The Impact of Cardiovascular Disease Gene Polymorphism and Interaction with Homocysteine on Deep Vein Thrombosis.

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) affects vascular health and can even threaten life; however, its pathogenesis remains unclear. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and DVT share common risk factors, such as dyslipidemia, aging, etc. We aimed to investigate the loci of published CVD susceptibility genes and their association with environmental factors that might be related to DVT.

The efficacy of sorafenib against hepatocellular carcinoma is enhanced by 5-aza-mediated inhibition of ID1 promoter methylation.

Sorafenib resistance greatly restricts its clinical application in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Numerous studies have reported that ID1 exerts a crucial effect in cancer initiation and development. Our previous research revealed an inhibitory role of ID1 in sorafenib resistance.

Terbutaline attenuates LPS-induced injury of pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells by cAMP/Epac signaling.

Acute lung injury (ALI), characterized by an acute onset of severe hypoxemia, is a common and devastating syndrome usually triggered by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) infection from bacteria. This study is intended to explore whether terbutaline can alleviate LPS-induced human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cell (HPMVEC) injury through cAMP/Epac signaling. LPS was utilized to induce ALI in HPMVECs, and after exposure of LPS-induced HPMVECs to terbutaline, the cellular functions including cell viability and apoptosis were measured by cell counting kit-8 and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick-end labeling.

Detection of mitochondrial coupling factor 6 in placental tissues from preeclamptic pregnancies and its influence on biological behavior of trophoblast cells.

Increased levels of mitochondrial coupling factor 6 (CF6) are present in the peripheral blood of patients with preeclamptic pregnancies, and are particularly evident in cases of early-onset or severe preeclampsia. The present study examined the location and expression levels of CF6 in the placental tissue and its effect on the biological behavior of trophoblast cells. Placental tissue microarrays, including placental villous cytotrophoblast and extravillous cytotrophoblast microarrays, were used to detect the location and relative expression levels of CF6 in the placenta using immunohistochemistry.

CRISPR-GEMM Pooled Mutagenic Screening Identifies KMT2D as a Major Modulator of Immune Checkpoint Blockade.

Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) has shown remarkable clinical efficacy in several cancer types. However, only a fraction of patients will respond to ICB. Here, we performed pooled mutagenic screening with CRISPR-mediated genetically engineered mouse models (CRISPR-GEMM) in ICB settings, and identified KMT2D as a major modulator of ICB response across multiple cancer types.

Electrically controlled liquid-crystal microlens matrix with a nested electrode array for efficiently tuning and swinging focus.

A new type of electrically controlled liquid-crystal microlens matrix (EC-LCMM) with a nested electrode array for efficiently tuning and swinging focus, which means that the focus position can be adjusted in three dimensions, is proposed. The EC-LCMM is constructed by a 10 × 10 arrayed annular-sector-shaped aluminum electrode with a central microhole of 140μm diameter and three annular-sectors of 210μm external diameter and the period length of 280μm. To the arrangement of the patterned electrode, both the 10 × 10 LC microlens array based on the annular-sector-shaped aluminum electrode and the 9 × 9 LC microlens array based on an arrayed quasi-quadrilateral-ring-shaped electrode can be obtained.

Optical properties of electrically controlled arc-electrode liquid-crystal microlens array for wavefront measurement and adjustment.

An electrically controlled arc-electrode liquid-crystal microlens array (AE-LCMLA), with tuning and swing focus, is proposed, which can be utilized to replace the traditional mechanically controlled microlenses and also cooperate with photosensitive arrays to solve the problems of measuring and further adjusting a strong distortion wavefront. The top patterned electrode of a single LC microlens is composed of three arc-electrodes distributed symmetrically around a central microhole for constructing the key controlling structures of the LC cavity in the AE-LCMLA. All the arc-electrodes are individually controlled, and then the focal spot of each microlens can be moved freely in a three-dimensional fashion including along the optical axial direction and over the focal plane by simply adjusting the driving signal voltage applied over each arc-electrode, independently.

Correction: The hMLH1 -93G>A Polymorphism and Risk of Ovarian Cancer in the Chinese Population.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

miR-509-3p enhances platinum drug sensitivity in ovarian cancer.

Drug-resistance of platinum remains a big challenge for effective treatment of patients with ovarian cancer. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) act as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression and are associated with multi-drug resistance. Our study aims on identifying role of miRNAs in drug-resistance of platinum in ovarian cancer.

ID1-induced p16/IL6 axis activation contributes to the resistant of hepatocellular carcinoma cells to sorafenib.

Sorafenib is the only approved drug for the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, its efficacy is limited by the emergence of primary and/or acquired resistance. Senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP)-mediated chemo-resistance, which depends on the secreted bioactive molecules, has attracted increasing attention but never revealed in HCC.

A Novel Complementation Assay for Quick and Specific Screen of Genes Encoding Glycerol-3-Phosphate Acyltransferases.

The initial step in glycerolipid biosynthesis, especially in diverse allopolyploid crop species, is poorly understood, mainly due to the lack of an effective and convenient method for functional characterization of genes encoding glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferases (GPATs) catalyzing this reaction. Here we present a novel complementation assay for quick and specific characterization of GPAT-encoding genes. Its key design involves rational construction of yeast conditional lethal ΔΔ double mutant bearing the heterologous gene whose leaky expression under repressed conditions does not support any non-specific growth, thereby circumventing the false positive problem encountered with the system based on the ΔΔ mutant harboring the native episomal gene whose leaky expression appears to be sufficient for generating enough GPAT activities for the non-specific restoration of the mutant growth.

Calculation for tensile strength and fracture toughness of granite with three kinds of grain sizes using three-point-bending test.

Tensile strength and fracture toughness, important parameters of the rock for engineering applications are difficult to measure. Thus this paper selected three kinds of granite samples (grain sizes = 1.01mm, 2.

New insights into sorafenib resistance in hepatocellular carcinoma: Responsible mechanisms and promising strategies.

It is disappointing that only a few patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) obtain a significant survival benefit from the sorafenib treatment, which is currently regarded as a first-line chemotherapeutic therapy in patients with advanced HCC. Most patients are highly refractory to this therapy. Therefore, it is necessary to identify resistant factors and explore potential protocols that can be used to overcome the resistance or substitute sorafenib once the resistance is formed.

Profiling single-guide RNA specificity reveals a mismatch sensitive core sequence.

Targeting specificity is an essential issue in the development of CRISPR-Cas technology. Using a luciferase activation assay, off-target cleavage activity of sgRNA was systematically investigated on single nucleotide-mismatched targets. In addition to confirming that PAM-proximal mismatches are less tolerated than PAM-distal mismatches, our study further identified a "core" sequence that is highly sensitive to target-mismatch.

Comprehensive analysis of aberrantly expressed profiles of lncRNAs and miRNAs with associated ceRNA network in muscle-invasive bladder cancer.

Although initially thought to be transcriptional noise, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are gaining increased attention in human cancers as its diversity function. At present, lncRNAs are regarded as the main part of competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network due to its regulation on protein-coding gene expression by acting as miRNA sponges. However, functional roles of lncRNA-mediated ceRNAs in muscle-invasive bladder cancer remain unclear.

tRNA modification profiles of the fast-proliferating cancer cells.

Despite the recent progress in RNA modification study, a comprehensive modification profile is still lacking for mammalian cells. Using a quantitative HPLC/MS/MS assay, we present here a study where RNA modifications are examined in term of the major RNA species. With paired slow- and fast-proliferating cell lines, distinct RNA modification profiles are first revealed for diverse RNA species.

Downregulation and pro-apoptotic effect of hypoxia-inducible factor 2 alpha in hepatocellular carcinoma.

The role of HIF-2α in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is unclear. The aim of the present study was to investigate the expression pattern and role of HIF-2α in HCC patients. Immunohistochemical staining and western blotting analyses were applied to detect the protein level of HIF-2α in 206 paired HCC and peritumoral tissues.

The hMLH1 -93G>A Polymorphism and Risk of Ovarian Cancer in the Chinese Population.

Background: As a mismatch repair (MMR) gene, hMLH1 plays an important role in the maintenance of chromosomal integrity. Several studies have investigated the associations of hMLH1 -93G>A (rs1800734) and Ile219Val (rs1799977) in diverse tumor types with discordant results, but their roles in ovarian cancer in the Chinese population remains to be elucidated.

Methods: In a case-control analysis, we assessed the association between these two polymorphisms and ovarian cancer risk in 421 ovarian cancer patients and 689 control subjects in the Chinese population using logistic regression.

Regulation of SOD2 and β-arrestin1 by interleukin-6 contributes to the increase of IGF-1R expression in docetaxel resistant prostate cancer cells.

Although several mechanisms behind resistance to docetaxel in castration-refractory prostate cancer (CRPC) have been investigated, molecular determinants of evolved resistance are still not entirely understood. Proteomics-based analysis in this study revealed that SOD2, associated with downregulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), was significantly up-regulated in docetaxel-resistant (PC3/Doc) cells if compared to sensitive cells, and the expression of redox-regulated genes such as IGF-1R, CXCR4, and BCL2 was increased as well. Forced expression of SOD2 in sensitive cells led to the increase of IGF-1R and association with drug resistance, whereas silencing of SOD2 resulted in the decrease of IGF-1R at the protein level in resistant cells.

DHA2, a synthesized derivative of bisbibenzyl, exerts antitumor activity against ovarian cancer through inhibition of XIAP and Akt/mTOR pathway.

The analysis of dihydroptychantol (DHA) and its chemically synthesized macrocyclic bisbibenzyl derivatives (DHA1, 2 and 3) led to the selection of DHA2 as a potential drug candidate for ovarian cancer. The exposure of ovarian cancer SKOV3 cells to DHA2 resulted in the downregulation of the anti-apoptotic X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP) and Bcl-2 and led to caspase-independent cell death. The overexpression of XIAP reversed DHA2-induced cell death, and the depletion of XIAP had the opposite effect.

Anti-inflammatory effect of Marchantin M contributes to sensitization of prostate cancer cells to docetaxel.

As pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines contribute to the malignancy of many types of human cancer, we examined the anti-inflammatory effect of bisbibenzyls, a diverse bioactive group of naturally occurring compounds. Marchantin M (Mar M) was identified through a screening process of these compounds as a potent anti-inflammatory agent based on its capacity to inhibit LPS-induced IL6, IL1β and CCL2 expression in HUVECs and PBMCs without affecting cell proliferation. Since Mar M has been found to exhibit anticancer activity, we observed that Mar M treatment also resulted in decreases in the expressions of IL6, IL1β and TNFα in metastatic prostate cancer (PCa) cells.

[Response of Nostoc flageliforme cell to Cu2+, Cr2+ and Pb2+ stress].

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effects of Cu2+, Cr2+ and Pb2+ stress on Nostoc flagelliforme cell.

Methods: The response of Nostoc flagelliforme cell was analyzed under the stress. The modified BG11 culture medium containing different heavy metal ions of 0, 0.

Induction of DNA damage and ATF3 by retigeric acid B, a novel topoisomerase II inhibitor, promotes apoptosis in prostate cancer cells.

Retigeric acid B (RB) has been reported to exhibit its anti-tumor activity in vitro and in vivo. Here, we found that RB significantly inhibited activity of topoisomerase IIα (Topo IIα), leading to remarkable DNA damage in prostate cancer (PCa) cells as evidenced by a strong induction of γH2AX and DNA fragmentation. Activation of ATM and ATR sequentially led to induction of phospho-Chk1/2 and phospho-Cdc25 in response to RB.