NEDD9 Is a Positive Regulator of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition and Promotes Invasion in Aggressive Breast Cancer

Epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays an important role in many biological processes. The latest studies revealed that aggressive breast cancer, especially the triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) subtype was frequently associated with apparent EMT, but the mechanisms are still unclear. NEDD9/HEF1/Cas-L is a member of the Cas protein family and was identified as a metastasis marker in multiple cancer types. In this study, we wished to discern the role of NEDD9 in breast cancer progression and to investigate the molecular mechanism by which NEDD9 regulates EMT and promotes invasion in triple-negative breast cancer. We showed that expression of NEDD9 was frequently upregulated in TNBC cell lines, and in aggressive breast tumors, especially in TNBC subtype. Knockdown of endogenous NEDD9 reduced the migration, invasion and proliferation of TNBC cells. Moreover, ectopic overexpression of NEDD9 in mammary epithelial cells led to a string of events including the trigger of EMT, activation of ERK signaling, increase of several EMT-inducing transcription factors and promotion of their interactions with the E-cadherin promoter. Data presented in this report contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms by which NEDD9 promotes EMT, and provide useful clues to the evaluation of the potential of NEDD9 as a responsive molecular target for TNBC chemotherapy

Gait Recognition Using GEI and AFDEI

Gait energy image (GEI) preserves the dynamic and static information of a gait sequence. The common static information includes the appearance and shape of the human body and the dynamic information includes the variation of frequency and phase. However, there is no consideration of the time that normalizes each silhouette within the GEI. As regards this problem, this paper proposed the accumulated frame difference energy image (AFDEI), which can reflect the time characteristics. The fusion of the moment invariants extracted from GEI and AFDEI was selected as the gait feature. Then, gait recognition was accomplished using the nearest neighbor classifier based on the Euclidean distance. Finally, to verify the performance, the proposed algorithm was compared with the GEI + 2D-PCA and SFDEI + HMM on the CASIA-B gait database. The experimental results have shown that the proposed algorithm performs better than GEI + 2D-PCA and SFDEI + HMM and meets the real-time requirements

The impact of butylphthalide on the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis of patients suffering from cerebral infarction in the basal ganglia

Background: Butylphthalide sodium chloride injection for patients with acute cerebral infarction has a certain effect. Although there are several proposed mechanisms of drug action, no related research on improving the inflammatory cytokines that regulate the body’s immune system through the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis has been published. Objective: To determine the impact of butylphthalide and sodium chloride injection on the hypothalamus- pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis after acute cerebral infarction in the basal ganglia. Methods: Patients were randomly divided into treatment and control groups; the treatment group received intravenous drips of butylphthalide, while the control group did not. The levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol (COR), along with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) scores of both groups were detected using the radioimmunoassay method. This was done at regular intervals after cerebral infarction in the basal ganglia was detected. Results: Fourteen days after treatment, the levels of serum ACTH and COR in both groups were higher than normal. The NIHSS score and levels of ACTH and COR of the treatment group were significantly lower than those of the control group (p<0.05). The data was computed and analyzed using SPSS17.0 software. Conclusion: Butylphthalide treatment for patients suffering from acute basal ganglia infarction can reduce the adverse effects on the HPA axis, thus improving patient prognosis. Trial registration: The trial is registered at the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (www.chictr.org.cn) under the registration number ChiCTR-CPR-15007593. Funding: This work was supported by the National Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Science and Technology Pillar Program of People’s Republic of China [Program No. 14ZF013 and 2011BA108B03

Clinical characteristics and host immunity responses of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant BA.2 with deletion of ORF7a, ORF7b and ORF8

Abstract Background The pathogenicity and virulence of the Omicron strain have weakened significantly pathogenesis of Omicron variants. Accumulating data indicated accessory proteins play crucial roles in host immune evasion and virus pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, the impact of simultaneous deletion of accessory protein ORF7a, ORF7b and ORF8 on the clinical characteristics and specific immunity in Omicron breakthrough infected patients (BIPs) need to be verified. Methods Herein, plasma cytokines were identified using a commercial Multi-cytokine detection kit. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and pseudovirus neutralization assays were utilized to determine the titers of SARS-CoV-2 specific binding antibodies and neutralizing antibodies, respectively. In addition, an enzyme-linked immunospot assay was used to quantify SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells and memory B cells. Results A local COVID-19 outbreak was caused by the Omicron BA.2 variant, which featured a deletion of 871 base pairs (∆871 BA.2), resulting in the removal of ORF7a, ORF7b, and ORF8. We found that hospitalized patients with ∆871 BA.2 had significantly shorter hospital stays than those with wild-type (WT) BA.2. Plasma cytokine levels in both ∆871 BA.2 and WT BA.2 patients were within the normal range of reference, and there was no notable difference in the titers of SARS-CoV-2 ancestor or Omicron-specific binding IgG antibodies, neutralizing antibody titers, effector T cells, and memory B cells frequencies between ∆871 BA.2 and WT BA.2 infected adult patients. However, antibody titers in ∆871 BA.2 infected adolescents were higher than in adults. Conclusions The simultaneous deletion of ORF7a, ORF7b, and ORF8 facilitates the rapid clearance of the BA.2 variant, without impacting cytokine levels or affecting SARS-CoV-2 specific humoral and cellular immunity in Omicron-infected individuals

Additional file 4 of Genome-wide analysis of circular RNA-mediated ceRNA regulation in porcine skeletal muscle development

Additional file 4: Table S3. Primers used in this study

Additional file 2 of Genome-wide analysis of circular RNA-mediated ceRNA regulation in porcine skeletal muscle development

Additional file 2: Table S2. CircRNA-miRNA-mRNA network

Additional file 1 of Genome-wide analysis of circular RNA-mediated ceRNA regulation in porcine skeletal muscle development

Additional file 1: Table S1. The expression of all identified circRNAs

Additional file 3 of Genome-wide analysis of circular RNA-mediated ceRNA regulation in porcine skeletal muscle development

Additional file 3: Figure S1. GO and KEGG results for 143 targeted mRNAs