MicroRNA-221 promotes cisplatin resistance in osteosarcoma cells by targeting PPP2R2A.

Osteosarcoma (OS), the most common malignant bone tumor, is the main cause of cancer-related deaths in children and young adults. Despite the combination of surgery and multi-agent chemotherapy, patients with OS who develop resistance to chemotherapy or experience recurrence have a dismal prognosis. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small noncoding RNAs that repress their targets by binding to the 3'-UTR and/or coding sequences, leading to the inhibition of gene expression.

Effect of exogenous spastin combined with polyethylene glycol on sciatic nerve injury.

Polyethylene glycol can connect the distal and proximal ends of an injured nerve at the cellular level through axonal fusion to avoid Wallerian degeneration of the injured distal nerve and promote peripheral nerve regeneration. However, this method can only prevent Wallerian degeneration in 10% of axons because the cytoskeleton is not repaired in a timely fashion. Reconstruction of the cytoskeletal trunk and microtubule network has been suggested to be the key for improving the efficiency of axonal fusion.

A synthetic method for transition-metal chalcogenide nanocrystals.

In this paper, we prepared a series of chalcogenide semiconductor nanocrystals in controllable shape and size via a facile wet route using metal nitrates and sulfur or selenium powder as precursors and octadecylamine (ODA) as solvent. The as-obtained chalcogenides included CdS, MnS, Ag(2)S, PbS, Cu(1.8)S, Bi(2)S(3), ZnS, Zn(x)Cd(1-x)S, as well as Ag(2)Se, Cu(2-x)Se, CdSe, MnSe.