Fumarase mediates transcriptional response to nutrient stress

Limited supply of nutrient normally causes cell growth arrest. Our recent study (Nat Cell Biol. (7):833-843) shows that fumarase (FH), a key enzyme responsible for the conversion between fumarate and malate in tricarboxylic acid cycle, is importantly involved in the cellular response to nutrient condition

Artificial bee colony algorithm with time-varying strategy

Artificial bee colony (ABC) is one of the newest additions to the class of swarm intelligence. ABC algorithm has been shown to be competitive with some other population-based algorithms. However, there is still an insufficiency that ABC is good at exploration but poor at exploitation. To make a proper balance between these two conflictive factors, this paper proposed a novel ABC variant with a time-varying strategy where the ratio between the number of employed bees and the number of onlooker bees varies with time. The linear and nonlinear time-varying strategies can be incorporated into the basic ABC algorithm, yielding ABC-LTVS and ABC-NTVS algorithms, respectively. The effects of the added parameters in the two new ABC algorithms are also studied through solving some representative benchmark functions. The proposed ABC algorithm is a simple and easy modification to the structure of the basic ABC algorithm. Moreover, the proposed approach is general and can be incorporated in other ABC variants. A set of 21 benchmark functions in 30 and 50 dimensions are utilized in the experimental studies. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed time-varying strategy

Ku80 cooperates with CBP to promote COX-2 expression and tumor growth.

Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) plays an important role in lung cancer development and progression. Using streptavidin-agarose pulldown and proteomics assay, we identified and validated Ku80, a dimer of Ku participating in the repair of broken DNA double strands, as a new binding protein of the COX-2 gene promoter. Overexpression of Ku80 up-regulated COX-2 promoter activation and COX-2 expression in lung cancer cells. Silencing of Ku80 by siRNA down-regulated COX-2 expression and inhibited tumor cell growth in vitro and in a xenograft mouse model. Ku80 knockdown suppressed phosphorylation of ERK, resulting in an inactivation of the MAPK pathway. Moreover, CBP, a transcription co-activator, interacted with and acetylated Ku80 to co-regulate the activation of COX-2 promoter. Overexpression of CBP increased Ku80 acetylation, thereby promoting COX-2 expression and cell growth. Suppression of CBP by a CBP-specific inhibitor or siRNA inhibited COX-2 expression as well as tumor cell growth. Tissue microarray immunohistochemical analysis of lung adenocarcinomas revealed a strong positive correlation between levels of Ku80 and COX-2 and clinicopathologic variables. Overexpression of Ku80 was associated with poor prognosis in patients with lung cancers. We conclude that Ku80 promotes COX-2 expression and tumor growth and is a potential therapeutic target in lung cancer

Analysis of clinical characteristics of 617 patients with benign airway stenosis

IntroductionBenign airway stenosis (BAS), namely airway narrowing caused by a variety of benign lesions, can lead to varying degrees of breathing difficulties and even death due to asphyxia. This study aimed to elucidate the clinical characteristics of BAS, including etiology, treatment and pathology, by analyzing the clinical data of BAS patients.MethodsA retrospective analysis was conducted using the clinical data of 617 BAS cases from January 2017 to December 2022. The pathological characteristics of the tissues were assessed by hematoxylin–eosin (H&E) and Masson’s staining. Besides, protein expression levels were determined by immunohistochemistry (IHC).ResultsA total of 617 patients were included (333 females [53.97%] and 284 males [46.03%]), with an average age of 48.93 ± 18.30 (range 14–87). Tuberculosis (n = 306, 49.59%) and trauma (n = 179, 29.02%) were the two leading etiologies of BAS, followed by airway foreign bodies (FB, n = 74, 11.99%), external compression (n = 25, 4.05%) and other etiologies (n = 33, 5.35%). Among 306 tuberculous tracheobronchial stenosis (TBTS) cases, most were females (n = 215, 70.26%), and TBTS mainly occurred in the left main bronchus (n = 97, 31.70%), followed by the right middle bronchus (n = 70 cases, 22.88%). The majority of TBTS patients (n = 259, 84.64%) were treated by interventional therapy. The condition of 179 BAS patients was ascribed to trauma, such as tracheal intubation (n = 92, 51.40%), tracheotomy (n = 69, 38.56%), injury (n = 15, 8.38%) and surgery (n = 3, 1.68%), which mostly took place in the trachea (n = 173, 96.65%). TAS patients mainly received interventional therapy (n = 168, 93.85%) and stent implantation (n = 47, 26.26%). The granulation tissues of BAS primarily featured inflammation, proliferation and fibrosis. IHC indicated the up-regulated expressions of transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), collagen type I protein (COL-I) and vimentin, and the down-regulated expression of E-cadherin, which indicated fibrosis and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT).ConclusionTuberculosis was the main etiology, and trauma was the secondary etiology. The granulation tissues of BAS were characterized by inflammation, fibrosis and probably EMT. Comprehensive interventional therapy is an effective method of treating BAS

Science and technology innovation and practice of major national science and technology special project of coalbed methane in coal mining area

The scientific and technological innovation system formed by the national major oil and gas projects has the characteristics of “new nationwide innovation system”, and the system of scientific and technological projects has the characteristics of “whole process, multi-stage and full life cycle”. During the 11th Five-Year Plan period and 13rd Five-Year Plan period, major national oil and gas projects have continuously supported scientific and technological breakthroughs and technological innovations in basic theories, key technologies and complete sets of equipment for the development and utilization of coalbed methane. Members of the national major projects of oil and gas projects and project implementation unit, paying great efforts, aim to taking the national major projects of oil and gas as an great opportunity, to enhance the level of coal mine area of coalbed methane of science and technology innovation and form the leading industry of coal mining area of coal bed methane research and development of science and technology innovation system, to fully support the realization of key scientific research goals of major national oil and gas projects. Coal mining area coal bed methane grograms have formed a series of major landmark achievements, built a series of industry innovation platform, comprehensively stired the technological progress and industrial development of coal-bed methane industry in coal mining areas of China, and effectively promoted the construction of the coal-bed methane industry in China. Combined with the organization and implementation of the project (subject)/demonstration project and the characteristics of the coal industry, we have systematically summarize the exploration and practice of CBM technological innovation in national major special coal mine area and formed a national major special project of science and technology, which is “guided by national investment, dominated by enterprise investment, highly integrated with industry, university, research and application, and continuously leading the technological progress of the industry”. In establishing and perfecting the organization and management institutions, continue to strengthen the special management specification, continue to play a role of cohesive ties, coordination to promote the scientific research management innovation, promote the development and use fusion to form coal mining area of coalbed methane from the concrete experience of science and technology innovation practice

Machine Learning in Cardio-Oncology: New Insights from an Emerging Discipline

A growing body of evidence on a wide spectrum of adverse cardiac events following oncologic therapies has led to the emergence of cardio-oncology as an increasingly relevant interdisciplinary specialty. This also calls for better risk-stratification for patients undergoing cancer treatment. Machine learning (ML), a popular branch discipline of artificial intelligence that tackles complex big data problems by identifying interaction patterns among variables, has seen increasing usage in cardio-oncology studies for risk stratification. The objective of this comprehensive review is to outline the application of ML approaches in cardio-oncology, including deep learning, artificial neural networks, random forest and summarize the cardiotoxicity identified by ML. The current literature shows that ML has been applied for the prediction, diagnosis and treatment of cardiotoxicity in cancer patients. In addition, role of ML in gender and racial disparities for cardiac outcomes and potential future directions of cardio-oncology are discussed. It is essential to establish dedicated multidisciplinary teams in the hospital and educate medical professionals to become familiar and proficient in ML in the future.</p

Impact of older age adiposity on incident diabetes: A community-based cohort study in China

© 2022 Korean Diabetes Association. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.4093/dmj.2021.0215Background Obesity classifications vary globally and the impact of older age adiposity on incident diabetes has not been well-studied. Methods We examined a random sample of 2,809 participants aged ≥60 years in China, who were free of diabetes at baseline and were followed up for up to 10 years to document diabetes (n=178). The incidence of diabetes was assessed in relation to different cut-off points of body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) in multiple adjusted Cox regression models. Results The diabetic risk in the cohort increased linearly with the continuous and quartile variables of BMI and WC. The BMI-World Health Organization (WHO) and BMI-China criteria analysis did not show such a linear relationship, however, the BMI-Asian/Hong Kong criteria did; adjusted hazards ratio (HR) was 0.42 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.20 to 0.90) in BMI <20 kg/m2, 1.46 (95% CI, 0.99 to 2.14) in 23-≤26 kg/m2, and 1.63 (95% CI, 1.09 to 2.45) in ≥26 kg/m2. The WC-China criteria revealed a slightly better prediction of diabetes (adjusted HRs were 1.79 [95% CI, 1.21 to 2.66] and 1.87 [95% CI, 1.22 to 2.88] in central obese action levels 1 and 2) than the WC-WHO. The combination of the BMI-Asian/Hong Kong with WC-China demonstrated the strongest prediction. There were no gender differences in the impact of adiposity on diabetes. Conclusion In older Chinese, BMI-Asian/Hong Kong criteria is a better predictor of diabetes than other BMI criterion. Its combination with WC-China improved the prediction of adiposity to diabetes, which would help manage bodyweight in older age to reduce the risk of diabetes.The data collection of the Anhui cohort study was funded by the Royal Society of UK, the BUPA Foundation (Grants Nos. 45NOV06, and TBF-M09-05) and Alzheimer’s Research UK (Grant No. ART/PPG2007B/2). The data analysis was supported by the Discipline Construction Project of Guangdong Medical University (4SG21276P) and the Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province Regional Joint Fund Project (The Key Project) (2020B1515120021), China.Published versio