Biomechanical analysis of a novel bone cement bridging screw system combined with percutaneous vertebroplasty for treating Kummell's disease.

Kummell's Disease (KD) was originally proposed by Dr. Hermann Kummell in 1891 as a type of delayed posttraumatic vertebral collapse, which is a clinical phenomenon. The purpose of this experiment is to compare the strength of bone cement and the novel bone cement bridging screw in the treatment of thoracolumbar Kummell disease (KD) with other treatment methods.

CASK Silence Overcomes Sorafenib Resistance of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Through Activating Apoptosis and Autophagic Cell Death.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients usually fail to be treated because of drug resistance, including sorafenib. In this study, the effects of CASK in HCC were investigated using gain- or loss-of-function strategies by performing cell counting kit-8 assay, colony formation assay, flow cytometry, transmission electron microscopy, immunofluorescent confocal laser microscopy, tumor xenograft experiment and immunohistochemistry staining. The current results suggested that CASK expression was positively associated with sorafenib resistance and poor prognosis of HCC.

Shikonin inhibits migration and invasion of triple-negative breast cancer cells by suppressing epithelial-mesenchymal transition via miR-17-5p/PTEN/Akt pathway.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a great threat to global women's health due to its high metastatic potential. Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is considered as a key event in the process of metastasis. So the pharmacological targeting of EMT might be a promising strategy in improving the therapeutic efficacy of TNBC.

[Differences in spatial distribution of medicinal plant resources in Yinshan region of Inner Mongolia].

Yinshan Mountains stands on the southern edge of the Inner Mongolia Plateau, which stretches 1 200 km from east to west and 50 to 100 km from north to south. The rich and varied topographic environment of the Yinshan Mountains has created a variety of vegetation floras, which also makes the species of medicinal plant resources in this area unevenly distributed. Therefore, studying the spatial distribution difference of medicinal plant resources among various banners, counties, and districts in the Yinshan area is of great significance to formulate the protection policy and promote the industry development of medicinal plant.

Branched α-helical peptides enhanced antitumor efficacy and selectivity.

Drug resistance to traditional chemotherapeutics is one of the main challenges in cancer treatment. Herein, cationic antimicrobial peptides (CAPs) were repurposed as anticancer agents to counter chemotherapy drug resistance. After a systematic study of de novo designed synthetic α-helical CAPs in various cell lines, the 4-arm branched peptide {[(LLKK)2]2κC}2 was found to exhibit better selectivity compared to its linear counterpart (LLKK)4, and was more effective than the 2-arm branched peptide [(LLKK)2]2κC.

Exploring Specific miRNA-mRNA Axes With Relationship to Taxanes-Resistance in Breast Cancer.

Breast cancer is the most prevalent type of malignancy in women worldwide. Taxanes (paclitaxel and docetaxel) are widely applied as first-line chemotherapeutic agents, while the therapeutic effect is seriously limited by the development of drug resistance. In the present study, we screened out several miRNAs dysregulated in taxanes-resistant breast cancer samples and confirmed that two miRNAs (miR-335-5p and let-7c-5p) played a major role in cell proliferation, apoptosis, and chemo-resistance.

MiR-93 suppresses tumorigenesis and enhances chemosensitivity of breast cancer via dual targeting E2F1 and CCND1.

Chemoresistance of tumors often leads to treatment failure in clinical practice, which underscores pivotal needs to uncover novel therapeutic strategies. Accumulating evidences show that microRNAs (miRNAs) are widely involved in carcinogenesis, but their function on chemoresistance remains largely unexplored. In this study, we found that miR-93-5p (miR-93) significantly inhibited cell proliferation, induced G1/S cell cycle arrest and increased chemosensitivity to paclitaxel (PTX) in vitro and in vivo.

Exploring specific prognostic biomarkers in triple-negative breast cancer.

Lacking of both prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) underscores pivotal needs to uncover novel biomarkers and viable therapies. MicroRNAs have broad biological functions in cancers and may serve as ideal biomarkers. In this study, by data mining of the Cancer Genome Atlas database, we screened out 4 differentially-expressed microRNAs (DEmiRNAs) between TNBC and normal samples: miR-135b-5p, miR-9-3p, miR-135b-3p and miR-455-5p.

Degradable antimicrobial polycarbonates with unexpected activity and selectivity for treating multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae lung infection in mice.

Multidrug resistant (MDR) Klebsiella pneumoniae is a major cause of healthcare-associated infections around the world, with attendant high rates of morbidity and mortality. Progressive reduction in potency of antibiotics capable of treating MDR K. pneumoniae infections - including lung infection - as a consequence of escalating drug resistance provides the motivation to develop drug candidates targeting MDR K.

Polymers with distinctive anticancer mechanism that kills MDR cancer cells and inhibits tumor metastasis.

Although mortality continues to decline over the past two decades, cancer is still a pervasive healthcare problem worldwide due to the increase in the number of cases, multidrug resistance (MDR) and metastasis. As a consequence of multidrug resistance, cancer treatment must rely on a host of chemotherapeutic agents and chemosensitizers to achieve remission. To overcome these problems, a series of biodegradable triblock copolymers of PEG, guanidinium-functionalized polycarbonate and polylactide (PEG-PGC-PDLA) is designed as chemotherapeutic agents.

Identification of invasion-metastasis-associated microRNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma based on bioinformatic analysis and experimental validation.

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most lethal cancer, mainly attributing to its high tendency to metastasis. Vascular invasion provides a direct path for solid tumor metastasis. Mounting evidence has demonstrated that microRNAs (miRNAs) are related to human cancer onset and progression including invasion and metastasis.

A macromolecular approach to eradicate multidrug resistant bacterial infections while mitigating drug resistance onset.

Polymyxins remain the last line treatment for multidrug-resistant (MDR) infections. As polymyxins resistance emerges, there is an urgent need to develop effective antimicrobial agents capable of mitigating MDR. Here, we report biodegradable guanidinium-functionalized polycarbonates with a distinctive mechanism that does not induce drug resistance.

miR-27b-3p inhibits proliferation and potentially reverses multi-chemoresistance by targeting CBLB/GRB2 in breast cancer cells.

Drug resistance remains a major problem in the treatment of conventional chemotherapeutic agents in breast cancers. Owing to heterogeneity and complexity of chemoresistance mechanisms, most efforts that focus on a single pathway were unsuccessful, and exploring novel personalized therapeutics becomes urgent. By a system approach, we identified that microRNA-27b-3p (miR-27b), a miRNA deleted in breast cancer tissues and cell lines, has a master role in sensitizing breast cancer cells to a broad spectrum of anticancer drugs in vitro and in vivo.

Metabolomic profiling of the effects of Curcumae rhizoma and Sparganii rhizome on stress-led blood stasis.

Blood stasis (BS) is a complex syndrome with blood flow retardation or cessation. The Traditional Chinese Medicine, Curcumae rhizome (CR) and Sparganii rhizome (SR), showed promising effects on this disease, and especially effective when used in combination. However, the detailed influence of the TCMs on the BSS disturbed metabolic pathways was still unclear.

MicroRNAs in cancer metastasis and angiogenesis.

Cancer metastasis is a malignant process by which tumor cells migrate from their primary site of origin to other organs. It is the main cause of poor prognosis in cancer patients. Angiogenesis is the process of generating new blood capillaries from pre-existing vasculature.

A miR-20a/MAPK1/c-Myc regulatory feedback loop regulates breast carcinogenesis and chemoresistance.

Chemoresistance often leads to the failure of breast cancer treatment. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in the progression and chemoresistance of cancer. However, because of the complexity of the mechanisms of chemoresistance and the specificity of miRNA regulation in different cell types, the function of miR-20a in breast cancer chemoresistance is still unclear.

Highly potent antimicrobial polyionenes with rapid killing kinetics, skin biocompatibility and in vivo bactericidal activity.

Effective antimicrobial agents are important arsenals in our perennial fight against communicable diseases, hospital-acquired and surgical site multidrug-resistant infections. In this study, we devise a strategy for the development of highly efficacious and skin compatible yet inexpensive water-soluble macromolecular antimicrobial polyionenes by employing a catalyst-free, polyaddition polymerization using commercially available monomers. A series of antimicrobial polyionenes are prepared through a simple polyaddition reaction with both polymer-forming reaction and charge installation occurring simultaneously.

Characteristics and Impact Factors of Renal Threshold for Glucose Excretion in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

Sodium glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT-2) inhibitors are newly developed but promising medicine for type 2 diabetes. However, patients with a different renal threshold for glucose excretion (RT(G)) may have a different reaction to this medicine. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the characteristics of RT(G) and its impact factors in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Short Synthetic β-Sheet Antimicrobial Peptides for the Treatment of Multidrug-Resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa Burn Wound Infections.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is often implicated in burn wound infections; its inherent drug resistance often renders these infections extremely challenging to treat. This is further compounded by the problem of emerging drug resistance and the dearth of novel antimicrobial drug discovery in recent years. In the perennial search for effective antimicrobial compounds, the authors identify short synthetic β-sheet folding peptides, IRIKIRIK (IK8L), IRIkIrIK (IK8-2D), and irikirik (IK8D) as prime candidates owing to their high potency against Gram-negative bacteria.

An Intelligent Model for Pairs Trading Using Genetic Algorithms.

Pairs trading is an important and challenging research area in computational finance, in which pairs of stocks are bought and sold in pair combinations for arbitrage opportunities. Traditional methods that solve this set of problems mostly rely on statistical methods such as regression. In contrast to the statistical approaches, recent advances in computational intelligence (CI) are leading to promising opportunities for solving problems in the financial applications more effectively.

[Prostatic adenocarcinoma with glomeruloid structure].

Objective: To investigate the architectural features and frequency of glomeruloid features in pathological section of prostatic adenocarcinoma and evaluate the association between glomerulations and its clinical data.

Methods: We studied 196 prostatic adenocarcinoma specimens obtained from needle biopsies or radical prostatectomy and their clinical data, and reviewed related literatures.

Results: Three of the 196 cases showed glomeruloid features, the Gleason score of which was 7, 8, and 8, respectively.

Distribution of liposomal bifendate in liver following intravenous injection in mice.

The purpose of this study was to develop and study the behaviors of bifendate (DDB) liposome in vivo. DDB liposome was prepared by the rotary evaporationextrusion method. The particle size, zeta-potential, encapsulation efficiency (EE), and in vitro drug release from liposome were determined and the in vivo studies were tested in mice and rats.

A study of the way in which dermatologists and photosensitive patients apply sunscreen in China.

Objective: To study sunscreen product application by dermatologists and photosensitive patients in China for drawing up proper directions for most efficient use of sunscreen.

Methods: Thirty-nine dermatologists and 41 photosensitive patients were enrolled in this study. They were asked to apply the cream in the same way they apply sunscreen products.