The circadian gene ARNTL2 promotes nasopharyngeal carcinoma invasiveness and metastasis through suppressing AMOTL2-LATS-YAP pathway.

Metastasis is the major culprit of treatment failure in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Aryl hydrocarbon receptor nuclear translocator like 2 (ARNTL2), a core circadian gene, plays a crucial role in the development of various tumors. Nevertheless, the biological role and mechanism of ARNTL2 are not fully elucidated in NPC.

Correction: Zhao et al. Hypermethylation of UCHL1 Promotes Metastasis of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma by Suppressing Degradation of Cortactin (CTTN). 2020, , 559.

In the original publication [...

Radiomics-based nomogram guides adaptive de-intensification in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma following induction chemotherapy.

Objectives: This study aimed to construct a radiomics-based model for prognosis and benefit prediction of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) versus intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (LANPC) following induction chemotherapy (IC).

Materials And Methods: A cohort of 718 LANPC patients treated with IC + IMRT or IC + CCRT were retrospectively enrolled and assigned to a training set (n = 503) and a validation set (n = 215). Radiomic features were extracted from pre-IC and post-IC MRI.

Medial retropharyngeal nodal region sparing radiotherapy versus standard radiotherapy in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma: open label, non-inferiority, multicentre, randomised, phase 3 trial.

Objectives: To address whether sparing the medial retropharyngeal lymph node (MRLN) region from elective irradiation volume provides non-inferior local relapse-free survival versus standard radiotherapy in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Design: Open-label, non-inferiority, multicentre, randomised, phase 3 trial.

Setting: Three Chinese hospitals between 20 November 2017 and 3 December 2018.

Association of admission blood glucose level and clinical outcomes in elderly community-acquired pneumonia patients with or without diabetes.

Introduction: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is the major cause of infection-related mortality worldwide. Patients with CAP frequently present with admission hyperglycemia.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between admission blood glucose (ABG) level and clinical outcomes in elderly CAP patients (≥80 years of age) with or without diabetes.

Political Turnover and Innovation: Evidence from China.

This paper explores cycles in innovative outcomes corresponding with the timing of political turnover. Using data on local government officials and firm level innovation activities in China, firm innovation is found to be negatively associated with a turnover of local political leaders. We examine several potential explanations and find evidence supporting the premise that political turnover reduces firms' incentives to innovate until the uncertainty is resolved.

Expression Profiles and Prognostic Value of Multiple Inhibitory Checkpoints in Head and Neck Lymphoepithelioma-Like Carcinoma.

Background: Inhibitory checkpoints are promising antitumor targets and predictive biomarkers in a variety of cancers. We aimed to identify the expression levels and prognostic value of multiple inhibitory checkpoints supported by preclinical and clinical evidence in head and neck lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (HNLELC).

Methods: The expression of seven inhibitory checkpoints were evaluated in the tumor nest (TN) and tumor stroma (TS) of 102 HNLELC specimens using immunohistochemistry and digital pathology, and an inhibitory checkpoint-based signature (ICS) was subsequently constructed using the LASSO Cox regression model.

Gemcitabine synergizes with cisplatin to inhibit nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell proliferation and tumor growth.

In a recently published phase III clinical trial, gemcitabine (GEM) plus cisplatin (DDP) induction chemotherapy significantly improved recurrence-free survival and overall survival and became the standard of care among patients with locoregionally advanced NPC. However, the molecular mechanisms of GEM synergized with DPP in NPC cells remain elucidated. These findings prompt us to explore the effect of the combination between GEM and DDP in NPC cell lines through proliferative phenotype, immunofluorescence, flow cytometry, and western blotting assays.

Epstein-Barr virus microRNA BART10-3p promotes dedifferentiation and proliferation of nasopharyngeal carcinoma by targeting ALK7.

Non-keratinizing nasopharyngeal carcinoma, the major subtype of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, is characterized by low differentiation and a close relation to Epstein-Barr virus infection, which indicates a link between Epstein-Barr virus oncogenesis and loss of differentiation, and raises our interest in investigating the involvement of Epstein-Barr virus in nasopharyngeal carcinoma dedifferentiation. Our previous study showed abundant expression of an Epstein-Barr virus-encoded microRNA, BART10-3p, in nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues, but the association between BART10-3p and nasopharyngeal carcinoma differentiation remains unknown. Here, we examined the expression and prognostic value of BART10-3p, and undertook bioinformatics analysis and functional assays to investigate the influence of BART10-3p on nasopharyngeal carcinoma differentiation and proliferation and the underpinning mechanism.

China's Local Political Turnover in the Twenty-First Century.

This paper provides empirical evidence on the incentive role of personnel control in China in the twenty-first century. Employing the city-level turnover data of political leaders in China between 2000 and 2018 and utilizing the fixed effects ordered logit model, we find that the likelihood of promotion of local leaders rises with their economic performance. This relationship holds more firmly in the municipal party secretary.

Unambiguous advanced radiologic extranodal extension determined by MRI predicts worse outcomes in nasopharyngeal carcinoma: Potential improvement for future editions of N category systems.

Background And Purpose: To explore the prognostic value of different radiologic extranodal extension (rENE) grades and their potential improvement for the 8th edition N category in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).

Materials And Methods: From 2009 to 2013, a cohort of 1887 patients with NPC was retrospectively enrolled and randomized to the training (n = 955) and validation (n = 932) groups. rENE was categorized as follows: grade 0, nodes without rENE; grade 1, nodes with rENE infiltrating the surrounding fat only; grade 2, matted nodes; grade 3, nodes with rENE infiltrating adjacent structures.

Top-Down and Bottom-Up Lockdown: Evidence from COVID-19 Prevention and Control in China.

Utilizing national migration data regarding the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), this paper employs a difference-in-differences approach to empirically analyze the relationship between human mobility and the transmission of infectious diseases in China. We show that national human mobility restrictions ascribed to the first-level public health emergency response policy effectively reduce both intercity and intracity migration intensities, thus leading to a declining scale of human mobility, which improves the effectiveness in controlling the epidemic. Human mobility restrictions have greater influences on cities with better economic development, denser populations, or larger passenger volumes.

Combining tumor response and personalized risk assessment: Potential for adaptation of concurrent chemotherapy in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma in the intensity-modulated radiotherapy era.

Background And Purpose: In the intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) era, the role of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) after induction chemotherapy (IC) in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (LANPC) is undetermined, while concerns exist about CCRT-associated excessive toxicity. We aimed to combine tumor response and risk assessment to guide decisions about concurrent chemotherapy.

Materials And Methods: From April 2009 to December 2015, 744 LANPC patients treated with CCRT/IMRT after IC were included.

Hypermethylation of Promotes Metastasis of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma by Suppressing Degradation of Cortactin (CTTN).

Epigenetic regulation plays an important role in the development and progression of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), but the epigenetic mechanisms underlying NPC metastasis remain poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that hypermethylation of the promoter leads to its downregulation in NPC. Restoration of UCHL1 inhibited the migration and invasion of NPC cells in vitro and in vivo, and knockdown of UCHL1 promoted NPC cell migration and invasion in vitro and in vivo.

An integrated model of the gross tumor volume of cervical lymph nodes and pretreatment plasma Epstein-Barr virus DNA predicts survival of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in the intensity-modulated radiotherapy era: a big-data intelligence platform-based analysis.

Background: Few studies have evaluated the prognostic value of the integrated model consisting of gross tumor volume of lymph nodes (GTVnd) and pretreatment plasma Epstein-Barr virus DNA (pre-EBV DNA) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients.

Methods: A well-established big-data intelligence platform with 10,126 NPC patients was used for a retrospective review. A total of 1500 cases with cervical nodal metastases but without distant metastases were randomly assigned to a training ( = 503) or test condition ( = 997) for analyses.

Efficient manipulations of circularly polarized terahertz waves with transmissive metasurfaces.

The unrestricted control of circularly polarized (CP) terahertz (THz) waves is important in science and applications, but conventional THz devices suffer from issues of bulky size and low efficiency. Although Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) metasurfaces have shown strong capabilities to control CP waves, -mode PB devices realized in the THz regime are less efficient, limiting their applications in practice. Here, based on Jones matrix analysis, we design a tri-layer structure (thickness of ~λ/5) and experimentally demonstrate that the structure can serve as a highly efficient meta-atom (relative efficiency of ~90%) to build PB metadevices for manipulating CP THz waves.

High-efficiency chirality-modulated spoof surface plasmon meta-coupler.

Efficiently exciting surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) is highly desired in many photonic applications, but most approaches (such as prism and grating couplers) cannot control flexibly their SPP excitation directions. While Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) metasurfaces were recently proposed to achieve direction-controllable SPP excitations, such scheme suffers from low-efficiency issue due to both direct reflections at the coupler surface and the mode mismatch between the coupler and the guiding-out plasmonic structure. In this article, we solve these issues via imposing two criterions to guide design both the metasurface and the plasmonic metal, based on which a direction-controllable SPP excitation with very high efficiency can be realized.

Tunable microwave metasurfaces for high-performance operations: dispersion compensation and dynamical switch.

Controlling the phase distributions on metasurfaces leads to fascinating effects such as anomalous light refraction/reflection, flat-lens focusing, and optics-vortex generation. However, metasurfaces realized so far largely reply on passive resonant meta-atoms, whose intrinsic dispersions limit such passive meta-devices' performances at frequencies other than the target one. Here, based on tunable meta-atoms with varactor diodes involved, we establish a scheme to resolve these issues for microwave metasurfaces, in which the dispersive response of each meta-atom is precisely controlled by an external voltage imparted on the diode.

Analytical Model and Optimized Design of Power Transmitting Coil for Inductively Coupled Endoscope Robot.

A wireless power transfer system based on the weakly inductive coupling makes it possible to provide the endoscope microrobot (EMR) with infinite power. To facilitate the patients' inspection with the EMR system, the diameter of the transmitting coil is enlarged to 69 cm. Due to the large transmitting range, a high quality factor of the Litz-wire transmitting coil is a necessity to ensure the intensity of magnetic field generated efficiently.

Experimental research on anchoring force in intestine for the motion of capsule robot.

Multiple research groups are currently attempting to develop less-invasive robotic capsule endoscopes (RCEs) with better outcomes for enteroscopic procedures. Understanding the biomechanical response of the bowel to RCE is crucial for optimizing the design of these devices. For this reason, this study aims to develop an analytical model to predict the anchoring force of the model when travelling through the intestine.

Gold nanoparticles-based nanoconjugates for enhanced enzyme cascade and glucose sensing.

We have coupled gold nanoparticles with horseradish peroxidase (HRP) to assemble catalytic nanoconjugates (HRP-AuNPs) for glucose detection. We found that a proper mixing ratio of HRP/AuNPs can significantly improve catalytic activity for the cascade reaction, an effect arising from increased spatial coupling between enzymes. Such gold nanoparticle-based nanoconjugates are shown to be promising nanosensors for glucose.

Different multiwalled carbon nanotubes-enzyme system and enzymatic activity.

The interactions between enzyme and nanoparticles (NPs) are governed by the key properties of NPs, such as structure, size, surface chemistry, charge, and surface shape. In this report, we compared the effect of oxidized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (OXWNT) and irradiated multiwalled carbon nanotubes (IRWNT) on the enzymatic activity of PchPipA. Both OXWNT and IRWNT decreased the biocatalytic activity of PchPipA to some extent when they were added in the reaction system, while OXWNT exhibited higher inhibition of the activity of PchPipA than IRWNT.

Self-catalyzed, self-limiting growth of glucose oxidase-mimicking gold nanoparticles.

Size and shape of nanoparticles are generally controlled by external influence factors such as reaction temperature, time, precursor, and/or surfactant concentration. Lack of external influence may eventually lead to unregulated growth of nanoparticles and possibly loss of their nanoscale properties. Here we report a gold nanoparticle (AuNPs)-based self-catalyzed and self-limiting system that exploits the glucose oxidase-like catalytic activity of AuNPs.