BioID indicates the involvement of the TRAPP protein TrappC11 in autophagy

The Transport protein particle (TRAPP) complexes are molecular machines that function in various membrane transport processes including the secretory pathway. Recently, one form of the TRAPP complex, TRAPPIII, has been shown to be involved in autophagy, a cellular recycling process that delivers cytoplasmic components to lysosomes for degradation. Mutations in TrappC11, one subunit in TRAPPIII, have been reported to be associated with muscular dystrophy and intellectual disability. To understand mutated TrappC11 could lead to the phenotypes, I employed BioID to identify TrappC11 interacting proteins. To perform BioID, I constructed TrappC11 fused to BirA*, a biotin ligase that catalyzes the biotinylation of proteins within proximity to the fusion protein. The biotinylated proteins were then isolated and identified by mass spectrometry. The BioID approach revealed the autophagy-related proteins Atg2A, Atg2B, WDR45, p62/SQSTM1, and NBR1 as potential TrappC11 interacting partners, suggesting the involvement of TrappC11 in autophagy. Consistently, transient and stable knockdown of TrappC11 in HeLa cells both resulted in an accumulation of autophagosomes in non-starved cells as well as an increase of cellular lipid droplets. The distribution of lysosomes was also effected by the TrappC11 knockdown. Moreover, expression of eGFP-TrappC11 resulted in the formation of cytoplasmic puncta that partially overlapped with p62/SQSTM1, consistent with the BioID data that suggested an interaction between TrappC11 and this selective autophagy receptor. Taken together, my data indicate that TrappC11 might have an important role in non-starvation induced autophagy

Geo-locating Drivers: A Study of Sensitive Data Leakage in Ride-Hailing Services.

Increasingly, mobile application-based ride-hailing services have become a very popular means of transportation. Due to the handling of business logic, these services also contain a wealth of privacy-sensitive information such as GPS locations, car plates, driver licenses, and payment data. Unlike many of the mobile applications in which there is only one type of users, ride-hailing services face two types of users: riders and drivers. While most of the efforts had focused on the rider’s privacy, unfortunately, we notice little has been done to protect drivers. To raise the awareness of the privacy issues with drivers, in this paper we perform the first systematic study of the drivers’ sensitive data leakage in ride-hailing services. More specifically, we select 20 popular ride-hailing apps including Uber and Lyft and focus on one particular feature, namely the nearby cars feature. Surprisingly, our experimental results show that largescale data harvesting of drivers is possible for all of the ridehailing services we studied. In particular, attackers can determine with high-precision the driver’s privacy-sensitive information including mostly visited address (e.g., home) and daily driving behaviors. Meanwhile, attackers can also infer sensitive information about the business operations and performances of ride-hailing services such as the number of rides, utilization of cars, and presence on the territory. In addition to presenting the attacks, we also shed light on the countermeasures the service providers could take to protect the driver’s sensitive information

Highly thermostable mixed lanthanide organic frameworks with high quantum yield for warm white light-emitting diodes

A mixed lanthanide organic framework was prepared via hydrothermal methods using m-phthalic acid (m-H2BDC), 1,10-phenanthroline (1,10-Phen), and Ln3+ ions, formulated as [HNMe2][Eu0.095Tb1.905(m-BDC)3(phen)2] (ZTU-6). The structure and stability of ZTU-6 were characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), which revealed a three-dimensional pcu topology with high thermal stability. Fluorescence tests showed that ZTU-6 emitted orange light with a high quantum yield of 79.15%, and it can be effectively encapsulated in a light-emitting diode (LED) device emitting orange light. In addition, ZTU-6 was found to be compatible with BaMgAl10O17:Eu2+ (BAM) blue powder and [(Sr,Ba)2SiO4:Eu2+] silicate yellow and green powder to create a warm white LED with a high colour rendering index (CRI) of 93.4, a correlated colour temperature (CCT) of 3908 K, and CIE coordinates of (0.38, 036)

Expression of CIAPIN1 in human colorectal cancer and its correlation with prognosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The cytokine-induced anti-apoptotic molecule (CIAPIN1) had been found to be a differentially-expressed gene involved in a variety of cancers, and it was also considered as a candidate tumour suppressor gene in gastric cancer, renal cancer and liver cancer. However, studies on the role of CIAPIN1 in colorectal cancer were still unavailable. The aim of this study was to determine the prognostic impact of CIAPIN1 in 273 colorectal cancer (CRC) samples and to investigate the CIAPIN1 expression in CRC cell lines after inducing differentiation.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Immunohistochemical analysis was performed to detect the expression of CIAPIN1 in CRC samples from 273 patients. The relationship between CIAPIN1 expression and patients' characteristics (gender, age, location of cancer, UICC stage, local recurrence and tumour grade factors) was evaluated. In addition, these patients were followed up for five consecutive years to investigate the relationship between CIAPIN1 expression and the prognosis of CRC. We induced the differentiation of the CRC cell lines HT29 and SW480, in order to detect the expression of CIAPIN1 in the process of CRC cells differentiation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Results indicated that CIAPIN1 was mainly expressed in the cytoplasm and nucleus, and that its expression level in cancer samples was significantly lower than in normal tissues. The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test showed a significant difference in the differential expression of CIAPIN1 in patients with different T and UICC stages, and tumour grade (<it>P </it>= 0.0393, 0.0297 and 0.0397, respectively). The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis demonstrated that the survival time of CRC patients with high expression of CIAPIN1 was longer than those with low expression during the 5-year follow up period (<it>P </it>= 0.0002). COX regression analysis indicated that low expression of CIAPIN1, cancer stage of > pT1, distant organ metastasis (pM₁), regional lymph node metastasis (> pN₁) and local recurrence (yes) were independent, poor prognostic factors of CRC (<it>P </it>= 0.012, <it>P </it>= 0.032, <it>P <</it>0.001, <it>P <</it>0.001, <it>P <</it>0.001 respectively). Both Western blotting and RT-PCR showed that CIAPIN1 expression was increased with the degree of differentiation of HT29 and SW480 cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>CIAPIN1 played an important role in the differentiation of CRC cells, and the differential expression of CIAPIN1 in CRC was closely related to prognosis.</p

MiR-218 Inhibits Invasion and Metastasis of Gastric Cancer by Targeting the Robo1 Receptor

MicroRNAs play key roles in tumor metastasis. Here, we describe the regulation and function of miR-218 in gastric cancer (GC) metastasis. miR-218 expression is decreased along with the expression of one of its host genes, Slit3 in metastatic GC. However, Robo1, one of several Slit receptors, is negatively regulated by miR-218, thus establishing a negative feedback loop. Decreased miR-218 levels eliminate Robo1 repression, which activates the Slit-Robo1 pathway through the interaction between Robo1 and Slit2, thus triggering tumor metastasis. The restoration of miR-218 suppresses Robo1 expression and inhibits tumor cell invasion and metastasis in vitro and in vivo. Taken together, our results describe a Slit-miR-218-Robo1 regulatory circuit whose disruption may contribute to GC metastasis. Targeting miR-218 may provide a strategy for blocking tumor metastasis

Comparative Research of Chinese and American Game Mechanism Design

The video game industry is one of the most influential entertainment industries, which has been generating high revenue and developing rapidly in recent years. However, in recent years, social problems caused by video games have emerged in China. This article proposes that game mechanism is an important kernel of game design and has a crucial influence on the social significance of games. By comparing China and the United States, the article analyzes the history of game mechanism design in both sides, draws the reasons for the healthy development of the game industry in America and uncovers the problems of the game industry in China, and proposes optimization strategies for game mechanism design in China in combination with the current situation

Comparative Research of Chinese and American Game Mechanism Design

The video game industry is one of the most influential entertainment industries, which has been generating high revenue and developing rapidly in recent years. However, in recent years, social problems caused by video games have emerged in China. This article proposes that game mechanism is an important kernel of game design and has a crucial influence on the social significance of games. By comparing China and the United States, the article analyzes the history of game mechanism design in both sides, draws the reasons for the healthy development of the game industry in America and uncovers the problems of the game industry in China, and proposes optimization strategies for game mechanism design in China in combination with the current situation

Automatic Uncovering of Hidden Behaviors from Input Validation in Mobile Apps

Mobile applications (apps) have exploded in popularity, with billions of smartphone users using millions of apps available through markets such as the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. While these apps have rich and useful functionality that is publicly exposed to end users, they also contain hidden behaviors that are not disclosed, such as backdoors and blacklists designed to block unwanted content. In this paper, we show that the input validation behavior—the way the mobile apps process and respond to data entered by users—can serve as a powerful tool for uncovering such hidden functionality. We therefore have developed a tool, InputScope, that automatically detects both the execution context of user input validation and also the content involved in the validation, to automatically expose the secrets of interest. We have tested InputScope with over 150,000 mobile apps, including popular apps from major app stores and pre- installed apps shipped with the phone, and found 12,706 mobile apps with backdoor secrets and 4,028 mobile apps containing blacklist secrets