CACNA2D3 Enhances the Chemosensitivity of Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma to Cisplatin via Inducing Ca2+-Mediated Apoptosis and Suppressing PI3K/Akt Pathways

Resistance to platinum-based combination chemotherapy is the main cause of poor prognosis in patients with advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Previously, we showed that CACNA2D3 (voltage-dependent subunit alpha 2 delta 3 of a calcium channel complex) was significantly downregulated and functioned as a tumor suppressor in ESCC, but its role in the chemosensitivity of ESCC to cisplatin remained unknown. Here, we found that the expression of CACNA2D3 was significantly associated with poor platinum response in ESCC patients from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. Overexpression of CACNA2D3 increased sensitivity to cisplatin in ESCC in vitro, whereas knockdown of CACNA2D3 increased cisplatin resistance. CACNA2D3 promoted cisplatin-induced apoptosis by modulating intracellular Ca2+ stores. In vivo experiments further showed that overexpression of CACNA2D3 enhanced cisplatin anti-tumor effects in a xenograft mouse model. CACNA2D3 overexpression also resulted in the attenuation of PI3K and Akt phosphorylation. Treatment with the PI3K/Akt inhibitor LY294002 restored the chemosensitivity of CACAN2D3-knockdown cells to cisplatin. In conclusion, the results of the current study indicate that CACAN2D3 enhances the chemosensitivity of ESCC to cisplatin via inducing Ca2+-mediated apoptosis and suppressing PI3K/Akt pathways. Therefore, regulating the expression of CACNA2D3 is a potential new strategy to increase the efficacy of cisplatin in ESCC patients

The Composition, Diversity and Predictive Metabolic Profiles of Bacteria Associated With the Gut Digesta of Five Sea Urchins in Luhuitou Fringing Reef (Northern South China Sea)

Sea urchins strongly affect reef ecology, and the bacteria associated with their gut digesta have not been well studied in coral reefs. In the current study, we analyze the bacterial composition of five sea urchin species collected from Luhuitou fringing reef, namely Stomopneustes variolaris, Diadema setosum, Echinothrix calamaris, Diadema savignyi, and Tripneustes gratilla, using high-throughput 16S rRNA gene-based pyrosequencing. Propionigenium, Prolixibacter, and Photobacterium were found to be the dominant bacterial genera in all five species. Interestingly, four sea urchin species, including S. variolaris, D. setosum, E. calamaris, and D. savignyi, displayed a higher mean total abundance of the three bacterial genera (69.72 ± 6.49%) than T. gratilla (43.37 ± 13.47%). Diversity analysis indicated that the gut digesta of sea urchin T. gratilla displayed a higher bacterial α-diversity compared with the other four species. PCoA showed that the four groups representing D. setosum, D. savignyi, E. calamaris, and S. variolaris were overlapping, but distant from the group representing T. gratilla. Predictive metagenomics performed by PICRUSt revealed that the abundances of genes involved in amino acid metabolism and metabolism of terpenoid and polyketide were higher in T. gratilla, while those involved in carbohydrate metabolism were higher in the other four sea urchin species. Therefore, our results indicated that the composition, diversity and predictive metabolic profiles of bacteria associated with the gut digesta of T. gratilla were significantly different from those of the other four sea urchin species in Luhuitou fringing reef

Understanding PRRSV Infection in Porcine Lung Based on Genome-Wide Transcriptome Response Identified by Deep Sequencing

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) has been one of the most economically important diseases affecting swine industry worldwide and causes great economic losses each year. PRRS virus (PRRSV) replicates mainly in porcine alveolar macrophages (PAMs) and dendritic cells (DCs) and develops persistent infections, antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), interstitial pneumonia and immunosuppression. But the molecular mechanisms of PRRSV infection still are poorly understood. Here we report on the first genome-wide host transcriptional responses to classical North American type PRRSV (N-PRRSV) strain CH 1a infection using Solexa/Illumina's digital gene expression (DGE) system, a tag-based high-throughput transcriptome sequencing method, and analyse systematically the relationship between pulmonary gene expression profiles after N-PRRSV infection and infection pathology. Our results suggest that N-PRRSV appeared to utilize multiple strategies for its replication and spread in infected pigs, including subverting host innate immune response, inducing an anti-apoptotic and anti-inflammatory state as well as developing ADE. Upregulation expression of virus-induced pro-inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, adhesion molecules and inflammatory enzymes and inflammatory cells, antibodies, complement activation were likely to result in the development of inflammatory responses during N-PRRSV infection processes. N-PRRSV-induced immunosuppression might be mediated by apoptosis of infected cells, which caused depletion of immune cells and induced an anti-inflammatory cytokine response in which they were unable to eradicate the primary infection. Our systems analysis will benefit for better understanding the molecular pathogenesis of N-PRRSV infection, developing novel antiviral therapies and identifying genetic components for swine resistance/susceptibility to PRRS

Assessment of the Impact of Land Use Change on Spatial Differentiation of Landscape and Ecosystem Service Values in the Case of Study the Pearl River Delta in China

Industrialization and urbanization have led to continuous urban development. The rapid change in land-use type and extent has a significant impact on the capacity of ecosystem services. Changes in the landscape pattern of roads, rivers, railway stations, and expressway entrances and exits have evident geographical proximity effects. We used landscape pattern indices and ecosystem service value (ESV) to evaluate the landscape pattern and ESV spatial differentiation of the Pearl River Delta region and its typical transportation infrastructure and rivers in 1990, 2000, and 2017. The results show that rapid urbanization and industrialization have led to changes in urban land use along the Pearl River Estuary. Urban land changes on the east bank of the Pearl River are greater than urban land changes on the west bank of the Pearl River; the landscape diversity of the Pearl River Delta has increased, the connectivity of the landscape has decreased, and the degree of fragmentation has increased. Second, the city size of the Pearl River Delta was negatively correlated with the ESVs. The ESVs in the core areas of the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration were smaller than those in the fringe areas. With the gradient change in urban land use, ESVs showed a growing trend from the city center to the surrounding areas. The key areas for ecological protection and restoration should be central urban areas and suburbs. Third, the siphoning effect of the buffer zones of railway stations and expressway entrances and exits was very strong and drove the development and utilization of the surrounding land. As the degree of land development in the buffer zone decreased, the ESVs increased. Fourth, different grades of roads in the Pearl River Delta had different impacts on the regional landscape and ESVs. County roads had a greater interference effect than expressways, national roads, and provincial roads, and the riverside plains of the Pearl River Delta have a large development space, low urban development costs, and multiple land-use activities that have profoundly changed the landscape of the river buffer zone

Assessment of the Impact of Land Use Change on Spatial Differentiation of Landscape and Ecosystem Service Values in the Case of Study the Pearl River Delta in China

Industrialization and urbanization have led to continuous urban development. The rapid change in land-use type and extent has a significant impact on the capacity of ecosystem services. Changes in the landscape pattern of roads, rivers, railway stations, and expressway entrances and exits have evident geographical proximity effects. We used landscape pattern indices and ecosystem service value (ESV) to evaluate the landscape pattern and ESV spatial differentiation of the Pearl River Delta region and its typical transportation infrastructure and rivers in 1990, 2000, and 2017. The results show that rapid urbanization and industrialization have led to changes in urban land use along the Pearl River Estuary. Urban land changes on the east bank of the Pearl River are greater than urban land changes on the west bank of the Pearl River; the landscape diversity of the Pearl River Delta has increased, the connectivity of the landscape has decreased, and the degree of fragmentation has increased. Second, the city size of the Pearl River Delta was negatively correlated with the ESVs. The ESVs in the core areas of the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration were smaller than those in the fringe areas. With the gradient change in urban land use, ESVs showed a growing trend from the city center to the surrounding areas. The key areas for ecological protection and restoration should be central urban areas and suburbs. Third, the siphoning effect of the buffer zones of railway stations and expressway entrances and exits was very strong and drove the development and utilization of the surrounding land. As the degree of land development in the buffer zone decreased, the ESVs increased. Fourth, different grades of roads in the Pearl River Delta had different impacts on the regional landscape and ESVs. County roads had a greater interference effect than expressways, national roads, and provincial roads, and the riverside plains of the Pearl River Delta have a large development space, low urban development costs, and multiple land-use activities that have profoundly changed the landscape of the river buffer zone

Dynamic Hierarchical Energy-Efficient Method Based on Combinatorial Optimization for Wireless Sensor Networks

Routing protocols based on topology control are significantly important for improving network longevity in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Traditionally, some WSN routing protocols distribute uneven network traffic load to sensor nodes, which is not optimal for improving network longevity. Differently to conventional WSN routing protocols, we propose a dynamic hierarchical protocol based on combinatorial optimization (DHCO) to balance energy consumption of sensor nodes and to improve WSN longevity. For each sensor node, the DHCO algorithm obtains the optimal route by establishing a feasible routing set instead of selecting the cluster head or the next hop node. The process of obtaining the optimal route can be formulated as a combinatorial optimization problem. Specifically, the DHCO algorithm is carried out by the following procedures. It employs a hierarchy-based connection mechanism to construct a hierarchical network structure in which each sensor node is assigned to a special hierarchical subset; it utilizes the combinatorial optimization theory to establish the feasible routing set for each sensor node, and takes advantage of the maximum–minimum criterion to obtain their optimal routes to the base station. Various results of simulation experiments show effectiveness and superiority of the DHCO algorithm in comparison with state-of-the-art WSN routing algorithms, including low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH), hybrid energy-efficient distributed clustering (HEED), genetic protocol-based self-organizing network clustering (GASONeC), and double cost function-based routing (DCFR) algorithms

An Acoustic Signal Enhancement Method Based on Independent Vector Analysis for Moving Target Classification in the Wild

In this paper, we study how to improve the performance of moving target classification by using an acoustic signal enhancement method based on independent vector analysis (IVA) in the unattended ground sensor (UGS) system. Inspired by the IVA algorithm, we propose an improved IVA method based on a microphone array for acoustic signal enhancement in the wild, which adopts a particular multivariate generalized Gaussian distribution as the source prior, an adaptive variable step strategy for the learning algorithm and discrete cosine transform (DCT) to convert the time domain observed signals to the frequency domain. We term the proposed method as DCT-G-IVA. Moreover, we design a target classification system using the improved IVA method for signal enhancement in the UGS system. Different experiments are conducted to evaluate the proposed method for acoustic signal enhancement by comparing with the baseline methods in our classification system under different wild environments. The experimental results validate the superiority of the DCT-G-IVA enhancement method in the classification system for moving targets in the presence of dynamic wind noise

Thermal conductivity characterisation of shallow ground via correlations with geophysical parameters

Thermal conductivity is an important physical property of geological formations. For example, a comprehensive assessment of the thermal conductivity variations in the shallow ground surrounding a heat exchanger borehole can be used to determine the installation parameters of a ground-source heat pump. However, in some locations, it is not possible to measure thermal conductivity directly. One of the most common methods to indirectly infer thermal conductivity is to establish correlations between thermal conductivity and various geophysical parameters. By utilising test data acquired from drilling sites and ascertaining the corresponding geophysical parameters via non-invasive geophysical methods, such correlations can be obtained. At 11 test sites, the thermal conductivities were measured in situ via thermal response testing, and the corresponding values for the S-wave velocity and density were calculated using the Microtremor survey method (MSM). The correlations between the thermal conductivity, S-wave velocity, and density in the tested shallow ground were built by exponential fitting. By utilising the established correlations, two-dimensional (2D) cross-sections along the microtremor survey line were created to illustrate the thermal conductivity variations in the shallow ground. These results demonstrate that this approach can be used to infer the thermal conductivities of areas that cannot be tested directly

Effects of different tillage practices on soil water-stable aggregation and organic carbon distribution in dryland farming in Northern China

Knowledge about the changes in soil aggregate stability and soil organic carbon (SOC) under different tillage treatments is necessary to assess the feasibility of adoption of conservation practices for sustaining productivity and protecting the environment in dryland farming in northern China. In this study, four treatments, no-till with strawmulching (NTSM), all straw return tillage (ASRT), shallowrotary treatment (SRT) and conventional tillage (CT) were set and a 5 years field experiment was carried out to study the effects of different tillage practices on soil aggregates stability and organic carbon distribution. We found that macro-aggregate (N2 mm and 0.25– 2 mm) proportion, mean weight diameter, total amount, content of SOC in macro-aggregate and proportion of SOC inmacro-aggregate were significantly improved by NTSM, ASRT and SRT. In all treatments, soil ability to sequester carbonwas improved more prominently in NTSM, andmacro-aggregate proportion,meanweight diameter, total amount SOC in macro-aggregate and proportion of SOC in macro-aggregate were improve by 29.4%,30.9%,84.9% and 30.7% respectively by NTSM. In addition, improvement effects on soil aggregates stability and carbon sequestration ability in ASRT were all higher than in SRT, and compared to NTSM, macro-aggregate proportion was slightly higher (1.7%) in ASRT, but SOC content and amount in aggregates were remarkably lower. Our results revealed that reducing soil disturbance, increasing straw returning and especially their combined application (i.e. NTSM in this study) can effectively be used to reduce soil erosion and improve carbon sequestration in dryland farming in northern China