Identification and characterization of heat-responsive microRNAs at the booting stage in two rice varieties, 9311 and Nagina 22.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding, regulatory RNAs that play important roles in abiotic stress responses in plants, but their regulatory roles in the adaptive response to heat stress at the booting stage in two rice varieties, 9311 and Nagina 22, remain largely unknown. In this study, 464 known miRNAs and 123 potential novel miRNAs were identified. Of these miRNAs, a total of 90 differentially expressed miRNAs were obtained with 9311 libraries as the control group, of which 54 were upregulated and 36 were downregulated.

Covering the proximal nerve stump with chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans prevents traumatic painful neuroma formation by blocking axon regeneration after neurotomy in Sprague Dawley rats.

Objective: Neuropathic pain caused by traumatic neuromas is an extremely intractable clinical problem. Disorderly scar tissue accumulation and irregular and immature axon regeneration around the injury site mainly contribute to traumatic painful neuroma formation. Therefore, successfully preventing traumatic painful neuroma formation requires the effective inhibition of irregular axon regeneration and disorderly accumulation of scar tissue.

Customized Scaffold Design Based on Natural Peripheral Nerve Fascicle Characteristics for Biofabrication in Tissue Regeneration.

Objective: The use of a biofabrication nerve scaffold, which mimics the nerve microstructure, as an alternative for autologous nerve transplantation is a promising strategy for treating peripheral nerve defects. This study aimed to design a customized biofabrication scaffold model with the characteristics of human peripheral nerve fascicles.

Methods: We used Micro-MRI technique to obtain different nerve fascicles.

Small RNA sequencing reveals dynamic microRNA expression of important nutrient metabolism during development of fruit.

To obtain insight into the function of miRNAs in the synthesis and storage of important nutrients during the development of fruit, Illumina sequencing of flower and fruit small-RNA was conducted. The results revealed that 797 miRNAs were significantly differentially expressed between flower and fruit samples of . Through integrated GO and KEGG function annotations, it was determined that the miRNA target genes were mainly involved in metabolic pathways, plant hormone signal transduction, fruit development, mitosis and regulation of biosynthetic processes.

A rapid micro-magnetic resonance imaging scanning for three-dimensional reconstruction of peripheral nerve fascicles.

The most common methods for three-dimensional reconstruction of peripheral nerve fascicles include histological and radiology techniques. Histological techniques have many drawbacks including an enormous manual workload and poor image registration. Micro-magnetic resonance imaging (Micro-MRI), an emerging radiology technique, has been used to report results in the brain, liver and tumor tissues.

Spatial distribution affects the role of CSPGs in nerve regeneration via the actin filament-mediated pathway.

CSPGs are components of the extracellular matrix in the nervous system, where they serve as cues for axon guidance during development. After a peripheral nerve injury, CSPGs switch roles and become axon inhibitors and become diffusely distributed at the injury site. To investigate whether the spatial distribution of CSPGs affects their role, we combined in vitro DRG cultures with CSPG stripe or coverage assays to simulate the effect of a patterned substrate or dispersive distribution of CSPGs on growing neurites.

[Emodin induces apoptosis of cancer cells and inhibits retinoid X receptor transcriptional activity].

The mechanisms by which emodin induces apoptosis and inhibits proliferation of cancer cells remain unclear. In this study, we investigated whether the proapoptotic effect of emodin on human NIH-H460 lung cancer cells and SMMC-7721 liver cancer cells was related to regulating RXR expression and function. MTT assay and DAPI staining were used to detect the anti-proliferative and apoptotic effects of emodin with or without 9-cis-retinoid acid on H460 and SMMC-7721.