Post-operative hemimaxillectomy rehabilitation using prostheses supported by zygoma implants and remaining natural teeth

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to evaluate the stability of prostheses supported by zygoma implants and remaining teeth for subjects who had undergone hemi-maxillectomy. METHODS: Ten patients were included in the study. Oral rehabilitation was performed using a temporary prosthesis that was supported by remaining teeth for the first three months. Then, a zygoma implant was placed to provide support for a final prosthesis in addition to the remaining teeth. Each prosthesis was tailor-made according to biomechanical three-dimensional finite element analysis results. The patients were assessed using the prosthesis functioning scale of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In addition, retention and bite force were recorded for both the temporary prosthesis and the final prosthesis. RESULTS: The mean bite force of the prosthetic first molar was increased to 69.2 N. The mean retentive force increased to 13.5 N after zygoma implant insertion. The bite force on the prosthetic first molar was improved to 229.3 N. CONCLUSION: Bite force increased significantly with the support of a zygoma implant. The use of zygoma implants in the restoration of maxillary defects improved functional outcome and patient satisfaction

New Reassortant H5N6 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Viruses in Southern China, 2014

New reassortant H5N6 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses were isolated from apparently healthy domestic ducks in Southern China in 2014. Our results show that the viruses grew efficiently in eggs and replicated systemically in chickens. They were completely lethal in chicken (100% mortality), and the mean death time (MDT) was 6 to 7 days post-inoculation (DPI). The viruses could transmit in chickens by naïve contact. BLAST analysis revealed that their HA gene was most closely related to A/wild duck/Shangdong/628/2011 (H5N1), and their NA genes were most closely related to A/swine/Guangdong/K6/2010 (H6N6). The other genes had the highest identity with A/wild duck/Fujian/1/2011(H5N1). The results of phylogenetic analysis showed that their HA genes clustered into clade 2.3.4.4 of the H5N1 viruses and all genes derived from H5 were Mix-like or H6-like viruses. Thus, the new H5N6 viruses were reassortanted of H5N1 and H6N6 virus. Therefore, the circulation of the new H5N6 avian influenza viruses may become a threat to poultry and human health

ATF2 predicts poor prognosis and promotes malignant phenotypes in renal cell carcinoma

Supplemental Figure S1. The confirmation of ATF2 knockdown and overexpression. Supplemental Figure S2. qRT-PCR analysis of indicated genes expression upon ATF2 knockdown and overexpression. Supplemental Table S1. Sequences of primers used for plasmid construction. Supplemental Table S2. Sequences of primers used for qRT-PCR. Supplemental Table S3. Sequences of primers used for ChIP-qPCR. Supplemental Table S4. Correlation of ATF2 expression and clinical characteristics in RCC patients. Supplemental Table S5. Univariate and multivariate analyses of factors associated with overall survival in RCC patients. Supplemental Table S6. Univariate and multivariate analyses of factors associated with disease-free survival in RCC patients. (DOCX 625 kb

The role of vimentin in regulating cell-invasive migration in dense cultures of breast carcinoma cells

Cell migration and mechanics are tightly regulated by the integrated activities of the various cytoskeletal networks. In cancer cells, cytoskeletal modulations have been implicated in the loss of tissue integrity, and acquisition of an invasive phenotype. In epithelial cancers, for example, increased expression of the cytoskeletal filament protein vimentin correlates with metastatic potential. Nonetheless, the exact mechanism whereby vimentin affects cell motility remains poorly understood. In this study, we measured the effects of vimentin expression on the mechano-elastic and migratory properties of the highly invasive breast carcinoma cell line MDA231. We demonstrate here that vimentin stiffens cells and enhances cell migration in dense cultures, but exerts little or no effect on the migration of sparsely plated cells. These results suggest that cell-cell interactions play a key role in regulating cell migration, and coordinating cell movement in dense cultures. Our findings pave the way towards understanding the relationship between cell migration and mechanics, in a biologically relevant context.Comment: 26+21 pages, 6+11 figures, supplementary movies available at http://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5480149, submitted to Nano Letters journa

Soluble expression and purification of a crab antimicrobial peptide scygonadin in different expression plasmids and analysis of its antimicrobial activity

Scygonadin is an anionic antimicrobial peptide recently identified from the seminal plasma of Scylla serrata. To gain more detailed information on its antimicrobial activity, scygonadin mature peptide was expressed in Escherichia coli in order to obtain a large quantity of biologically active product. An approximately 43 kDa fusion protein CKS-scygonadin was obtained in a highly stable and soluble form. The soluble component of the fusion CKS-scygonadin was purified by immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC). A single 11 kDa recombinant scygonadin was cleaved from CKS-scygonadin and purified from the cleavage mixture using an affinity chromatography column with a yield of 10.6 mg/L. Alternatively, a recombinant scygonadin was purified from pET28-scygonadin by one-step Ni2+ affinity chromatography and 65.9 mg/L pure recombinant scygonadin was obtained which was higher than that purified from pTrc-CKS/scygonadin in bacteria culture. The recombinant scygonadin was confirmed using SDS-PAGE analysis and MS-fingerprinting. Both recombinant products of scygonadin from different expressed plasmids showed the activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, but no activity against yeast and fungi tested. The kinetic studies showed that the recombinant scygonadin was strong active against Staphylococcus aureus and the killing of S. aureus appeared time and dose dependent. Considering the quantity of recombinant product and the applicability of purification, the pET28-scygonadin expression system is a better choice to produce large quantities of recombinant scygonadin for commercial use in future. This is the first report on the heterologous expression of antimicrobial peptide scygonadin in E coli. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [40676083]; National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program) [2007AA 091406

Genomic organization and tissue-specific expression analysis of hepcidin-like genes from black porgy (Acanthopagrus schlegelii B.)

【英文摘要】Hepcidin is an antimicrobial peptide and putative iron regulatory hormone previously described in mice and humans. Dozens of fish hepcidins have been isolated and characterized so far. Here we present seven hepcidin-like cDNA sequences named AS-hepc1–7, amplified from the normal commercially cultured fish (black porgy) by RACE–PCR. Sequence analysis reveals that these seven potential hepcidin peptides have highly conserved sequences with other known hepcidins, but they are different from each other in constitution and characteristics of predicted mature amino acids. Based on the study, it is deduced that AS-hepc1–7 represent different variants of a family of hepcidin genes in black porgy. To understand the organization of these hepcidin-like genes, we sequenced AS-hepc2 DNA, AS-hepc3 DNA, AS-hepc4 DNA, AS-hepc7 DNA and AS-hepc2 upstream region; and all of the four genomic DNAs consisted of two introns and three exons, the same organization as other reported hepcidins. The tissue-specific gene expression of hepcidins in normal black porgy was evaluated using RT–PCR and dot blot approaches. RT–PCR showed that transcripts of hepcidin-like mRNAs were present in each tested tissue of normal juvenile black porgy, including liver, spleen, kidney, heart, brain, stomach, intestine, gill, skin and blood, but abundant hepcidin-like mRNA transcripts were only detected in the liver, kidney, spleen, intestine and stomach by dot blot assay. In addition, using dot blot and Northern blot approach, a significant increase of hepcidin mRNA transcription was observed in the liver within 48 h after immersion in a suspension of live bacteria, which suggested that the expression pattern of hepcidin-like genes in black porgy might be different in the liver from the other tissues as previously reported in several hepcidin studies

Chlorine disinfection increases both intracellular and extracellular antibiotic resistance genes in a full-scale wastewater treatment plant

The emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance has posed a major threat to both human health and environmental ecosystem. Although the disinfection has been proved to be efficient to control the occurrence of pathogens, little effort is dedicated to revealing potential impacts of disinfection on transmission of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), particularly for free-living ARGs in final disinfected effluent of urban wastewater treatment plants (UWWTP). Here, we investigated the effects of chlorine disinfection on the occurrence and concentration of both extracellular ARGs (eARGs) and intracellular ARGs (iARGs) in a full-scale UWWTP over a year. We reported that the concentrations of both eARGs and iARGs would be increased by the disinfection with chlorine dioxide (ClO). Specifically, chlorination preferentially increased the abundances of eARGs against macrolide (ermB), tetracycline (tetA, tetB and tetC), sulfonamide (sul1, sul2 and sul3), β-lactam (ampC), aminoglycosides (aph(2')-Id), rifampicin (katG) and vancomycin (vanA) up to 3.8 folds. Similarly, the abundances of iARGs were also increased up to 7.8 folds after chlorination. In terms of correlation analyses, the abundance of Escherichia coli before chlorination showed a strong positive correlation with the total eARG concentration, while lower temperature and higher ammonium concentration were assumed to be associated with the concentration of iARGs. This study suggests the chlorine disinfection could increase the abundances of both iARGs and eARGs, thereby posing risk of the dissemination of antibiotic resistance in environments