Expression and prognostic relevance of Cyclophilin A and matrix metalloproteinase 9 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

AIMS: To guide clinicians in selecting treatment options for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients, reliable markers predictive of clinical outcome are desirable. This study analyzed the correlation of cyclophilin A (CypA) and matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9) in ESCC and their relationships to clinicopathological features and survival. METHODS: We immunohistochemically investigated 70 specimens of ESCC tissues using CypA and MMP9 antibodies. Then, the correlations between CypA and MMP9 expression and clinicopathological features and its prognostic relevance were determined. RESULTS: Significant correlations were only found in high level of CypA and MMP9 expression with tumor differentiation and lymph node status. Significant positive correlations were found between the expression status of CypA and that of MMP9. Overexpression of CypA and metastasis were significantly associated with shorter progression free survival times in univariate analysis. Multivariate analysis confirmed that CypA expression was an independent prognostic factor. CONCLUSIONS: CypA might be correlated with the differentiation, and its elevated expression may be an adverse prognostic indicator for the patients of ESCC. CypA/MMP9 signal pathway may be attributed to the malignant transformation of ESCC, and attention should be paid to a possible target for therapy. VIRTUAL SLIDES: The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/1166551968105508

Identification of Apo-A1 as a biomarker for early diagnosis of bladder transitional cell carcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bladder transitional cell carcinoma (BTCC) is the fourth most frequent neoplasia in men, clinically characterized by high recurrent rates and poor prognosis. Availability of urinary tumor biomarkers represents a convenient alternative for early detection and disease surveillance because of its direct contact with the tumor and sample accessibility.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We tested urine samples from healthy volunteers and patients with low malignant or aggressive BTCC to identify potential biomarkers for early detection of BTCC by two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) and bioinformatics analysis. We observed increased expression of five proteins, including fibrinogen (Fb), lactate dehydrogenase B (LDHB), apolipoprotein-A1 (Apo-A1), clusterin (CLU) and haptoglobin (Hp), which were increased in urine samples of patients with low malignant or aggressive bladder cancer. Further analysis of urine samples of aggressive BTCC showed significant increase in Apo-A1 expression compared to low malignant BTCC. Apo-A1 level was measured quantitatively using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and was suggested to provide diagnostic utility to distinguish patients with bladder cancer from controls at 18.22 ng/ml, and distinguish patients with low malignant BTCC from patients with aggressive BTCC in two-tie grading system at 29.86 ng/ml respectively. Further validation assay showed that Apo-A1 could be used as a biomarker to diagnosis BTCC with a sensitivity and specificity of 91.6% and 85.7% respectively, and classify BTCC in two-tie grading system with a sensitivity and specificity of 83.7% and 89.7% respectively.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Taken together, our findings suggest Apo-A1 could be a potential biomarker related with early diagnosis and classification in two-tie grading system for bladder cancer.</p

Pressurizing Field-Effect Transistors of Few-Layer MoS2 in a Diamond Anvil Cell

Hydrostatic pressure applied using diamond anvil cells (DAC) has been widely explored to modulate physical properties of materials by tuning their lattice degree of freedom. Independently, electrical field is able to tune the electronic degree of freedom of functional materials via, for example, the field-effect transistor (FET) configuration. Combining these two orthogonal approaches would allow discovery of new physical properties and phases going beyond the known phase space. Such experiments are, however, technically challenging and have not been demonstrated. Herein, we report a feasible strategy to prepare and measure FETs in a DAC by lithographically patterning the nanodevices onto the diamond culet. Multiple-terminal FETs were fabricated in the DAC using few-layer MoS2 and BN as the channel semiconductor and dielectric layer, respectively. It is found that the mobility, conductance, carrier concentration, and contact conductance of MoS2 can all be significantly enhanced with pressure. We expect that the approach could enable unprecedented ways to explore new phases and properties of materials under coupled mechano-electrostatic modulation.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Topological Hall Effect Driven by Short-Range Magnetic Orders in EuZn2_2As2_2

Short-range (SR) magnetic orders such as magnetic glass orders or fluctuations in a quantum system usually host exotic states or critical behaviors. As the long-range (LR) magnetic orders, SR magnetic orders can also break time-reversal symmetry and drive the non-zero Berry curvature leading to novel transport properties. In this work, we report that in EuZn$_2$As$_2$ compound, besides the LR A-type antiferromagnetic (AF) order, the SR magnetic order is observed in a wide temperature region. The magnetization measurements and electron spin resonance (ESR) measurements reveal the ferromagnetic (FM) correlations for this SR magnetic order which results in an obvious anomalous Hall effect above the AF transition. Moreover the ESR results reveal that this FM SR order coexists with LR AF order exhibiting anisotropic magnetic correlations below the AF transition. The interactions of LR and SR magnetism evolving with temperature and field can host non-zero spin charility and berry curvature leading the additional topological Hall contribution even in a centrosymmetric simple AF system. Our results indicate that EuZn$_2$As$_2$ is a fertile platform to investigate exotic magnetic and electronic states.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Regional cerebral metabolic levels and turnover in awake rats after acute or chronic spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a common cause of disability, which often leads to sensorimotor cortex dysfunction above the spinal injury site. However, the cerebral regional effects on metabolic information after SCI have been little studied. Here, adult Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into acute and chronic treatment groups and sham groups with day-matched periods. The Basso, Beatte, and Bresnahan scores method were utilized to evaluate the changes in behaviors during the recovery of the animals, and the metabolic information was measured with the 1 H-observed/13 C-edited NMR method. Total metabolic concentrations in every region were almost similar in both treated groups. However, the metabolic kinetics in most regions in the acute group were significantly altered (P < .05), particularly in the cortical area, thalamus and medulla (P < .01). After long-term recovery, some metabolic kinetics were recovered, especially in the temporal cortex, occipital cortex, and medulla. The metabolic kinetic changes revealed the alteration of metabolism and neurotransmission in different brain regions after SCI, which present evidence for the alternation of brain glucose oxidation. Therefore, this shows the significant influence of SCI on cerebral function and neuroscience research. This study also provides the theoretical basis for clinical therapy after SCI, such as mitochondrial transplantation. Keywords: NMR; brain regions; metabolic kinetics; neurotransmitters; spinal cord injury

Rhizosphere Microenvironments of Eight Common Deciduous Fruit Trees Were Shaped by Microbes in Northern China

The rhizosphere microenvironment is the site of nutrient circulation and microbial community formation, and thus is an ongoing topic of research. Although research on this topic is extensive, studies into the rhizosphere microenvironment of fruit trees remain rare. To elucidate the mechanisms driving the fruit tree rhizosphere microenvironment, we assessed soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities, the community-level physiological profile (CLPP) and microbial diversity in rhizospheric soils of eight common deciduous fruit trees in northern China. We found that the available minerals, pH, enzyme activities, microbial utilization of six types of carbon (C) substrates, and microbial diversity in the rhizosphere varied among tree species. Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that rhizosphere microenvironmental parameters (ammonia nitrogen content, soil pH and invertase activity) were closely related to the soil microbial community. Further analysis revealed that the soil microbial utilization of six C sources, nitrate nitrogen content, and invertase activity were negatively correlated with Ambiguous species and Alternaria; however, these groups were positively correlated with pH. The ammonia nitrogen content was positively correlated with C source utilization and negatively correlated with Ambiguous, Lysobacter, Nitrospira, Alternaria, Fusarium, and Colletotrichum. Interestingly, invertase was closely linked to the microbial community, especially fungal diversity, and was positively correlated with plant-beneficial microbes such as Mortierella, Geomyces, Lysobacter, and Chaetomium, but negatively correlated with pathogenic microbes such as Alternaria, Fusarium, and Colletotrichum. Hence, rhizosphere soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities and microbial community were significantly affected by tree species. Additionally, a variety of environmental factors were closely related to the microbial community in the rhizospheric soils of eight species of deciduous fruit trees