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A novel self-hardening α-tricalcium phosphate (α-TCP) bone cement complexed with different content of α-calcium sulfate hemihydrate (α-CSH) and micrometer hydroxyapatite mineralized silk fibroin (HA-SF) using micro/SF as curing liquid has been investigated in this work, which was capable of tunable setting time, degradation, mechanical property and ability to anti-washout. After addition 0 ∼ 25% α-CSH to the α-TCP cement with SFFs as curing liquid, it shortened the setting time of the modified composite to 10 ∼ 30 min. Furthermore, the addition of SFFs improved the compressive strength of the composite from 5.41 MPa to 9.44 MPa. The composites with both Na2HPO4 and SFFs as curing liquid showed good anti-collapse performance. The weight loss ratio of bone cement was −0.18 ∼ 12.08% in 4 weeks when the content of α-CSH in α-TCP/α-CSH was between 0 ∼ 25 wt%. During the degradation of α-CSH, the amorphous α-TCP were deposited as hydroxyapatite to formed a plate-like products on the surface of composite. Compared to the composite with Na2HPO4 solution as the curing liquid, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity of the composites using SFFs as curing liquid were maintained at high levels on the 14th day especially when the Ca/P ratio was 1.7. This study provides a theoretical basis for the regeneration of bone defects guided by bone cement materials.

The developed Pt/MgO@C with ultralow Pt loading (0.078 wt%) exhibited superior catalytic performance for synthesizing 2,1-benzisoxazole derivatives by a reductive heterocyclization route under very mild conditions (1 bar hydrogen pressure at 303 K).

This study aims to explore the functional role of Myoz2 in myoblast differentiation, and elucidate the potential factors interact with Myoz2 in promoter transcriptional regulation. The temporal-spatial expression results showed that the bovine Myoz2 gene was highest expressed in longissimus dorsi, and in individual growth stages and myoblast differentiation stages. Knockdown of Myoz2 inhibited the differentiation of myoblast, and negative effect of MyoD, MyoG, MyH and MEF2A expression on mRNA levels. Subsequently, the promoter region of bovine Myoz2 gene with 1.7 Kb sequence was extracted, and then it was set as eight series of deleted fragments, which were ligated into pGL3-basic to detect core promoter regions of Myoz2 gene in myoblasts and myotubes. Transcription factors MyoD and MyoG were identified as important cis-acting elements in the core promoter region (-159/+1). Also, it was highly conserved in different species based on dual-luciferase analysis and multiple sequence alignment analysis, respectively. Furthermore, a chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) analysis combined with site-directed mutation and siRNA interference and overexpression confirmed that the combination of MyoD and MyoG occurred in region -159/+1, and played an important role in the regulation of bovine Myoz2 gene. These findings explored the regulatory network mechanism of Myoz2 gene during the development of bovine skeletal muscle.

Green synthesis offers an environmentally friendly and cost-effective alternative for the synthesis of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs). In this study, the synthesis of CuO NPs was optimized by using copper sulfate (CuSO

Intramuscular fat (IMF) is closely related to the meat quality of livestock and poultry. As a new cell culture technique in

Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF), which is aimed at making all elements of the factorization nonnegative and achieving nonlinear dimensional reduction at the same time, is an effective method for solving recommendation system problems. However, in many real-world applications, most models learn recommendation models under the supervised learning paradigm. Since the recommendation performance of NMF models relies heavily on initialization, the user-item interaction information is often very sparse. In many cases, supervised information about the data is difficult to obtain, resulting in a large number of existing models for supervised learning being inapplicable. To address this problem, we propose an information self-supervised NMF model for recommendation. Specifically, this model is based on the matrix factorization idea and introduces a self-supervised learning mechanism based on the NMF model to enhance the sparse data information of sparse data, and an easily extensible self-supervised NMF model was proposed. Furthermore, a corresponding gradient descent optimization algorithm was proposed, and the complexity of the algorithm was analysed. A large number of experimental results show that the proposed S2NMF has better performance.

The early growth process of wheat is vulnerable to various factors, and poor growth leads to vacancies in the planting row. Therefore, the wheat images captured by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are essential for monitoring the growth of wheat and preventing diseases and insect pests. This paper uses wheat images captured by UAV as a dataset, and propose a novel residual-capsule network with threshold convolution (RCTC) for segmentation of wheat plantation rows. The network is achieved by replacing the AveragePooling of the improved ResNet34 with Capsule. Since the capsule network represents the features by vectors, it can explain the direction of features and the relative positions between features. Therefore, deeper feature information can be extracted. In addition, to reduce redundant features and enhance effective features, a new threshold convolution is also proposed. Experiments on the wheat field dataset show that our proposed algorithm can effectively segment the wheat plantation rows images collected by UAV, and is superior to some existing well-known algorithms, and can provide scientific support and reference for the decision-making process of smart agriculture.

E-commerce offers various merchandise for selling and purchasing with frequent transactions and commodity flows. An accurate prediction of customer needs and optimized allocation of goods is required for cost reduction. The existing solutions have significant errors and are unsuitable for addressing warehouse needs and allocation. That is why businesses cannot respond to customer demands promptly, as they need accurate and reliable demand forecasting. Therefore, this paper proposes spatial feature fusion and grouping strategies based on multimodal data and builds a neural network prediction model for e-commodity demand. The designed model extracts order sequence features, consumer emotional features, and facial value features from multimodal data from e-commerce products. Then, a bidirectional long short-term memory network- (BiLSTM-) based grouping strategy is proposed. The proposed strategy fully learns the contextual semantics of time series data while reducing the influence of other features on the group’s local features. The output features of multimodal data are highly spatially correlated, and this paper employs the spatial dimension fusion strategy for feature fusion. This strategy effectively obtains the deep spatial relations among multimodal data by integrating the features of each column in each group across spatial dimensions. Finally, the proposed model’s prediction effect is tested using e-commerce dataset. The experimental results demonstrate the proposed algorithm’s effectiveness and superiority.

In the present study, discarded pruned tea branch was used to prepare a new biochar, and the physicochemical properties and adsorption characteristics were investigated by characterization and batch experiments. With increasing pyrolysis temperature from 400 to 800 °C, the yield, specific surface area, and acidic functional groups had significant differences. The optimum adsorption conditions were determined as pH = 6 and dosage of 2 g L−1. The pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir isothermal model could fit well to the adsorption data, which showed that the adsorption process was dominated by monolayer chemical adsorption. The highest adsorption property (74.04 mg g−1) was obtained by the pyrolysis of tea branch biochar (TBB) at 700 °C owing to the adsorption mechanisms, including surface complexation, precipitation, metal ion exchange, and Cd2+–π interaction. After five cycles of desorption, biochar still showed superior adsorption (80%). Hence, the TBB acted as a regenerable adsorbent for treating Cd2+-containing wastewater.

Cryptorchidism is one of the most common congenital anomalies in newborn boys. There are various risk factors that have been verified to have relationship with cryptorchidism, including exogenous and genetic, but the pathogenesis of cryptorchidism remains unclear. PFKM gene is a critical gene encodes for a regulatory enzyme, which limits the rate in the pathway of glycolysis. We assumed that cryptorchidism risk may associated with PFKM gene single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Thus we selected three tag SNPs in the PFKM gene and aimed to investigate the possible association between PFKM gene polymorphisms and cryptorchidism risk.The SNPs were genotyped using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis. 140 cases and 227 controls were enrolled in this study, including 105 unilateral cryptorchidism and 35 bilateral cases. The testis position was decided by the higher one in bilateral cases.The frequency of allele G of SNP rs2228500 is increased in cryptorchidism patients compared to that in controls (p 0.05). Genotypic frequencies of rs2228500 are associated with the susceptibility of cryptorchidism in the codominant model (p 0.05). And compared with G/G genotype in the dominant model, notable decreased frequencies of A carriers (A/G-A/A genotypes) were observed in cryptorchidism patients (p = 0.0069, OR = 1.80, 95% CI 1.17-2.75).This research first revealed that PFKM gene polymorphisms were associated with cryptorchidism in a Chinese Han population. We have offered primary evidence that the G allele and the G/G genotype of rs2228500 SNP in the PFKM gene are more frequent in patients with cryptorchidism than healthy controls.

In the cold storage construction project, only by controlling the quality risk of the project can ensure that the cold storage can meet the expected use function and achieve the expected economic benefits after the completion of the cold storage. In order to effectively ensure the key pivot role of cold storage in cold chain logistics, a cold storage construction quality risk management system is constructed to identify and analyze quality risk factors from three dimensions: construction procedures, participating units, and work processes, construct a cold storage construction quality risk evaluation model based on Bayesian network, and through reverse reasoning analysis and sensitivity analysis, key quality risk factors are derived: inadequate quality assurance system, technical delivery is not in place, mismatch of building materials and equipment, inadequate training of skilled workers, completion acceptance is not careful or acceptance standards are unreasonable, and duration does not meet the requirements. Finally, in view of the above quality risks, suggestions and measures are put forward from five aspects: man, material, machine, method, and environment.

Aim: Ovarian cancer (OC) is a gynecological malignancy with a challenging judgment of prognosis due to complicated etiology and high recurrence rate. The oncostatin M receptor (OSMR) from members of the IL-6 receptor family is associated with tumor development. This study aims to explore the correlations between OSMR gene polymorphisms (rs2278329 [G/A, missense, Asp553Asn], rs2292016 [G/T, promoter, -100G/T]) and OC. Methods: This study enrolled 160 OC patients and 397 healthy controls. Genotypes of two single-nucleotide polymorphisms were distinguished using TaqMan SNP Genotyping Assay, and statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software. Results: A significantly decreased overall survival rate was found in serous OC patients carrying rs2278329 GA/AA genotypes. Meanwhile, TT genotype carriers of rs2292016 had an improved relapse rate, and the GT genotype showed a definitive correlation with a lower relapse rate. Conclusion: OSMR gene polymorphisms may be related to recurrence and overall survival of serous OC patients.

Background. Dilated cardiomyopathy is a primary myocardial disease and one of the critical causes of heart failure. It is the most common indication for heart transplantation worldwide, and most idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathies are sporadic and multifactorial. Evidence has supported that several inflammatory cytokines and immune responses are involved in its pathological process. Interleukin-32 is a proinflammatory cytokine and is elevated during the worsening cardiac function. Herein, we evaluated the correlation between interleukin-32 gene polymorphisms (rs12934561 and rs28372698) and the susceptibility to dilated cardiomyopathy. Methods. We enrolled 418 dilated cardiomyopathy patients and 437 healthy controls. The polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method was used for genotyping the two single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and SPSS software was used for statistical analyses. Results. The C allele and CC genotype frequencies of rs12934561 were remarkably elevated in dilated cardiomyopathy patients compared to controls (bothP<0.001). The A allele and AA genotype frequencies of rs28372698 significantly decreased in dilated cardiomyopathy patients (P=0.004andP=0.02, respectively). Compared to TT/TC genotype carriers of rs12934561, CC homozygotes presented an increased risk of dilated cardiomyopathy when the left ventricular ejection fraction no more than 30% (P=0.02). Conclusions. The IL-32 gene polymorphisms might implicate in DCM risk in the Chinese Han population, and rs12934561 could be a potential forecasting factor for screening high-risk population for DCM.

This work presents a robust constrained path-following control scheme for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) under wind disturbances. Through appointing the projection from the UAV to the path, the Serret–Frenet frame is introduced to reduce the complexity of the path-following problem. Specifically, the disturbance interval observer is employed to generate the interval of the wind disturbances. Then, the path-following control design is presented based on the dynamic surface control technique, and the auxiliary system is adopted to deal with the command limitation during the design process. Accordingly, the stability of the closed-loop system is analyzed. The effectiveness of the developed control scheme is demonstrated using numerical simulations.

Improving the energy density has been being a challenge for supercapacitors, and the efficient approach is to choose active materials (composites) based on the potential window (chemical stability) and theoretical specific capacitance of both matched electrodes, which usually own unique nano-sized and porous (hierarchical) structure. Herein, hierarchical VS4/rGO/CoS2@Co (VRCS@Co) nanocomposite cathode and rGO/Co9S8@Co (RCS@Co) anode with nanosheet arrays were both in-situ synthesized on Co foam through a simple one-step hydrothermal process in the presence of graphene oxide (GO). VRCS@Co cathode exhibited a high capacitance of 274.3 mAh g−1 (1353 F g−1) at 0.625 A g−1 and an excellent cyclic life of 89.6% retention at 20,000th cycles, while RCS@Co anode delivered a superior capacitance of 619.5 mAh g−1 (2230 F g−1) at 0.714 A g−1 and a good cyclability of 93.3% retention at 2000th cycles. An asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC) assembled by using VRCS@Co cathode and RCS@Co anode revealed an ultrahigh energy density of 106 Wh kg−1 along with a power density of 2.67 kW kg−1.

Aim: The study was aimed to explore the association between AXIN1 gene polymorphism and epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) susceptibility as well as prognosis. Methods: A total of 165 EOC cases and 327 healthy controls were recruited to participate in this study. In total three tag SNPs in AXIN1 gene were genotyped using PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism. Results: Significantly increased EOC risk was found associated with the A/C heterozygous genotype of rs12921862, the C allele and C/T genotype in the rs1805105 and the T/T genotype of rs370681. Meanwhile, Kaplan–Meier survival curves showed that patients with rs12921862 C/C genotype improved overall survival in the EOC group. Conclusion: Our results suggest that the AXIN1 gene may be related to susceptibility and overall survival in EOC.

Sulfide bond incorporated organosilica particles have been broadly applied to versatile biomedical applications, wherein the uniformity of particles and the sulfur content significantly dictate the ultimate performance. Unfortunately, due to the difficulty in controlling the chemical behavior of organosilica precursors in a sol–gel process, challenges still exist in developing a facile and green synthetic approach to fabricate organosilica particles with good dispersity and high sulfur content. In the present work, by extending the classic Stober method, a surfactant-free synthesis of monodispersed organosilica particles with pure sulfide-bridged silsesquioxane framework chemistry is reported for the first time. By simply tailoring the ethanol-to-water ratio and amount of catalyst, the size of disulfide-bridged organosilica particles can be tuned from ~0.50 to ~1.20 µm. Moreover, this approach can be employed to prepare tetra-sulfide bridged silica nanoparticles with an extremely high sulfur content of 30.7 wt% and negligible cytotoxicity. Notably, taking advantage of this extended Stober method, both hydrophilic (methylene blue) and hydrophobic (curcumin) molecules can be in-situ encapsulated into tetra-sulfide bridged silica nanoparticles, whose glutathione-triggered biodegradability is also demonstrated. Collectively, the innovative synthetic approach and organosilica particles developed in this work are expected to open up new opportunities in hybrid materials fabrication and bio-applications.

Interleukin-32 (IL-32) as a pro-inflammatory cytokine participates in the progression of inflammation and cancer. Ovarian cancer (OC) accounts for a considerable mortality rate, but research on IL-32 and OC is almost nil. Our study aims to explore the association between IL-32 and the progression as well as prognosis of OC initially. This hospital-based case-control study enrolled 147 OC patients and 337 healthy controls, and we used the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method to distribute the genotypes. The results showed that the homozygous genotype (TT) of rs28372698 SNP was significantly higher in patients compared to controls (12.9% vs. 6.2%, P = 0.018, OR (95% CI) = 2.23 (1.16-4.29)). This revealed that TT genotype might be a risk factor in OC progression. This present study indicates that IL-32 gene polymorphism relates to an increased OC susceptibility, and IL-32 may be a marker for OC progression.

In this study, zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) were synthesized using leaf extract of Cinnamomum camphora (L.) Presl and zinc acetate. Its antifungal activity was evaluated against Alternaria alternata which caused early blight disease in Solanum lycopersicum. The results showed that the size of the synthesized ZnO NPs obviously depended on the pH during the reaction. The peak of the UV-Vis spectra was at 368-374 nm, which confirmed the synthesis of ZnO NPs. SEM showed that the synthesized ZnO NPs agglomerated into spherical particles. TEM reveled that the average particle sizes of ZnO NPs synthesized at pH 7, pH 8 and pH 9 were about 13.92, 15.19 and 21.13 nm, respectively. Furthermore, ZnO NPs treatments at 20-160 mg/L could significantly inhibit the mycelia growth of A. alternata, and ZnO NPs synthesized at pH 7 showed the best antifungal effect with MIC value recorded as 20 mg/L. Moreover, 20 mg/L ZnO NPs synthesized at pH 7 significantly limited spore germination and germ tube elongation of A. alternata. In addition, ZnO NPs induced excessive accumulation of MDA in A. alternata and caused the damage of cell membrane, leading to the leakage of protein and nucleic acid. Therefore, green synthesized ZnO NPs, as a promising biocontrol agent, could be used to control fungal diseases.

Aim: The purpose of the present study is to investigate the association between the polymorphisms in AXIN1 with susceptibility to clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). Materials & methods: A total of 284 ccRCC patients and 439 healthy volunteers were enrolled. Totally three tag single nucleotide polymorphisms in AXIN1 gene were genotyped using PCR & restriction fragment length polymorphism. Results: Significantly increased ccRCC risk was observed to be associated with the CT/CC genotypes of rs1805105 and AA genotype of rs12921862. Patients carrying the rs1805105 CT genotype had a 1.92-fold increased risk to developing clinical stage III and IV cancer. Conclusion: Our results suggested the rs1805105 CT/CC genotypes and rs12921862 AA genotype may relate to ccRCC development.

Background Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is highly lethal worldwide. Factors involved in the inflammation and hormone-associated signaling pathway play vital roles in EOC carcinogenesis. The transforming growth factor-β- (TGF-β-) activated kinase 1 (MAP3K7) binding protein 2 (TAB2), mediating convergence of inflammatory and estrogen, may be implicated in EOC. The present study is aimed at exploring the association between the TAB2 gene polymorphisms and EOC. Methods Three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs237028, rs521845, and rs652921) of TAB2 were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) in 221 patients and 252 healthy controls. Associations between SNPs and clinical characteristics were performed either with the χ2 test or with Fisher's exact test. The Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazard models were used to detect associations between genotypes and overall survival. Results The rs237028 polymorphism was significantly associated with an increased risk of EOC with an allelic genetic model (A vs. G; OR = 1.45; 95%CI = 1.07–1.96; P = 0.016), dominant genetic model (AA vs. AG-GG; OR = 1.66; CI 1.14–2.41; P = 0.008), and overdominant genetic model (AA-GG vs. AG; OR = 1.60; CI 1.08–2.36; P = 0.017). However, no significant association was observed between rs237028 polymorphism and overall survival. Conclusions Our study indicated that the rs237028 polymorphism in the TAB2 gene was associated with EOC susceptibility and the TAB2 gene might contribute to the initiation of EOC.

Given the major role of new enterprises founded by university alumni in creating employment and promoting economic development, it is well known that Chinese universities have implemented plenty of impressive initiatives to support students’ entrepreneurship. However, little is yet known about how students evaluate university entrepreneurship support and how it affects students’ entrepreneurial intentions. This study utilizes 13,954 recent college graduates from Chinese higher education institutions as a sample and aims to examine students’ perceptions of the support they received from universities and its influence on students’ entrepreneurial intentions. The results illustrate that students are not very satisfied with various university entrepreneurship supports. Findings also indicate that university entrepreneurship support positively impacts students’ entrepreneurial intentions, although it is not a very strong relationship. Moreover, university entrepreneurship support positively affects entrepreneurial attitude, subjective norms, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy, which in turn determine entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurial attitude, subjective norms, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy play a mediating role between university entrepreneurship support and entrepreneurial intention. The study contributes to the entrepreneurial literature theoretically and provides practical recommendations for policymakers and university administrators in China to reconsider and improve their entrepreneurship supports to encourage more students to become entrepreneurs.

With the passage of time, more and more highway bridges gradually enter the old age, and the safety assessment of bridge structures is particularly urgent. According to the use status of in-service reinforced concrete bridges and the actual problems of highway bridges, the necessity and urgency of this subject research are pointed out. At the same time, it comprehensively analyzes the technical specifications, research and application status of bridge structure safety assessment at home and abroad, and points out the advantages and disadvantages of existing technical specifications and research results in terms of content, methods and applications, and aims at the existing technical specifications and research results. Insufficiency, the main research content of this topic is proposed.

Ovarian cancer continues to be the most lethal gynecologic malignancy worldwide. IL-27 is a novel member of the IL-12 cytokine family. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of IL-27 on the ovarian cystadenocarcinoma cell line SKOV3 and determine possible mechanisms underlying its effect. We stably transfected an IL-27 plasmid, empty vector, IL-27 shRNA or negative control into SKOV3 cells. Cell proliferative activity was evaluated using a WST-1 cell proliferation assay kit. Cell viability was quantified by measurements of lactate dehydrogenase release. The mRNA levels of nine genes were tested by q-PCR. Western blotting was used to verify apoptosis and signal pathways. We found that the IL-27 plasmid significantly enhanced cytotoxicity and inhibited the proliferation of SKOV3 cells. Caspase-3 protein was augmented by IL-27 plasmid and abated by IL-27 shRNA. The incremental expression of IL-27 activated the STAT3 pathway and attenuated the Akt pathway. The over-expression of IL-27 could significantly upregulate a series of antitumor cytokines including IL-6, IL-12 and interferon-γ and down-regulate protumor factors such as TLR4 and NF-κB1. Our data show that IL-27 has direct antitumor capacity in ovarian cancer cells via enhancing apoptosis by inducing the STAT3 pathway and restraining the Akt pathway. Precis: IL-27 enhanced the cytotoxicity and suppressed the proliferation of ovarian cancer cells by activating STAT3 and inhibiting the Akt signal pathway. IL-27 plays an important role in antitumor activity against epithelial ovarian cancer.

In this paper, anaerobic biofilters (AF) were adopted for anaerobic co-digestion of potato starch wastewater (PSW) and coal gasification wastewater (CGW). A modified Gompertz equation was used for the analysis. With a ratio of PSW:CGW at 1:1 for the influent, it remarkably improved the removal effect of (chemical oxygen demand) COD and total phenol. With an influent concentration of COD of 2600 mg L−1 and total phenol 200 mg L−1, the effluent COD and total phenol could be decreased to 1100 mg L−1 and 100 mg L−1, respectively. The methane production rate was generally above 260 (mL CH4 per g per d). In order to further enhance the performance of the system, the strategy of effluent recirculation on co-digestion was adopted. The result indicated that under a low effluent recirculation rate of 0.5, concentrations of COD and total phenol in effluent could reach as low as 800 and 70 mg L−1, respectively. Also, the methane production rate was around 300 (mL CH4 per g per d). High-throughput sequencing showed the microbial phyla Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, Euryarchaeota, Firmicutes dominanted the system and the abundance variation was observed at different effluent recirculation rates.

Interleukin-31 is a crucial cytokine triggering inflammation which could be one of the risk factors of tumors. However, data for correlation between IL-31 and tumors are limited. The purpose of our study was to discuss whether genetic polymorphisms of IL-31 were associated with the susceptibility and clinical outcomes of bladder cancer. Our study enrolled 478 controls, 156 non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) and 138 muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) patients. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method was used for genotyping two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of IL-31 gene including rs7977932 and rs4758680. Our results showed that A allele and CA/AA genotypes of rs4758680 were associated with susceptibility to bladder cancer (P = 0.04, OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.01–1.72, and P = 0.02, OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.05–1.96, respectively), and G allele of rs7977932 might be a protect factor for tobacco smoking patients compared with non-smoking patients (P = 0.005, OR 0.42, 95% CI 0.23–0.76). Furthermore, CA/AA genotypes of rs4758680 might be the independent risk factors for the decreased recurrence-free survival of the patients with MIBC (P = 0.03, OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.06–3.85. Our data indicated that polymorphisms of IL-31 are associated with bladder cancer, and rs4758680 could be an independent prediction for MIBC patients with a high risk of recurrence.

Objective: At present, cancer genetic markers of susceptibility (CGEMS) are a very important cancer research topic. This study aims to investigate possible correlations between the emergence of endometrial cancer (EC) and the presence of polymorphisms in two gene sites (rs4758680 and rs7977932) of interleukin-31 (IL-31) in a well-defined Chinese cohort. Methods: Polymerase Chain-Reaction (PCR) was performed to determine the genotypic composition and the allelic frequencies of IL-31 gene variants in 255 EC patients and 370 healthy controls. Results: Our results revealed a statistically significant association between the presence of allele A of rs4758680 and increased EC risk (P = 0.009). Moreover, genotypic frequencies in the codominant (P = 0.0041), dominant (P = 0.0018), and overdominant (P

Roles of interleukin-31 (IL-31) in the development and progression of human epithelial ovarian cancer are largely unknown. Studies report that the polymorphisms, rs7977932 C>G and rs4758680 C>A in IL-31, affect the expression level of IL-31. In the present study, we examined 412 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer and 428 healthy individuals to explore whether these polymorphisms are associated with the epithelial ovarian cancer in Chinese women. The genotype of the polymorphisms in each individual was identified. The associations of the polymorphisms with patients’ clinical characteristics and outcomes were evaluated. For rs7977932, the frequency of the CG/GG was significantly decreased in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer. However, the frequency of the rs4758680 CA/AA was significantly increased in those patients. Moreover, the frequency of rs7977932 CG/GG genotype was significantly higher in patients with less advanced FIGO stages. Kaplan-Meier curve showed that patients with CG/GG genotypes of rs7977932 had a decreased risk for recurrence compared to those with CC genotype. Our findings suggested that rs7977932 and rs4758680 of IL-31 may be associated with the development and progression of the epithelial ovarian cancer in the Chinese population. IL-31, therefore, may be a potential therapeutic target for the development of drugs to treat the disease.

Nogo proteins play an important role in the apoptosis of cells, especially in tumor cells. The present study was conducted to evaluate whether the TATC (rs71682980) and CAA (rs34917480) insertion/deletion polymorphisms of RTN4 3'-UTR are associated with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). These two polymorphisms were genotyped in 308 ccRCC patients and 466 healthy controls by polymerase chain reaction polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PCR-PAGE). Significantly reduced ccRCC risk was observed to be associated with the TATCins/ins genotype carriers (Versus TATCdel/del: adjusted OR 0.53, 95% CI 0.32-0.87, P = 0.022; Versus TATCdel/del-del/ins: adjusted OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.36-0.92, P = 0.017). After performing stratification analysis, the frequency of TATCins/ins genotype was observed to be significantly higher in patients with N0 compared the patients with N1 (P = 0.003). The present study provide evidence for the first time that the TATC insertion/deletion polymorphism in RTN4 3'-UTR may contributes to ccRCC risk in Chinese Han population.

Context: AXIN1 is a central component of Wnt signalling pathway which is essential for embryonic development.Objective: To investigate whether polymorphisms of AXIN1 contribute to ASD susceptibility.Materials and methods: Three tag SNPs (rs12921862, rs370681 and rs1805105) in AXIN1 were genotyped in 208 ASD patients and 302 healthy controls using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) in a Chinese population.Results: Significantly increased ASD risk was observed to be associated with the A allele of rs12921862 (p

Nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (Nampt) was served as a useful biomarker for tumorigenesis and for the prediction of cancer survival. In the present study, we analyzed the SNPs of the NAMPT gene and their impact on the susceptibility and prognosis for patients with bladder cancer (BC). The rs61330082, rs2505568 and rs9034 were selected and genotyped by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method in 407 patients with bladder cancer and 316 ethnicity-matched healthy control subjects. The genotyping method was confirmed by the DNA sequencing analysis. Statistically significant increased bladder cancer risk was found to be associated with the C allele and CC genotype of rs61330082; nevertheless, decreased bladder cancer risk was revealed to be associated with A allele and AT genotype of rs2505568. Stratified analyses revealed the rs61330082 to be statistically associated with increased bladder cancer risk in smokers and increased invasiveness of bladder cancer. The AT heterozygote of rs2505568 may prevent the recurrence of bladder cancer. Kaplan-Meier curves revealed a statistically significant association of rs2505568 with recurrence-free survival for total bladder cancer patients and non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer patients, and a statistically significant association of rs9034 with recurrence-free survival for muscle-invasive bladder cancer patients. Multiple Cox regression analysis identified the rs2505568 as a possible independent prognostic factor for recurrence-free survival in total bladder cancer patients. Our results suggested an important role for NAMPT in the pathogenesis of bladder cancer and SNPs of NAMPT gene might be a novel genetic biomarker for the prognosis of bladder cancer.

This study investigated the association between IL-27 gene polymorphisms and susceptibility to epithelial ovarian cancer in a Chinese population and discusses the risk factors associated with survival time. We collected data on 229 patients diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer, from 15 to 77 years of age with a long clinical follow-up period. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism was performed to determine the genotype of IL-27 gene polymorphisms. Ovarian cancer-specific survival (OCSS) according to genotype of IL-27 gene polymorphisms was explored by Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards modeling. Significant differences for genotype frequencies of both SNP sites were found between cases and controls. Both allele G frequencies were significantly greater among the cases (rs153109: 0.404 vs. 0.303, P = 0.001, odds ratio [OR] = 1.333, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.133–1.567; rs17855750: 0.146 vs. 0.083, P = 0.001, OR = 1.766, 95% CI = 1.258–2.481). Haplotype analysis showed haplotypes AG, GT and GG were associated with increased ovarian cancer susceptibility while AT was a protective haplotype. Advanced FIGO stage (stages III + IV) and non-optimal cytoreductive surgery (residual tumor ≥1 cm) were poor prognostic factors in the univariate analysis (P = 0.003, P = 0.049). However, FIGO stage was found to be the only independent significant prognostic factor by Cox proportional hazards analysis (P = 0.042). IL-27p28 mRNA expression was significantly decreased in ovarian cancer patients (P

Context: Sepsis is now the leading cause of death in the noncardiovascular intensive care unit (ICU).Objective: To investigate whether polymorphisms in IL21 gene contribute to sepsis susceptibility.Materials and methods: Three single-nucleotide polymorphisms of IL21 (rs907715, rs2055979, rs12508721) were genotyped by TaqMan assay in patients with sepsis and control subjects.Results: Polymorphisms rs2055979 and rs12508721 in IL21 were more frequent in sepsis patients compared to general population. But allele frequency of rs907715 was not significantly different between sepsis patients and control subjects.Conclusion: Polymorphisms in IL21 may be associated with sepsis risk.