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Under the joint action of dynamic and static loads, the connecting bolts of the top cover of the pump turbine are prone to cumulative damage in local areas such as threads, resulting in cracks or development, and fatigue fracture may occur in severe cases, which will cause serious safety accidents. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out accurate fatigue life estimation analysis for connecting bolts, which has always been a hot spot and difficulty in the industry. This paper introduces several commonly used fatigue life analysis methods of parts, combined with the force characteristics and structural characteristics of the connecting bolts of the top cover, and analyzes and discusses the fatigue life analysis methods suitable for the top cover bolts. Finally, it is believed that the application of stress-strain field strength method can better describe the actual state of the bolt danger area, and the current damage state has an influence on the amount of damage generated by further loading, and the fatigue life analysis of connecting bolts can be combined with the stress-strain field strength method and variable damage linear cumulative damage theory, and the fatigue life and residual fatigue life can be estimated in the design stage or after the phased service of the bolt.

Semiconductor metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and heterojunctions have gained increasing attention in many fields, yet their full potential remains largely unexplored. Advanced optobioelectronics are envisioned to create more opportunities for innovative biomedical applications. This study reports a UiO-66-NH

Nature makes use of molecular charges to operate specific biological synthesis and reactions. Targeting advanced opto-bioelectronic sensors, organic photoelectrochemical transistors (OPECTs), taking advantage of the light fuel substituting an external gate potential, is now debuting and expected to serve as a universal platform for studying the rich light-biomatter interplay for new bioanalytics. Given the ubiquity of charged biomolecules in nature, molecular charge manipulation should underpin a generic route for innovative OPECT regulation and operation, which nevertheless has remained unachieved. Herein, this work manifests the biological tuning of surface charge toward the OPECT biosensor, which was exemplified by a light-sensitive CdS quantum dot (QD) gate electrode interfaced by a smart DNA superstructure with adenosine triphosphate (ATP) responsiveness. Highly negative-charged supramolecular DNA concatemers were self-assembled via sequential hybridization, and the ATP-triggered disassembly of the DNA concatemers would cause a tandem change of the effective gate voltage and transfer characteristics with significantly improved resolution. The present opto-bioelectronic device translates the events of charged molecules into amplified electrical signals and outlines a generic format for the future exploitation of rich biological tunability and light-biomatter interplay for innovative bioanalytics and beyond.

A unique poly(amido amine) (PAMAM)/polymer dots (Pdots)/NiO heterostructure is developed for photocathodic detection of tyrosinase (TYR), which is applicable to TYR detection in actual human serum samples.

Metal-organic framework (MOF) derivatives with unique physicochemical and electronic properties have seen a tremendous growth in diverse applications. Organic optobioelectronics have long been pursued in modern electronics for next-generation bio-relevant implementations. The intersection of these two disciplines could be an appealing way to pursue better performance of materials and devices. Herein this work reports the exploration of MOF derivatives and its ionic modulation for gating organic photoelectrochemical transistor (OPECT) biosensing. In the representative system of poly(ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) gated by zeolitic-imidazolate-framework (ZIF)-8-derived Cd

Treatment with metformin can lead to the recovery of pleiotropic biological activities after spinal cord injury. However, its effect on spinal cord injury in aged mice remains unclear. Considering the essential role of angiogenesis during the regeneration process, we hypothesized that metformin activates the adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase/endothelial nitric oxide synthase pathway in endothelial cells, thereby promoting microvascular regeneration in aged mice after spinal cord injury. In this study, we established young and aged mouse models of contusive spinal cord injury using a modified Allen method. We found that aging hindered the recovery of neurological function and the formation of blood vessels in the spinal cord. Treatment with metformin promoted spinal cord microvascular endothelial cell migration and blood vessel formation in vitro. Furthermore, intraperitoneal injection of metformin in an in vivo model promoted endothelial cell proliferation and increased the density of new blood vessels in the spinal cord, thereby improving neurological function. The role of metformin was reversed by compound C, an adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase inhibitor, both in vivo and in vitro, suggesting that the adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase/endothelial nitric oxide synthase pathway likely regulates metformin-mediated angiogenesis after spinal cord injury. These findings suggest that metformin promotes vascular regeneration in the injured spinal cord by activating the adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase/endothelial nitric oxide synthase pathway, thereby improving the neurological function of aged mice after spinal cord injury.

Innovative optoelectronics are expected to play more important role in clinical diagnosis. In this study, on the basis of sensitive gating effect by in situ enzymatic functionalization of semiconductors, a novel organic photoelectrochemical transistor (OPECT) detection of serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) level was demonstrated. Specifically, the OPECT detection operates upon the ALP-catalyzed hydrolysis of sodium thiophosphate to yield hydrogen sulfide (H

A separated vortex ring is the main aerodynamic feature of the dandelion seed which enables its flight. However, recent research on simply modeled dandelion seeds with a pappus angle of 180° (flat porous disk) shows that the vortex ring is not entirely separated from the pappus. This significantly differs from what is observed in a real dandelion seed and would prevent us from fully understanding its flight mechanism. In this work, the two key structural features of the pappus that are considered in the work of others, i.e., the circular disk-like geometry and the porosity, were expected to be insufficient to form an entirely separated vortex ring. Therefore, refined numerical simulations were conducted on model pappi with different pappus angles, which are more similar to real dandelion seeds than flat porous disks. A stable and entirely separated vortex ring and a small vortex ring above the central disk were observed. The lower pappus angle increases the radial pressure gradient toward the central axis between the root of the filaments. When the net effect of this pressure gradient is large enough to overcome the effect of the pressure gradient away from the central axis below the pappus, the streamlines near the root of the filaments deflect to the central axis and the vortex ring is lifted and separates entirely. It is concluded that an appropriate pappus angle is another key feature for forming an entirely separated vortex ring. This more in-depth flow mechanism is of considerable reference value for future research.

In this paper, we introduce a very large Chinese text dataset in the wild. While optical character recognition (OCR) in document images is well studied and many commercial tools are available, the detection and recognition of text in natural images is still a challenging problem, especially for some more complicated character sets such as Chinese text. Lack of training data has always been a problem, especially for deep learning methods which require massive training data. In this paper, we provide details of a newly created dataset of Chinese text with about 1 million Chinese characters from 3 850 unique ones annotated by experts in over 30 000 street view images. This is a challenging dataset with good diversity containing planar text, raised text, text under poor illumination, distant text, partially occluded text, etc. For each character, the annotation includes its underlying character, bounding box, and six attributes. The attributes indicate the character’s background complexity, appearance, style, etc. Besides the dataset, we give baseline results using state-of-the-art methods for three tasks: character recognition (top-1 accuracy of 80.5%), character detection (AP of 70.9%), and text line detection (AED of 22.1). The dataset, source code, and trained models are publicly available.

Toxicity and transport of metal-based nanoparticles (M-NPs) in environmental waters strongly depend on their speciation. A detailed understanding of the composition and speciation of M-NPs is necessary in order to move this field forward. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of analytical methods for metal-sulfide nanoparticles (MS-NPs) in the environment. In this work, a cloud point extraction (CPE) method combined with liquid chromatography hyphenated to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LC-ICPMS) is developed for sensitive determination of Ag

To compare the effects of intravenous and subcutaneous injection of bortezomib on incidence and relative risk of peripheral neuropathy in patients with multiple myeloma(MM).The electronic database of PubMed, Embase, Cochrance library, CNKI and related meeting records were searched by computers. The data were derived all from a matched randomized controlled studies. The incidence, relative risk(RR) and 95% confidence interval of peripheral neuropathy caused by intravenous and subcustaneous injections were calculated by the statistical methods.Four RCT studies were selected for meta-analysis, with a total of 911 patients (479 cases and 432 cases in the subcutaneous injection and intravenous injection groups, respectively). The incidence of peripheral neuropathy in the intravenous injection group was 41.4% (95% CI=0.137-0.692, P=0.003), and the incidence of2 grade of peripheral neuropathy was 15.6% (95% CI=0.005-0.308, P=0.043). The corresponding incidence rates of the subcutaneous injection group were 16% (95% CI=0.021-0.299, P=0.024) and 3.4% (95% CI=-0.011-0.080, P=0.141) respectively. Compared with the intravenous injection group, the RR of peripheral neuropathy and the relative risk of peripheral neuropathy above grade 2 were 0.525, 95% CI=0.297-0.928 (P=0.027) and 0.376, 95% CI=0.196-0.722 (P=0.003) respectively.Subcutaneous injection of bortezomib at therapeutic doses significantly reduces the incidence of peripheral neuropathy compared with intravenous injection.硼替佐米不同给药途径对周围神经病变的发生率和风险的影响.比较硼替佐米静脉和皮下注射的不同给药途径对病人周围神经病变发病率及其相对风险的影响.计算机搜索了PubMed、Embase、Cochrance library、CNKI（中国知网）电子数据库及相关会议记录。数据全部来自随机对照研究（randomized controlled study，RCT）。根据统计学方法计算静脉和皮下注射给药致周围神经病变的发生率、相对危险度（relative risk，RR）和95%的置信区间.选择4篇RCT研究荟萃分析表明，注射病人总共911例（皮下和静脉组分别为479例和432例）。周围神经病变在静脉注射组的发生率为41.4%(95%CI=0.137-0.692, P=0.003)，2级周围神经病变的发生率为15.6%(95%CI =0.005-0.308, P=0.043)；皮下组相应的发生率分别是16%(95%CI= 0.021-0.299, P=0.024)、3.4%(95%CI=-0.011-0.080, P=0.141)。与静脉注射组相比，皮下注射组发生周围神经病变RR=0.525,95%CI=0.297-0.928（P=0.027)和2级以上的周围神经病变RR=0.376,95%CI=0.196-0.722（P=0.003).治疗剂量下的硼替佐米皮下注射比静脉注射明显减少周围神经病变的发生率.

In 2013, a human influenza outbreak caused by a novel H7N9 virus occurred in China. Recently, the H7N9 virus acquired multiple basic amino acids at its hemagglutinin (HA) cleavage site, leading to the emergence of a highly pathogenic virus. The development of an effective diagnostic method is imperative for the prevention and control of highly pathogenic H7N9 influenza. Here, we designed and synthesized three pairs of primers based on the nucleotide sequence at the HA cleavage site of the newly emerged highly pathogenic H7N9 influenza virus. One of the primer pairs and the corresponding probe displayed a high level of amplification efficiency on which a real-time RT-PCR method was established. Amplification using this method resulted in a fluorescent signal for only the highly pathogenic H7N9 virus, and not for any of the H1–H15 subtype reference strains, thus demonstrating high specificity. The method detected as low as 39.1 copies of HA-positive plasmid and exhibited similar sensitivity to the virus isolation method using embryonated chicken eggs. Importantly, the real-time RT-PCR method exhibited 100% consistency with the virus isolation method in the diagnosis of field samples. Collectively, our data demonstrate that this real-time RT-PCR assay is a rapid, sensitive and specific method, and the application will greatly aid the surveillance, prevention, and control of highly pathogenic H7N9 influenza viruses.

To investigate the significance of detecting serum complement C3 and C4 in patients with multiple myeloma (MM) and to explore its correlation with myeloma bone disease (MBD).The levels of serum complement C3 and C4 in 69 MM patients and 30 healthy people were examined by scatter nephelometry. The bone density of L1-4 vertebral body, bilateral femoral neck and bilateral hip joints were measured by dual energy bone density meter (DXA).The levels of serum complement C3 and C4 in MM patients significantly increased in comparison with that in healthy people (P＜0.01). The patients in advanced clinical stage exhibited a higher levels of C3 and C4 than those in stable stage (P＜0.01). In addition, the patients with grade C of MBD had a higher levels of serum complement C3 and C4 than those in patients with grade A and B of MBD (P＜0.01). The levels of serum complement C3 and C4 in MM patients negatively correlated with bone density in L1-4 vertebral body, bilateral femoral necks and hip joints. The correlation coefficients were r=-0.938, r=-0.659, r=-0.745, r=-0.748, r=-0.596 in complement C3 and r=-0.908, r=-0.623, r=-0.710, r=-0.714, r=-0.595 in complement C4, respectively.The levels of complement C3 and C4 positively correlate with the severity of bone disease and bone density in MM patients, which suggests that complement C3 and C4 plays important roles in the development of MBD. The levels of serum C3 and C4 may be the sensitive biomarkers of MBD.血清补体C3、C4在多发性骨髓瘤患者中检测的意义.研究血清补体C3、C4在多发性骨髓瘤（MM）患者中的检测意义，并探讨其与骨髓瘤骨病（MBD）的相关性.采用散射比浊法定量分析69例初诊MM患者以及30例健康体检者血清补体C3、C4水平；采用双能骨密度仪（DXA）测量69例初诊MM患者以及30例健康体检者的正位L1-4椎体、双侧股骨颈、双侧髋关节的骨密度值.MM患者组血清补体C3、C4水平明显高于对照者（P＜0.01）；ISS临床分期中进展期患者的血清补体C3、C4水平明显高于稳定期患者（P＜0.01）；在不同MBD分组中，分级C级的补体C3、C4水平明显高于A级和B级（P＜0.01）；MM患者血清补体C3、C4表达水平与其L1-4椎体、左右股骨颈和左右髋关节整体的骨密度呈负相关，相关系数分别为r=-0.938，r=-0.659，r=-0.745，r= -0.748，r=-0.596和r=-0.908， r=-0.623，r=-0.710，r=-0.714，r=-0.595.MM患者血清中补体C3、C4水平升高，与MM患者骨病严重程度及骨密度相关，这提示，补体C3、C4在MBD发生发展中可能发挥重要作用，血清中C3、C4水平可能是MBD的敏感生物标志物.

Pilocarpine-induced acute seizures strongly induce aberrant hippocampal neurogenesis, characterized by increased proliferation of neural progenitors and abnormal integrations of newly generated granule cells - hilar ectopic granule cells (EGCs), mossy fibre sprouting (MFS), and hilar basal dendrites (HBDs), which may disturb hippocampal neuronal circuits and thus contribute to cognitive impairment in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients and animal models. Previous studies via ablating hippocampal neurogenesis after acute seizures produced inconsistent results regarding the development of long-term cognitive impairment. Furthermore, a sufficient decrease of subsequent abnormal integrations in chronically epileptic hippocampus was not well-established in these studies. Therefore, the link between seizure-induced aberrant hippocampal neurogenesis and cognitive decline associated with epilepsy is still in need to be clarified. In this study, the mice were injected with methylazoxymethanol acetate (MAM) both before and after pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus (SE) to achieve an overall ablation of newborn cells contributing to the pathological recruitment. In addition, a protracted time point was chosen for behavioral testing considering it takes a fairly long time for newborn granule cells to adequately develop abnormal integrations, especially MFS. Although an overall reduction of abnormal integrations, including EGCs, MFS and HBDs was confirmed following the ablation regime, the performance of ablated and non-ablated mice in the Morris Water Maze (MWM) task did not differ. The current findings therefore provide novel evidences that ablation of neurogenesis with an overall decrease of abnormal integrations cannot attenuate subsequent cognitive impairment at least in the model used in this study.

In this paper, we present a scheme to improve immune cloning selection algorithm. The improved algorithm, which is referred to as adaptive cloning selection algorithm (ACSA), is proposed and then applied to function optimization. At first, we present adaptive gene mutation which decides mutation probability of each code point (locus) based on the quality of antibodies and the number of evolution iterations. Secondly, we present an iteratively increasing method from one locus to the all ones, which can be used in function optimization. Then, the cloning selection process of evolution is divided into two-stages. The first step is to increase locus of antibodies. In the other one, the Baldwin effect learning operator is employed. And finally, an experiment is carried out to verify the theoretical analyses on several testing functions.

It remains unresolved to study the relation between the density of wedge and its impact. Fluent is applied to simulate its mechanism with 6DOF model. After the comparison of numerical result and the theoretical, it matches good and then the transient free surface scene is observed. Thus Fluent is able to solve this kind of non-linear problem. And the effect of density of wedge on the slamming character is also studied.

To develop a modified live vaccine (MLV) against porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), virulent CH-1a strain was attenuated by serial passages up to 130 passage (P130) in Marc-145 cells. The virulence and immune efficacy of the attenuated CH-1a were evaluated in pigs. The results showed that animals inoculated with P130 did not develop any clinical sign of the disease, but produced rapid and effective humoral immune responses against PRRSV challenge, indicating that attenuated CH-1a P130 is the candidate as the effective vaccine against PRRSV. To define the potential mutations in the attenuated CH-1a genome, we sequenced and analyzed the ORF5 gene of CH-1a strain of different passages (P39, P55, P65, P70, P85, P100, P115, P120, P125, and P130) and found that three mutations (C5Y, H38Q and L146Q) which may be related with the attenuation of CH-1a. In addition, we also found a unique restriction enzyme site (TspEI) in the ORF5 gene of attenuated CH-1a, which can be used as a genetic marker to distinguish original and attenuated CH-1a.

Circadian rhythms are endogenous oscillations with a period of about 24 h driven by a circadian clock. So far, variable oscillators have been found in insects. To explore the circadian clock of Tribolium castaneum, we cloned the clock gene timeless (Tctimeless). Its open reading frame is 3240 bp in length and consists of 10 exons. Tctimeless is highly expressed in the late pupal stage. Tissue-specific expression analysis in late adult stages revealed high expression of Tctimeless in the head, epidermis, fat body and accessory glands. Silencing of Tctimeless by RNA interference (RNAi) at the late larval stages caused a failure to initiate eclosion. Tctimeless knockdown in late pupal stages led to a gender-independent decline in egg production and progeny survival. As a core clock gene, Tctimeless exhibited one expression peak in the middle of the circadian day. Knockdown of Tctimeless disrupted daily expression patterns of Tccycle, Tcclock, Tcperiod and itself, while Tctimeless and Tcperiod expression patterns over the circadian day were also perturbed when Tccycle or Tcclock is suppressed by RNAi. This study identified a complex transcriptional relationship among circadian clock genes in T. castaneum.

Super-capacitors are new equipments for energy storage，and they have wide application in practice. At present, blanking is used to machining the electrodes of super-capacitor; however, the disadvantages of the method are burrs, electrode collapse. A new method processing electrode of super-capacitor, wire electrical discharge machining in gas (dry WEDM), were presented in this paper, and the electrode surface morphologies were studied utilizing scan electron microscope (SEM). First, the surface morphologies comparison studies of super-capacitor electrodes processed with different method, such as shearing, blanking and dry WEDM etc., were performed, and research results show that the super-capacitor electrode surfaces machined by dry WEDM achieve flat machining surface, and electrode edges do not collapse. Further surface morphology analysis was carried out based on different pulse durations and air pressure, and analysis results indicate that better machining surface can be achieved when suitable pulse duration and gas pressure are selected. Finally, surface energy spectrum analysis of the super-capacitor electrode processed by dry WEDM is performed, and the analysis result show that alumina are formed on the middle of electrode, aluminum foil, which is favored to the performance of super-capacitor.

Phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN) is a cancer suppressor gene and an important negative regulator in the phosphatidylinositide 3‑kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt)/ mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway. The PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway can promote cancer cell survival, proliferation and progression. In the present study, the effects of (‑)‑epigallocatechin‑3‑gallate (EGCG) on PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling in pancreatic cancer cells and PTEN knockdown cells were measured, in addition to assessing its therapeutic potential in pancreatic cancer. The apoptosis and proliferation of the cancer cells were examined by flow cytometry and Cell Counting kit‑8 assay, respectively. The expression of genes and proteins in the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway were investigated by reverse transcription‑polymerase chain reaction and western blotting, respectively. The results suggested that the EGCG‑induced apoptosis, proliferation inhibition and downregulated expression of phosphorylated (p)‑Akt and p‑mTOR were partially attenuated in PTEN‑knockdown cells. In conclusion, the results indicated that EGCG is able to reduce proliferation and induce the apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cells associated with the expression of PTEN. Additionally, EGCG can suppress the expression of p‑Akt and p‑mTOR via PTEN to regulate the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway. The results suggest that EGCG may represent a potential treatment for pancreatic cancer, based on PTEN activation.

To evaluate the erectile and ejaculatory function of sacral tumor patients after sacral nerve root resection and investigate the relationship of erectile and ejaculatory dysfunction (EED) with the level of sacral nerve injury.This retrospective study included 47 male patients aged 16 to 63 (32.6 +/- 6.8) years treated by sacral tumor resection between January 2008 and August 2013. According to the levels of the sacral nerve roots spared in surgery, the patients were divided into four groups: bilateral S1-S3 (n=16), unilateral S1-S3 (n=21), unilateral S1-S2 (n=6), and unilateral S1 (n=4). The patients were followed up for 12 to 41 (27.2 +/- 10.9) months by questionnaire investigation, clinic review, and telephone calls about their erectile and ejaculatory function at 3, 6 and 12 months after surgery and in August 2013.In the bilateral S1-S3 group, the incidence rates of EED were 31.25% (5/16), 25% (4/16), and 12.5% (2/16) at 3, 6, and 12 months respectively after surgery, with recovery of erectile and ejaculatory function in August 2013. The incidence rates of EED in the unilateral S1-S3 group were 85.71% (18/21), 71.43% (15/21), 52.38% (11/21), and 42.86% (9/21) at 3, 6 and 12 months and in August 2013, respectively; those in the unilateral S1-S2 group were 100% (6/6), 83.33% (5/6), 83.33% (5/6), and 66.67% (4/6) at the four time points; and those in the unilateral S1 group were all 100% (4/4). No statistically significant differences were found in the incidence rate of EED among the patients of different ages or tumor types (P0.05).The incidence of postoperative EED in male patients treated by sacral tumor resection is closely related to the mode of operation. Sparing the S3 nerve root at least unilaterally in sacral tumor resection is essential for protecting the erectile and ejaculatory function of the patient.

Targeted therapy for osteosarcoma includes organ, cell and molecular biological targeting; of these, organ targeting is the most mature. Bone‐targeted drug delivery systems are used to concentrate chemotherapeutic drugs in bone tissues, thus potentially resolving the problem of reaching the desired foci and minimizing the toxicity and adverse effects of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Some progress has been made in bone‐targeted drug delivery systems for treatment of osteosarcoma; however, most are still at an experimental stage and there is a long transitional period to clinical application. Therefore, determining how to combine new, polymolecular and multi‐pathway targets is an important research aspect of designing new bone‐targeted drug delivery systems in future studies. The purpose of this article was to review the status of research on targeted therapy for osteosarcoma and to summarize the progress made thus far in developing bone‐targeted drug delivery systems for neoadjuvant chemotherapy for osteosarcoma with the aim of providing new ideas for highly effective therapeutic protocols with low toxicity for patients with osteosarcoma.

Based on the previous research work, a new idea is proposed for analyzing the impact of solar radiation on the substructure of bridges. Investigation is conducted in the thermodynamic phenomena and temperature stress of a dual-column pier. Research is led to the thermal conductivity of concrete structure and the values of the environmental parameters under solar radiation. An analytical code is written for the thermal analysis of the dual-column pier using the parametric modeling function of FE software, by means of which the temperature distribution of the bridge structure is computed under solar radiation. Using the thermal analytical results, the temperature stress of the dual-column pier is further calculated. The results tell that the temperature gradient distribution curve inside the concrete of the pier fits favorably the curve defined in the design specification and coincides quite well with real situation, which verifies the new idea proposed in this paper. Under the solar radiation which is a time-variable nonlinear temperature load to the bridge, the maximum principal stress is found at the corner of the pier with the sign of negative, which is believed to threaten the safety of the substructure of bridge and is necessary to arouse emphasis.

OBJECTIVE. Our objective was to facilitate the in vivo identification of the celiac ganglia on MRI by using MRI to identify the celiac ganglia in cadavers.CONCLUSION. MRI can show the celiac ganglia accurately in cadavers when the ganglia are large and labeled with gadolinium. The findings in cadavers can be a reference for identifying the celiac ganglia in vivo.

The radiotherapy as a local and regional modality is widely applied in treatment of glioma, but most glioblastomas are commonly resistant to irradiation treatment. It remains challengeable to seek out efficient strategies to conquer the resistance of human glioblastoma cells to radiotherapy. Leucine-rich repeats and immunoglobulin-like domains protein 1 (LRIG1) is a newly discovered tumor suppressor which involved in regulation of chemosensitivity in various human cancer cells. In the present study, we established a radioresistant U251 cell line (U251R) to investigate the role of LRIG1 in regulation of radiosensitivity in human glioblastoma cells. Significantly decreased expression level of LRIG1 and enhanced expression of EGFR and phosphorylated Akt were detected in U251R cells compared with the parental U251 cells. U251R cells exhibited an advantage in colony formation ability, which accompanied by remarkably reduced X-ray-induced γ-H2AX foci formation and cell apoptosis. LRIG1 overexpression significantly inhibited the colony formation ability of U251R cells and obviously enhanced X-ray-inducedγ-H2AX foci formation and cell apoptosis. In addition, up-regulated expression of LRIG1 suppressed the expression level of EGFR and phosphorylated Akt protein. Our results demonstrated that LRIG1 expression was related to the radiosensitivity of human glioblastoma cells and may play an important role in the regulation of cellular radiosensitivity of human glioblastoma cells through the EGFR/Akt signaling pathway.

AIM: To investigate whether liver lobe volume and albumin (ALB) could predict the presence and severity of liver cirrhosis, and esophageal varices. METHODS: Seventy-one cirrhotic patients with hepatitis B and 21 healthy individuals were enrolled in this study. All the participants underwent abdominal enhanced magnetic resonance imaging to measure each liver lobe volume, and biochemical workup for testing ALB and Child-Pugh class. All cirrhotic patients underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy to show the presence of cirrhotic esophageal varices. Right liver lobe volume (RV), left medial liver lobe volume (LMV), left lateral liver lobe volume (LLV), and caudate lobe volume (CV) were measured using enhanced magnetic resonance imaging. The ratios of RV to ALB (RV/ALB), LMV to ALB (LMV/ALB), LLV to ALB (LLV/ALB) and CV to ALB (CV/ALB) were calculated. Statistical analyses were performed to determine whether and how the combination of liver lobe volume measured using magnetic resonance imaging and albumin could predict the presence and severity of liver cirrhosis, and the presence of esophageal varices. RESULTS: RV, LMV, LLV and CV decreased (r = -0.51-0.373; all P < 0.05), while RV/ALB increased (r = 0.424; P < 0.05), with the progress of Child-Pugh class of liver cirrhosis. RV, LMV, CV, LLV/ALB and CV/ALB could identify presence of liver cirrhosis; LLV and LMV could distinguish Child-Pugh class A from B; RV, LMV, LLV, CV, RV/ALB and LLV/ALB could distinguish class A from C; RV and LLV/ALB could differentiate B from C; and RV, RV/ALB and CV/ALB could identify presence of esophageal varices (all P < 0.05). Among these parameters, CV/ALB could best identify the presence of liver cirrhosis, with an area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.860, a sensitivity of 82.0% and a specificity of 83.0%. LLV could best distinguish class A from B, with an AUC of 0.761, a sensitivity of 74.4% and a specificity of 73.1%. RV could best distinguish class A from C, with an AUC of 0.900, a sensitivity of 90.3% and a specificity of 84.5%. LLV/ALB could best distinguish class B from C, with an AUC of 0.900, a sensitivity of 93.8% and a specificity of 81.5%. RV/ALB could best identify esophageal varices, with an AUC of 0.890, a sensitivity of 80.0% and a specificity of 83.5%. CONCLUSION: The combination of liver lobe volume and ALB has potential to identify presence and severity of cirrhosis, and presence of esophageal varices.