The Epstein-Barr virus-miRNA-BART6-5p regulates TGF-ß/SMAD4 pathway to induce glycolysis and enhance proliferation and metastasis of gastric cancer cells.

Background: EBV-miR-BARTs exhibit significant relevance in epithelial tumors, particularly in EBV-associated gastric and nasopharyngeal cancers. However, their specific mechanisms in the initiation and progression of gastric cancer remain insufficiently explored. Material and Methods: Initially, EBV-miRNA-BART6-5p and its target gene SMAD4 expression were assessed in EBV-associated gastric cancer tissues and cell lines. Subsequent transfection induced overexpression of EBV-miRNA-BART6-5p in AGS and MKN-45, and downregulation in EBV-positive cells (SUN-719). The subsequent evaluation aimed to observe their impact on gastric cancer cell proliferation, migration, and glycolytic processes, with the TGF-ß/SMAD4 signaling pathway value clarified using a TGF-ß inhibitor. Results: EBV-miRNA-BART6-5p exhibits pronounced upregulation in EBV-associated gastric cancer tissues and EBV-positive cells, while its target gene SMAD4 demonstrates downregulated expression. Upregulation of it can promote the proliferation and migration of gastric cancer cells. Additionally, We found EBV-miRNA-BART6-5p promotes glycolysis of gastric cancer cells. Inhibition of the TGF-ß/SMAD4 signaling pathway resulted in suppressed proliferation and migration of gastric cancer cells, concomitant with a diminished glycolytic capacity. Conclusion: In this study, we found that EBV-miRNA-BART6-5p can target SMAD4, effectively increasing glycolysis in gastric cancer cells by regulating the TGF-ß/SMAD4 signaling pathway, thereby enhancing the proliferation and metastasis of gastric cancer cells. Our findings may offer new insights into the metabolic aspects of gastric cancer.

Barriers to using personal protective equipment by healthcare staff during the COVID-19 outbreak in China.

The spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) around the world has put a heavy burden on human society and is also a great challenge facing medical staff. This study aimed to assess the difficulties faced by health care personnel (HCP) in using personal protective equipment (PPE) in clinical practice during the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China. One hundred twenty medical staff from the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University presented to the Wuhan First Hospital to provide medical assistance, from whom 20 HCP volunteered to participate in a focus group discussion attended by infection control nurse leaders. Participants' responses and discussions were recorded, and the content was analyzed for themes. Observed difficulties included inappropriate PPE sizes, the design of the PPE and its complexity of use, doubts related to the quality and effectiveness of PPE, potential risks during doffing, space layout between clean and contaminated area, and poor comfort with PPE use. Other factors, such as the support environment, management, processes, preparedness, HCP, and equipment can also have a positive or negative impact on the use of PPE. Future efforts to optimize PPE use should focus on strengthening training for HCP using real items for increasing compliance with standardized protocols, improving PPE design, and performing further research on the risks, benefits, and best practices of PPE use.

Biorefinery for heterogeneous organic waste using microbial electrochemical technology.

Environmental biorefineries aim to produce biofuels and platform biomolecules from organic waste. To this end, microbial electrochemical technologies theoretically allow controlled microbial electrosynthesis (MES) of organic molecules to be coupled to oxidation of waste. Here, we provide a first proof of concept and a robust operation strategy for MES in a microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) fed with biowaste hydrolysates. This strategy allowed stable operation at 5 A/m2 for more than three months in a labscale reactor. We report a two to four-fold reduction in power consumption compared to microbial electrosynthesis with water oxidation at the anode. The bioelectrochemical characterizations of the cells were used to compute energy and matter balances for biorefinery scenarios in which anaerobic digestion (AD) provides the electricity and CO2 required for the MEC. Calculations shows that up to 22% of electrons (or COD) from waste may be converted to organic products in the AD-MEC process.

Remote-focusing microscopy with long working distance objective lenses.

Remote-focusing microscopy has recently attracted a lot of interest due to its high-speed axial scanning capabilities. In this paper, we modeled remote-focusing microscopy, based on a pair of long working distance objective lenses. Three-dimensional intensity distributions of the point spread functions (PSFs) are calculated, and no significant spherical aberrations are introduced over a large volume of 100 µm×100 µm×150 µm. The validity of the scheme is verified by imaging biological samples and microelectronic chips at the imaging depth of 150 µm without introducing aberrations in the experiment.

Long-distance axial trapping with focused annular laser beams.

Focusing an annular laser beam can improve the axial trapping efficiency due to the reduction of the scattering force, which enables the use of a lower numerical aperture (NA) objective lens with a long working distance to trap particles in deeper aqueous medium. In this paper, we present an axicon-to-axicon scheme for producing parallel annular beams with the advantages of higher efficiency compared with the obstructed beam approach. The validity of the scheme is verified by the observation of a stable trapping of silica microspheres with relatively low NA microscope objective lenses (NA = 0.6 and 0.45), and the axial trapping depth of 5 mm is demonstrated in experiment.

Synergetic stress of acids and ammonium on the shift in the methanogenic pathways during thermophilic anaerobic digestion of organics.

Combined effects of acids and ammonium on functional pathway and microbial structure during organics methanization were investigated by stable isotopic method and quantitative PCR. The results showed that the stress from acids and ammonium was synergetic, resulted in different inhibition for acetoclastic and hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis and syntrophic acetate oxidation, leading to pathway shift. Methane production from acetate was affected more by acetate than by ammonium until the ammonium concentration reached 6-7 g-N/L. When the ammonium concentration exceeded 6 g-N/L, ammonium inhibition was strengthened by the increased concentration of acetate. At a low acetate concentration (50 mmol/L), acetoclastic methanogenesis dominated, regardless of ammonium concentration. At higher acetate concentrations (150 and 250 mmol/L) and at low-medium ammonium levels (1-4 g-N/L), acetate was mainly degraded by acetoclastic methanogenesis, while residual acetate was degraded by a combination of acetoclastic methanogenesis and the syntrophic reaction of syntrophic acetate oxidization and hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis with the latter dominating at 250 mmol/L acetate. At high ammonium levels (6-7 g-N/L), the degradation of acetate in the 150 mmol/L treatment was firstly through a combination of acetoclastic methanogenesis and the syntrophic pathway and then gradually shifted to the syntrophic pathway, while the degradation of acetate in the 250 mmol/L treatment was completely by the syntrophic pathway.

DMD-based LED-illumination super-resolution and optical sectioning microscopy.

Super-resolution three-dimensional (3D) optical microscopy has incomparable advantages over other high-resolution microscopic technologies, such as electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy, in the study of biological molecules, pathways and events in live cells and tissues. We present a novel approach of structured illumination microscopy (SIM) by using a digital micromirror device (DMD) for fringe projection and a low-coherence LED light for illumination. The lateral resolution of 90 nm and the optical sectioning depth of 120 µm were achieved. The maximum acquisition speed for 3D imaging in the optical sectioning mode was 1.6×10(7) pixels/second, which was mainly limited by the sensitivity and speed of the CCD camera. In contrast to other SIM techniques, the DMD-based LED-illumination SIM is cost-effective, ease of multi-wavelength switchable and speckle-noise-free. The 2D super-resolution and 3D optical sectioning modalities can be easily switched and applied to either fluorescent or non-fluorescent specimens.

Estimate of leaf area index in an old-growth mixed broadleaved-Korean pine forest in northeastern China.

Leaf area index (LAI) is an important variable in the study of forest ecosystem processes, but very few studies are designed to monitor LAI and the seasonal variability in a mixed forest using non-destructive sampling. In this study, first, true LAI from May 1(st) and November 15(th) was estimated by making several calibrations to LAI as measured from the WinSCANOPY 2006 Plant Canopy Analyzer. These calibrations include a foliage element (shoot, that is considered to be a collection of needles) clumping index measured directly from the optical instrument, TRAC (Tracing Radiation and Architecture of Canopies); a needle-to-shoot area ratio obtained from shoot samples; and a woody-to-total area ratio. Second, by periodically combining true LAI (May 1(st)) with the seasonality of LAI for deciduous and coniferous species throughout the leaf-expansion season (from May to August), we estimated LAI of each investigation period in the leaf-expansion season. Third, by combining true LAI (November 15(th)) with litter trap data (both deciduous and coniferous species), we estimated LAI of each investigation period during the leaf-fall season (from September to mid-November). Finally, LAI for the entire canopy then was derived from the initial leaf expansion to the leaf fall. The results showed that LAI reached its peak with a value of 6.53 m(2) m(-2) (a corresponding value of 3.83 m(2) m(-2) from optical instrument) in early August, and the mean LAI was 4.97 m(2) m(-2) from May to November using the proposed method. The optical instrument method underestimated LAI by an average of 41.64% (SD = 6.54) throughout the whole study period compared to that estimated by the proposed method. The result of the present work implied that our method would be suitable for measuring LAI, for detecting the seasonality of LAI in a mixed forest, and for measuring LAI seasonality for each species.