Search

Breast cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women and is the major cause of most cancer-related deaths. We previously reported that Brachyury, as a sensitive and specific marker, has been verified to involve in the process of carcinogenesis and progression of breast cancer, but the mechanism by which Brachyury promotes breast cancer cells proliferation and migration still remains less clear. In this study, we identified that Brachyury was markedly increased in breast cancer compared with the adjacent tissues. We have also shown that Brachyury knockdown could decrease the proliferation and migration capability in breast cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo. Finally, we found an important transcriptional factor, E2F3, which is a direct downstream target gene of Brachyury by chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) analysis. Knockdown of E2F3 also decreased breast cancer cell proliferation and migration. Taken together, we reported that Brachyury may act as an oncogenic role in the progression of breast cancer by positively-regulating E2F3 expression.

In this paper, we aim to assess the regularity of physical activities through longitudinal sensor data, which reflects individuals’ all physical activities over an extended period. We present several entropy models, including entropy rate, approximate entropy, and sample entropy, which offer a more comprehensive evaluation of physical activity regularity compared to metrics based solely on periodicity or stability. We also propose a framework to validate the performance of entropy models on both artificial and real- world physical activity data. The results indicate entropy rate is able to identify not only the magnitude and amount of noise but also macroscopic variations of physical activities, such as differences on duration and occurrence time. Si-multaneously, entropy rate is highly correlated with the predictability of real-world samples, further highlighting its applicability in measuring human physical activity regularity. Leveraging entropy rate, we investigate the regularity for numerous individuals. We find the composition of physical activities can partially explain the difference in regularity among individuals, and the majority of individuals exhibit temporal stability of regularity.

Inequality is becoming a more and more concerning problem for many places all over the world. Based on both historical and cross-national data, this paper found that financial development plays a crucial role in reducing inequality. Using legal origin as an instrumental variable, financial development affects Gini index negatively. Thus the underdevelopment of financial system in Latin America can help to explain the relatively high inequality level in this region.

Triptolide has been widely reported to exhibit potential therapeutic value in multiple inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and psoriasis. Although its safety and efficacy as an anti-inflammatory agent have been verified by many studies, the effect of triptolide on osteoarthritis (OA) was not clearly understood. In this study, we found that triptolide prevented OA development in a surgical destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) mouse model. In addition, triptolide inhibited both DMM-induced and LPS-induced expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the human monocytic cell line THP-1. Further mechanistic studies showed that the reduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines by triptolide was mediated by the upregulation of nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing protein 3 (NLRP3) and downregulation of caspase-1. Finally, we identified that hsa-miR-20b, a microRNA targeting the NLRP3 gene, was downregulated by triptolide. This study provides a novel insight into the effect on triptolide in preventing OA pathogenesis.

Objective: Postoperative pain was a common symptom after spinal surgery. This meta-analysis aimed to assess whether intravenous glucocorticoids has a beneficial role in reducing pain in patients following spinal fusion. Methods: We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, and Google databases, from inception to March 2, 2018. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that comparing intravenous glucocorticoids with control treatment for spinal fusion were included. A meta-analysis was performed to generate pooled risk ratio (RR) and weighted mean difference with corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) for discontinuous outcomes (the occurrence of nausea and infection) and continuous outcomes (visual analog scale [VAS] at 12, 24, and 48 h; total morphine consumption; and the length of hospital stay), respectively. Results: Eight clinical trials involving 918 patients (glucocorticoid group = 449, control group = 469) were finally included in this meta-analysis. Compared with control, intravenous glucocorticoids had significantly reduced VAS at 12, 24, and 48 hours with statistically significance (P .05). Conclusion: Existing evidence indicated that intravenous glucocorticoids have a beneficial role in decreasing early pain and the occurrence of nausea after spinal fusion surgery. In consideration of the limitation in current meta-analysis, more high-quality RCTs were needed to identify the optimal dose of glucocorticoids in spinal fusion patients.

A novel and efficient TBHP/I2-promoted oxidative coupling of azoles with benzyl compounds via cleavage of nonactivated C(sp3)–H bonds under metal-free, base-free, and solvent-free conditions for the synthesis of N-alkylated azoles has been developed. The procedure, using I2 as the catalyst, is a simple, economical, and environmentally friendly protocol, which could be applied to various available substrates in moderate to good yields.

Hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha (HIF-1α) protects hypoxic cells from apoptosis and necrosis under ischemic and anoxic conditions. miRNAs are important regulators in the genome. This study aims to explore whether miR-195 is involved in spinal cord injury through HIF-1α. A total of 40 male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were separated into four groups: Sham, Control, Ad-con, and Ad-miR-195. The behavior recovery was explored using the Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan (BBB) scoring system. Then, the rats were sacrificed, and the spinal cords were collected. The levels of the HIF-1α, Bcl-2, Bax and VEGF proteins were explored using western blotting. HE and immunohistochemistry were applied to study the morphological changes. qPCR analysis revealed that miR-195 was significantly decreased after spinal cord injury (SCI). Meanwhile, the expression of Bcl-2, VEGF and HIF-1α was increased in animals after SCI. More importantly, administration with Ad-miR-195 significantly decreased the HIF-1α protein level, thereby reducing Bcl-2 and VEGF expression. In addition, Ad-miR-195 also obviously increased the number of apoptotic cells and decreased the neurological recovery in the animals injected with Ad-miR-195. In conclusion, reduced miR-195 expression partially protects rats from spinal cord injury, primarily by targeting HIF-1α.

The dosimetric characteristics of gamma-ray, x-ray and electron irradiated GAF-DM-1260 radiochromic film have been studied, and the dependence of radiation-induced film absorbance on irradiation temperature and reading temperature and the changes of the absorption spectrum peaks at different reading temperatures and absorbed doses (3×10 1 to 5×10 4 Gy) are reported. It is shown that the responses are independent of the gamma-ray dose rate in the dose rate range considered in the experiment. The film response characteristics as a function of the absorbed dose to 60 Co gamma irradiation at the spectrophotometric reading wavelengths of 400, 580, 600, 650 and 670 nm and two absorption peaks are determined as well as the response characteristics to the electron beam at the reading wavelength of 400 nm. The results demonstrate that the film responses to gamma rays, x-rays and a 3.8 MeV electron beam are equivalent, over the absorbed dose rate range of about 0.8 Gy·s −1 to 5×10 8 Gy·s −1 . Some advice and points of view about the dosimetric characteristics of the film and some problems in usage are provided according to the experimental results.

A new load survey method, which combines load screening on all substations with detailed investigation of typical substations, for synthesis load modeling (SLM) is presented. Firstly, the main process of load survey is described; then the classification indices based on load characteristics and the principle of load `classification are expounded in detail, on this basis the census table of load characteristics is drawn up and both sources of survey data and objects to be surveyed are decided; and then, the statistical analysis on load characteristic data from general survey is performed and by use of the results of survey and statistics the 220kV substations, i.e., the load nodes, are classified. Taking the regionality of substation locations into account, the principle to select typical substations, in which the load constituents and types are considered, is proposed, and according to the proposed principle typical substations for each kinds of loads are chosen, and the detailed census forms for these typical loads are designed. Using the proposed method, the survey with higher accuracy can be achieved under relatively low survey complexity. The proposed load survey method is successfully applied in Central China Power Grid, North China Power Grid, Northwest China Power Grid and Northeast China Power Grid.