Maintenance of the stemness in CD44+ HCT-15 and HCT-116 human colon cancer cells requires miR-203 suppression

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to isolate cancer stem cells (CSCs, also called tumor-initiating cells, TICs) from established human colorectal carcinoma (CRC) cell lines, characterize them extensively and dissect the mechanism for their stemness. Freshly isolated CD44+ and CD44− cells from the HCT-15 human colon cancer cell line were subjected to various analyses. Interestingly, CD44+ cells exhibited higher soft agar colony-forming ability and in vivo tumorigenicity than CD44− cells. In addition, the significant upregulation of the protein Snail and the downregulation of miR-203, a stemness inhibitor, in CD44+ cells suggested that this population possessed higher invasion/metastasis and differentiation potential than CD44− cells. By manipulating the expression of CD44 in HCT-15 and HCT-116 cells, we found that the levels of several EMT activators and miR-203 were positively and negatively correlated with those of CD44, respectively. Further analyses revealed that miR-203 levels were repressed by Snail, which was shown to bind to specific E-box(es) present in the miR-203 promoter. In agreement, silencing miR-203 expression in wild-type HCT-116 human colon cancer cells also resulted in an increase of their stemness. Finally, we discovered that c-Src kinase activity was required for the downregulation of miR-203 in HCT-15 cells, which was stimulated by the interaction between hyaluronan (HA) and CD44.Taken together, CD44 is a critical molecule for modulating stemness in CSCs. More importantly, we show for the first time that the downregulation of miR-203 by HA/CD44 signaling is the main reason for stemness-maintenance in colon cancer cells

Pilgrimage and Beyond: Going Places, Far and Away

Going Places and Far & Away are two main issues of interest in this volume, generated from the 7th Global Sacred Journeys Conference. This was the first digital or remote conference and was entitled Pilgrimage and Beyon

On the relationship of quality factor and hollow winding structure of coreless printed spiral winding (CPSW) inductor

The principle of using hollow spiral winding is not novel, but the study on this topic is far from complete. In this paper, how hollow the central region of the coreless printed spiral winding (CPSW) inductor should be for a given footprint area in order to achieve the maximal quality factor Q max and to maintain high inductance value is explored. A hollow factor based on the ratio of the inner hollow radius and the outer winding radius τ = R in/R out, is proposed as for optimization and quantifying how hollow a spiral winding is. The relationship between τ and Q max, which depends on the operating frequency and the dimensional parameters of CPSW inductor, is established. For a specific operating frequency, it is discovered that if the conductor width is comparable with the skin depth, or the conductors are placed relatively far away from each others, the hollow design of the CPSW inductor has little improvement on Q but reduces the inductance. If the conductor width is much larger than the skin depth and the conductors are closely placed, the hollow spiral design is recommended. The optimal range of τ with which the Q max can be achieved is found to be around 0.45-0.55. © 2006 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Knowledge-based identification of sleep stages based on two forehead electroencephalogram channels

© 2014 Huang, Lin, Ko, Liu, Su and Lin. Sleep quality is important, especially given the considerable number of sleep-related pathologies. The distribution of sleep stages is a highly effective and objective way of quantifying sleep quality. As a standard multi-channel recording used in the study of sleep, polysomnography (PSG) is a widely used diagnostic scheme in sleep medicine. However, the standard process of sleep clinical test, including PSG recording and manual scoring, is complex, uncomfortable, and time-consuming. This process is difficult to implement when taking the whole PSG measurements at home for general healthcare purposes. This work presents a novel sleep stage classification system, based on features from the two forehead EEG channels FP1 and FP2. By recording EEG from forehead, where there is no hair, the proposed system can monitor physiological changes during sleep in a more practical way than previous systems. Through a headband or self-adhesive technology, the necessary sensors can be applied easily by users at home. Analysis results demonstrate that classification performance of the proposed system overcomes the individual differences between different participants in terms of automatically classifying sleep stages. Additionally, the proposed sleep stage classification system can identify kernel sleep features extracted from forehead EEG, which are closely related with sleep clinician's expert knowledge. Moreover, forehead EEG features are classified into five sleep stages by using the relevance vector machine. In a leave-one-subject-out cross validation analysis, we found our system to correctly classify five sleep stages at an average accuracy of 76.7 ± 4.0 (SD) % [average kappa 0.68 ± 0.06 (SD)]. Importantly, the proposed sleep stage classification system using forehead EEG features is a viable alternative for measuring EEG signals at home easily and conveniently to evaluate sleep quality reliably, ultimately improving public healthcare

Prevalence and awareness of lower urinary tract symptoms among males in the Outpatient Clinics of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre.

This study aims to determine the prevalence of lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) and level of awareness among male outpatients in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (UKMMC). A questionnaire consisting of demographic data, questions related to knowledge, attitude and practice on BPH and the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) was used for this study. Uroflowmetry and bladder scan were used to evaluate the function of the urinary tract and severity of BPH. Urine dipstick was done for glycosuria, proteinuria and haematuria. A total of 220 respondents were surveyed. The prevalence of moderately and severely symptomatic LUTS was 42.7%. The most commonly reported LUTS were nocturia (78.2%), frequency (58.2%) and incomplete emptying (44.6%). The prevalence of glycosuria, proteinuria and haematuria were 23.6%, 11.4% and 1.8% respectively. There was a significant association between increasing age with the severity of LUTS (p=0.005). Out of 102 respondents with voided urine volume greater than 150 mL, there was a significant decrease in maximum (Qmax) (p=0.039) and average (Qave) urine flow rates with every 10 years increase of age (p=0.001). The majority of respondents (59.5%) have heard of BPH before. Over 78.2% of the respondents would seek medical attention if they have LUTS with 15.9% saying they would seek traditional treatment. In conclusion, the prevalence of LUTS was high and the level of awareness was satisfactory

Marginally Better: My Husband’s Lover And Gay Portrayal

My Husband’s Lover is a Philippine telenovela that has garnered critical and commercial success (and along the way catapulting its two stars to A-list status), mainly due to a premise that heavily mirrors Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005) but that which is unique to generally conservative Philippine society. Two high school best friends Eric Del Mundo (Dennis Trillo) and Vincent Soriano (Tom Rodriguez) also happen to be high school sweethearts, with the former leaving the latter.. Likewise, the latter’s family is the typical conservative Filipino family, so he decided to conceal his homosexuality for fear of being disowned. The two reunite years later, with Eric returning from the United States and learning that his former lover is engaged and is expecting a child with Lally Agatep (Carla Abellana). The series details the continuation of Vincent’s and Eric’s (still hidden) romance, and the former’s internal conflict, that between his true feelings and his morals. The dynamics of a love triangle peculiar to the average Filipino audience separate it from the typical Filipino romantic plotline, the portrayal of homosexuality being another Philippine TV trope that has been amply twisted so that it is “fresh.” Instead of the usual flamboyant gay best friend, the homosexuals are not only far from flamboyant, but are also the main characters of the series. Instead of being staples of beauty salons speaking in seeming code that is actually gay lingo, the homosexuals are affluent and well-spoken. The authors will buttress their textual analysis of all ten seasons of My Husband’s Lover with literature on the bakla and the global gay. With queer theory as the framework of the study, with emphasis on the theory’s element of performativity, the authors will also use several significant instances throughout the ten seasons of the series as premises to one of queer theory’s assumptions, that gender is fluid

Homosexuality, health and humanity: Hlebotomy and biases Against gays

During the authors’ visit to hospital for a voluntary blood donation, one of them took notice of a problematic question in a survey that would determine whether one is fit to donate blood. This question was “Nakipagtalik ka na ba sa iyong kauri?” which, in English, translates to “Have you ever had sexual relations with your own kind?

Electrical reliability and leakage mechanisms in highly resistive multiferroic La0.1Bi0.9FeO3 ceramics

Multiferroic La0.1 Bi0.9 FeO3 (LBFO) ceramics with high resistivity were synthesized by using a modified rapid thermal process. The LBFO ceramics show very low leakage and low dielectric loss. Well saturated ferroelectric hysteresis loops and polarization switching currents have been observed. For a maximum applied electric field of 145 kV/cm, the remanent polarization is 17.8 μC/ cm2 and the coercive filed is 75 kV/cm. The dominant conduction mechanism in the LBFO ceramics has been found to be the space-charge-limited current mechanism rather than the thermal excitation mechanism. Electrical reliability related to the fatigue and polarization retention of the LBFO ceramics has also been discussed with the leakage mechanisms. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.published_or_final_versio