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Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a therapeutic target for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Here, we evaluated the activity of AZD-2014, a potent mTOR complex 1/2 (mTORC1/2) dual inhibitor, against HNSCC cells. We showed that AZD-2014 blocked mTORC1/2 activation in established and primary human HNSCC cells, where it was anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic. Yet, AZD-2014 was non-cytotoxic to the human oral epithelial cells with low basal mTORC1/2 activation. In an effect to identify possible AZD-2014 resistance factors, we showed that the anti-apoptosis protein Bcl-2 was upregulated in AZD-2014-resistant SQ20B HNSCC cells. Inhibition of Bcl-2 by ABT-737 (a known Bcl-2 inhibitor) or Bcl-2 shRNA dramatically potentiated AZD-2014 lethality against HNSCC cells. On the other hand, exogenous overexpression of Bcl-2 largely attenuated AZD-2014’s activity against HNSCC cells. For the in vivo studies, we showed that oral gavage of AZD-2014 suppressed SQ20B xenograft growth in severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice. It also significantly improved mice survival. Importantly, AZD-2014’s anti-HNSCC activity in vivo was potentiated with co-administration of ABT-737. The preclinical results of this study suggest that AZD-2014 could be further tested as a valuable anti-HNSCC agent, either alone or in combination with Bcl-2 inhibitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radon transform has been acknowledged as the promising solution for image processing due to its high noise robustness and the ability of converting the rotation, scaling and translation operations on a pattern image into translations and scaling in the Radon image. Recently, several transforms widely employed in signal processing have been introduced in images׳ Radon space for pattern recognition. However, moments and especially moment invariants in the Radon space have not been thoroughly investigated. In this paper, we introduce a mathematical framework of constructing moments and moment invariants in the Radon space. First, rotational moments which represent non-orthogonal moments and Legendre–Fourier moments which represent orthogonal moments are introduced in the Radon space respectively. On this basis, we propose a method to obtain rotation, scaling and translation as well as affine invariance of these moments in the Radon space. Second, we prove that the proposed moments in the Radon space can be represented by a linear combination of classical geometric moments. With this property, the implementation time of the moments in the Radon space can be significantly reduced, and the recognition accuracy can also be greatly improved since no numerical approximation is involved. Theoretical and experimental analysis on invariant recognition accuracy, noise robustness, image blur distortion and computational time also shows the superiority of the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Trichothecin, one of fungal toxins which were encountered in food and in the environment, seriously threatens human and animal health. It has been shown that trichothecin changed the morphology of cellular mitochondria. However, the molecular mechanism remains unknown. Here we found that cell viability was attenuated by trichothecin. Features of apoptosis such as homosomal condensation and inter nucleosomal fragmentation were observed. In consistence with the elevated apoptosis rate, expression of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 was diminished and expression of proapoptotic protein Bax was enhanced at mRNA levels. Furthermore, expression of caspase-9 and activity of caspase-3 were increased after the treatment of trichothecin. Accordingly, the mitochondrial membrane potential (∆Ψm) was decreased in a dose-dependent manner. And Ca2+ overload was induced by trichothecin, followed by the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Collectedly, our results suggested that apoptosis induced by trichothecin is mediated by caspase-9 activation and the decrement of mitochondrial function resulted from the overloaded calcium and ROS production. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We sequenced DNA from spleens of rodents captured in rural areas of Qingdao, East China, during 2013-2015. We found 1 Apodemus agrarius mouse infected with Rickettsia conorii, indicating a natural Mediterranean spotted fever foci exists in East China and that the range of R. conorii could be expanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Radial Tchebichef moments as discrete orthogonal moments in the polar coordinate have been successfully used in the field of image recognition. However, the scale invariant property of these moments has not been studied due to its complexity of the problem. In this paper, we present a method to construct a set of scale and rotation invariants extracted from radial Tchebichef moments, named radial Tchebichef moment invariants (RTMI). Experimental results show the efficiency and the robustness to noise of the proposed method for recognition tasks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The idea of scale and rotation invariant image recognition based on Radon and Fourier–Mellin transforms has been presented recently. In this paper, we extend the previous work and propose a new method to construct a set of combined blur, translation, scale and rotation invariants using Radon and pseudo-Fourier–Mellin transforms, named Radon and pseudo-Fourier–Mellin invariants (RPFMI). The proposed method is robust to additive white noise as a result of summing pixel values to generate projections in the Radon transform step. We also present a mathematical framework of obtaining the Radon and pseudo-Fourier–Mellin transforms of blurred images, and a framework of deriving the combined blur, scale and rotation invariants. Theoretical and experimental results show the superiority of the proposed method and its robustness to additive white noise in comparison with some recent methods. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Two new α,β-unsaturated γ-lactones, myrolactones A (1) and B (2), were characterized from the culture broth of the Myrothecium sp. IFB-E106 isolated from the roots of Vatica mangachapoi Blauco. The absolute configuration was determined by the computational electronic circular dichroism approach. Myolactone B showed neuraminidase inhibitory activity with the IC50 value of 13.95 μM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chemical study of endophytic fungus of Cochliobolus led to the isolation of 10 terpenes (1-10), including one new compound named isocochlioquinone B (1). Their structures were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic methods, including 2D NMR techniques. Compounds 5-7 showed significant neuraminidase inhibitory activity with IC50 values of 0.79-1.75 μM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]