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Markers are needed to increase the diagnostic accuracy of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in prostate cancer (PCa) screening. Mounting evidence has shown that plasma proteins can be hopeful biomarkers for cancer diagnosis.Tandem mass tag (TMT)-based proteomics and parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) analysis were used to screen the differential proteins and further validated in other independent studies (n = 539). Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC), decision curves and nomograms were applied to assess the diagnostic accuracy of biomarkers.Three candidate proteins (DBP, LCAT and ORM2) were preliminarily screened. Subsequent validation studies revealed significant upregulation of ORM2 in PCa patients across other independent cohorts. ORM2 yielded excellent discriminative power for PCa from benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients (AUC = 0.861 and 0.814 in validation phases 2a and 2b, respectively). Importantly, the combination of ORM2 and PSA gave better predictive accuracy than PSA alone. We incorporated age, PSA and ORM2 into a nomogram, which yielded C-index of 0.883 in validation phase 2a. A similar C-index of 0.879 was obtained in external validation phase 2b.In summary, our study suggests that ORM2 could be treated as a complementary biomarker for PSA in distinguishing PCa from BPH.

Radical prostatectomy (RP) and radiotherapy (RT) are both evidence-based nonconservative treatments for prostate cancer (PCa). However, which treatment is better remains controversial. This study aimed to compare the prognostic difference between radical prostatectomy (RP) and radiotherapy (RT) in PCa patients at different stages and ages. Two independent PCa cohorts (the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results, SEER; and the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian, PLCO) were employed. Cox regression was used to calculate the hazard ratios (HRs) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs). In both cohorts, patients who received RT exhibited a worse prognostic outcome than those who underwent RP. When stratified analysis was performed by tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage and age at diagnosis in the SEER cohort, the HR of RT versus RP for overall survival increased with TNM stage but decreased with age. Specifically, PCa patients in stage I in the age range of 55-84 years, stage IIA at 70-85+ years, and stage IIB at 75-85+ years had better survival with RT than RP patients (p < 0.05). In contrast, patients in stages IIA, IIB, III and IV with respective age ranges of 55-64 years; 50-74 years; 55-59, 65-74 years; and 45-74 years showed worse survival with RT compared with RP (p < 0.05). These findings were partially validated in the PLCO dataset. Our results indicated that the choice between RT and RP should be guided by TNM stage and age. These findings may facilitate counseling regarding the prognostic effect of RT and RP for PCa patients.

Efficient hydrogen storage, transportation and generation are key-technology for future hydrogen economy. Sodium borohydride (NaBH4) stands out as promising hydrogen energy carrier with merits of high volumetric density and environmentally benign hydrolysis products. Flower-like layered double hydroxide α-Co(OH)2 with intercalation of B species was synthesized via hydrothermal crystallization method using sodium tetraphenylboron as source of B and alkaline, which makes it different from the previous supporting materials. Pure or mixed cobalt oxides with different valence states containing B (CoO/B, Co3O4/B, Co+CoO/B, CoO+Co3O4/B) were subtly prepared via controlling calcination temperature, time and atmosphere for sodium borohydride hydrolysis. Coral-like CoO+Co3O4/B displayed superior hydrogen generation rate (6478 mlH2·min−1·g−1metal) with arrhenius activation energies of 41.14 kJ/mol for NaBH4 hydrolysis in alkaline solutions compared to those reported pure precious metals. The out-standing catalytic performance of CoO+Co3O4/B may be attributed to electron transfer among cobalt oxide. DFT calculation indicates NaBH4 hydrolysis undergoes a reaction path on CoO+Co3O4 surface with lower relative energies.

Background: Although the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing was widely used for early detection of prostate cancer (PCa), it is difficult for PSA to distinguish the PCa from benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients. Emerging evidence has shown that microRNA (miRNA) was a promising biomarker for PCa screening. Methods: We applied miRNA profiling from microarray or high-throughput sequencing in Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases to identify the differentially expressed miRNAs in PCa patients (n = 1,017) and controls (n = 413). Then, qRT-PCR analysis was used to validate the expression of candidate miRNAs in our independent cohort, include 66 PCa cases and 63 BPH patients diagnosed by biopsy. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was conducted to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of miRNAs and PSA. Results: In the microarray analysis, we identified two consistently differently expressed miRNAs (miR-103a-3p and let-7f-5p) between PCa patients and controls. In the subsequent qRT-PCR analysis, the let-7f-5p was upregulated in PCa compared with BPH patients (P=2.17E-07), but no statistically difference of miR-103a-3p expression was observed (P=0.456). The AUC was 0.904 for combination of lef-7f-5p and PSA, which was significantly higher than that of let-7f-5p (0.782) or PSA (0.795) alone (P=7.55E-04 and P=2.09E-03, respectively). Besides, the results of decision curve analysis and nomogram prediction indicated that combination of let-7f-5p and PSA had superior predictive accuracy of PCa. Conclusions: Our study suggests that plasma let-7f-5p combining PSA could serve as potentially diagnostic biomarkers for PCa.

Classifying histopathological subtypes and predicting survival of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) patients are critical steps towards treatment. In this work, we first proposed a deep learning method involving patch-based segmentation, intelligent feature extraction and heatmap visualization for classifying RCC into clear cell RCC, papillary RCC, chromophobe RCC, and adjacent benign tissue. This algorithm was trained and validated using 2,374,446 patches, 6,340 whole-slide images, 2,399 patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas and 6 independent centers. The classifiers provided areas under the curves of 0.979 to 0.996 in the internal phase, and 0.914 to 0.995 in the 6-center external phase. Furthermore, a modified deep learning approach comprising automated detection of regions of interest, patch-level learning, and morphological features-based risk scoring was developed for predicting survival of clear cell RCC patients. The prognostication model provided a hazard ratio for poor versus good prognosis of 2.63 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.53–4.50, P = 4.35e-4] in the testing set, and 2.57 [95% CI 1.43–4.64, P = 1.68e-3] in an independent validation set using multivariable analyses. In conclusion, the developed histopathology image-based deep learning frameworks have the clinical potential to assist pathologists in systematically evaluating histological information of RCC patients.

In this paper, amorphous Ni-B nanoparticles doped with cobalt are successfully prepared by simple chemical reduction to investigate the mechanism by which cobalt enhances the electroactivity. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images indicate that the morphology of the Ni-B-(Co) amorphous nanoparticles is uniformly spherical, and that the particle size is about 10–15 nm. X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) show that Co electrons shifted to B and Ni. Subsequently, the electrocatalytic characteristics were investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry (CA), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The results show that the methanol electro-oxidation current of Ni-B-(Co) amorphous nanoparticles initially increased and decreased as the Co content increased. Ni-B-Co0.05 nanoparticles exhibited the best electrocatalytic activity for methanol oxidation. It is proposed that the role of cobalt in methanol catalysis on the surface of amorphous Ni-B-Co nanoparticles is initially to promote the generation of NiOOH by preferentially forming CoOOH. Meanwhile Co could increase the absorption ability of Ni 3d orbit toward the methanol and intermediates, and thus improve the catalytic activity toward methanol. Our study provides a theoretical guide concerning doped atoms raising the electroactivity of the methanol oxidation on amorphous Ni-B nanoparticles.

Background: Markers are needed to increase the diagnostic accuracy of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in prostate cancer (PCa) screening. Mounting evidence has shown that plasma proteins can be hopeful biomarkers for cancer diagnosis. Methods: Tandem mass tag (TMT)-based proteomics and parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) analysis were used to screen the differential proteins and further validated in four independent studies (n=791). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC), decision curves and nomograms were applied to assess the diagnostic accuracy of biomarkers. Findings: Three candidate proteins (DBP, LCAT and ORM2) were preliminarily screened. Subsequent validation studies revealed significant upregulation of ORM2 in PCa patients across 4 independent cohorts. ORM2 yielded excellent discriminative power for PCa from benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients (AUC=0.861 and 0.814 in validation phases 2a and 2b, respectively), with a slightly decreased performance in distinguishing PCa from healthy controls (AUC=0.652 and 0.626 in phases 3a and 3b). Importantly, the combination of ORM2 and PSA gave better predictive accuracy than PSA alone. We incorporated age, PSA and ORM2 into a nomogram, which yielded c-indices of 0.883 in validation phase 2a and 0.922 in phase 2b. Interpretation: Our study suggests that ORM2 could be treated as a complementary biomarker for PSA in PCa detection. Funding: This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20190600; BK20190555), National Natural Science Foundation of China (81903390; 81802880), and Huai’an City Science and Technology Project (HAB202051). Declaration of Interest: None to declare. Ethical Approval: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of each participating institution. All participants provided their informed consent to participate.

Emerging evidence has showed that lncRNAs and trait-associated loci in lncRNAs play a crucial role in the progression of cancer including prostate cancer (PCa).This study aimed to investigate the molecular mechanisms of lncRNA PCAT1 involved in PCa development and its genetic variant associated with PCa risk. We applied cell proliferation and apoptosis assays to assess the effect of PCAT1 on PCa cell phenotypes. In addition, the genome-wide profiling of gene expression was assessed from three pairs of DU145 cells transfected with PCAT1 overexpression vector or negative control (NC) vector. Furthermore, a case-control study was conducted to explore the associations of four tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (tagSNPs) and PCa risk in 850 PCa cases and 860 cancer-free controls. Our results showed that lncRNA PCAT1 promoted cell proliferation and inhibited cell apoptosis. Ingenuity pathway analysis (IPA) indicated that dysregulated mRNAs induced by overexpression of PCAT1 were primarily enriched in androgen-independent prostate tumor term and implicated in the disease and functions networks, such as cell death and survival, cell proliferation and gene expression. Besides, rs1902432 in PCAT1 was significantly associated with increased risk of PCa (Additive model: OR = 1.19, P = 0.014; Co-dominant model: CC vs. TT, OR = 1.45, P =0.012; Recessive model: CC vs. TT/CT, OR= 1.34, P = 0.027). This study suggests that PCAT1 may act as an oncogene through promoting cell proliferation and suppressing cell apoptosis in PCa development, and genetic variant in PCAT1 contributes to the susceptibility to PCa.

The alkaline ions are usually added to regulate pH and accommodate charge balance during silica-alumina zeolite synthesis. Importantly, alkaline ions play a crucial role in stabilizing metal species encapsulated within silica-alumina zeolite. Pt@ZSM-5 samples with different amounts of sodium ions were synthesized for partial oxidation of methane (POM) reaction. The properties of Pt@ZSM-5 catalyst was characterized by XRD, ICP, TEM, CO-TPR and FT-IR techniques. The presence of alkaline ions promotes the combination of Pt with hydroxyl groups within zeolite and improves stability and dispersity of Pt species further. Appropriate amounts of sodium ions activate platinum and promote the formation of Pt-Ox(OH)yNa species. The experiment results also suggest that the partially oxidized Pt-Ox(OH)yNa specie is the active site of the POM reaction and inhibits sintering of catalyst. This strategy provides a highly active and stable catalyst synthesis method, expanding the application of metal encapsulated within silica-alumina zeolite.

The shuttle effect of soluble intermediate polysulfide toward lithium anode, the sluggish redox kinetics of polysulfides conversion and the low lithium ion/electrical conductivity severely limited the commercialization of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery. To overcome the bottleneck, herein we designed a Nickel foam/graphene/sulfonated carbon nanotubes (NG/CNTs-SO3−) three-dimensional (3D) interconnected electrode. Nickel foam weaved with 1D multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and 2D graphene (named as NG/CNTs) is used as the host for sulfur accommodation, forming a continuously ion-electronic conductive 3D network and boosting fast redox reaction kinetic. Moreover, the negatively charged –SO3− groups transform the cathode surface from hydrophobic to hydrophilic, and it not only acts as constructing ion-selective layer for suppressing the shuttle effect of polysulfides, but also accelerates the polysulfides conversion process by strong adsorption sites to anchor polysulfides. In addition, the grafted –SO3− groups reinforce the rapid transportation of lithium-ion five times than none negatively charged groups decorated ones. The Li-S batteries with NG/CNTs-SO3− cathode delivers an initial capacity of 1380 mAh g−1 at 0.2 C, retaining a capacity of 1043.5 mAh g−1 after 100 cycles. Furthermore, the cells with NG/CNTs-SO3− cathode also exhibits excellent cycling stability with capacity decay of 0.031% at 2 C and rate capability, which confirms it is outstanding to improve the electrochemical performance and inhibit the shuttle effect.

Objective: To evaluate the association between calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) Arg990Gly (rs1042636, A > G), Ala986Ser (rs1801725, G > T) polymorphisms, and urolithiasis risk. Methods: Polymorphisms mentioned above were genotyped in a hospital-based case-control study of 615 patients diagnosed with nephrolithiasis and 315 kidney stone-free controls in a Chinese population using the SNaPshot method. Results: The results indicated a significantly increased risk associated with CaSR Arg990Gly GG genotypes (OR 1.64, 95% CI 1.08-2.50) compared with the AA genotype. The CaSR Arg990Gly G carriers (AG/GG) had an adjusted OR (95% CI) of 1.45 (1.04-2.03, p = 0.021) compared with the wild genotype in the dominant model. In the stratified analyses, the risk remained for the subgroup of patients with age >48, never smokers and patients with hypertension and calcium oxalate stones (OR 1.78, 95% CI 1.02-3.09; OR 1.54, 95% CI 1.03-2.30; OR 2.83, 95% CI 1.32-6.07; OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.12-2.28, respectively). Conclusion: Our results provide evidences that the CaSR Arg990Gly polymorphism is associated with the risk of nephrolithiasis development in a Chinese population.

Despite an increased interest in sustainable energy conversion systems, there have been limited studies investigating the electrocatalytic reaction mechanism of methanol oxidation on Ni-based amorphous materials in alkaline media. A thorough understanding of such mechanisms would aid in the development of amorphous catalytic materials for methanol oxidation reactions. In the present work, amorphous Ni-B and Ni-B-Co nanoparticles were prepared by a simple chemical reduction, and their electrocatalytic properties were investigated by cyclic voltammetry measurements. The diffusion coefficients (D0) for Ni-B, Ni-B-Co0.02, Ni-B-Co0.05, and Ni-B-Co0.1 nanoparticles were calculated to be 1.28 &times, 10&minus, 9, 2.35 &times, 9, 4.48 &times, 9 and 2.67 &times, 9 cm2 s&minus, 1, respectively. The reaction order of methanol in the studied transformation was approximately 0.5 for all studied catalysts, whereas the reaction order of the hydroxide ion was nearly 1. The activation energy (Ea) values of the reaction were also calculated for the Ni-B and Ni-B-Co nanoparticle systems. Based on our kinetic studies, a mechanism for the methanol oxidation reaction was proposed which involved formation of an electrocatalytic layer on the surface of amorphous Ni&ndash, B and Ni-B-Co nanoparticles. And methanol and hydroxide ions could diffuse freely through this three-dimensional porous conductive layer.

Background: Although the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing was widely used for early detection of prostate cancer (PCa), it is difficult for PSA to distinguish the PCa from benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients. Emerging evidence has shown that microRNA (miRNA) was a promising biomarker for PCa screening. Methods: We applied miRNA profiling from microarray or high-throughput sequencing in Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases to identify the differentially expressed miRNAs in PCa patients (n = 1,017) and controls (n = 413). Then, qRT-PCR analysis was used to validate the expression of candidate miRNAs in our independent cohort, include 66 PCa cases and 63 BPH patients diagnosed by needle biopsy. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and under the curve (AUC) were conducted to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of miRNAs and PSA. Findings: In the microarray analysis, we identified two consistently differently expressed miRNAs (miR-103a-3p and let-7f-5p) between PCa patients and controls. In the subsequent qRT-PCR analysis, the let-7f-5p was upregulated in PCa compared with BPH patients (P=2.17E-07), but no statistically difference of miR-103a-3p expression was observed (P=0.456). The ROC analysis showed that the AUC of combination of lef-7f-5p and PSA (0.904) was significantly higher than that of let-7f-5p (0.782) or PSA (0.795) alone (P=7.55E-04 and P=2.09E-03, respectively). Besides, the results of decision curve analysis and nomogram prediction indicated that combination of let-7f-5p and PSA had superior clinical benefits. Interpretation: Our study suggests that plasma let-7f-5p combining PSA could serve as potentially diagnostic biomarkers for PCa. Funding Statement: This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20190600); The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (JUSRP11951); Public Health Research Center at Jiangnan University (JUPH201823). Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics Approval Statement: All of the subjects have written the informed consents. The Institutional Review Board of The Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University approved this study.

Osteopontin (OPN) has an important role in urolithiasis. However, few studies have explored the association between OPN genetic variants and urolithiasis risk. In the present study, three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs28357094, rs11439060 and rs11730582) located on the promoter of OPN were genotyped in a total of 480 individuals, including 230 nephrolithiasis patients and 250 matched healthy controls, and the associations between these SNPs and nephrolithiasis risk in different genetic models was assessed. No significant differences were identified in the genotype and allele frequencies of OPN rs28357094 or rs11730582 (P=0.805 for rs28357094; P=0.577 for rs11730582, respectively). However, carriers with the OPN rs11439060 insertion (ins) types (ins/deletion and ins/ins) were overrepresented in urolithiasis patients compared with the controls [odds ratio (OR), 1.55; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.08-2.22]. In the stratified analysis, the increased risk was more evident among younger subjects (adjusted OR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.01-2.81), females (2.15; 1.14-4.08), overweight subjects (1.80; 1.07-3.05), normotensive subjects (2.48; 1.02-6.00), abnormal blood sugar subjects (1.58; 1.08-2.30), smokers (1.63; 1.02-2.60), and ever-drinkers (1.98; 1.10-3.60).. These findings revealed that the OPN rs11439060 polymorphism may act as genetic biomarker for the detection of high-risk nephrolithiasis patients.

In this communication, an easy, two-step hydrothermal synthetic protocol for the preparation of hybrid cobalt phosphate/graphite felt (Co3(PO4)2@GF) electrocatalyst is described, where Co3(PO4)2·4H2O is precipitated onto a 3D self-supporting graphite felt (GF). The prepared electrocatalyst, denoted hereafter as GF-Co-P, showed an onset overpotential at 370 mV for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which is superior to that of the standard reference material RuO2; and a Tafel slope of 133 mV dec−1 in a pH-neutral phosphate buffer solution (PBS). In addition, it exhibited excellent catalytic stability over extended run times. We revealed that surface phosphorylation greatly enhances the exposure of active cobalt sites at catalyst surfaces, and therefore promotes the charge transfer process for OER in neutral solution.

Carbon deposition, which may reduce the number of active sites or remove metal particles from the catalyst surface, is an urgent issue for the partial oxidation of methane (POM) to synthesis gas. To solve this problem, Ni/ZrO 2 @SiO 2 catalysts were prepared by a modified Stober method. The investigation was focused mainly on the role of ZrO 2 addition and mesopore silica shell in preventing carbon deposition. The structural properties and carbon deposition of catalysts were characterized by XRD, TEM, N 2 adsorption and TG techniques. The oxygen transfer capacity and reducibility of catalysts were evaluated by oxygen storage capacity (OSC) and temperature programmed reduction (TPR). Inspiringly, the Ni/ZrO 2 @SiO 2 catalyst was proved to be more active and possessed less carbon deposition due to the higher reducibility and oxygen storage/release capacity. Importantly, compared with the support catalysts, the catalysts coated by mesopore silica shell showed exceptional resistance to coking, because the edge and corner atoms favor to carbon deposition were selectively blocked by silica shell, in addition, the size of the pore channel prevented growth up of carbon filament.

Ni@Pt core–shell nanoparticles with Pt nanocrystal thin film are synthesized by chemical reduction to investigate methanol oxidation. The morphology, structure, and composition of the as-prepared nanoparticles are characterized by aberration-corrected high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Electrochemical characterizations are performed by cyclic voltammetry, in situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and chronoamperometry. Results show that the as-prepared nanoparticles have a core–shell nanostructure. Moreover, Pt on the shell is composed of small clusters that are poorly crystalline domains of different crystal faces. The Pt mass activity of the as-prepared nanoparticles is about three times that of conventional E-TEK 40 wt% Pt/C catalysts, and methanol oxidation over the as-prepared nanoparticles is found to occur at a lower overpotential than over Pt/C. The as-prepared nanoparticles also exhibit markedly high resistance to carbon monoxide deactivation. This high electrocatalytic performance can be attributed to the unique structure of the as-prepared nanoparticles.

// Haiyan Chu 1, 2, 3 , Yaoyao Chen 1 , Qinbo Yuan 4, 5 , Qiuhan Hua 1 , Xu Zhang 1 , Meilin Wang 1, 2 , Na Tong 1 , Wei Zhang 5 , Jinfei Chen 3 and Zhengdong Zhang 1, 2 1 Department of Genetic Toxicology, The Key Laboratory of Modern Toxicology of Ministry of Education, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China 2 Department of Environmental Genomics, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Cancer Biomarkers, Prevention and Treatment, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Personalized Medicine, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China 3 Department of Oncology, The Affiliated Nanjing First Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China 4 Department of Urology, Huaiyin Hospital of Huai’an City, Huai’an, China 5 Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China Correspondence to: Zhengdong Zhang, email: drzdzhang@gmail.com Keywords: lncRNA, polymorphism, meta-analysis, cancer, epidemiology Received: August 29, 2016 Accepted: December 27, 2016 Published: January 31, 2017 ABSTRACT Long non-coding RNAs (LncRNAs) have been widely studied and aberrant expression of lncRNAs are involved in diverse cancers. Genetic variation in lncRNAs can influence the lncRNAs expression and function. At present, there are many studies to investigate the association between lncRNAs polymorphisms and cancer susceptibility. However, it has no systematic study to evaluate the association. We performed a meta-analysis to summarize the results of common lncRNAs ( HOTAIR , PRNCR1 , POLR2E and H19 ) polymorphisms on cancer risk, by using the random-effect model to obtain the odds ratio (ORs) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI). We also applied the meta-regression and publication bias analysis to seek the source of heterogeneity and evaluate the stability of results, respectively. The summary results indicated that HOTAIR rs920778 increased the cancer risk in recessive model (OR = 1.61, 95% CI = 1.08-2.41, P heterogeneity

BACKGROUND Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located at lncRNA may affect the stability and splicing processes of mRNA formation, which result in the alteration of its interacting partners. The SNP rs755622 within exon of antisense lncRNA MIF- AS and promoter of MIF was implicated in renal disease risk. MATERIAL AND METHODS In this case-control study, we genotyped the SNP rs755622 in 230 patients diagnosed with nephrolithiasis and 250 controls in a Chinese population. RESULTS We found that the rs755622 CG and CC genotypes had a significantly increased nephrolithiasis risk (adjusted OR=1.52, 95% CI=1.03-2.25; OR=2.63, 95% CI=1.21-5.72, P=0.015), compared with GG genotype in the additive model. The rs755622 C carriers (GC/CC) had an adjusted OR (95% CI) of 1.65 (1.14-2.39, P=0.016), compared with the GG genotype in the dominant model. This hazardous effect was more pronounced in subgroup age >46, BMI >24, hypertension, ever smoking, and ever drinking subjects. Moreover, we found that rs755622 could modulate the function of MIF-AS by influencing its folding. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that the MIF-AS rs755622 polymorphism may have a crucial role in the development of nephrolithiasis.

Osteopontin (OPN) has an important role in urolithiasis. However, few studies have explored the association between OPN genetic variants and urolithiasis risk. In the present study, three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs28357094, rs11439060 and rs11730582) located on the promoter of OPN were genotyped in a total of 480 individuals, including 230 nephrolithiasis patients and 250 matched healthy controls, and the associations between these SNPs and nephrolithiasis risk in different genetic models was assessed. No significant differences were identified in the genotype and allele frequencies of OPN rs28357094 or rs11730582 (P=0.805 for rs28357094; P=0.577 for rs11730582, respectively). However, carriers with the OPN rs11439060 insertion (ins) types (ins/deletion and ins/ins) were overrepresented in urolithiasis patients compared with the controls [odds ratio (OR), 1.55; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.08–2.22]. In the stratified analysis, the increased risk was more evident among younger subjects (adjusted OR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.01–2.81), females (2.15; 1.14–4.08), overweight subjects (1.80; 1.07–3.05), normotensive subjects (2.48; 1.02–6.00), abnormal blood sugar subjects (1.58; 1.08–2.30), smokers (1.63; 1.02–2.60), and ever-drinkers (1.98; 1.10–3.60).. These findings revealed that the OPN rs11439060 polymorphism may act as genetic biomarker for the detection of high-risk nephrolithiasis patients.

Inflammatory factors may promote carcinogenesis. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), which is derived from T-cell, known as a member of the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) superfamily, plays an important role in the pro- and anti-inflammatory response to infection and in the etiology of bladder cancer. We hypothesized that MIF-173 locus polymorphism might contribute to genetic susceptibility to bladder cancer. In a hospital-based case–control study of 325 patients with bladder cancer and 345 cancer-free controls frequency-matched by age, sex, smoking status, and alcohol use, we genotyped the MIF polymorphism and analyzed immunohistochemical stained operational bladder cancer tissue sections for MIF. We found that individuals with GC/CC genotype had a significantly decreased risk of bladder cancer (adjusted OR = 0.57, 95% CI, 0.41–0.79) than those with GG genotype. In the stratification analysis, we found that the decreased risk was more pronounced among older subjects (adjusted OR = 0.56, 95% CI, 0.39–0.81), men (0.47, 0.33–0.68), smokers (0.54, 0.35–0.85), and ever-drinkers (0.44, 0.27–0.71). The percentage of positive staining in the cytoplasm and nucleus in the normal and bladder cancer with CC/GC genotype tissues was higher than that of GG genotype bladder cancer tissue(39.1% vs. 75.0% in strong staining for GG and GC/CC genotypes, respectively, P = 0.028). In conclusion, MIF -173G>C polymorphism may play a role in the etiology of bladder cancer in southern Chinese population. Large studies are warranted to validate our findings.

Core–shell Fe 2 O 3 /Pt nanoparticles with amorphous iron oxide cores are successfully synthesized by a two-step chemical reduction strategy. The Pt loading can be adjusted using this preparation technique to obtain a series of chemical compositions with varying amounts of Pt precursors. The morphology, structure, and composition of the as-prepared nanoparticles are characterized by transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Electrocatalytic characteristics are systematically investigated by electrochemical techniques, such as cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry, and in situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Compared with the E-TEK 40 wt% Pt/C catalyst, the as-made Fe 2 O 3 /Pt nanoparticles exhibit superior catalytic activity with lower peak potential and enhanced CO 2 selectivity toward methanol electrooxidation in acidic medium. The highest activity is achieved by core–shell Fe 2 O 3 /Pt nanoparticles with a Fe/Pt atomic ratio of 2:1 (A g −1 of Pt) or 3:1 (mA cm −2 ). These nanomaterials also show much higher structural stability and tolerance to the intermediates of methanol oxidation. Methanol electrooxidation reactions with higher performance can be achieved using core–shell nanoparticles with an amorphous iron oxide core and minimum Pt loading.