Klotho inhibits growth and promotes apoptosis in human lung cancer cell line A549

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Klotho, as a new anti-aging gene, can shed into circulation and act as a multi-functional humoral factor that influences multiple biological processes. Recently, published studies suggest that klotho can also serve as a potential tumor suppressor. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects and possible mechanisms of action of klotho in human lung cancer cell line A549.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this study, plasmids encoding klotho or klotho specific shRNAs were constructed to overexpress or knockdown klotho in vitro. A549 cells were respectively treated with pCMV6-MYC-KL or klotho specific shRNAs. The MTT assay was used to evaluate the cytotoxic effects of klotho and flow cytometry was utilized to observe and detect the apoptosis of A549 cells induced by klotho. The activation of IGF-1/insulin signal pathways in A549 cells treated by pCMV6-MYC-KL or shRNAs were evaluated by western blotting. The expression levels of bcl-2 and bax transcripts were evaluated by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Overexpression of klotho reduced the proliferation of lung cancer A549 cells, whereas klotho silencing in A549 cells enhanced proliferation. Klotho did not show any effects on HEK-293 cells. Klotho overexpression in A549 cells was associated with reduced IGF-1/insulin-induced phosphorylation of IGF-1R (IGF-1 receptor)/IR (insulin receptor) (<it>P </it>< 0.01). Overexpression of klotho can promote the apoptosis of A549 cells (<it>P </it>< 0.01). Overexpression of klotho, a bcl family gene bax, was found up-regulated and bcl-2, an anti-apoptosis gene, was found down-regulated (<it>P </it>< 0.01). In contrast, bax and bcl-2 were found down-regulated (<it>P </it>< 0.05) and up-regulated (<it>P </it>< 0.01), respectively when silencing klotho using shRNAs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Klotho can inhibit proliferation and increase apoptosis of A549 cells, this may be partly due to the inhibition of IGF-1/insulin pathways and involving regulating the expression of the apoptosis-related genes bax/bcl-2. Thus, klotho can serve as a potential tumor suppressor in A549 cells.</p

Energy Transfer Concept in AC/DC Switch Mode Power Supply with Power Factor Correction

A new innovative concept in AC/DC converter that transfers energy to the output side directly from the input line, rather than from the storage capacitor in power factor correction (PFC) cell during the line voltage exceeds the present value. The new concept is based on providing additional winding coupled to the DC/DC transformer connected to the rectified input side to provide a path for the energy transfer from the line to transfer to the output directly (Boost converter) or to be stored in the output transformer Flyback cell)

Pyrolysis treatment of nonmetal fraction of waste printed circuit boards : Focusing on the fate of bromine

Advanced thermal treatment of electronic waste offers advantages of volume reduction and energy recovery. In this work, the pyrolysis behaviour of nonmetallic fractions of waste printed circuit boards was studied. The fate of a bromine and thermal decomposition pathway of nonmetallic fractions of waste printed circuit boards were further probed. The thermogravimetric analysis showed that the temperatures of maximum mass loss were located at 319°C and 361°C, with mass loss of 29.6% and 50.6%, respectively. The Fourier transform infrared Spectroscopy analysis revealed that the spectra at temperatures of 300°C–400°C were complicated with larger absorbance intensity. The nonmetallic fractions of waste printed circuit boards decomposed drastically and more evolved products were detected in the temperature range of 600°C–1000°C. The gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis indicated that various brominated derivates were generated in addition to small molecules, such as CH4, H2O and CO. The release intensity of CH4 and H2O increased with temperature increasing and reached maximum at 600°C–800°C and 400°C–600°C. More bromoethane (C2H5Br) was formed as compared with HBr and methyl bromide (CH3Br). The release intensity of bromopropane (C3H7Br) and bromoacetone (C3H5BrO) were comparable, although smaller than that of bromopropene (C3H5Br). More dibromophenol (C6H4Br2O) was released than that of bromophenol (C6H5BrO) in the thermal treatment. During the thermal process, part of the ether bonds first ruptured forming bisphenol A, propyl alcohol and tetrabromobisphenol A. Then, the tetrabromobisphenol A decomposed into C6H5BrO and HBr, which further reacted with small molecules forming brominated derivates. It implied debromination of raw nonmetallic fractions of waste printed circuit boards or pyrolysis products should be applied for its environmentally sound treating.© 2020 Sage. The article is protected by copyright and reuse is restricted to non-commercial and no derivative uses. Users may also download and save a local copy of an article accessed in an institutional repository for the user's personal reference.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Superhumps in a Peculiar SU UMa-Type Dwarf Nova ER Ursae Majoris

We report the photometry of a peculiar SU UMa-type dwarf nova - ER UMa for ten nights during 1998 December and 1999 March covering a complete rise to the supermaximum and a normal outburst cycle. Superhumps have been found during the rise to the superoutburst. A negative superhump appeared in Dec.22 light curve, while the superhump on the next night became positive and had large amplitude and distinct waveform from that of the previous night. In the normal outburst we captured, superhumps with larger or smaller amplitudes seem to always exist, although it is not necessarily true for every normal outburst. These results show great resemblance with V1159 Ori (Patterson et al. 1995). It is more likely that superhumps occasionally exist at essentially all phases of the eruption cycles of ER UMa stars, which should be considered in modeling.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, Accepted by ApJ Letter

Mir-23b down-regulates the expression of target gene of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase 1a1 and increases the sensitivity of cervical cancer stem cells to cisplatin

Purpose: To study the effect of miR-23b on the expression of the target gene of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase 1A1 (ALDH1A1), and cisplatin (CDDP) susceptibility of cervical carcinoma stem cells. Methods: Human cervical cancer cell line Hela cells were cultured in vitro, and miR-23b mimic and negative control were transfected into the cells using lipofectamine method. The growth of the two groups of cells was determined using growth curve method, and their proliferation measured using plate clone formation. The influence of treatments on the sensitivity of the cells to CDDP was assayed using MTT method. The mRNA expression of ALDH1A1 in Hela cells was assayed using real-time quantitative polymerase hain reation (PCR), while its protein expression was assayed by Western blot. Results: The levels of expressions of ALDH1A1 protein and mRNA in the miR-23b overexpression group were significantly lower than those in the control group (p &lt; 0.05). The sensitivities of Hela cells to CDDP in the ALDH1A1 inhibition group and the control group were dose-dependent to some extent, but cell inhibition in ALDH1A1 inhibition group markedly increased, relative to control when the CDDP dose was 0.1 ppc (p &lt; 0.01). Conclusion: Up-regulating the expression of miR-23b significantly inhibits the growth and proliferation of cervical cancer cells, and increases their sensitivity to CDDP via down-regulation of the expression of the target gene for ALDH1A1. Therefore, during cervical carcinoma treatment, increasing the level of miR-23b may produce a chemotherapeutic effect. Keywords: MiR-23b, Acetaldehyde dehydrogenase 1A1, Cervical cancer, Cisplatin, Sensitivit

Joint Layout Analysis, Character Detection and Recognition for Historical Document Digitization

In this paper, we propose an end-to-end trainable framework for restoring historical documents content that follows the correct reading order. In this framework, two branches named character branch and layout branch are added behind the feature extraction network. The character branch localizes individual characters in a document image and recognizes them simultaneously. Then we adopt a post-processing method to group them into text lines. The layout branch based on fully convolutional network outputs a binary mask. We then use Hough transform for line detection on the binary mask and combine character results with the layout information to restore document content. These two branches can be trained in parallel and are easy to train. Furthermore, we propose a re-score mechanism to minimize recognition error. Experiment results on the extended Chinese historical document MTHv2 dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

IGF-I and IGFBP-3 and the risk of lung cancer: A meta-analysis based on nested case-control studies

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Lung cancer is the leading cause of death from cancer worldwide. Conventional studies mainly think that insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and IGF-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) may promote and inhibit tumor growth, respectively. However, there are many different results about their function in some recent epidemiological studies. To evaluate the relationship between circulating serum levels of IGF-I, IGFBP-3 and lung cancer, a systematic review and meta-analysis of the published data was performed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Literatures searched on PubMed and Embase databases were enrolled in the Meta-analysis. The Meta-analysis of all eligible studies was applied with Stata 10.0 software, and the pooled odds ratio(OR) and weighted mean difference (WMD) value were obtained. The Q test, Egger's test and Begg's funnel plot were used to evaluate the heterogeneity and publication bias between the studies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There are no statistically significant heterogeneity and publication bias between the studies. For IGF- I, the pooled OR and WMD were 0.87(95%CI: 0.60~1.13,) and -3.04(95%CI: -7.10~1.02, P = 0.14), respectively. For IGFBP-3, the pooled OR and WMD were 0.68(95%CI: 0.48~0.88,) and -112.28(95%CI: -165.88~-58.68, P < 0.0001), respectively.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The association between circulating IGF- I levels and the risk of lung cancer were not statistically significant; IGFBP-3, acts as a tumor suppressor and has a inverse correlation with the risk of lung cancer.</p

Surface free energy and mechanical performance of LDPE/CBF composites containing toxic-metal free filler

Heavy-metal contamination in children's toys is a widespread problem, and the international community has issued a series of safety standards to restrict and control the use of toxic metals in toys. In this work, a colored filler (CBF) was prepared using pearl oyster shell (POS) as the green raw material and azo dye as the colorant. Its surface properties were subsequently studied in comparison to those of POS powder using the inverse gas chromatography method. The dispersion surface free energy profiles for both CBF and POS showed that this component contributed the major part (> 70%) to the total surface free energy. The CBF possessed lower polar surface free energy and was relatively more hydrophobic. It also showed a lower thermodynamic work of cohesion, allowing its better dispersion in a low density polyethylene (LDPE) matrix. Mechanical performance studies showed that adding CBF could significantly increase the tensile strength, elastic modulus, flexural strength and flexural modulus of LDPE composites. The absence of toxic metals coupled with excellent mechanical performance makes the CBF an ideal candidate as a filler for children's toys fabrication.The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. 51606055 and 41373121) and Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. LY14D010009).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Synthesis and investigation of deoxyribonucleic acid/locked nucleic acid chimeric molecular beacons

To take full advantage of locked nucleic acid (LNA) based molecular beacons (LNA-MBs) for a variety of applications including analysis of complex samples and intracellular monitoring, we have systematically synthesized a series of DNA/LNA chimeric MBs and studied the effect of DNA/LNA ratio in MBs on their thermodynamics, hybridization kinetics, protein binding affinity and enzymatic resistance. It was found that the LNA bases in a MB stem sequence had a significant effect on the stability of the hair-pin structure. The hybridization rates of LNA-MBs were significantly improved by lowering the DNA/LNA ratio in the probe, and most significantly, by having a shared-stem design for the LNA-MB to prevent sticky-end pairing. It was found that only MB sequences with DNA/LNA alternating bases or all LNA bases were able to resist nonspecific protein binding and DNase I digestion. Additional results showed that a sequence consisting of a DNA stretch less than three bases between LNA bases was able to block RNase H function. This study suggested that a shared-stem MB with a 4 base-pair stem and alternating DNA/LNA bases is desirable for intracellular applications as it ensures reasonable hybridization rates, reduces protein binding and resists nuclease degradation for both target and probes. These findings have implications on the design of LNA molecular probes for intracellular monitoring application, disease diagnosis and basic biological studies

Utilization of Polislidae Wasp Venom as Potential New Insect Drugs in the R&D of Wellness Industry

The Polislidae wasp, one species of omnivorous social insects mainly living in the bush or under the leaves. The wasp has a venom sac in its tail, and the venom secreted by a sting can cause a series of body reactions and diseases. Multiple organ failure could be the outcome of wasp sting, if timely treatment or rescue has not been performed. Based on published reports on wasp sting related to medical concerns in recent years, this review summarizes the symptoms caused by wasp sting and corresponding mechanisms of actions. The medical application and relational utilization of the title insect is suggested derived from findings of the systematic review. Furthermore, we herewith sketch the perspectives of R&amp;D on the venom of Polislidae wasp. It is expected to afford comprehensive references and be useful for broader study on the natural components and pharmacological effects of wasp venom