Cripto-1 expression in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma is associated with poor disease outcome.

BACKGROUND: Cripto-1 (CR-1) has been reported to be involved in the development of several human cancers. The potential role of CR-1 in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is still not clear. METHODS: CR-1 expression was evaluated in ccRCC tissues by Real-time quantitative PCR, Western blot and immunohistochemistry. Serum levels of CR-1 were tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The clinical significance of CR-1 was analyzed. The effects of CR-1 on cell proliferation, migration, invasion and angiogenesis were investigated in ccRCC cell lines in vitro and in vivo, and markers of the epithelial -mesenchymal transition (EMT) were analyzed. The impact of CR-1 on Wnt/ß-catenin signaling pathway was also evaluated in vitro and in vivo. RESULTS: CR-1 expression was elevated in ccRCC tumor tissues and serum samples. CR-1 expression was correlated with aggressive tumor phenotype and poor survival. Ectopic expression of CR-1 significantly promoted cell proliferation, migration, invasion and angiogenesis whereas knockdown of CR-1 inhibited these activities both in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, we found that CR-1 induced EMT and activated Wnt/ß-catenin signaling pathway both in vitro and in vivo. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that CR-1 is likely to play important roles in ccRCC development and progression, and that CR-1 is a prognostic biomarker and a promising therapeutic target for ccRCC.

An Asymmetric Dehydrogenative Diels-Alder Reaction for the Synthesis of Chiral Tetrahydrocarbazole Derivatives.

An asymmetric dehydrogenative Diels-Alder reaction of 2-methyl-3-phenylmethylindoles and α,ß-unsaturated aldehydes has been established. The successful in situ generation of the indole ortho-quinodimethane intermediate and the iminium activation of enals are the keys to success, providing various tetrahydrocarbazole derivatives with up to >99% ee.

[Purity measurement of hybrid rice seed Yixiang 725 with visible-near infrared reflectance spectra].

A rapid and non-invasive method was put forward to measure the purity of hybrid rice seed by visible-near infrared reflectance spectra. Ninety hybrid rice seed samples (Yixiang 725) with the purity of 90%-99% were collected using a FieldSpec 3 visible-near infrared spectometer. All samples were divided randomly into two groups, one group with 75 samples used as calibrated set, and the other with 15 samples used as validated set. Based on the spectra in the range of 380-2 400 nm, the regression model was established using the PLS (partial least square), and different spectra pretreatment methods were compared. The study showed that spectra information can be extracted thoroughly by the pretreatment method of first derivative combined with standard normal variate, with the SEC (standard error of calibration) of 0.002 5, SEP (standard error of prediction) of 0.006 6, and determination coefficients of 0.988 4 (calibration set) and 0.922 7 (validation set) respectively. The spectra, which were pretreated with the method of first derivative combined standard normal variate, were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA). The top 20 principal components, which were computed by PCA and accounted for 86.09% variation of the original spectral information, were used to build BP-ANN model for measuring the purity of hybrid rice seed as the new variables. The study showed that the SEC and SEP of BP-ANN model were 0.001 7 and 0.006 1, and the determination coefficients of that were 0.995 2 (calibration set) and 0.936 9 (validation set) respectively. Therefore, the predictive power of BP-ANN model was better than that of PLS model. Results indicated that it was feasible to measure the purity of the hybrid rice seed by visible-near reflectance spectra as a rapid and non-contact way, and PCA combined with BP-ANN was a preferred method.