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Muscle is one of the important economic traits in poultry production, and its production depends on the increased number of muscle fibers during the embryonic stage. Chicken GHR gene can transcribe in double directions, possessing not only GHR-S but also GHR-AS. The 2 kinds of transcripts are partially complementation in sequences and interact with each other. Until now, the roles and mechanisms of GHR-AS in myoblast differentiation was still unknown. In this study, we not only analyzed the GHR-AS expression patterns in myoblast differentiation phase but also clarified that GHR-AS promoted myoblast differentiation via GH-GHR-IGF1 signal pathway. Quantitative PCR analysis indicated that GHR-AS was increased during myoblast differentiation. Sub-cellular localization showed that GHR-AS and GHR-S were expressed at a higher level in the nucleus than that in the cytoplasm. The expression of MyoD and MyHC and the myoblast differentiation significantly increased after GHR-AS overexpression, while the distance between wounds decreased, suggesting that GHR-AS repressed myoblast migration and promoted differentiation. Additionally, the expression of GHR - AS, IGF1 and MyHC increased after GH protein treated, and the myoblast differentiation also increased. In conclusion, GHR-AS promoted myoblast differentiation by enhancing fusion and inhibiting migration possibly via GH-GHR-IGF1 signal pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crystal structure and electronic structure of YMnO3 were investigated by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy related techniques. According to the density of states (DOS), the individual interband transitions to energy loss peaks in the low energy loss spectrum were assigned. The hybridization of O 2p with Mn 3d and Y 4d analyzed by the partial DOS was critical to the ferroelectric nature of YMnO3. From the simulation of the energy loss near-edge structure, the fine structure of O K-edge was in good agreement with the experimental spectrum. The valence state of Mn (+3) in YMnO3 was determined by a comparison between experiment and calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) play critical roles in tumorigenesis. In the present study, we aimed to explore the potential regulatory mechanism of circRNA_069718 in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). PATIENTS AND METHODS: CircRNA_069718 expression levels in TNBC tissues and cell lines were determined by quantitative Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR). In vitro function assays were used to determine the functional roles of circRNA_069718 in TNBC and were explored by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay, colony formation assay, transwell assay, and flow cytometric analysis. QRT-PCR and Western blot were used to explore the effects of circRNA_ 0023642 on the expression of Wnt/β-catenin pathway-related genes. RESULTS: We found that circRNA_069718 expression was significantly increased in TNBC tissues and cell lines. High circRNA_069718 expression was significantly correlated with advanced TNM stage, lymph node metastasis, and poor overall survival of TNBC patients. Functionally, we showed that circRNA_069718 inhibition significantly reduced TNBC cells proliferation and invasion ability in vitro. Mechanically, we found that circRNA_069718 inhibition reduced the expression levels of Wnt/β-catenin pathway-related genes (β-catenin, c-myc, and cyclin D1). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggested that circRNA_069718 promoted TNBC progression via Wnt/β-catenin pathway and could serve as a novel therapeutic target for TNBC treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: Bone loss is the main reason for postmenopausal osteoporosis, caused by estrogen deficiency. ERT (estrogen replacement therapy) has been demonstrated to protect bone loss efficiently. LncRNA (long non-coding RNA) has been proved to be important in different disease progression. We aimed at analyzing whether the lncRNAs influence the activity of osteoclasts and the progression of this disease. PATIENTS AND METHODS: RT-PCR (reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction) was used to detect the expression of lncRNA CRNDE in OH (osteoclast from healthy people) and OP (osteoclast from patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis). MTT (methylthiazolyl tetrazolium) assay was used to detect the viability of the cells. The cell cycle and apoptosis rate in OH and OP were measured by the flow cytometry analysis. Western blot was used to analyze the possible related mechanism that CRNDE regulated the cells proliferation in postmenopausal osteoporosis. RESULTS: We found that the CRNDE was highly expressed in the osteoclast from patients with OP, compared with OH. We also found that overexpressing CRNDE increased the viability in OH whilst reducing CRNDE in OP decreased the viability. The cell cycle was arrested in G0/G1 phase and the apoptosis rate was improved in OP after transfection with siRNA. Moreover, CRNDE could impact the proliferation of osteoclasts by PI3K/Akt signaling pathway and estrogen could inhibit this proliferation. CONCLUSIONS: We found that lncRNA CRNDE was closely related to the postmenopausal osteoporosis with estrogen deficiency. CRNDE may be involved in the development and progression of postmenopausal osteoporosis in the absence of estrogen and become a potential target for treating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the fabrication of direct current superconducting quantum interference devices (dc SQUID) using a Pb-doped BiSrCaCuO superconducting thin film made by mixed evaporation of a single source. Components of dc SQUID; Electronic circuit that was used for dc SQUID measurements.

EAST has been equipped with two high power lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) systems with operating frequencies of 2.45 GHz and 4.6 GHz. Comparative LHCD experiments with the two different frequencies were performed in the same conditions of plasma for the first time. It was found that current drive (CD) efficiency and plasma heating effect are much better for 4.6 GHz LH waves than for the one with 2.45 GHz. High confinement mode (H-mode) discharges with 4.6 GHz LHCD as the sole auxiliary heating source have been obtained in EAST and the confinement is higher with respect to that produced previously by 2.45 GHz. A combination of ray-tracing and Fokker-Planck calculations by using the C3PO/LUKE codes was performed in order to explain the different experimental observations between the two waves. In addition, the frequency spectral broadening of the two LH wave operating frequencies was surveyed by using a radio frequency probe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant progress on both L- and H-mode long-pulse discharges has been made recently in Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) with lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) [J. Li et al., Nature Phys. 9, 817 (2013) And B. N. Wan et al., Nucl. Fusion 53, 104006(2013).]. In this paper, LHCD experiments at high density in L-mode plasmas have been investigated in order to explore possible methods of improving current drive (CD) efficiency, thus to extend the operational space in long-pulse and high performance plasma regime. It is observed that the normalized bremsstrahlung emission falls much more steeply than 1/ne_av (line-averaged density) above ne_av=2.2x1019m-3 indicating anomalous loss of CD efficiency. A large broadening of the operating line frequency (f=2.45GHz), measured by a radio frequency (RF) probe located outside the EAST vacuum vessel, is generally observed during high density cases, which is found to be one of the physical mechanisms resulting in the unfavorable CD efficiency. Collisional absorption of lower hybrid wave in the scrape off layer (SOL) may be another cause, but this assertion needs more experimental evidence and numerical analysis. It is found that plasmas with strong lithiation can improve CD efficiency largely, which should be benefited from the changes of edge parameters. In addition, several possible methods are proposed to recover good efficiency in future experiments for EAST [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lower hybrid wave (LHW)-plasma coupling experiments in HT-7 [J. K. Xie and HT-7 Group, Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Fusion Energy, Montreal, 1996 (IAEA, Trieste, 1997), Vol. 1, p. 685] were carried out by means of puffing gas (CD4 and D2) just around the antenna. Both experiments show that wave-plasma coupling is improved by the gas puffing. The maximum distance between the plasma and the antenna is limited to about 8 cm due to the plasma disruption. The variation in the lined averaged density in the different channels gives a possible evidence of the mechanism of the ionization of neutral gas. The effect of the gas flow rate on the wave-plasma coupling shows that an optimized gas flow rate is necessary for good coupling, being consistent with simulation through Brambilla theory qualitatively. Experiments with puffing D2 show that the improved coupling results from the global density increase and the local gas puffing. Langmuir probe measurements indicate that the gas puffing effectively increases the density and decreases the temperature in scrape of layer. Studies show that the ionization of the puffed gas is affected by both LHW electric field and plasma temperature. Comparison of D2 and CD4 puffing shows that D2 improves coupling better with less effect on core density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study that examined deep level transient spectroscopy in gallium arsenide grown by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). Deep levels that characterize MBE films grown arsenic rich; Importance of the surface structure during growth for the development of the deep levels; Findings on the correlation between deep levels and intentional or unintentional impurities.

More economical fusion reactors might be enabled through the cyclic operation of lower hybrid current drive. The first stage of cyclic operation would be to ramp up the plasma current with lower hybrid waves alone in low-density plasma. Such a current ramp-up was carried out successfully on the EAST tokamak. The plasma current was ramped up with a time-averaged rate of 18 kA/s with lower hybrid (LH) power. The average conversion efficiency Pel/PLH was about 3%. Over a transient phase, faster ramp-up was obtained. These experiments feature a separate measurement of the L/R time at the time of current ramp up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]