Highly frequent promoter methylation and PIK3CA amplification in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Genetic and epigenetic alterations have been identified frequently in lung cancer, such as promoter methylation, gene mutations and genomic amplification. However, the interaction between genetic and epigenetic events and their significance in lung tumorigenesis remains poorly understood.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We determined the promoter methylation of 6 genes and <it>PIK3CA </it>amplification using quantitative methylation-specific PCR (Q-MSP) and real-time quantitative PCR, respectively, and explore the association of promoter methylation with <it>PIK3CA </it>amplification in a large cohort of clinically well-characterized non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Highly frequent promoter methylation was observed in NSCLC. With 100% diagnostic specificity, excellent sensitivity, ranging from 45.8 to 84.1%, was found for each of the 6 genes. The promoter methylation was associated with histologic type. Methylation of <it>CALCA, CDH1, DAPK1</it>, and <it>EVX2 </it>was more common in squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) compared to adenocarcinomas (ADC). Conversely, there was a trend toward a higher frequency of <it>RASSF1A </it>methylation in ADC than SCC. In addition, <it>PIK3CA </it>amplification was frequently found in NSCLC, and was associated with certain clinicopathologic features, such as smoking history, histologic type and pleural indentation. Importantly, aberrant promoter methylation of certain genes was significantly associated with <it>PIK3CA </it>amplification.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our data showed highly frequent promoter methylation and <it>PIK3CA </it>amplification in Chinese NSCLC population, and first demonstrated the associations of gene methylation with <it>PIK3CA </it>amplification, suggesting that these epigenetic events may be a consequence of overactivation of PI3K/Akt pathway.</p

Study on rapid detection of degree of freshness of paddy rice in China: Poster

This paper describes research results and progress of rapid detection of the degree of freshness of paddy. We studied the changes of degree of freshness, fat acidity value and taste evaluated value of paddy under different storage conditions in the laboratory. The correlations between the degree of freshness, fat acidity value and taste evaluated value were analyzed. The results showed that there was a significant negative correlation (p &lt; 0.01) between the degree of freshnessand fat acidity value. The correlation coefficient was -0.845. The degree of freshness was significantly positively correlated with the taste evaluated value, and most of the correlation coefficients were above 0.9. The nationwide investigation result of paddy’s degree of freshness showed that there was an obvious distinction in the degree of freshness between newly harvested rice and rice harvested in previous years. The degree of distinction of indica rice achieved 85%. Due to its special reasons, japonica rice had a lower degree of distinction, but it also reached 75%.This paper describes research results and progress of rapid detection of the degree of freshness of paddy. We studied the changes of degree of freshness, fat acidity value and taste evaluated value of paddy under different storage conditions in the laboratory. The correlations between the degree of freshness, fat acidity value and taste evaluated value were analyzed. The results showed that there was a significant negative correlation (p &lt; 0.01) between the degree of freshnessand fat acidity value. The correlation coefficient was -0.845. The degree of freshness was significantly positively correlated with the taste evaluated value, and most of the correlation coefficients were above 0.9. The nationwide investigation result of paddy’s degree of freshness showed that there was an obvious distinction in the degree of freshness between newly harvested rice and rice harvested in previous years. The degree of distinction of indica rice achieved 85%. Due to its special reasons, japonica rice had a lower degree of distinction, but it also reached 75%

Transcriptomics of Gabra4 knockout mice reveals common NMDAR pathways underlying autism, memory, and epilepsy

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neuronal developmental disorder with impaired social interaction and communication, often with abnormal intelligence and comorbidity with epilepsy. Disturbances in synaptic transmission, including the GABAergic, glutamatergic, and serotonergic systems, are known to be involved in the pathogenesis of this disorder, yet we do not know if there is a common molecular mechanism. As mutations in the GABAergic receptor subunit gene GABRA4 are reported in patients with ASD, we eliminated the Gabra4 gene in mice and found that the Gabra4 knockout mice showed autistic-like behavior, enhanced spatial memory, and attenuated susceptibility to pentylenetetrazol-induced seizures, a constellation of symptoms resembling human high-functioning autism. To search for potential molecular pathways involved in these phenotypes, we performed a hippocampal transcriptome profiling, constructed a hippocampal interactome network, and revealed an upregulation of the NMDAR system at the center of the converged pathways underlying high-functioning autism-like and anti-epilepsy phenotypes

CD44s-activated tPA/LRP1-NFκB pathway drives lamellipodia outgrowth in luminal-type breast cancer cells

Some cancer cells migration and metastasis are characterized by the outgrowth of lamellipodia protrusions in which the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Evidence has confirmed that lamellipodia formation could be regulated by various adhesion molecules, such as CD44, and we previously reported that lamellipodia at the leading edge of luminal type breast cancer (BrCa) were enriched with high expression of CD44. In this study, we found that the overexpression of CD44s could promote lamellipodia formation in BrCa cells through inducing tissue type plasminogen activator (tPA) upregulation, which was achieved by PI3K/Akt signaling pathway activation. Moreover, we revealed that tPA could interact with LDL receptor related protein 1 (LRP1) to activate the downstream NFκB signaling pathway, which in turn facilitate lamellipodia formation. Notably, inhibition of the tPA/LRP1-NFkB signaling cascade could attenuate the CD44s-induced lamellipodia formation. Thus, our findings uncover a novel role of CD44s in driving lamellipodia outgrowth through tPA/LRP1-NFkB axis in luminal BrCa cells that may be helpful for seeking potential therapeutic targets

SpaceGTN: A time-agnostic graph transformer network for handwritten diagram recognition and segmentation

Online handwriting recognition is pivotal in domains like note-taking, education, healthcare, and office tasks. Existing diagram recognition algorithms mainly rely on the temporal information of strokes, resulting in a decline in recognition performance when dealing with notes that have been modified or have no temporal information. The current datasets are drawn based on templates and cannot reflect the real free-drawing situation. To address these challenges, we present SpaceGTN, a time-agnostic Graph Transformer Network, leveraging spatial integration and removing the need for temporal data. Extensive experiments on multiple datasets have demonstrated that our method consistently outperforms existing methods and achieves state-of-the-art performance. We also propose a pipeline that seamlessly connects offline and online handwritten diagrams. By integrating a stroke restoration technique with SpaceGTN, it enables intelligent editing of previously uneditable offline diagrams at the stroke level. In addition, we have also launched the first online handwritten diagram dataset, OHSD, which is collected using a free-drawing method and comes with modification annotations

Effect of night shift work on metabolic syndrome in adults who suffered from earthquake stress in early life

ObjectiveTo examine the role of night shift work on the risk of metabolic syndrome (MetS) in adults suffered from earthquakes prenatally or as infants and to analyse the effect of stress on factors that influence MetS in this population.MethodsWe included 870 subjects from 2014 to 2015. All subjects work as miners for the Kailuan Mining Group and were born were living in Tangshan. Participants were classified into two groups on basis of their work schedules: day shift and night shift. They were further classified into the prenatal exposure group, the infancy exposure group, and the control group based on their age during the Tangshan earthquake. This study was conducted 38 years after the earthquake. Participants’ general demographic data, smoking and drinking habits, as well as work schedules were collected. All participants’ sleep status was assessed with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. The measurement of all subjects’ waist circumference and blood pressure was made, and triglycerides, fasting blood glucose, high-density lipoproteins, and low-density lipoproteins were measured by collecting blood samples. The definition of MetS was made after the guidelines for preventing and controlling type 2 diabetes in China (2017 Edition).ResultsA total of 187 (21.5%) workers were determined to have MetS. The incidence of MetS was greatly higher in night shift workers who were exposed to an earthquake during infancy than in day shift workers (χ2 = 8.053, p = 0.005). A multivariate logistic regression analysis displayed male participants had a higher risk develop MetS than female participants (p = 0.042, OR = 0.368, 95% CI = 0.140, 0.965). Current smokers (p = 0.030, OR = 1.520, 95%CI = 1.042, 2.218) and participants who sleep fewer than 7 h per night (p = 0.015, OR = 1.638, 95%CI = 1.101, 2.437) had a higher risk of MetS. Prenatal earthquake stress was also a risk element for MetS (p = 0.012, OR = 1.644, 95%CI = 1.115, 2.423).ConclusionThe risk of MetS is significantly higher in night shift workers exposed to earthquake stress during infancy than day shift workers. Earthquake exposure during pregnancy is an independent risk factor for MetS. Smoking and sleeping less than 7 h have a higher risk of MetS than the control group

SpeciFingers

The inadequate use of finger properties has limited the input space of touch interaction. By leveraging the category of contacting fingers, finger-specific interaction is able to expand input vocabulary. However, accurate finger identification remains challenging, as it requires either additional sensors or limited sets of identifiable fingers to achieve ideal accuracy in previous works. We introduce SpeciFingers, a novel approach to identify fingers with the capacitive raw data on touchscreens. We apply a neural network of an encoder-decoder architecture, which captures the spatio-temporal features in capacitive image sequences. To assist users in recovering from misidentification, we propose a correction mechanism to replace the existing undo-redo process. Also, we present a design space of finger-specific interaction with example interaction techniques. In particular, we designed and implemented a use case of optimizing the performance in pointing on small targets. We evaluated our identification model and error correction mechanism in our use case