Cytochrome c oxidase subunit VIIb as a potential target in familial hypercholesterolemia by bioinformatical analysis

OBJECTIVE

The aim of the study is to explore the potential familial hypercholesterolemia markers by comparing with healthy controls.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

We downloaded the gene expression profile GSE13985 from Gene Expression Omnibus database including five patients diagnosed with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) and five age, sex, status matched controls. We applied t-test, Wilcox test and Fisher test in Multtest package of R language to identify the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with p < 0.05 and |logFC| > 1, and constructed the interaction network of the top 3 up- and down-regulated genes using STRING. Besides, the modules of network were analyzed with Cytoscape and screened out with Mcode plugin, and the functional annotation of the genes involved in the modules was analyzed with BiNGO (Biological Networks Gene Ontology).

RESULTS

Firstly, totally 101 differentially expressed genes were identified in FH samples compared with control samples, the genes ranked in top 3 up- and down-regulated genes were selected. Then, basing on the interaction network of these selected genes, ribosomal L24 domain containing 1 (RSL24D1) and cytochrome c oxidase subunit VIIb (COX7B) showed a central position in the interaction network, and also exited in the modules of the network. The functional annotation of the genes in modules showed that COX7B was associated with oxidative phosphorylation.

CONCLUSIONS

COX7B might play vital roles in FH via oxidative phosphorylation system, and might be potential target in the treatment of FH.

Microarray based analysis of gene expression patterns in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors

OBJECTIVE

Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PanNETs) are a small subgroup of tumors with a variety of biological behaviors.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We sought to identify the specially expressed genes and characterize significant pathways in PanNETs compared with non-neoplastic samples. Gene expression profile GSE43795 was obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus database, which included 6 PanNETs and 5 non-neoplastic samples. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified using Limma package. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were used to enrich the functions and pathways of DEGs. Transcription factors (TFs) and tumor-associated genes (TAGs) were also identified. Finally, a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed, and hub proteins and functional module were screened out.

RESULTS

Total of 821 DEGs (421 down-regulated, 400 up-regulated) were selected. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses showed that up-regulated DEGs were related to several pathways, including type 2 diabetes mellitus, Ca2+ signaling pathway, long-term potentiation, and long-term depression pathways. Down-regulated DEGs were enriched in several pathways, such as pancreatic secretion, protein digestion and absorption, and metabolic pathway. Interferon-stimulated gene protein 15 (ISG15), somatostatin (SST), and synaptosomal-associated protein 25 kDa (SNAP25) were identified as hub proteins.

CONCLUSIONS

The genes involved in type 2 diabetes mellitus pathway may play important roles in the development of PanNETs. SNAP25, SST, and ISG15 may be used as potential targets for treatment of PanNETs.

Association of patellar bone marrow lesions with knee pain, patellar cartilage defect and patellar cartilage volume loss in older adults: a cohort study

AIM

To examine the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of patellar bone marrow lesion (BMLs) with knee pain, cartilage defects and cartilage volume in older adults.

METHODS

A total of 904 randomly selected subjects (mean 62.4 years, 49.9% female) were studied. Fat suppressed T1-weighted spoiled gradient recall and T2-weighted fast spin echo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences were used to assess cartilage volume, cartilage defects and/or BMLs at baseline (n = 904) and 2.6 (range: 1.4-4.8) years' follow-up (n = 414). Knee pain was assessed by self-administered Western Ontario McMaster Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) questionnaire at baseline (n = 904) and follow-up (n = 790).

RESULTS

The prevalence of any patellar BMLs was 19% and was higher in those with tibiofemoral BMLs. In multivariable analyses, patellar BMLs were positively associated with any knee pain at baseline and an increase in knee pain when going up/down stairs (odds ratio (OR): 1.67, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.08, 2.59) but not with other knee pain subscales. Patella BMLs were also associated with patellar cartilage defects both at baseline and change over time (OR: 1.76, 95% CI: 1.00, 3.70) but not tibiofemoral defects. Patellar BMLs were negatively associated with baseline and change in patella cartilage volume (β: -2.10%, 95% CI: -3.39%, -0.80%). These associations remained significant after further adjustment for tibiofemoral BMLs.

CONCLUSIONS

Patellar BMLs were consistently associated with increased knee pain especially going up/down stairs, increased patellar cartilage defects, and decreased patellar cartilage volume cross-sectionally and longitudinally, suggesting a predominantly compartment specific role for patellar BMLs.

[Real-time Gait Training System with Embedded Functional Electrical Stimulation]

To solve the problem that mostly gait analysis is independent from the treatment, this work proposes a system that integrates the functions of gait training and assessment for foot drop treatment. The system uses a set of sensors to collect gait parameters and designes multi-mode functional electrical stimulators as actuator. Body area network technology is introduced to coordinate the data communication and execution of the sensors and stimulators, synchronize the gait analysis and foot drop treatment. Bluetooth 4.0 is applied to low the power consumption of the system. The system realizes the synchronization of treatment and gait analysis. It is able to acquire and analyze the dynamic parameters of ankle, knee and hip in real-time, and treat patients by guiding functional electrical stimulation delivery to the specific body locations of patients.

Precision Measurement of the p(e,e^{'}p)π^{0} Reaction at Threshold

New results are reported from a measurement of π^{0} electroproduction near threshold using the p(e,e^{'}p)π^{0} reaction. The experiment was designed to determine precisely the energy dependence of s- and p-wave electromagnetic multipoles as a stringent test of the predictions of chiral perturbation theory (ChPT). The data were taken with an electron beam energy of 1192 MeV using a two-spectrometer setup in Hall A at Jefferson Lab. For the first time, complete coverage of the ϕ_{π}^{*} and θ_{π}^{*} angles in the pπ^{0} center of mass was obtained for invariant energies above threshold from 0.5 up to 15 MeV. The 4-momentum transfer Q^{2} coverage ranges from 0.05 to 0.155 (GeV/c)^{2} in fine steps. A simple phenomenological analysis of our data shows strong disagreement with p-wave predictions from ChPT for Q^{2}>0.07 (GeV/c)^{2}, while the s-wave predictions are in reasonable agreement.

[Efficacy of acupuncture on moderate and severe allergic rhinitis]

OBJECTIVE

To observe the efficacy and safety of acupuncture therapy on moderate and severe allergic rhinitis via the comparison evaluation of western medicine.

METHODS

Sixty cases of moderate and severe allergic rhinitis were divided into an acupuncture group (30 cases) and a western medicine group (30 cases). In the acupuncture group, the main acupoints included Yingxiang (LI 20), Shangxing (GV 23), Fengchi (GB 20), Quchi (LI 11), Xuehai (SP 10), Feishu (BL 13), Geshu (BL 17), Pishu (BL 20), etc. The supplementary points were selected according to syndrome differentiation. In the western medicine group, budesonide nasal spray and cetirizine tablets were prescribed. All the cases were treated for 8 weeks in the two groups. Separately, before treatment, in 4 weeks and 8 weeks of treatment, the scores of clinical symptoms and physical signs were observed and the clinical efficacy and safety were compared between the two groups.

RESULTS

In 4 weeks and 8 weeks of treatment, the scores of symptoms such as sneezing, nasal discharge, nasal obstruction, nasal itching, eye itching and turbinate hypertrophy, the score of physical signs and total score were all reduced apparently as compared with those before treatment (all P<0. 05). The differences were not significant between the acupuncture group and the western medicine group (all P>0. 05). The total effective rates were 90. 0% (27/30) and 93. 4% (28/30) in the acupuncture group after 4 and 8 weeks of treatment, and were 76. 6% (23/30) and 80. 0% (24/30) in the western medicine group separately, without significant difference in comparison (all P>0. 05).

CONCLUSION

Acupuncture achieves the similar efficacy on moderate and severe allergic rhinitis as western medicine. It is the safe therapy and has no apparent adverse reactions.

The preliminary application of assessment system for cancer pain management

OBJECTIVE

To apply the assessment system for cancer pain management preliminarily, explore the issues in cancer pain diagnosis and treatment, and analyze the differences between oncology department and non-oncology in cancer pain diagnosis and treatment.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

The validated questionnaires were collected from department of medical oncology of three hospitals including Xuzhou Central Hospital. Subjects included 41 doctors, 43 nurses, 50 patients, and 12 wards. The data was analyzed to find the main issues as far in cancer pain management. Twelve units of oncology department and 15 units of non-oncology in three hospitals including Xuzhou Central Hospital were assessed with assessment system for cancer pain management. Rank test was conducted to analyze the differences in cancer pain diagnosis and treatment between oncology department and non-oncology.

RESULTS

The average scores of doctors, nurses, wards were 85.4, 88.5, 83.8, respectively, while the average score of patients was 68.7. The percentile of analgesic efficacy and safety in patients was 81.7 and the percentile of analgesic opinion changes was only 55.8, indicating that it was necessary to enhance the education of concept about pain management. The average scores of assessment were 82.2 ± 2.1 and 39.9 ± 3.6 for oncology and non-oncology, respectively. The Wilcoxon value of Rank test was 120.0, indicating the significant difference between the two (p < 0.01). It suggests that there is still a great shortage in cancer pain diagnosis and treatment in non-oncology, and there is an urgent need to further strengthen the cancer pain management-related continuing education.

CONCLUSIONS

In cancer pain treatment-related clinical work, patients' pain education still needs to be strengthened; in comparison with oncology, the cancer pain management-related continuing education for non-oncology also needs to be strengthened.

Studies on the formation and synthetic mechanism of related substance G in potassium clavulanate production

The objective of this study was to investigate the formation and synthetic mechanism of related substance G in potassium clavulanate production. The impurity in the potassium clavulanate final product, with a retention time of 13.5 min, was confirmed as related substance G by high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry. Related substance G analysis during the production of clavulanic acid showed that this impurity could be synthesized during fermentation, and the amount increased with the fermentation time. Studies on its synthetic mechanism showed that L-tyrosine and succinic acid were the precursors for biosynthesis of related substance G in vivo. The reaction was deduced to be catalyzed by an enzyme. The enzyme was a type of extracellular enzyme present in the fermentation supernatant.

The LIM-only transcription factor LMO2 determines tumorigenic and angiogenic traits in glioma stem cells

Glioblastomas (GBMs) maintain their cellular heterogeneity with glioma stem cells (GSCs) producing a variety of tumor cell types. Here we interrogated the oncogenic roles of Lim domain only 2 (LMO2) in GBM and GSCs in mice and human. High expression of LMO2 was found in human patient-derived GSCs compared with the differentiated progeny cells. LMO2 is required for GSC proliferation both in vitro and in vivo, as shRNA-mediated LMO2 silencing attenuated tumor growth derived from human GSCs. Further, LMO2 is sufficient to induce stem cell characteristics (stemness) in mouse premalignant astrocytes, as forced LMO2 expression facilitated in vitro and in vivo growth of astrocytes derived from Ink4a/Arf null mice and acquisition of GSC phenotypes. A subset of mouse and human GSCs converted into vascular endothelial-like tumor cells both in vitro and in vivo, which phenotype was attenuated by LMO2 silencing and promoted by LMO2 overexpression. Mechanistically, the action of LMO2 for induction of glioma stemness is mediated by transcriptional regulation of Jagged1 resulting in activation of the Notch pathway, whereas LMO2 directly occupies the promoter regions of the VE-cadherin gene for a gain of endothelial cellular phenotype. Subsequently, selective ablation of human GSC-derived VE-cadherin-expressing cells attenuated vascular formation in mouse intracranial tumors, thereby significantly prolonging mouse survival. Clinically, LMO2 expression was elevated in GBM tissues and inversely correlated with prognosis of GBM patients. Taken together, our findings describe novel dual roles of LMO2 to induce tumorigenesis and angiogenesis, and provide potential therapeutic targets in GBMs.

Applications of the line-of-response probability density function resolution model in PET list mode reconstruction

Resolution degradation in PET image reconstruction can be caused by inaccurate modeling of the physical factors in the acquisition process. Resolution modeling (RM) is a common technique that takes into account the resolution degrading factors in the system matrix. Our previous work has introduced a probability density function (PDF) method of deriving the resolution kernels from Monte Carlo simulation and parameterizing the LORs to reduce the number of kernels needed for image reconstruction. In addition, LOR-PDF allows different PDFs to be applied to LORs from different crystal layer pairs of the HRRT. In this study, a thorough test was performed with this new model (LOR-PDF) applied to two PET scanners-the HRRT and Focus-220. A more uniform resolution distribution was observed in point source reconstructions by replacing the spatially-invariant kernels with the spatially-variant LOR-PDF. Specifically, from the center to the edge of radial field of view (FOV) of the HRRT, the measured in-plane FWHMs of point sources in a warm background varied slightly from 1.7 mm to 1.9 mm in LOR-PDF reconstructions. In Minihot and contrast phantom reconstructions, LOR-PDF resulted in up to 9% higher contrast at any given noise level than image-space resolution model. LOR-PDF also has the advantage in performing crystal-layer-dependent resolution modeling. The contrast improvement by using LOR-PDF was verified statistically by replicate reconstructions. In addition, [(11)C]AFM rats imaged on the HRRT and [(11)C]PHNO rats imaged on the Focus-220 were utilized to demonstrated the advantage of the new model. Higher contrast between high-uptake regions of only a few millimeter diameter and the background was observed in LOR-PDF reconstruction than in other methods.