Convergent genomic signatures of high-altitude adaptation among domestic mammals.

Abundant and diverse domestic mammals living on the Tibetan Plateau provide useful materials for investigating adaptive evolution and genetic convergence. Here, we used 327 genomes from horses, sheep, goats, cattle, pigs and dogs living at both high and low altitudes, including 73 genomes generated for this study, to disentangle the genetic mechanisms underlying local adaptation of domestic mammals. Although molecular convergence is comparatively rare at the DNA sequence level, we found convergent signature of positive selection at the gene level, particularly the gene in these Tibetan domestic mammals.

GRK5 functions as an oncogenic factor in non-small-cell lung cancer.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, and non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for about 80% of all cases, which is the major subgroup of lung cancer. G protein-coupled receptor kinase 5 (GRK5) has been demonstrated to play pivotal roles in both development and progression of several pathological conditions including cancer. Here, we found that GRK5 expression was significantly increased in 539 NSCLC cancerous tissues than that in 99 normal non-cancerous tissues by immunohistochemistry analysis; we also showed intensive higher positive staining percentage in female and adenocarcinoma (ADC) NSCLC patients than that in male and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) patients, respectively.

Establishment of basal cell carcinoma animal model in Chinese tree shrew ().

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common skin cancer worldwide, with incidence rates continuing to increase. Ultraviolet radiation is the major environmental risk factor and dysregulation of the Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway has been identified in most BCCs. The treatment of locally advanced and metastatic BBCs is still a challenge and requires a better animal model than the widely used rodents for drug development and testing.

A Normalization-Free and Nonparametric Method Sharpens Large-Scale Transcriptome Analysis and Reveals Common Gene Alteration Patterns in Cancers.

Heterogeneity in transcriptional data hampers the identification of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and understanding of cancer, essentially because current methods rely on cross-sample normalization and/or distribution assumption-both sensitive to heterogeneous values. Here, we developed a new method, Cross-Value Association Analysis (CVAA), which overcomes the limitation and is more robust to heterogeneous data than the other methods. Applying CVAA to a more complex pan-cancer dataset containing 5,540 transcriptomes discovered numerous new DEGs and many previously rarely explored pathways/processes; some of them were validated, both and , to be crucial in tumorigenesis, e.

NCAPH plays important roles in human colon cancer.

Colon cancer (CC) is one of the major malignancies worldwide, whose pathogenesis is complex and requires the accumulated alteration of multiple genes and signaling pathways. Condensins are multi-protein complexes that play pivotal roles in chromosome assembly and segregation during mitosis, meiosis and even tumorigenesis. Using tissue microarrays by immunohistochemistry and hematoxylin-eosin staining, we found that non-SMC condensin I complex subunit H (NCAPH) in colon cancerous tissues was higher than that in all corresponding adjacent non-cancerous tissues.

Indole alkaloids with new skeleton activating neural stem cells.

Alstoscholarisines A-E (1-5), five unprecedented monoterpenoid indole alkaloids with 6/5/6/6/6 fused-bridge rings, were isolated from Alstonia scholaris. They promoted adult neuronal stem cells (NSCs) proliferation significantly, in which the most active one (1) functioned from a concentration of 0.1 μg/mL in a dosage-dependent manner.