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The clinical efficacy of immune checkpoint blockade has been recently demonstrated in a variety of cancer types. The aim of the present study was to characterize the expression profile of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) in head and neck squamous carcinoma (HNSCC). A total of 63 patients with HNSCC were enrolled in the present study. CD3+ and CD4+ TILs and the expression of PD-L1 were detected by immunohistochemistry. PD-L1 mRNA levels were evaluated by reverse transcription-quantitative PCR analysis. The association of TILs and PD-L1 with patient clinicopathological characteristics was also assessed. CD3+ and CD4+ TILs were detected in 100% of the samples. CD3+ was the predominant subset of TILs. PD-L1 was expressed in 53 of 61 (86%) patients when a score of ≥1 on tumor cells was considered positive and in 28 patients (45.2%) when a score of >5 on tumor cells was considered positive. PD-L1 mRNA levels were determined to be significantly correlated with PD-L1 protein expression. Survival analysis demonstrated that high CD4+ TILs were associated with improved overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS), and furthermore, the association of high PD-L1 expression with unfavorable OS and DFS was statistically significant. Multivariate analysis identified CD4+ TILs and PD-L1 as prognostic markers for HNSCC. The results of the present study suggested that increased CD4+ TILs in HNSCC may be associated with improved outcomes, while high expression of PD-L1 may indicate unfavorable OS and DFS; thus, these factors may serve as predictors of the response to immune checkpoint therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classification and part segmentation of point cloud models are the basic tasks of 3D point cloud data processing, and the core is to obtain point cloud features that can effectively represent 3D models. This paper proposes a 3D point cloud feature learning network that introduces attention mechanisms. The network adopts a hierarchical point cloud feature extraction method. In the process of hierarchical feature extraction, the feature channel attention mechanism is adopted to obtain the correlation among channels, and the key channel information is enhanced. The spatial position attention mechanism is adopted to obtain the attention weight of each point based on the spatial information of the points. The enhanced point cloud feature is obtained by combining two or more attention mechanisms. Based on this feature, multi-level feature extraction is performed to obtain the final point cloud features for downstream tasks. Shape classification and part segmentation experiments are performed on Model- Net40 and ShapeNet datasets, respectively. The experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve high-precision and robust 3D point cloud shape classification and segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two new ent-labdane diterpenes, ent-3 α,16-dihydroxylabda-8(17),12( E),14-triene ( 1) and ent-14( S),15-dihydroxylabda-8(17)-12( E)-dien-18-oic acid ( 2), were isolated from the roots of Euphorbia yinshanica. Their structures were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic methods including HR-ESI-MS and 1D and 2D NMR. The cytotoxic activities against five tumor cell lines was also evaluated, but there was no significant activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present study was to investigate the phylogeographic patterns of Spiraea alpina (Rosaceae) and clarify its response to past climatic changes in the climate-sensitive Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP). We sequenced a chloroplast DNA fragment ( trnL- trnF) from 528 individuals representing 43 populations. We identified 10 haplotypes, which were tentatively divided into three groups. These haplotypes or groups were distributed in the different regions of the QTP. Only half the populations were fixed by a single haplotype, whereas the others contained two or more. In the central and eastern regions, adjacent populations at the local scale shared the same haplotype. Our phylogeographic analyses suggest that this alpine shrub survived in multiple refugia during the Last Glacial Maximum and that earlier glaciations may have trigged deep intraspecific divergences. Post-glacial expansions occurred only within populations or across multiple populations within a local range. The findings of the present study together with previous phylogeographic reports suggest that evolutionary histories of plants in the QTP are complex and variable depending on the species investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conclusion: BDET might be effective for the patients with OME, and proved to be an efficacious and mini-invasive treatment for OME.Objectives: To evaluate the therapeutic benefits of balloon dilation eustachian tuboplasty (BDET) in the treatment of adult patients with otitis media with effusion (OME) caused by eustachian tube dysfunction (ETD).Methods: After informed consent, eight adult patients with OME were included in this study. After investigated patients’ case history and oto-function, all patients underwent BDET treatment. Then four criteria including tympanic membrane, pure tone audiometry (PTA), tympanometry, and subjective symptoms were adopted to evaluate the therapeutic benefits of BDET.Results: None of the involved patients complained of problems or complications during the post-operative period, or with absence of pain and bleeding after the operation. Prominent post-operative improvement was observed in tympanic membrane and otoscopic appearance. In addition, cure rates after 3 months and 6 months post-operatively were gradually increased. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]