A mutation in the interferon regulatory element of HBV may influence the response of interferon treatment in chronic hepatitis B patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A functional interferon regulatory element (IRE) has been found in the EnhI/X promoter region of hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome. The purpose of this study is to compare the gene order of responder and non-responder to interferon therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB), so as to evaluate the relationship between IRE mutation and the response to interferon treatment for CHB patients.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Synthetic therapeutic effect is divided into complete response (CR), partial response (PR) and non-response (NR). Among the 62 cases included in this study, 40 cases (64.5%) were in the response group (CR and PR) and 22 (35.5%) cases were in the NR group. Wild type sequence of HBV IRE TTTCACTTTC were found in 35 cases (56.5%), and five different IRE gene sequences. included TTTtACTTTC, TTTCAtTTTC, TTTtAtTTTC, TTTtACTTTt and cTTtACcTTC, were found in 22 cases (35.5%), 1 case (1.6%), 1 case (1.6%), 2 cases (3.2%) and 1 case (1.6%) respectively. There were 41.9%cases (26/62) with forth base C→T mutation, consisted of 32.5% (13/40) cases in response group and 59.1% (13/22) cases in NR group. Among the 35 cases with IRE sequences, there were 67.5% (27/40) cases in response group and 36.4% (8/22) in NR group, and the difference in IRE sequences between two groups was statistic significantly (P = 0.027). The result suggested that there is likely relationship between the forth base mutation (C→T) of IRE region and the response of HBV to Interferon therapy, and this mutation may partially decrease the inhibition effect of interferon on HBV.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The forth base C→T mutation in IRE element of HBV may partially influence the response of Interferon treatment in CHB patients.</p

Ethyl 1-[(4-acetyl-2-methoxy­phen­oxy)meth­yl]cyclo­propane-1-carboxyl­ate

In the title compound, C16H20O5, the dihedral angle between the planar rings, viz. benzene and cyclo­propane, is 52.1 (2)°. Mol­ecules are connected in the crystal via weak inter­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming chains in the [001] direction

THE CORRELATION OF GOLF PUTTING CLUB HEAD VELOCITY AND GRIP FORCE FOR EACH PHASE

We investigate the correlation of golf putting club head velocity and grip force in different phases during the putting stroke. Five elite college players (handicap: 2~8) executed a putt as accurately as possible to reach a target distance of 12ft. The Novel System and were used to measure the grip force and club head velocity. The lowest club head velocity and grip force both occurred at address up to the top of backswing (phase I). The club head velocity and grip force started increasing during the downswing and reached its peak before impact (phase II), and decreased after impact to finish (phase III). The mean club head velocity and grip force for Phase I, II, III in order are 0.33m/s, 0.92m/s, 0.87m/s; 28.09N, 54.77N, 50.76N. Club head velocity was significantly correlated to grip force in phase II and III (r=0.937; r=0.866). The similar variation pattern of club head speed and grip force may give better control to the putter during the impact and produce more consistent putting stroke

DISTRIBUTION OF GRIP PRESSURE THROUGHOUT THE PHASES OF PUTTING IN ELITE GOLF COLLEGE PLAYERS

The purpose of this study is to investigate the distribution of grip pressure, force and the peak pressure of different phases during the putting stroke. Five elite college players with handicaps of 2-8 participated in the study. The Novel Pliance-x System and 150Hz 8- camera Motion Analysis Corporation System were used to collect grip pressure and identify each phase of the putting stroke. At each phase of the putting stroke, average grip pressure, peak pressure and grip force were investigated. Results indicated that lowest grip pressure occurred at address up to the top of backswing (2.41±1.36 Kpa). Grip pressure started to increase during the downswing and reached its peak, 0.02±0.05s, before impact (4.70±1.97 Kpa). The pressure reduced again after impact (4.36±2.06 Kpa). Results indicate that grip pressure does not remain the same throughout the stroke

Electroacupuncture at PC6 (Neiguan) Improves Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase Signaling Pathways Through the Regulation of Neuroendocrine Cytokines in Myocardial Hypertrophic Rats

Electroacupuncture (EA) therapy has been widely accepted as a useful therapeutic technique with low or no risk in the clinical prevention of cardiac hypertrophy. However, the signaling transduction mechanism underlying this effect remains unclear. The current study investigates the effects of EA on the signaling pathways of myocardial hypertrophy (MH) in rats. Up to 40 3-month-old Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into normal, model, PC6 (Neiguan), and LI4 (Hegu) groups, with ten rats in each group. All the rats except for the normal group received 3 mg/kg·d of isoprinosine hydrochloride (ISO) injection into the back skin. The rats in the PC6 and LI4 groups received EA for 14 days. On the 15th day, electrocardiograms were recorded, and the ultrastructure of the myocardial cells was observed. The myocardial hypertrophy indices (MHIs), electrocardiograph (ECG), ultrastructure observation, levels of plasma angiotensin II (Ang II) and endothelin (ET), as well as protein expression of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), and phosphorylation extracellular signal regulating kinase (p-ERK) in the left ventricular myocardial tissue were measured. The results indicated that EA can improve cardiac function in MH rats by modulating upstream neuroendocrine cytokines that regulate the ERK signaling pathways

Effects of Tai Chi on telomerase activity and gerotranscendence in middle aged and elderly adults in Chinese society

AbstractIntroductionTelomeres are DNA protein structures at the end of chromosomes and are linked to the physical aging process. The improvement of quality of life is closely associated with aerobic exercise, and the dynamic effects of exercise on physiology and psychology are evident with aging. Tai Chi is popularly practiced in China. However, findings on the effects of Tai Chi on telomerase activity (TA) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and gerotranscendence (GT), as well as the association of TA and GT with Tai Chi, have been inconsistent.PurposeThis study aims to assess TA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, GT, and the associations between them. The associations among these variables are determined during six months of Tai Chi intervention among Chinese middle aged and elderly adults.MethodsTA assessment was obtained by TE-ELISA (human telomerase–enzyme linked immunosorbent assay), and GT was measured at the baseline level after six months of Tai Chi intervention.ResultsTA increased significantly in the Tai Chi group from 23.75 ± 3.78 u/mmol (pre-intervention) to 26.31 ± 2.93 u/mmol (after 6 months) (p < 0.05). Compared with the TA in the control group, the TA in the intervention group was statistically significant after six months (p < 0.05). Compared with the GT in the control group, the GT in the intervention group improved significantly after six months (p < 0.05). TA and GT had a positive correlation (r = 0.325, p < 0.01).ConclusionOur data illustrated that Tai Chi had a protective effect on TA and might improve the GT in Chinese middle aged and elderly adults. The TA increased with the increasing GT in Chinese middle aged and elderly adults

Deletion of heat shock protein 60 in adult mouse cardiomyocytes perturbs mitochondrial protein homeostasis and causes heart failure.

To maintain healthy mitochondrial enzyme content and function, mitochondria possess a complex protein quality control system, which is composed of different endogenous sets of chaperones and proteases. Heat shock protein 60 (HSP60) is one of these mitochondrial molecular chaperones and has been proposed to play a pivotal role in the regulation of protein folding and the prevention of protein aggregation. However, the physiological function of HSP60 in mammalian tissues is not fully understood. Here we generated an inducible cardiac-specific HSP60 knockout mouse model, and demonstrated that HSP60 deletion in adult mouse hearts altered mitochondrial complex activity, mitochondrial membrane potential, and ROS production, and eventually led to dilated cardiomyopathy, heart failure, and lethality. Proteomic analysis was performed in purified control and mutant mitochondria before mutant hearts developed obvious cardiac abnormalities, and revealed a list of mitochondrial-localized proteins that rely on HSP60 (HSP60-dependent) for correctly folding in mitochondria. We also utilized an in vitro system to assess the effects of HSP60 deletion on mitochondrial protein import and protein stability after import, and found that both HSP60-dependent and HSP60-independent mitochondrial proteins could be normally imported in mutant mitochondria. However, the former underwent degradation in mutant mitochondria after import, suggesting that the protein exhibited low stability in mutant mitochondria. Interestingly, the degradation could be almost fully rescued by a non-specific LONP1 and proteasome inhibitor, MG132, in mutant mitochondria. Therefore, our results demonstrated that HSP60 plays an essential role in maintaining normal cardiac morphology and function by regulating mitochondrial protein homeostasis and mitochondrial function

Label Mask AutoEncoder(L-MAE): A Pure Transformer Method to Augment Semantic Segmentation Datasets

Semantic segmentation models based on the conventional neural network can achieve remarkable performance in such tasks, while the dataset is crucial to the training model process. Significant progress in expanding datasets has been made in semi-supervised semantic segmentation recently. However, completing the pixel-level information remains challenging due to possible missing in a label. Inspired by Mask AutoEncoder, we present a simple yet effective Pixel-Level completion method, Label Mask AutoEncoder(L-MAE), that fully uses the existing information in the label to predict results. The proposed model adopts the fusion strategy that stacks the label and the corresponding image, namely Fuse Map. Moreover, since some of the image information is lost when masking the Fuse Map, direct reconstruction may lead to poor performance. Our proposed Image Patch Supplement algorithm can supplement the missing information, as the experiment shows, an average of 4.1% mIoU can be improved. The Pascal VOC2012 dataset (224 crop size, 20 classes) and the Cityscape dataset (448 crop size, 19 classes) are used in the comparative experiments. With the Mask Ratio setting to 50%, in terms of the prediction region, the proposed model achieves 91.0% and 86.4% of mIoU on Pascal VOC 2012 and Cityscape, respectively, outperforming other current supervised semantic segmentation models. Our code and models are available at https://github.com/jjrccop/Label-Mask-Auto-Encoder