Eurycomanone stimulates bone mineralization in zebrafish larvae and promotes osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells by upregulating AKT/GSK-3β/β-catenin signaling.

Background: Eurycomanone (EN) is a diterpenoid compound isolated from the roots of (). Previous studies have confirmed that can enhance bone regeneration and bone strength. We previously isolated and identified ten quassinoids from , and the result displayed that five aqueous extracts have the effects on promotion of bone formation, among whom EN showed the strongest activity.

Anticancer Benefit of Metformin in Patients With Early-Stage Pancreatic Cancer: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Epidemiologic studies have produced conflicting results on the effects of metformin on pancreatic cancer. This study aimed to observe and analyze whether metformin use is associated with better prognosis in pancreatic cancer. In this retrospective cohort study, all baseline data were retrieved from The Chinese Medicine Information Retrieval System (https://dc.

Gain of Spontaneous Mutations Boosting Motility Adaption to Environments in .

Motility is finely regulated and is crucial to bacterial processes including colonization and biofilm formation. There is a trade-off between motility and growth in bacteria with molecular mechanisms not fully understood. Hypermotile could be isolated by evolving non-motile cells on soft agar plates.

MicroRNA-7 modulates cellular senescence to relieve gemcitabine resistance by targeting PARP1/NF-κB signaling in pancreatic cancer cells.

Senescence is activated in response to gemcitabine to prevent the propagation of cancer cells. However, there is little evidence on whether senescence is involved in gemcitabine resistance in pancreatic cancer. Increasing evidence has demonstrated that microRNAs (miRs) are potential regulators of cellular senescence.

MFAP2 is a Potential Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarker That Correlates with the Progression of Papillary Thyroid Cancer.

Background: Microfibril-associated protein 2 () is a protein coding gene that exerts important phenotypic effects on cell motility, and increasing research has indicated that MFAP2 was correlated with many cancers. However, the functional and potential clinical role of in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) has not yet been verified.

Materials And Methods: We performed whole transcriptome sequencing on 78 paired PTC tissues and corresponding adjacent normal tissues and found that was highly expressed in PTC tissues.

MicroRNA-7 as a Potential Biomarker for Prognosis in Pancreatic Cancer.

MicroRNAs play critical roles in tumor progression. Our recent study has indicated that microRNA-7 (miR-7) impairs autophagy-derived pools of glucose to suppress the glycolysis in pancreatic cancer progression. However, the roles of miR-7 in clinical significance and chemoresistance of pancreatic cancer remain unexplored.

Folate-conjugated herpes simplex virus for retargeting to tumor cells.

Background: Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1)-mediated oncolytic therapy is a promising cancer treatment modality. However, viral tropism is considered to be one of the major stumbling blocks to the development of HSV-1 as an anticancer agent.

Methods: The surface of oncolytic HSV-1 G207 was covalently modified with folate-poly (ethylene glycol) conjugate (FA-PEG).

PPI network analyses of human WD40 protein family systematically reveal their tendency to assemble complexes and facilitate the complex predictions.

Background: WD40 repeat proteins constitute one of the largest families in eukaryotes, and widely participate in various fundamental cellular processes by interacting with other molecules. Based on individual WD40 proteins, previous work has demonstrated that their structural characteristics should confer great potential of interaction and complex formation, and has speculated that they may serve as hubs in the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. However, what roles the whole family plays in organizing the PPI network, and whether this information can be utilized in complex prediction remain unclear.

Prokaryotic and Highly-Repetitive WD40 Proteins: A Systematic Study.

As an ancient protein family, the WD40 repeat proteins often play essential roles in fundamental cellular processes in eukaryotes. Although investigations of eukaryotic WD40 proteins have been frequently reported, prokaryotic ones remain largely uncharacterized. In this paper, we report a systematic analysis of prokaryotic WD40 proteins and detailed comparisons with eukaryotic ones.

Alpha7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor activation attenuated intestine-derived acute lung injury.

Background: Intestinal ischemia-reperfusion (IIR) could lead to acute lung injury, associated with severe alveolar epithelial cells inflammatory and oxidative injury. Alpha7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7nAChR) is an essential component of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway. The aim of this study was to investigate the important role of α7nAChR on the lung subjected to IIR.

Protective role of adiponectin in a rat model of intestinal ischemia reperfusion injury.

Aim: To determine the potential protective role of adiponectin in intestinal ischemia reperfusion (I/R) injury.

Methods: A rat model of intestinal I/R injury was established. The serum level of adiponectin in rats with intestinal I/R injury was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

WDSPdb: a database for WD40-repeat proteins.

WD40-repeat proteins, as one of the largest protein families, often serve as platforms to assemble functional complexes through the hotspot residues on their domain surfaces, and thus play vital roles in many biological processes. Consequently, it is highly required for researchers who study WD40 proteins and protein-protein interactions to obtain structural information of WD40 domains. Systematic identification of WD40-repeat proteins, including prediction of their secondary structures, tertiary structures and potential hotspot residues responsible for protein-protein interactions, may constitute a valuable resource upon this request.

Systems perspectives on erythromycin biosynthesis by comparative genomic and transcriptomic analyses of S. erythraea E3 and NRRL23338 strains.

Background: S. erythraea is a Gram-positive filamentous bacterium used for the industrial-scale production of erythromycin A which is of high clinical importance. In this work, we sequenced the whole genome of a high-producing strain (E3) obtained by random mutagenesis and screening from the wild-type strain NRRL23338, and examined time-series expression profiles of both E3 and NRRL23338.

FRET-based ratiometric fluorescent probes for selective Fe3+ sensing and their applications in mitochondria.

Efficient ratiometric fluorescent Fe(3+) probes were designed and synthesized by linking a conjugated naphthalene chromophore to a rhodamine platform and a lipophilic triphenylphosphonium (TPP) cation. The probes could sensitively and selectively detect mitochondrial Fe(3+) in living cells.

Hashimoto's thyroiditis, microcalcification and raised thyrotropin levels within normal range are associated with thyroid cancer.

Background: To confirm whether clinical and biochemical parameters or Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) could predict the risks of malignancy among subjects who underwent thyroidectomy, as well as to determine the influence of HT on the biological behavior of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC).

Methods: A total of 2,052 patients who underwent initial thyroidectomy were enrolled between June 2006 and August 2008. Serum free T4, free T3, thyrotropin (TSH), thyroglobulin, thyroglobulin antibody, antimicrosomal antibody, tumor-associated status, and thyroid disorders were documented.

Down-regulation of miRNA-30a in human plasma is a novel marker for breast cancer.

The present study was to evaluate the value of miRNA-30a in plasma as potential tumor marker in detecting breast cancer (BC). Using a novel approach to extract miRNA-30a from the plasma followed by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RQ-PCR) analysis, levels of miRNA-30a were quantified in plasma specimens of 100 BCs and 64 age-matched and disease-free healthy controls (HC). And we compared the diagnostic value of plasma miRNA-30a with conventional circulating tumor markers CA153 and CEA.

Partition dataset according to amino acid type improves the prediction of deleterious non-synonymous SNPs.

Many non-synonymous SNPs (nsSNPs) are associated with diseases, and numerous machine learning methods have been applied to train classifiers for sorting disease-associated nsSNPs from neutral ones. The continuously accumulated nsSNP data allows us to further explore better prediction approaches. In this work, we partitioned the training data into 20 subsets according to either original or substituted amino acid type at the nsSNP site.

Link-based quantitative methods to identify differentially coexpressed genes and gene pairs.

Background: Differential coexpression analysis (DCEA) is increasingly used for investigating the global transcriptional mechanisms underlying phenotypic changes. Current DCEA methods mostly adopt a gene connectivity-based strategy to estimate differential coexpression, which is characterized by comparing the numbers of gene neighbors in different coexpression networks. Although it simplifies the calculation, this strategy mixes up the identities of different coexpression neighbors of a gene, and fails to differentiate significant differential coexpression changes from those trivial ones.