Analysis of miRNAs and their target genes associated with lipid metabolism in duck liver

Citation: He, J. et al. Analysis of miRNAs and their target genes associated with lipid metabolism in duck liver. Sci. Rep. 6, 27418; doi: 10.1038/srep27418 (2016).Fat character is an important index in duck culture that linked to local flavor, feed cost and fat intake for costumers. Since the regulation networks in duck lipid metabolism had not been reported very clearly, we aimed to explore the potential miRNA-mRNA pairs and their regulatory roles in duck lipid metabolism. Here, Cherry-Valley ducks were selected and treated with/without 5% oil added in feed for 2 weeks, and then fat content determination was performed on. The data showed that the fat contents and the fatty acid ratios of C17:1 and C18:2 were up-regulated in livers of oil-added ducks, while the C12:0 ratio was down-regulated. Then 21 differential miRNAs, including 10 novel miRNAs, were obtain from the livers by sequencing, and 73 target genes involved in lipid metabolic processes of these miRNAs were found, which constituted 316 miRNA-mRNA pairs. Two miRNA-mRNA pairs including one novel miRNA and one known miRNA, N-miR-16020-FASN and gga-miR-144-ELOVL6, were selected to validate the miRNA-mRNA negative relation. And the results showed that N-mir-16020 and gga-miR-144 could respectively bind the 3?-UTRs of FASN and ELOVL6 to control their expressions. This study provides new sights and useful information for future research on regulation network in duck lipid metabolism

Circulating Tumor DNA as a Sensitive Marker in Patients Undergoing Irreversible Electroporation for Pancreatic Cancer

Background/Aims: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is often diagnosed at an advanced stage, resulting in extremely poor 5-year survival. Late diagnosis of PDAC is mainly due to lack of a reliable method of early detection. Carbohydrate antigen (CA) 19-9 is often used as a tumor biomarker in PDAC; however, the test lacks sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, new sensitive and minimally invasive diagnostic tools are required to detect pancreatic cancer. Methods: Here, we investigated circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) which contained KRAS-mutated as a potential diagnostic tool for PDAC patients who underwent irreversible electroporation (IRE). We used droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) to detect the expression of KRAS-mutated genes in plasma samples of 65 PDAC patients who underwent IRE. Results: In these 65 cases, ctDNA was detected in 20 (29.2%) samples. The median overall survival (OS) was 11.4 months with ctDNA+ patients and 14.3 months for ctDNA- patients. ctDNA+ patients had a obviously poorer prognosis associated to overall survival (P < 0.001). Conclusion: Our results suggested that the existence of ctDNA was a predictor of survival for PDAC patients. Therefore, ctDNA may be a new sensitive biomarker for monitoring treatment outcome in PDAC

Imaging and Pathological Features of Percutaneous Cryosurgery on Normal Lung Evaluated in a Porcine Model

Background and objective Lung cancer is one of the most commonly occurring malignancies and frequent causes of death in the world. Cryoablation is a safe and alternative treatment for unresectable lung cancer. Due to the lung being gas-containing organ and different from solid organs such as liver and pancreas, it is difficult to achieve the freezing range of beyond the tumor edge 1 cm safety border. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of different numbers of freeze cycles on the effectiveness of cryoablation on normal lung tissue and to create an operation guideline that gives the best effect. Methods Six healthy Tibetan miniature pigs were given a CT scan and histological investigation after percutaneous cryosurgery. Cryoablation was performed as 2 cycles of 10 min of active freezing in the left lung; each freeze followed by a 5 min thaw. In the right lung, we performed the same 2 cycles of 5 min of freezing followed by 5 min of thawing. However, for the right lung, we included a third cycle of consisting of 10 min of freezing followed by 5 min of thawing. Three cryoprobes were inserted into the left lung and three cryoprobes in the right lung per animal, one in the upper and two in the lower lobe, so as to be well away from each other. Comparison under the same experimental condition was necessary. During the experiment, observations were made regarding the imaging change of ice-ball. The lungs were removed postoperatively at 3 intervals: 4 h, 3 d of postoperation and 7 d of postoperation, respectively, to view microscopic and pathological change. Results The ice-ball grew gradually in relation to the increase in time, and the increase in number of cycles. The size of the cryolesion (hypothesis necrotic area) in specimens, over time, became larger in size than the size of the ice-ball during operation, regardless of whether 2 or 3 freeze-thaw cycles were performed. The area of necrosis was gradually increased over the course of time. The hypothesis necrotic area was equal to necrosis area 3 d after cryosurgery. Conclusion Percutaneous cryoablation of the lung can achieve complete ablation of target tissue. The freezing technique may be different depending on the individual circumstances of each tumor. In technology, 3 freeze-thaw cycles are recommended, and the range of cryoablation’s effective diameter may be not necessarily beyond the tumor edge at least 1 cm safe border during cryosurgery

Allogenic Natural Killer Cell Immunotherapy Combined with Irreversible Electroporation for Stage IV Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Survival Outcome

Background/Aims: We evaluated the clinical effectiveness of irreversible electroporation (IRE) in combination with immunotherapy using allogenic natural killer cells (NK) for stage IV hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: The study involved 40 patients with stage IV HCC who were divided equally into two groups: 1) simple IRE; and 2) IRE plus allogenic NK cells (IRE-NK); we mainly assessed the overall survival (OS). Results: The effect of the IRE-NK treatment was synergistic, i.e., not only did it enhance immune function, it also decreased alpha-fetoprotein expression and showed significantly good clinical effectiveness. At the median 7.6-month follow-up (range, 3.8–12.1 months), median OS was higher in the IRE-NK group (10.1 months) than in the IRE group (8.9 months, P = 0.0078). Conclusion: IRE combined with allogeneic NK cell immunotherapy significantly increases the median OS of patients with stage IV HCC

A data-sharing scheme that supports multi-keyword search for electronic medical records.

As cloud storage technology develops, data sharing of cloud-based electronic medical records (EMRs) has become a hot topic in the academia and healthcare sectors. To solve the problem of secure search and sharing of EMR in cloud platforms, an EMR data-sharing scheme supporting multi-keyword search is proposed. The proposed scheme combines searchable encryption and proxy re-encryption technologies to perform keyword search and achieve secure sharing of encrypted EMR. At the same time, the scheme uses a traceable pseudo identity to protect the patient's private information. Our scheme is proven secure based on the modified Bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption and Quotient Decisional Bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption under the random oracle model. The performance of our scheme is evaluated through theoretical analysis and numerical simulation

Computation costs.

With the development of cloud computing and the application of Internet of Things (IoT) in the smart grid, a massive amount of sensitive data is produced by the terminal equipment. This vast amount of data is subject to various attacks during transmission, from which users must be protected. However, most of the existing schemes require a large amount of network bandwidth resources and cannot ensure the receiver’s anonymity. To solve these shortcomings, we construct a broadcast signcryption scheme supporting equality test based on certificateless cryptosystem. The scheme employs a symmetric encryption algorithm to improve encryption and transmission efficiency; The Lagrange interpolation theorem is used to encrypt the user’s identity to ensure the privacy preservation of terminal devices; And a trusted third party is used to eliminate duplicated ciphertext for identical messages using an equality test, resulting in efficient network bandwidth utilization. Experimental analysis shows that our work has greater advantages in the field of practical broadcast services.</div

Wireless sensor network transmission structure.

With the development of cloud computing and the application of Internet of Things (IoT) in the smart grid, a massive amount of sensitive data is produced by the terminal equipment. This vast amount of data is subject to various attacks during transmission, from which users must be protected. However, most of the existing schemes require a large amount of network bandwidth resources and cannot ensure the receiver’s anonymity. To solve these shortcomings, we construct a broadcast signcryption scheme supporting equality test based on certificateless cryptosystem. The scheme employs a symmetric encryption algorithm to improve encryption and transmission efficiency; The Lagrange interpolation theorem is used to encrypt the user’s identity to ensure the privacy preservation of terminal devices; And a trusted third party is used to eliminate duplicated ciphertext for identical messages using an equality test, resulting in efficient network bandwidth utilization. Experimental analysis shows that our work has greater advantages in the field of practical broadcast services.</div

Comparison of functions.

With the development of cloud computing and the application of Internet of Things (IoT) in the smart grid, a massive amount of sensitive data is produced by the terminal equipment. This vast amount of data is subject to various attacks during transmission, from which users must be protected. However, most of the existing schemes require a large amount of network bandwidth resources and cannot ensure the receiver’s anonymity. To solve these shortcomings, we construct a broadcast signcryption scheme supporting equality test based on certificateless cryptosystem. The scheme employs a symmetric encryption algorithm to improve encryption and transmission efficiency; The Lagrange interpolation theorem is used to encrypt the user’s identity to ensure the privacy preservation of terminal devices; And a trusted third party is used to eliminate duplicated ciphertext for identical messages using an equality test, resulting in efficient network bandwidth utilization. Experimental analysis shows that our work has greater advantages in the field of practical broadcast services.</div

Time cost of signcryption.

With the development of cloud computing and the application of Internet of Things (IoT) in the smart grid, a massive amount of sensitive data is produced by the terminal equipment. This vast amount of data is subject to various attacks during transmission, from which users must be protected. However, most of the existing schemes require a large amount of network bandwidth resources and cannot ensure the receiver’s anonymity. To solve these shortcomings, we construct a broadcast signcryption scheme supporting equality test based on certificateless cryptosystem. The scheme employs a symmetric encryption algorithm to improve encryption and transmission efficiency; The Lagrange interpolation theorem is used to encrypt the user’s identity to ensure the privacy preservation of terminal devices; And a trusted third party is used to eliminate duplicated ciphertext for identical messages using an equality test, resulting in efficient network bandwidth utilization. Experimental analysis shows that our work has greater advantages in the field of practical broadcast services.</div