Impacts of particulate matter (PM2.5) on the behavior of freshwater snail Parafossarulus striatulus

AbstractFine particulate (PM2.5) is a severe problem of air pollution in the world. Although many studies were performed on examining effects of PM2.5 on human health, the understanding of PM2.5 influence on aquatic organisms is limited. Due to wet deposition, the pollutants in PM2.5 can enter aquatic ecosystems and affect aquatic organisms. This study tested the hypothesis that PM2.5 will negatively affect the behavior of freshwater snail Parafossarulus striatulus (Benson, 1842). Along with PM2.5, a number of components (Al, Pb, and Zn) that are commonly present in PM2.5 were also tested for their effects on the snail's behavior. The snail behavior was scored using the Behavioral State Score (BSS), ranging from 0 (no movement) to 5 (active locomotion and fully extended body). The result shows that high PM2.5 concentration dose (7.75 mg/L) induced a significant decrease in snails’ movement behavior, and such reduced movement. The same behavior was also observed for treatments with chemical components related to PM2.5, including aluminum and acidity (pH 5.0). In contrast, a low concentration of PM2.5 (3.88 mg/L), lead, and zinc did not significantly affect snails’ behavior. The results suggest that high PM2.5 deposition in water bodies, associated with acidification and some metals, can have an adverse effect on aquatic organisms.</jats:p

Granular Space Reduction to a β

Multigranulation rough set is an extension of classical rough set, and optimistic multigranulation and pessimistic multigranulation are two special cases of it. β multigranulation rough set is a more generalized multigranulation rough set. In this paper, we first introduce fuzzy rough theory into β multigranulation rough set to construct a β multigranulation fuzzy rough set, which can be used to deal with continuous data; then some properties are discussed. Reduction is an important issue of multigranulation rough set, and an algorithm of granular space reduction to β multigranulation fuzzy rough set for preserving positive region is proposed. To test the algorithm, experiments are taken on five UCI data sets with different values of β. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm

Genome-wide identification and characterization of ATP-binding cassette transporters in the silkworm, Bombyx mori

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter superfamily is the largest transporter gene family responsible for transporting specific molecules across lipid membranes in all living organisms. In insects, ABC transporters not only have important functions in molecule transport, but also play roles in insecticide resistance, metabolism and development.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>From the genome of the silkworm, <it>Bombyx mori</it>, we have identified 51 putative ABC genes which are classified into eight subfamilies (A-H) by phylogenetic analysis. Gene duplication is very evident in the ABCC and ABCG subfamilies, whereas gene numbers and structures are well conserved in the ABCD, ABCE, ABCF, and ABCH subfamilies. Microarray analysis revealed that expression of 32 silkworm ABC genes can be detected in at least one tissue during different developmental stages, and the expression patterns of some of them were confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR. A large number of ABC genes were highly expressed in the testis compared to other tissues. One of the ABCG genes, <it>BmABC002712</it>, was exclusively and abundantly expressed in the Malpighian tubule implying that <it>BmABC002712 </it>plays a tissue-specific role. At least 5 ABCG genes, including <it>BmABC005226</it>, <it>BmABC005203</it>, <it>BmABC005202</it>, <it>BmABC010555</it>, and <it>BmABC010557</it>, were preferentially expressed in the midgut, showing similar developmental expression profiles to those of 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E)-response genes. 20E treatment induced the expression of these ABCG genes in the midgut and RNA interference-mediated knockdown of <it>USP</it>, a component of the 20E receptor, decreased their expression, indicating that these midgut-specific ABCG genes are 20E-responsive.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In this study, a genome-wide analysis of the silkworm ABC transporters has been conducted. A comparison of ABC transporters from 5 insect species provides an overview of this vital gene superfamily in insects. Moreover, tissue- and stage-specific expression data of the silkworm ABCG genes lay a foundation for future analysis of their physiological function and hormonal regulation.</p

Acute small bowel obstruction: a rare initial presentation for the metastasis of the large-cell carcinoma of the lung

We present one case with symptom of paroxysmal abdominal pain for over 20 days. Abdominal computerized tomography (CT) scan revealed intestinal obstruction and a mass of 6.0 cm × 6.0 cm in size located at the left adrenal. Chest CT scan showed a lobulated mass of 2.7 cm × 2.7 cm in size at the upper left lung. Core needle biopsy of the lung mass confirmed the diagnosis of large cell carcinoma. The patient underwent an emergency abdominal laparotomy and received a chemotherapy regimen that consisted of pemetrexed and cisplatin postoperatively. In addition, we made a review of the literature of the occurrence, diagnosis and outcome of this manifestation

20-Hydroxyecdysone (20E) Primary Response Gene \u3cem\u3eE75\u3c/em\u3e Isoforms Mediate Steroidogenesis Autoregulation and Regulate Developmental Timing in \u3cem\u3eBombyx\u3c/em\u3e

The temporal control mechanisms that precisely control animal development remain largely elusive. The timing of major developmental transitions in insects, including molting and metamorphosis, is coordinated by the steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E). 20E involves feedback loops to maintain pulses of ecdysteroid biosynthesis leading to its upsurge, whereas the underpinning molecular mechanisms are not well understood. Using the silkworm Bombyx mori as a model, we demonstrated that E75, the 20E primary response gene, mediates a regulatory loop between ecdysteroid biosynthesis and 20E signaling. E75 isoforms A and C directly bind to retinoic acid receptor-related response elements in Halloween gene promoter regions to induce gene expression thus promoting ecdysteroid biosynthesis and developmental transition, whereas isoform B antagonizes the transcriptional activity of isoform A/C through physical interaction. As the expression of E75 isoforms is differentially induced by 20E, the E75-mediated regulatory loop represents a fine autoregulation of steroidogenesis, which contributes to the precise control of developmental timing

RORγ is a targetable master regulator of cholesterol biosynthesis in a cancer subtype.

Tumor subtype-specific metabolic reprogrammers could serve as targets of therapeutic intervention. Here we show that triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) exhibits a hyper-activated cholesterol-biosynthesis program that is strongly linked to nuclear receptor RORγ, compared to estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer. Genetic and pharmacological inhibition of RORγ reduces tumor cholesterol content and synthesis rate while preserving host cholesterol homeostasis. We demonstrate that RORγ functions as an essential activator of the entire cholesterol-biosynthesis program, dominating SREBP2 via its binding to cholesterol-biosynthesis genes and its facilitation of the recruitment of SREBP2. RORγ inhibition disrupts its association with SREBP2 and reduces chromatin acetylation at cholesterol-biosynthesis gene loci. RORγ antagonists cause tumor regression in patient-derived xenografts and immune-intact models. Their combination with cholesterol-lowering statins elicits superior anti-tumor synergy selectively in TNBC. Together, our study uncovers a master regulator of the&nbsp;cholesterol-biosynthesis program and an attractive target for TNBC

Towards precise classification of cancers based on robust gene functional expression profiles

BACKGROUND: Development of robust and efficient methods for analyzing and interpreting high dimension gene expression profiles continues to be a focus in computational biology. The accumulated experiment evidence supports the assumption that genes express and perform their functions in modular fashions in cells. Therefore, there is an open space for development of the timely and relevant computational algorithms that use robust functional expression profiles towards precise classification of complex human diseases at the modular level. RESULTS: Inspired by the insight that genes act as a module to carry out a highly integrated cellular function, we thus define a low dimension functional expression profile for data reduction. After annotating each individual gene to functional categories defined in a proper gene function classification system such as Gene Ontology applied in this study, we identify those functional categories enriched with differentially expressed genes. For each functional category or functional module, we compute a summary measure (s) for the raw expression values of the annotated genes to capture the overall activity level of the module. In this way, we can treat the gene expressions within a functional module as an integrative data point to replace the multiple values of individual genes. We compare the classification performance of decision trees based on functional expression profiles with the conventional gene expression profiles using four publicly available datasets, which indicates that precise classification of tumour types and improved interpretation can be achieved with the reduced functional expression profiles. CONCLUSION: This modular approach is demonstrated to be a powerful alternative approach to analyzing high dimension microarray data and is robust to high measurement noise and intrinsic biological variance inherent in microarray data. Furthermore, efficient integration with current biological knowledge has facilitated the interpretation of the underlying molecular mechanisms for complex human diseases at the modular level