Gene Expression Barcode Values Reveal a Potential Link between Parkinson\u27s Disease and Gastric Cancer

Gastric cancer is a disease that develops from the lining of the stomach, whereas Parkinson\u27s disease is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. Although these two diseases seem to be distinct from each other, increasing evidence suggests that they might be linked. To explore the linkage between these two diseases, differentially expressed genes between the diseased people and their normal controls were identified using the barcode algorithm. This algorithm transforms actual gene expression values into barcode values comprised of 1\u27s (expressed genes) and 0\u27s (silenced genes). Once the overlapped differentially expressed genes were identified, their biological relevance was investigated. Thus, using the gene expression profiles and bioinformatics methods, we demonstrate that Parkinson\u27s disease and gastric cancer are indeed linked. This research may serve as a pilot study, and it will stimulate more research to investigate the relationship between gastric cancer and Parkinson\u27s disease from the perspective of gene profiles and their functions

Maize microrna166 inactivation confers plant development and abiotic stress resistance

MicroRNAs are important regulators in plant developmental processes and stress responses. In this study, we generated a series of maize STTM166 transgenic plants. Knock-down of miR166 resulted in various morphological changes, including rolled leaves, enhanced abiotic stress resistance, inferior yield-related traits, vascular pattern and epidermis structures, tassel architecture, as well as abscisic acid (ABA) level elevation and indole acetic acid (IAA) level reduction in maize. To profile miR166 regulated genes, we performed RNA-seq and qRT-PCR analysis. A total of 178 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, including 118 up-regulated and 60 down-regulated genes. These DEGs were strongly enriched in cell and intercellular components, cell membrane system components, oxidoreductase activity, single organism metabolic process, carbohydrate metabolic process, and oxidation reduction process. These results indicated that miR166 plays important roles in auxin and ABA interaction in monocots, yet the specific mechanism may differ from dicots. The enhanced abiotic stress resistance is partly caused via rolling leaves, high ABA content, modulated vascular structure, and the potential changes of cell membrane structure. The inferior yield-related traits and late flowering are partly controlled by the decreased IAA content, the interplay of miR166 with other miRNAs and AGOs. Taken together, the present study uncovered novel functions of miR166 in maize, and provide insights on applying short tandem target mimics (STTM) technology in plant breeding

Study on defect-free debinding green body of ceramic formed by DLP technology

Zirconia and hydroxyapatite(HA) are two typical implant materials, which have the advantages of excellent mechanical strength and good biological activity respectively. It was found that composite material had good biocompatibility and mechanical strength compared to the single material. In this paper, the porous scaffolds of ZrO2/HA composite were formed by digital light processing (DLP) technology and their performance were evaluated. Cell experiments showed that the addition of HA had a positive effect on cell proliferation and differentiation. Mechanical tests showed that the composite scaffold with 10 wt% HA had the best compressive capacity due to the pinning and bridging effect of a small amount of HA grains. When scaffolds were immersed in the simulated body fluid (SBF), the compressive strengths of the composite scaffolds decreased within the first 14 days and gradually increased after 14 days. The reason for this phenomenon was the degradation of calcium phosphate components and the deposition of apatite. By the 28th day, the compressive strengths of all the composite scaffolds increased to over 20 MPa, close to that of the zirconia scaffolds during the same period (25 MPa). The compressive strengths of all scaffolds met the requirement of cancellous bone during the entire soaking period, and the composite scaffolds have potential application value in bone repair

Template Synthesis of Carbon Nanofibers Containing Linear Mesocage Arrays

Carbon nanofibers containing linear mesocage arrays were prepared via evaporation induced self-assembly method within AAO template with an average channel diameter of about 25 nm. The TEM results show that the mesocages have an elongated shape in the transversal direction. The results of N2 adsorption–desorption analysis indicate that the sample possesses a cage-like mesoporous structure and the average mesopore size of the sample is about 18 nm

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Effect of minor Sc on the microstructure and mechanical properties of AZ91 Magnesium Alloy

The as-cast and heat-treated microstructures and mechanical properties of the AZ91 magnesium alloys with and without minor Sc addition were investigated and compared in this paper. The results indicated that adding 0.15–0.45 wt% Sc to the as-cast AZ91 alloy not only could modify and refine the Mg17Al12 phase but also suppress the formation of the Mg17Al12 phase. At the same time, the grains of the Sc-containing as-cast AZ91 alloys were also effectively refined. As a result, the mechanical properties at room temperature (RT) for the Sc-containing as-cast AZ91 alloys were effectively improved. In addition, adding 0.15–0.45 wt%Sc to the AZ91 alloy promoted the formation of the continuous precipitates (CP) during the aging treatment in spite of that the formation of the discontinuous precipitates (DP) was simultaneously suppressed. Accordingly, the Sc-containing as-aged AZ91 alloys obtained the relatively higher mechanical properties at RT than the as-aged AZ91 alloy. Keywords: AZ91 magnesium alloys, Sc, Heat treatment, Microstructure, Mechanical propertie

Mechanical Properties and Microstructure of Magnesium-Aluminum Based Alloys Containing Strontium

The mechanical properties and processing performances of conventional magnesium alloys still could not meet the need of important application fields due to some demerits, such as poor formability, low creep resistance and unsatisfactory strength at elevated temperature. Recent investigations have shown that additions of strontium to magnesium alloys are effective in improving creep resistance of the alloys at temperatures above 150 C, and some new types of magnesium alloys containing strontium have been developed. The mechanical properties and microstructure of magnesium-aluminum based alloys containing strontium are reviewed, and the considerable discrepancy among the research results is discussed. Special attentions are paid to the mechanical properties, compounds and grain refinement of Mg-Al-Sr based alloys. The Sr/Al ratio is thought to be important to control the microstructure of Mg-Al-Sr alloys. The mechanism of grain refinement caused by strontium addition in magnesium alloys remains unclear

Identification of Monotonically Differentially Expressed Genes across Pathologic Stages for Cancers

Given the fact that cancer is a multistage progression process resulting from genetic sequence mutations, the genes whose expression values increase or decrease monotonically across pathologic stages are potentially involved in tumor progression. This may provide insightful clues about how human cancers advance, thereby facilitating more personalized treatments. By replacing the expression values of genes with their GeneRanks, we propose a procedure capable of identifying monotonically differentially expressed genes (MEGs) as the disease advances. Using three real-world gene expression data that cover three distinct cancer types—colon, esophageal, and lung cancers—the proposed procedure has demonstrated excellent performance in detecting the potential MEGs. To conclude, the proposed procedure can detect MEGs across pathologic stages of cancers very efficiently and is thus highly recommended