The influence of survivin shRNA on the cell cycle and the invasion of SW480 cells of colorectal carcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The objective was to understand the influence of Survivin plasmid with short hairpin RNA (shRNA) on the cell cycle, invasion, and the silencing effect of Survivin gene in the SW480 cell of colorectal carcinoma.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A eukaryotic expression vector, PGCH1/Survivin shRNA, a segment sequence of Survivin as target, was created and transfected into colorectal carcinoma cell line SW480 by the non-lipid method. The influence on the Survivin protein was analyzed by Western blotting, while the cell cycle, cell apoptosis were analyzed by flow cytometry, and invasion of the cell was analyzed by Transwell's chamber method.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After the transfection of PGCH1/Survivin shRNA, the expression of Survivin protein in SW480 cells was dramatically decreased by 60.68%, in which the cells were stopped at G2/M phase, even though no apoptosis was detected. The number of transmembranous cells of the experimental group, negative control group, and blank control group were 14.46 ± 2.11, 25.12 ± 8.37, and 25.86 ± 7.45, respectively (P <<it>0.05</it>).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Survivin shRNA could significantly reduce the expression of Survivin protein and invasion of SW480 cells. Changes in cell cycle were observed, but no apoptosis was induced.</p

Impact of Instance Seeking Strategies on Resource Allocation in Cloud Data Centers

With the prosperity of cloud computing, an increasing number of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) move their business to public clouds such as Amazon EC2. To help tenants deploy services in the cloud, researchers either conduct performance evaluations or design mechanisms and software on seeking virtual machines of better performance. However, few studies have investigated the impact of instance seeking strategies on resource allocation in clouds if every tenant starts to apply the same method to find the better-performing virtual machine. In this paper, we propose a cloud and a tenant model in order to simulate the process of tenants' seeking better-performing instances in the cloud. We discuss, implement and evaluate six cloud resource allocation strategies and five instance seeking strategies. We perform the evaluation via simulation based on real data traces. Our results show that instance seeking strategies can cause the exhaustion of better-performing instances and significant request growth in the cloud. Furthermore, we find that tenants could save time and budget through collaborative seeking strategies. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings from perspectives of both tenants and providers

Targeting Thioredoxin System with an Organosulfur Compound, Diallyl Trisulfide (DATS), Attenuates Progression and Metastasis of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)

Background/Aims: Metastasis is the leading cause resulting in high mortality in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients. Cancer cells are skilled at utilizing thioredoxin (Trx) system as an efficient antioxidant system to counteract oxidative damage, facilitating the occurrence of metastasis. Here, we identified an organosulfur compound named DATS isolated from garlic, that inhibits the expression of Trx-1 and the enzyme activity of Trx reductase in breast cancer cells. Methods: Tissue microarray of breast cancer patients and immunohistochemical method were used to analyze the role of Trx-1 in breast cancer metastasis. Spotaneous metastasis model and experimental metastasis model combined with HE staining, immunohistochemistry were used to verify in vivo anti-metastatic effect of DATS as well as its regulation on thioredoxin. Western blot, immunofluorescence, redox state assessment and detection of enzyme activity were employed to determine the effect of DATS on thioredoxin system. Trx-1 siRNA interference was used to investigate the conclusive evidence that Trx-1 was the target of DATS. Results: In agreement with reduced Trx-1 nuclear translocation from cytoplasm by DATS, the production of reduced form of Trx-1 was dramatically decreased. Furthermore, in vivo, DATS administration was observed to significantly suppress spontaneous and experimental metastasis in nude mice. Delivery of DATS also resulted in decreased expression of Trx-1 as the direct target, as well as expression of NF-κB and MMP2/9 in primary tumor and lung tissue. Notably, the effects of DATS on the expression of downstream metastasis-associated genes were mediated by Trx-1, as demonstrated by the combination use of DATS and Trx-1 siRNA. Conclusion: Collectively, this present study indicates that targeting Trx system with DATS may provide a promising strategy for treating metastasis of TNBC

Developing process capabilities for selective laser melting

Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is an Additive Manufacturing (AM) technique which is able to fabricate complex functional 3-Dimensional (3D) parts of high densities from the complete melting and fusion of powdered materials. SLM parts possess superior properties compared to parts produced by conventional manufacturing processes due to enhanced microstructure obtained from the rapid solidification process in SLM. However, the SLM process is difficult to control because of the mechanical properties of the parts fluctuate easily with different forming parameters. Furthermore, SLM exhibits complex physical and chemical processes and is accompanied with complicated heat and mass transfer that are not fully understood. This research aims to develop new and better SLM process capabilities to address the process control difficulties with a representative metallic alloy, M2 High Speed Steel (HSS). M2 HSS is a popular tool material valued for its excellent hardness, toughness and wear resistance and is also a material new to the SLM process. Hence, this research also paves the way to better understand and control the SLM process through M2 HSS as well as introducing it as a tool material for SLM. Firstly, the SLM process was modelled so as to study and understand the microstructure evolution in M2 HSS SLM parts through MATLAB programming and simulations. As a result, the resultant microstructure, in particular, the Heat Affected Zones (HAZs) were successfully characterised with a novel approach based on a proposed analytical solution developed from a double ellipsoidal density heat source. The simulated HAZs were validated where characterisation results were very close to the experimental results. This indicated that the HAZs in SLM parts could be desirably controlled with appropriate process parameters. In addition, cooling rates within the simulated theoretical HAZs were calculated to be in the range of 105 K/s.Doctor of Philosophy (MAE

Improvement of Accuracy in Damage Localization Using Frequency Slice Wavelet Transform

Damage localization is a primary objective of damage identification. This paper presents damage localization in beam structure using impact-induced Lamb wave and Frequency Slice Wavelet Transform (FSWT). FSWT is a new time-frequency analysis method and has the adaptive resolution feature. The time-frequency resolution is a vital factor affecting the accuracy of damage localization. In FSWT there is a unique parameter controlling the time-frequency resolution. To improve the accuracy of damage localization, a generalized criterion is proposed to determine the parameter value for achieving a suitable time-frequency resolution. For damage localization, the group velocity dispersion curve (GVDC) of A0 Lamb waves in beam is first accurately estimated using FSWT, and then the arrival times of reflection wave from the crack for some individual frequency components are determined. An average operation on the calculated propagation distance is then performed to further improve the accuracy of damage localization

Decomposition-Based Multi-Step Forecasting Model for the Environmental Variables of Rabbit Houses

To improve prediction accuracy and provide sufficient time to control decision-making, a decomposition-based multi-step forecasting model for rabbit house environmental variables is proposed. Traditional forecasting methods for rabbit house environmental parameters perform poorly because the coupling relationship between sequences is ignored. Using the STL algorithm, the proposed model first decomposes the non-stationary time series into trend, seasonal, and residual components and then predicts separately based on the characteristics of each component. LSTM and Informer are used to predict the trend and residual components, respectively. The aforementioned two predicted values are added together with the seasonal component to obtain the final predicted value. The most important environmental variables in a rabbit house are temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide concentration. The experimental results show that the encoder and decoder input sequence lengths in the Informer model have a significant impact on the model&rsquo;s performance. The rabbit house environment&rsquo;s multivariate correlation time series can be effectively predicted in a multi-input and single-output mode. The temperature and humidity prediction improved significantly, but the carbon dioxide concentration did not. Because of the effective extraction of the coupling relationship among the correlated time series, the proposed model can perfectly perform multivariate multi-step prediction of non-stationary time series

Extreme Environmental Stress-Induced Biological Responses in the Planarian

Planarians are bilaterally symmetric metazoans of the phylum Platyhelminthes. They have well-defined anteroposterior and dorsoventral axes and have a highly structured true brain which consists of all neural cell types and neuropeptides found in a vertebrate. Planarian flatworms are famous for their strong regenerative ability; they can easily regenerate any part of the body including the complete neoformation of a functional brain within a few days and can survive a series of extreme environmental stress. Nowadays, they are an emerging model system in the field of developmental, regenerative, and stem cell biology and have offered lots of helpful information for these realms. In this review, we will summarize the response of planarians to some typical environmental stress and hope to shed light on basic mechanisms of how organisms interact with extreme environmental stress and survive it, such as altered gravity, temperature, and oxygen, and this information will help researchers improve the design in future studies