Effect of a 180 mg ticagrelor loading dose on myocardial necrosis in patients undergoing elective percutaneous coronary intervention: A preliminary study

Background: To examine whether a loading dose of ticagrelor on top of clopidogrel reduced postpercutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) myonecrosis. Methods: Seventy seven coronary artery disease patients received a loading dose of 300 mg clopidogrel pre-PCI and were divided into three groups: group TT (n = 36): a loading dose of 180 mg ticagrelor pre-PCI, followed by ticagrelor 90 mg twice daily commencing one day post-PCI; group CT (n = 26): a maintenance dose of ticagrelor 90 mg twice daily; group CC (n = 15): clopidogrel 75 mg daily post- PCI. High sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) and creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB) were measured pre-PCI and 0 h, 2 h or 24 h post-PCI. Platelet aggregation was measured in a separate cohort of 54 coronary artery disease patients (35 diabetic and 19 non-diabetic patients). Results: There were no significant differences in hs-cTnT and CK-MB concentration among the three groups. In group TT, diabetic patients had significant higher Δhs-cTnT2h–0h than non-diabetic patients. In the second cohort, although baseline platelet aggregation was higher in diabetic than non-diabetic patients, platelet aggregation was comparable between diabetic and non-diabetic patients at 0 and 2 h post-PCI. Conclusions: This study indicates that a loading dose of ticagrelor does not significantly reduce post- PCI myonecrosis. Diabetes is associated with more post-PCI myonecrosis. A loading dose of ticagrelor effectively reduces platelet aggregation in diabetic patients.

Cytoplasmic p21 is a potential predictor for cisplatin sensitivity in ovarian cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>P21^(WAF1/Cip1)binds to cyclin-dependent kinase complexes and inhibits their activities. It was originally described as an inhibitor of cancer cell proliferation. However, many recent studies have shown that p21 promotes tumor progression when accumulated in the cell cytoplasm. So far, little is known about the correlation between cytoplasmic p21 and drug resistance. This study was aimed to investigate the role of p21 in the cisplatin resistance of ovarian cancer.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>RT-PCR, western blot and immunofluorescence were used to detect p21 expression and location in cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer cell line C13* and its parental line OV2008. Regulation of cytoplasmic p21 was performed through transfection of p21 siRNA, Akt2 shRNA and Akt2 constitutively active vector in the two cell lines; their effects on cisplatin-induced apoptosis were evaluated by flow cytometry. Tumor tissue sections of clinical samples were analyzed by immunohistochemistry.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>p21 predominantly localizes to the cytoplasm in C13* compared to OV2008. Persistent exposure to low dose cisplatin in OV2008 leads to p21 translocation from nuclear to cytoplasm, while it had not impact on p21 localization in C13*. Knockdown of cytoplasmic p21 by p21 siRNA transfection in C13* notably increased cisplatin-induced apoptosis through activation of caspase 3. Inhibition of p21 translocation into the cytoplasm by transfection of Akt2 shRNA into C13* cells significantly increased cisplatin-induced apoptosis, while induction of p21 translocation into the cytoplasm by transfection of constitutively active Akt2 in OV2008 enhanced the resistance to cisplatin. Immunohistochemical analysis of clinical ovarian tumor tissues demonstrated that cytoplasmic p21 was negatively correlated with the response to cisplatin based treatment.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Cytoplasmic p21 is a novel biomarker of cisplatin resistance and it may represent a potential therapeutic target for ovarian tumors that are refractory to conventional treatment.</p

Ecological engineering projects increased vegetation cover, production, and biomass in semiarid and subhumid Northern China

Multiple ecological engineering projects have been implemented in semiarid and subhumid Northern China since 1978 with the purpose to combat desertification, control dust storms, and improve vegetation cover. Although a plethora of local studies exist, the effectiveness of these projects has not been studied in a systematic and comprehensive way. Here, we used multiple satellite-based time-series data as well as breakpoint analysis to assess shifts in leaf area index (a proxy for green vegetation cover), gross primary production, and aboveground biomass in Northern China. We documented increased vegetation growth in northwest and southeastern parts of the region, despite drought anomalies as documented by the standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index during 1982–2016. Significant breakpoints in leaf area index were observed for over 72.5% of the southeastern and northwestern regions, and 70.6% of these breakpoints were detected after 1999, which correspond well to the areas with the highest ecological engineering efforts. Areas with negative trends were mainly located in the Inner Mongolian Plateau, Hulun Biur, Horqin Sand Land, and urban areas. The Loess Plateau had the largest increase in vegetation growth, followed by the north parts of Northern China where biomass increased more in the provinces of Shanxi, Liaoning, Shannxi, Hebei, and Beijing than Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Tianjin, and Qinghai. Our results show that multiple ecological engineering projects in the region have increased vegetation cover, production, and aboveground biomass that have led to improved environmental conditions in the study area

Mesenchymal stem cells as carriers and amplifiers in CRAd delivery to tumors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been considered to be the attractive vehicles for delivering therapeutic agents toward various tumor diseases. This study was to explore the distribution pattern, kinetic delivery of adenovirus, and therapeutic efficacy of the MSC loading of E1A mutant conditionally replicative adenovirus Adv-Stat3(-) which selectively replicated and expressed high levels of anti-sense Stat3 complementary DNA in breast cancer and melanoma cells.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We assessed the release ability of conditionally replicative adenovirus (CRAd) from MSC using crystal violet staining, TCID₅₀assay, and quantitative PCR. In vitro killing competence of MSCs carrying Adv-Stat3(-) toward breast cancer and melanoma was performed using co-culture system of transwell plates. We examined tumor tropism of MSC by Prussian blue staining and immunofluorescence. In vivo killing competence of MSCs carrying Adv-Stat3(-) toward breast tumor was analyzed by comparison of tumor volumes and survival periods.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Adv-Stat3(-) amplified in MSCs and were released 4 days after infection. MSCs carrying Adv-Stat3(-) caused viral amplification, depletion of Stat3 and its downstream proteins, and led to significant apoptosis in breast cancer and melanoma cell lines. In vivo experiments confirmed the preferential localization of MSCs in the tumor periphery 24 hours after tail vein injection, and this localization was mainly detected in the tumor parenchyma after 72 hours. Intravenous injection of MSCs carrying Adv-Stat3(-) suppressed the Stat3 pathway, down-regulated Ki67 expression, and recruited CD11b-positive cells in the local tumor, inhibiting tumor growth and increasing the survival of tumor-bearing mice.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results indicate that MSCs migrate to the tumor site in a time-dependent manner and could be an effective platform for the targeted delivery of CRAd and the amplification of tumor killing effects.</p

The Relationship Between Experience Marketing and Smart Phone Brand Customer Loyalty

Nowadays, consumers pay more attention to not only the quality of the mobile phone when buying a mobile phone, but they are also more concerned about how they feel when using the product. The popularity of the iPhone and the popularity of AppStore have revealed new consumer demand for smartphone products-experience demand has emerged and is attracting more and more smartphone manufacturers to incorporate this disruptive experience factor in their marketing process. At the same time, more and more emerging smartphone brands are beginning to show their presence in the international market and gain a certain market share. The competition in the international smartphone market is showing a fierce trend. As a new strategy to subvert traditional marketing methods, experiential marketing has begun to be accepted by most smartphone brands and applied to actual sales. Experiential marketing has become one of the key means for a smartphone brand to improve its customer loyalty to win the market competition. This article uses smartphones as the research object. Starting from the actual purchase and use experience of consumers, it summarizes the existing research results of domestic and foreign scholars by consulting a large number of documents and combines the status quo of the experience marketing of various well-known smartphone brands to detail the experience marketing of smartphones. Based on the data collected in the questionnaire, the article uses qualitative research methods combined with the current status of experience marketing of well-known smartphone brands, which proves that experiential marketing has a positive effect on improving the customer loyalty of smartphone brands. In the research, the article also analyzes and summarizes the existing successful experience marketing cases, and puts forward meaningful suggestions for the future experience marketing strategy for the smartphone brand to improve customer loyalty

Studies on the plasma tryptophan and urinary 5-hydroxy-3-indoleacetic acid in expedition members residing in Antarctica

In order to clarify the possible relationship between the changes of behavior/personality and metabolic changes of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) in Antarctic expedition members, plasma tryptophan (Trp) and urinary 5-hydroxy-3-indoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) were studied for 24 winter-over and 19 summer-over members of the 8th and 11th CHINARE respectively. Results showed that plasma Trp decreased significantly after residing 1-3 months at Great Wall Station and did not recover on returning back to Beijing from Antarctica by two weeks travelling. Urinary 5-HIAA increased significantly after residing 6 months at Great Wall Station, and recovered on returning back to Beijing from Antarctica in the winter-over members. The decrease of plasma Trp may be related to the decline of brain 5-HT which might play a role in the changes of behavior/personality. Increase of urinary 5-HIAA might reflect metabolic changes of 5-HT as a whole, but cold weather involving in the release response of platelet should be considered. Therefore, supplement of related food rich in Trp or intervention of L-Trp might be valuable

Change Capsule Network for Optical Remote Sensing Image Change Detection

Change detection based on deep learning has made great progress recently, but there are still some challenges, such as the small data size in open-labeled datasets, the different viewpoints in image pairs, and the poor similarity measures in feature pairs. To alleviate these problems, this paper presents a novel change capsule network by taking advantage of a capsule network that can better deal with the different viewpoints and can achieve satisfactory performance with small training data for optical remote sensing image change detection. First, two identical non-shared weight capsule networks are designed to extract the vector-based features of image pairs. Second, the unchanged region reconstruction module is adopted to keep the feature space of the unchanged region more consistent. Third, vector cosine and vector difference are utilized to compare the vector-based features in a capsule network efficiently, which can enlarge the separability between the changed pixels and the unchanged pixels. Finally, a binary change map can be produced by analyzing both the vector cosine and vector difference. From the unchanged region reconstruction module and the vector cosine and vector difference module, the extracted feature pairs in a change capsule network are more comparable and separable. Moreover, to test the effectiveness of the proposed change capsule network in dealing with the different viewpoints in multi-temporal images, we collect a new change detection dataset from a taken-over Al Udeid Air Basee (AUAB) using Google Earth. The results of the experiments carried out on the AUAB dataset show that a change capsule network can better deal with the different viewpoints and can improve the comparability and separability of feature pairs. Furthermore, a comparison of the experimental results carried out on the AUAB dataset and SZTAKI AirChange Benchmark Set demonstrates the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method