Surgical resection is one important curative treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but the prognosis following surgery differs substantially and such large variation is mainly unexplained. A ...review of the literature yields a number of clinicopathologic parameters associated with HCC prognosis. However, the results are not consistent due to lack of systemic approach to establish a prediction model incorporating all these parameters.
We conducted a retrospective analysis on the common clinicopathologic parameters from a cohort of 572 ethnic Chinese HCC patients who received curative surgery. The cases were randomly divided into training (n = 272) and validation (n = 300) sets. Each parameter was individually tested and the significant parameters were entered into a linear classifier for model building, and the prediction accuracy was assessed in the validation set
Our findings based on the training set data reveal 6 common clinicopathologic parameters (tumor size, number of tumor nodules, tumor stage, venous infiltration status, and serum alpha-fetoprotein and total albumin levels) that were significantly associated with the overall HCC survival and disease-free survival (time to recurrence). We next built a linear classifier model by multivariate Cox regression to predict prognostic outcomes of HCC patients after curative surgery This analysis detected a considerable fraction of variance in HCC prognosis and the area under the ROC curve was about 70%. We further evaluated the model using two other protocols; leave-one-out procedure (n = 264) and independent validation (n = 300). Both were found to have excellent prediction power. The predicted score could separate patients into distinct groups with respect to survival (p-value = 1.8e-12) and disease free survival (p-value = 3.2e-7).
This described model will provide valuable guidance on prognosis after curative surgery for HCC in clinical practice. The adaptive nature allows easy accommodation for future new biomarker inputs, and it may serve as the foundation for future modeling and prediction for HCC prognosis after surgical treatment.
The aim of this study was to investigate associations between pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and adverse pregnancy outcomes among Chinese pregnant women. A prospective population-based cohort ...study was performed using data collected as part of the China-Anhui Birth Cohort Study or C-ABCS. A total of 13,121 pregnant women who received the first prenatal visit were enrolled from November 2008 to October 2010. Logistic regression analysis was used to calculate associations between pre-pregnancy BMI and pregnancy outcomes. Results indicated that the increased pre-pregnancy BMI was associated with a number of adverse pregnancy outcomes such as hypertensive disorder (adjusted relative risk (ARR) 2.3, 95% confidence interval CI 1.5-3.6), gestational diabetes (ARR 3.5, 95% CI 2.3-5.2), caesarean delivery (ARR 2.0, 95% CI 1.6-2.4), and medically indicated preterm delivery (ARR 1.8, 95% CI 1.1-2.9). Women with pre-pregnancy BMI above the normal range pose an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes.
Quantum controlled-phase-flip (CPF) gate between a flying photon qubit and a stationary atomic qubit could allow the linking of distant computational nodes in a quantum network. Here we present a ...scheme to realize quantum CPF gate between a flying optical photon and an atomic ensemble based on cavity input-output process and Rydberg blockade. When a flying single-photon pulse is reflected off the cavity containing a Rydberg atomic ensemble, the dark resonance and Rydberg blockade induce a conditional phase shift for the photon pulse, thus we can achieve the CPF gate between the photon and the atomic ensemble. Assisted by Rydberg blockade interaction, our scheme works in the N-atoms strong-coupling regime and significantly relaxes the requirement of strong coupling of single atom to photon in the optical cavity.
A scheme is presented to realize a single-photon transistor based on cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) with Rydberg atomic ensemble. By combining the advantages of the cavity-enhanced interaction ...and Rydberg blockade, we achieve a high gain single-photon transistor. The numerical calculation shows that by using one single gate photon more than one thousand source photons can be switched.
Ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) and Nijmegen breakage syndrome (NBS) are recessive
genetic disorders with susceptibility to cancer and similar cellular phenotypes. The protein product of the gene ...responsible for A-T, designated
ATM, is a member of a family of kinases characterized by a carboxy-terminal
phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-like domain. The NBS1 protein
is specifically mutated in patients with Nijmegen breakage syndrome and forms
a complex with the DNA repair proteins Rad50 and Mre11.
Here we show that phosphorylation of NBS1, induced by ionizing radiation,
requires catalytically active ATM. Complexes containing ATM and NBS1 exist
in vivo in both untreated cells and cells treated with ionizing radiation.
We have identified two residues of NBS1, Ser 278 and Ser 343
that are phosphorylated in vitro by ATM and whose modification
in vivo is essential for the cellular response to DNA damage. This response
includes S-phase checkpoint activation, formation of the NBS1/Mre11/Rad50
nuclear foci and rescue of hypersensitivity to ionizing radiation. Together,
these results demonstrate a biochemical link between cell-cycle checkpoints
activated by DNA damage and DNA repair in two genetic diseases with overlapping
phenotypes.
Summary
Metabolic syndrome is closely related to erectile dysfunction (ED), and hyperlipidaemia is considered a major risk factor for ED. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthase is believed to play an ...important role in metabolic syndrome; it has been hypothesised that ATP synthase contributes to ED development. We have verified this hypothesis using primary cultured human corpus cavernosum smooth muscle (HCCSM) cells treated with excessive free fat acid (FFA) and a high‐fat diet (HFD) mouse model. Our results showed that high fatty factors could cause lipid accumulation in HCCSM cells, which could result in abnormal lipid metabolism, such as high levels of triglycerides, cholesterol and glucose in the HFD mice. There was a remarkable down‐regulation of ATP synthase and p‐Akt after in vivo and in vitro excessive FFA treatments. These results indicated that abnormal lipid metabolism could induce ATP synthase down‐regulation via the Akt phosphorylation pathway and that ATP synthase may be a target of lipotoxicity in corpus cavernosum smooth muscle cells.
In order to achieve a thorough coverage of the basal lineages in the Chinese matrilineal pool, we have sequenced the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region and partial coding region segments of ...6,093 mtDNAs sampled from 84 populations across China. By comparing with the available complete mtDNA sequences, 194 of those mtDNAs could not be firmly assigned into the available haplogroups. Completely sequencing 51 representatives selected from these unclassified mtDNAs identified a number of novel lineages, including five novel basal haplogroups that directly emanate from the Eurasian founder nodes (M and N). No matrilineal contribution from the archaic hominid was observed. Subsequent analyses suggested that these newly identified basal lineages likely represent the genetic relics of modern humans initially peopling East Asia instead of being the results of gene flow from the neighboring regions. The observation that most of the newly recognized mtDNA lineages have already differentiated and show the highest genetic diversity in southern China provided additional evidence in support of the Southern Route peopling hypothesis of East Asians. Specifically, the enrichment of most of the basal lineages in southern China and their rather ancient ages in Late Pleistocene further suggested that this region was likely the genetic reservoir of modern humans after they entered East Asia.
RECONSTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL CLIMATE IN CHINA Ge, Q.-S.; Zheng, J.-Y.; Hao, Z.-X. ...
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society,
05/2005, Letnik:
86, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Chinese historical documents that contain descriptions of weather conditions can be used for studying climate of the past hundreds or even thousands of years. In this study, the progress of ...reconstructing a 273-station quantitative precipitation dataset for 1736–1911—a period when records of the depth of rain infiltration (into the ground) and snow depth (above the surface) were kept in the Yu–Xue–Fen–Cun (which is part of memos routinely sent to the emperors during the Qing Dynasty) is reported. To facilitate the rainfall reconstruction, a field program of 29 sites covering different climate regimes and soil characteristics was designed for the purpose of establishing the transfer function between the rain infiltration depth and rainfall amount, while the relation between the snow depth and snowfall is obtained using instrumental measurements of recent decades. The results of the first site at Shijiazhuang (near Beijing) are reported here. The reconstruction shows that the summer and winter precipitation during 1736–1911 were generally greater than their respective 1961–90 means. Two years with extreme summer precipitation are identified—112 mm in 1792 and 1167 mm in 1801; the latter is larger than the 998 mm in 1996, which has been the most severe one of recent decades. The long-term high-resolution quantitative data can be used to study climate variability as well as to evaluate historical climate model simulations.
Dental caries, one of the most prevalent infectious diseases worldwide, affects approximately 80% of children and the majority of adults. Dental caries may result in endodontic disease, leading to ...dental pulp necrosis, periapical inflammation and bone resorption, severe pain, and tooth loss. Periapical inflammation may also increase inflammation in other parts of the body. Although many studies have attempted to develop therapies for this disease, there is still an urgent need for effective treatments. In this study, we applied a novel gene therapeutic approach using recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated RNAi knockdown of Cathepsin K (Ctsk) gene expression, to target osteoclasts and periapical bone resorption in a mouse model. We found that AAV-sh-Cathepsin K (AAV-sh-Ctsk) impaired osteoclast function in vivo and furthermore reduced bacterial infection-stimulated bone resorption by 88%. Reduced periapical lesion size was accompanied by decreases in mononuclear leukocyte infiltration and inflammatory cytokine expression. Our study shows that AAV-RNAi silencing of Cathepsin K in periapical tissues can significantly reduce endodontic disease development, bone destruction, and inflammation in the periapical lesion. This is the first demonstration that AAV-mediated RNAi knockdown gene therapy may significantly reduce the severity of endodontic disease.
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