Thymol inhibits cell migration and invasion by downregulating the activation of PI3K/AKT and ERK pathways in human colon cancer cells

Purpose: To assess the anti-metastasis effects of thymol on human colorectal cancer cells. Methods: Human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell HT29 was incubated with varying concentrations of thymol. Cell viability, migration and invasion were determined by 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5dipheny-tetrazoliumbromide (MTT) and Transwell assays, respectively. Matrix metalloproteinase-2 and 9 (MMP-2 and MMP-9) were analyzed by gel zymogram assay. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-associated gene expression and signaling pathway were analyzed using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and Western blotting, respectively. Results: Thymol was significantly inhibited migration and invasion of HT29 cell (p < 0.01) and also markedly reduced the activity of matrix degrading enzymes MMP-2 and MMP-9 (p < 0.01). Moreover, the epithelial marker, E-cadherin, was elevated, while mesenchymal markers (vimentin and α-SMA), and associated transcription factors (snail and slug) decreased after thymol treatment (p < 0.01). In addition, thymol inhibited the phosphorylation of PI3K/AKT and ERK pathways (p < 0.01). Conclusion: Thymol efficiently attenuates cell migration and invasion by decreasing EMT and downregulating the activation of PI3K/AKT and ERK signaling pathways in colorectal adenocarcinoma cells. It is, thus, a potential candidate drug for the management of colorectal cancer. Keywords: Thymol, Colorectal cancer, Anti-metastasis, Epithelial-mesenchymal transition, Vimentin, PI3K/AKT and ERK pathwa

MadRadar: A Black-Box Physical Layer Attack Framework on mmWave Automotive FMCW Radars

Frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) millimeter-wave (mmWave) radars play a critical role in many of the advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) featured on today's vehicles. While previous works have demonstrated (only) successful false-positive spoofing attacks against these sensors, all but one assumed that an attacker had the runtime knowledge of the victim radar's configuration. In this work, we introduce MadRadar, a general black-box radar attack framework for automotive mmWave FMCW radars capable of estimating the victim radar's configuration in real-time, and then executing an attack based on the estimates. We evaluate the impact of such attacks maliciously manipulating a victim radar's point cloud, and show the novel ability to effectively `add' (i.e., false positive attacks), `remove' (i.e., false negative attacks), or `move' (i.e., translation attacks) object detections from a victim vehicle's scene. Finally, we experimentally demonstrate the feasibility of our attacks on real-world case studies performed using a real-time physical prototype on a software-defined radio platform

Balancing the trade-off between cost and reliability for wireless sensor networks: a multi-objective optimized deployment method

The deployment of the sensor nodes (SNs) always plays a decisive role in the system performance of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this work, we propose an optimal deployment method for practical heterogeneous WSNs which gives a deep insight into the trade-off between the reliability and deployment cost. Specifically, this work aims to provide the optimal deployment of SNs to maximize the coverage degree and connection degree, and meanwhile minimize the overall deployment cost. In addition, this work fully considers the heterogeneity of SNs (i.e. differentiated sensing range and deployment cost) and three-dimensional (3-D) deployment scenarios. This is a multi-objective optimization problem, non-convex, multimodal and NP-hard. To solve it, we develop a novel swarm-based multi-objective optimization algorithm, known as the competitive multi-objective marine predators algorithm (CMOMPA) whose performance is verified by comprehensive comparative experiments with ten other stateof-the-art multi-objective optimization algorithms. The computational results demonstrate that CMOMPA is superior to others in terms of convergence and accuracy and shows excellent performance on multimodal multiobjective optimization problems. Sufficient simulations are also conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the CMOMPA based optimal SNs deployment method. The results show that the optimized deployment can balance the trade-off among deployment cost, sensing reliability and network reliability. The source code is available on https://github.com/iNet-WZU/CMOMPA.Comment: 25 page

Psoralen Induced Liver Injury by Attenuating Liver Regenerative Capability

Psoralen is a major component of the common traditional Chinese medicine Fructus Psoraleae (FP). In this study, we focused on psoralen to explore FP-induced hepatotoxicity and the underlying mechanisms. The acute oral median lethal dose of psoralen in ICR mice was determined to be 1,673 mg/kg. C57BL/6 mice were administered psoralen intragastrically at doses of 400 mg/kg or 800 mg/kg, and were sacrificed 24 h after treatment. Changes in various hepatotoxicity indicators demonstrated that psoralen can cause mild liver injury in mice. Psoralen inhibited the viability of normal human liver L02 cells in vitro by inducing S-phase arrest. In addition, psoralen in both the mouse livers and L02 cells upregulated cyclin E1 and p27 protein levels. The 2/3 partial hepatectomy mouse model was used to further explore the effects of psoralen on the liver regeneration and hepatocellular cycle arrest in vivo. The results showed that the decrease of liver regenerative and self-healing capabilities induced by hepatocellular cycle arrest may play an important role in the hepatotoxicity of psoralen. The further mechanism researches indicated that psoralen-induced hepatotoxicity was associated with inhibition of mTOR signalling pathway and mitochondrial injury; furthermore, MHY, an mTOR activator, partly alleviated the inhibition of mTOR and S-phase cycle arrest induced by psoralen in L02 cells. In conclusion, in this study we showed for the first time, that psoralen significantly induced liver injury in mice; the decrease of liver regenerative and compensatory capabilities induced by hepatocellular cycle arrest may play an important role in the progression of hepatotoxicity associated with the upregulation of cyclin E1 and p27, as well as the inhibition of mTOR signalling and mitochondrial injury. Our findings may contribute to the reduction of hepatotoxicity risk induced by Fructus Psoraleae

Using Network Processor to Establish Security Agent for AODV Routing Protocol

Network Processor (NP) is optimized to perform special network functionalities. It has highly parallel processing architecture to achieve high performance. Ad hoc network is an exciting research aspect due to the characters of self-organization、 dynamically changing topology and temporary network life. However, all the characters make the security problem more serious. Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack is the main puzzle in the security of Ad hoc network. A novel NP-based security scheme is proposed to combat the attack in AODV routing protocol. Security agent is established by a hardware thread in NP. Agent can update itself at some interval by the trustworthiness of the neighbor nodes. Agent can trace the RREQ and RREP messages stream to aggregate the key information to link list and analyze them by intrusion detection algorithm. NS2 simulator is expanded to validate the security scheme. Simulation results show that NP-based security scheme is highly effective to detect and block DoS attack

A new approach: Laparoscopic right hemicolectomy with priority access to small bowel mesentery

BackgroundFor laparoscopic right hemicolectomy, the intermediate approach is commonly employed. However, this approach possesses several disadvantages. In this study, we compare priority access to the small bowel mesentery and the intermediate approach.MethodsThe clinical data of 196 patients admitted to the First Hospital of Chongqing Medical University for laparoscopic right hemicolectomy from January 2019 to January 2022 were retrospectively collected and divided into the small bowel mesenteric priority access and traditional intermediate access groups. The operative time, intraoperative bleeding, number of lymph node dissection, postoperative anal venting time, toleration of solid and liquid intake, and postoperative hospital stay and complications were compared between the two different approaches.ResultsIn total, 81 cases of small bowel mesenteric priority access and 115 cases of intermediate approach for right hemi-colonic radical resection were compared. The operative time was 191.98 ± 46.05 and 209.48 ± 46.08 min in the small bowel mesenteric priority access and intermediate access groups, respectively; the difference was statistically significant. There were no significant differences in the intraoperative bleeding and lymph node clearance. However, the scatter plot analysis showed that severe intraoperative bleeding was relatively less frequent in the small mesenteric priority access group, compared with that in the intermediate approach group. Additionally, there were no statistically significant differences in the first exhaust and defecation times, hospital stay after operation, toleration of solid and liquid intake, and postoperative complication between the two groups.ConclusionIn laparoscopic right hemicolectomy, the small bowel mesenteric priority approach can significantly shorten the operation time compared with the intermediate approach. It can reduce intraoperative bleeding and the operation is simple and safe to perform, making it suitable for less experienced surgeons. Therefore, the small bowel mesenteric priority approach has the potential to be a suitable alternative and deserves further clinical promotion and application