Efficacy and prognostic factors of concurrent chemoradiotherapy in patients with stage Ib3 and IIa2 cervical cancer

Objectives: We investigated the efficacy, side effects, and prognostic factors of concurrent chemoradiotherapy for patientswith stage Ib3-IIa2 cervical cancer.Material and methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of clinicopathologic data from 73 patients with stageIb3-IIa2 cervical cancer who received concurrent chemoradiotherapy from January 2008 to December 2013 in our hospital.Overall response and disease control rates were used to evaluate short-term outcomes; the 3-year and 5-year disease-freesurvival and overall survival were used to evaluate long-term efficacy. Toxicity reactions and prognostic factors were recorded.Results: With concurrent chemoradiotherapy, overall response and disease control rates were 91.78% and 97.26%, respectively.The 3-year disease-free and overall survival were 80.82% and 83.56%; the 5-year disease-free and overall survival were 75.34%and 79.45%, respectively. All side effects were tolerated and potentially alleviated by symptomatic treatment. Tumor pathologicaltype, differentiated degree, primary tumor size and squamous cell carcinoma antigen levels before and after treatment wereclosely related to survival (univariate analysis; p < 0.05). Pathological type, primary tumor size and squamous cell carcinomaantigen levels one month after treatment were independent prognostic factors for long-term outcome (multivariate analysis).Conclusions: Short- and long-term efficacy of concurrent chemoradiotherapy for stage Ib3-IIa2 cervical cancer is well-determinedand tolerable. Patients with adenocarcinomas, tumor diameter ≥ 5 cm and squamous cell carcinoma antigenlevels ≥ 1.5 ng/mL (one month after treatment) had poor prognosis and should be assessed further

Palmprint Recognition in Uncontrolled and Uncooperative Environment

Online palmprint recognition and latent palmprint identification are two branches of palmprint studies. The former uses middle-resolution images collected by a digital camera in a well-controlled or contact-based environment with user cooperation for commercial applications and the latter uses high-resolution latent palmprints collected in crime scenes for forensic investigation. However, these two branches do not cover some palmprint images which have the potential for forensic investigation. Due to the prevalence of smartphone and consumer camera, more evidence is in the form of digital images taken in uncontrolled and uncooperative environment, e.g., child pornographic images and terrorist images, where the criminals commonly hide or cover their face. However, their palms can be observable. To study palmprint identification on images collected in uncontrolled and uncooperative environment, a new palmprint database is established and an end-to-end deep learning algorithm is proposed. The new database named NTU Palmprints from the Internet (NTU-PI-v1) contains 7881 images from 2035 palms collected from the Internet. The proposed algorithm consists of an alignment network and a feature extraction network and is end-to-end trainable. The proposed algorithm is compared with the state-of-the-art online palmprint recognition methods and evaluated on three public contactless palmprint databases, IITD, CASIA, and PolyU and two new databases, NTU-PI-v1 and NTU contactless palmprint database. The experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing palmprint recognition methods.Comment: Accepted in the IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Securit

A Single-Plasmid Genome Editing System for Metabolic Engineering of Lactobacillus casei

Genome engineering of Lactobacillus casei, an important industrial microorganism for dairy fermented product, currently relies on inefficient and time-consuming double crossover events. In this study, we developed an easy-to-use genome engineering strategy for metabolic engineering of L. casei for acetoin production. Plasmid pMSP456-Cre, that contains prophage recombinase operon LCABL_13040-50-60 driven by the nisin-controlled inducible expression (NICE) system and the site-specific recombinase gene cre under the control of the promoter of the lactose operon from L. casei, was constructed. Using this plasmid, integration of a hicD3 gene linear donor cassette (up-lox66-cat-lox71-down) was catalyzed by the LCABL_13040-50-60 recombinase and the cat gene was excised by the Cre/lox system with an efficiency of 60%. To demonstrate this system for sequential and iterative knocking out genes in L. casei, another three genes (pflB, ldh and pdhC) related to acetoin production were deleted with the efficiencies of 60, 40, and 60%, respectively. The yielding quadruple mutant could produce a ∼18-fold higher amount of acetoin than the wild-type and converted 59.8% of glucose to acetoin in aerobic. Therefore, these results proved this simple genome engineering strategy have potential in metabolic engineering of L. casei for production of high value-added metabolites

Orexin-A protects against oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation-induced cell damage by inhibiting endoplasmic reticulum stress-mediated apoptosis via the Gi and PI3K signaling pathways

The neuropeptide orexin-A (OXA) has a neuroprotective effect, acting as an anti-apoptotic factor in response to multiple stimuli. Apoptosis induced by endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) underlies oxygen-glucose deprivation and reoxygenation (OGD/R)-induced cell damage, an in vitro model of ischemia/reperfusion injury. However, that OXA inhibits ERS-induced apoptosis in the OGD/R model has not been reported. In the present study, we investigated the neuroprotective effect of OXA (0.1 μM) on OGD/R-induced damage in the human neuroblastoma cell line SH-SY5Y. After OXA treatment following 4 h oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) and then 4 h reoxygenation (R), cell morphology, viability, and apoptosis were analyzed by histology, Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, and flow cytometry, respectively. Western blotting was used to measure expression levels of ERS- and apoptosis-related proteins. To determine signaling pathways involved in OXA-mediated neuroprotection, the Gi pathway inhibitor pertussis toxin (PTX; 100 ng/mL) and PI3K inhibitor LY294002 (LY; 10 μM) were added. In addition, in order to prove the specificity of these characteristics, the OXA antagonist Suvorexant (DORA; Ki of 0.55 nM and 0.35 nM for OX1R and OX2R) was used for intervention. Our results showed that OGD/R induced cell damage, manifested as morphological changes and a significant decrease in viability. Furthermore, Western blotting detected an increase in ERS-related proteins GRP78, p-IRE1α, p-JNK, and Cleaved caspase-12, as well as apoptosis-related proteins Cleaved caspase-3 and Bax, and a decrease in the anti-apoptosis factor Bcl-2. OXA intervention alleviated the degree of cellular damage, and protein expression was also reversed. In addition, the protective effect of OXA was reduced by adding PTX and LY. Meanwhile, after the use of DORA, changes in the expression of related proteins were detected, and it was found that the protective effect of OXA was weakened. Collectively, our results indicate that OXA has a neuroprotective effect on OGD/R-induced cell damage by inhibiting ERS-induced apoptosis through the combined action of Gi and PI3K signaling pathways. These findings help to clarify the mechanism underlying the neuroprotective action of OXA, which should aid the development of further candidate drugs, and provide a new therapeutic direction for the treatment of ischemic stroke

Highly Efficient and Selective Photocatalytic Nonoxidative Coupling of Methane to Ethylene over Pd-Zn Synergistic Catalytic Sites

Photocatalytic nonoxidative coupling of CH4 to multicarbon (C2+) hydrocarbons (e.g., C2H4) and H2 under ambient conditions provides a promising energy-conserving approach for utilization of carbon resource. However, as the methyl intermediates prefer to undergo self-coupling to produce ethane, it is a challenging task to control the selective conversion of CH4 to higher value-added C2H4. Herein, we adopt a synergistic catalysis strategy by integrating Pd-Zn active sites on visible light-responsive defective WO3 nanosheets for synergizing the adsorption, activation, and dehydrogenation processes in CH4 to C2H4 conversion. Benefiting from the synergy, our model catalyst achieves a remarkable C2+ compounds yield of 31.85 mu mol center dot g-1 center dot h-1 with an exceptionally high C2H4 selectivity of 75.3% and a stoichiometric H2 evolution. In situ spectroscopic studies reveal that the Zn sites promote the adsorption and activation of CH4 molecules to generate methyl and methoxy intermediates with the assistance of lattice oxygen, while the Pd sites facilitate the dehydrogenation of methoxy to methylene radicals for producing C2H4 and suppress overoxidation. This work demonstrates a strategy for designing efficient photocatalysts toward selective coupling of CH4 to higher value-added chemicals and highlights the importance of synergistic active sites to the synergy of key steps in catalytic reactions.Peer reviewe

Survivin overexpression is potentially associated with pituitary adenoma invasiveness

Background and objective Survivin is an inhibitor of apoptosis. Its role in guiding the treatment of neoplasms, making diagnosis and predicting prognosis has been reported. However, there is little information on the implications and uses of survivin in predicting pituitary adenoma (PA) invasiveness. Existing information is unclear and controversial. We thus conducted this meta-analysis to explore whether the surviving expression levels in invasive PAs (IPA) and regular PAs are different or not. We considered both non-secreting and secreting tumors together. Methods: A global search strategy was systematically applied among five databases including Cochrane Library, Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) up to June 18th, 2017. With a specially designed form including PAs’ invasive features, etc., data was collected. The included studies should present the data representing the surviving levels in IPA groups and regular PA groups, respectively. Differences were expressed as standard mean differences (SMDs) or odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence interval (CI). To estimate the heterogeneities, I2 test, Cochran's Q-test and Galbr figure were all conducted. A sensitivity-analysis and potential-publication bias were also performed. Results: In the present meta-analysis, 9 studies containing 489 patients were included. Seven studies with dichotomous-data showed that survivin over-expression in PA tissue was closely associated with a high invasive tendency (OR 6.226, 95% CI 3.970, 9.765; P<0.001), but 2 continuous-data studies revealed that there was no significant association (SMD −5.043, 95% CI-10.965, 0.878; p=0.095). A sensitivity-analysis suggested a statistically stable result. We did not find publication bias. Conclusion: We suggest that survivin overexpression is potentially associated with PA invasiveness. More research based on medical big data is needed to confirm this finding

Long Non Coding RNA MALAT1 Promotes Tumor Growth and Metastasis by Inducing Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

The prognosis of advanced oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients remains dismal, and a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms is critical for identifying effective targets with therapeutic potential to improve the survival of patients with OSCC. This study aims to clarify the clinical and biological significance of metastasis-associated long non-coding RNA, metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) in OSCC. We found that MALAT1 is overexpressed in OSCC tissues compared to normal oral mucosa by real-time PCR. MALAT1 served as a new prognostic factor in OSCC patients. When knockdown by small interfering RNA (siRNA) in OSCC cell lines TSCCA and Tca8113, MALAT1 was shown to be required for maintaining epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) mediated cell migration and invasion. Western blot and immunofluorescence staining showed that MALAT1 knockdown significantly suppressed N-cadherin and Vimentin expression but induced E-cadherin expression in vitro. Meanwhile, both nucleus and cytoplasm levels of β-catenin and NF-κB were attenuated, while elevated MALAT1 level triggered the expression of β-catenin and NF-κB. More importantly, targeting MALAT1 inhibited TSCCA cell-induced xenograft tumor growth in vivo. Therefore, these findings provide mechanistic insight into the role of MALAT1 in regulating OSCC metastasis, suggesting that MALAT1 is an important prognostic factor and therapeutic target for OSCC

Ultra-high strength metal matrix composites (MMCs) with extended ductility manufactured by size-controlled powder and spherical cast tungsten carbide

The main challenge of particle reinforced metal matrix composites (MMCs) is balancing strength and ductility. This research uses type 420 stainless steel and spherical cast tungsten carbide (WC/W2C) with a similar powder size and range as raw powders to manufacture laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) 420 + 5 wt% WC/W2C MMCs. LPBF 420 + 5 wt% WC/W2C MMCs contain austenite, martensite, and W-rich carbides (WC/W2C, FeW3C, M6C, and M7C3) from nanometre to micrometre scale. The well-balanced composition creates a crack-free reaction layer between the reinforced particles and matrix. This reaction layer consists of two distinct layers, depending on the element concentration. The LPBF 420 + 5 wt% WC/W2C MMCs achieved an excellent compressive strength of ∼5.5 GPa and a considerable fracture strain exceeding 50 %. The underlying mechanisms for the improved mechanical properties are discussed, providing further insight to advance the application of MMCs via additive manufacturing