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Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) regulate tumor immunity. Previous studies have shown that the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)-positive TAMs have an M2 macrophage phenotype. CD68 is a biomarker of TAMs and is considered to be a poor prognostic marker of several malignancies. Our results show that PD-1-positive TAMs can be a negative survival indicator in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), and that the mechanistic effects could result due to a combination of PD-1 and CD68 activity. We analyzed 22 immune cell types using data from 402 patients with MIBC from the TCGA database, and found that a high immune score and M2 TAMs were strongly associated with poor clinical outcomes in patients with MIBC. Further, we analyzed resected samples from 120 patients with MIBC and found that individuals with PD-1-positive TAMs showed a reduction in 5-year overall survival and disease-free survival. Additionally, PD-1-positive TAMs showed a significant association with higher programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression, the Ki67 index, the pT stage and fewer CD8-positive T cells. Through the co-immunoprecipitation (co-IP) assay of THP-1 derived macrophages, we found that CD68 can bind to PD-1. The binding of CD68 and PD-1 can induce M2 polarization of THP-1 derived macrophages and promote cancer growth. The anti-CD68 treatment combined with peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) showed obvious synergy effects on inhibiting the proliferation of T24 cells. Together, these results indicate for the first time that CD68/PD-1 may be a novel target for the prognosis of patients with MIBC.

High-fat diet induced obesity was associated with more aggressive prostate cancer. Recent research has demonstrated that integrin-linked kinase (ILK), β-parvin and downstream cofilin 1 jointly affected cancer progression. Meanwhile, these proteins were also involved in energy metabolism. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the potential function of ILK, β-parvin and cofilin 1 in the high-fat diet-induced progression of prostate cancer. Transgenic mice with prostate cancer were employed, fed with different diets and sacrificed at 20 and 28 weeks. Tumor differentiation, extracapsular extension and metastasis were compared between the groups. Expression levels of ILK, β-parvin and cofilin 1 in prostate were evaluated by immunohistochemical analysis and determined by an immunoreactivity score. Public databases were applied for analysis and validation. It was detected that high-fat diet feeding promoted cancer progression in transgenic mice with prostate cancer, with increased expressions of β-parvin (P=0.038) and cofilin 1 (P=0.018). Higher expressions of ILK, β-parvin and cofilin 1 were also associated with poorer cancer differentiation. Additionally, higher mRNA levels of CFL1 were correlated with a worse disease-free survival in patients of certain subgroups from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. Further studies were warranted in discussing the potential roles of ILK, β-parvin and cofilin 1 in high-fat diet feeding induced progression of prostate cancer.

This paper presents a passive micromixer on a compact disk (CD) microfluidic platform that performs plasma mixing function. The driving force of CD microfluidic platform including, the centrifugal force due to the system rotation, the Coriolis force as a function of the rotation angular frequency and velocity of liquid. Numerical simulations are performed to investigate the flow characteristics and mixing performance of three CD microfluidic mixers with square-wave, curved and zig-zag microchannels, respectively. Of the three microchannels, the square-wave microchannel is found to yield the best mixing performance, and is therefore selected for design optimization. Four CD microfluidic micromixers incorporating square-wave PDMS microchannels with different widths in the x- and y-directions are fabricated using conventional photolithography techniques. The mixing performance of the four microchannels is investigated both numerically and experimentally. The results show that given an appropriate specification of the microchannel geometry and a CD rotation speed of 2,000 rpm, a mixing efficiency of more than 93 % can be obtained within 5 s.

In order to study the response behavior of engine rubber bushing under high speed impact, improve the simulation accuracy of the whole vehicle, the mechanical properties of rubber bushing was studied. The method of the drop-hammer impact on the rubber bushing was analyzed. A station was built with the specific shock wave method and the regulation velocity method of drop-hammer impact testing machine. The difference between the two methods in the study of rubber bushing test was compared. The rubber bushing was analyzed by finite element Simulation, analyzed with the rubber bushing experiment, the response behavior was predicted of the rubber bushing under complex operating conditions, and a general method for solving the impact characteristic of rubber bushing was analyzed. CLC: U465.4+2 Document Code: A

To study the changes in electroencephalograph (EEG) and somatosensory evoked potential (SEP) and their relationship with neuron apoptosis in rat after ischemic insult to the brain.Thirty-five SD rats were randomly divided into normal, sham operated and 3, 12, 24, 48, 72 hours after ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) groups with 5 rats in each group. The ischemia of brain was produced by clamping 4 vessels to the brain for various periods of time. Changes in EEG and SEP were recorded at different time after I/R, and the amounts of apoptotic neurons in hippocampus and cortex after I/R were assessed with terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase mediated dUTP biotin nick end labeling (TUNEL) and acridine orange ethidium bromide (AO/EB) fluorescence examination techniques.Compared with sham operated group, EEG amplitude decreased significantly (all P0.05), and the proportion of Delta wave increased significantly after ischemia of the brain (all P0.05). The latent period of P1 wave crest extended markedly (all P0.05), and P1-N1 amplitude decreased significantly after I/R (all P0.05). EEG and SEP changes were correlated with the apoptosis and loss of neurons, which started in the hippocampus and extended to frontal cortex and parietal cortex.The combined analysis of EEG and SEP can reflect the process of neuron apoptosis, which is helpful for the diagnosis and evaluation of prognosis of patients suffering from cerebral ischemia.

A water soluble polyacrylic acid has been obtained by polymerization of acrylic acid initiated with silica-supported poly-γ-mercaptopropylsiloxane in the presence of water and carbon tetrachloride. A super absorbent sodium polyacrylate (water absorbing capacity 300 g/g) has been prepared by copolymerization of acrylic acid with a small amount of p-divinylbenzene with the same initiator in a mixture of aqueous sodium hydroxide solution, carbon tetrachloride, n-hexane and Tween 80.