Identification of key interferon-stimulated genes for indicating the condition of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease with highly heterogeneous clinical symptoms and severity. There is complex pathogenesis of SLE, one of which is IFNs overproduction and downstream IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs) upregulation. Identifying the key ISGs differentially expressed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients with SLE and healthy people could help to further understand the role of the IFN pathway in SLE and discover potential diagnostic biomarkers.The differentially expressed ISGs (DEISG) in PBMCs of SLE patients and healthy persons were screened from two datasets of the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. A total of 67 DEISGs, including 6 long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and 61 messenger RNAs (mRNAs) were identified by the “DESeq2” R package. According to Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis, those DEISGs were mainly concentrated in the response to virus and immune system processes. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network showed that most of these DEISGs could interact strongly with each other. Then, IFIT1, RSAD2, IFIT3, USP18, ISG15, OASL, MX1, OAS2, OAS3, and IFI44 were considered to be hub ISGs in SLE by “MCODE” and “Cytohubba” plugins of Cytoscape, Moreover, the results of expression correlation suggested that 3 lncRNAs (NRIR, FAM225A, and LY6E-DT) were closely related to the IFN pathway.The lncRNA NRIR and mRNAs (RSAD2, USP18, IFI44, and ISG15) were selected as candidate ISGs for verification. RT-qPCR results showed that PBMCs from SLE patients had substantially higher expression levels of 5 ISGs compared to healthy controls (HCs). Additionally, statistical analyses revealed that the expression levels of these ISGs were strongly associated to various clinical symptoms, including thrombocytopenia and facial erythema, as well as laboratory indications, including the white blood cell (WBC) count and levels of autoantibodies. The Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve demonstrated that the IFI44, USP18, RSAD2, and IFN score had good diagnostic capabilities of SLE.According to our study, SLE was associated with ISGs including NRIR, RSAD2, USP18, IFI44, and ISG15, which may contribute to the future diagnosis and new personalized targeted therapies

Path-Following Control of Wheeled Planetary Exploration Robots Moving on Deformable Rough Terrain

The control of planetary rovers, which are high performance mobile robots that move on deformable rough terrain, is a challenging problem. Taking lateral skid into account, this paper presents a rough terrain model and nonholonomic kinematics model for planetary rovers. An approach is proposed in which the reference path is generated according to the planned path by combining look-ahead distance and path updating distance on the basis of the carrot following method. A path-following strategy for wheeled planetary exploration robots incorporating slip compensation is designed. Simulation results of a four-wheeled robot on deformable rough terrain verify that it can be controlled to follow a planned path with good precision, despite the fact that the wheels will obviously skid and slip

Post-primary education in West Ham, 1918-39.

This thesis is concerned with post-primary education in West Ham 1918-39, with particular reference to secondary education. The realities of local educational experience are set against a background of educational acts an economies. The economic difficulties of the 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s were keenly felt in West Ham despite the efforts of the predominantly Labour council to mitigate poverty. A gap sometimes existed between the educational opportunities Labour councillors wished to provide and those they were able to provide. Generally a pragmatic approach was taken and certainly a secondary education was not seen as essential for all. Chapter One outlines West Ham's pre-1918 history and growth with reference to local politics and immigrant and religious groupings. West Ham's interwar history is told in greater detail. Chapter Two relates the difficulties encountered by the West Ham Education Committee in its decision to establish compulsory continuation schools, not least from the parents of West Ham. West Ham was one of the few areas in the country which succeeded in implementing compulsory continuation education albeit for a limited period. A section on technical education is also included in this chapter, although detailed treatment is hampered by a scarcity of records. Chapter Three examines West Ham's secondary school scholarships in the context of the national situation. West Ham's higher elementary/central school scholarships are subjected to the same scrutiny. Each of West Ham's secondary schools shared a broadly similar curriculum and ethos. Chapter Four highlights these similarities but also points out differences. Of the five interwar secondary schools, two catered for girls, one for boys and two were mixed. Two of the secondary schools were Catholic institutions, although both accepted non-Catholic pupils. Three of the schools were aided and two municipal. A section is included on West Ham's higher elementary/central schools but records are less full than those for the secondary schools. Chapter Five compares and contrasts West Ham's interwar secondary school system with that in East Ham, its sister borough. Chapter Six discusses both the economic and cultural factors underlying local attitudes to post-compulsory schooling. The main conclusions drawn relate to these attitudes which militated against any easy acceptance of such education as necessarily beneficial

Understanding Spatial Genome Organization: Methods and Insights

The manner by which eukaryotic genomes are packaged into nuclei while maintaining crucial nuclear functions remains one of the fundamental mysteries in biology. Over the last ten years, we have witnessed rapid advances in both microscopic and nucleic acid-based approaches to map genome architecture, and the application of these approaches to the dissection of higher-order chromosomal structures has yielded much new information. It is becoming increasingly clear, for example, that interphase chromosomes form stable, multilevel hierarchical structures. Among them, self-associating domains like so-called topologically associating domains (TADs) appear to be building blocks for large-scale genomic organization. This review describes features of these broadly-defined hierarchical structures, insights into the mechanisms underlying their formation, our current understanding of how interactions in the nuclear space are linked to gene regulation, and important future directions for the field