Silencing of rhomboid domain containing 1 to inhibit the metastasis of human breast cancer cells in vitro

Objective(s): A growing body of evidence indicates that rhomboid domain containing 1 (RHBDD1) plays an important role in a variety of physiological and pathological processes, including tumorigenesis. We aimed to determine the function of RHBDD1 in breast cancer cells. Materials and Methods: In this study, we used the Oncomine™ database to determine the expression patterns of RHBDD1 in normal and breast cancer tissues. We performed lentiviral transfection of RHBDD1-specific small interfering RNA into the breast cancer cell lines ZR-75-30 and MDA-MB-231 in order to investigate the effects of RHBDD1 deficiency on breast cancer metastasis. Results: We found that knockdown of RHBDD1 inhibited breast cancer cell migration and invasion in vitro. Moreover, knockdown of RHBDD1 promoted epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) by suppressing the expression of MPP2, MPP9, fibronectin 1, vimentin, SRY-box 2, zinc finger E-box binding homeobox 1, and snail family transcriptional repressor 1, and promoting the expression of cadherin 1. Additionally, knockdown of RHBDD1 inhibited the protein expression and phosphorylation of Akt.Conclusion: Our data indicate that RHBDD1 overexpression may promote breast cancer metastasis via the regulation of EMT, suggesting that RHBDD1 may be an important regulator of breast cancer metastasis

Rethink Transfer Learning in Medical Image Classification

Transfer learning (TL) with deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) is crucial for modern medical image classification (MIC). However, the current practice of finetuning the entire pretrained model is puzzling, as most MIC tasks rely only on low- to mid-level features that are learned by up to mid layers of DCNNs. To resolve the puzzle, we perform careful empirical comparisons of several existing deep and shallow models, and propose a novel truncated TL method that consistently leads to comparable or superior performance and compact models on two MIC tasks. Our results highlight the importance of transferring the right level of pretrained visual features commensurate with the intrinsic complexity of the task

FDX1 inhibits thyroid cancer malignant progression by inducing cuprotosis

Cuprotosis is a recently identified cell death form that caused by intracellular copper accumulation and regulated by FDX1. This work aimed to explore the role of cuprotosis and the pivotal regulatory gene FDX1 in thyroid cancer development. We observed that expression of FDX1 in tumor section was notably lower than that in non-tumor sections in clinical samples. Induction of cuprotosis by elesclomol (ES) significantly repressed the in vitro and in vivo growth of thyroid cancer cells, simultaneously elevated Cu level and expression of FDX1, whereas depletion of FDX1 abolished these effects. Knockdown of FDX1 decreased the lipoylation level of DLAT and DLST in thyroid cancer cells, alleviated cuprotosis-induced cell death, simultaneously upregulated the levels of PA and α-KG. These findings demonstrated that FDX1 promotes the cuprotosis of thyroid cancer cells via regulating the lipoylation of DLAT

Kinetic Study on the Preparation of Aluminum Fluoride Based on Fluosilicic Acid

Reasonable mathematical derivation and mechanism model in the process of producing aluminum fluoride by fluosilicic acid is the key to the industrial treatment of fluorine resources in the tail gas of phosphate ore. In this work, aluminum fluoride was generated directly by fluosilicic acid to extract fl uorine from the tail gas of phosphate rock. The uncreated-core model dominated by interfacial reaction and the uncreated-core model dominated by internal diffusion-reaction were then respectively utilized to describe the reaction kinetics of the generation of aluminum fluoride. The result showed that the uncreated-core model was dominated by interface reaction and internal diffusion, the apparent reaction order n = 1, and the activation energy Ea = 30.8632 kJ . mol–1. Product characterization and kinetic analysis were employed to deduce the reaction mechanism of preparing aluminum fluoride. The theoretical basis for the low-cost recycling of fluorine resources in the tail gas of industrial phosphate ore was provided in this work

Ammonium sulfite pretreatment of wheat straw for efficient enzymatic saccharification

Pretreatment is an important upstream process that affects the economics of biofuels production from lignocellulose. This study established a novel pretreatment process for efficient bioconversion of wheat straw using ammonium sulfite as pretreatment option. Effects of temperature, time, ammonium sulfite concentration and sodium carbonate supplementation level on pretreatment were evaluated. 99.9% of glucan and 88.0% of xylan were hydrolyzed with 35 FPU cellulase and 70 FXU xylanase (per gram of dry biomass) in 24 h after pretreatment by 20% (w/w) ammonium sulfite supplemented with 4% (based on ammonium sulfite dosage) sodium carbonate at 180 degrees C for 1 h. Total monosaccharide yield of 0.413 g/g native wheat straw was achieved with 82.6% acid insoluble lignin removal. Characterization results of flourier translation infrared spectrum revealed that lignin can be removed by sulfonation and ammonolysis. The results in the research provide an efficient method for lignocellulose pretreatment

Enhanced enzymatic hydrolysis and acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation of sugarcane bagasse by combined diluted acid with oxidate ammonolysis pretreatment

This study aims to propose a biorefinery pretreatment technology for the bioconversion of sugarcane bagasse (SB) into biofuels and N-fertilizers. Performance of diluted acid (DA), aqueous ammonia (AA), oxidate ammonolysis (OA) and the combined DA with AA or OA were compared in SB pretreatment by enzymatic hydrolysis, structural characterization and acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation. Results indicated that DA-OA pretreatment improves the digestibility of SB by sufficiently hydrolyzing hemicellulose into fermentable monosaccharides and oxidating lignin into soluble N-fertilizer with high nitrogen content (11.25%) and low C/N ratio (3.39). The enzymatic hydrolysates from DA-OA pretreated SB mainly composed of glucose was more suitable for the production of ABE solvents than the enzymatic hydrolysates from OA pretreated SB containing high ratio of xylose. The fermentation of enzymatic hydrolysates from DA-OA pretreated SB produced 12.12 g/L ABE in 120 h. These results suggested that SB could be utilized efficient, economic, and environmental by DA-OA pretreatment. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Atlanta Neighborhood Change Report (1980-2000)

How To Use This Report - This web site is designed to provide information about the City of Atlanta’s 24 Neighborhood Planning Units (NPU’s) and 139 neighborhoods that is useful for city planners, community leaders, social workers and other professionals that have need for a careful demographic analysis. Please see the methodology section for a thorough description of neighborhood and NPU boundaries. The report is composed primarily of tables, charts and graphs, as well as selected pictures of the communities, showing common trends, and Geographic Information System (GIS) maps to give the user an orientation to their neighborhood of interest. No written analyses or interpretations of the results are reported here. We leave such work up to the users of the report. The report is divided into three geographic levels: city, Neighborhood Planning Unit (NPU), and neighborhood. Based on the 1980 and 1990 Census User Defined Areas (UDAP) and 2000 Census of Population and Housing, different tables, charts and graphs were made for each geographic level. It is important to note that not all variables are reported for each level. We welcome suggestions for adding variables to this site since we view it as a report in progress, and we plan periodic updates. The architecture of the site presents information under the following hierarchy: City of Atlanta, NPU, and neighborhood. It is possible, however, to move from one level to the other without going through an intermediate level. The information presented in this electronic report has been developed by students and staff at the Georgia Institute of Technology under the direction of Professor David Sawicki. It is the product of a partnership between the staff at GT’s Data And Policy Analysis group and students in the City and Regional Planning Program. Please feel free to use this information in your work, but citing “GT City Planning/DAPA” as your data source.David Sawick

Hydrotropic pretreatment on wheat straw for efficient biobutanol production

Pretreatment is an important upstream process that affects the economics of biofuels production from lignocellulose. Hydrotropic reagent sodium xylene sulfonate (SXS) was used in this study to treat wheat straw for efficient butanol production. Effects of temperature, time, SXS concentration on pretreatment were evaluated. In addition, a modified SXS pretreatment method with pH adjusted to 3.5 by formic acid was also conducted for efficient wheat straw conversion by removing hemicellulose fraction. Composition analysis, structure characterization, enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation tests were conducted. The results showed that modified SXS pretreatment can be considered as an efficient method for improving wheat straw conversion efficiency for ABE production. The hexoses and pentoses in the enzymatic hydrolysates can be used by C. acetobutylicum for butanol production with 12.41 g L-1 ABE produced, and the overall ABE yield of 100 g ABE/kg wheat straw was obtained. This study revealed that hydrotropic pretreatment provides an alternative potential to the conventional pretreatment processes for butanol production