Circ_0004904 suppresses trophoblast cell proliferation, invasion and migration in preeclampsia via upregulating the expression of DNA damage inducible alpha by interacting with miR-19a-3p.

Preeclampsia (PE) is the most common complication in the pregnancy of women. PE progression was found to be associated with dysregulated circular RNAs (circRNAs), and we aimed to explore the pathological mechanism with circ_0004904 in PE. The circ_0004904, microRNA-19a-3p (miR-19a-3p) and DNA damage inducible alpha (GADD45A) were quantified via reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay. Trophoblast cell behaviors were examined by cell viability using Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, cell proliferation using EdU assay, cell apoptosis using flow cytometry, cell invasion using transwell assay and migration using wound healing assay. Western blot was used for protein analysis of epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) and GADD45A. Dual-luciferase reporter assay and RNA immunoprecipitation assay were used for target interaction analysis. The circ_0004904 upregulation was detected in placenta tissues from PE patients. Trophoblast cell proliferation, invasion, migration and EMT were repressed but cell apoptosis was promoted after overexpression of circ_0004904. Circ_0004904 acted as a miR-19a-3p sponge in trophoblast cells, and all regulatory effects of circ_0004904 on trophoblast cell behaviors were reversed by miR-19a-3p upregulation. The miR-19a-3p directly targeted GADD45A and miR-19a-3p downregulation inhibited trophoblast cell development through elevating the GADD45A level. Moreover, circ_0004904 enhanced the expression of GADD45A via sponging miR-19a-3p. Our results elucidated that circ_0004904 reduced proliferation and cell motility of trophoblast cells via the miR-19a-3p-mediated GADD45A level elevation, indicating the involvement of circ_0004904/miR-19a-3p/GADD45A in PE progression.

TLR4 contributes to the damage of cartilage and subchondral bone in discectomy-induced TMJOA mice.

The abundance of inflammatory mediators in injured joint indicates innate immune reactions activated during temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis (TMJOA) progression. Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) can mediate innate immune reaction. Herein, we aimed to investigate the expression profile and effect of TLR4 in the cartilage and subchondral bone of the discectomy-induced TMJOA mice. The expression of TLR4 and NFκB p65 in the synovium of TMJOA patients was measured by immunohistochemistry, Western blotting and RT-PCR. H&E and Masson staining were utilized to assess the damage of cartilage and subchondral bone of the discectomy-induced TMJOA mice. A TLR4 inhibitor, TAK-242, was used to assess the effect of TLR4 in the cartilage and subchondral bone of the discectomy-induced TMJOA mice by Safranin O, micro-CT, immunofluorescence and immunohistochemistry. Western blotting was used to quantify the expression and effect of TLR4 in IL-1ß-induced chondrocytes. The expression of TLR4 and NFκB p65 was elevated in the synovium of TMJOA patients, compared with the normal synovium. TLR4 elevated in the damaged cartilage and subchondral bone of discectomy-induced TMJOA mice, and the rate of TLR4 expressing chondrocytes positively correlated with OA score. Intraperitoneal injections of TAK-242 ameliorate the extent of TMJOA. Furthermore, TLR4 promotes the expression of MyD88/NFκB, pro-inflammatory and catabolic mediators in cartilage of discectomy-induced TMJOA. Besides, TLR4 participates in the production of MyD88/NFκB, pro-inflammatory and catabolic mediators in IL-1ß-induced chondrocytes. TLR4 contributes to the damage of cartilage and subchondral bone in discectomy-induced TMJOA mice through activation of MyD88/NFκB and release of pro-inflammatory and catabolic mediators.

Semen affects the biological behavior of HeLa cells by altering ERK signaling.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of human semen on the proliferation, survival, migration and invasion of HeLa cervical cancer cells by analyzing the extracellular regulated protein kinase (ERK) pathway. MATERIAL AND METHODS: HeLa cells were stimulated with different concentrations of human semen. MTT assay was used to analyze the effects on cell proliferation. Apoptosis in the different experimental groups was quantified by Annexin V-FITC/PI staining. The effect of seminal plasma on in vitro invasiveness of cells was evaluated using transwell assay. Western blotting was used to evaluate ERK pathway activation. RESULTS: Human semen promoted HeLa cell proliferation; ERK1/2 phosphorylation and c-myc expression also increased with increasing semen concentration. U0126 inhibited semen-induced ERK1/2 phosphorylation, c-myc upregulation and cell proliferation. Compared with the control group, semen did not significantly affect the apoptotic rate of HeLa cells (p > 0.05). The transwell assays showed that compared with the control group, the number of invading cells increased significantly with increasing semen concentration, and the difference was significant (p < 0.05) when 1 : 50 semen was added, suggesting that semen promotes the invasion of cervical cancer cells. Western blotting indicated that ERK1/2 phosphorylation began to increase when 1 : 100 semen was added; with increasing semen concentration, ERK1/2 phosphorylation was significantly up-regulated, and the expression of its downstream target gene, c-myc, was also up-regulated (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Semen promoted the proliferation of HeLa cells by activating the ERK pathway and showed increased tumorigenic potential in vivo. Human seminal plasma might be a potential factor contributing to the development of cervical cancer.

Simulation of a machine vision system for reflective surface defect inspection based on ray tracing.

A complete simulation of a machine vision system aimed at defect inspection on a reflective surface is proposed by ray tracing. The simulated scene is composed of the camera model, surface reflectance property, and light intensity distribution along with their corresponding object geometries. A virtual reflective plane geometry with scratches of various directions and pits of various sizes is built as the sample. Its realistic image is obtained by Monte Carlo ray tracing. Compared to the pinhole camera model, the camera model with a finite aperture emits more rays to deliver physical imaging. The bidirectional reflectance distribution function is applied to describe the surface reflectance property. The illustrated machine vision system captures a number of images while translating the light tubes. Then the image sequence obtained by experiment or simulation is fused to generate a well-contrasted synthetic image for defect detection. A flexible fusion method based on differential images is introduced to enhance the defect contrast on a uniform flawless background. To improve detection efficiency, defect contrast of synthetic images obtained by various fusion methods is evaluated. Influence of total image number, light tube width, and fusion interval is further discussed to optimize the inspection process. Experiments on car painted surfaces have shown that the simulated parameters can instruct the setup of the optical system and detect surface defects efficiently. The proposed simulation is capable of saving great effort in carrying out experimental trials and making improvements on reflective surface defect inspection.

Structure design of and experimental research on a two-stage laval foam breaker for foam fluid recycling.

Environmental, economical and efficient antifoaming technology is the basis for achievement of foam drilling fluid recycling. The present study designed a novel two-stage laval mechanical foam breaker that primarily uses vacuum generated by Coanda effect and Laval principle to break foam. Numerical simulation results showed that the value and distribution of negative pressure of two-stage laval foam breaker were larger than that of the normal foam breaker. Experimental results showed that foam-breaking efficiency of two-stage laval foam breaker was higher than that of normal foam breaker, when gas-to-liquid ratio and liquid flow rate changed. The foam-breaking efficiency of normal foam breaker decreased rapidly with increasing foam stability, whereas the two-stage laval foam breaker remained unchanged. Foam base fluid would be recycled using two-stage laval foam breaker, which would reduce the foam drilling cost sharply and waste disposals that adverse by affect the environment.

Novel Hsp90 inhibitor FW-04-806 displays potent antitumor effects in HER2-positive breast cancer cells as a single agent or in combination with lapatinib.

Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), a member of the HER family of tyrosine kinases and a binding partner of Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90), is found amplifies in approximately 25% breast cancers. Treatment of HER2+ breast cancers has been greatly improved in recent years, but the accompanying upregulation of HER3 induced by HER2 blockade has subdued the therapeutic effect. FW-04-806, a novel Hsp90 N-terminal inhibitor that disassociates the Hsp90/Cdc37/client complex and degrades Hsp90 clients, was studied alone or in combination with the EGFR/HER2 tyrosine kinase inhibitor lapatinib in HER2+ breast cancer cells. We found that FW-04-806 alone or with laptinib inhibits cell proliferation, induces cell apoptosis and reduces the total and activated HER3 levels in these cells, while lapatinib has been reported to increase HER3 expression followed HER2 inhibition. The combination of FW-04-806 and lapatinib showed synergistic reduction of HER2 expression and the downstream PI3K/Akt and Ras/MEK/ERK pathways, enhanced suppression of Akt-mediated FOXO3a inactivation and augmented antitumor efficacy on SKBR3 xenografts with a favorable toxicity profile, suggesting its viability as a combination therapy for clinical studies in HER2+ breast cancer patients.

Automated discrimination between digs and dust particles on optical surfaces with dark-field scattering microscopy.

To make the surface defects evaluation system (SDES) of fine flat optics more effective and reliable, the point-like defects on the surface are divided into two categories: digs and dust particles. Since only the digs are the real damages that should be sent for further investigation, the false signals associated with dust particles should be distinguished and removed. Dark-field scattering microscopy and pattern recognition methodology are combined to classify digs and dust particles. The SDES is employed for dark-field image acquisition of optical samples. Gray scale, texture, and morphology analyses are then conducted on each image to extract raw feature data, which are compressed with the principal component analysis. Based on the compressed feature data, the support vector machine is used to construct the classification model. The success discrimination rates are 96.56% for the training set and 93.90% for the prediction set. The classification results are presented to show the potential of this method to be used for practical digs and dust particles discrimination on the actual optical samples.

[Epidemiological investigation of imported falciparum malaria in Longlin County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region].

Among 41 people returned from Equatorial Guinea, 16 persons were infected with Plasmodium falciparum (39.02%) in Longlin County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from October 2011 to February 2012. Among the 16 cases, Plasmodiumfalciparum was found in their blood smears of 15 cases, and 1 patient was diagnosed clinically as falciparum malaria. All the 41 people were once suffered from malaria and they received antimalarial drugs when they were in Equatorial Guinea. These imported malaria cases received the standard treatment and the foci were sprayed with insecticides. No secondary malaria cases were found. In conclusion, the measures of imported malaria control are effective. The persons returned from Equatorial Guinea have a high risk of malaria; therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the monitoring of malaria for the floating population from high malaria prevalent areas.

Dark-field microscopic image stitching method for surface defects evaluation of large fine optics.

One of the challenges in surface defects evaluation of large fine optics is to detect defects of microns on surfaces of tens or hundreds of millimeters. Sub-aperture scanning and stitching is considered to be a practical and efficient method. But since there are usually few defects on the large aperture fine optics, resulting in no defects or only one run-through line feature in many sub-aperture images, traditional stitching methods encounter with mismatch problem. In this paper, a feature-based multi-cycle image stitching algorithm is proposed to solve the problem. The overlapping areas of sub-apertures are categorized based on the features they contain. Different types of overlapping areas are then stitched in different cycles with different methods. The stitching trace is changed to follow the one that determined by the features. The whole stitching procedure is a region-growing like process. Sub-aperture blocks grow bigger after each cycle and finally the full aperture image is obtained. Comparison experiment shows that the proposed method is very suitable to stitch sub-apertures that very few feature information exists in the overlapping areas and can stitch the dark-field microscopic sub-aperture images very well.

[Analysis the relation of adults HBV vicinal failure and T cell subset, HLA-DR rang gene phenotype].

OBJECTIVE: To study and explore the relativity of adults HBV vicinal failure and HLA-DR, T cell subset, trace viruses infection. To accumulate date for formulating preventing adult HBV infection prophylactic-therapeutic measures. METHODS: Select 20 adults randomly who had vaccinated with 10 microgYDV and produced anti-HBS successfully, and another 20 hadn't produced anti-HBs to form two groups-defeated group and contral group. Blood samples from two groups were taken for detecting the level of DR range gene phenotype: T cell subset, white blood cell HLA-DR, HLA-B27, HLA DRB1 * 07, DRB1* 04, DRB1 * 1001, DQB1 * 0401 and so on. RESULTS: The level of CD4(-)/CD8(-) is lower in the infection group than in healthy group. But the average level of HLA-DR and HLA-B27 is higher in the infection group. The differences of HLA DRB1 * 07 gene frequency between two groups were significant (P <0.05), but the levels of CD3, CD4, CD8, CD7, CD4/CD8 and HLA DRB1 * 04, DRB1 * 1001, DQB1 * 0401 were not significant. CONCLUSION: The failure of HBV vaccination on adults may have relation to HLA-DR, HLA-B27, HLA DRB1 * 07, CD4(-)/CD8(-), etc.