Predictive value of CpG island methylator phenotype for tumor recurrence in hepatitis B virus-associated hepatocellular carcinoma following liver transplantation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP), in which multiple genes concordantly methylated, has been demonstrated to be associated with progression, recurrence, as well as overall survival in some types of cancer.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We examined the promoter methylation status of seven genes including <it>P16, CDH1, GSTP1, DAPK, XAF1, SOCS1 </it>and <it>SYK </it>in 65 cases of HCC treated with LT by methylation-specific PCR. CIMP+ was defined as having three or more genes that are concordantly methylated. The relationship between CIMP status and clinicopathological parameters, as well as tumor recurrence was further analyzed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>CIMP+ was more frequent in HCC with AFP > 400 ng/ml than those with AFP ≤ 400 ng/ml (<it>P </it>= 0.017). In addition, patients with CIMP+ were prone to have multiple tumor numbers than those with CIMP- (<it>P </it>= 0.007). Patients with CIMP+ tumors had significantly worse recurrence-free survival (RFS) than patients with CIMP-tumors by Kaplan-Meier estimates (<it>P </it>= 0.004). Multivariate analysis also revealed that CIMP status might be a novel independent prognostic factor of RFS for HCC patients treated with LT (HR: 3.581; 95% CI: 1.473-8.710, <it>P </it>= 0.005).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results suggested that CIMP could serve as a new prognostic biomarker to predict the risk of tumor recurrence in HCC after transplantation.</p

Enhancing Depth Completion with Multi-View Monitored Distillation

This paper presents a novel method for depth completion, which leverages multi-view improved monitored distillation to generate more precise depth maps. Our approach builds upon the state-of-the-art ensemble distillation method, in which we introduce a stereo-based model as a teacher model to improve the accuracy of the student model for depth completion. By minimizing the reconstruction error for a given image during ensemble distillation, we can avoid learning inherent error modes of completion-based teachers. To provide self-supervised information, we also employ multi-view depth consistency and multi-scale minimum reprojection. These techniques utilize existing structural constraints to yield supervised signals for student model training, without requiring costly ground truth depth information. Our extensive experimental evaluation demonstrates that our proposed method significantly improves the accuracy of the baseline monitored distillation method.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, references adde

Tuning redox active polyoxometalates for efficient electron‐coupled proton buffer mediated water splitting

We present strategies to tune the redox properties of polyoxometalate clusters to enhance the electron‐coupled proton‐buffer‐mediated water splitting process, in which the evolution of hydrogen and oxygen can occur in different forms and is separated in time and space. By substituting the heteroatom template in the Keggin‐type polyoxometalate cluster, H6ZnW12O40, it is possible to double the number of electrons and protonation in the redox reactions (from two to four). This increase can be achieved with better matching of the energy levels as indicated by the redox potentials, compared to the ones of well‐studied H3PW12O40 and H4SiW12O40. This means that H6ZnW12O40 can act as a high‐performance redox mediator in an electrolytic cell for the on‐demand generation of hydrogen with a high decoupling efficiency of 95.5 % and an electrochemical energy efficiency of 83.3 %. Furthermore, the H6ZnW12O40 cluster also exhibits an excellent cycling behaviour and redox reversibility with almost 100 % H2‐mediated capacity retention during 200 cycles and a high coulombic efficiency &gt;92 % each cycle at 30 mA cm−2

Hyper-Activated Pro-Inflammatory CD16+ Monocytes Correlate with the Severity of Liver Injury and Fibrosis in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B

BACKGROUND: Extensive mononuclear cell infiltration is strongly correlated with liver damage in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (CHB) infection. Macrophages and infiltrating monocytes also participate in the development of liver damage and fibrosis in animal models. However, little is known regarding the immunopathogenic role of peripheral blood monocytes and intrahepatic macrophages. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The frequencies, phenotypes, and functions of peripheral blood and intrahepatic monocyte/macrophage subsets were analyzed in 110 HBeAg positive CHB patients, including 32 immune tolerant (IT) carriers and 78 immune activated (IA) patients. Liver biopsies from 20 IA patients undergoing diagnosis were collected for immunohistochemical analysis. IA patients displayed significant increases in peripheral blood monocytes and intrahepatic macrophages as well as CD16(+) subsets, which were closely associated with serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels and the liver histological activity index (HAI) scores. In addition, the increased CD16(+) monocytes/macrophages expressed higher levels of the activation marker HLA-DR compared with CD16(-) monocytes/macrophages. Furthermore, peripheral blood CD16(+) monocytes preferentially released inflammatory cytokines and hold higher potency in inducing the expansion of Th17 cells. Of note, hepatic neutrophils also positively correlated with HAI scores. CONCLUSIONS: These distinct properties of monocyte/macrophage subpopulations participate in fostering the inflammatory microenvironment and liver damage in CHB patients and further represent a collaborative scenario among different cell types contributing to the pathogenesis of HBV-induced liver disease

A multiple coating route to hollow carbon spheres with foam-like shells and their applications in supercapacitor and confined catalysis

Fang, XL (通讯作者)Recent advances in the sol-gel process derived resorcinol-formaldehyde (RF) coating strategies offer new opportunities for the synthesis and applications of hollow carbon spheres (HCS). Due to the lack of an effective route for controlling the pore structures, the synthesis of RF resin derived HCS with a high specific surface area for promising applications is still a challenge. In this work, we present a facile and effective template-directed multiple coating route to synthesize RF resin derived HCS with foam-like shells (HCSF). The as-synthesized HCSF exhibit a significantly higher specific surface area (1286 m(2) g(-1)) and larger pore volumes (2.25 cm(3) g(-1)) than the RF resin derived HCS (639 m(2) g(-1) and 0.56 cm(3) g(-1)). Our experiments demonstrated that the cationic surfactant CTAB plays a critical role in forming the foam-like pore structure. Compared with the RF resin derived HCS, the as-synthesized HCSF show advantageous performances in supercapacitor and confined catalysis due to their unique pore structures.NSFC 21301144 21131005 21333008 20925103 21021061 MOST of China 2011CB93240

Genome-wide patterns of genetic variation in sweet and grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor)

10.1186/gb-2011-12-11-r114Genome Biology1211-GNBL

An Amorphous Carbon Nitride Composite Derived from ZIF-8 as Anode Material for Sodium-Ion Batteries

通讯作者地址: Fan, JMAn composite comprising amorphous carbon nitride (ACN) and zinc oxide is derived from ZIF-8 by pyrolysis. The composite is a promising anode material for sodium-ion batteries. The nitrogen content of the ACN composite is as high as 20.4%, and the bonding state of nitrogen is mostly pyridinic, as determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The composite exhibits an excellent Na+ storage performance with a reversible capacity of 430mAhg(-1) and 146mAhg(-1) at current densities of 83mAg(-1) and 8.33Ag(-1), respectively. A specific capacity of 175mAhg(-1) was maintained after 2000 cycles at 1.67Ag(-1), with only 0.016% capacity degradation per cycle. Moreover, an accelerating rate calorimetry (ARC) test demonstrates the excellent thermal stability of the composite, with a low self heating rate and high onset temperature (210 degrees C). These results shows its promise as a candidate material for high-capacity, high-rate anodes for sodium-ion batteries.National 973 Program 2015CB251102 Key Project of NSFC U1305246 2132106

Hierarchical structure LiFePO4@C synthesized by oleylamine-mediated method for low temperature applications

NSFC [U1305246, 21321062]; Major Project; Xiamen city [3502Z20121002]In this paper, a hierarchical nanostructure LiFePO4@C composite was firstly fabricated by an oleylamine mediated method. The oleylamine played a multifunctional role in restricting the particle size and forming the porous nano-structure of LiFePO4@C composite. Benefiting from its hierarchical structure, LiFePO4@C exhibited superior electrochemical performance, especially at low temperature. It can deliver a capacity of 117 mA h g(-1) at a current density of up to 700 mA g(-1) (about 5 C) at -20 degrees C