MicroRNA-181a Functions as an Oncogene in Gastric Cancer by Targeting Caprin-1

MicroRNA-181a (miRNA-181a) is a multifaceted miRNA implicated in various cellular processes, particularly in cell fate determination and cellular invasion. It is frequently expressed aberrantly in human tumors and shows opposing functions in different types of cancers. In this study, we found that miRNA-181a is overexpressed in Gastric cancer (GC) tissues. Clinical and pathological analyses revealed that the expression of miRNA-181a is correlated with tumor size, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, and TNM stage. Kaplan-Meier analysis indicated that overexpression of miRNA-181a is associated with poor overall survival of patients with GC. Moreover, miRNA-181a is overexpressed in GC cells, and downregulation of miRNA-181a induced cell apoptosis and suppressed the proliferation, invasion, and metastasis of GC cells both in vitro and in vivo. Target prediction and luciferase reporter assay showed that caprin-1 was a direct target of miRNA-181a. Downregulation of caprin-1 expression resulted in a converse change with miRNA-181a in GC. Spearman’s correlation test confirmed that the expression of miRNA-181a expression was inversely correlated with that of caprin-1 in GC cells. Furthermore, the expression of caprin-1 increased after downregulation of miRNA-181a in the GC cells. Caprin-1 siRNA can rescue the oncogenic effect of miRNA-181a on GC cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion. These findings suggest that miRNA-181a directly inhibits caprin-1 and promotes GC development. miRNA-181a could be a target for anticancer drug development

Oral Administration of Escin Inhibits Acute Inflammation and Reduces Intestinal Mucosal Injury in Animal Models

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of oral administration of escin on acute inflammation and intestinal mucosal injury in animal models. The effects of escin on carrageenan-induced paw edema in a rat model of acute inflammation, cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) induced intestinal mucosal injury in a mouse model, were observed. It was shown that oral administration of escin inhibits carrageenan-induced paw edema and decreases the production of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and cyclooxygenase- (COX-) 2. In CLP model, low dose of escin ameliorates endotoxin induced liver injury and intestinal mucosal injury and increases the expression of tight junction protein claudin-5 in mice. These findings suggest that escin effectively inhibits acute inflammation and reduces intestinal mucosal injury in animal models

Conservative surgery in stage I placental site trophoblastic tumor: a report of 10 cases and literature review

Background and purpose: Placental site trophoblastic tumor (PSTT) is a rare type of malignant tumor. Because of its unique mode of invasion in the uterus and its insensitivity to chemotherapy, total hysterectomy is the primary recommendation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility and safety of conservative surgical treatment in patients with stage Ⅰ PSTT. Methods: The patients with stage Ⅰ PSTT admitted to Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University from January 2015 to December 2021 were included, and those published on Pubmed and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) from January 1990 to December 2021 were searched with the keywords of “placental site trophoblastic tumor” and “case”, “placental trophoblastic tumor” and “case” respectively. The clinicopathological data of the patients were collected and retrospectively analyzed. Results: A total of 10 cases admitted to Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University were enrolled. The median age was 27 years. The most common symptom was irregular vaginal bleeding (70.0%). The median time of interval since antecedent pregnancy (ISAP) was 14.5 months. The median level of β-human chorionic gonadotrophin (β-hCG) was 124.51 mU/mL, and the diameter of the focus was 0.8-8.0 cm. All 10 patients admitted to Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University achieved complete remission after initial treatment. The average follow-up time was 48.1 months and there was no recurrence. Three patients became pregnant naturally after treatment, including 2 cases of full-term pregnancy and delivery and 1 case of induced abortion because of unplanned pregnancy. Literature review of PSTT cases showed similar clinicopathological distribution and disease outcome. Conclusion: Conservative surgery could be an alternative choice for selected patients with stage Ⅰ PSTT, but more research is needed to provide evidence

Machine learning-based early diagnosis of autism according to eye movements of real and artificial faces scanning

BackgroundStudies on eye movements found that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) had abnormal gaze behavior to social stimuli. The current study aimed to investigate whether their eye movement patterns in relation to cartoon characters or real people could be useful in identifying ASD children.MethodsEye-tracking tests based on videos of cartoon characters and real people were performed for ASD and typically developing (TD) children aged between 12 and 60 months. A three-level hierarchical structure including participants, events, and areas of interest was used to arrange the data obtained from eye-tracking tests. Random forest was adopted as the feature selection tool and classifier, and the flattened vectors and diagnostic information were used as features and labels. A logistic regression was used to evaluate the impact of the most important features.ResultsA total of 161 children (117 ASD and 44 TD) with a mean age of 39.70 ± 12.27 months were recruited. The overall accuracy, precision, and recall of the model were 0.73, 0.73, and 0.75, respectively. Attention to human-related elements was positively related to the diagnosis of ASD, while fixation time for cartoons was negatively related to the diagnosis.ConclusionUsing eye-tracking techniques with machine learning algorithms might be promising for identifying ASD. The value of artificial faces, such as cartoon characters, in the field of ASD diagnosis and intervention is worth further exploring

総会抄録

<p>Antibody responses and protection of offspring when mothers were immunized via the IN route and their offspring via the IN route<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0157041#t004fn001" target="_blank">^a</a>.</p