The Role of Differentially Expressed miRNAs and Potential miRNA-mRNA Regulatory Network in Prostate Cancer Progression and Metastasis

Purpose: Aberrant expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) has been discovered in prostate cancer progression however their function is not well understood, thereby further investigation is required to understand the importance of underlying mechanisms and their involvement in multiple signaling pathways, as well as their potential as therapeutic targets. In this study the role and expression levels of three miRNAs were evaluated: miR-21, miR-221 and miR-200c in different prostate cancer cell lines. In addition, based on the latest studies on miRNAs function, their association with other target genes and molecules were analyzed using bioinformatic tools. Methods: Three PCa cell lines PC3, LNCaP and VCaP and normal prostate epithelial cell line PNT1A were screened for miRNA expression levels using qPCR. miRNA target genes and their association with signaling pathways were analyzed through several Network and pathway analysis online tools. Findings: Upregulation of miR-21 and miR-221 was observed in PC3 and VCaP prostate cancer cells, respectively. According to KEGG analysis, we found that Hippo signaling pathway and cytokine-cytokine receptor interactions were affected by miR-21 while miR-221 would interfere with ECM-receptor interaction, Fatty acid elongation and Huntington disease molecular networks. Exposure of PC3 cells to TGF-β (10 µM) caused upregulation of miR-21 with the evidence with increased invasion potential. Discussion and Conclusion: miRNAs could regulate several genes in multiple signaling pathways. Here, we demonstrated that in a panel of PCa cell lines, both mir-21 and miR-221 expressions were upregulated. miR-21 may be a dignostic and prognosticbiomarker for PCa

DESIGN OF MOBILE AND FUNCTIONAL PHOTOBIOREACTOR

Recently, microalgae are used in sectors such as agriculture, food, cosmetics, animal feed, energy. Raceways are used for the most common open systems for high density cultivation when tubular photobioreactors are used for closed systems. In two decades, there have been significant developments in different photobioreactor designs for commercial scale production of alternative species in the production of commercial microalgae. There is no risk of contamination as a result of controlled cultivation in tubular photobioreactors. This allows intensive and pure cultivation.In this study, 75 x 69 mm acrylic pipes were used for the tubular photobioreactor. Each flow path is set to 2 m. By using a 40 liter closed-loop unit while the total volume of acrylic pipes is 60 liters, total volume is designed as 100 lt. In this photobioreactor designed and prototyped, suitable conditions were established for the cultivation of different microalgae strains. The tubular photobioreactor is made mobile and functional. In this photobioreactor, pH, optical density, biomass values are controlled.As a result, a mobile and functional photobioreactor has been designed to enable the cultivation of different microalgae strains for different sectors for microalgae growing. This photobioreactor is suitable for continuous, semi-continuous and continuous production

An integrative social identity model of populist leadership

In recent years, the questions of what populism is and how populist leaders mobilize their followers have been the subject of extensive debate. While the social psychology literature holds unique theoretical tools that can be used to explain leader-follower dynamics, these have not yet been applied to understand populism and populist leadership. In this paper, we aim to discuss populism as a social-psychological concept and provide a comprehensive approach to examine the interactions between populist leaders and followers by using the identity leadership model (see New Psychology of Leadership, Haslam et al., 2020). Accordingly, we propose an integrative model in which we suggest that populism should be treated as a social-psychological concept based on (i) strong ingroup identification; (ii) interactive leadership processes that open spaces to followers for enacting their ingroup identity that end up with mobilization against vertical (e.g., elites) and horizontal (e.g., minorities, refugees, opponents) outgroups; (iii) leader's ingroup prototypicality and identity entrepreneurship that is boosted by using shared grievances, narratives of collective victimhood, and the destabilization of mainstream opponent leaders. Furthermore, by discussing real-world examples and recent studies, we aim to show how the content of what it means to be ‘us’ and what is seen as moral to ‘us’ can be shaped by populist leaders for mobilization

Comparison of the temporal properties of medium latency responses induced by cortical and peripheral stimulation

Sudden foot dorsiflexion lengthens soleus muscle and activates stretch-based spinal reflexes. Dorsiflexion can be triggered by activating tibialis anterior (TA) muscle through peroneal nerve stimulation or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) which evokes a response in the soleus muscle referred to as Medium Latency Reflex (MLR) or motor-evoked potential-80 (Soleus MEP80), respectively. This study aimed to examine the relationship between these responses in humans. Therefore, latency characteristics and correlation of responses between soleus MEP80 and MLR were investigated. We have also calculated the latencies from the onset of tibialis activity, i.e., subtracting of TA-MEP from MEP80 and TA direct motor response from MLR. We referred to these calculations as Stretch Loop Latency Central (SLLc) for MEP80 and Stretch Loop Latency Peripheral (SLLp) for MLR. The latency of SLLc was found to be 61.4 ± 5.6 ms which was significantly shorter (P = 0.0259) than SLLp (64.0 ± 4.2 ms) and these latencies were correlated (P = 0.0045, r = 0.689). The latency of both responses was also found to be inversely related to the response amplitude (P = 0.0121, r = 0.451) probably due to the activation of large motor units. When amplitude differences were corrected, i.e. investigating the responses with similar amplitudes, SLLp, and SLLc latencies found to be similar (P = 0.1317). Due to the identical features of the soleus MEP80 and MLR, we propose that they may both have spinal origins

Laminar Forced Convection and Entropy Generation of ZnO-Ethylene Glycol Nanofluid Flow through Square Microchannel with using Two-Phase Eulerian-Eulerian Model

In this paper, convective heat transfer and entropy generation of ZnO-EG nanofluid flow through a square microchannel are numerically investigated. Flow is modelled by using Eulerian-Eulerian two phase flow model. Nanoparticle volume fraction of ZnO-EG nanofluid ranged between %1.0 and %4.0. As a result, it is found that the convective heat transfer coefficient of flow increased from 9718.15 W/m2K to 23010.79 W/m2K when 4.0% ZnO nanoparticle addition to pure EG at Re=100. Total entropy generation of ZnO-EG nanofluid decreases with increase in nanoparticle volume fraction of ZnO-EG nanofluid. It is also observed that the Bejan number decreases with increase in nanoparticle volume fraction of ZnO-EG nanofluid

Role of microRNAs in response to cadmium chloride in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most fatal and aggressive malignancies with a 5-year survival rate less than 9%. Early detection is particularly difficult due to the lack of symptoms even in advanced stages. microRNAs (miRs/miRNAs) are small (~18–24 nucleotides), endogenous, non-coding RNAs, which are involved in the pathogenesis of several malignancies including PDAC. Alterations of miR expressions can lead to apoptosis, angiogenesis, and metastasis. The role of environmental pollutants such as cadmium (Cd) in PDAC has been suggested but not fully understood. This study underlines the role of miRs (miR-221, miR-155, miR-126) in response to cadmium chloride (CdCl2) in vitro. Lethal concentration (LC50) values for CdCl2 resulted in a toxicity series of AsPC-1>HPNE>BxPC3>Panc-1=Panc-10.5. Following the treatment with CdCl2, miR-221 and miR-155 were significantly overexpressed, whereas miR-126 was downregulated. An increase in epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) via the dysregulation of mesenchymal markers such as Wnt-11,E-cadherin, Snail, and Zeb1 was also observed. Hence, this study has provided evidence to suggest that the environmental pollutant Cd can have a signifcant role in the development of PDAC, suggesting a signifcant correlation between miRs and Cd exposure during PDAC progression. Further studies are needed to investigate the precise role of miRs in PDAC progression as well as the role of Cd and other environmental pollutants

IEEE 802.11bb reference channel models for indoor environments

This contribution proposes 802.11bb reference channel models for indoor environments

Nickel’s Role in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: Potential Involvement of microRNAs

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal cancer types with a limited overall survival rate due to the asymptomatic progression of symptoms in metastatic stages of the malignancy and the lack of an early reliable diagnostic biomarker. MicroRNAs (miRs/miRNAs) are small (~18–24 nucleotides), endogenous, non-coding RNAs, which are closely linked to the development of numerous malignancies comprising PDAC. Recent studies have described the role of environmental pollutants such as nickel (Ni) in PDAC, but the mechanisms of Ni-mediated toxicity in cancer are still not completely understood. Specifically, Ni has been found to alter the expression and function of miRs in several malignancies, leading to changes in target gene expression. In this study, we found that levels of Ni were significantly higher in cancerous tissue, thus implicating Ni in pancreatic carcinogenesis. Hence, in vitro studies followed by using both normal and pancreatic tumor cell lines and increasing Ni concentration increased lethality. Comparing LC50 values, Ni-acetate groups demonstrated lower values needed than in NiCl2 groups, suggesting greater Ni-acetate. Panc-10.05 cell line appeared the most sensitive to Ni compounds. Exposure to Ni-acetate resulted in an increased phospho-AKT, and decreased FOXO1 expression in Panc-10.05 cells, while NiCl2 also increased PTEN expression in Panc-10.05 cells. Specifically, following NiCl2 exposure to PDAC cells, the expression levels of miR-221 and miR-155 were significantly upregulated, while the expression levels of miR-126 were significantly decreased. Hence, our study has suggested pilot insights to indicate that the environmental pollutant Ni plays an important role in the progression of PDAC by promoting an association between miRs and Ni exposure during PDAC pathogenesis

Direction of Arrival Estimation Using Hybrid Spatial Cross-Cumulants and Root-MUSIC

This paper presents a novel Direction of Arrival (DOA) estimation technique called Cross Cumulant-MUSIC (CC-MUSIC) which jointly employs higher order cumulant statistics and the root-MUSIC algorithm to perform high-resolution DOA estimation in low Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) scenarios. From the simulation results based out of a 4 element uniform linear array and a far-field narrowband signal source, CC-MUSIC outperforms second-order DOA estimation techniques such as root-MUSIC and ESPRIT with a minimum average of10.99% to 46.33% depending on the snapshot values at SNR of <15dB for a single signal source scenario and 39.1% to 83.8% for a multi-signal source scenario respectively when contaminated with an Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN). The work presented here has implications of future studies for optimization and real-world application where SNR environment is noisy while requiring accurate DOA estimation