Rhizosphere effect on the relationship between dissolved organic matter and functional genes in contaminated soil.

Arsenic contamination in a mining area is a potential threat to the local population. In the context of one-health, biological pollution in contaminated soil should be known and understandable. This study was conducted to clarify the effects of amendments on arsenic species and potential threat factors (e.g., arsenic-related genes (AMGs), antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and heavy-metal resistance genes (MRGs)). Ten groups (control (CK), T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, and T9) were set up by adding different ratio of organic fertilizer, biochar, hydroxyapatite and plant ash. The maize crop was grown in each treatment. Compared with CK, the bioavailability of arsenic was reduced by 16.2%-71.8% in the rhizosphere soil treatments, and 22.4%-69.2% in the bulk soil treatments, except for T8. The component 2 (C2), component 3 (C3) and component 5 (C5) of dissolved organic matter (DOM) increased by 22.6%-72.6%, 16.8%-38.1%, 18.4%-37.1%, respectively, relative to CK in rhizosphere soil. A total of 17 AMGs, 713 AGRs and 492 MRGs were detected in remediated soil. The humidification of DOM might directly correlate with MRGs in both soils, while it was influenced directly on ARGs in bulk soil. This may be caused by the rhizosphere effect, which affects the interaction between microbial functional genes and DOM. These findings provide a theoretical basis for regulating soil ecosystem function from the perspective of arsenic contaminated soil.

Fabricating high thermal conductivity rGO/polyimide nanocomposite films via a freeze-drying approach.

The preparation of polymeric composite materials with low filler content as well as high thermal conductivity has been an important subject for the field of polymer material research. During our recent investigation on polyimide (PI), it was found that poly(amic acid) (PAA) solution (in dimethylacetamide, DMAc) could crystallize at low temperature. When adding reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as the thermal conductive fillers in the PAA solution, it was also found that the crystallization process of PAA would impel the rGO to rearrange in order and form an aligned thermal conductive network. To retain the rGO network structure, the freeze-drying technique was used to remove the solvent. Subsequently, through a thermal imidization process the final rGO/PI films containing a 3D rGO network could be obtained. The PI composite films retain good flexibility, excellent thermal stability, and exhibit excellent thermal conductivity. When the content of rGO added is 8 wt%, the thermal conductivity of the rGO/PI film can reach a high value of 2.78 W m-1 K-1, which is about 15.4 times that of neat PI and 5.5 times that of the rGO/PI composite film prepared by the conventional two-step routine with the same content of rGO.

Systematic enrichment analysis of microRNA expression profiling studies in endometriosis.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis on human microRNAs (miRNAs) expression data of endometriosis tissue profiles versus those of normal controls and to identify novel putative diagnostic markers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Ovid Medline were used to search for endometriosis miRNA expression profiling studies of endometriosis. The miRNAs expression data were extracted, and study quality of each article was assessed. The frequently reported miRNAs with consistent regulation were screened out by a meta-profiling algorithm. The putative targets of consistently expressed miRNAs were predicted by using four target prediction tools (TargetScan, PicTar, miRanda, miRDB), and gene ontology pathway enrichment analysis (KEGG and Panther pathways) of the miRNA targets were carried out with GeneCodis web tool. RESULTS: A total of 194 related literatures were retrieved in four databases. One hundred and thirty four differentially expressed miRNAs were found in the 12 microRNA expression profiling studies that compared endometriosis tissues with normal tissues, with 28 miRNAs reported in at least two studies, and 9882 candidate genes retrieved for 13 consistently expressed miRNAs. Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) and Panther pathways enrichment analysis showed that endometriosis related differently expressed miRNA targets were mainly enriched in cancer, endocytosis, Wnt signalling pathway, and angiogenesis. It showed that these differently expressed miRNAs and gene are potential biomarkers of endometriosis. CONCLUSION: miRNAs appear to be potent regulators of gene expression in endometriosis and its associated reproductive disorders, raising the prospect of using miRNAs as biomarkers and therapeutic agent in endometriosis.

Screening of potential biomarkers for chemoresistant ovarian carcinoma with miRNA expression profiling data by bioinformatics approach.

The aim of the present study was to screen out the biomarkers associated with chemoresistance in ovarian carcinomas and to investigate the molecular mechanisms. microRNA (miRNA) expression data was obtained from published microarray data of the GSE43867 dataset from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), including the data of 86 chemotherapy-treated patients with serous epithelial ovarian carcinomas (response group, 36 complete response cases and 12 partial response cases; non-response group, 10 stable cases and 28 progressive disease cases), and identification of differentially-expressed miRNAs were conducted with a GEO2R online tool based on R language. TargetScan 6.2 was used to predict the targets of differentially-expressed miRNAs. Protein-protein interaction network analysis was conducted by STRING 9.1, while functional enrichment [Gene Ontology (GO) biological process terms] and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were conducted by GeneCodis3 for the target genes. A total of 6 differentially-expressed miRNAs were screened out, with 317 target genes obtained. It was found that 67 interactions existed among 76 genes/proteins through the PPI network analysis, and that 6 of these were potential key genes (PIK3R5, MAPK3, PTEN, S1PR3, BDKRB2 and NCBP2). The main biological processes involved in chemoresistant ovarian carcinoma were apoptosis, programmed cell death, cell migration, cell death and cell motility. The miRNA target genes were found to be associated with the ErbB signaling pathway, the gonadotropin-releasing hormone signaling pathway and other pathways in cancer. IK3R5, MAPK3 and PIK3R5 are involved in the majority of GO terms and KEGG pathways associated with chemoresistance in ovarian carcinoma.