Alpha-enolase (ENO1) controls alpha v/beta 3 integrin expression and regulates pancreatic cancer adhesion, invasion, and metastasis

Background: We have previously shown that in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) cells, the glycolytic enzyme alpha-enolase (ENO1) also acts as a plasminogen receptor and promotes invasion and metastasis formation. Moreover, ENO1 silencing in PDA cells induces oxidative stress, senescence and profoundly modifies PDA cell metabolism. Although anti-ENO1 antibody inhibits PDA cell migration and invasion, little is known about the role of ENO1 in regulating cell-cell and cell-matrix contacts. We therefore investigated the effect of ENO1 silencing on the modulation of cell morphology, adhesion to matrix substrates, cell invasiveness, and metastatic ability. Methods: The membrane and cytoskeleton modifications that occurred in ENO1-silenced (shENO1) PDA cells were investigated by a combination of confocal microscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The effect of ENO1 silencing was then evaluated by phenotypic and functional experiments to identify the role of ENO1 in adhesion, migration, and invasion, as well as in senescence and apoptosis. The experimental results were then validated in a mouse model. Results: We observed a significant increase in the roughness of the cell membrane due to ENO1 silencing, a feature associated with an impaired ability to migrate and invade, along with a significant downregulation of proteins involved in cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion, including alpha v/beta 3 integrin in shENO1 PDA cells. These changes impaired the ability of shENO1 cells to adhere to Collagen I and IV and Fibronectin and caused an increase in RGD-independent adhesion to vitronectin (VN) via urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR). Binding of uPAR to VN triggers integrin-mediated signals, which result in ERK1-2 and RAC activation, accumulation of ROS, and senescence. In shENO1 cancer cells, the use of an anti-uPAR antibody caused significant reduction of ROS production and senescence. Overall, a decrease of in vitro and in vivo cell migration and invasion of shENO1 PDA cells was observed. Conclusion: These data demonstrate that ENO1 promotes PDA survival, migration, and metastasis through cooperation with integrins and uPAR

Sio: A spatioimageomics pipeline to identify prognostic biomarkers associated with the ovarian tumor microenvironment

Stromal and immune cells in the tumor microenvironment (TME) have been shown to directly affect high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC) malignant phenotypes, however, how these cells interact to influence HGSC patients’ survival remains largely unknown. To investigate the cell-cell communication in such a complex TME, we developed a SpatioImageOmics (SIO) pipeline that combines imaging mass cytometry (IMC), location-specific transcriptomics, and deep learning to identify the distribution of various stromal, tumor and immune cells as well as their spatial relationship in TME. The SIO pipeline automatically and accurately segments cells and extracts salient cellular features to identify biomarkers, and multiple nearest-neighbor interactions among tumor, immune, and stromal cells that coordinate to influence overall survival rates in HGSC patients. In addition, SIO integrates IMC data with microdissected tumor and stromal transcriptomes from the same patients to identify novel signaling networks, which would lead to the discovery of novel survival rate-modulating mechanisms in HGSC patients

Multiple determination of the optical constants of thin-film coating materials

The seven participating laboratories received films of two different thicknesses of Sc2O3 and Rh. All samples of each material were prepared in a single deposition run. Brief descriptions are given of the various methods used for determination of the optical constants of these coating materials. The measurement data are presented, and the results are compared. The mean of the variances of the Sc2O3refractive-index determinations in the 0.40–0.75-nm spectral region was 0.03. The corresponding variances for the refractive index and absorption coefficient of Rh were 0.35 and 0.26, respectively

Use of twitter data for waste minimisation in beef supply chain

Approximately one third of the food produced is discarded or lost, which accounts for 1.3 billion tons per annum. The waste is being generated throughout the supply chain viz. farmers, wholesalers/processors, logistics, retailers and consumers. The majority of waste occurs at the interface of retailers and consumers. Many global retailers are making efforts to extract intelligence from customer’s complaints left at retail store to backtrack their supply chain to mitigate the waste. However, majority of the customers don’t leave the complaints in the store because of various reasons like inconvenience, lack of time, distance, ignorance etc. In current digital world, consumers are active on social media and express their sentiments, thoughts, and opinions about a particular product freely. For example, on an average, 45,000 tweets are tweeted daily related to beef products to express their likes and dislikes. These tweets are large in volume, scattered and unstructured in nature. In this study, twitter data is utilised to develop waste minimization strategies by backtracking the supply chain. The execution process of proposed framework is demonstrated for beef supply chain. The proposed model is generic enough and can be applied to other domains as well

Satellite-Based Approaches in the Detection and Monitoring of Selected Hydrometeorological Disasters

Earth observation satellite systems play an important role in the provision of a wide range of information, especially in data-scarce regions. This role becomes extremely relevant during a disaster and when direct access to the affected area is difficult. This chapter provides an overview of the state of the art remote sensing techniques and tools for the detection and monitoring of hydrometeorological disasters, focusing on tropical cyclones Idai and Kenneth. In a perspective of disaster preparedness, rainfall measurements provided by satellites can enable decision-makers to take urgent measures in the pre-event phase and can be used as input for early warning systems. Data acquired from satellite missions are used for a set of different tools developed to map flood extent, while several satellite-based emergency mapping mechanisms provide timely post-event information by taking advantage of observations provided by satellites (including commercial platforms providing images at very high geometric resolution). Analysis of vegetation dynamics derived from time-series of multispectral imagery is used to assess changes, such as the detection of cyclone-damaged areas, identification of critical conditions in vegetation health/productivity, and land cover change mapping

A survey from the French Urology Association about sick leave prescriptions by 145 surgeons

National audienceObjectives. - To describe and evaluate prescriptions of sick leave by urology surgeons for different kinds of interventions. Methods. - Between January and April 2006, a web-based survey was completed by urology surgeons on a voluntary basis. The analyzed data pertained to personal characteristics of the surgeons, mean duration of sick leave for 15 interventions and the type of job of the patient (strenuous or not). Analyses were performed with software SAS (TM) version 9.2. Descriptive analyses were performed and Kruskal-Wallis test was used to search for statistically significant differences between variables (p < 0,05). Results. - One hundred and forty-eight surgeons were involved and 145 answers could be analyzed. Mean age of the surgeons was 46,3 +/- 9,4 years. Urology surgeons were in the public sector (n = 73/140; 52%), in private practice (n = 43/140; 31%) or both (n=24/140; 17%). Kruskal-Wallis test showed that all patients who had a job considered as strenuous had significantly longer sick leave prescriptions. Younger surgeons (under 40) used to prescribe shorter sick leaves than their older counterparts. Conclusion. - Sick leave prescriptions of the urology surgeons were globally homogeneous in this survey. Only a few interventions were the occasion of discordant prescriptions depending upon the age or practice (public/private) of the surgeons. Several hypotheses could be further explored as regard the source of variation in sick leave prescriptions. These results are usable for those stakeholders who are interested in continuous medical education and evaluation. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS