Resource utilization of microalgae from biological soil crusts::biodiesel production associated with desertification control

With the continuing consumption of resources and increasingly prominent environmental issues, microalgal resource utilization has received extensive attention. In this study, based on the microalgal investigation in desert biological soil crusts (BSCs) using pyrosequencing technology, the cultivated crust microalgae were further isolated in order to obtain high quality microalgae for resource utilization. The results showed that with crust development and succession, microalgal diversity gradually decreased, including the number of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and genus, although Microcokus always was the dominant genera. Pyrosequencing obtained 630 OTUs of cyanobacteria, 25 OTUs of green algae and 9 OTUs of diatom; however, part of cultivated microalgae still could not yet be detected due to the DNA extraction preferences and errors caused by PCR amplification. After isolation, four strains were purified and cultivated, including two filamentous cyanobacteria Microcoleus vaginatus BSC-06 and Scytonema javanicum BSC-39, and two unicellular green algae Chlorella sp. BSC-24 and Monoraphidium dybowskii BSC-81. The two green algae grew fast (> 250 mg L-1 d(-1)), and achieved high lipid productivity up to 75-85 mg L-1 d(-1), with lipid content of 28.7-39.0%, thus was considered as promising feedstock for biodiesel production. In addition, the two crust cyanobacteria could be used to construct artificial cyanobacterial soil crusts in desertification control, although their biomass accumulation was not as high as that in the green algae. Ultimately, combining biodiesel production with desertification control would not only improve desert environments, but also provide ideal places for the local microalgal resource exploitation, further promoting desert socioeconomic development

A Synergistic Therapeutic Scheme for Hyperglycemia and Nephrotic Disorders in Diabetes

We previously demonstrated that the utilization of an electrospun scaffold could boost functional outputs of transplanted islets. In this study, we aim to develop a drug-eluting scaffold with a payload of pioglitazone to simultaneously rein in hyperglycemia and recoup lost renal functions in diabetic mice that underwent islet transplantation. The in vivo proliferation of islets was measured by a non-invasive bio-imaging technology whereas the blood insulin, blood glucose and renal proteins were assayed. The local stimulation of transplanted islets by pioglitazone saw an accelerated in vivo proliferation without apoptosis caused by the drug-eluting scaffold. In addition, pioglitazone contributed to an increased secretion of insulin and C-peptide 2, giving rise to an accelerated rein-in of hyperglycemia and enhanced tolerance of sudden oral glucose challenge. Moreover, the accelerated decrease of blood creatinine, urine creatinine and blood urea nitrogen suggested that pioglitazone contributed to the recovery of renal functions compromised by diabetes. Our bioengineering strategy effectively ameliorated hyperglycemia and associated nephrotic disorders, and shed a new light on an engineering approach to combat diabetes

Repeated microendoscopic discectomy for recurrent lumbar disk herniation

OBJECTIVES: To explore the microendoscopic discectomy technique and inclusion criteria for the treatment of recurrent lumbar disc herniation and to supply feasible criteria and technical notes to avoid complications and to increase the therapeutic effect. METHODS: A consecutive series of 25 patients who underwent posterior microendoscopic discectomy for recurrent lumbar disc herniation were included. The inclusion criteria were as follows: no severe pain in the lumbar region, no lumbar instability observed by flexion-extension radiography and no intervertebral discitis or endplate damage observed by magnetic resonance imaging. All patients were diagnosed by clinical manifestations and imaging examinations. RESULTS: Follow-up visits were carried out in all cases. Complications, such as nerve injuries, were not observed. The follow-up outcomes were graded using the MacNab criteria. A grade of excellent was given to 12 patients, good to 12 patients and fair to 1 patient. A grade of excellent or good occurred in 96% of cases. One patient relapsed 3 months after surgery and then underwent lumbar interbody fusion and inner fixation. The numerical rating scale of preoperative leg pain was 7.4± 1.5, whereas it decreased to 2.1±0.8 at 7 days after surgery. The preoperative Oswestry disability index of lumbar function was 57.5±10.0, whereas it was 26.0±8.5 at 7 days after surgery. CONCLUSION: In these cases, microendoscopic discectomy was able to achieve satisfactory clinical results. Furthermore, it has advantages over other methods because of its smaller incision, reduced bleeding and more efficient recovery

Water-Soluble N-Acetyl-L-cysteine-Capped CdTe Quantum Dots Application for Hg(II) Detection

A simple, rapid, and specific method for Hg(II) detection has been proposed based on the fluorescence change of N-acetyl-Lcysteine-capped CdTe quantum dots (QDs). The presence of Hg(II) ions could quench the fluorescence of QDs at 565 nm and meanwhile produce new peak in 700-860 nm wavelength range. The linear response range is 20-430 nM with the detection limit at 8.0 nM Hg(II). It was found that the position of the new peak was irrelevant to the size of QDs. Furthermore, the mechanism of the quenching of QDs fluorescence by Hg(II) and the appearance of new peak in near-infrared area were also discussed and deduced through ultraviolet absorption spectrum, fluorescence spectrum, and X-ray photoelectron spectrum

Potentially Functional Variants of PLCE1 Identified by GWASs Contribute to Gastric Adenocarcinoma Susceptibility in an Eastern Chinese Population

BACKGROUND: Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have found a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP, rs2274223 A>G) in PLCE1 to be associated with risk of gastric adenocarcinoma. In the present study, we validated this finding and also explored the risk associated with another unreported potentially functional SNP (rs11187870 G>C) of PLCE1 in a hospital-based case-control study of 1059 patients with pathologically confirmed gastric adenocarcinoma and 1240 frequency-matched healthy controls. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We determined genotypes of these two SNPs by the Taqman assay and used logistic regression models to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). We found that a significant higher gastric adenocarcinoma risk was associated with rs2274223 variant G allele (adjusted OR = 1.35, 95% CI = 1.14-1.60 for AG+GG vs. AA) and rs11187870 variant C allele (adjusted OR = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.05-1.50 for CG+CC vs. GG). We also found that the number of combined risk alleles (i.e., rs2274223G and rs11187870C) was associated with risk of gastric adenocarcinoma in an allele-dose effect manner (P(trend) = 0.0002). Stratification analysis indicated that the combined effect of rs2274223G and rs11187870C variant alleles was more evident in subgroups of males, non-smokers, non-drinkers and patients with gastric cardia adenocarcinoma. Further real-time PCR results showed that expression levels of PLCE1 mRNA were significantly lower in tumors than in adjacent noncancerous tissues (0.019±0.002 vs. 0.008±0.001, P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCES: Our results further confirmed that genetic variations in PLCE1 may contribute to gastric adenocarcinoma risk in an eastern Chinese population

Development of a core outcome set for cardiovascular diabetology: a methodological framework

BackgroundCardiovascular diabetology is an emergent field focusing on all aspects of diabetes/cardiovascular interrelationship and metabolic syndrome. High-quality evidence needs to be provided to determine the efficacy and safety of interventions in cardiovascular diabetology. The heterogeneity of outcomes among trials limits the comparison of results, and some outcomes are not always meaningful to end-users. The cardiovascular diabetology core outcome set (COS) study aims to develop a COS of interventions for cardiovascular diabetology. In this paper, we introduce the methodological framework for developing the COS.MethodsThe COS development will include the following steps: (a) establish the COS groups of stakeholders, including international steering committee, Delphi survey group, and consensus meeting group; (b) systematic reviews of outcomes used in trials of cardiovascular diabetology; (c) semistructured interview of stakeholders for outcomes of cardiovascular diabetology; (d) generate a list of candidate outcomes and determine the original outcome pool; (e) Delphi survey with stakeholders of cardiovascular diabetology to select potential core outcomes; and (f) review and endorse the cardiovascular diabetology COS by expert consensus meeting.ConclusionsThis current study reports the methodological framework to develop a COS in cardiovascular diabetology and will provide evidence for the future development of COS in cardiovascular diabetology

Genetic variants of EML1 and HIST1H4E in myeloid cell-related pathway genes independently predict cutaneous melanoma-specific survival

Both in vivo and in vitro evidence has supported a key role of myeloid cells in immune suppression in melanoma and in promoting melanocytic metastases. Some single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been shown to predict cutaneous melanoma-specific survival (CMSS), but the association between genetic variation in myeloid cell-related genes and cutaneous melanoma (CM) patient survival remains unknown. Methods: we investigated associations between SNPs in myeloid cell-related pathway genes and CMSS in a discovery dataset of 850 CM patients and replicated the findings in another dataset of 409 CM patients. Results: we identified two SNPs (EML1 rs10151787 A>G and HIST1H4E rs2069018 T>C) as independent prognostic factors for CMSS, with adjusted allelic hazards ratios of 1.56 (95% confidence interval =1.19-2.05, P=0.001) and 1.66 (1.22-2.26, P=0.001), respectively; so were their combined unfavorable alleles in a dose-response manner in both discovery and replication datasets (P trendG and HIST1H4E rs2069018 T>C are independent prognostic biomarkers for CMSS

Novel genetic variants of PIP5K1C and MVB12B of the endosome-related pathway predict cutaneous melanoma-specific survival

Endosomes regulate cell polarity, adhesion, signaling, immunity, and tumor progression, which may influence cancer outcomes. Here we evaluated associations between 36,068 genetic variants of 228 endosome-related pathway genes and cutaneous melanoma disease-specific survival (CMSS) using genotyping data from two previously published genome-wide association studies. The discovery dataset included 858 CM patients with 95 deaths from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and the replication dataset included 409 CM patients with 48 deaths from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS). In multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, we found that two novel SNPs (PIP5K1C rs11666894 A>C and MVB12B rs12376285 C>T) predicted CMSS, with adjusted hazards ratios of 1.47 (95% confidence interval = 1.15-1.89 and P = 0.002) and 1.73 (1.30-2.31 and 0.0002), respectively. Combined analysis of risk genotypes of these two SNPs revealed a dose-dependent decrease in CMSS associated with an increased number of risk genotypes (P trend = 0.0002). Subsequent expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis revealed that PIP5K1C rs11666894 was associated with mRNA expression levels in lymphoblastoid cell lines from 373 European descendants (P<0.0001) and that MVB12B rs12376285 was associated with mRNA expression levels in cultured fibroblasts from 605 European-Americans (P<0.0001). Our findings suggest that novel genetic variants of PIP5K1C and MVB12B in the endosome-related pathway genes may be promising prognostic biomarkers for CMSS, but these results need to be validated in future larger studies

Whole exome sequencing identifies frequent somatic mutations in cell-cell adhesion genes in chinese patients with lung squamous cell carcinoma

Lung squamous cell carcinoma (SQCC) accounts for about 30% of all lung cancer cases. Understanding of mutational landscape for this subtype of lung cancer in Chinese patients is currently limited. We performed whole exome sequencing in samples from 100 patients with lung SQCCs to search for somatic mutations and the subsequent target capture sequencing in another 98 samples for validation. We identified 20 significantly mutated genes, including TP53, CDH10, NFE2L2 and PTEN. Pathways with frequently mutated genes included those of cell-cell adhesion/Wnt/Hippo in 76%, oxidative stress response in 21%, and phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase in 36% of the tested tumor samples. Mutations of Chromatin regulatory factor genes were identified at a lower frequency. In functional assays, we observed that knockdown of CDH10 promoted cell proliferation, soft-agar colony formation, cell migration and cell invasion, and overexpression of CDH10 inhibited cell proliferation. This mutational landscape of lung SQCC in Chinese patients improves our current understanding of lung carcinogenesis, early diagnosis and personalized therapy