Overexpression of Testes-Specific Protease 50 (TSP50) Predicts Poor Prognosis in Patients with Gastric Cancer

Purpose. To investigate the expression of TSP50 protein in human gastric cancers and its correlation with clinical/prognostic significance. Methods. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis of TSP50 was performed on a tissue microarray (TMA) containing 334 primary gastric cancers. Western blot was carried out to confirm the expression of TSP50 in gastric cancers. Results. IHC analysis revealed high expression of TSP50 in 57.2% human gastric cancer samples (191 out of 334). However, it was poorly expressed in all of the 20 adjacent nontumor tissues. This was confirmed by western blot, which showed significantly higher levels of TSP50 expression in gastric cancer tissues than adjacent nontumor tissues. A significant association was found between high levels of TSP50 and clinicopathological characteristics including junior age at surgery (P=0.001), later TNM stage (P=0.000), and present lymph node metastases (P=0.003). The survival of gastric cancer patients with high expression of TSP50 was significantly shorter than that of the patients with low levels of TSP50 (P=0.021). Multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that TSP50 overexpression was an independent prognostic factor for gastric cancer patients (P=0.017). Conclusions. Our data demonstrate that elevated TSP50 protein expression could be a potential predictor of poor prognosis in gastric cancer patients

Evaluation of high mobility group box 1 protein as a presurgical diagnostic marker reflecting the severity of acute appendicitis.

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.OBJECTIVES: To validate the role of high mobility group box-1(HMGB1) in diagnosis of acute appendicitis (AA) with different pathological severity. METHODS: According to the pathologically diagnosis, 150 patients underwent appendectomies between Jan. 2007 and Dec, 2010 were divided into acute simple, acute suppurative and acute gangrenous appendicitis as group 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Each patient group contains 50 sex and age matched cases to make comparison with 50 healthy volunteers. The mRNA and protein expression levels of serum HMGB1 were determined by real-time quantitative PCR and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Serum High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) levels were determined by rate nephelometric immunoassay. RESULTS: In comparison with health volunteers, relative HMGB1 mRNA levels in group 1, 2 and 3 were significantly increased 3.05 ± 0.51,8.33 ± 0.75 and 13.74 ± 1.09 folds, reflecting a tendency of augmented severity. In accordance, serum protein levels of HMGB1 were 10.97 ± 1.64, 14.42 ± 1.56 and 18.08 ± 2.41 ng/ml in 3 patient groups, which are significantly higher than that of healthy volunteers' 5.47 ± 0.73 ng/ml. hs-CRP levels were 12.85 ± 3.41, 21.04 ± 1.98 and 31.07 ± 5.46 ng/ml in 3 patients groups compared with 2.06 ± 0.77 ng/ml in controls. The concentrations of HMGB1 and hs-CRP were both positively correlated with disease severity. CONCLUSION: Serum HMGB1 constitutes as a valuable marker in diagnosis of AA. Positively correlated with hs-CRP level, mRNA and protein expression of HMGB1 to a certain extent reflected the severity of AA

Adaptation of Rice to the Nordic Climate Yields Potential for Rice Cultivation at Most Northerly Site and the Organic Production of Low-Arsenic and High-Protein Rice

There is an urgent demand for low-arsenic rice in the global market, particularly for consumption by small children. Soils in Uppsala, Sweden, contain low concentrations of arsenic (As). We hypothesize that if certain japonica paddy rice varieties can adapt to the cold climate and long day length in Uppsala and produce normal grains, such a variety could be used for organic production of low-arsenic rice for safe rice consumption. A japonica paddy rice variety, "Heijing 5," can be cultivated in Uppsala, Sweden, after several years' adaptation, provided that the rice plants are kept under a simple plastic cover when the temperature is below 10 degrees C. Uppsala-adapted "Heijing 5" has a low concentration of 0.1 mg per kg and high protein content of 12.6% per dry weight in brown rice grain, meaning that it thus complies with all dietary requirements determined by the EU and other countries for small children. The high protein content is particularly good for small children in terms of nutrition. Theoretically, Uppsala-adapted "Heijing 5" can produce a yield of around 5100 kg per ha, and it has a potential for organic production. In addition, we speculate that cultivation of paddy rice can remove nitrogen and phosphorus from Swedish river water and reduce nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea and associated algae blooms

Global trends and hotspots of gastrointestinal microbiome and toxicity based on bibliometrics

BackgroundToxicity concerns persist in the fields of public health, environmental science, and pharmacology. The intricate and vital role of the gastrointestinal microbiome in influencing toxicity and overall human health has gained increasing recognition in recent years. This study presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis to evaluate the global scientific output, emerging trends, and research focal points in the area of gastrointestinal microbiome and toxicity.MethodsThe Web of Science Core Collection database was retrieved for publications on the gastrointestinal microbiome and toxicity from 1980 to 2022. Our analysis included scholarly research papers written in English and excluded duplicate publications. We used Biblioshiny and R to summarize the count and citation metrics of included articles, and visualized research trends and keywords. CiteSpace was used to identify reference literature, keywords, and citation bursts. VOSviewer was used to visualize the network of related countries, institutions, authors, co-cited authors, and keywords.ResultsA total of 2,140 articles were included, allowing us to identify significant countries, institutions, authors, and research focal points. Our results indicate a growing trend in the field, with China and the United States leading the research. The most productive journal in this area is Science of the Total Environment. Key findings revealed that research hotspots have shifted from drugs to environmental pollutants, emphasizing microplastics. Important mechanisms studied include oxidative stress, metabolism, inflammation, and apoptosis, with target organs being the gastrointestinal tract, liver, and brain. Furthermore, we highlight the rising significance of the gut-brain axis and the usage of zebrafish as a model organism.ConclusionDespite certain limitations, such as focusing solely on English-language publications and excluding unpublished literature, our findings provide valuable insights into the current state of research on toxicity and the gastrointestinal microbiome. In the future, modifications to the gastrointestinal microbiome could offer new directions for treating and mitigating toxicity. These discoveries provide a comprehensive perspective on the broader scope of this research field

学会抄録

Details for the selection of physicochemical properties from AAIndex database. (DOC 31 kb

Achieving of high-diet-fiber barley via managing fructan hydrolysis

High fructan content in the grain of cereals is an important trait in agriculture such as environmental resilience and dietary fiber food production. To understand the mechanism in determining final grain fructan content and achieve high fructan cereal, a cross breeding strategy based on fructan synthesis and hydrolysis activities was set up and have achieved barley lines with 11.8% storage fructan in the harvested grain. Our study discovered that high activity of fructan hydrolysis at later grain developmental stage leads to the low fructan content in mature seeds, simultaneously increasing fructan synthesis at early stage and decreasing fructan hydrolysis at later stage through crossing breeding is an efficient way to elevate grain diet-fiber content. A good correlation between fructan and beta glucans was also discovered with obvious interest. Field trials showed that the achieved high fructan barley produced over seven folds higher fructan content than control barley and pull carbon-flux to fructan through decreasing fructan hydrolysis without disruption starch synthesis will probably not bring yield deficiency

Long Non-Coding RNAs As Prognostic Markers In Human Breast Cancer

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been recently shown to play an important role in gene regulation and normal cellular functions, and disease processes. However, despite the overwhelming number of lncRNAs identified to date, little is known about their role in cancer for vast majority of them. The present study aims to determine whether lncRNAs can serve as prognostic markers in human breast cancer. We interrogated the breast invasive carcinoma dataset of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) at the cBioPortal consisting of ~ 1,000 cases. Among 2,730 lncRNAs analyzed, 577 lncRNAs had alterations ranging from 1% to 32% frequency, which include mutations, alterations of copy number and RNA expression. We found that deregulation of 11 lncRNAs, primarily due to copy number alteration, is associated with poor overall survival. At RNA expression level, upregulation of 4 lncRNAs (LINC00657, LINC00346, LINC00654 and HCG11) was associated with poor overall survival. A third signature consists of 9 lncRNAs (LINC00705, LINC00310, LINC00704, LINC00574, FAM74A3, UMODL1-AS1, ARRDC1-AS1, HAR1A, and LINC00323) and their upregulation can predict recurrence. Finally, we selected LINC00657 to determine their role in breast cancer, and found that LINC00657 knockout significantly suppresses tumor cell growth and proliferation, suggesting that it plays an oncogenic role. Together, these results highlight the clinical significance of lncRNAs, and thus, these lncRNAs may serve as prognostic markers for breast cancer

Determination and prediction of the digestible and metabolizable energy contents of corn germ meal in growing pigs

Objective This experiment was conducted to determine the chemical composition, digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) contents of corn germ meals (CGM) and to develop equations to predict the corresponding energy contents based on the chemical characteristics of individual CGM. Methods Sixty-six barrows (initial body weight = 51.3±4.6 kg) were allotted to 11 diets including a basal diet and 10 CGM test diets in a completely randomized design. In the test diets, CGM was included in replacement of 30% of the energy-providing ingredients in the basal diet, resulting in a final inclusion rate of 29.1%. Each diet was fed to 6 barrows housed in individual metabolism crates for a 7-d acclimation period followed by a 5-d total but separate collection of feces and urine. Results Considerable variation was observed in acid-hydrolyzed ether extract, ether extract, ash, calcium (Ca) and total phosphorus contents among the CGM samples. On dry matter (DM) basis, the DE and ME contents of the CGM ranged from 10.22 to 15.83 MJ/kg and from 9.94 to 15.43 MJ/kg, respectively. The acid detergent fiber (ADF) contents were negatively correlated with the DE and ME contents of CGM samples. The best-fit prediction equations for the DE and ME values (MJ/kg DM) of the 10 CGM were: DE = 26.85–0.28 insoluble dietary fiber (%)–17.79 Ca (%); ME = 21.05–0.43 ADF (%)–11.40 Ca (%). Conclusion The chemical compositions of CGM vary depending on sources, particularly in ether extract and Ca. The DE and ME values of CGM can be predicted based on their chemical composition in growing pigs