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Purpose: To explore the regulatory mechanism of miR-137 and transcription factor 4 (TCF4) in the progression of osteoarthritis (OA). Patients and Methods: The expressions of miR-137 and TCF4 were detected in OA cartilage tissue, chondrocytes and OA rat cartilage tissue. miR-137 and TCF4 were up-regulated or down-regulated and transfected into chondrocytes and OA rat cartilage tissue. The gene expression, protein level, cell proliferation, apoptosis and inflammatory factors were detected, respectively. LPS and anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT) on the right knee were used to induce chondrocyte inflammation and establish rat OA model, respectively. Results: miR-137 was low expressed in cartilage tissue of OA group, while TCF4 expression and protein level were significantly higher, showing significant negative correlation. In LPS group, chondrocyte activity was significantly inhibited, cell apoptosis ability was significantly enhanced, and the levels of inflammatory factors TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6 were significantly increased. However, the above results were significantly improved after the up-regulation of miR-137 or down-regulation of TCF4. Double luciferase report revealed that miR-137 and TCF4 had targeted relationship. LPS induced activation of AMPK/NF-κB pathway and higher level of apoptosis. AMPK/NF-κB pathway inhibitor C could inhibit activation of this pathway, and up-regulation of miR-137 or down-regulation of TCF4 could significantly weaken the regulation of LPS on the pathway and apoptosis. Analysis of OA rat model showed that over-expression of miR-137 could inhibit up-regulation of inflammatory factors and activation of AMPK/NF-κB pathway. Conclusion: miR-137 targets the inhibition of TCF4 to reverse the progression of OA through the AMPK/NF-κB signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renal fibrosis results in the progressive renal dysfunction and leads to chronic kidney disease (CKD) and ultimately end-stage renal disease. Asiaticoside was reported to regulate synaptopodin, desmin, nephrin, and podocin levels in adriamycin-induced nephropathy of rats. In this study, we found out that asiaticoside inhibited renal fibrosis in vitro and in vivo. Additionally, miR-142-5p was upregulated in in vitro and in vivo models of CKD. MiR-142-5p promoted the levels of collagen-I, collagen-IV, and fibronectin proteins. Additionally, miR-142-5p overexpression partly rescued the protective effect of asiaticoside on renal fibrosis. Mechanistically, miR-142-5p inhibited ACTN4 levels by binding with its 3'untranslated region, and further reduced its translation. Treatment of asiaticoside decreased miR-142-5p levels and increased ACTN4 levels. Rescue assays revealed that ACTN4 overexpression partially rescued the effect of miR-142-5p on renal fibrosis. Asiaticoside mitigated renal fibrosis by regulating the miR-142-5p/ACTN4 axis. In conclusion, asiaticoside inhibits renal fibrosis by regulating the miR-142-5p/ACTN4 axis. This novel discovery suggested that asiaticoside may serve as a potential medicine for renal fibrosis improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphene as a 2-dimentional material has been widely used in the field of biomedical applications. In this study, molecular dynamics simulations are carried out on the fibrinopeptide-A and graphene surfaces with N and O modifications. A new set of parameters for the CHARMM force field are developed to describe the behaviors of the surfaces. Our results indicate that the existence of most oxygen and nitrogen groups may enhance the interaction between the surfaces and the peptide, whereas the substitutional nitrogen on the graphene surface does not make a big difference. The improvement of interaction is not only because of the functional group on the surface, but also the defective morphology. The defective morphology also clears away the surface water layer. Our results suggest that the interactions between graphene biomolecules can be affected by functionalizing the surface with different types of functional groups, which is in accordance with the theory of material design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conditional proxy re-encryption (CPRE) scheme enables the proxy to convert a ciphertext from Alice to Bob, if the ciphertext satisfies one condition set by Alice. To improve the issue of more fine-grained on the condition set, Fang, Wang, Ge and Ren proposed a new primitive named Interactive conditional PRE with fine grain policy (ICPRE-FG) in 2011, and left an open problem on how to construct CCA-secure ICPRE-FG without random oracles. In this paper, we answer this open problem affirmatively by presenting a new construction of CCA-secure key-policy attribute-based PRE (KP-ABPRE) without random oracles. In this paper, we enhance the security model of Fang's ICPRE-FG scheme by allowing the adversary to make some extra queries, which do not help them win the game trivially. Finally, we present a CCA-secure KP-ABPRE without random oracles under the 3-weak decisional bilinear Diffie-Hellman inversion(3-wDBDHI) assumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Femoral fractures may result in loss of the original femur anatomy, without leaving a direct source of reference for femur reduction procedures. Femoral configuration renders it feasible to redesign the original femur based on the information obtained from the contralateral femur. In this report, we describe a method to rebuild the original femur based on the contralateral side as the reference after ascertaining the bilateral symmetry of the body. The method was tested on animals using the spine model and the experimental results are discussed briefly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this work was to investigate the influence of sintering temperature on the porous morphology, pore-size distribution, and apatite formation of sol–gel-derived porous bioactive glasses. For this purpose, three porous bioactive glasses were prepared by thermal phase separation cotemplate method in sol–gel process followed by sintering at 600°, 800°, and 1000°C. Pore structure of samples was characterized by various methods. The in vitro apatite formation test was carried out in simulated body fluid. The results showed that sintered bioactive glasses at 600°C exhibited a bimodal pore size distribution, mesopores, and nanopores (8–100 nm), macropores (100 nm–1 μm), and nanoscale pore walls (about 100 nm in width). The increase of sintering temperature induced the presence of a submicrometer pore-size distribution (300 nm–3 μm) with nanoscale pore walls (about 200 nm in width) and a morphological transformation from particle-like pore walls to dense pore walls. Depending on this porous structure, as-synthesized samples exhibited faster apatite formation capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]