Tetratrichomonas in pyopneumothorax.

Pleural trichomonosis is clinically rare, and very few cases of trichomonal empyema have been reported so far. A rare case of an 81-year-old woman with pyopeumothorax presenting with recurrent fever and macroscopic pyuria was present. Microscopic examination of the pleural effusion showed mobile flagellated protozoa which molecular methods identified as Tetratrichomonas. In addition, Streptococcus anginosus was discovered in pleural fluid cultures. Treatment with imipenem/cilastatin and metronidazole successfully eliminated the pathogens and led to relief of clinical symptoms. In the context of a review of the relevant literature, the clinical application of molecular methods in the diagnosis of pleural trichomonosis is underlined.

MicroRNA-26a regulates glucose metabolism by direct targeting PDHX in colorectal cancer cells.

BACKGROUND: Reprogramming energy metabolism has been an emerging hallmark of cancer cells. MicroRNAs play important roles in glucose metabolism. METHODS: The targets of microRNA-26a (miR-26a) were predicted by bioinformatics tools. The efficacy of miR-26a binding the 3'-untranslated region (UTR) of pyruvate dehydrogenase protein X component (PDHX) mRNA was evaluated using a dual-luciferase reporter assay. The PDHX expression at the mRNA and protein level in several colon cancer cell lines was quantified with real-time PCR and Western blot analysis respectively. The effects of miR-26a on glucose metabolism were determined by detecting the content of glucose consumption, production of lactate, pyruvate, and acetyl-coenzyme A. RESULTS: The expression of miR-26a is inversely associated with the level of its targeting protein PDHX in several colon cancer cell lines with different malignancy potentials. MiR-26a inhibits PDHX expression by direct targeting the 3'-UTR of PDHX mRNA. The glucose consumption and lactate concentration were both greatly increased in colon cancer cells than the normal colon mucosal epithelia under physiological conditions. The overexpression of miR-26a in HCT116 cells efficiently improved the accumulation of pyruvate and decreased the production of acetyl coenzyme A. Meanwhile the inhibition of miR-26a expression induced inverse biological effects. CONCLUSIONS: MiR-26a regulates glucose metabolism of colorectal cancer cells by direct targeting the PDHX, which inhibits the conversion of pyruvate to acetyl coenzyme A in the citric acid cycle.

Coking wastewater treatment for industrial reuse purpose: combining biological processes with ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis.

A full-scale plant using anaerobic, anoxic and oxic processes (A1/A2/O), along with a pilot-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR), nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) integrated system developed by Shanghai Baosteel Chemical Co. Ltd., was investigated to treat coking wastewater for industrial reuse over a period of one year. The removals reached 82.5% (COD), 89.6% (BOD), 99.8% (ammonium nitrogen), 99.9% (phenol), 44.6% (total cyanide (T-CN)), 99.7% (thiocyanide (SCN-)) and 8.9% (fluoride), during the A1/A2/O biological treatment stage, and all parameters were further reduced by over 96.0%, except for fluoride (86.4%), in the final discharge effluent from the currently operating plant. The pilot-scale MBR process reduced the turbidity to less than 0.65 NTU, and most of the toxic organic compounds were degraded or intercepted by the A1/A2/O followed MBR processes. In addition, parameters including COD, T-CN, total nitrogen, fluoride, chloride ion, hardness and conductivity were significantly reduced by the NF-RO system to a level suitable for industrial reuse, with a total water production ratio of 70.7%. However, the concentrates from the NF and RO units were highly polluted and should be disposed of properly or further treated before being discharged.

Investigation into the nitrate removal efficiency and microbial communities in a sequencing batch reactor treating reverse osmosis concentrate produced by a coking wastewater treatment plant.

In this study, a biological denitrifying process using a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) was employed to treat reverse osmosis (RO) concentrate with high conductivity produced from a coking wastewater plant. From the results, the average removal efficiencies for chemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen, and nitrate were 79.5%, 90.5%, and 93.1%, respectively. Different microbial communities were identified after sequencing the V1-V3 region of the 16S rRNA gene using the MiSeq platform, and the major bacterial phyla in the SBR system were Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. The main microorganisms responsible for denitrification were from the genera Hyphomicrobium, Thauera, Methyloversatilis, and Rhodobacter. Quantitative real-time PCR was used to quantify the absolute levels of denitrifying genes, including narG, nirS, nirK, and nosZ, during the start-up and stable operation of the SBR. The abundances of narG, nirK, and nosZ were lower during stable operation than those in the start-up period. The abundance of nirS at a concentration of 104-105 copies/ng in DNA was much higher than that of nirK, making it the dominant functional gene responsible for nitrite reduction. The higher nitrate removal efficiency suggests that biological denitrification using SBR is an effective technique for treating RO concentrate produced from coking wastewater plants.

The Overexpression of IQGAP1 and ß-Catenin Is Associated with Tumor Progression in Hepatocellular Carcinoma In Vitro and In Vivo.

The IQ-domain GTPase-activating protein 1 (IQGAP1) is a multifunctional scaffold protein, which interacts with diverse proteins to regulate cell adhesion and cell migration. The abnormal expression of IQGAP1 widely exists in many cancers, but biological roles of IQGAP1 cooperation with its interacting proteins to involve in tumorigenesis remain to clarify. In this study, we have found that IQGAP1 interacts with ß-catenin and regulates ß-catenin expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells. The expression levels of IQGAP1 and ß-catenin and their associations have a positive correlation with cell metastasis ability in several HCC cell lines. The up-regulation of IQGAP1 and ß-catenin improves cell proliferation and migration ability of HCC cells, whereas the knockdown of IQGAP1 by small interfering RNA can decrease ß-catenin expression, which results in the reduction of cell proliferation and migration ability in vitro. In addition, a significantly higher expression of IQGAP1 and ß-catenin also usually exists in human HCC tissues, especially their overexpression is clinicopathologically associated with tumor malignancy. Generally the overexpression and interactions of IQGAP1 and ß-catenin contribute to HCC progression by promoting cell proliferation and migration.

Quantitative secretome analysis reveals the interactions between epithelia and tumor cells by in vitro modulating colon cancer microenvironment.

In tumor microenvironment, interactions among multiple cell types are critical for cancer progression. Secreted proteins are responsible for crosstalk among these cells within tumor microenvironment. To elucidate the interactions of tumor and epithelia, we co-cultured colon cancer cell line HT29 with normal human colon mucosal epithelial cell line NCM460 to mimic tumor microenvironment in vitro and investigated the differential expression pattern of secretome. A quantitative proteomics approach based on stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) and LC-mass spectrometry was used for secretome analysis. Totally 45 proteins were altered over 2-fold in co-cultured cellular supernatants between equal amounts of NCM460 and HT29 cells, compared with mono-cultured conditions. These differential secreted proteins involve in multiple tumor-associated biological functions. The secretion level and acting pattern of acrogranin, IGFBP6 and vimentin were changed along with different co-cultured cell number ratios between NCM460 and HT29 cells, simulating early, middle or advanced stage of colon cancer. Therefore, a quantitative secretome profiling based on a co-culture system can track secreted protein changes and their associated biological roles between tumor and epithelia, which gives a new insight on communications between tumor and epithelia as well as cancer biotherapy by inhibiting cell interactions. BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Tumor microenvironment is a complex system and comprised of cancer cells and host stromal cells. The growth and progression of tumor have been recognized were affected by multidirectional interactions of secreted proteins (secretome), which were produced by the cells within tumor microenvironment. Focus on general secreted molecules of living cells via proteomic tools, is promising for investigating cell communication. Stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) is a metabolic labeling strategy for quantitative analysis, which is gaining popularity because of its ease of implementation, the high quality of quantitative data obtained, robustness and compatibility with existing experimental workflows. Therefore, SILAC-based quantitative secretome analysis was employed for investigating interactions between epithelia and tumor by in vitro modulating colon cancer microenvironment with established co-culture system, which simplified the complexity of cancer microenvironment, also tracked secreted protein changes and their associated biological roles between epithelia and cancer cells. A series of tumor associated secreted proteins was quantitated and investigated in our study. So, the results give a new insight on communications between tumor and epithelia as well as cancer biotherapy by inhibiting interactions of them.