Loss of p53 Attenuates the Contribution of IL-6 Deletion on Suppressed Tumor Progression and Extended Survival in Kras-Driven Murine Lung Cancer

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is involved in lung cancer tumorigenesis, tumor progression, metastasis, and drug resistance. Previous studies show that blockade of IL-6 signaling can inhibit tumor growth and increase drug sensitivity in mouse models. Clinical trials in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) reveal that IL-6 targeted therapy relieves NSCLC-related anemia and cachexia, although other clinical effects require further study. We crossed IL-6-/- mice with KrasG12D mutant mice, which develop lung tumors after activation of mutant KrasG12D, to investigate whether IL-6 inhibition contributes to tumor progression and survival time in vivo. KrasG12D; IL-6-/- mice exhibited increased tumorigenesis, but slower tumor growth and longer survival, than KrasG12D mice. Further, in order to investigate whether IL-6 deletion contributes to suppression of lung cancer metastasis, we generated KrasG12D; p53flox/flox; IL-6-/- mice, which developed lung cancer with a trend for reduced metastases and longer survival than KrasG12D; p53flox/flox mice. Tumors from KrasG12D; IL-6-/- mice showed increased expression of TNFα and decreased expression of CCL-19, CCL-20 and phosphorylated STAT3 (pSTAT3) than KrasG12D mice; however, these changes were not present between tumors from KrasG12D; p53flox/flox; IL-6-/- and KrasG12D; p53flox/flox mice. Upregulation of pSTAT3 and phosphorylated AKT (pAKT) were observed in KrasG12D tumors with p53 deletion. Taken together, these results indicate that IL-6 deletion accelerates tumorigenesis but delays tumor progression and prolongs survival time in a Kras-driven mouse model of lung cancer. However, these effects can be attenuated by p53 deletion

Studies of Isolated and Non-isolated Photospheric Bright Points in an Active Region Observed by the New Vacuum Solar Telescope

Properties of photospheric bright points (BPs) near an active region have been studied in TiO λ 7058 Å images observed by the New Vacuum Solar Telescope of the Yunnan Observatories. We developed a novel recognition method that was used to identify and track 2010 BPs. The observed evolving BPs are classified into isolated (individual) and non-isolated (where multiple BPs are observed to display splitting and merging behaviors) sets. About 35.1% of BPs are non-isolated. For both isolated and non-isolated BPs, the brightness varies from 0.8 to 1.3 times the average background intensity and follows a Gaussian distribution. The lifetimes of BPs follow a log-normal distribution, with characteristic lifetimes of (267 ± 140) s and (421 ± 255) s, respectively. Their size also follows log-normal distribution, with an average size of about (2.15 ± 0.74) × 104 km2 and (3.00 ± 1.31) × 104 km2 for area, and (163 ± 27) km and (191 ± 40) km for diameter, respectively. Our results indicate that regions with strong background magnetic field have higher BP number density and higher BP area coverage than regions with weak background field. Apparently, the brightness/size of BPs does not depend on the background field. Lifetimes in regions with strong background magnetic field are shorter than those in regions with weak background field, on average

Polarimetric SAR Image Supervised Classification Method Integrating Eigenvalues

Since classification methods based on H/α space have the drawback of yielding poor classification results for terrains with similar scattering features, in this study, we propose a polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image classification method based on eigenvalues. First, we extract eigenvalues and fit their distribution with an adaptive Gaussian mixture model. Then, using the naive Bayesian classifier, we obtain preliminary classification results. The distribution of eigenvalues in two kinds of terrains may be similar, leading to incorrect classification in the preliminary step. So, we calculate the similarity of every terrain pair, and add them to the similarity table if their similarity is greater than a given threshold. We then apply the Wishart distance-based KNN classifier to these similar pairs to obtain further classification results. We used the proposed method on both airborne and spaceborne SAR datasets, and the results show that our method can overcome the shortcoming of the H/α-based unsupervised classification method for eigenvalues usage, and produces comparable results with the Support Vector Machine (SVM)-based classification method

coadsorptiononapt111surfacepartiallycoveredwithfeoxnanostructures

The adsorption of co on pt group metals, as a most fundamental elementary reaction step, has been widely studied in catalysis and electrocatalysis. particularly, the structures of co on pt(111) have been extensively investigated, owing to its importance to both fundamental and applied catalysis. yet, much less is known regarding co adsorption on a pt(111) surface modulated by supported oxide nanostructures, which is of more relevance to technical catalysis. we thus investigated the coverage-dependent adsorption of co on a pt(111) surface partially covered by feox nanostructures, which has been demonstrated as a remarkable catalyst for low-temperature co oxidation. we found that, due to its strong chemisorption, the coverage-dependent structure of co on bare pt is not influenced by the presence of feox. but, oxygen-terminated feox nanostructures could modulate the diffusivity of co at their vicinity, and thus affect the formation of ordered co superstructures at low temperatures. using scanning tunneling microscopy (stm), we inspected the diffusivity of co, followed the phase transitions of co domains, and resolved the molecular details of the coverage-dependent co structures. our results provide a full picture for co adsorption on a pt(111) surface modulated by oxide nanostructures and shed lights on the inter-adsorbate interaction on metal surfaces. (c) 2017 science press and dalian institute of chemical physics, chinese academy of sciences. published by elsevier b.v. and science press. all rights reserved

Structural transformation of h-BN overlayers on Pt(111) in oxidative atmospheres

Interaction of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) with gases is of great importance for its properties and applications. In the present work, the structural changes of h-BN overlayers on Pt(111) in oxidative atmospheres including O-2 and NO2 have been investigated by using low energy electron microscopy, Auger electron spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and near ambient pressure XPS. We find that h-BN islands can be intercalated by oxygen in 10(-6) Torr O-2 at 200 degrees C, while oxygen intercalation of full layer h-BN around 200 degrees C requires near ambient pressure O-2 (0.1 Torr) or such a strong oxidant as NO2 (10(-6) Torr). h-BN overlayers can be etched away in the gases at much high temperatures, e.g. 800 degrees C. Upon mild oxidation in O-2 or NO2 at temperatures of 400-450 degrees C, h-BN is transformed to boron oxide (BOx) overlayers, which can be converted back to h-BN by heating in NH3 at 800 degrees C