Silencing of the IKKε gene by siRNA inhibits invasiveness and growth of breast cancer cells

Abstract Introduction IκB kinase ε (IKKε) is a member of the IKK family that plays an important role in the activation of NF-κB. Overexpressed in more than 30% of breast cancers, IKKε has been recently identified as a potential breast cancer oncogene. The purpose of the present study is to examine the therapeutic potential of IKKε siRNA on human breast cancer cells. Methods Eight siRNAs targeting different regions of the IKKε mRNA were designed, and the silencing effect was screened by quantitative real-time RT-PCR. The biological effects of synthetic siRNAs on human breast cancer cells were investigated by examining the cell proliferation, migration, invasion, focus formation, anchorage-independent growth (via soft agar assay), cell cycle arrest, apoptosis (via annexing binding), NF-κB basal level, and NF-κB-related gene expressions upon the IKKε silencing. Results Silencing of IKKε in human breast cancer cells resulted in a decrease of focus formation potential and clonogenicity as well as in vitro cell migration/invasion capabilities. Moreover, knockdown of IKKε suppressed cell proliferation. Cell cycle assay showed that the anti-proliferation effect of IKKε siRNA was mediated by arresting cells in the G0/G1 phase, which was caused by downregulation of cyclin D1. Furthermore, we demonstrated that silencing of IKKε inhibited the NF-κB basal activity as well as the Bcl-2 expression. Significant apoptosis was not observed in breast cancer cells upon the silencing of IKKε. The present study provided the first evidence that silencing IKKε using synthetic siRNA can inhibit the invasiveness properties and proliferation of breast cancer cells. Conclusions Our results suggested that silencing IKKε using synthetic siRNA may offer a novel therapeutic strategy for breast cancer.Peer Reviewe

9-Benzamido­acridinium chloride

In the title compound, C20H15N2O+·Cl−, the dihedral angle between the fused-ring system and the benzene ring is 63.10 (7)°. In the crystal, N—H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds link the components and aromatic π–π stacking [shortest centroid–centroid distance = 3.6421 (12) Å] occurs

Layout optimization for multi-bi-modulus materials system under multiple load cases

Financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51179164) and the Australian Research Council (Grant No. DP140103137) is acknowledged

Bis[1-benzyl-3-(4-methyl­phen­yl)imidazol-2-yl­idene]silver(I) hexa­fluorido­phosphate

The title silver N-heterocyclic carbene compound, [Ag(C17H16N2)2]PF6, crystallizes as a mononuclear salt. The two imidazole rings, which are almost coplanar [maximum deviation from the least squares plane of 0.05 (2) Å], are linked by the Ag atom with a C—Ag—C angle of 178.60 (9)°. In the crystal, C—H⋯F hydrogen bonds, weak π–π inter­actions [centroid–centroid distances = 3.921 (1) and 3.813 (3) Å] and C—H⋯π inter­actions lead to a supermolecular structure

Experimental analysis for the effect of dynamic capillarity on stress transformation in porous silicon

The evolution of real-time stress in porous silicon(PS) during drying is investigated using micro-Raman spectroscopy. The results show that the PS sample underwent non-negligible stress when immersed in liquid and suffered a stress impulsion during drying. Such nonlinear transformation and nonhomogeneneous distribution of stress are regarded as the coupling effects of several physical phenomena attributable to the intricate topological structure of PS. The effect of dynamic capillarity can induce microcracks and even collapse in PSstructures during manufacture and storage.This work is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Contract Nos. 10732080 and 10502014

HiSEP-Q: A Highly Scalable and Efficient Quantum Control Processor for Superconducting Qubits

Quantum computing promises an effective way to solve targeted problems that are classically intractable. Among them, quantum computers built with superconducting qubits are considered one of the most advanced technologies, but they suffer from short coherence times. This can get exaggerated when they are controlled directly by general-purpose host machines, which leads to the loss of quantum information. To mitigate this, we need quantum control processors (QCPs) positioned between quantum processing units and host machines to reduce latencies. However, existing QCPs are built on top of designs with no or inefficient scalability, requiring a large number of instructions when scaling to more qubits. In addition, interactions between current QCPs and host machines require frequent data transmissions and offline computations to obtain final results, which limits the performance of quantum computers. In this paper, we propose a QCP called HiSEP-Q featuring a novel quantum instruction set architecture (QISA) and its microarchitecture implementation. For efficient control, we utilize mixed-type addressing modes and mixed-length instructions in HiSEP-Q, which provides an efficient way to concurrently address more than 100 qubits. Further, for efficient read-out and analysis, we develop a novel onboard accumulation and sorting unit, which eliminates the data transmission of raw data between the QCPs and host machines and enables real-time result processing. Compared to the state-of-the-art, our proposed QISA achieves at least 62% and 28% improvements in encoding efficiency with real and synthetic quantum circuits, respectively. We also validate the microarchitecture on a field-programmable gate array, which exhibits low power and resource consumption. Both hardware and ISA evaluations demonstrate that HiSEP-Q features high scalability and efficiency toward the number of controlled qubits.Comment: The paper is accepted by the 41st IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD), 202

N-(2-Amino­phen­yl)-2-anilinobenzamide

In the title compound, C19H17N3O, the planes of the aromatic substituents attached to the benzamide moiety are almost perpendicular to one another, making a dihedral angle of 88.16 (7)°. The observed conformation of the mol­ecule is produced by an intra­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bond

Open Access

Inactivation of the novel avian influenza A (H7N9) virus under physical conditions or chemical agents treatmen