The Correlation between Thyrotropin and Dyslipidemia in a Population-based Study

This study investigated the relationship between serum thyrotrophin levels and dyslipidemia in subclinical hypothyroid and euthyroid subjects. A total of 110 subjects with subclinical hypothyroidism and 1,240 euthyroid subjects enrolled in this study. Patients with subclinical hypothyroidism had significantly lower high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels than those who were euthyroid. The lipid profiles were each categorized and mean thyrotrophin levels were higher in subjects in the dyslipidemia subclasses than subjects in the normal subclasses. Thyrotrophin was positively associated with serum triglyceride and negatively associated with serum HDL-C in women. Thyrotrophin was also positively associated with total cholesterol (TC) in the overweight population along with TC and LDL-C in overweight women. In the euthyroid population, thyrotrophin was positively associated with TC in the overweight population. In conclusion, serum thyrotrophin was correlated with dyslipidemia in subclinical hypothyroid and euthyroid subjects; the correlation was independent of insulin sensitivity

Increased Formation of Follicular Antrum in Aquaporin-8-Deficient Mice Is Due to Defective Proliferation and Migration, and Not Steroidogenesis of Granulosa Cells

Aquaporin-8 (AQP8) is a water channel protein expressed exclusively in granulosa cells (GCs) in mouse ovary. Our previous studies of AQP8-deficient (AQP8-/-) mice demonstrated that AQP8 participates in folliculogenesis, including in the formation of follicles, ovulation, and atresia. However, its physiological function in formation of the antral follicle is still largely unknown. In the present study, we observed significantly increased numbers of antral follicles in AQP8-/- ovaries as well as significantly increased follicular antrum formation in in vitro 3D culture of AQP8-/- follicles. Functional detection of AQP8-/- GCs indicated that cell proliferation is impaired with FSH treatment, and wound healing and Transwell migration are also impaired with or without FSH treatment, compared with that in WT. However, the biosynthesis of estradiol and progesterone as well as the mRNA levels of key steroidogenic enzyme genes (CYP19A1 and StAR) in AQP8-/- GCs did not change, even with addition of FSH and/or testosterone. In order to estimate the influence of the impaired proliferation and migration on the density of GC mass, preantral follicles were injected with FITC-dextran, which distributes only in the intercellular space, and analyzed by confocal microscopy. The micrographs showed significantly higher transmission of fluorescence in AQP8-/- follicles, suggesting increased intercellular space of GCs. Based on this evidence, we concluded that AQP8 deficiency leads to increased formation of follicular antra in vivo and in vitro, and the mechanism may be associated with increased intercellular space of GCs, which may be caused by defective proliferation and migration of GCs. This study may offer new insight into the molecular mechanisms of the formation of follicular antrum

Ultrasound-Based Real-Time Imaging of Hydrogel-Based Millirobots with Volume Change Capability

Soft-bodied robots driven by external fields have better environmental adaptability, extending their applications. Nature also provides lots of inspiration for shape-morphing robot development, for example, larvae and jellyfish. This paper presents magnetically propelled hydrogel-based millirobots with volume changeability. The millirobot can be imaged in real time in a completely enclosed space with an ultrasound imaging system. Firstly, a custom-designed magnetic generating system with six square coils was introduced to generate a uniform field to propel the robot. The robot was fabricated using hydrogel with a thickness of around 300 μm. After programmable magnetization, the robot could change its shape and move using the rotating magnetic field. With the near-infrared illumination, the robot could shrink and could recover when the illumination stopped. Even when the robot shrank, it could be propelled by the external field, showing its potential usage in complex environments. Moreover, the posture information of the robot including the position and shape could be obtained in real time using ultrasound image technology

Intratumoral perfusion may affect microwave ablation area of hepatocellular carcinoma

AbstractObjectives We aimed to evaluate the effect of intratumoral perfusion on microwave ablation (MWA) area in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).Methods Patients who underwent curative MWA for HCC between October 2013 and May 2015 were enrolled. Three days before MWA, contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) was performed to illustrate the perfusion characteristics of the target lesion. Using the Sonoliver quantification software, time-intensity curves of dynamic CEUS were obtained, and quantitative parameters were extracted. Two microwave antennae were inserted into the center of the tumor and MWA was performed with a continuous power output of 50 W for 5 min. A second CEUS was performed to measure the size of the ablated region. Thereafter, an additional MWA procedure was performed until complete ablation with a 5–10-mm safety margin was achieved.Results A total of 38 patients who underwent curative MWA for 39 HCC nodules were enrolled. The mean age was 57 years (34–80 years), and the median maximum diameter of the HCC was 3.4 cm (interquartile range, 2–6.8 cm). Time-intensity curves were obtained and the area under the curve (AUC) was selected as a parameter for intratumoral perfusion. The AUC was inversely and linearly correlated with the size of the MWA area, including long- and short-axis diameters and ablation volume. A 1,000-dB·s change in the AUC produced an average change of 1.17 ± 0.44 mm, 0.725 ± 0.355 mm, and 2.4995 ± 0.6575 cm³ in the long- and short-axis diameters and ablation volume, respectively.Conclusions The intratumoral perfusion of HCC was inversely correlated with MWA area size

Quality-Aware Self-Training on Differentiable Synthesis of Rare Relational Data

Data scarcity is a very common real-world problem that poses a major challenge to data-driven analytics. Although a lot of data-balancing approaches have been proposed to mitigate this problem, they may drop some useful information or fall into the overfitting problem. Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) based data synthesis methods can alleviate such a problem but lack of quality control over the generated samples. Moreover, the latent associations between the attribute set and the class labels in a relational data cannot be easily captured by a vanilla GAN. In light of this, we introduce an end-to-end self-training scheme (namely, Quality-Aware Self-Training) for rare relational data synthesis, which generates labeled synthetic data via pseudo labeling on GAN-based synthesis. We design a semantic pseudo labeling module to first control the quality of the generated features/samples, then calibrate their semantic labels via a classifier committee consisting of multiple pre-trained shallow classifiers. The high-confident generated samples with calibrated pseudo labels are then fed into a semantic classification network as augmented samples for self-training. We conduct extensive experiments on 20 benchmark datasets of different domains, including 14 industrial datasets. The results show that our method significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods, including two recent GAN-based data synthesis schemes. Codes are available at https://github.com/yaxinhou/QAST

Some Second-Order σ Schemes Combined with an H1-Galerkin MFE Method for a Nonlinear Distributed-Order Sub-Diffusion Equation

In this article, some high-order time discrete schemes with an H 1 -Galerkin mixed finite element (MFE) method are studied to numerically solve a nonlinear distributed-order sub-diffusion model. Among the considered techniques, the interpolation approximation combined with second-order σ schemes in time is used to approximate the distributed order derivative. The stability and convergence of the scheme are discussed. Some numerical examples are provided to indicate the feasibility and efficiency of our schemes

Recent Advances in Microbial Synthesis of Poly-γ-Glutamic Acid: A Review

Poly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) is a natural, safe, non-immunogenic, biodegradable, and environmentally friendly glutamic biopolymer. γ-PGA has been regarded as a promising bio-based materials in the food field, medical field, even in environmental engineering field, and other industrial fields. Microbial synthesis is an economical and effective way to synthesize γ-PGA. Bacillus species are the most widely studied producing strains. γ-PGA biosynthesis involves metabolic pathway of racemization, polymerization, transfer, and catabolism. Although microbial synthesis of γ-PGA has already been used extensively, productivity and yield remain the major constraints for its industrial application. Metabolic regulation is an attempt to solve the above bottleneck problems and meet the demands of commercialization. Therefore, it is important to understand critical factors that influence γ-PGA microbial synthesis in depth. This review focuses on production strains, biosynthetic pathway, and metabolic regulation. Moreover, it systematically summarizes the functional properties, purification procedure, and industrial application of γ-PGA

Comprehensive Analysis of CPA4 as a Poor Prognostic Biomarker Correlated with Immune Cells Infiltration in Bladder Cancer

Carboxypeptidase A4 (CPA4) has shown the potential to be a biomarker in the early diagnosis of certain cancers. However, no previous research has linked CPA4 to therapeutic or prognostic significance in bladder cancer. Using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, we set out to determine the full extent of the link between CPA4 and BLCA. We further analyzed the interacting proteins of CPA4 and infiltrated immune cells via the TIMER2, STRING, and GEPIA2 databases. The expression of CPA4 in tumor and normal tissues was compared using the TCGA + GETx database. The connection between CPA4 expression and clinicopathologic characteristics and overall survival (OS) was investigated using multivariate methods and Kaplan–Meier survival curves. The potential functions and pathways were investigated via gene set enrichment analysis. Furthermore, we analyze the associations between CPA4 expression and infiltrated immune cells with their respective gene marker sets using the ssGSEA, TIMER2, and GEPIA2 databases. Compared with matching normal tissues, human CPA4 was found to be substantially expressed. We confirmed that the overexpression of CPA4 is linked with shorter OS, DSF(Disease-specific survival), PFI(Progression-free interval), and increased diagnostic potential using Kaplan–Meier and ROC analysis. The expression of CPA4 is related to T-bet, IL12RB2, CTLA4, and LAG3, among which T-bet and IL12RB2 are Th1 marker genes while CTLA4 and LAG3 are related to T cell exhaustion, which may be used to guide the application of checkpoint blockade and the adoption of T cell transfer therapy

The Small Molecule Fractions of Floccularia luteovirens Induce Apoptosis of NSCLC Cells through Activating Caspase-3 Activity

Floccularia luteovirens is a rare wild edible and medicinal fungus endemic to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. In this study, the hollow fiber membranes with molecular weights of 50 kDa, 6 kDa and 3 kDa were used to extract different fractions of F. luteovirens, which were named as #1, #2 and #3. Then the antitumor activity of these fractions on NSCLC cell lines, PC9 and NCI-H460, were investigated by using MTT assay, flow cytometry analysis and Western blot assay. The results indicated that the #2 and #3 fractions showed obviously inhibitory activities on PC9 and NCI-H460 tumor cells and proved that these small molecule fractions induced apoptosis of NSCLC cells by activating caspase-3. Finally, a total of 15 components, including six amino acids, two nucleosides, two glycosides, two terpenoids, one phenylpropanoid, one ester and one alkaloid, were identified in #2 and #3 fractions. This is the first evidence that the small molecule components of F. luteovirens were able to inhibit lung cancer by inducing apoptosis in a caspase-3 manner. The present study indicated the benefits of F. luteovirens in lung cancer treatment, which might be a potential resource of functional food and drugs