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In the central auditory system, cartwheel cells (CWCs) are a group of interneurons in the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN). While other DCN neurons respond to stimuli with a simple discharge pattern of single action potentials (SAPs), CWCs respond with complex action potentials (CAPs), consisting of SAPs superimposed on a slow depolarization. The CAPs in CWCs may participate in various auditory or non-auditory signaling processing but its intrinsic mechanisms are largely unknown. In the present study, in vitro whole-cell current clamp recordings on neonatal mice brain slices were used to demonstrate that CWCs respond to brief voltage stimulation with CAPs. Western blotting and immunohistochemistry were also utilized to demonstrate that Nav1.9 was expressed in the CWCs. Finally, when Nav1.9 was genetically silenced, CWCs responded to voltage stimulation with SAPs, not CAPs. The results strongly suggested that Nav1.9 was expressed and functionally contributed to the signaling processing in the central auditory pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging evidence suggests that altered expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) is involved in cancer progression. However, the role of miR-125a-5p in gastric carcinogenesis remains unknown. Quantitative real-time PCR analysis revealed that the expression of miR-125a-5p was significantly decreased in >80% of gastric cancer tissues compared with their adjacent non-tumor tissues, and was markedly reduced in ~95% of intestinal-type gastric cancer tissues. The downregulated miR-125a-5p was significantly associated with gastric cancer metastasis. Ectopic expression of miR-125a-5p substantially inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion activities of gastric cancer cells. Furthermore, forced expression of miR-125a-5p repressed the activity of a luciferase reporter carrying the 3'-untranslated (3'-UTR) region of E2F3, which was eliminated by mutation of the predicted miR-125a-binding site, indicating that E2F3 may be a potential target gene of miR-125a-5p. These data suggest that by targeting E2F3, miR-125a-5p may be important as a potential tumor suppressor gene in gastric carcinogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]