Transdifferentiation of pancreatic stromal tumor into leiomyosarcoma with metastases to liver and peritoneum: a case report

Follow-up ultrasound and abdominal CT radiographs at 6-month (A), 10-month (B, C, D) and 13-month follow-up (E, F) examination. CT, computed tomography. (TIF 2862 kb

Organic & Hybrid Photonic Crystals for Controlling Light-Matter Interaction Processes

Organic & Hybrid Photonic Crystals for Controlling Light-Matter Interaction Processe

The Protective Effects of Trypsin Inhibitor on Hepatic Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury and Liver Graft Survival

The aim of this study was to explore the protective effects of ulinastatin (urinary trypsin inhibitor, UTI) on liver ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) and graft survival. We employed mouse liver cold IRI and orthotopic liver transplantation (OLTx) models. UTI was added to lactated Ringer’s (LR) solution for liver perfusion and preservation in vitro or combined with UTI injection intraperitoneally to the liver graft recipient. Our results indicated that UTI supplementation protected the liver from cold IRI in a dose-dependent manner and prolonged liver graft survival from extended cold preserved liver donors significantly. The underlying mechanism of UTI on liver IRI may be mediated by inhibition of proinflammatory cytokine release, increasing the expression of the antiapoptotic gene Bcl-2 and decreasing the expression of the proapoptosis genes of Caspase-3 and Bax, and further protects hepatocytes from apoptotic death and improves liver function

Overexpression of CARMA3 in Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Is Linked for Tumor Progression

We aimed to investigate the clinical significance of the expression of novel scaffold protein CARMA3 in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the biological function of CARMA3 in NSCLC cell lines. We observed moderate to high CARMA3 staining in 68.8% of 141 NSCLC specimens compared to corresponding normal tissues. The overexpression of CARMA3 was significantly correlated with TNM stage (P = 0.022) and tumor status (P = 0.013). CARMA3 upregulation also correlated with a shorter survival rate of patients of nodal status N0 (P = 0.042)as well as the expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) (P = 0.009). In EGFR mutation positive cases, CARMA3 expression was much higher (87.5%) compared to non-mutation cases (66.1%). In addition, we observed that knockdown of CARMA3 inhibits tumor cell proliferation and invasion, and induces cell cycle arrest at the boundary between the G1 and S phase. We further demonstrated a direct link between CARMA3 and NF-κB activation. The change of biological behavior in CARMA3 knockdown cells may be NF-κB-related. Our findings demonstrated, for the first time, that CARMA3 was overexpressed in NSCLC and correlated with lung cancer progression, EGFR expression, and EGFR mutation. CARMA3 could serve as a potential companion drug target, along with NF-kB and EGFR in EGFR-mutant lung cancers

Silencing MicroRNA-134 Alleviates Hippocampal Damage and Occurrence of Spontaneous Seizures After Intraventricular Kainic Acid-Induced Status Epilepticus in Rats

Epilepsy is a disorder of abnormal brain activity typified by spontaneous and recurrent seizures. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNAs, critical for the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. MiRNA dysregulation has previously been implicated in the induction of epilepsy. In this study, we examined the effect of silencing miR-134 against status epilepticus (SE). Our results showed that level of miR-134 was significantly up-regulated in rat brain after Kainic acid (KA)-induced SE. TUNEL staining showed that silencing miR-134 alleviated seizure-induced neuronal apoptosis in the CA3 subfield of the hippocampus. Western blot showed that a miR-134 antagonist suppressed lesion-induced endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and apoptosis related expression of CHOP, Bim and Cytochrome C, while facilitated the expression of CREB at 24 h post KA-induced lesion in the hippocampus. Consistently, silencing miR-134 significantly diminished loss of CA3 pyramidal neurons using Nissl staining as well as reducing aberrant mossy fiber sprouting (MFS) in a rat epileptic model. In addition, the results of EEG and behavior analyses showed seizures were alleviated by miR-134 antagonist in our experimental models. These results suggest that silencing miR-134 modulates the epileptic phenotype by upregulating its target gene, CREB. This in turn attenuates oxidative and ER stress, inhibits apoptosis, and decreases MFS long term. This indicates that silencing miR-134 might be a promising intervention for the treatment of epilepsy

Mesoporous carbon derived from vitamin B-12:a high-performance bifunctional catalyst for imine formation

Mesoporous carbon derived from natural vitamin B-12 is applied for the first time in organic synthesis and exhibits exceptionally high dual activity for imine formation via the cross-coupling of alcohols with amines and the self-coupling of primary amines using molecular oxygen or air as the terminal oxidant

Metal-free catalysis of nitrogen-doped nanocarbons for the ammoxidation of alcohols to nitriles

Here meso-N/C-900 derived from polypyridyl ligand DAA has been developed as a metal-free catalyst, for the first time, exhibiting good performance in catalytic ammoxidation of alcohols to nitriles. Systematic characterization suggests that the accessible mesopores and the effective pyridinic/pyrrolic-N are responsible for the unprecedented performance

A Porphyrin-Inspired Iron Catalyst for Asymmetric Epoxidation of Electron-Deficient Olefins

An in situ formed porphyrin-inspired iron complex that catalyzes asymmetric epoxidation of di- and trisubstituted enones is described. The reaction provides highly enantioenriched alpha,beta-epoxyketones (up to 99% ee). The practical utility of the new catalyst system is demonstrated by the gram-scale synthesis of optically pure epoxide. Hammett analysis suggests that the transition state of the reaction is electron-demanding and the active oxidant is electrophilic

Direct oxidation of the C-sp3-H bonds of N-heterocyclic compounds to give the corresponding ketones using a reusable heterogeneous MnOx-N@C catalyst

Novel reusable MnO,-N@C catalyst has been developed for the direct oxidation of N-heterocycles under solvent-free conditions using TBHP as benign oxidant to give the corresponding N-heterocyclic ketones. The catalytic system exhibited a broad substrate scope and excellent regioselectivity, as well as being amenable to gram-scale synthesis. This MnOx-N@C catalyst also showed good reusability and was successfully recycled six times without any significant loss of activity. (C) 2016, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved