Bioavailability and Antioxidant Activity of Rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum) Peel Polyphenols during in Vitro Simulated Gastrointestinal Digestion, Caco-2 Monolayer Cell Model Application, and Colonic Fermentation.

The bioavailability of rambutan peel polyphenols (RPPs) was studied via in vitro simulated digestion, a Caco-2 monolayer cell model, and colonic fermentation. Total phenolic content of RPPs decreased with the progress of the simulated digestion. A total of 38 phenolic compounds were identified during the digestion and colonic fermentation, of which 12 new metabolites were found during colonic fermentation. The possible biotransformation pathways were inferred. Geraniin was transformed into corilagin, ellagic acid, and gallic acid during the digestion and colonic fermentation. Ellagic acid could be further transformed into urolithin under the action of intestinal microbiota. The transformation of ellagitannins could be beneficial to transport on Caco-2 monolayer cell. The antioxidant capacity of RPPs increased with the progress of gastrointestinal digestion. Furthermore, RPPs could increase the yield of short-chain fatty acids, decrease the pH value, promote the growth of beneficial bacteria, and inhibit the growth of pathogenic Escherichia coli/Shigella during colonic fermentation.

Encapsulated papillary carcinoma of the breast: A single institution experience.

Encapsulated papillary carcinoma (EPC) is a relatively rare form of breast cancer. To date, no evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of EPC have been established. Between January 2015 and December 2021, patients with histologically confirmed EPC of the breast were recorded in a database by The Third Hospital of Nanchang City (Nanchang, China). A total of 46 patients with EPC were retrieved from the database. Age at diagnosis ranged from 41-88 years (median age, 62 years). A total of 21 of these patients had pure EPC, 6 patients had EPC associated with ductal carcinoma in situ and 19 patients had EPC associated with invasive carcinoma. The majority of EPC cases were low nuclear grade, hormone receptor-positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2-negative. Additionally, myoepithelial cells were always absent in the papillae of the EPC. All patients underwent lumpectomy or mastectomy with sentinel lymph node biopsy, and almost all of the patients received adjuvant hormonal therapy. Adjuvant chemotherapy was only suggested to 4 patients who were diagnosed with axillary lymph node involvement. Subsequently, the clinicopathological features of non-invasive EPC were compared with invasive EPC. The results indicated that larger tumor sizes and axillary lymph node metastases were more common in invasive tumors. During the follow-up, only 2 patients with invasive EPC experienced recurrence or metastasis. In conclusion, a substantial proportion of invasive EPC cases display aggressive characteristics and metastatic potential, despite it being considered a subtype of carcinoma in situ with excellent prognosis, and local surgical resection is the initial method of treatment. Therefore, adjuvant endocrine therapy, radiotherapy and chemotherapy should be considered in select patients, especially in those diagnosed with invasive EPC tumors.

Chemical composition, health benefits, food processing effects and applications of Boletus: a review.

Boletus are wild edible mushrooms that are consumed worldwide for their appealing taste and abundant production. The aim of this review was to summarize and discuss the characteristics, effects of food processing and application of Boletus worldwide. A better understanding of Boletus nutritional profiles with high carbohydrate and protein, low fat and energy. Volatile (odor compounds) and nonvolatile (free amino acids, 5'-nucleotide and nucleoside, free sugars, organic acids and umami peptides) compounds together contribute to the flavor of Boletus. Varies bioactive substances such as phenols, flavonoids, polysaccharides, tocopherols, lectins and pigment, have also been identified in Boletus, showing wide spectrum biological activities, including antioxidant, antimicrobial, antitumor, immunomodulatory, hepatoprotective, antihyperglycemic and hypotensive activities. In addition, drying, storage and cooking influenced the physical, chemical, sensory properties and biological activities of Boletus. The application of Boletus was focused on food dietary supplement, enhancement of food nutrition and function, indicating Boletus can be further developed as a functional food for human health. Further research suggestions focus on the mechanism of bioactive substances, the novel umami peptides, and the digestion and absorption of Boletus.

[Comparison of total hip arthroplasty with conventional instrument OCM approach and posterolateral approach in supine position].

OBJECTIVE: To compare the clinical efficacy of total hip arthroplasty with conventional instrument OCM approach and posterolateral approach in supine position. METHODS: From February 2017 to January 2019, 67 patients underwent hip arthroplasty due to hip diseases, including 21 patients in the minimally invasive group, 12 males and 9 females;there were 10 cases of femoral neck fracture, 5 cases of aseptic necrosis of femoral head and 6 cases of hip osteoarthritis. In the traditional group, 46 cases were treated by traditional posterolateral approach, including 28 males and 18 females;there were 24 cases of femoral neck fracture, 12 cases of aseptic necrosis of femoral head and 10 cases of hip osteoarthritis. All patientsused biological ceramic artificial joint prosthesis. The operation time, intraoperative bleeding, incision length, preoperative and postoperative creatine kinase (CK-NAC), underground activity time, hospital stay, abduction angle and anteversion angle of prosthesis were observed and compared between two groups. Harris scores before operation and 12 months after operation were compared between two groups. RESULTS: All cases were followed up for 14 to 26(18.4±3.6) months. There was no significant difference in intraoperative bleeding, postoperative anteversion and abduction angle between two groups (P>0.05). There were significant differences in operation time, incision length, postoperative creatine kinase, underground time and hospital stay between two groups (P<0.05). There was no significant difference in Harris function score between two groups before operation and 12 months after operation(P>0.05). CONCLUSION: The two approaches of total hip arthroplasty can obtain satisfactory results.OCM approach has less damage and rapid postoperative recovery. It is a reliable surgical approach and can be popularized and used.

Immediate breast reconstruction using latissimus dorsi muscular flap: A retrospective study of Chinese patients with breast cancer.

ABSTRACT: Reconstruction of breast defects of patients who underwent mastectomy can be challenging. This study was designed to review a series of 43 breast cancer patients who underwent immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) using the latissimus dorsi myocutaneous flap with/without implants. The demographic characteristics, clinical application feasibility, and the satisfaction rates of the patients were retrospectively collected and evaluated.A total of 43 breast cancer patients who underwent mastectomy between August 2015 and February 2020 were included in the retrospective study. The included patients were subjected to IBR using latissimus dorsi muscular flap (LDMF) with/without implants. The clinical application feasibility and the satisfaction rates of the patients were evaluated.Among these patients, 35 patients underwent nipple-sparing mastectomy and 8 patients underwent skin-sparing mastectomy. Twenty-nine patients underwent IBR using LDMF with implants, and 14 patients underwent IBR using LDMF without implants. Among these patients, 2 patients had partial LDMF necrosis and atrophy, and showed significant shrink of the reconstructed breast. One patient developed seromas, and seromas were improved by active dressing change and sucking out the fluid via the skin using a syringe. Two patients had local skin flap necrosis on the chest, 1 patient had preserved areola and local necrosis of the nipple, and this was healed after dressing change. Based on the Harris method, 27, 9, 5, and 2 cases were evaluated as "excellent," "good," "fair," and "poor," respectively.In the present study, the reconstructed breast has natural shape, good symmetry, and hidden postoperative scars. The aesthetic effect is relatively good, and the use of LDMF may represent an acceptable and valid option for IBR. The success of this procedure depends on the design of the incision, the skill and proficiency of the operation, as well as the correct treatment after surgery.

An Occlusion Compensation Learning Framework for Improving the Rendering Quality of Light Field.

Occlusions are common phenomena in light field rendering (LFR) technology applications. The 3-D spatial structures of some features may be missing or incorrect when capturing some samples due to occlusion discontinuities. Most prior works on LFR, however, have neglected occlusions from other objects in 3-D scenes that do not participate in the capturing and rendering of the light field. To improve rendering quality, this report proposes an occlusion probability learning framework (OPLF) based on a deep Boltzmann machine (DBM) to compensate for the occluded information. In the OPLF, an occlusion probability density model is applied to calculate the visibility scores, which are modeled as hidden variables. Additionally, the probability of occlusion is related to the visibility, the camera configuration (i.e., position and direction), and the relationship between the occlusion object and occluded object. Furthermore, a deep probability model based on the OPLF is used for learning the occlusion relationship between the camera and object in multiple layers. The proposed OPLF can optimize the LFR quality. Finally, to verify the claimed performance, we also compare the OPLF with the most advanced occlusion theory and light field reconstruction algorithms. The experimental results show that the proposed OPLF outperforms other known occlusion quantization schemes.

A signal-processing framework for occlusion of 3D scene to improve the rendering quality of views.

Occlusions will reduce the performance of systems in many computer vision applications with discontinuous surfaces of 3D scenes. We explore a signal-processing framework of occlusions based on the light ray visibility to improve the rendering quality of views. An occlusion field (OCF) theory is derived by calculating the relationship between the occluded light rays and the nonoccluded light rays to quantify the occlusion degree (OCD). The OCF framework can describe the various in-scene information captured by the changes in the camera configuration (i.e., position and direction) through a quantitative description of the occlusion information. From a spectral analysis of the OCF, we mathematically derive analytical functions to determine the changing relationship between the scene and the camera configuration. A reconstruction filter can be designed to achieve interference cancellation and compensate for the missing information caused by the occlusions. Our measurements of different occlusions using this OCF framework included both synthetic and actual scenes. The experimental results show that the proposed OCF framework can improves the rendering quality of views and outperforms other known occlusion quantization schemes in a complex scene.

Frequency analysis of light field sampling for texture information.

Light field sampling (LFS) theory can properly reduce minimum sampling rate while ensuring that novel views are not distorted for image-based rendering (IBR). The minimum sampling rate is determined by spectral support of light field. The spectral support of light field has studied the influence of the following factors: the minimum depth and the maximum depth, non-Lambertian reflections, whether the scene surfaces are flat, maximum frequency of painted signals. In this paper, we further perfect the light field spectrum analysis from the quantitative description of scene texture information based on the existing spectrum analysis theory. The quantification of texture information can be interactively refined via detected regional entropy. Thus, we can derive a spectral analytical function of light field with respect to texture information. The new function allows the spectral support of light field to be analyzed and estimated for different texture information associated with scene objects. In this way, we limit the spectral analysis problems of light field to those of a simpler signal. We show that this spectral analysis approach can be easily extended to arbitrary scene complexity levels, as we simplify the LFS of complex scenes to a plane. Additionally, the spectral support of light field broadens as the plane texture information becomes more complex. We present experimental results to demonstrate the performance of LFS with texture information, verify our theoretical analysis, and extend our conclusions on the optimal minimum sampling rate.

Real-Time Monitoring of Hierarchical Self-Assembly and Induction of Circularly Polarized Luminescence from Achiral Luminogens.

Constructing artificial helical structures through hierarchical self-assembly and exploring the underlying mechanism are important, and they help gain insight from the structures, processes, and functions from the biological helices and facilitate the development of material science and nanotechnology. Herein, the two enantiomers of chiral Au(I) complexes ( S)-1 and ( R)-1 were synthesized, and they exhibited impressive spontaneous hierarchical self-assembly transitions from vesicles to helical fibers. An impressive chirality inversion and amplification was accompanied by the assembly transition, as elucidated by the results of in situ and time-dependent circular dichroism spectroscopy and scanning electron microscope imaging. The two enantiomers could serve as ideal chiral templates to co-assemble with other achiral luminogens to efficiently induce the resulting co-assembly systems to show circularly polarized luminescence (CPL). Our work has provided a simple but efficient way to explore the sophisticated self-assembly process and presented a facile and effective strategy to fabricate architectures with CPL properties.

A comparison of fulvestrant plus a targeted agent with fulvestrant alone in hormone receptor-positive advanced breast cancer that progressed on prior endocrine therapy: a meta-analysis.

Fulvestrant is recommended for the hormone receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients progressed during or after prior endocrine therapy. Notably, recent evidence has also demonstrated that adding a targeted agent to fulvestrant conferred a significantly clinical benefit in these patients. Since these results were inconsistent among the studies, this meta-analysis herein was conducted to compare the efficacy and toxicities of the fulvestrant-based combination therapy with fulvestrant monotherapy. Thus, a systemic research was performed in PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane library to identify relevant Phase II or Phase III randomized controlled trials. The progression-free survival (PFS), overall response rate (ORR), and toxicities were evaluated. And HR, risk ratio (RR), and their 95% CIs were employed to complete the pooled analyses. In total, 13 studies with 3,910-hour positive MBC patients progressed on prior endocrine therapy were included in our meta-analysis. Improvements of doublet-agents group were proven in terms of PFS (HR 0.73, 95% CI =0.63-0.86, P=0.000) and ORR (RR 2.07, 95% CI =1.67-2.58, P=0.000). And the further subgroup analysis also demonstrated that fulvestrant in combination with a cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK4/6) inhibitor or a PI3K/mTOR inhibitor was associated with a superior efficacy (RR 2.72, 95% CI =1.93-3.83, P=0.000 and RR 1.60, 95% CI =1.15-2.23, P=0.005, respectively). However, the efficacy was comparable between the other combination strategies and fulvestrant alone. With respect to the adverse effects, adding a targeted agent to fulvestrant also produced more frequent grade 3/4 toxicities (RR 3.86, 95% CI =2.66-5.61, P=0.000). Taken together, combination of fulvestrant with a targeted agent, especially inhibitors targeting CDK4/6 or PI3K/mTOR pathway, may open a new avenue for more effective therapies in relapse or metastatic hormone receptor-positive breast cancer after prior aromatase inhibitors or tamoxifen treatment. In addition, identifying reliable biomarkers to delineate which subgroup of patients will specially benefit from fulvestrant-based combination therapy is warranted.

Study on the Preparation and Chemical Structure Characterization of Melanin from Boletus griseus.

In this study, melanin (BgM) was obtained from Boletus griseus. The chemical composition and structure of BgM were characterized by UV-visible absorption spectrum, Fourier transform infrared spectrum, elemental analysis, nuclear magnetic resonance, pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry, and ultra-performance liquid chromatography⁻high resolution mass spectrometry. The percentage contents of C, H, N, S and O elements were 56.38%, 5.86%, 6.17%, 2.44%, and 28.04%, and the S/N and C/N ratios were 0.17 and 10.66, respectively. The UV-vis spectrum of BgM showed a maximum absorption peak at 214 nm. Characteristic absorption peaks were observed at 3426, 1600 and 1105 cm-1, and BgM contained phenolic hydroxyl, amidogen, carbonyl, methylene, and methyl groups. Moreover, BgM is an eumelanin, and its main skeleton has both a benzene ring and an indole, and the branched chain mainly consists of alkanes, alcohols, and fatty acids. BgM was hydrolyzed by H2O2 and four compounds were tentatively analyzed from the UPLC-MS/MS profile. The chemical structure of BgM was characterized as 5,6-dihydroxyindole eumelanin, and the condensed molecular formula is [C28(OR1)4(OR2)3H11O6N4]n.

The incidence of postoperative radiotherapy-induced acute dermatitis in breast cancer and its influencing factors for Chinese women.

PURPOSE: To investigate the incidence of skin acute reaction and its influencing factors in postoperative breast cancer radiotherapy patients. METHODS: One hundred and seventy three cases of breast cancer patients treated with postoperative radiotherapy were consecutively enrolled from June 1, 2016 to July 31, 2017 in our breast cancer center. Irradiation technology includes conformal intensity-modulated radiotherapy and a conventional two-dimensional one with conventional fraction. Any acute radiation dermatitis was recorded and the influencing factors were analyzed at the end of the radiation treatment. RESULTS: Radiotherapy-induced acute dermatitis in patients with breast-conserving surgery was relatively mild. Among the 173 patients, 33 cases had no obvious changes in the skin (grade 0); 121 cases had grade 1 skin reactions, manifested as local dark erythema and dry peeling; 29 cases had grade 2 skin reactions, characterized by edema, hyperemia, or erosion part; no grade 3 cases of skin reactions were observed. The incidence of grade 0, grade 1, and grade 2 reactions in all patients was 19.1%, 69.9%, and 11.0%, respectively. The severity of skin acute reaction is independent of the tumor sites, molecular subtypes, patients' age, and irradiation modalities, but it depends on the surgical types, fields treated, and planned total radiation. There is a trend favoring no chemotherapy over chemotherapy, though p-value is 0.074. CONCLUSION: Skin acute reaction in postoperative radiotherapy breast cancer patients is generally common but mild, and there are quite a few patients who need interruption or cessation of the radiotherapy process. The patients need to be well informed and made aware that any skin reaction will likely be mild, especially for the breast-conserving patients.

Protective Effects of LSGYGP from Fish Skin Gelatin Hydrolysates on UVB-Induced MEFs by Regulation of Oxidative Stress and Matrix Metalloproteinase Activity.

A previous study has shown that tilapia fish skin gelatin hydrolysates inhibited photoaging in vivo, and that, Leu-Ser-Gly-Tyr-Gly-Pro (LSGYGP) identified in the hydrolysate had a high hydroxyl radical scavenging activity. In this study, activities of LSGYGP were further evaluated using ultraviolet B (UVB)-induced mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs). UVB irradiation significantly increased the intercellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) activities and decreased the content of collagen in MEFs. LSGYGP reduced the intercellular ROS generation in UVB-induced MEFs. Meanwhile, the decrease of superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and the increase of malondiaidehyde (MDA) content were inhibited by LSGYGP. LSGYGP reduced MMP-1 and MMP-9 activities in a dose-dependent manner. Molecular docking simulation indicated that LSGYGP inhibited MMPs activities by docking the active sites of MMP-1 and MMP-9. Furthermore, LSGYGP also affected the intercellular phosphorylation of UVB-induced the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway. LSGYGP could protect collagen synthesis in MEFs under UVB irradiation by inhibiting oxidative stress and regulating MMPs activities.

Panduratin A Inhibits Cell Proliferation by Inducing G0/G1 Phase Cell Cycle Arrest and Induces Apoptosis in Breast Cancer Cells.

Because of the unsatisfactory treatment options for breast cancer (BC), there is a need to develop novel therapeutic approaches for this malignancy. One such strategy is chemotherapy using non-toxic dietary substances and botanical products. Studies have shown that Panduratin A (PA) possesses many health benefits, including anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-oxidant and anti-cancer activities. In the present study, we provide evidence that PA treatment of MCF-7 BC cells resulted in a time- and dose-dependent inhibition of cell growth with an IC50 of 15 µM and no to little effect on normal human MCF-10A breast cells. To define the mechanism of these anti-proliferative effects of PA, we determined its effect critical molecular events known to regulate the cell cycle and apoptotic machinery. Immunofluorescence and flow cytometric analysis of Annexin V-FITC staining provided evidence for the induction of apoptosis. PA treatment of BC cells resulted in increased activity/expression of mitochondrial cytochrome C, caspases 7, 8 and 9 with a significant increase in the Bax:Bcl-2 ratio, suggesting the involvement of a mitochondrial-dependent apoptotic pathway. Furthermore, cell cycle analysis using flow cytometry showed that PA treatment of cells resulted in G0/G1 arrest in a dose-dependent manner. Immunoblot analysis data revealed that, in MCF-7 cell lines, PA treatment resulted in the dose-dependent (i) induction of p21WAF1/Cip1 and p27Kip1, (ii) downregulation of Cyclin dependent kinase (CDK) 4 and (iii) decrease in cyclin D1. These findings suggest that PA may be an effective therapeutic agent against BC.

Cloning and expression study of an IRF4a gene and its two transcript variants in turbot, Scophthalmus maximus.

Interferon regulatory factor 4 (IRF4) is known to be involved in antiviral response as well as regulation of functional and developmental processes in lymphomyeloid cell lineages in mammals. In this study, the gene of IRF4a and its two transcript variants (named IRF4a1 and -2) were cloned from turbot, Scophthalmus maximus, the tissue distributions and in vivo immune responsive expression patterns of the two transcripts were subsequently examined. The Scophthalmus maximus (Sm)IRF4a gene is 8367 nucleotide (nt) in length, consisting of eight exons and seven introns. The SmIRF4a1 transcript is 3185 nt long, containing an open reading frame (ORF) of 1401 nt that encodes a polypeptide of 466 amino acids (aa). The SmIRF4a2 transcript is 2265 nt long and identical with the SmIRF4a1 from position 1 to 1171, containing an ORF of 1164 nt that encodes a truncated protein of 387 aa as a result of a frame shift in exon 6 which introduces a premature stop codon. The deduced aa sequence of SmIRF4a1 posses a DNA-binding domain (DBD), a nuclear localization signal (NLS), a serine-rich domain (SRD) and an IRF association domain (IAD), while SmIRF4a2 lacks the C-terminal 52 residues of the IAD and the downstream C-terminal extension, instead, they are replaced by a 8-aa segment although the three upstream domains are intact. Quantitative real-time PCR analysis revealed a broad tissue expression for both SmIRF4a1 and -2 with the former showing a significantly higher expression in all examined tissues except skin. Expressions of two transcript variants after stimulation with polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid [poly(I:C)] and turbot reddish body iridovirus (TRBIV) were tested in gills, spleen, head kidney and muscle. A two-wave of induced expression pattern was observed for both transcripts with either stimulus treatment during a 7-day time course. SmIRF4a2 responded more promptly to the stimuli and showed a higher level of inducibility in the early phase while SmIRF4a1 was strongly detected in the later phase. These data suggest an important role of SmIRF4a2 in the fast immune response under a background of SmIRF4a1-dominant antiviral response in the IRF4a system of turbot.

Cloning and expression analysis of a Toll-like receptor 21 (TLR21) gene from turbot, Scophthalmus maximus.

Toll-like receptor 21 (TLR21) is a non-mammalian TLR recognizing unmethylated CpG DNA and considered as a functional homolog of mammalian TLR9. In the present study, a TLR21 gene was cloned from turbot, Scophthalmus maximus, its immune responsive expression was subsequently studied in vivo. The turbot (Sm)TLR21 gene is an intronless gene with a length of 3527 bp and encodes a peptide of 984 amino acids. The deduced protein possesses a signal peptide sequence, a leucine-rich repeat (LRR) domain composed of 16 LRR motifs, a transmembrane (TM) region and a Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domain. Phylogenetic analysis grouped it with other teleost TLR21s. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) analysis demonstrated the constitutive expression of SmTLR21 mRNA in all twelve examined tissues with higher levels in the lymphomyeloid-rich tissues like spleen and head kidney. Further, upon stimulation with polyinosinic: polycytidylic acid [poly(I:C)], turbot reddish body iridovirus (TRBIV) and CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG-ODN) 2395, the SmTLR21 mRNA expression was up-regulated in the gills, head kidney, spleen and muscle. The maximum increases of SmTLR21 transcript levels ranged from 1.3 to 8.1-fold and appeared at 3 h to 5 day post-injection depending on different organs and stimuli. These findings suggest that SmTLR21 may play an important role in the immune responses to the infections of a broad range of pathogens that include RNA and DNA viruses and bacteria.

Comparison of Free Total Amino Acid Compositions and Their Functional Classifications in 13 Wild Edible Mushrooms.

Thirteen popular wild edible mushroom species in Yunnan Province, Boletus bicolor, Boletus speciosus, Boletus sinicus, Boletus craspedius, Boletus griseus, Boletus ornatipes, Xerocomus, Suillus placidus, Boletinus pinetorus, Tricholoma terreum, Tricholomopsis lividipileata, Termitomyces microcarpus, and Amanita hemibapha, were analyzed for their free amino acid compositions by online pre-column derivazation reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) analysis. Twenty free amino acids, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, serine, glycine, alanine, praline, cysteine, valine, methionine, phenylalanine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, histidine, threonine, asparagines, glutamine, arginine, tyrosine, and tryptophan, were determined. The total free amino acid (TAA) contents ranged from 1462.6 mg/100 g in B. craspedius to 13,106.2 mg/100 g in T. microcarpus. The different species showed distinct free amino acid profiles. The ratio of total essential amino acids (EAA) to TAA was 0.13-0.41. All of the analyzed species showed high contents of hydrophobic amino acids, at 33%-54% of TAA. Alanine, cysteine, glutamine, and glutamic acid were among the most abundant amino acids present in all species. The results showed that the analyzed mushrooms possessed significant free amino acid contents, which may be important compounds contributing to the typical mushroom taste, nutritional value, and potent antioxidant properties of these wild edible mushrooms. Furthermore, the principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the accumulative variance contribution rate of the first four principal components reached 94.39%. Cluster analysis revealed EAA composition and content might be an important parameter to separate the mushroom species, and T. microcarpus and A. hemibapha showed remarkable EAA content among the 13 species.

A superparamagnetic polymersome with extremely high T2 relaxivity for MRI and cancer-targeted drug delivery.

Improving the relaxivity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents is an important challenge for cancer theranostics. Herein we report the design, synthesis, characterization, theoretical analysis and in vivo tests of a superparamagnetic polymersome as a new MRI contrast agent with extremely high T2 relaxivity (611.6 mM-1s-1). First, a noncytotoxic cancer-targeting polymersome is synthesized based on a biodegradable diblock copolymer, folic acid-poly(l-glutamic acid)-block-poly(ε-caprolactone) [FA-PGA-b-PCL]. Then, ultra-small superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) are in situ generated in the hydrophilic PGA coronas of polymersomes to afford magnetic polymersomes. The in vivo MRI assay revealed prominent negative contrast enhancement of magnetic polymersomes at a very low Fe dose of 0.011 mmol/kg. Moreover, this cancer-targeting magnetic polymersome can effectively encapsulate and deliver anticancer drug to inhibit the tumor growth, demonstrating promising theranostic applications in biomedicine.

Cloning and expression study of a Toll-like receptor 2 (tlr2) gene from turbot, Scophthalmus maximus.

Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) in mammals is a member of the ancient Toll-like family of receptors that predominantly recognizes conserved components of Gram-positive bacteria. In the present study, a tlr2 gene and its 5'-flanking sequence were cloned from turbot, Scophthalmus maximus, its responsive expressions to various immunostimulants were subsequently studied in vivo. The turbot (sm)tlr2 gene spans over 9.0 kb with a structure of 12 exon-11 intron and encodes 816 amino acids. The deduced protein shows the highest sequence identity (76.1%) to Japanese flounder Tlr2 and possesses a signal peptide sequence, a leucine-rich repeat (LRR) domain composed of 19 LRR motifs, a transmembrane region and a Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domain. Phylogenetic analysis grouped it with other neoteleostei Tlr2as. A number of transcription factor binding sites known to be important for the basal transcriptional activity of TLR3 and response of TLR2 to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) signalling in mammals were predicted in the 5'-flanking sequence of smtlr2. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) analysis demonstrated the constitutive expression of smtlr2 mRNA in all twelve examined tissues with higher levels in the lymphomyeloid-rich tissues and liver. Further, smtlr2 expression was up-regulated following stimulation with LPS, peptidoglycan (PGN) or polyinosinic: polycytidylic acid [poly(I:C)] in the gills, head kidney, spleen and muscle. Finally, for all three immunostimulants, a two-wave induced smtlr2 expression was observed in the head kidney and spleen in a 7-day time course and the strongest inducibility in the head kidney. These findings suggest a possible role of Smtlr2 in the immune responses to the infections of a broad range of pathogens that include Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and RNA virus.

CSF1 is involved in breast cancer progression through inducing monocyte differentiation and homing.

Despite the great progress in breast cancer research and treatment, measures for efficient targeting of triple­negative breast cancer (TNBC) are still lacking. The well­established dependency of cancer cells on their microenvironment suggests that targeting the tumor niche might form a novel therapeutic approach. We identified the tumor­associated macrophage (TAM) infiltration in breast cancer tissues by immunohistochemistry, and analyzed overall survival (OS). U937 co­cultures with MDA­MB­231, MDA­MB­468 and MCF­7, respectively, to simulate in vivo cellular interactions were assessed. In hormone­independent breast cancer cell conditioned media (CM), U937 differentiates into M2 macrophage as identified by morphological changes and expression of specific surface antigens CD163 and CD204. Moreover, MDA­MB­231 recruits U937, and colony­stimulating factor 1 (CSF1) level in MDA­MB­231 and MDA­MB­468 CM is much higher than that of MCF­7. Overexpression of CSF1 in MCF­7 fails to rebuild its aggressiveness both in vitro and in vivo since CSF1 was not found extracellularly, while genetic inhibition of CSF1 in MDA­MB­231 abrogates TAM infiltration and consequently reduces tumorigenesis in non­obese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficient (NOD/SCID) mice. Using various strategies we demonstrate that CSF1­induced TAMs specifically support breast cancer progression. Importantly, our results may reveal the efficacy of using targeted therapy against tumor niche and indicate that CSF1 inhibition may limit some breast cancer progression.