Circ_0000284 facilitates the growth, metastasis and glycolysis of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma through miR-152-3p-mediated PDK1 expression

Background. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are key molecules in the regulation of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) progression. The purpose of this study was to analyze the function and underlying molecular mechanism of circ_0000284 in ICC. Methods. Quantitative real-time PCR was used to analyze the circ_0000284, microRNA (miR)-152-3p and pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1 (PDK1) expression. Cell proliferation, apoptosis, invasion and migration were executed by cell counting kit 8 assay, EdU assay, flow cytometry, transwell assay and wound healing assay, respectively. All protein expression levels were examined using western blot analysis. Cell glycolysis was analyzed by detecting glucose consumption, lactate production and ATP/ADP ratios. Target relationship was estimated by dual-luciferase reporter assay. The effect of circ_0000284 on ICC tumor growth in vivo was evaluated by constructing xenograft mice model. Results. We detected high expression of circ_0000284 in ICC tumor tissues and cells. Downregulated circ_0000284 inhibited ICC cell proliferation, invasion, migration, glycolysis, and accelerated apoptosis. MiR-152-3p was sponged by circ_0000284, and its inhibitor revoked the effect of circ_0000284 knockdown on ICC cell progression. PDK1 was a target of miR-152-3p, and its expression was suppressed by circ_0000284 knockdown. PDK1 overexpression reversed the inhibition effect of miR-152-3p on ICC cell growth, metastasis and glycolysis. In animal experiments, circ_0000284 downregulation also inhibited ICC tumor growth. Conclusion. Circ_0000284 promoted the growth, metastasis and glycolysis of ICC by miR-152-3p/PDK1 pathway, showing that circ_0000284 was a potential therapeutic target for ICC

N-[4-(4-Fluoro­phen­yl)-5-hy­droxy­methyl-6-isopropyl­pyrimidin-2-yl]-N-methyl­methane­sulfonamide

In the title compound, C16H20FN3O3S, the pyrimidine and benzene rings are oriented at a dihedral angle of 38.8 (3)°. An intra­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bond occurs. The crystal structure is stabilized by O—H⋯N hydrogen bonds. In addition, C—H⋯O inter­actions are also present

Tunable Atomically Wide Electrostatic Barriers Embedded in a Graphene WSe2 Heterostructure

Inducing and controlling electrostatic barriers in two-dimensional (2D) quantum materials has shown extraordinary promise to enable control of charge carriers, and is key for the realization of nanoscale electronic and optoelectronic devices1-10. Because of their atomically thin nature, the 2D materials have a congenital advantage to construct the thinnest possible p-n junctions1,3,7,9,10. To realize the ultimate functional unit for future nanoscale devices, creating atomically wide electrostatic barriers embedded in 2D materials is desired and remains an extremely challenge. Here we report the creation and manipulation of atomically wide electrostatic barriers embedded in graphene WSe2 heterostructures. By using a STM tip, we demonstrate the ability to generate a one-dimensional (1D) atomically wide boundary between 1T-WSe2 domains and continuously tune positions of the boundary because of ferroelasticity of the 1T-WSe2. Our experiment indicates that the 1D boundary introduces atomically wide electrostatic barriers in graphene above it. Then the 1D electrostatic barrier changes a single graphene WSe2 heterostructure quantum dot from a relativistic artificial atom to a relativistic artificial molecule

Not Just Learning from Others but Relying on Yourself: A New Perspective on Few-Shot Segmentation in Remote Sensing

Few-shot segmentation (FSS) is proposed to segment unknown class targets with just a few annotated samples. Most current FSS methods follow the paradigm of mining the semantics from the support images to guide the query image segmentation. However, such a pattern of `learning from others' struggles to handle the extreme intra-class variation, preventing FSS from being directly generalized to remote sensing scenes. To bridge the gap of intra-class variance, we develop a Dual-Mining network named DMNet for cross-image mining and self-mining, meaning that it no longer focuses solely on support images but pays more attention to the query image itself. Specifically, we propose a Class-public Region Mining (CPRM) module to effectively suppress irrelevant feature pollution by capturing the common semantics between the support-query image pair. The Class-specific Region Mining (CSRM) module is then proposed to continuously mine the class-specific semantics of the query image itself in a `filtering' and `purifying' manner. In addition, to prevent the co-existence of multiple classes in remote sensing scenes from exacerbating the collapse of FSS generalization, we also propose a new Known-class Meta Suppressor (KMS) module to suppress the activation of known-class objects in the sample. Extensive experiments on the iSAID and LoveDA remote sensing datasets have demonstrated that our method sets the state-of-the-art with a minimum number of model parameters. Significantly, our model with the backbone of Resnet-50 achieves the mIoU of 49.58% and 51.34% on iSAID under 1-shot and 5-shot settings, outperforming the state-of-the-art method by 1.8% and 1.12%, respectively. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/HanboBizl/DMNet.Comment: accepted to IEEE TGR

A Retrospective Cohort Study Comparing Stroke Recurrence Rate in Ischemic Stroke Patients With and Without Acupuncture Treatment.

Little was known about the effects of acupuncture on stroke recurrence. The aim of this study is to investigate whether ischemic stroke patients receiving acupuncture treatment have a decreased risk of stroke recurrence. A retrospective cohort study of 30,058 newly diagnosed cases of ischemic stroke in 2000 to 2004 was conducted based on the claims of Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. The use of acupuncture treatment and stroke recurrence were identified during the follow-up period from 2000 to 2009. This study compared the risk of stroke recurrence between ischemic stroke cohorts with and without acupuncture treatment by calculating adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of acupuncture associated with stroke recurrence in the Cox proportional hazard model. The stroke recurrence rate per 1000 person-years decreased from 71.4 without to 69.9 with acupuncture treatment (P < 0.001). Acupuncture treatment was associated with reduced risk of stroke recurrence (HR 0.88; 95% CI 0.84-0.91). The acupuncture effect was noted in patients with or without medical treatment for stroke prevention but its impact decreased with aging of stroke patients. Compared with stroke patients without acupuncture treatment and medication therapy, the hazard ratios of stroke recurrence for those had medication therapy only, acupuncture only, and both were 0.42 (95% CI 0.38-0.46), 0.50 (95% CI 0.43-0.57), and 0.39 (95% CI 0.35-0.43), respectively. This study raises the possibility that acupuncture might be effective in lowering stroke recurrence rate even in those on medications for stroke prevention. Results suggest the need of prospective sham-controlled and randomized trials to establish the efficacy of acupuncture in preventing stroke

1-Butyl-3-(1-naphtho­yl)-1H-indole

In the title mol­ecule, C23H21NO, the dihedral angle between the planes of the indole ring and naphthalene ring system is 68.8 (5)°

Characterization of the ompL1 gene of pathogenic Leptospira species in China and cross-immunogenicity of the OmpL1 protein

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The usefulness of available vaccine and serological tests for leptospirosis is limited by the low cross-reactivity of antigens from numerous serovars of pathogenic <it>Leptospira </it>spp. Identification of genus-specific protein antigens (GP-Ag) of <it>Leptospira </it>would be important for development of universal vaccines and serodiagnostic methods. OmpL1, a transmembrane porin of pathogenic leptospires, was identified as a possible GP-Ag, but its sequence diversity and immune cross-reactivity among different serovars of pathogenic leptospires remains largely unknown.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>PCR analysis demonstrated that the <it>ompL1 </it>gene existed in all 15 official Chinese standard strains as well as 163 clinical strains of pathogenic leptospires isolated in China. In the standard strains, the <it>ompL1 </it>gene could be divided into three groups (<it>ompL1/1</it>, <it>ompL1/2 </it>and <it>ompL1/3</it>) according to their sequence identities. Immune electron microscopy demonstrated that all products of the different gene types of <it>ompL1 </it>are located on the surface of leptospires. The microscopic agglutination test revealed extensive yet distinct cross-immunoagglutination among the antisera against recombinant OmpL1 (rOmpL1) and leptospiral strains belonging to different <it>ompL1 </it>gene types. These cross-immunoreactions were further verified by ELISAs using the OmpL1 proteins as the coated antigens in serum samples from 385 leptospirosis patients. All the antisera against rOmpL1 proteins could inhibit <it>L. interrogans </it>strain Lai from adhering to J774A.1 cells. Furthermore, immunization of guinea pigs with each of the rOmpL1 proteins could cause cross-immunoprotection against lethal challenge with leptospires from different <it>ompL1 </it>gene types.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Three types of the <it>ompL1 </it>gene are present in pathogenic leptospires in China. OmpL1 is an immunoprotective GP-Ag which should be considered in the design of new universal vaccines and serodiagnostic methods against leptospirosis.</p