DNA methylation of miR-181a-5p mediated by DNMT3b drives renal interstitial fibrosis developed from acute kidney injury.

To explore the role of miR-181a-5p in the progression of acute kidney injury (AKI) to renal interstitial fibrosis (RIF) from the perspective of DNA methylation. The role of miR-181a-5p was confirmed by collecting clinical samples, injecting miR-181a-5p agomir into tail vein, and transfecting miR-181a-5p mimic . The mechanism of miR-181a-5p's influence on AKI induced RIF was investigated by methylation-specific PCR, bioinformatic analysis, transcriptome sequencing and so on.

Inflammatory microenvironment of fibrotic liver promotes hepatocellular carcinoma growth, metastasis and sorafenib resistance through STAT3 activation.

The pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic liver microenvironment facilitates hepatocarcinogenesis. However, the effects and mechanisms by which the hepatic fibroinflammatory microenvironment modulates intrahepatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression and its response to systematic therapy remain largely unexplored. We established a syngeneic orthotopic HCC mouse model with a series of persistent liver injury induced by CCl gavage, which mimic the dynamic effect of hepatic pathology microenvironment on intrahepatic HCC growth and metastasis.

Dexmedetomidine promotes the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma through hepatic stellate cell activation.

Dexmedetomidine (DEX) is an anesthetic that is widely used in the clinic, and it has been reported to exhibit paradoxical effects in the progression of multiple solid tumors. In this study, we sought to explore the mechanism by which DEX regulates hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression underlying liver fibrosis. We determined the effects of DEX on tumor progression in an orthotopic HCC mouse model of fibrotic liver.

Rapidly evolving genes and stress adaptation of two desert poplars, Populus euphratica and P. pruinosa.

Understanding which genes have evolved rapidly with the recent tree speciation in arid habitats can provide valuable insights into different adaptation mechanisms. We employed a comparative evolutionary analysis of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from two desert poplars, Populus pruinosa and P. euphratica, which diverged in the recent past.