Maternal androgen excess inhibits fetal cardiomyocytes proliferation through RB-mediated cell cycle arrest and induces cardiac hypertrophy in adulthood

PURPOSE

Maternal hyperandrogenism during pregnancy is associated with adverse gestational outcomes and chronic non-communicable diseases in offspring. However, few studies are reported to demonstrate the association between maternal androgen excess and cardiac health in offspring. This study aimed to explore the relation between androgen exposure in utero and cardiac health of offspring in fetal and adult period. Its underlying mechanism is also illustrated in this research.

METHODS

Pregnant mice were injected with dihydrotestosterone (DHT) from gestational day (GD) 16.5 to GD18.5. On GD18.5, fetal heart tissue was collected for metabolite and morphological analysis. The hearts from adult offspring were also collected for morphological and qPCR analysis. H9c2 cells were treated with 75 μM androsterone. Immunofluorescence, flow cytometry, qPCR, and western blot were performed to observe cell proliferation and explore the underlying mechanism.

RESULTS

Intrauterine exposure to excessive androgen led to thinner ventricular wall, decreased number of cardiomyocytes in fetal offspring and caused cardiac hypertrophy, compromised cardiac function in adult offspring. The analysis of steroid hormone metabolites in fetal heart tissue by ultra performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry showed that the content of androgen metabolite androsterone was significantly increased. Mechanistically, H9c2 cells treated with androsterone led to a significant decrease in phosphorylated retinoblastoma protein (pRB) and cell cycle-related protein including cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2), cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4), and cyclin D1 (CCND1) in cardiomyocytes. This resulted in cell cycle arrest at G1-S phase, which in turn inhibited cardiomyocyte proliferation.

CONCLUSION

Taken together, our results indicate that in utero exposure to DHT, its metabolite androsterone could directly decrease cardiomyocytes proliferation through cell cycle arrest, which has a life-long-lasting effect on cardiac health. Our study highlights the importance of monitoring sex hormones in women during pregnancy and the follow-up of cardiac function in offspring with high risk of intrauterine androgen exposure.

Current Status and Influencing Factors of Secondary Traumatic Stress in Emergency and Intensive Care nurses:A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Objective

Secondary traumatic stress (STS) is stress caused by helping or wanting to help someone who has suffered a traumatic event. STS has adverse effects on nurses and their work, such as reduced career achievement, an increased staff turnover rate, inability to complete work, avoidance of contact with patients, mental exhaustion, negative emotions which seriously affect the quality of their work and life. The study to investigate secondary traumatic stress in emergency and intensive care nurses and analyze factors that influence it.

Material and Methods

The study was a cross-sectional survey. Convenience sampling was used to select hospital emergency and intensive care department nurses (n=434) who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria from August to October 2021 to participate in this study. They provided demographic data and completed measures of secondary traumatic stress, emotional intelligence, anxiety and depression. Data analysis included independent samples t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis.

Results

Almost one-third (30.7%) of participants were at moderate risk for Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale or above, with high average scores on measures of anxiety (GAD-7 average = 6.05 ± 4.13), and depression (PHQ-9 average = 6.35 ± 4.85). The results of multiple linear regression analysis showed that the average daily amount of sleep in the past week, the number of night shifts in the past month, emotional intelligence, anxiety, and depression influenced secondary traumatic stress, explaining 70.8% of the variance.

Conclusion

The STS of emergency and intensive care nurses in Changzhou is at a high level. Sleep time, number of night shifts and emotional intelligence are related to secondary traumatic stress and anxiety and depression significantly predicted the degree of secondary traumatic stress. Nurses need to master effective treatment methods for secondary traumatic stress, to improve their work efficiency and nursing quality and ensure nursing safety.

CARE as a wearable derived feature linking circadian amplitude to human cognitive functions

Circadian rhythms are crucial for regulating physiological and behavioral processes. Pineal hormone melatonin is often used to measure circadian amplitude but its collection is costly and time-consuming. Wearable activity data are promising alternative, but the most commonly used measure, relative amplitude, is subject to behavioral masking. In this study, we firstly derive a feature named circadian activity rhythm energy (CARE) to better characterize circadian amplitude and validate CARE by correlating it with melatonin amplitude (Pearson's r = 0.46, P = 0.007) among 33 healthy participants. Then we investigate its association with cognitive functions in an adolescent dataset (Chinese SCHEDULE-A, n = 1703) and an adult dataset (UK Biobank, n = 92,202), and find that CARE is significantly associated with Global Executive Composite (β = 30.86, P = 0.016) in adolescents, and reasoning ability, short-term memory, and prospective memory (OR = 0.01, 3.42, and 11.47 respectively, all P < 0.001) in adults. Finally, we identify one genetic locus with 126 CARE-associated SNPs using the genome-wide association study, of which 109 variants are used as instrumental variables in the Mendelian Randomization analysis, and the results show a significant causal effect of CARE on reasoning ability, short-term memory, and prospective memory (β = -59.91, 7.94, and 16.85 respectively, all P < 0.0001). The present study suggests that CARE is an effective wearable-based metric of circadian amplitude with a strong genetic basis and clinical significance, and its adoption can facilitate future circadian studies and potential intervention strategies to improve circadian rhythms and cognitive functions.

FuBay: An Integrated Fusion Framework for Hyperspectral Super-Resolution Based on Bayesian Tensor Ring

Fusion with corresponding finer-resolution images has been a promising way to enhance hyperspectral images (HSIs) spatially. Recently, low-rank tensor-based methods have shown advantages compared with other kind of ones. However, these current methods either relent to blind manual selection of latent tensor rank, whereas the prior knowledge about tensor rank is surprisingly limited, or resort to regularization to make the role of low rankness without exploration on the underlying low-dimensional factors, both of which are leaving the computational burden of parameter tuning. To address that, a novel Bayesian sparse learning-based tensor ring (TR) fusion model is proposed, named as FuBay. Through specifying hierarchical sprasity-inducing prior distribution, the proposed method becomes the first fully Bayesian probabilistic tensor framework for hyperspectral fusion. With the relationship between component sparseness and the corresponding hyperprior parameter being well studied, a component pruning part is established to asymptotically approaching true latent rank. Furthermore, a variational inference (VI)-based algorithm is derived to learn the posterior of TR factors, circumventing nonconvex optimization that bothers the most tensor decomposition-based fusion methods. As a Bayesian learning methods, our model is characterized to be parameter tuning-free. Finally, extensive experiments demonstrate its superior performance when compared with state-of-the-art methods.

Identification and Characterization of an ι-Carrageenase from Macroalgae-associated Bacterium Microbulbifer sp. YNDZ01

BACKGROUND

In this study, an ι-carrageenase gene, Car1293 was obtained from the genome of Microbulbifer sp. YNDZ01, which was isolated from the surface of macroalgae, Indonesia. Up to now, there are few studies on ι-carrageenase and the anti-inflammatory activity of ι-carrageenan oligosaccharides (CGOS). To enhance our perspective on ι-carrageenase and ι-carrageen oligosaccharides, the genes sequence, protein structure, enzymatic properties, enzymatic digestion products and its anti-inflammatory activity were investigated.

RESULTS

The gene length of Car1293 is 2,589 bp, encoding an enzyme with 862 amino acids, which shares 34% similarity with any previously reported ι-carrageenase. Spatial structure of Car1293 is consisted of many α-helices with a β-fold binding module located at its terminu, and eight binding sites were found in the binding module based on the result of docking with CGOS-DP4 ligand. The optimum temperature and pH for the activity of recombinant Car1293 toward ι-carrageenan were 50°C and 6.0, respectively. The hydrolysates of Car1293 are mainly degree of polymerization (DP) 8 with minor products having DP2, DP4 and DP6. The enzymatic hydrolysates CGOS-DP8 showed prominent anti-inflammatory activity that was greater than that of the positive control L-monomethylarginine in lipopolysaccharide-induced RAW264.7 macrophages; it inhibited NO production, and significantly inhibited tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 secretion.

CONCLUSION

The ι-carrageenase sequence encoded by Car1293 is novel and can hydrolyze carrageenan into CGOS-DP8 that has a significant anti-inflammatory effect. This study fills a gap in the research on the biological activity of oligosaccharides in ι-carrageenan and provides promising data for the development of natural anti-inflammatory agent. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

NDUFV1 attenuates renal ischemia-reperfusion injury by improving mitochondrial homeostasis

Impaired mitochondrial function and dysregulated energy metabolism have been shown to be involved in the pathological progression of kidney diseases such as acute kidney injury (AKI) and diabetic nephropathy. Hence, improving mitochondrial function is a promising strategy for treating renal dysfunction. NADH: ubiquinone oxidoreductase core subunit V1 (NDUFV1) is an important subunit of mitochondrial complex I. In the present study, we found that NDUFV1 was reduced in kidneys of renal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) mice. Meanwhile, renal I/R induced kidney dysfunction as evidenced by increases in BUN and serum creatinine, severe injury of proximal renal tubules, oxidative stress, and cell apoptosis. All these detrimental outcomes were attenuated by increased expression of NDUFV1 in kidneys. Moreover, knockdown of Ndufv1 aggravated cell insults induced by H₂ O₂ in TCMK-1 cells, which further confirmed the renoprotective roles of NDUFV1. Mechanistically, NDUFV1 improved the integrity and function of mitochondria, leading to reduced oxidative stress and cell apoptosis. Overall, our data indicate that NDUFV1 has an ability to maintain mitochondrial homeostasis in AKI, suggesting therapies by targeting mitochondria are useful approaches for dealing with mitochondrial dysfunction associated renal diseases such as AKI.

Multiple measurement analysis of resting-state fMRI for ADHD classification in adolescent brain from the ABCD study

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common psychiatric disorders in school-aged children. Its accurate diagnosis looks after patients' interests well with effective treatment, which is important to them and their family. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) has been widely used to characterize the abnormal brain function by computing the voxel-wise measures and Pearson's correlation (PC)-based functional connectivity (FC) for ADHD diagnosis. However, exploring the powerful measures of rsfMRI to improve ADHD diagnosis remains a particular challenge. To this end, this paper proposes an automated ADHD classification framework by fusion of multiple measures of rsfMRI in adolescent brain. First, we extract the voxel-wise measures and ROI-wise time series from the brain regions of rsfMRI after preprocessing. Then, to extract the multiple functional connectivities, we compute the PC-derived FCs including the topographical information-based high-order FC (tHOFC) and dynamics-based high-order FC (dHOFC), the sparse representation (SR)-derived FCs including the group SR (GSR), the strength and similarity guided GSR (SSGSR), and sparse low-rank (SLR). Finally, these measures are combined with multiple kernel learning (MKL) model for ADHD classification. The proposed method is applied to the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) dataset. The results show that the FCs of dHOFC and SLR perform better than the others. Fusing multiple measures achieves the best classification performance (AUC = 0.740, accuracy = 0.6916), superior to those from the single measure and the previous studies. We have identified the most discriminative FCs and brain regions for ADHD diagnosis, which are consistent with those of published literature.

Development and function of natural TCR+ CD8αα+ intraepithelial lymphocytes

The complexity of intestinal homeostasis results from the ability of the intestinal epithelium to absorb nutrients, harbor multiple external and internal antigens, and accommodate diverse immune cells. Intestinal intraepithelial lymphocytes (IELs) are a unique cell population embedded within the intestinal epithelial layer, contributing to the formation of the mucosal epithelial barrier and serving as a first-line defense against microbial invasion. TCRαβ⁺ CD4^- CD8αα⁺ CD8αβ^- and TCRγδ⁺ CD4^- CD8αα⁺ CD8αβ^- IELs are the two predominant subsets of natural IELs. These cells play an essential role in various intestinal diseases, such as infections and inflammatory diseases, and act as immune regulators in the gut. However, their developmental and functional patterns are extremely distinct, and the mechanisms underlying their development and migration to the intestine are not fully understood. One example is that Bcl-2 promotes the survival of thymic precursors of IELs. Mature TCRαβ⁺ CD4^- CD8αα⁺ CD8αβ^- IELs seem to be involved in immune regulation, while TCRγδ⁺ CD4^- CD8αα⁺ CD8αβ^- IELs might be involved in immune surveillance by promoting homeostasis of host microbiota, protecting and restoring the integrity of mucosal epithelium, inhibiting microbiota invasion, and limiting excessive inflammation. In this review, we elucidated and organized effectively the functions and development of these cells to guide future studies in this field. We also discussed key scientific questions that need to be addressed in this area.

Sex-specific genetic association between psychiatric disorders and cognition, behavior and brain imaging in children and adults

Although there are pronounced sex differences for psychiatric disorders, relatively little has been published on the heterogeneity of sex-specific genetic effects for these traits until very recently for adults. Much less is known about children because most psychiatric disorders will not manifest until later in life and existing studies for children on psychiatric traits such as cognitive functions are underpowered. We used results from publicly available genome-wide association studies for six psychiatric disorders and individual-level data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study and the UK Biobank (UKB) study to evaluate the associations between the predicted polygenic risk scores (PRS) of these six disorders and observed cognitive functions, behavioral and brain imaging traits. We further investigated the mediation effects of the brain structure and function, which showed heterogeneity between males and females on the correlation between genetic risk of schizophrenia and fluid intelligence. There was significant heterogeneity in genetic associations between the cognitive traits and psychiatric disorders between sexes. Specifically, the PRSs of schizophrenia of boys showed stronger correlation with eight of the ten cognitive functions in the ABCD data set; whereas the PRSs of autism of females showed a stronger correlation with fluid intelligence in the UKB data set. Besides cognitive traits, we also found significant sexual heterogeneity in genetic associations between psychiatric disorders and behavior and brain imaging. These results demonstrate the underlying early etiology of psychiatric disease and reveal a shared and unique genetic basis between the disorders and cognition traits involved in brain functions between the sexes.

AB0182 THE PROFILE OF POOR PROGNOSTIC FACTORS BASED ON EULAR RECOMMENDATIONS IN CHINESE RA PATIENTS: A SINGLE-CENTER OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

Background

Despite the constant updating of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment strategies, whether poor prognostic factors (PPFs) can guide RA treatment is still controversial. There are limited data about the presence of PPFs in Chinese RA patients.

Objectives

To describe the profile of PPFs based on European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) recommendations in Chinese RA patients, and explore the significance of these factors in adjusting treatment therapy.

Methods

In this real-world study, RA patients were enrolled from 2012 to 2020. The baseline characteristics and prognostic factors based on EULAR recommendations include acute-phase reactant levels, rheumatoid factor (RF), anti-cyclic citrullinate peptide (anti-CCP antibody), swollen joint counts (SJC), early bone erosions, and responses to conventional synthetic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (csDMARD) at month 3 or month 6 were collected. Disease activity was assessed by disease activity score of 28 joints-erythrocyte sedimentation rate (DAS28-ESR), DAS28-C-reactive protein (DAS28-CRP), simple disease activity index (SDAI), and clinical disease activity index (CDAI). The association of different factors was represented by a Venn diagram. The number of patients presenting with different combinations of prognostic factors was graphically displayed by UpSetR. Correlation between binary variables was analyzed by the Chi-square test.

Results

1252 registered RA patients were enrolled. 901/1252 (72.0%) patients had elevated ESR or CRP and 1027/1164 (88.2%) patients had positive RF or anti-CCP antibody. 397/1252 (31.7%) patients had ors was graphicas. 166/444 (37.0%) patients had early bone erosions, which usually coexisted with other PPFs. 394 (34.4%) of the 1105 patients who received csDMARD therapy as prescribed had persistent moderate or high disease activity (MDA/HDA). Failure of two or more csDMARDs was found in 245 (22.2%) patients. 99% of RA patients had at least one PPF. Patients with MDA/HDA usually coexisted with other PPF. MDA/HDA was significantly correlated with elevated ESR/CRP or high SJC and is not correlated with positive RF/anti-CCP antibody or early bone erosion.

Conclusion

PPFs are prevalent in RA patients in real-world data. It is inappropriate to guide treatment strategies just based on the presence or absence of PPFs. The categories of PPFs should be simplified and the role of different combinations of PPFs in guiding treatment therapies remains to be explored.

References

[1]Hu, H., et al., Burden of rheumatoid arthritis from a societal perspective: A prevalence-based study on the cost of this illness for patients in China. International journal of rheumatic diseases, 2018. 21(8): p. 1572-1580.

[2]Muñoz-Fernández, S., et al., Use of prognostic factors of rheumatoid arthritis in clinical practice and perception of their predictive capacity before and after exposure to evidence. Rheumatology international, 2018. 38(12): p. 2289-2296.

[3]Koga, T., et al., Prognostic Factors Toward Clinically Relevant Radiographic Progression in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis in Clinical Practice: A Japanese Multicenter, Prospective Longitudinal Cohort Study for Achieving a Treat-to-Target Strategy. Medicine, 2016. 95(17): p. e3476.

[4]Smolen, J.S., et al., EULAR recommendations for the management of rheumatoid arthritis with synthetic and biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs: 2019 update. Annals of the rheumatic diseases, 2020. 79(6): p. 685-699.

[5]Fraenkel, L., et al., 2021 American College of Rheumatology Guideline for the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Arthritis care & research, 2021. 73(7): p. 924-939.

Figure 1.

Coexistence of 6 PPFs including positive RF/anti-CCP antibody, elevated ESR/CRP, high SJC, persistent MDA/HDA, failure of two or more csDMARDs, and early bone erosion.

Acknowledgements

This study was based on the contributions of all colleagues in our department during the outpatient visits over the past decade.

Disclosure of Interests

None declared

Multifunctional alkalophilic α-amylase with diverse raw seaweed degrading activities

Uncultured microbes are an important resource for the discovery of novel enzymes. In this study, an amylase gene (amy2587) that codes a protein with 587 amino acids (Amy2587) was obtained from the metagenomic library of macroalgae-associated bacteria. Recombinant Amy2587 was expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) and was found to simultaneously possess α-amylase, agarase, carrageenase, cellulase, and alginate lyase activities. Moreover, recombinant Amy2587 showed high thermostability and alkali resistance which are important characteristics for industrial application. To investigate the multifunctional mechanism of Amy2587, three motifs (functional domains) in the Amy2587 sequence were deleted to generate three truncated Amy2587 variants. The results showed that, even though these functional domains affected the multiple substrates degrading activity of Amy2587, they did not wholly explain its multifunctional characteristics. To apply the multifunctional activity of Amy2587, three seaweed substrates (Grateloupia filicina, Chondrus ocellatus, and Scagassum) were digested using Amy2587. After 2 h, 6 h, and 24 h of digestion, 121.2 ± 4 µg/ml, 134.8 ± 6 µg/ml, and 70.3 ± 3.5 µg/ml of reducing sugars were released, respectively. These results show that Amy2587 directly and effectively degraded three kinds of raw seaweeds. This finding provides a theoretical basis for one-step enzymatic digestion of raw seaweeds to obtain seaweed oligosaccharides.

Mannose Treatment: A Promising Novel Strategy to Suppress Inflammation

High glucose and fructose intake have been proven to display pro-inflammatory roles during the progression of inflammatory diseases. However, mannose has been shown to be a special type of hexose that has immune regulatory functions. In this review, we trace the discovery process of the regulatory functions of mannose and summarize some past and recent studies showing the therapeutic functions of mannose in inflammatory diseases. We conclude that treatment with mannose can suppress inflammation by inducing regulatory T cells, suppressing effector T cells and inflammatory macrophages, and increasing anti-inflammatory gut microbiome. By summarizing all the important findings, we highlight that mannose treatment is a safe and promising novel strategy to suppress inflammatory diseases, including autoimmune disease and allergic disease.

Multimodal MR Images-Based Diagnosis of Early Adolescent Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Using Multiple Kernel Learning

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common brain diseases among children. The current criteria of ADHD diagnosis mainly depend on behavior analysis, which is subjective and inconsistent, especially for children. The development of neuroimaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), drives the discovery of brain abnormalities in structure and function by analyzing multimodal neuroimages for computer-aided diagnosis of brain diseases. This paper proposes a multimodal machine learning framework that combines the Boruta based feature selection and Multiple Kernel Learning (MKL) to integrate the multimodal features of structural and functional MRIs and Diffusion Tensor Images (DTI) for the diagnosis of early adolescent ADHD. The rich and complementary information of the macrostructural features, microstructural properties, and functional connectivities are integrated at the kernel level, followed by a support vector machine classifier for discriminating ADHD from healthy children. Our experiments were conducted on the comorbidity-free ADHD subjects and covariable-matched healthy children aged 9-10 chosen from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. This paper is the first work to combine structural and functional MRIs with DTI for early adolescents of the ABCD study. The results indicate that the kernel-level fusion of multimodal features achieves 0.698 of AUC (area under the receiver operating characteristic curves) and 64.3% of classification accuracy for ADHD diagnosis, showing a significant improvement over the early feature fusion and unimodal features. The abnormal functional connectivity predictors, involving default mode network, attention network, auditory network, and sensorimotor mouth network, thalamus, and cerebellum, as well as the anatomical regions in basal ganglia, are found to encode the most discriminative information, which collaborates with macrostructure and diffusion alterations to boost the performances of disorder diagnosis.

Expression and Characterization of a Thermostable Carrageenase From an Antarctic Polaribacter sp. NJDZ03 Strain

The complete genome of Polaribacter sp. NJDZ03, which was isolated from the surface of Antarctic macroalgae, was analyzed by next-generation sequencing, and a putative carrageenase gene Car3206 was obtained. Car3206 was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3). After purification by Ni-NTA chromatography, the recombinant Car3206 protein was characterized and the antioxidant activity of the degraded product was investigated. The results showed that the recombinant plasmid pet-30a-car3206 was highly efficiently expressed in E. coli BL21(DE3). The purified recombinant Car3206 showed a single band on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, with an apparent molecular weight of 45 kDa. The optimum temperature of the recombinant Car3206 was 55°C, and it maintain 60-94% of its initial activity for 4-12 h at 55°C. It also kept almost 70% of the initial activity at 30°C, and more than 40% of the initial activity at 10°C. These results show that recombinant Car3206 had good low temperature resistance and thermal stability properties. The optimum pH of recombinant Car3206 was 7.0. Car3206 was activated by Na+, K+, and Ca2+, but was significantly inhibited by Cu2+ and Cr2+. Thin-layer chromatographic analysis indicated that Car3206 degraded carrageenan generating disaccharides as the only products. The antioxidant capacity of the degraded disaccharides in vitro was investigated and the results showed that different concentrations of the disaccharides had similar scavenging effects as vitamin C on O 2 • - , •OH, and DPPH•. To our knowledge, this is the first report about details of the biochemical characteristics of a carrageenase isolated from an Antarctic Polaribacter strain. The unique characteristics of Car3206, including its low temperature resistance, thermal stability, and product unity, suggest that this enzyme may be an interesting candidate for industrial processes.

Two-beam coupling by a hot electron nonlinearity

Transparent conductive oxides such as indium tin oxide (ITO) bear the potential to deliver efficient all-optical functionality due to their record-breaking optical nonlinearity at epsilon near zero (ENZ) wavelengths. All-optical applications generally involve more than one beam, but, to our knowledge, the coherent interaction between beams has not previously been discussed in these materials, which have a hot electron nonlinearity. Here we study the optical nonlinearity at ENZ in ITO and show that spatial and temporal interference has important consequences in a two-beam geometry. Our pump-probe results reveal a polarization-dependent transient that is explained by diffraction of pump light into the probe direction by a temperature grating produced by pump-probe interference. We further show that this effect allows tailoring the nonlinearity by tuning the frequency or chirp. Having fine control over the strong and ultrafast ENZ nonlinearity may enable applications in all-optical neural networks, nanophotonics, and spectroscopy.

AB0104 CORRELATION OF PLASMA 14-3-3Η LEVELS WITH DISEASE ACTIVITY MEASURES IN METHOTREXATE-NAÏVE RA PATIENTS TREATED WITH UPADACITINIB MONOTHERAPY IN THE SELECT-EARLY PHASE 3 STUDY

Background:

Early diagnosis and treat-to-target strategies in RA improve clinical and radiographic outcomes. 14-3-3η is a soluble diagnostic biomarker that is involved in the pathogenesis of RA (1) including the potent activation of key signalling cascades such as the JAK-STAT pathway and whose initial expression coincides with a transition to synovitis. In undifferentiated arthralgia, 14-3-3η independently predicts the development of RA. In confirmed RA, 14-3-3η levels decrease with treatment response (2) and those changes are associated with clinical and radiographic outcomes, including the prediction of joint damage progression in patients who have achieved clinical remission. Upadacitinib (UPA), an oral JAK1-selective inhibitor, demonstrated significant and clinically meaningful improvements in RA vs. methotrexate (MTX) in the SELECT-EARLY phase 3 study (3).

Objectives:

To determine the impact of treatment with UPA monotherapy 15 mg QD on the levels of plasma 14-3-3η and to explore its relationship with clinical measures in early MTX-naïve RA patients.

Methods:

Patients from the SELECT-EARLY study were randomly selected (UPA n = 100; MTX n = 100) from the pool of patients with available plasma samples. 14-3-3η tests were performed at Augurex according to standard operating procedures. Concentrations (ng/mL) were log-transformed for analysis. Non-parametric correlations between biomarker data and clinical end points were derived using the Spearman method. Changes in 14-3-3η over time were compared using a Repeated Measure Mixed Linear Model. All statistical analyses were conducted in JMP 14.1 (SAS Institute).

Results:

At baseline, 79% of patients were 14-3-3η positive (≥ 0.19 ng/mL) with similar levels in both arms. Baseline levels of 14-3-3η correlated significantly with baseline disease activity measures (CDAI ρ = 0.164, p = 0.042; DASCRP ρ = 0.222, p = 0.004; and SDAI ρ = 0.177, p = 0.028) but not with baseline mTSS (ρ =-0.021, p = 0.787); of note baseline mTSS were relatively low in this subset of early RA patients (median = 2, IQR [0 – 9.5]). Over time, 14-3-3η levels tended to be lower in both the UPA and MTX groups. However, only treatment with UPA for 24 weeks resulted in a significant decrease in circulating 14-3-3η (p = 0.0002) (Figure 1). In addition, at week 24 in the UPA arm, changes in 14-3-3η levels correlated significantly with changes in concurrent disease activity measures (Δ CDAI ρ = 0.264, p = 0.030; Δ DASCRP ρ = 0.267, p = 0.021; and Δ SDAI ρ = 0.267, p = 0.028) but not with change in mTSS (ρ =-0.186, p = 0.111). In contrast to UPA, the relatively small changes in 14-3-3η induced by MTX did not correlate with any clinical measures.

Figure1

Conclusion:

This study demonstrates that treatment with UPA 15 mg QD monotherapy for 24 weeks significantly reduces the levels of circulating 14-3-3η in MTX-naïve RA patients and that these changes correlate with clinical measures of disease activity. Although we were not able to detect a clear relationship between changes in 14-3-3η and rate of structural damage progression, we would like to hypothesize that the superior clinical activity of UPA over MTX on joint damage may be related to the significant reduction in 14-3-3η induced by UPA; this hypothesis should be tested in a larger RA cohort with a larger proportion of joint damage progressors.

References:

[1]Maksymowych WP et al. Arthritis Res Ther. 2014;16(2):R99.

[2]Hirata S et al. Arthritis Res Ther. 2015;17(1):280.

[3]van Vollenhoven R et al. Arthritis Rheumatol.;2018 (Suppl 10; vol.70).

Disclosure of Interests:

Thierry Sornasse Shareholder of: AbbVie Inc, Employee of: AbbVie Inc, Simran Chahal Shareholder of: Augurex Life Science Corp, Employee of: Augurex Life Science Corp, Yuan Gui Shareholder of: Augurex Life Science Corp, Employee of: Augurex Life Science Corp, Neeraja Nagarajan Employee of: Augurex Life Science Corp, Alan Friedman Shareholder of: AbbVie Inc, Employee of: AbbVie Inc, Norma Biln Shareholder of: Augurex Life Science Corp, AbbVie Inc, Employee of: Augurex Life Science Corp

0973 Maternal Depression And Infant Sleep Duration Trajectory In The First 3 Years: A Prospective Cohort Study

Introduction

The study was to investigate trajectories of infant sleep duration and associations with trajectories of maternal depression status during 3 years post-partum.

Methods

Data were from the Child Health Promotion Project in Shanghai (CHPPS). Mothers were recruited at the third trimester of pregnancy and followed up together with the infants until 36 months postpartum. Between 2012 and 2013, 262 women (Mage=29.5, SDage=3.2, range: 22-39 years old) were recruited and were followed from June 2012 to August 2015. Sleep duration of the children was assessed using Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire (BISQ) at 42 days, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, and 36 months postpartum. Center for Epidemiological Survey-Depression Scale (CESD), Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), and the Profile of Mood States (POMS) were used to measure the mother’s depression status at late pregnancy, 42 days postpartum, and 12-36 months postpartum, respectively. The group-based trajectory models (GBTM) were used to estimate patterns of infant sleep duration development and maternal depression status.

Results

Two trajectories of infant day sleep duration were identified, defined as “initial short sleepers” (54.8%) and “initial long sleepers” (45.2%). Three trajectories of infant night sleep duration were identified, labeled as “increasing” (8.5%), “stable” (61.7%), and “mild declining” (29.8%). Two trajectories infant total sleep duration were identified, defined as “initial short sleepers” (51.5%) and “initial long sleepers” (48.5%). Two trajectories of maternal depression status were identified, labeled as “low” (74.2%) and “high” (25.8%). After controlling for covariates, women who have higher depression status had infants of shorter day sleep duration. There was no significant association with infant night sleep duration.

Conclusion

Our study suggests that maternal postpartum depression is associated with short infant day sleep duration, but not with infant night sleep duration.

Support

Supported by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation of China (81773443, 81728017, 81602870, 81601162, 81602868)

Prokaryotic Diversity and Composition of Sediments From Prydz Bay, the Antarctic Peninsula Region, and the Ross Sea, Southern Ocean

The V3–V4 hypervariable regions of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene were analyzed to assess prokaryotic diversity and community compositions within 19 surface sediment samples collected from three different regions (depth: 250–3,548 m) of Prydz Bay, the Antarctic Peninsula region, and the Ross Sea. In our results, we characterized 1,079,709 clean tag sequences representing 43,227 operational taxonomic units (OTUs, 97% similarity). The prokaryotic community distribution exhibited obvious geographical differences, and the sequences formed three distinct clusters according to the samples’ origins. In general, the biodiversity of Prydz Bay was higher than those of the Antarctic Peninsula region and the Ross Sea, and there were similar prokaryotic communities in different geographic locations. The most dominant clades in the prokaryotic communities were Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Thaumarchaeota, Oxyphotobacteria, Deinococcus-Thermus, Firmicutes, Acidobacteria, Fusobacteria, and Planctomycetes, but unique prokaryotic community compositions were found in each of the sampling regions. Our results also demonstrated that the prokaryotic diversity and community distribution were mainly influenced by geographical and physicochemical factors, such as Zn, V, Na, K, water depth, and especially geographical distance (longitude variation of sample location) and Ba ion content. Moreover, geochemical factors such as nutrient contents (TC, P, and Ca) also played important roles in prokaryotic diversity and community distribution. This represents the first report that Ba ion content has an obvious effect on prokaryotic diversity and community distribution in Southern Ocean sediments.

[The inhibition of 18β-sodium glycyrrhetinic acid on thymic stromal lymphopoietin expression in the nasal mucosa of allergic rhinitis rats]

Objective: To explore the effect of 18β-sodium glycyrrhetinic acid on thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) in nasal mucosa of allergic rhinitis (AR) rats. Methods: One hundred Wistar rats,half male and half female,were randomly divided into 5 groups by random number table method: control group, AR model group,budesonide group,18β-sodium glycyrrhetinic acid at dose of 20 mg/kg and 40 mg/kg groups, with 20 rats in each group. AR animal models were established by ovalbumin (OVA) sensitization in the other four experimental groups. After successful modeling, budesonide and 18β-sodium glycyrrhetinic acid were given in each group,and the detection time points were 2 weeks and 4 weeks. The distribution of TSLP in rat nasal mucosa was detected by immunohistochemistry,and the expression of TSLP in rat nasal mucosa was determined by Western blot at the protein level. The expression of TSLP-mRNA in rat nasal mucosa was detected and compared by real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR (RT-PCR) at mRNA level. The concentrations of IL-4 and OVA-sIgE in rat serum were measured and compared by ELISA. One-way analysis of variance and the least significant difference method were used for the comparison among groups, LSD t test was used for the comparison between the two groups,and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). Results: Immunohistochemistry confirmed existence of TSLP in rat nasal mucosa, especially in epithelial cells,endothelial cells and epithelial cilia. Western blot and RT-PCR suggested that the expression of TSLP and TSLP-mRNA in nasal mucosa of AR model group was significantly higher than that of control group (2 weeks TSLP: 1.795 9±0.131 4 vs 0.990 5±0.164 2, 4 weeks TSLP: 1.809 7±0.253 4 vs 0.870 3±0.124 4; 2 weeks TSLP-mRNA:4.582 9±0.697 7 vs 1.108 7±0.081 1, 4 weeks TSLP-mRNA:4.814 4±0.662 8 vs 1.001 0±0.155 3; all P<0.05). After 2 weeks and 4 weeks of drug intervention,the expression of TSLP and TSLP-mRNA was inhibited in nasal mucosa of budesonide group,18β-sodium sodium glycyrrhetinic acid at dose of 20 mg/kg and 40 mg/kg group,which was significantly different from that of AR model group (2 weeks TSLP: (0.897 8±0.081 8)/(1.072 1±0.113 6)/(1.396 6±0.133 9) vs 1.795 9±0.131 4; 4 weeks TSLP: (1.191 0±0.161 3)/(1.141 0±0.152 3)/(1.200 5±0.189 6) vs 1.809 7±0.253 4; 2 weeks TSLP-mRNA: (1.175 6±0.100 9)/(1.254 4±0.078 2)/(2.037 2±0.559 2) vs 4.582 9±0.697 7; 4 weeks TSLP-mRNA: (1.158 3±0.104 3)/(1.224 0±0.034 0)/(1.275 2±0.099 6) vs 4.814 4±0.662 8; all P<0.05), and not significantly different from control group. With the inhibition of TSLP, the concentrations of IL-4 and OVA-sIgE in rat serum were also decreased. Conclusion: 18β-sodium glycyrrhetinic acid has obvious inhibitory effect on TSLP in nasal mucosa of AR rats, which can control Th2 type immune inflammatory reaction.

[Effects of 18β-sodium glycyrrhetinic acid on TNF-α expression in rats with allergic rhinitis]

Objective:To observe the effect of 18β-sodium glycyrrhetinic acid(18β-SGA) on the expression of TNF-α in nasal mucosa of rats with allergic rhinitis（AR）, and explore the intervention mechanism of 18β-SGA on AR. Method:One hundred and six SPF-level Wistar rats were randomly divided into control group, AR group, budesonide group, 18β-SGA low dose group and high dose group. After the AR rat model was constructed by ovalbumin, the rats were given drug intervention and sacrificed after 2 and 4 weeks of intervention. The nasal mucosa of the rats was taken for immunohistochemical staining, RT-qPCR and Western-blotting to localize and quantify the expression of TNF-α. Result:By immunohistochemistry, Western-blotting and RT-PCR, TNF-α was mainly found in the columnar epithelium, vascular endothelium, glandular and some inflammatory cytoplasm of nasal mucosa. And the expression of TNF-α in the nasal mucosa of AR rats was significantly increased than the normal group at the protein and mRNA levels (P<0.01). After intervention with different doses of 18β-SGA, the expression of TNF-α was significantly decreased (P<0.01), especially after 4 weeks of 18β-SGA low dose group(P<0.01). Conclusion:Different doses of 18β-SGA have therapeutic effects on AR, and its mechanism of action may be related to the inhibition of TNF-α expression.

Overexpression of circ_0021093 circular RNA forecasts an unfavorable prognosis and facilitates cell progression by targeting the miR-766-3p/MTA3 pathway in hepatocellular carcinoma

Increasing studies have demonstrated the important roles of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in human malignancies. Nevertheless, the molecular mechanisms and functions of circRNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are still not fully understood. In the present study, we evaluated circ_0021093 expression in 82 pairs of HCC tissues and 5 cell lines by qRT-PCR. The clinical implications of circ_0021093 were evaluated. In addition, the viability, apoptosis, migration and invasion capacities of different HCC cells were evaluated by gain-/loss-of-function experiments. Target prediction and dual-luciferase reporter experiments were performed to identify the molecular mechanisms of circ_0021093. Upregulation of circ_0021093 was found in HCC tumor samples and cells. Additionally, upregulated circ_0021093 was related to adverse clinical characteristics and an unfavorable prognosis. Furthermore, downregulated circ_0021093 attenuated cell growth, migration and invasion but increased cell apoptosis. By contrast, ectopically expressed circ_0021093 enhanced the abovementioned malignant biological behaviors. For mechanism exploration, circ_0021093 sponges of miR-766-3p were used in HCC cells. In addition, we found that metastasis-associated protein 3 (MTA3) was a direct target of miR-766-3p and that the oncogenic function of circ_0021093 was partly dependent on the miR-766-3p/MTA3 axis according to rescue assays. In conclusion, the circ_0021093/miR-766-3p/MTA3 regulatory axis may be an effective therapeutic target for HCC.

Transcriptional regulation of Bcl-2 gene by the PR/SET domain family member PRDM10

Bcl-2 (B-cell lymphoma 2) protein is localized in the outer membrane of mitochondria, where it plays an important role in promoting cellular survival and inhibiting the actions of pro-apoptotic proteins. PRDM10 is a member of the PR/SET family of epigenetic regulators and may play a role in development and cell differentiation. Here we show that human PRDM10 contributes to the transcriptional regulation of human Bcl-2 gene. We found that PRDM10-depletion in human cells reduced the expression of Bcl-2 protein and over-expression of PRDM10 promoted Bcl-2 protein expression. Furthermore, luciferase reporter activity of Bcl-2 gene P1 promoter was significantly increased in cells co-transfected with PRDM10, and PRDM10 was able to bind to the Bcl-2 P1 promoter in vivo. Using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data set, we found weak positive correlation between PRDM10 and Bcl-2 in several cancer types including cancers of the breast, colon, and lung tissues. These data identify a novel function for PRDM10 protein and provide insights on the transcriptional control of Bcl-2 expression.

Collective effects of common single nucleotide polymorphisms and genetic risk prediction in type 1 diabetes

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a common autoimmune disease and may be related to multiple genetic and environmental risk factors. Previous genetic studies have focused on looking for individual polymorphic risk variants. Here, we studied the overall levels of genetic diversity in T1D patients by making use of a previously published study including 1865 cases and 2828 reference samples with genotyping data for 500 K common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We determined the minor allele (MA) status of each SNP in the reference samples and calculated the total number of MAs or minor allele contents (MAC) of each individual. We found the average MAC of cases to be greater than that of the reference samples. By focusing on MAs with strong linkage to cases, we further identified a set of 112 SNPs that could predict 19.19% of cases. These results suggest that overall genetic variation over a threshold level may be a risk factor in T1D and provide a new genetic method for predicting the disorder.

Suppressor of cytokine signaling 1-dependent regulation of the expression and oncogenic functions of p21(CIP1/WAF1) in the liver

The SOCS1 gene coding for suppressor of cytokine signaling 1 is frequently repressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and hence SOCS1 is considered a tumor suppressor in the liver. However, the tumor-suppressor mechanisms of SOCS1 are not yet well understood. SOCS1 is known to inhibit pro-inflammatory cytokine production and signaling and to promote activation of the p53 tumor suppressor. However, we observed that SOCS1-deficient mice developed numerous and large liver tumor nodules following treatment with the hepatocarcinogen diethylnitrosamine (DEN) without showing increased interleukin-6 production or activation of p53. On the other hand, the livers of DEN-treated Socs1-null mice showed elevated levels of p21(CIP1/WAF1) protein (p21). Even though p21 generally functions as a tumor suppressor, paradoxically many cancers, including HCC, are known to express elevated levels of p21 that correlate with poor prognosis. We observed elevated p21 expression also in the regenerating livers of SOCS1-deficient mice and in cisplatin-treated Socs1-null hepatocytes, wherein the p21 protein showed increased stability. We show that SOCS1 interacts with p21 and promotes its ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation. Besides, the DEN-treated livers of Socs1-null mice showed increased nuclear and cytosolic p21 staining, and the latter was associated with growth factor-induced, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-dependent phosphorylation of p21 in SOCS1-deficient hepatocytes. Cytosolic p21 is often associated with malignancy and chemo-resistance in many cancers. Accordingly, SOCS1-deficient hepatocytes showed increased resistance to apoptosis that was reversed by shRNA-mediated p21 knockdown. In the regenerating livers of Socs1-null mice, increased p21 expression coincided with elevated cyclinD levels. Correspondingly, SOCS1-deficient hepatocytes showed increased proliferation to growth factor stimulation that was reversed by p21 knockdown. Overall, our findings indicate that the tumor-suppressor functions of SOCS1 in the liver could be mediated, at least partly, via regulation of the expression, stability and subcellular distribution of p21 and its paradoxical oncogenic functions, namely, resistance to apoptosis and increased proliferation.

Regulation of MET receptor tyrosine kinase signaling by suppressor of cytokine signaling 1 in hepatocellular carcinoma

Suppressor of cytokine signaling 1 (SOCS1) is considered as a tumor suppressor protein in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Previously, we have shown that SOCS1-deficient hepatocytes displayed increased responsiveness to hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) due to enhanced signaling via the MET receptor tyrosine kinase. As aberrant MET activation occurs in many tumors including HCC, here we elucidated the mechanisms of SOCS1-mediated regulation. SOCS1 attenuated HGF-induced proliferation of human and mouse HCC cell lines and their growth as tumors in NOD.scid.gamma mice. Tumors formed by SOCS1 expressing HCC cells showed significantly reduced MET expression, indicating that SOCS1 not only attenuates MET signaling but also regulates MET expression. Mechanistically, SOCS1 interacted with MET via the Src homology 2 domain and this interaction was promoted by MET tyrosine kinase activity. The SOCS1-mediated reduction in MET expression does not require the juxtamembrane Y1003 residue implicated in Cbl-mediated downmodulation. Moreover, the proteasome inhibitor MG-132, but not the inhibitors of lysosomal degradation bafilomycin and chloroquine, reversed the SOCS1-mediated reduction in MET expression, indicating that this process is distinct from Cbl-mediated downmodulation. Accordingly, SOCS1 promoted polyubiquitination of MET via K48-dependent but not K63-mediated ubiquitin chain elongation. Furthermore, siRNA-mediated downmodulation of Cbl did not abolish SOCS1-mediated reduction in MET expression in HCC cells. SOCS1-dependent ubiquitination of endogenous MET receptor occurred rapidly following HGF stimulation in HCC cells, leading to proteasomal degradation of phosphorylated MET receptor. These findings indicate that SOCS1 mediates its tumor suppressor functions, at least partly, by binding to MET and interfering with downstream signaling pathways as well as by promoting the turnover of the activated MET receptor. We propose that loss of this control mechanism due to epigenetic repression of SOCS1 could contribute to oncogenic MET signaling in HCC and other cancers, and that MET inhibitors might be useful in treating these patients.

Effect of intermittent normobaric hyperoxia for treatment of neuropathic pain in Chinese patients with spinal cord injury

STUDY DESIGN

Prospective, randomized and controlled study.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of intermittent normobaric hyperoxia (InHO) for treatment of neuropathic pain in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI).

SETTING

The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanhua University, Hengyang, Hunan Province, China.

METHODS

Patients with SCI from Hunan Province were recruited from the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanhua University. History, duration, localization and characteristics of pain were recorded. Visual analog scale (VAS), the Patient Global Impression of Change (PGIC) and Short Form-36 walk-wheel (SF-36ww) was used to investigate the effect of InHO. Patients were randomly assigned to study and control groups. In study group, patients were exposed to pure oxygen via non-rebreathing reservoir mask, which increased the provided oxygen at a rate of 7 l min^-1 for 1 or 4 h daily in 2 weeks. While in control group, patients breathed air via non-rebreathing reservoir mask at the same rate.

RESULTS

A total of 62 SCI patients with neuropathic pain were included in the study. The mean age of the patients was 36.85±10.71 years. Out of 62 patients, 21 were tetraplegic and 41 were paraplegic. Overall, 14 patients had complete SCI while 48 patients had incomplete injuries. Three groups were similar with respect to age, gender, duration, smoker or not, level and severity of injury. In the 4 h per day InHO groups, a statistically significant reduction of the VAS values was observed (P<0.05). Significant difference was also found in SF-36ww pain scores and PGIC (P<0.05). However, such an effect was not evident in the control group.

CONCLUSION

This study revealed that in treatment of neuropathic pain of SCI patients, InHO may be effective.

PERSPECTIVE

This article presents InHO may effectively complement pharmacological treatment in patients with SCI and neuropathic pain.

A functional variant in IL12B promoter modulates its expression and associates with increased risk of allergic asthma

The interleukin-12B (IL12B) gene encodes the p40 chain of IL-12, a pro-inflammatory cytokine that antagonizes Th2 phenotype and, hence, may have a critical role in the pathogenesis of allergic asthma. In this report, we describe the identification of a novel IL12B promoter polymorphism (T-to-A exchange) at position -536. The IL12B -536AA genotype was significantly associated with asthma in the Chinese populations (P=0.011, odds ratio=2.227). The risk-associated A allele was linked to reduced expression of IL12B mRNA levels and IL12B production in asthmatic patients. Luciferase reporter assay provided evidence that risk-associated A allele reduced the promoter activity of IL12B gene compared with those of the promoter containing the protective T allele. We further observed that decreasing binding effects between the risk alleles A of IL12B and CCAAT/enhancer binding protein alpha (C/EBPα) through A allele sequence mediated streptavidin-conjugated agarose pulldown and biotin-labelled A allele mediated electrophoretic mobility shift assay. We also observed additive effects of the risk alleles of IL12B and decreased mRNA levels of C/EBPα in asthmatic patients. Therefore, we postulated that the presence of -536A allele in IL12B promoter could predispose to the development of allergic asthma.

Exome sequencing-driven discovery of coding polymorphisms associated with common metabolic phenotypes

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS

Human complex metabolic traits are in part regulated by genetic determinants. Here we applied exome sequencing to identify novel associations of coding polymorphisms at minor allele frequencies (MAFs) >1% with common metabolic phenotypes.

METHODS

The study comprised three stages. We performed medium-depth (8×) whole exome sequencing in 1,000 cases with type 2 diabetes, BMI >27.5 kg/m(2) and hypertension and in 1,000 controls (stage 1). We selected 16,192 polymorphisms nominally associated (p < 0.05) with case-control status, from four selected annotation categories or from loci reported to associate with metabolic traits. These variants were genotyped in 15,989 Danes to search for association with 12 metabolic phenotypes (stage 2). In stage 3, polymorphisms showing potential associations were genotyped in a further 63,896 Europeans.

RESULTS

Exome sequencing identified 70,182 polymorphisms with MAF >1%. In stage 2 we identified 51 potential associations with one or more of eight metabolic phenotypes covered by 45 unique polymorphisms. In meta-analyses of stage 2 and stage 3 results, we demonstrated robust associations for coding polymorphisms in CD300LG (fasting HDL-cholesterol: MAF 3.5%, p = 8.5 × 10(-14)), COBLL1 (type 2 diabetes: MAF 12.5%, OR 0.88, p = 1.2 × 10(-11)) and MACF1 (type 2 diabetes: MAF 23.4%, OR 1.10, p = 8.2 × 10(-10)).

CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION

We applied exome sequencing as a basis for finding genetic determinants of metabolic traits and show the existence of low-frequency and common coding polymorphisms with impact on common metabolic traits. Based on our study, coding polymorphisms with MAF above 1% do not seem to have particularly high effect sizes on the measured metabolic traits.

The expression of histone demethylase JMJD1A in renal cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND

Hypoxia-inducible factor 1α has been shown to play a central role in RCC tumorigenesis by acting as a transcription factor. Histone demethylase JMJD1A is an iron- and 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase which catalyze the demethylation of mono- and dimethylated H3K9. JMJD1A can be upregulated by hypoxia via HIF-1 and associated with cancer. The expression of JMJD1A was determined in 10 kidney cancer tissue and adjacent tissue by quantitative polymerase chain reaction, western blotting and immunohistochemistry. Furthermore, the expression of JMJD1A was investigated in cell line 786-0 through adding nickle or cobalt ion to mimic hypoxic environment. The expression of JMJD1A was higher in cancer tissue than adjacent tissue, and in hypoxic environment than normal environment. In cancer tissue, the JMJD1A mainly located around blood vessels which indicated that JMJD1A is involved tumor angiogenesis.

CONCLUSION

the increased expression of JMJD1A might be associated with the progression of kidney cancer.

KEYWORDS

renal cell carcinoma, histone demethylase, JMJD1A, hypoxia-inducible factor, iron.

Developmental expression of ACRV1 in humans and mice

To identify the developmental expression of the ACRV1 gene in humans and mice, testes cDNA samples were collected at different post-natal days (days 4, 9, 18, 35, 54, and 6 months) from Balb/c mice and were hybridised to the mouse whole genome 430 2.0 Array (Affymetrix Inc.) chip. The characteristics of ACRV1 were analysed using various cellular and molecular biotechnologies. The results showed that the expression of mouse ACRV1 was not detected in mouse testes on days 4, 9, and 18 but was present on days 35, 54, and 6 months. Using RT-PCR analysis of mouse ACRV1, we determined that mouse ACRV1 was expressed specifically in the mouse testis, and its expression began at days 35. Western blot analysis demonstrated that human ACRV1 was primarily expressed in human testes, and immunofluorescent and immunohistochemistry staining showed that human ACRV1 protein was predominantly located in round and elongated spermatids in human testes, indicating that ACRV1 may play an important role in mammalian spermatogenesis and may be a target of a contraceptive vaccine.

Overexpression of the acid-labile subunit of the IGF ternary complex in transgenic mice

The ternary complex, composed of IGF-I or IGF-II, IGF-binding protein-3, and the acid-labile subunit, is responsible for transport of the majority of the IGF-I and IGF-II present in the circulation. Acid-labile subunit is developmentally and hormonally regulated, suggesting an important, although unclear, role in regulating the availability and action of the IGFs. To investigate the biological role of acid-labile subunit, we generated transgenic mice, which constitutively overexpress a human acid-labile subunit cDNA driven by the cytomegalovirus promoter. Two independent transgenic strains, CMVALS-1 and CMVALS-2, with mean serum levels of human acid-labile subunit of 19.3 +/- 4.2 and 20.2 +/- 3.2 microg/ml respectively, were characterized. Total acid-labile subunit, endogenous plus transgene derived, was measured by Western blotting and was found to be significantly increased in transgenic compared with wild-type mice (1.51 +/- 0.02-fold; P < 0.001). There were no significant differences in serum IGF-binding protein-3 or IGF-I levels between transgenic and wild-type mice. Similar chromatographic elution patterns were observed when sera from transgenic and wild-type mice were preincubated with [(125)I]IGF-I, indicating that acid-labile subunit overexpression had no measurable effect on compartmentalization of IGF-I in the circulation. Transgene-derived human acid-labile subunit mRNA was detected in 17-d-old embryos and all adult mouse tissues examined. A significant reduction in litter size was also observed in each of the acid-labile subunit transgenic mouse strains. This reduction in litter size was due to a maternal effect, as it was apparent when transgenic female mice were crossed with wild-type male mice, but not when male transgenic mice were crossed with female wild-type mice. The transgenic mice were phenotypically normal at birth, but demonstrated a significant reduction in postnatal body weight gain, particularly during the first 3 wk of life. Over the first 3 months of life, average body weights were significantly reduced by 5.3 +/- 0.6%, 4.2 +/- 0.6%, 8.1 +/- 0.9%, and 5.6 +/- 0.8%, compared with those in wild-type mice, for male and female CMVALS-1 mice and male and female CMVALS-2 mice, respectively. Double transgenic mice, generated by crossing acid-labile subunit transgenic mice with transgenic mice that overexpress IGF-binding protein-3, demonstrated a significantly more marked reduction in body weight gain than acid-labile subunit transgenic mice. These data demonstrate that overexpression of acid-labile subunit has significant effects on postnatal growth and reproduction. As there is little measurable alteration in the circulating components of the IGF system, these effects are most likely to be mediated via disturbances in tissue IGF availability.

[A new algorithm for displaying the cutting isosurface of structures]

The existing algorithms for displaying the cutting isosurface of the structure are not suitable for interactive display because they spend too much time on calculation when a fair amount of data is submitted to processing. This paper presents a new algorithm for accelerating the cutting of structure by using the area partition and the increment calculation to reduce the unnecessary calculation in cutting the structure. It is suitable for real time interactive displaying, especially in the case of a vast amount of data.

Insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) binds to fibronectin (FN): demonstration of IGF-I/IGFBP-3/fn ternary complexes in human plasma

We used a yeast two-hybrid system to identify binding partners for insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3). A partial complementary DNA encoding the carboxyl-terminal of fibronectin (FN), including the cell binding site, the heparin-binding domain, and the fibrin-binding domain, was identified in a screen of a human placental complementary DNA library. The interaction of IGFBP-3 with FN and the 40-kDa heparin-binding carboxyl-terminal fragment of FN was confirmed using Western ligand blotting. Both glycosylated and nonglycosylated IGFBP-3 bound to FN with a K(d) of approximately 0.3 nmol/L. IGF-I and IGFBP-1 had no effect on IGFBP-3 binding to FN. Competitive inhibition of IGFBP-3 binding to FN was observed in the presence of IGFBP-5 and heparin. The binding affinity of the immobilized IGFBP-3/FN complex for [(125)I]IGF-I (K(d) = 0.8 nmol/L) was similar to that of IGFBP-3 alone. The presence of IGF-I/IGFBP-3/FN ternary complexes in human plasma was demonstrated by coimmunoprecipitation of IGFBP-3 and [(125)I]IGF-I with anti-FN monoclonal antibody. These data indicate that FN may have a role in the transportation of IGFBP-3 and IGF-I in the circulation and the sequestration of these proteins in tissues.

Phenotypic manifestations of insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 overexpression in transgenic mice

In cell culture systems insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) can both enhance and inhibit IGF-I action. To investigate the biological role of IGFBP-3 in vivo, transgenic (Tg) mice that constitutively overexpress the human IGFBP-3 complementary DNA (cDNA) driven by the mouse phosphoglycerate kinase I (PGK) and the cytomegalovirus (CMV) promoters were examined. Serum levels of human IGFBP-3 in CMVBP-3 and PGKBP-3 Tg mice were 4.7 and 5.8 microgram/ml, respectively and total IGFBP-3 was increased 4.9- and 7.7-fold compared with that in wild-type (Wt) mice. In PGKBP-3 Tg mice the levels of transgene expression were similar in all tissues. Although CMVBP-3 mice demonstrated similar levels of expression of the transgene as PGKBP-3 mice in most tissues, markedly elevated expression was apparent in the kidney and heart. The transgene-derived IGFBP-3 circulated as a 150-kDa ternary complex, and serum IGF-I levels were elevated 1.9- to 2.8-fold in Tg mice compared with Wt mice. A significant reduction in birth weight of approximately 10% and a modest reduction in litter size were apparent in both Tg strains. Early postnatal growth, as assessed by both body weight and length, was significantly reduced in Tg mice compared with Wt mice. This was more marked in PGKBP-3 than in CMVBP-3 mice, who demonstrated a propensity to adiposity after weaning. The relative organ weights of brain and kidney were reduced in both Tg strains, whereas liver size and epididymal fat were significantly increased in CMVBP-3, but not PGKBP-3, mice. Our data indicate that overexpression of IGFBP-3 is associated with modest intrauterine and postnatal growth retardation despite elevated circulating IGF-I levels.

[Multi-resolution blending rendering of the medical structure]

This paper presents a new medical data visualization method called multi-resolution blending rendering which has been developed for visualizing the large medical volume data sets. Different from those multi-resolution rendering methods which simplify the structures by polygon mesh optimization technique, the new method uses different resolution levels to represent different parts of a structure at the same time. So, it can preserve the integrality of the structure and emphasize the important part of the structure when simplifying the structure. The new method also takes advantage of the good qualities of the wavelet transform and constructs the multi-resolution blending model of the structure by orthogonal wavelet transform and transition operator. The experiment proves that our method can effectively simplify the model of the structure, enormously reduce the number of the triangle of the structure and speed up the structure rendering. It is especially suitable for interactive observations on a complex medical structure.

Characterization of androgen receptors in a well-differentiated endometrial adenocarcinoma cell line (Ishikawa)

Androgen receptors (AR) have been identified in the human endometrium, but their role in endometrial function and development towards endometrial receptivity remains poorly understood. In an effort to study the regulation and possible function in endometrial epithelium, we utilized the well-differentiated endometrial adenocarcinoma cell line, Ishikawa, as a model system. This cell line has proven to be stable, hormonally responsive, contains both estrogen and progesterone receptors, and has been shown to express endometrial proteins in a hormone responsive manner. In the present study, we demonstrate that Ishikawa cells also express AR, based on immunohistochemical staining, radioactive binding studies, RT-PCR and Northern blot analysis. The expression of AR is induced in Ishikawa cells by estrogens, similar to that reported for normal endometrium. Further, using an estrogen-responsive gene that has been characterized in this cell line, alkaline phosphatase, we show that androgens act as antiestrogens in diethylstilbestrol (DES) treated cells, inhibiting enzymatic activity in a dose-dependent manner. These data support a physiologic role for AR in the endometrium. Elevations in endometrial AR in certain clinical situations such as polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) may amplify the effects of androgens on the endometrium leading to suspected defects in uterine receptivity, higher than expected infertility and high miscarriage rates observed in patients with this disorder.

Interleukin-1beta, Src- and non-Src tyrosine kinases, and nitric oxide synthase induction in rat aorta in vitro

We studied the potential roles for endogenous interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) and for several signaling pathways in the spontaneous induction in vitro of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in endothelium-denuded rat aorta rings. Added IL-1beta augmented, whereas the IL-1beta receptor antagonist IL-1ra blocked, spontaneous iNOS induction. Furthermore, increases in IL-1beta mRNA preceded those of iNOS mRNA. Mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase and phosphatidyl inositol 3' kinase inhibition did not block iNOS induction, whereas nuclear factor kappaB inhibition did. The sarcoma virus tyrosine kinase (Src) family-selective inhibitor 4-amino-5(4-methylphenyl)-7-(t-butyl)pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine (PP1) blocked the upregulation of IL-1beta mRNA and the subsequent induction of iNOS but not the induction of iNOS stimulated by exogenously added IL-1beta. In contrast, the non-Src inhibitors TP 47/AG 213 and genistein and the tyrosine phosphatase inhibitor vanadate did not affect the spontaneous upregulation of IL-1beta mRNA but blocked both the IL-1beta-mediated and spontaneous induction of iNOS. We conclude that 1) the upregulation of tissue IL-1beta, via a signaling pathway involving a Src family kinase, plays a key role in rat vascular iNOS induction and 2) non-Src tyrosine kinases play roles downstream from IL-1beta for iNOS induction.