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Background: Acetaminophen (APAP) overdose represents one of the most common drug-induced liver injuries (DILI) worldwide. Oxidative damage to the hepatocytes and their resultant autophagy are the key components in the APAP-induced DILI. Echinacea purpurea polysaccharide (EPPS), the component extracted from the root of Echinacea purpurea (L.) Moench, shows various biological functions including immunoregulation and antioxidant activity.Purpose: This study aimed to elucidate the protective effect of EPPS against APAP-induced DILI and the underlying mechanisms.Results: EPPS attenuates APAP overdose induced DILI in mice and ameliorates inflammation and oxidative stress in mice with APAP overdose-induced DILI. Furthermore, EPPS protected the hepatocytes against APAP-induced liver injury by suppressing apoptosis. EPPS ameliorates APAP-induced DILI via an autophagy-dependent mechanism in vivo and increases autophagy with a reduction in oxidative stress and inflammation in vitro. Parkin knockdown prevents the autophagic-dependent manner of EPPS effects in APAP-treated hepatocytes.Conclusions: EPPS exhibited a strong hepatoprotective effect against APAP-induced DILI and was correlated with reduction of autophagy-dependent oxidant response, inflammation, and apoptosis. Moreover, the findings indicated that EPPS exerts its hepatoprotective effect against APAP mainly via Parkin-dependent autophagy, and the use of EPPS can serve as a promising novel therapeutic strategy for APAP-induced DILI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We construct a novel lightweight network named IDC Net to realize 3-classification tasks, BI-RADS 4 sub-categories 4a, 4b, and 4c. • The IDC Net has two paths, CNN and CapsNet, which combines the advantages of both. CNN is used to extract rich and deep local semantic features, and CapsNet is used to extract the position and posture information of the image. • For the CNN path, we design a network named ID-Net, which is composed of two sub-paths: one is constructed by superimposed ID block to extract rich semantic information from bad artifact images, and the other is constructed by superimposed DD block to better extract boundary information. • To realize the lightweight of the network, we use a special operation when fusing the information extracted by the two paths, which can control the growth of parameters caused by the combination of CNN and CapsNet. In the diagnosis of breast cancer, the 3 sub-categories 4a-4c of BI-RADS 4 are of great significance to doctors. However, low resolution of ultrasound image and high similarity between different category images pose great challenges to this task, which requires the network to be more capable of extracting image features. Therefore, in response to the efficient classification of BI-RADS 4a-4c in breast ultrasound images, we developed a lightweight classification network IDC Net, a neural network model combining the advantages of convolutional neural network(CNN) and CapsNet. In this model: Firstly, we proposed ID-Net based on CNN architecture and mainly constructed by ID block and DD block, which ensure the ID-Net deep and wide enough to extract sufficient local semantic information of image, and at the same time being lightweight. Secondly, we use the CapsNet to learn the position and posture information between the global features of the image, which makes up for the defects of CNN. Finally, two parallel paths of IDC Net and CapsNet are fused to enhance IDC Net's capability of feature extraction. To verify our method, experiments have been conducted on the breast ultrasound dataset of Yunnan cancer hospital and two public datasets. The classification results of our method have been compared with those obtained by five existing approaches. The experimental results show that the proposed method IDC Net has the highest Accuracy (98.54 %), Precision (98.54 %) and F1 score (98.54 %). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luteal cells play a crucial role in pregnancy through secreting progesterone to maintain pregnancy and support of fetus. However, low cellular yields and inability to passage primary porcine luteal cells (PLCs) in vitro limit the luteal cell study. Therefore, developing an immortalized porcine luteal cell line is necessary for studying luteal cells activity and function in different diseases. In this study, primary PLCs were obtained from gilts at day 30 to day 50 of gestation and immortalized by human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT). The porcine corpus luteal cell line (hTERT-PLCs) expressed hTERT gene steady, maintained high hTERT activity and normal karyotype. The phase contrast microscope and transmission electron microscope observation showed primary PLCs and hTERT-PLCs were polygonal and exhibited abundant mitochondria, smooth endoplasmic reticulum and lipid droplets. 3β hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3βHSD) and Oil-Red-O staining showed that hTERT-PLCs at passage 30 and 50 were similar to primary PLCs. The hTERT-PLCs expressed steroidogenesis-related proteins, enzymes and receptors, such as steroidogenic acute regulatory protein, P450 cholesterol side-chain cleavage, 3βHSD, 20αHSD, luteinizing hormone receptor, progesterone receptor, prolactin receptor, estrogen receptorα/β, as well as primary PLCs. Consequently, hTERT-PLCs could secret progesterone and exhibited similar responses to luteinizing hormone and prostaglandin F2α as primary PLCs. In addition, the hTERT-PLCs did not show neoplastic transformation or anchorage independent growth. In summary, we developed an immortalized porcine luteal cell line which maintained its originally morphological, biological and functional characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a newly discovered muscle factor secreted by skeletal muscle cells, irisin is a polypeptide fragment formed from hydrolysis of fibronectin type Ⅲ domain-containing protein 5 (FNDC5). Irisin can promote beigeing of white adipose tissue (WAT) and regulate glucose and lipid metabolisms. However, the functions of irisin in skeletal muscle development remain largely unknown. In order to characterize the expression of irisin, this study investigated the expression of irisin precursor FNDC5 in myoblasts and skeletal muscles during different developmental stages of SPF mice. The Western blot, quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR), and immunofluorescence assay results showed that FNDC5 was expressed in all the developmental stages of myoblasts and gastrocnemius, but its expression differed at different stages. FNDC5 protein exhibited the highest expression in gastrocnemius of sexually mature mice, followed by elderly mice and adolescent mice, and it displayed the lowest expression in pups. Additionally, FNDC5 protein was mainly expressed in cytoplasm, and it had the highest expression in primary myoblasts, followed by the myotubes with the lowest expression in C2C12 myogenic cells. Overall, FNDC5 was mainly expressed in cytoplasm and extracellular matrix with different expression levels at different developmental stages of skeletal muscle cells and tissues in mice. This study will provide new strategies for promoting skeletal muscle development and treating muscle- and metabolism-related disease by using irisin. • High expression of FNDC5 in skeletal muscle of sexually mature mice. • FNDC5 is differentially expressed at different stages of myoblast differentiation. • FNDC5 is localized in the cytoplasm and extracellular matrix of skeletal muscle cells and not in the nucleus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Placental trophoblast cells (PTCs) play a critical role in histotrophic nutrient absorption, gaseous exchange, endocrine activities, and barrier function between the maternal and fetal systems. Establishment of immortalized porcine PTCs will help us to investigate the potential effects of different viruses on porcine trophoblast. In the present study, primary porcine PTCs were isolated from healthy gilts at Day 30 to Day 50 of gestation through collagenase digestion, percoll gradient centrifugation, and anti-CD9 immunomagnetic negative selection. To provide stable and long lifespan cells, primary PTCs were transfected with human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) gene. One porcine placental trophoblast cell line, named as hTERT-PTCs, was chosen for characterization. Human telomerase reverse transcriptase-PTCs achieved an extended replicative lifespan without exhibiting any neoplastic transformation signs in vivo or in vitro . The morphologic and key physiological characteristics of the immortalized PTCs were similar to primary PTCs. The immortalized PTCs retained original cell polarity and normal karyotype, expressed trophoblast-specific marker cytokeratin 7 and E-cadherin but did not express vimentin and major histocompatibility complex class I antigens as well as primary PTCs. Human telomerase reverse transcriptase-PTCs secreted low levels of chorionic gonadotrophin β-subunit and placental lactogen that were coincident with primary PTCs. Taken together, our results demonstrated that the porcine PTCs could be immortalized through reconstitution of telomerase activity. The immortalized PTCs maintained its original characteristics and can be used as a model cells line to study the pathologic changes of porcine placental trophoblast in viruses infectious diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]