Limited Regeneration Potential with Minimal Epicardial Progenitor Conversions in the Neonatal Mouse Heart after Injury

The regeneration capacity of neonatal mouse heart is controversial. In addition, whether epicardial cells provide a progenitor pool for de novo heart regeneration is incompletely defined. Following apical resection of the neonatal mouse heart, we observed limited regeneration potential. Fate-mapping of Tbx18MerCreMer mice revealed that newly formed coronary vessels and a limited number of cardiomyocytes were derived from the T-box transcription factor 18 (Tbx18) lineage. However, further lineage tracing with SM-MHCCreERT2 and Nfactc1Cre mice revealed that the new smooth muscle and endothelial cells are in fact derivatives of pre-existing coronary vessels. Our data show that neonatal mouse heart can regenerate but that its potential is limited. Moreover, although epicardial cells are multipotent during embryogenesis, their contribution to heart repair through "stem" or "progenitor" cell conversion is minimal after birth. These observations suggest that early embryonic heart development and postnatal heart regeneration are distinct biological processes. Multipotency of epicardial cells is significantly decreased after birth

Molecular Ecology of Pyrethroid Knockdown Resistance in Culex pipiens pallens Mosquitoes

Pyrethroid insecticides have been extensively used in China and worldwide for public health pest control. Accurate resistance monitoring is essential to guide the rational use of insecticides and resistance management. Here we examined the nucleotide diversity of the para-sodium channel gene, which confers knockdown resistance (kdr) in Culex pipiens pallens mosquitoes in China. The sequence analysis of the para-sodium channel gene identified L1014F and L1014S mutations. We developed and validated allele-specific PCR and the real-time TaqMan methods for resistance diagnosis. The real-time TaqMan method is more superior to the allele-specific PCR method as evidenced by higher amplification rate and better sensitivity and specificity. Significant positive correlation between kdr allele frequency and bioassay-based resistance phenotype demonstrates that the frequency of L1014F and L1014S mutations in the kdr gene can be used as a molecular marker for deltamethrin resistance monitoring in natural Cx. pipiens pallens populations in the East China region. The laboratory selection experiment found that L1014F mutation frequency, but not L1014S mutation, responded to deltamethrin selection, suggesting that the L1014F mutation is the key mutation conferring resistance to deltamethrin. High L1014F mutation frequency detected in six populations of Cx. pipens pallens suggests high prevalence of pyrethroid resistance in Eastern China, calling for further surveys to map the resistance in China and for investigating alternative mosquito control strategies

Spherical harmonic decomposition for surfaces of arbitrary topology

Spherical harmonics have many valuable theoretic and practical applications in data and signal processing and modeling. It decomposes a given function defined on a sphere into a set orthogonal spherical harmonics. However, the given signal/function needs to be defined on a sphere domain. This paper studies the spherical harmonic decomposition for functions defined on general 2-dimensional manifold surfaces. We parameterize a surface with non-trivial topology onto a sphere domain, upon which the spherical harmonic idecomposition can be conducted effectively. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework via progressive surface reconstruction. ©2010 IEEE

Synergistic therapeutic potential of alpelisib in cancers (excluding breast cancer): Preclinical and clinical evidences

The phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway is well-known for its important role in cancer growth, proliferation and migration. The activation of PI3K pathway is always connected with endocrine resistance and poor prognosis in cancers. Alpelisib, a selective inhibitor of PI3K, has been demonstrated to be effective in combination with endocrine therapy in HR+ PIK3CA-mutated advanced breast cancer in preclinical and clinical trials. Recently, the synergistic effects of alpelisib combined with targeted agents have been widely reported in PIK3CA-mutated cancer cells, such as breast, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), cervical, liver, pancreatic and lung cancer. However, previous reviews mainly focused on the pharmacological activities of alpelisib in breast cancer. The synergistic therapeutic potential of alpelisib in other cancers has not yet been well reviewed. In this review, an extensive study of related literatures (published until December 20, 2022) regarding the anti-cancer functions and synergistic effects of alpelisib was carried out through the databases. Useful information was extracted. We summarized the preclinical and clinical studies of alpelisib in combination with targeted anti-cancer agents in cancer treatment (excluding breast cancer). The combinations of alpelisib and other targeted agents significantly improved the therapeutic efficacy both in preclinical and clinical studies. Unfortunately, synergistic therapies still could not effectively avoid the possible toxicities and adverse events during treatment. Finally, some prospects for the combination studies in cancer treatment were provided in the paper. Taken together, this review provided valuable information for alpelisib in preclinical and clinical applications

A survey of topology denoise technologies

Conference Name:6th International Conference on Computer Science and Education, ICCSE 2011. Conference Address: Singapore, Singapore. Time:August 3, 2011 - August 5, 2011.Polygonal meshes are the most popular representation scheme for 3D surfaces in computer graphics. Polygonal meshes usually have topological and/or geometric noises during their scanning and collection steps. Many geometric computing and manipulation operations need to be performed on clean meshes. Therefore, topological noises on polygonal meshes need to be removed in a preprocessing step, which is called topology denoise. We classify a few popular topology denoise technologies and analyze their properties. ? 2011 IEEE

Efficient spherical parametrization using progressive optimization

Conference Name:1st International Conference on Computational Visual Media, CVM 2012. Conference Address: Beijing, China. Time:November 8, 2012 - November 10, 2012.ACM SIGGRAPH; China Computer Federation; Tsinghua UniversitySpherical mapping is a key enabling technology in modeling and processing genus-0 close surfaces. A closed genus-0 surface can be seamless parameterized onto a unit sphere. We develop an effective progressive optimization scheme to compute such a parametrization, minimizing a nonlinear energy balancing angle and area distortions. Among all existing state-of-the-art spherical mapping methods, the main advantage of our spherical mapping are two-folded: (1) the algorithm converges very efficiently, therefore it is suitable for handling huge geometric models, and (2) it generates bijective and lowly distorted mapping results. 漏 2012 Springer-Verlag

Loop Nucleotide Polymorphism in a Putative miRNA Precursor Associated with Seed Length in Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Reproduction is permitted for personal, noncommercial use, provided that the article is in whole, unmodified, and properly cited. Received: 2013.03.29; Accepted: 2013.06.05; Published: 2013.06.16 The terminal loop region of primary miRNA transcripts is an important determinant controlling miRNA function in human, animals and plants. However, the effects of polymorphisms in loop region of miRNA precusors on phenotypic variation have not been reported, especially on agronomic traits in rice. From rice japonica variety Koshihikari and indica Guichao2, we isolated a precursor of putative miRNA osa-MIR2923a. We detected a GG/AA polymorphism in the loop structure from japonica and indica rice varieties, which was corresponding to japonica/indica rice differentiation. By using high-resolution melting (HRM) analysis, we measured the polymorphisms in a RIL (recombinant inbred lines) population derived from japonica variety Koshihikari and indica Guichao2. We found that the GG/AA polymorphism in the osa-MIR2923a loop was correlated to grain length and length-width ratio. We further found the significant association between seed length and GG/AA polymorphism in a population consisting of 72 rice landraces. Three targets were predicted, whose expressions showed significant differences between the two varieties. Ou

An efficient spherical mapping algorithm and its application on spherical harmonics

LA Board-of-Regents RCS LEQSF [(2009-12)-RD-A-06]; National Science Foundation [1320959, 1016204]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [61170323]The sphere is a natural and seamless parametric domain for closed genus-0 surfaces. We introduce an efficient hierarchical optimization approach for the computation of spherical parametrization for closed genus-0 surfaces by minimizing a nonlinear energy balancing angle and area distortions. The mapping results are bijective and lowly distorted. Our algorithm converges efficiently and is suitable to manipulate large-scale geometric models. We demonstrate and analyze the effectiveness of our mapping in spherical harmonics decomposition