MicroRNA-575 targets BLID to promote growth and invasion of non-small cell lung cancer cells

AbstractThis study was designed to detect miR-575 expression and function in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A higher expression of miR-575 in NSCLC tissues was observed compared with adjacent non-neoplastic tissues. Furthermore, re-introduction of miR-575 significantly promoted cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in the NSCLC line. Moreover, we showed that BLID is negatively regulated by miR-575 at the posttranscriptional level, via a specific target site within the 3′UTR. Overexpression of BLID counteracted miR-575-induced proliferation and invasion in NSCLC cells. The expression of BLID is frequently downregulated in NSCLC tumors and cell lines and inversely correlates with miR-575 expression. The findings of this study contribute to the current understanding of the functions of miR-575 in NSCLC

Impact of CRAMP-34 on Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms and extracellular metabolites

Biofilm is a structured community of bacteria encased within a self-produced extracellular matrix. When bacteria form biofilms, they undergo a phenotypic shift that enhances their resistance to antimicrobial agents. Consequently, inducing the transition of biofilm bacteria to the planktonic state may offer a viable approach for addressing infections associated with biofilms. Our previous study has shown that the mouse antimicrobial peptide CRAMP-34 can disperse Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) biofilm, and the potential mechanism of CRAMP-34 eradicate P. aeruginosa biofilms was also investigated by combined omics. However, changes in bacterial extracellular metabolism have not been identified. To further explore the mechanism by which CRAMP-34 disperses biofilm, this study analyzed its effects on the extracellular metabolites of biofilm cells via metabolomics. The results demonstrated that a total of 258 significantly different metabolites were detected in the untargeted metabolomics, of which 73 were downregulated and 185 were upregulated. Pathway enrichment analysis of differential metabolites revealed that metabolic pathways are mainly related to the biosynthesis and metabolism of amino acids, and it also suggested that CRAMP-34 may alter the sensitivity of biofilm bacteria to antibiotics. Subsequently, it was confirmed that the combination of CRAMP-34 with vancomycin and colistin had a synergistic effect on dispersed cells. These results, along with our previous findings, suggest that CRAMP-34 may promote the transition of PAO1 bacteria from the biofilm state to the planktonic state by upregulating the extracellular glutamate and succinate metabolism and eventually leading to the dispersal of biofilm. In addition, increased extracellular metabolites of myoinositol, palmitic acid and oleic acid may enhance the susceptibility of the dispersed bacteria to the antibiotics colistin and vancomycin. CRAMP-34 also delayed the development of bacterial resistance to colistin and ciprofloxacin. These results suggest the promising development of CRAMP-34 in combination with antibiotics as a potential candidate to provide a novel therapeutic approach for the prevention and treatment of biofilm-associated infections

Sustainability by High–Speed Rail: The Reduction Mechanisms of Transportation Infrastructure on Haze Pollution

Haze pollution impacts human health, as well as the competitive capabilities of firms and local economic development. Considerable attention has been given to the study of mechanisms for reducing haze pollution, but few studies have investigated the effect of city-to-city transportation infrastructures on environmental issues based on an institutional perspective. To address this research gap, this study advances our understanding by assessing the effect of city–to–city transportation on haze pollution caused by the operation of high-speed rail, which triggers the rapid flow of individuals and information, improves information transparency, as well as imposes institutional pressure on local governments and firms to reduce haze pollution. To further verify the underlying mechanisms, we tested the development of hard infrastructure (information communication technology) and soft infrastructure (market development level), which represent two conditions for which the mechanism is likely to be critical. We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 288 prefecture-level cities in China during the period from 2005 to 2016. The empirical results indicate that the operation of high-speed rail can reduce haze pollution by 17% on average

RLSF: Multimodal Sleep Improvement Based Reinforcement Learning

As informatization 3.0 accelerates the pace of people’s life and work, people’s happiness index and physical and mental health have become the focus of attention and research in sociology, psychology and medicine. Currently, neurological diseases represented by insomnia have become common chronic diseases. However, existing insomnia treatment methods mainly focus on drug therapy and EEG-based expert intervention, ignoring the individual variability of insomnia patients, the high cost of expert intervention, and the privacy of the user’s treatment environment. Therefore, aiming at the effect of white noise lite on sleep quality, this paper proposes a time-frequency domain correlation multimodal sleep enhancement framework based on reinforcement learning (RLSF), which is a closed-loop feedback sleep improvement framework that includes hardware and software. Specifically, the individual sleep state is fed for learning through EEG sensors’ input, and the agent is gradually trained to suit the sleep habit. This paper provides a reinforcement learning environment in which different agents can be deployed easily; then, we propose the Deep Net Sleep Improvement agent (DNSI agent) and the Time and Frequency-based Lightweight Sleep Improvement agent (TFLSI agent) for RLSF. Finally, the substantial experiments compare DNSI and TFLSI agent performance, and the results indicate that these two agents both have decision-making ability, and three volunteers’ Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index significantly reduces by 3–7 points within two months and the average time to sleep is reduced by 131.4 seconds. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/TerryZAG/RLSF. Our self-made dataset is publicly available at https://github.com/TerryZAG/TGAM-datasets-for-RLSF

Predictive Roles of Basal Metabolic Rate and Body Water Distribution in Sarcopenia and Sarcopenic Obesity: The link to Carbohydrates

Sarcopenic obesity is a new category of obesity and is a specific condition of sarcopenia. This study aimed to find the relationship of the basal metabolic rate (BMR) and body water distribution with muscle health and their prospective roles in screening for sarcopenic obesity and sarcopenia. The role of nutrients such as carbohydrates in the relationship was further detected. A total of 402 elderly subjects were recruited. Body composition was estimated by bioelectrical impedance analysis. Sarcopenia was defined by the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia 2019. The cutoff values were determined by the receiver operating characteristic curve. Mediation analyses were performed using SPSS PROCESS. Higher BMR and BMR/body surface area (BSA) were protective factors against sarcopenic obesity (OR = 0.047, p = 0.004; OR = 0.035, p = 0.002) and sarcopenia (OR = 0.085, p = 0.001; OR = 0.100, p = 0.003) in elderly people. Low extracellular water (ECW)/intracellular water (ICW) and ECW/total body water (TBW) were negatively correlated with the skeletal muscle index (SMI). The intake of dietary carbohydrates in people with sarcopenic obesity was the lowest, but in subjects with obesity, it was the highest (p = 0.023). The results of the moderated mediation model showed that BMR fully mediated the positive relationship between carbohydrates and SMI, which was more obvious in the population with an abnormal body water distribution. BMR or BMR/BSA had the potential role of predicting a higher risk of sarcopenic obesity and sarcopenia. Higher BMR and lower ECW/ICW and ECW/TBW may benefit muscle health. The overconsumption of carbohydrates (especially > AMDR) might be a risk factor for obesity. Moderate dietary carbohydrate intake might promote SMI by regulating BMR and body water distribution in the elderly

The Correlation between Early Stages of Life Exposed to Chinese Famine and Cognitive Decline in Adulthood: Nutrition of Adulthood Plays an Important Role in the Link?

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether people exposed to the Chinese Famine in fetal period or in multiple stages of childhood are associated with cognitive decline in adulthood. Furthermore, the nutritional environment of adulthood was explored as an important factor in this correlation.Methods: 1162 adults born between 1952 and 1964 were recruited. They were divided into five groups which were non-exposed group, fetal-exposed group, early childhood-exposed group, mid childhood-exposed group and late childhood-exposed group. Cognitive function was measured by using a comprehensive neuropsychological battery test, including Montreal cognitive assessment-Beijing version, mini-mental state examination, auditory verbal learning test, digit span forward, digit span backward, trail making test, and digit symbol test. Semi-quantified food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was used to assess the dietary nutrition in their adulthood. The dietary nutrient consumption pattern was identified by Two-step and K-means cluster analysis.Results: The significant differences in cognitive function were manifested in different groups. Compared with non-exposed group, subjects in fetal-exposed group had a higher risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (OR 1.51 95% CI 1.02–2.23, P = 0.039) and global cognitive decline (OR 1.68 59% CI 1.02–2.77, P = 0.044). The similar result was also observed in subjects of early childhood-exposed group. Otherwise, subjects who were classified in high nutrient consumption pattern had higher risk of cognitive decline. Moreover, the higher consumption of several nutrients such as fat, carbohydrate and manganese were associated with worse performance on digit span forward, digit span backward, trail making test A, trail making test B and digit symbol.Conclusion: Early stages of life exposed to the Chinese Famine were associated with higher risk of cognitive decline in adulthood. The stronger associations were manifested in the people with high nutrient consumption pattern. The consumption of fat, carbohydrate and manganese were associated with multiple domains cognitive decline