCC 6th and 7th edition systems.
In the training set, serum alkaline phosphatase level, carbohydrate antigen 19-9 level, tumor boundary type, tumor size, and number of intrahepatic tumors were independent predictive factors of survival in ICC and were incorporated into the Fudan score. Three hundred forty-four patients were categorized into four subsets with 5-year overall survival rates of 48.6%, 25.6%, 10.3%, and 0.0% for low-, intermediate-, high-, and extremely high-risk groups, respectively. The discriminative ability of the Fudan score was better than that of the AJCC staging system and well applied in the unresected patient set.
A Fudan score based on clinical factors may provide a relatively accurate prognostic prediction for ICC patients regardless of resection status.
Magnetic cellulose/Fe₃O₄/activated carbon composites (m-Cell/Fe₃O₄/ACCs) were prepared successfully and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), thermogravimetric ...analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The adsorption of congo red onto the novel m-Cell/Fe₃O₄/ACCs was studied as a function of contact time, initial concentration of congo red, adsorbent dosage, and pH of solution. The saturated magnetization of m-Cell/Fe₃O₄/ACCs reached 48.2emug⁻¹ and the magnetic adsorbent showed characteristics of superparamagnetism, which indicated that m-Cell/Fe₃O₄/ACCs could be separated from treated solution by a magnetic process. A comparison of kinetic models showed that the overall adsorption process was best described by pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Thermodynamic analysis indicated an exothermic nature of adsorption and a spontaneous and favorable process. The m-Cell/Fe₃O₄/ACCs might be a promising candidate of high efficiency, low cost and convenient separation under magnetic field.
Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) is a key enzyme that generates NADPH to maintain reduced glutathione (GSH), which scavenges reactive oxygen species (ROS) to protect cancer cell from ...oxidative damage. In this study, we mainly investigate the potential roles of G6PD in colorectal cancer (CRC) development and chemoresistance. We discover that G6PD is overexpressed in CRC cells and patient specimens. High expression of G6PD predicts poor prognosis and correlated with poor outcome of oxaliplatin-based first-line chemotherapy in patients with CRC. Suppressing G6PD decreases NADPH production, lowers GSH levels, impairs the ability to scavenge ROS levels, and enhances oxaliplatin-induced apoptosis in CRC via ROS-mediated damage in vitro. In vivo experiments further shows that silencing G6PD with lentivirus or non-viral gene delivery vector enhances oxaliplatin anti-tumor effects in cell based xenografts and PDX models. In summary, our finding indicated that disrupting G6PD-mediated NADPH homeostasis enhances oxaliplatin-induced apoptosis in CRC through redox modulation. Thus, this study indicates that G6PD is a potential prognostic biomarker and a promising target for CRC therapy.
We present a calculation of the planar two-loop five-gluon amplitudes. The amplitudes are obtained in a variant of the generalized unitarity approach suitable for numerical computations, which we ...extend for use with finite field arithmetics. Employing a new method for the generation of unitarity-compatible integration-by-parts identities, all helicity amplitudes are reduced to a linear combination of master integrals for the first time. The approach allows us to compute exact values for the integral coefficients at rational phase-space points. All required master integrals are known analytically, and we obtain arbitrary-precision values for the amplitudes.
A novel magnetic composite bioadsorbent composed of chitosan wrapping magnetic nanosized γ-Fe₂O₃ and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (m-CS/γ-Fe₂O₃/MWCNTs) was prepared under relative mild conditions ...and was characterized. Adsorption of methyl orange (MO) onto m-CS/γ-Fe₂O₃/MWCNTs was investigated with respect to pH, initial MO concentration, coexisting anions and temperature. Results of characterizations indicated that magnetic nanosized γ-Fe₂O₃ and MWCNTs have been wrapped by crosslinked chitosan. Introduction of MWCNTs could obviously increase the adsorption capacity (qe ) of MO onto bioadsorbent by 2.2 times. Kinetics data and adsorption isotherm were better fitted by pseudo-second-order kinetic model and by Langmuir isotherm, respectively. Values of activation parameters such as free energy (△G°), enthalpy (△H°) and entropy (ΔS°) were determined as 3.15-3.78kJmol⁻¹, −9.94kJmol⁻¹ and −20.65Jmol⁻¹ k⁻¹, respectively, indicating that the adsorption was feasible, spontaneous and exothermic process in nature. After adsorption, m-CS/γ-Fe₂O₃/MWCNTs could be effectively and fleetly separated by applying a magnetic field.
We present the first numerical computation of two-loop amplitudes based on the unitarity method. As a proof of principle, we compute the four-gluon process in the leading-color approximation. We ...discuss the new method, analyze its numerical properties, and apply it to reconstruct the analytic form of the amplitudes. The numerical method is universal, and can be automated to provide multiscale two-loop computations for phenomenologically relevant signatures at hadron colliders.
The enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) is upregulated and has an oncogenic role in several types of human cancer. However, the abnormalities of EZH2 and its underlying mechanisms in the pathogenesis ...of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) remain unknown. In this study, we found that high expression of EZH2 in NPC was associated closely with an aggressive and/or poor prognostic phenotype (P<0.05). In NPC cell lines, knockdown of EZH2 by short hairpin RNA was sufficient to inhibit cell invasiveness/metastasis both in vitro and in vivo, whereas ectopic overexpression of EZH2 supported NPC cell invasive capacity with a decreased expression of E-cadherin. In addition, ablation of endogenous Snail in NPC cells virtually totally prevented the repressive activity of EZH2 to E-cadherin, indicating that Snail might be a predominant mediator of EZH2 to suppress E-cadherin. Furthermore, co-immunoprecipitation (IP), chromatin IP and luciferase reporter assays demonstrated that in NPC cells, (1) EZH2 interacted with HDAC1/HDAC2 and Snail to form a repressive complex; (2) these components interact in a linear fashion, not in a triangular fashion, that is, HDAC1 or HDAC2 bridge the interaction between EZH2 and Snail; and (3) the EZH2/HDAC1/2/Snail complex could closely bind to the E-cadherin promoter by Snail, but not YY1, to repress E-cadherin. The data provided in this report suggest a critical role of EZH2 in the control of cell invasion and/or metastasis by forming a co-repressor complex with HDAC1/HDAC2/Snail to repress E-cadherin, an activity that might be responsible, at least in part, for the development and/or progression of human NPCs.
The registration data of local cancer registries in 2014 were collected by National Central Cancer Registry (NCCR)in 2017 to estimate the cancer incidence and mortality in China.
The data submitted ...from 449 registries were checked and evaluated, and the data of 339 registries out of them were qualified and selected for the final analysis. Cancer incidence and mortality were stratified by area, gender, age group and cancer type, and combined with the population data of 2014 to estimate cancer incidence and mortality in China. The age composition of standard population of Chinese census in 2000 and Segi's population were used for age-standardized incidence and mortality in China and worldwide, respectively.
Total covered population of 339 cancer registries (129 in urban and 210 in rural) in 2014 were 288 243 347 (144 061 915 in urban and 144 181 432 in rural areas). The mortality verified cases (MV%) were 68.01%. Among them, 2.19% cases were identified through death certifications only (DCO%), and the mortality