Establishing reliable miRNA-cancer association network based on text-mining method.

Associating microRNAs (miRNAs) with cancers is an important step of understanding the mechanisms of cancer pathogenesis and finding novel biomarkers for cancer therapies. In this study, we constructed a miRNA-cancer association network (miCancerna) based on more than 1,000 miRNA-cancer associations detected from millions of abstracts with the text-mining method, including 226 miRNA families and 20 common cancers. We further prioritized cancer-related miRNAs at the network level with the random-walk algorithm, achieving a relatively higher performance than previous miRNA disease networks.

Past hybridization between two East Asian long-tailed tits (Aegithalos bonvaloti and A. fuliginosus).

Introduction: Incomplete lineage sorting and hybridization are two major nonexclusive causes of haplotype sharing between species. Distinguishing between these two processes is notoriously difficult as they can generate similar genetic signatures. Previous studies revealed that the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) differentiation between two East Asian long-tailed tits (Aegithalos bonvaloti and A.

Weighted Lin-Wang tests for crossing hazards.

Lin and Wang have introduced a quadratic version of the logrank test, appropriate for situations in which the underlying survival distributions may cross. In this note, we generalize the Lin-Wang procedure to incorporate weights and investigate the performance of Lin and Wang's test and weighted versions in various scenarios. We find that weighting does increase statistical power in certain situations; however, none of the procedures was dominant under every scenario.

A comparative theoretical study on core-hole excitation spectra of azafullerene and its derivatives.

The core-hole excitation spectra-near-edge x-ray absorption spectroscopy (NEXAFS), x-ray emission spectroscopy (XES), and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) shake-up satellites have been simulated at the level of density functional theory for the azafullerene C59N and its derivatives (C59N)(+), C59HN, (C59N)2, and C59N-C60, in which the XPS shake-up satellites were simulated using our developed equivalent core hole Kohn-Sham (ECH-KS) density functional theory approach [B. Gao, Z. Wu, and Y.

Generation of "virtual" control groups for single arm prostate cancer adjuvant trials.

It is difficult to construct a control group for trials of adjuvant therapy (Rx) of prostate cancer after radical prostatectomy (RP) due to ethical issues and patient acceptance. We utilized 8 curve-fitting models to estimate the time to 60%, 65%, … 95% chance of progression free survival (PFS) based on the data derived from Kattan post-RP nomogram. The 8 models were systematically applied to a training set of 153 post-RP cases without adjuvant Rx to develop 8 subsets of cases (reference case sets) whose observed PFS times were most accurately predicted by each model.

Identification of ractopamine glucuronides and determination of bioactive ractopamine residues and its metabolites in food animal urine by ELISA, LC-MS/MS and GC-MS.

Ractopamine glucuronides have been identified in cattle urine sampled by LC-MS/MS. An ELISA method, which was capable of specifically determining (1R, 3R)-ractopamine stereoisomer and its glucuronide metabolites, had more than 100% recovery with an acceptable coefficient of variation in the inter- and intra-assay variation tests for RR-ractopamine. The concentration levels of parent ractopamine and ractopamine glucuronide metabolites as the main components of total ractopamine in cattle and sheep urine showed similar depletion trends, in which the concentration curves increased and reached a climax during the feeding period, and then dropped quickly when entering the withdrawal period.

Labeling thiols on proteins, living cells, and tissues with enhanced emission induced by FRET.

Using N-(2-Aminoethyl)maleimide-cysteine(StBu) (Mal-Cys) as a medium, protein thiols were converted into N-terminal cysteines. After a biocompatible condensation reaction between the N-terminal cysteine and fluorescent probe 2-cyanobenzothiazole-Gly-Gly-Gly-fluorescein isothiocyanate (CBT-GGG-FITC), a new fluorogenic structure Luciferin-GGG-FITC was obtained. The latter exhibits near one order of magnitude (7 folds) enhanced fluorescence emission compared to the precursor moiety due to fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) effect between the newly formed luciferin structure and the FITC motif.

First-Principles Study on Structural and Chemical Asymmetry of a Biomimetic Water-Splitting Dimanganese Complex.

Density-functional theory calculations are carried out for a biomimetic dimanganese complex, [H2O(terpy)Mn(III)(μ-O)2Mn(IV)(terpy)OH2](3+)(1, terpy = 2,2':6',2″-terpyridine), which is a structural model for the oxygen evolving center of photosystem II. Theoretical investigations aim at elucidating the asymmetry features in the geometric and electronic structures of complex 1, as well as their influences on the chemical functions of the two manganese centers, in the presence of water solvent. With the insight gained from the first-principles calculations, we study the oxidation state of complex 1 in the acetate buffer solution.