Serum IL-38 levels in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Introduction: Interleukin 38 (IL-38) is a new member of the IL-1 family, and it has anti-inflammatory activity. However, its role in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has not been reported. Material and methods: The study included 40 T2DM patients and 42 healthy control subjects. The anthropometric and biochemical measurements were performed using an automatic biochemical analyser, high-performance liquid chromatography, and electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. Circulating IL-38 levels were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results: Serum IL-38 levels in T2DM patients were significantly lower than those in controls. Correlation analysis showed that serum IL-38 was negatively correlated with systolic blood pressure and interleukin 17 (IL-17). Conclusions: The results suggest that IL-38 may be a new biomarker of T2DM

Histone Lysine Methyltransferase SDG8 Is Involved in Brassinosteroid-Regulated Gene Expression in Arabidopsis thaliana

Citation: Wang, X., Chen, J., Xie, Z., Liu, S., Nolan, T., Ye, H., et al. (2014). Histone lysine methyltransferase SDG8 is involved in brassinosteroid- regulated gene expression in arabidopsis thaliana.The plant steroid hormones, brassinosteroids (BRs), play important roles in plant growth, development and responses to environmental stresses. BRs signal through receptors localized to the plasma membrane and other signaling components to regulate the BES1/BZR1 family of transcription factors, which modulates the expression of 4,000-5,000 genes. How BES1/BZR1 and their interacting proteins function to regulate the large number of genes are not completely understood. Here we report that histone lysine methyltransferase SDG8, implicated in Histone 3 lysine 36 di- and tri-methylation (H3K36me2 and me3), is involved in BR-regulated gene expression. BES1 interacts with SDG8, directly or indirectly through IWS1, a transcription elongation factor involved in BR-regulated gene expression. The knockout mutant sdg8 displays a reduced growth phenotype with compromised BR responses. Global gene expression studies demonstrated that SDG8 plays a major role in BR-regulated gene expression as more than half of BR-regulated genes are differentially affected in sdg8 mutant. A Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP) experiment showed that H3K36me3 is reduced in BR-regulated genes in the sdg8 mutant. Based on these results, we propose that SDG8 plays an essential role in mediating BR-regulated gene expression. Our results thus reveal a major mechanism by which histone modifications dictate hormonal regulation of gene expression

Rumor Identification with Maximum Entropy in MicroNet

The widely used applications of Microblog, WeChat, and other social networking platforms (that we call MicroNet) shorten the period of information dissemination and expand the range of information dissemination, which allows rumors to cause greater harm and have more influence. A hot topic in the information dissemination field is how to identify and block rumors. Based on the maximum entropy model, this paper constructs the recognition mechanism of rumor information in the micronetwork environment. First, based on the information entropy theory, we obtained the characteristics of rumor information using the maximum entropy model. Next, we optimized the original classifier training set and the feature function to divide the information into rumors and nonrumors. Finally, the experimental simulation results show that the rumor identification results using this method are better than the original classifier and other related classification methods

Role of IL-38 and Its Related Cytokines in Inflammation

Interleukin- (IL-) 38 is a recently discovered cytokine and is the tenth member of the IL-1 cytokine family. IL-38 shares structural features with IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra) and IL-36Ra. IL-36R is the specific receptor of IL-38, a partial receptor antagonist of IL-36. IL-38 inhibits the production of T-cell cytokines IL-17 and IL-22. IL-38 also inhibits the production of IL-8 induced by IL-36γ, thus inhibiting inflammatory responses. IL-38-related cytokines, including IL-1Ra and IL-36Ra, are involved in the regulation of inflammation and immune responses. The study of IL-38 and IL-38-related cytokines might provide new insights for developing anti-inflammatory treatments in the near future

Semantic Annotation using Horizontal and Vertical Contexts

Abstract. This paper addresses the issue of semantic annotation using horizontal and vertical contexts. Semantic annotation is a task of annotating web pages with ontological information. Information on a web page is usually two-dimensionally laid out, previous semantic annotation methods that view a web page as an ’object ’ sequence has limitations. In this paper, to better incorporate the two-dimensional contexts, semantic annotation is formalized as a problem of block detection and text annotation. Block detection is aimed at detecting the text block by making use of context in one dimension and text annotation is aimed at detecting the ‘targeted instance ’ in the identified blocks using the other dimensional context. A two-stage method for semantic annotation using machine learning has been proposed. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method can significantly outperform the baseline method as well as the sequence-based method for semantic annotation. 1

Possible Impact of Early Spring Arctic Sea Ice on Meiyu Cessation over the Yangtze–Huaihe River Basin

The timing of the cessation of Meiyu is closely connected to the amount of Meiyu rainfall and the commencement of the rainy season in North China. Accurately forecasting the Meiyu withdrawal date (MWD) over the Yangtze–Huaihe River basin (YHRB) has significant implications for the prevention and mitigation of flooding in eastern China. This study observed an intimate out-of-phase relationship between MWD variations and early spring (March and April) Arctic Sea ice area (SIA) anomalies to the north of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, as well as SIA anomalies to the north of the Queen Elizabeth Islands (75° N–82° N, 170° E–130° W and 82° N–86° N, 130° W–80° W, respectively) on the interannual timescale. As such, these can be considered key Arctic Sea ice domains connected to Meiyu cessation in the YHRB. The Arctic SIA anomalies in the key domains persist from early spring to early summer (May and June), thus exerting a lag modulation effect on year-to-year changes in Meiyu cessation, which can be demonstrated through observational analysis and results from the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble Numerical Simulation (CESM-LENS) project. Specifically, the preceding negative SIA anomalies in the key domains are linked to a planetary-scale Rossby wave-like pattern emanating over areas to the northwest of the Chukchi Sea. This tele-connected wave-like pattern is conducive to the generation and maintenance of a quasi-barotropic “north-low–south-high” meridional see-saw pattern over the East Asian–Western North Pacific sector in July, which is a pivotal circulation pattern responsible for delayed Meiyu termination. Furthermore, the situation is the opposite in response to increased sea ice in these key domains within the Arctic. This study proposes a significant cryospheric forcing indicator for Meiyu cessation over the YHRB, which may provide helpful information for operational forecasting of the withdrawal timing of the Meiyu over the YHRB