Search

The essay discusses the rise of Nazism and Militarism during interwar Germany and Japan. It compares the similarities and differences that existed in the social, economic, and political environment of the two countries. The essay approaches the topic by analyzing the cause and effect of economic depression, social upheaval, and unique political propaganda. The paper intends to provide information about circumstances when extremism revives, and thus to avoid similar conditions in the future.

Proinflammatory cytokines mediate anxiety and depression in various ways, such as immunity, inflammation, and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. This study intended to further explore the linkage of common proinflammatory cytokine levels with anxiety and depression in psoriasis patients.Totally, 150 psoriasis patients and 50 healthy controls (HCs) were included; the serum samples were collected, then common proinflammatory cytokines were measured by ELISA. Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was assessed.HADS-anxiety (HADS-A) score, HADS-depression (HADS-D) score, TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-12, IL-17A, and IL-23 were all increased in psoriasis patients compared to HCs (all p 0.05). In psoriasis patients, TNF-α (p = 0.001), IL-12 (p = 0.035), and IL-17A (p 0.001), but not IL-1β (p = 0.255), IL-6 (p = 0.248), and IL-23 (p = 0.216), were positively linked to HADS-A score. Meanwhile, TNF-α (p = 0.007) and IL-17A (p = 0.007) were enhanced in psoriasis patients with anxiety in contrast to those without anxiety; whereas IL-1β (p = 0.178), IL-6 (p = 0.360), IL-12 (p = 0.239), and IL-23 (p = 0.450) were not different. TNF-α (p 0.001), IL-1β (p = 0.013), Il-17A (p 0.001), and IL-23 (p = 0.023), but not IL-6 (p = 0.143) and IL-12 (p = 0.158), were positively linked to HADS-D score. Concurrently, TNF-α (p = 0.015), IL-17A (p 0.001), and IL-23 (p = 0.017) were climbed in psoriasis patients with depression by comparison to those without depression; whereas IL-1β (p = 0.113), IL-6 (p = 0.237), IL-12 (p = 0.660) did not differ.TNF-α, IL-17A, and IL-23 increments reflect anabatic anxiety and depression in psoriasis patients, uncovering the potency of proinflammatory cytokines measurement for monitoring or even preventing psoriasis patients' anxiety and depression.

Median U-turn intersection treatment (MUIT) has been considered as an alternative measure to reduce congestion and traffic conflict at intersection areas, but the required spacing between the U-turn opening and the intersection limits its applicability. In this paper, a U-turn design with Advance Left Turn (UALT) is proposed with the aim of addressing the disadvantages of insufficient intersection spacing and difficulty in the continuous vehicle lane change. UALT provides a dedicated lane to advance the turning vehicle out of the intersection and directly to the U-turn opening without interacting with through traffic. The effectiveness and traffic volume applicability of UALT was demonstrated through field data investigation, simulation and analysis with VISSIM software. The proposed design was evaluated in terms of three parameters: delay, queue length and the number of stops. The results show that when the traffic volume range of the main road is (1900, 2200) pcu/h and the traffic volume of the secondary road is more than 900 pcu/h, the optimization effect of UALT on both conventional intersections and MUIT is very significant. Taking a signal-controlled intersection in Zhengzhou City, China, as an example to build a simulation model, compared with the conventional intersection and MUIT, the delay drop is reduced by 73.48% and 41.48%, the queue length is reduced by 84.85% and 41.66%, and the operation efficiency is significantly improved.

Primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL), a rare variant of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is characterized by distinct biological characteristics and clinical behaviors, and patient prognosis is not satisfactory. The advent of high-dose (HD) methotrexate (HD-MTX) therapy has significantly improved PCNSL prognosis. Currently, HD-MTX-based chemotherapy regimens are recognized as first-line treatment. PCNSL is sensitive to radiotherapy, and whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT) can consolidate response to chemotherapy; however, WBRT-associated delayed neurotoxicity leads to neurocognitive impairment, especially in elderly patients. Other effective approaches include rituximab, temozolomide, and autologous stem-cell transplantation (ASCT). In addition, new drugs against PCNSL such as those targeting the B-cell receptor signaling pathway, are undergoing clinical trials. However, optimal therapeutic approaches in PCNSL remain undefined. This review provides an overview of advances in surgical approaches, induction chemotherapy, radiotherapy, ASCT, salvage treatments, and novel therapeutic approaches in immunocompetent patients with PCNSL in the past 5 years. Additionally, therapeutic progress in elderly patients and in those with relapsed/refractory PCNSL is also summarized based on the outcomes of recent clinical studies.

Stroke usually causes multiple functional disability. To develop novel rehabilitation strategies, it is quite necessary to improve the understanding of post-stroke brain plasticity. Here, we use functional near-infrared spectroscopy to investigate the prefrontal cortex (PFC) network reorganization in stroke patients with dyskinesias. The PFC hemodynamic signals in the resting state from 16 stroke patients and 10 healthy subjects are collected and analyzed with the graph theory. The PFC networks for both groups show small-world attributes. The stroke patients have larger clustering coefficient and transitivity and smaller global efficiency and small-worldness than healthy subjects. Based on the selected network features, the established support vector machine model classifies the two groups of subjects with an accuracy rate of 88.5%. Besides, the clustering coefficient and local efficiency negatively correlate with patients' motor function. This study suggests that the PFC of stroke patients with dyskinesias undergoes specific network reorganization.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a common oral cancer of the head and neck, which causes tremendous physical and mental pain to people. Traditional chemotherapy usually results in drug resistance and side effects, affecting the therapy process. In this study, a self-powered electrical impulse chemotherapy (EIC) method based on a portable triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) was established for OSCC therapy. A common chemotherapeutic drug, doxorubicin (DOX), was used in the experiment. The TENG designed with zigzag structure had a small size of 6 cm × 6 cm, which could controllably generate the fixed output of 200 V, 400 V and 600 V. The electrical impulses generated by the TENG increased the cell endocytosis of DOX remarkably. Besides, a simply and ingeniously designed microneedle electrode increased the intensity of electric field (EF) between two adjacent microneedle tips compared with the most used planar interdigital electrode at the same height, which was more suitable for three-dimensional (3D) cells or tissues. Based on the TENG, microneedle electrode and DOX, the self-powered EIC system demonstrated a maximal apoptotic cell ratio of 22.47% and a minimum relative 3D multicellular tumor sphere (MCTS) volume of 160% with the drug dosage of 1 μg mL−1.

Background Ophiorrhiza pumila, belonging to the genus Ophiorrhiza (Rubiaceae), is distributed throughout tropical and subtropical Asia. In this study, we evaluated for the first time the anti-proliferation and anti-migration effects of ethanol extract of O. pumila (OPE) on HepG2 and SMMC-7721 cells, and explored the related mechanism. Methods OPE was prepared by percolation with 95% ethanol and its main compounds were analyzed by HPLC-MS2. The anti-proliferation effect of OPE was evaluated by the CCK-8 assay and colony formation assay. Cell cycle distribution, apoptosis, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) level were detected by flow cytometry. Migration and invasion abilities were detected by Transwell migration/invasion assays. The expression of correlated proteins was determined using western blotting. Results A total of 5 tentative compounds were identified from OPE, including pumiloside, deoxypumiloside, camptothecin, aknadinine, and β-stigmasterol. OPE displayed strong cytostatic effects on HepG2 and SMMC-7721 cells. OPE induced G2/M phase cell cycle arrest, increased apoptosis, and augmented ROS production in these cell lines. In addition, OPE possessed a significant inhibition on cell migration and invasion by reduction of MMP-9 and MMP-2 expression. Moreover, OPE significantly suppressed the phosphorylation of p65. Conclusions Our data showed that OPE suppresses liver cancer cell proliferation and migration, which is possibly involved with the inhibition of the NF-κB pathway.

Since the nanogenerator (NG) was invented in 2006, it has been successfully developed and utilized to harvest various forms of mechanical energy in vivo. The NGs promote the progress of self-powered biomedical devices. Moreover, NGs can also be used as sensors to detect a variety of important physiological signals, which brings us closer to real-time, high-fidelity monitoring of physical and pathological information. This paper summarizes the in vivo applications of NGs as biomedical sensors, including in cardiac sensors, respiration sensors, blood pressure sensors, gastrointestinal sensors and bladder sensors. However, there are still many challenges in using NGs as sensors in vivo. For example, how can we minimize and encapsulate the NGs, how can we increase the stability and reliability during long-term detection, and how can we establish a corresponding relationship between the NG’s electrical output and the physiological signals. It is also critical to follow the medical principles more closely in the development of self-powered sensors in the future. We believe that the self-powered sensors would promote the development of the next-generation healthcare monitoring systems.

A step-index chalcogenide fiber with a rectangular core and a circular cladding was fabricated through an approach that combines an extrusion technique and a multiple-stage rod-in-tube method. This fiber has a Ge12As24Se64 glass core with a size of ~2.8 μm × 5.9 μm, and a Ge10As24S66 glass cladding with a diameter of ~220 μm, and shows a relatively large birefringence. When ~10 cm long fiber was pumped at 4.0 μm with 330 fs pulses, ~2.2–9.5 μm supercontinuum with a flatness of 20 dB and a polarization extinction ratio of ~10 dB was generated.

The isolated perfused rat lung (IPL), coupled with high performance liquid chromatography\tandem mass spectrometry analysis (HPLC–ESI-MSn), has been developed as a tool for screening bioactive components in Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch. (GU). First, IPL was perfused with the water extract of GU (EGU), the bioactive components in the EGU would selectively combine to the receptors or channels of lung. By changing the pH of perfused solution, the combined components were eluated and then detected by HPLC-ESI-MSn. Four compounds were detected in the desorption eluate of IPL, among these compounds, liquiritin (1), ononin (2) and glycyrrhizic acid (4) were identified by comparing with the chromatography of the standards, while licorice-saponin G2 (3) were determined by analysis of the structure clearage characterization of mass spectrometry. Then, due to the lack of compound 3 sample, compounds 1, 2 and 4 with respective concentrations of 50 μM, 5 μM, 500 nM, 50 nM and 5 nM were applied to evaluate the protective effect of pulmonary epithelial cells (PEC, A549 cell) injury induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) for anti-inflammatory activity assessment. The results showed that except the 5 nM group of compound 1, 5 nM and 50 nM groups of compound 2, all other groups could remarkably inhibit the PEC injury (vs LPS group, 2-500 nM groups: p

Mid-infrared (MIR) light sources are indispensable in modern photonic society. In this work, the composites of the As-S-Se chalcogenide glasses containing MIR-emitting ZnSe: Cr2+ submicron-particles are fabricated by two methods, melt-quenching and hot-pressing. The MIR refractive index, transmittance and photoluminescence properties are investigated and compared in the composites prepared by the two methods. Benefiting from the wide glass forming region of the As-S-Se system, it is possible, by tuning the glass composition, to find a glass (e.g., As40S57Se3) with the refractive index well matching that of the ZnSe: Cr2+ crystal. The composites prepared by the melt-quenching method have higher MIR transmittance, but the MIR emission can only be observed in the samples prepared by the hot-pressing technique. The corresponding reasons are discussed based on microstructural analyses. The results reported in this article could provide helpful theoretical and experimental information for making novel broadband MIR-emitting sources based on chalcogenide glasses.

Aging is usually accompanied by decrease in limb motor function and change in muscle metabolism patterns. However, few studies have investigated the aging effect on muscle hemodynamics of the upper extremity. This study aims to explore the aging effect on muscle metabolism patterns during upper limb's exercise. Twelve middle-aged and elderly subjects and 12 young subjects were recruited, and muscle oxygenation signals from these subjects’ biceps brachii muscles were collected during active and passive upper limb's encircling exercise with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The old group showed stronger muscle hemodynamic metabolism than the young group. The multiscale fuzzy approximate entropy and multiscale transfer entropy analyses indicated higher complexity and stronger interlimb coupling of the muscle oxygenation signals for the old group. Based on the selected muscle metabolism features, the constructed support vector machine model showed a high accuracy rate for classifying the two groups of subjects: 91.6% for the passive mode and 87.5% for the active mode. Our results proved the specific muscle metabolism patterns in the upper limb's exercise for old subjects, promoting the understanding of the aging effect on muscle hemodynamics.

International audience; In this work, spark plasma sintering is used to mold non conventional chalcogenide glasses of high refractive index at low temperature (andlt;400°C). This equipment, usually used for sintering refractory materials, is presented as efficient for both densification and high precision molding of IR transparent bulks and lenses of telluride glasses. Thermo-mechanical and optical characteristics of the selected Ge25Se10Te65 glass composition were investigated showing a refractive index of 3,12@10 µm and with however a limited resistance to crystallization. Mechanical milling of raw Ge, Se, Te elements leads to a major amorphous phase with the formation of a small proportion of GeTe crystals. Remaining GeTe crystals induce a fast crystallization rate during the sintering process leading to the opacity of the material. SPS flash moldings were then performed using melt quenched glass powders to produce complex lenses. It has been found that the critical parameter to reach optimal IR transparency is mainly the powder granulometry, which should be superior to 100 µm to prevent from MIE scatterings. The possibility of producing high refractive index infrared lenses has been demonstrated even with unstable glasses against crystallization. © 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

Tuberculosis caused by the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), remains a significant threat to global health. Elucidating the mechanisms of essential MTB genes provides an important theoretical basis for drug exploitation. Gene mtsp17 is essential and is conserved in the Mycobacterium genus. Although Mtsp17 has a structure closely resembling typical steroidogenic acute regulatory protein-related lipid transfer (START) family proteins, its biological function is different. This study characterizes the transcriptomes of Mycobacterium smegmatis to explore the consequences of mtsp17 downregulation on gene expression. Suppression of the mtsp17 gene resulted in significant down-regulation of 3% and upregulation of 1% of all protein-coding genes. Expression of desA1, an essential gene involved in mycolic acid synthesis, and the anti-SigF antagonist MSMEG_0586 were down-regulated in the conditional Mtsp17 knockout mutant and up-regulated in the Mtsp17 over-expression strain. Trends in the changes of 70 of the 79 differentially expressed genes (Log2 fold change > 1.5) in the conditional Mtsp17 knockout strain were the same as in the SigF knockout strain. Our data suggest that Mtsp17 is likely an activator of desA1 and Mtsp17 regulates the SigF regulon by SigF regulatory pathways through the anti-SigF antagonist MSMEG_0586. Our findings indicate the role of Mtsp17 may be in transcriptional regulation, provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms of START family proteins, and uncover a new node in the regulatory network of mycobacteria.

Two new hasubanan alkaloids, stephalonester A (1) and stephalonester B (2), together with four known compounds, stephalonine E (3), longanone (4), cephatonine (5), and prostephabyssine (6) were isolated from the whole plant of Stephania longa. Their structures were determined by HR-ESI-MS, 1 D and 2 D NMR, ECD calculations, as well as by comparison with literature values. All compounds were evaluated for their anti-inflammatory activity in vitro. Compounds 4, 5, and 6 exhibited significantly inhibitory effects on TNF-α and IL-6 production with IC50 values range from 6.54 to 30.44 µM.

Metastasis is a major cause of breast cancer death. MPP7 is a cell polarity controller highly linked to cell migration; however, the function of MPP7 in breast cancer remains unknown. In this study, we reported that MPP7 expression was upregulated in breast cancer tissues and high MPP7 expression predicted poor survival in patients with breast cancer. Ectopic expression of MPP7 markedly enhanced the migration and invasion in breast cancer cells. In contrast, depletion of MPP7 resulted in impaired cell mobility and metastasis. Moreover, we demonstrated that MPP7 exerted its promotional effect via modulation of EMT and activation of the EGFR/AKT cascade. Our study reveals an oncogenic role of MPP7 in breast cancer and suggests that MPP7 may serve as a potential target for exploring novel therapeutic strategies against breast cancer metastasis.

Background Tuberculosis caused by the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), remains a significant threat to global health. Elucidating the mechanism of essential MTB genes will provide a theoretical basis for drug exploitation. Gene mtsp17 is essential and conserved in the Mycobacterium genus. Although the structure of Mtsp17 exhibits as a typical steroidogenic acute regulatory protein-related lipid transfer (START) family protein, its biological function is different from other START proteins. This study characterized the transcriptomes of Mycobacterium smegmatis to address the problem how suppressing mtsp17 reduces bacterial growth rate. Results 3% down- and 1% up-regulated protein-coding genes were significantly differentiated expressed by suppressing mtsp17 gene. Among them, desA1, an essential gene involved in mycolic acid synthesis, was found to be significantly depressed (3.1-fold). Further analyses showed that mstp17 can activate desA1 to regulate the bacterial growth. In addition, the anti-anti-SigF gene was dramatically decreased (8.9-fold) and 70 of the 79 differentially expressed genes showed the same change trends in the SigF knockout strain. The data indicate that Mtsp17 regulates SigF regulon by modulating mRNA abundance of the anti-sigma factor antagonist. Conclusions Our findings discover the role of Mtsp17 in transcriptional regulation that was unknown before, which provides new insights into the molecular mechanisms of START family and introduces a new node to the regulatory network of mycobacteria.

Compact, mechanically robust, and cost-effective mid-infrared (MIR) light sources are key components in portable and field-deployable gas sensors. Capitalizing on an efficient energy transfer mechanism between

Given a directed acyclic graph (DAG), a k-hop reachability query u → ?k is used to answer whether there exists a path from u to v with length ≤ k. Answering k-hop reachability queries is a fundamental graph operation and has been extensively studied during the past years. Considering that existing approaches still suffer from inefficiency in practice when processing large graphs, we propose a novel labeling scheme, namely HT, to accelerate k-hop reachability queries answering. HTuses a constrained 2hop distance label to maintain the length of shortest paths between a set of hop nodes and other nodes, and for the remaining reachability information, HT uses a novel topological level to accelerate graph traversal. Further, we propose to enhance HT by two optimization techniques. The experimental results show that compared with the state-of-the-art approaches, HT works best for most graphs when answering k-hop reachability queries with small index size and reasonable index construction time.

Background: Uniquely synthesised titanium dioxide (TiO2) with high-energy {001} exposed facets denoted HF8 was used for the photocatalytic degradation of microcystin-LR (MC-LR) under ultraviolet irradiation at 365 nm. Methods: The influence of various conditions including environmental pH, nutrient anions, TiO2 dose, and MC-LR concentration was studied, and concentration of MC-LR measured using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Results: Within 120 min, 72.6% of an environmentally relevant MC-LR concentration (120 µg/L) was degraded under pH conditions ranging from 3 to 11. Stability tests revealed no loss of TiO2 activity after four applications of the same dose, indicating its stability, reusability, and potential to be re-used for sustainable remediation of MC-LR in eutrophic waters. Mechanism studies suggested that the reaction obeyed the pseudo-first-order equation and that hydroxyl radicals are the major reactive intermediate contributing to the reaction. The structure elucidation of intermediates suggested that hydroxylation and bond cleavage between the Adda chain and Mdha site could be the initiation of reactions in the degradation of MC-LR by HF8 TiO2. Conclusion: The results present a fast, sustainable, and practical method using modified TiO2 to improve MC-LR remediation.

We report a new Dy3+-doped Ga2S3-Sb2S3-La2S3 (GSLS) chalcogenide glass for mid-infrared (mid-IR) laser applications. With the addition of La2S3 into the previously studied Ga2S3-Sb2S3 glass, the thermal stability of the base glass is significantly enhanced. The glass with the composition 20Ga2S3-75Sb2S3-5La2S3 (mol.%) shows the best thermal stability for fiber drawing, and the glass can be doped with up to 5 mol.% Dy2S3. The Dy3+-doped GSLS bulk glasses and a multimode fiber exhibit intense emissions at 2.95 μm and 4.40 μm. Spectroscopic analyses show that the mid-IR emissions are with high quantum efficiencies and large stimulated emission cross sections, indicating that Dy3+-doped GSLS glass is a promising candidate for mid-IR fiber laser medium.

Chalcogenide glasses (ChGs) containing II-VI chalcogenide (ChG) nanocrystals such as ZnS/Se have recently been intensively studied as promising mid-infrared nonlinear optics and laser materials, yet preparation of pure-phase II-VI nanocrystals embedded in ChGs via controlled crystallization is still very challenging. In this paper, a new system of ChGs and glass-ceramics (GCs), viz., (100-x)As2S3-xZnSe (x = 0 ~ 30 mol. %) is synthesized, and its physical and optical properties including density, molar volume, micro hardness, glass transition temperature, glass network structure, transmission and refractive index comprehensively characterized. Significantly, it is initially demonstrated that pure ZnS nanocrystals can be precipitated in GCs simply by a thermal treatment process. The composition and thermal treatment temperature dependencies of crystallization are studied using X-ray diffraction spectroscopy, and the morphology of the nanocrystals by high resolution transmission electron microscope. The ChG GCs with embedded ZnS nanocrystals retaining good transparency can be a potential host laser material for divalent transition metals (e.g., Cr2+/Fe2+, etc.), and thus used for ultrabroadband tunable continuous or ultra-short pulsed mid-infrared fiber lasers. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

In this work, a new chalcohalide glass system, Ga 2 S 3 Sb 2 S 3 CsCl (GSSC), is reported. The glass-forming ability and the physical properties are investigated; and the potential applications of these glasses are evaluated. The glass forming ability can be remarkably improved when CsCl is added into Ga 2 S 3 Sb 2 S 3 glasses, and the compositions with more than 30% CsCl possess quite good thermal stability against crystallization. The studied GSSC glasses have transition temperatures of 217–250 °C, densities of 3.42–3.97 g/cm 3 , micro-hardness of 1.12–1.88 GPa, a transparent window of ∼0.56–13.4 μm, linear refractive indices of 1.99–2.58 @ 10 μm, nonlinear refractive indices of 1.1–11.9 × 10 −14 cm 2 /W @ 1030 nm, and zero group-velocity-dispersion wavelengths of 3.37–5.15 μm. The wide transparent window and the superior optical nonlinear property make these glasses good optical materials for infrared imaging and nonlinear photonics.

Although Ho 3+ doped glasses and fibers lasing at 2.1 μm have been extensive studied, an effective means of power scaling still attracts interest from academic and industry societies. Here, by combining the unique characteristics of Bi 2 O 3 -B 2 O 3 -SiO 2 bismuthate glasses and oxidizing effect of CeO 2 doping, Ce 3+ /Yb 3+ /Ho 3+ triply doped glasses of improved optical properties can be obtained. A dramatically enhanced (by more than 50%) 2.1 μm emission of Ho 3+ is observed. The underlying mechanism and the possible energy transfer processes between Ce 3+ , Yb 3+ and Ho 3+ are discussed. The enhanced emission, together with a full width at half maximum of 190 nm, a stimulated emission cross-section of 4.1 × 10 −21 cm 2 and an extremely large internal quantum efficiency (more than 90%) of the 2.1 μm emission of Ho 3+ , suggests good potential of the studied glasses for fiber amplifiers.

In this study, a new chalcohalide glass system, Ga2S3-Sb2S3-CsI, is reported. It has a glass-forming domain composed of ~0-35 mol% Ga2S3, ~15-95 mol% Sb2S3 and ~0-55 mol% CsI. The glasses have a wide transparent window of ~0.7-13.5 μm, high third-order nonlinear refractive indices of ~1.7-8.7×10-14 cm2/W @ 1.55 μm, and relatively short zero group-velocity-dispersion wavelengths of 3.8-5.15 μm. The glasses can dissolve more than 2 mol% active ions (e.g. Dy3+), and the doped glasses show intense emissions in the mid-infrared. These superior properties demonstrate their good potentials for mid-infrared applications such as thermal imaging, nonlinear photonics and lasers. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

The refractive indices ( n ) and thermo-optic coefficients ( ζ ) of Ge 14 As x Se 86 − x and Ge x As 12 Se 88 − x glasses are measured in the 2–12 μm mid-infrared range. The composition dependences of the two parameters are investigated and strategies for tailoring them are proposed. The density ( d ) shows a maximum at the stoichiometric composition when Ge content is fixed; while it exhibits a minimum at the mean coordination number ( r >) of 2.67 when As concentration is fixed. The volume thermal expansion coefficient ( β ) broadly decreases with increasing r >. Two semi-empirical relations are used to predict n and ζ from the glass composition. The n of a Ge-As-Se glass could be predicted with an error of d of the glass and the molar refractivity ( R i ) of the constituent elements. The estimated values of R i for Ge, As and Se between 2 and 12 μm range from 10.12–10.52, 11.71–11.91, and 11.17–11.25 cm 3 /mol, respectively. The ζ of a Ge-As-Se glass could be forecasted with an error of β of the glass and the thermal coefficients of the molar refractivity ( φ i ) of the constituent elements. The estimated values of φ i for Ge, As and Se between 2 and 12 μm range from 26.2–26.7, 54.9–55.7 and 85.4–86.8 ppm/K, respectively.

Additional file 1: Figure S1. STR profiling of SMMC-7721 and HepG2 cells.

Additional file 2: Figure S2. Inhibitory effects of OPE on cell migration and invasion of liver cancer cells. a, b HepG2 and SMMC-7721 cells were treated with different concentrations of OPE (0, 0.78, and 1.56 μg/mL) for 48 h, and the migrated and invasive cells were photographed and quantified.

Genetic testing for BRCA1/2 mutations has become the standard clinical practice. Recent findings suggest the clinical significance of multigene panel testing of BRCA1/2 and other cancer-related genes. However, the clinical features of patients with breast cancer with germline mutations identified using multigene panels remain unclear. In this study, DNA samples from 583 Chinese women with breast cancer were subjected to target sequencing for 54 cancer-related genes using a pre-capture pooling method followed by next-generation sequencing. We identified 79 pathogenic germline mutations in 21 cancer-related genes. Forty-five patients (7.7%) harbored BRCA1/2 mutations, and 38 patients (6.5%) carried pathogenic mutations in the remaining 19 genes. PALB2 was the most commonly (1.2%) mutated gene other than BRCA1/2. Most of the identified pathogenic mutations were novel, suggesting mutation screening by using multigene panel testing is important particularly for non-European populations. Mutations in BRCA1/2 and the other cancer-related genes were differentially associated with clinical features. BRCA1 mutation carriers were strongly associated with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), whereas BRCA2 mutation carriers were not. Tumors in BRCA1-mutation carriers had a high histological grade. Patients with BRCA2-mutated breast cancers were likely to develop E-cadherin-negative tumors with bone metastases. Furthermore, mutations in PALB2 were strongly associated with TNBC. We demonstrated the usefulness of multigene panel testing and observed that a substantial proportion of patients with breast cancer had hereditary risk factors. Identifying differential associations between mutation status and clinical features will advance our understanding regarding the pathologies of this heterogeneous disease.

Multigene panel testing via next-generation sequencing focuses on the detection of small-sized mutations, such as single nucleotide variants and short insertions and deletions (INDELs). However, intermediate-sized INDELs have not been fully explored due to technical difficulties. Here, we performed bioinformatics analyses to identify intermediate-sized INDELs in 54 cancer-related genes from 583 Han Chinese patients with breast cancer. We detected a novel deletion–insertion in a translational variant of PTEN (also known as PTENα) in one patient.

Background Ophiorrhiza pumila, belonging to the genus Ophiorrhiza (Rubiaceae), is distributed throughout tropical and subtropical Asia. In this study, we evaluated for the first time the anti-proliferation and anti-migration effects of ethanol extract of O. pumila (OPE) on HepG2 and SMMC-7721 cells, and explored the related mechanism. Methods OPE was prepared by percolation with 95% ethanol and its main compounds were analyzed by HPLC-MS2. The anti-proliferation effect of OPE was evaluated by the CCK-8 assay and colony formation assay. Cell cycle distribution, apoptosis, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) level were detected by flow cytometry. Migration and invasion abilities were detected by Transwell migration/invasion assays. The expression of correlated proteins was determined using western blotting. Results A total of 5 tentative compounds were identified from OPE, including pumiloside, deoxypumiloside, camptothecin, aknadinine, and β-stigmasterol. OPE displayed strong cytostatic effects on HepG2 and SMMC-7721 cells. OPE induced G2/M phase cell cycle arrest, increased apoptosis, and augmented ROS production in these cell lines. In addition, OPE possessed a significant inhibition on cell migration and invasion by reduction of MMP-9 and MMP-2 expression. Moreover, OPE significantly suppressed the phosphorylation of p65. Conclusions Our data showed that OPE suppresses liver cancer cell proliferation and migration, which is possibly involved with the inhibition of the NF-κB pathway.

International audience