[Study on the dynamic changes of peripheral platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio in the prognosis of neoadjuvant chemotherapy patients with gastric cancer]

Objective: To investigate the significance of platelet lymphocyte ratio (PLR) before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced gastric cancer (AGC). Methods: The medical records of 247 AGC patients who underwent surgery between May 2015 and October 2016 were retrospectively reviewed. The relationship between PLR value and its changes before and after neoadjuvant therapy and clinicopathological features and prognosis was further analyzed. Results: △PLR was defined according to the different states of PLR before and after neoadjuvant therapy. If negative value was defined as"Reduced Group"(138) and positive value or 0 was defined as "Unreduced group"(109). There were statistical differences between the two groups of△PLR in tumor size, nerve invasion, presence or absence of vascular tumor thrombus, ypT staging, ypN staging, ypTNM staging, and pathological response (all P<0.05), but there was no statistical difference between age, gender, and postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy (all P>0.05). Survival analysis showed that the 5-year disease-free survival rates between the two groups were 39.0% and 54.0%, respectively (P=0.025); the 5-year overall survival rates between the two groups were 41.8% and 58.1%, respectively (P=0.035); the difference were statistically significant. Multivariate analysis showed that ypT3-4 stage, ypN3b stage and △PLR were independent risk factors for 5-year disease-free survival rate (HR=2.731/2.676, 95%CI: 1.026-7.268/1.014-6.985; HR=4.717, 95%CI: 1.922-11.579; HR=2.854, 95%CI: 1.117-4.124; all P<0.05) and 5-year overall survival rate (HR=3.226/2.655, 95%CI: 1.280-9.227/0.945-7.548; HR=4.550, 95%CI: 1.842-11.239; HR=2.897, 95%CI: 1.049-5.251; all P<0. 05). Conclusion: △PLR can better predict the prognosis of AGC patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Fluid pumping by liquid metal droplet utilizing ac electric field

We report a unique phenomenon in which liquid metal droplets (LMDs) under a pure ac electric field pump fluid. Unlike the directional pumping that occurs upon reversing the electric field polarity under a dc signal, this phenomenon allows the direction of fluid motion to be switched by simply shifting the position of the LMD within the cylindrical chamber. The physical mechanism behind this phenomenon has been termed Marangoni flow, caused by nonlinear electrocapillary stress. Under the influence of a localized, asymmetric ac electric field, the polarizable surface of the position-offset LMD produces a net time-averaged interfacial tension gradient that scales with twice the field strength, and thus pumps fluid unidirectionally. However, the traditional linear RC circuit polarization model of the LMD/electrolyte interface fails to capture the correct pump-flow direction when the thickness of the LMD oxide skin is non-negligible compared to the Debye length. Therefore, we developed a physical description by treating the oxide layer as a distributed capacitance with variable thickness and connected with the electric double layer. The flow profile is visualized via microparticle imaging velocimetry, and excellent consistency is found with simulation results obtained from the proposed nonlinear model. Furthermore, we investigate the effects of relevant parameters on fluid pumping and discuss a special phenomenon that does not exist in dc control systems. To our knowledge, no previous work addresses LMDs in this manner and uses a zero-mean ac electric field to achieve stable, adjustable directional pumping of a low-conductivity solution.

[Treatment of advanced Siewert type Ⅱ esophagogastric junction adenocarcinoma by thoracoabdominal radical gastrectomy and D2 lymphadenectomy]

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the advantages of thoracoabdominal radical gastrectomy for advanced Siewert type Ⅱ adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction.

METHODS

Clinical data of 86 patients with Siewert type Ⅱ adennocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction who received surgical treatment at the Henan Provincial Tumor Hospital from January 2015 to January 2016 were retrospectively analyzed. Among them, 44 patients underwent abdominal operation (abdominal group), and 42 patients underwent thoracoabdominal radical gastrectomy (thoraco-abdominal group). The operation time, lymph node number, distance between the tumor and cutting edge, amount of intraoperational blood loss, postoperative pulmonary complications, and postoperative hospital stay in the two groups were compared.

RESULTS

Comparing the thoracoabdominal group with the abdominal group, the number of removed lymph nodes was 41.57±9.22 vs. 35.09±10.61 (P<0.01), the number of removed mediastinal lymph nodes was 6.38±1.50 vs. 3.52±1.42 (P<0.01), the distance between the tumor and cut edge was (5.62±0.73) cm vs. (3.30±0.85) cm (P<0.01), whereas the operation time, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative pulmonary complications, occurrence of anastomotic leakage and hospital stay were statistically not significantly different (P>0.05 for all).

CONCLUSIONS

For patients with advanced Siewert type Ⅱ adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction, radical gastrectomy through thoracoabdominal approach can resect a longer segment of the esophagus, dissect more mediastinal lymph nodes, and does not increase post-operative complications and extend hospital stay, thus, exhibits obvious advantages in the surgical treatment of Siewert Ⅱ adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction.

Brassinosteroid (BR) biosynthetic gene lhdd10 controls late heading and plant height in rice (Oryza sativa L.)

A Brd2 allele suppresses heading date by altering the expression of heading date regulators such as OsMADS50 , and also negatively regulates chlorophyll biosynthesis. Heading date and plant height are important determinants of yield in rice (Oryza sativa L.). In this study, we characterized a late heading, dwarf mutant known as lhdd10 selected following ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS)-treatment of ssp. indica cultivar 93-11. lhdd10 showed late heading, dwarfness and slightly darker-green leaves than wild-type 93-11 under long-day and short-day conditions. We isolated lhdd10 by map-based cloning; it encoded a putative FAD-linked oxidoreductase protein (a brassinosteroid biosynthetic gene) that localized to the nucleus. LHDD10 was constitutively expressed in various tissues, but more so in shoot apices and panicles. Our data showed that lhdd10 influences heading date by controlling the expression of heading date regulators, such as OsMADS50 in both LD and SD conditions. lhdd10 also negatively regulated expression of chlorophyll biosynthetic genes to reduce the chlorophyll content. Our data indicated that BRs play important roles in regulating heading date and chlorophyll biosynthesis. This work provides material that will allow study of how BRs regulate heading date in rice.

Characterization of opioid activities of endomorphin analogs with C-terminal amide to hydrazide conversion

Previously, we have synthesized an endomorphin-2 (EM-2) analog with C-terminal amide to hydrazide conversion, exhibiting slightly lower μ-affinity than EM-2. In the present study, the influence of C-terminal amide group to hydrazide conversion on the in vitro and in vivo opioid activities of EMs was evaluated. Our results demonstrated that C-terminal amide to hydrazide conversion of EMs did not markedly change their μ-opioid receptor binding affinities. Nevertheless, EM-2-NHNH2 decreased guinea pig ileum (GPI) and mouse vas deferens (MVD) potencies by about 10- and 5-fold compared to the parent compound, respectively. It is noteworthy that EM-1-NHNH2 exhibited the highest antinociception after intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) injection, about 1.5-fold more potent than EM-1, but with moderate colonic contractile and expulsive effects, comparable with EM-1. Additionally, though EM-2-NHNH2 showed a slightly lower antinociceptive effect than EM-2, at higher doses (i.c.v., 1.5 and 5 nmol/mouse) the inhibitory effects of colonic propulsion were significantly attenuated, which would be helpful in the development of suitable μ-opioid therapeutics, but without some undesirable side effects. Therefore, the present results gave the evidence that C-terminal amide to hydrazide conversion of EMs may play an important role in the regulation of opioid activities.