Special pathological type of upper urinary tract malignancy-squamous cell carcinoma of the renal pelvis: A case report and literature review.

Objective: To investigate the clinnical features for squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the renal pelvis.

Methods: We analyzed the medical records of a patient diagnosed with SCC of the renal pelvis and performed a literature review.

Results: SCC of the renal pelvis is a rare pathological type of upper urinary tract malignancy with nonspecific clinical features.

Role of the human cytochrome b561 family in iron metabolism and tumors (Review).

The human cytochrome b561 (hCytb561) family consists of electron transfer transmembrane proteins characterized by six conserved α-helical transmembrane domains and two β-type heme cofactors. These proteins contribute to the regulation of iron metabolism and numerous different physiological and pathological processes by recycling ascorbic acid and maintaining iron reductase activity. Key members of this family include cytochrome b561 (CYB561), duodenal CYB561 (Dcytb), lysosomal CYB561 (LCytb), stromal cell-derived receptor 2 (SDR2) and 101F6, which are widely expressed in human tissues and participate in the pathogenesis of several diseases and tumors.

Efficient biostimulation of microbial dechlorination of polychlorinated biphenyls by acetate and lactate under nitrate reducing conditions: Insights into dechlorination pathways and functional genes.

Microbial-catalyzed reductive dechlorination of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) is largely affected by the indigenous sediment geochemical properties. In this study, the effects of nitrate on PCB dechlorination and microbial community structures were first investigated in Taihu Lake sediment microcosms. And biostimulation study was attempted supplementing acetate/lactate.

Olfactory Three-Needle Electroacupuncture Improved Synaptic Plasticity and Gut Microbiota of SAMP8 Mice by Stimulating Olfactory Nerve.

Objective: To investigate the effects and mechanisms of olfactory three-needle (OTN) electroacupuncture (EA) stimulation of the olfactory system on cognitive dysfunction, synaptic plasticity, and the gut microbiota in senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8) mice.

Methods: Thirty-six SAMP8 mice were randomly divided into the SAMP8 (P8), SAMP8+OTN (P8-OT), and SAMP8+nerve transection+OTN (P8-N-OT) groups according to a random number table (n=12 per group), and 12 accelerated senescence-resistant (SAMR1) mice were used as the control (R1) group. EA was performed at the Yintang (GV 29) and bilateral Yingxiang (LI 20) acupoints of SAMP8 mice for 4 weeks.

Advanced Ag nanoparticles for the catalyzation of glyoxylic acid oxidation in through-holes electroless copper metallization.

Advanced Ag nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were prepared by wet chemical oxidation-reduction method, using mainly the tannic acid as reducing agent and carboxymethylcellulose sodium as stabilizer. The prepared Ag NPs uniformly disperse and are stable for more than one month without agglomeration. The studies of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) absorption spectroscopy indicate that the Ag NPs are in homogeneous sphere with only 4.

Neural functions in cancer: Data analyses and database construction.

Recent studies have revealed that neural functions are involved in possibly every aspect of a cancer development, serving as bridges connecting microenvironmental stressors, activities of intracellular subsystems, and cell survival. Elucidation of the functional roles played by the neural system could provide the missing links in developing a systems-level understanding of cancer biology. However, the existing information is highly fragmented and scattered across the literature and internet databases, making it difficult for cancer researchers to use.

Deep learning predicts the impact of regulatory variants on cell-type-specific enhancers in the brain.

Motivation: Previous studies have shown that the heritability of multiple brain-related traits and disorders is highly enriched in transcriptional enhancer regions. However, these regions often contain many individual variants, while only a subset of them are likely to causally contribute to a trait. Statistical fine-mapping techniques can identify putative causal variants, but their resolution is often limited, especially in regions with multiple variants in high linkage disequilibrium.

Molecular bases of morphologically diffused tumors across multiple cancer types.

Gastric cancer has two distinct subtypes: the diffuse (DGC) and the intestinal (IGC) subtypes. Morphologically, the former each consists of numerous scattered tiny tumors while the latter each has one or a few solid biomasses. The former tends to be more aggressive and takes place in younger patients than the latter.

Brain metastases: It takes two factors for a primary cancer to metastasize to brain.

Brain metastasis of a cancer is a malignant disease with high mortality, but the cause and the molecular mechanism remain largely unknown. Using the samples of primary tumors of 22 cancer types in the TCGA database, we have performed a computational study of their transcriptomic data to investigate the drivers of brain metastases at the basic physics and chemistry level. Our main discoveries are: (i) the physical characteristics, namely electric charge, molecular weight, and the hydrophobicity of the extracellular structures of the expressed transmembrane proteins largely affect a primary cancer cell's ability to cross the blood-brain barrier; and (ii) brain metastasis may require specific functions provided by the activated enzymes in the metastasizing primary cancer cells for survival in the brain micro-environment.

Quantitative estimation of intracellular oxidative stress in human tissues.

Oxidative stress is known to be involved in and possibly a key driver of the development of numerous chronic diseases, including cancer. It is highly desired to have a capability to reliably estimate the level of intracellular oxidative stress as it can help to identify functional changes and disease phenotypes associated with such a stress, but the problem proves to be very challenging. We present a novel computational model for quantitatively estimating the level of oxidative stress in tissues and cells based on their transcriptomic data.

Molecular Ferroelectric-Based Flexible Sensors Exhibiting Supersensitivity and Multimodal Capability for Detection.

Although excellent dielectric, piezoelectric, and pyroelectric properties matched with or even surpassing those of ferroelectric ceramics have been recently discovered in molecular ferroelectrics, their successful applications in devices are scarce. The fracture proneness of molecular ferroelectrics under mechanical loading precludes their applications as flexible sensors in bulk crystalline form. Here, self-powered flexible mechanical sensors prepared from the facile deposition of molecular ferroelectric [C(NH ) ]ClO onto a porous polyurethane (PU) matrix are reported.

Mechanisms underlying divergent responses of genetically distinct macrophages to IL-4.

Mechanisms by which noncoding genetic variation influences gene expression remain only partially understood but are considered to be major determinants of phenotypic diversity and disease risk. Here, we evaluated effects of >50 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms and short insertions/deletions provided by five inbred strains of mice on the responses of macrophages to interleukin-4 (IL-4), a cytokine that plays pleiotropic roles in immunity and tissue homeostasis. Of >600 genes induced >2-fold by IL-4 across the five strains, only 26 genes reached this threshold in all strains.

Efficiency and Clinical Outcomes of Moses Technology with Flexible Ureteroscopic Laser Lithotripsy for Treatment of Renal Calculus.

Objective: The aim of the study was to compare the efficiency and clinical outcomes of Moses contact mode (MCM) and regular dusting mode (RDM) during flexible ureteroscopic lithotripsy (FURL) for treatment of renal calculus.

Methods: This retrospective analysis examined 216 patients with renal calculus who underwent FURL with MCM or RDM between March 2015 and January 2020. Stone characteristics, including size, volume, and density, were collected.

A flexible ChIP-sequencing simulation toolkit.

Background: A major challenge in evaluating quantitative ChIP-seq analyses, such as peak calling and differential binding, is a lack of reliable ground truth data. Accurate simulation of ChIP-seq data can mitigate this challenge, but existing frameworks are either too cumbersome to apply genome-wide or unable to model a number of important experimental conditions in ChIP-seq.

Results: We present ChIPs, a toolkit for rapidly simulating ChIP-seq data using statistical models of key experimental steps.

Deep neural networks identify sequence context features predictive of transcription factor binding.

Transcription factors (TFs) bind DNA by recognizing specific sequence motifs, typically of length 6-12bp. A motif can occur many thousands of times in the human genome, but only a subset of those sites are actually bound. Here we present a machine learning framework leveraging existing convolutional neural network architectures and model interpretation techniques to identify and interpret sequence context features most important for predicting whether a particular motif instance will be bound.

Understanding the unimodal distributions of cancer occurrence rates: it takes two factors for a cancer to occur.

Data from the SEER reports reveal that the occurrence rate of a cancer type generally follows a unimodal distribution over age, peaking at an age that is cancer-type specific and ranges from 30+ through 70+. Previous studies attribute such bell-shaped distributions to the reduced proliferative potential in senior years but fail to explain why some cancers have their occurrence peak at 30+ or 40+. We present a computational model to offer a new explanation to such distributions.

Reduction-sensitive platinum (IV)-prodrug nano-sensitizer with an ultra-high drug loading for efficient chemo-radiotherapy of Pt-resistant cervical cancer in vivo.

Cisplatin is widely used in the chemoradiotherapy (CRT) of cervical cancers. However, despite the severe systemic side effects, the therapeutic efficacy of cisplatin is often compromised by the development of drug resistance, which is closely related to the elevated intracellular thiol-containing species (especially glutathione (GSH)) and the adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-dependent glutathione S-conjugate pumps. The construction of a safe and redox-sensitive nano-sensitizer with high disulfide density and high Pt(IV) prodrug loading capacity (up to 16.

How Cancer Patients Benefit from Support Networks Offline and Online: Extending the Model of Structural-to-Functional Support.

Although social support is an indispensable resource for coping with illness, the connections among the structural properties of one's support network, received social support from offline and online network members, and well-being are not well understood. This study aims to extend the model of structural-to-functional support by distinguishing from support networks and identifying different pathways through which these two networks contribute to patients' emotional well-being. Using data from 386 cancer patients, the results revealed that offline and online support networks were associated with patients' emotional well-being via different types of received support.

Long noncoding RNA regulates myogenesis by interacting with polycomb repressive complex 2.

Although many long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been identified in muscle, their physiological function and regulatory mechanisms remain largely unexplored. In this study, we systematically characterized the expression profiles of lncRNAs during C2C12 myoblast differentiation and identified an intronic lncRNA, ( intron sense-overlapping lncRNA), that is highly expressed in muscle. Functionally, promotes myoblast proliferation and fusion but inhibits myogenic differentiation.

Pd@Zn-MOF-74: Restricting a Guest Molecule by the Open-Metal Site in a Metal-Organic Framework for Selective Semihydrogenation.

In this work, we found that the open-metal site in a metal-organic framework (MOF) can be used to enhance such selectivity. Hydrogenation of phenylacetylene over such a catalyst enables ultrahigh styrene selectivity of 92% at full conversion with a turnover frequency of 98.1 h.

[Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial risk calculator for evaluating the risk of prostate cancer in the high-risk Chinese population].

Objective: The Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial risk calculator (PCPT-RC) is an online tool for assessing the risk of prostate cancer (PCa) based on age, race, serum PSA, biopsy history, family history, and other factors. This study aimed to investigate the value, sensitivity and specificity of the PCPT-RC 2.0 in assessing the risk of PCa in the Chinese high-risk population.

Significant Enhancement of C H /C H Separation by a Photochromic Diarylethene Unit: A Temperature- and Light-Responsive Separation Switch.

A dual temperature- and light-responsive C H /C H separation switch in a diarylethene metal-organic framework (MOF) is presented. At 195 K and 100 kPa this MOF shows ultrahigh C H /C H selectivity of 47.1, which is almost 21.