Mid-infrared variability of changing-look AGN

It is known that some active galactic nuclei (AGNs) transited from type 1 to type 2 or vice versa. There are two explanations for the so-called changing look AGNs: one is the dramatic change of the obscuration along the line-of-sight, the other is the variation of accretion rate. In this paper, we report the detection of large amplitude variations in the mid-infrared luminosity during the transitions in 10 changing look AGNs using WISE and newly released NEOWISE-R data. The mid-infrared light curves of 10 objects echoes the variability in the optical band with a time lag expected for dust reprocessing. The large variability amplitude is inconsistent with the scenario of varying obscuration, rather supports the scheme of dramatic change in the accretion rate.Comment: Published by ApjL, 7 pages, 3 figures, 2 table

Oleanane triterpenoid CDDO-Me induces apoptosis in multidrug resistant osteosarcoma cells through inhibition of Stat3 pathway.

BackgroundThe activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (Stat3) pathway correlates with tumor growth, survival, drug resistance and poor prognosis in osteosarcoma. To explore the potential therapeutic values of this pathway, we assessed both the expression and the activation of Stat3 pathway in several pairs of multidrug resistant (MDR) osteosarcoma cell lines, and tissues. To explore the potential therapeutic values of this pathway, we analyzed the ability of the synthetic oleanane triterpenoid, C-28 methyl ester of 2-cyano-3,12-dioxoolen-1,9-dien-28-oic acid (CDDO-Me), to inhibit Stat3 expression and activation as well as its effects on doxorubicin sensitivity in osteosarcoma cells.MethodsExpression of Stat3, phosphorylated Stat3 (pStat3) and Stat3 targeted proteins, including Bcl-XL, Survivin and MCL-1 were determined in drug sensitive and MDR osteosarcoma cell lines and tissues by Western blot analysis. The effect of CDDO-Me on osteosarcoma cell growth was evaluated by MTT and apoptosis by PARP cleavage assay and caspase-3/7 activity.ResultsStat3 pathway was activated in osteosarcoma tissues and in MDR cell lines. CDDO-Me inhibited growth and induced apoptosis in osteosarcoma cell lines. Treatment with CDDO-Me significantly decreased the level of nuclear translocation and phosphorylation of Stat3. The inhibition of Stat3 pathway correlated with the suppression of the anti-apoptotic Stat3 targeted genes Bcl-XL, survivin, and MCL-1. Furthermore, CDDO-Me increased the cytotoxic effects of doxorubicin in the MDR osteosarcoma cell lines.ConclusionsStat3 pathway is overexpressed in MDR osteosarcoma cells. CDDO-Me significantly inhibited Stat3 phosphorylation, Stat3 nuclear translocation and induced apoptosis in osteosarcoma. This study provides the framework for the clinical evaluation of CDDO-Me, either as monotherapy or perhaps even more effectively in combination with doxorubicin to treat osteosarcoma and overcome drug resistance

MyPortrait: Morphable Prior-Guided Personalized Portrait Generation

Generating realistic talking faces is an interesting and long-standing topic in the field of computer vision. Although significant progress has been made, it is still challenging to generate high-quality dynamic faces with personalized details. This is mainly due to the inability of the general model to represent personalized details and the generalization problem to unseen controllable parameters. In this work, we propose Myportrait, a simple, general, and flexible framework for neural portrait generation. We incorporate personalized prior in a monocular video and morphable prior in 3D face morphable space for generating personalized details under novel controllable parameters. Our proposed framework supports both video-driven and audio-driven face animation given a monocular video of a single person. Distinguished by whether the test data is sent to training or not, our method provides a real-time online version and a high-quality offline version. Comprehensive experiments in various metrics demonstrate the superior performance of our method over the state-of-the-art methods. The code will be publicly available

MDR1 siRNA loaded hyaluronic acid-based CD44 targeted nanoparticle systems circumvent paclitaxel resistance in ovarian cancer.

Development of multidrug resistance (MDR) is an almost universal phenomenon in patients with ovarian cancer, and this severely limits the ultimate success of chemotherapy in the clinic. Overexpression of the MDR1 gene and corresponding P-glycoprotein (Pgp) is one of the best known MDR mechanisms. MDR1 siRNA based strategies were proposed to circumvent MDR, however, systemic, safe, and effective targeted delivery is still a major challenge. Cluster of differentiation 44 (CD44) targeted hyaluronic acid (HA) based nanoparticle has been shown to successfully deliver chemotherapy agents or siRNAs into tumor cells. The goal of this study is to evaluate the ability of HA-PEI/HA-PEG to deliver MDR1 siRNA and the efficacy of the combination of HA-PEI/HA-PEG/MDR1 siRNA with paclitaxel to suppress growth of ovarian cancer. We observed that HA-PEI/HA-PEG nanoparticles can efficiently deliver MDR1 siRNA into MDR ovarian cancer cells, resulting in down-regulation of MDR1 and Pgp expression. Administration of HA-PEI/HA-PEG/MDR1 siRNA nanoparticles followed by paclitaxel treatment induced a significant inhibitory effect on the tumor growth, decreased Pgp expression and increased apoptosis in MDR ovarian cancer mice model. Our findings suggest that CD44 targeted HA-PEI/HA-PEG/MDR1 siRNA nanoparticles can serve as a therapeutic tool with great potentials to circumvent MDR in ovarian cancer

Water, rather than temperature, dominantly impacts how soil fauna affect dissolved carbon and nitrogen release from fresh litter during early litter decomposition

Longstanding observations suggest that dissolved materials are lost from fresh litter through leaching, but the role of soil fauna in controlling this process has been poorly documented. In this study, a litterbag experiment employing litterbags with different mesh sizes (3 mm to permit soil fauna access and 0.04 mm to exclude fauna access) was conducted in three habitats (arid valley, ecotone and subalpine forest) with changes in climate and vegetation types to evaluate the effects of soil fauna on the concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) during the first year of decomposition. The results showed that the individual density and community abundance of soil fauna greatly varied among these habitats, but Prostigmata, Isotomidae and Oribatida were the dominant soil invertebrates. At the end of the experiment, the mass remaining of foliar litter ranged from 58% for shrub litter to 77% for birch litter, and the DOC and TDN concentrations decreased to 54%-85% and increased to 34%-269%, respectively, when soil fauna were not present. The effects of soil fauna on the concentrations of both DOC and TDN in foliar litter were greater in the subalpine forest (wetter but colder) during the winter and in the arid valley (warmer but drier) during the growing season, and this effect was positively correlated with water content. Moreover, the effects of fauna on DOC and TDN concentrations were greater for high-quality litter and were related to the C/N ratio. These results suggest that water, rather than temperature, dominates how fauna affect the release of dissolved substances from fresh litter

MicroRNA-155 expression is independently predictive of outcome in chordoma.

BackgroundChordoma pathogenesis remains poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the relationships between microRNA-155 (miR-155) expression and the clinicopathological features of chordoma patients, and to evaluate the functional role of miR-155 in chordoma.MethodsThe miRNA expression profiles were analyzed using miRNA microarray assays. Regulatory activity of miR-155 was assessed using bioinformatic tools. miR-155 expression levels were validated by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. The relationships between miR-155 expression and the clinicopathological features of chordoma patients were analyzed. Proliferative, migratory and invasive activities were assessed by MTT, wound healing, and Matrigel invasion assays, respectively.ResultsThe miRNA microarray assay revealed miR-155 to be highly expressed and biologically active in chordoma. miR-155 expression in chordoma tissues was significantly elevated, and this expression correlated significantly with disease stage (p = 0.036) and the presence of metastasis (p = 0.035). miR-155 expression also correlated significantly with poor outcomes for chordoma patients (hazard ratio, 5.32; p = 0.045). Inhibition of miR-155 expression suppressed proliferation, and the migratory and invasive activities of chordoma cells.ConclusionsWe have shown miR-155 expression to independently affect prognosis in chordoma. These results collectively indicate that miR-155 expression may serve not only as a prognostic marker, but also as a potential therapeutic target in chordoma