[Differentially expressed circular RNAs in human gastric cancer cells].

The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression profile of circular RNA (circRNA) in gastric cancer cells MGC-803, SGC-7901 and NCI-N87 with different degrees of differentiation and normal gastric epithelial cells GES-1. High throughput circRNA microarray technique was used to detect the differential expression of circRNA between three kinds of differentiated gastric cancer cells and normal gastric epithelial cells. The interaction of microRNAs (miRNAs) with circRNAs was predicted by bioinformatics software, and circRNA, which might have great significance in gastric cancer, was identified by literature search. The results showed that there were 79 up-regulated circRNAs and 229 down-regulated circRNAs in gastric cancer cells with different degrees of differentiation compared with those in normal gastric epithelial cells. Through bioinformatics software analysis and literature retrieval, it was found that hsa_circ_0001897 was related to the staging and metastasis of gastric cancer, while the miR-150-5p, which combined with it, was closely related to many kinds of digestive tract tumors, such as colon cancer, liver cancer, and cholangiocarcinoma. The miR-16-5p, which has binding sites with hsa_circ_0008106 and hsa_circ_0060456, has been confirmed to be involved in the development of gastric cancer. The above results suggest that hsa_circ_0001897, hsa_circ_0008106 and hsa_circ_0060456 may be closely related to the occurrence and development of gastric cancer by interacting with miRNA.

Effects of Astragalus Polysaccharide on Mechanical Characterization of Liver Sinusoidal Endothelial Cells by Atomic Force Microscopy at Nanoscale.

OBJECTIVE: To study the effects of Astragalus polysaccharide (APS), the primary effective component of the Chinese herb medicine Astragalus membranaceus (frequently used for its anti-hepatic fibrosis effects), on nanoscale mechanical properties of liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (SECs). METHODS: Using endothelial cell medium as the control, 5 experimental groups were established utilizing different concentrations of APS, i.e. 12.5, 25, 50, 100, and 200 µg/mL. By using atomic force microscopy along with a microcantilever modified with a silicon dioxide microsphere as powerful tools, the value of Young's modulus in each group was calculated. SAS 9.1 software was applied to analyze the values of Young's modulus at the pressed depth of 300 nm. Environmental scanning electron microscopy was performed to observe the surface microtopography of the SECs. RESULTS: The value of Young's modulus in each APS experimental group was significantly greater than that of the control group: as APS concentration increased, the value of Young's modulus presented as an increasing trend. The difference between the low-concentration (12.5 and 25 µg/mL) and high-concentration (200 µg/mL) groups was statistically significant (P<0.05), but no significant differences were observed between moderateconcentration (50 and 100 µg/mL) groups versus low- or high-concentration groups (P>0.05). Surface topography demonstrated that APS was capable of increasing the total area of fenestrae. CONCLUSIONS: The values of Young's modulus increased along with increasing concentrations of APS, suggesting that the stiffness of SECs increases gradually as a function of APS concentration. The observed changes in SEC mechanical properties may provide a new avenue for mechanistic research of anti-hepatic fibrosis treatments in Chinese medicine.

Family History of Early Infant Death Correlates with Earlier Age at Diagnosis But Not Shorter Time to Diagnosis for Severe Combined Immunodeficiency.

BACKGROUND: Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) is fatal unless treated with hematopoietic stem cell transplant. Delay in diagnosis is common without newborn screening. Family history of infant death due to infection or known SCID (FH) has been associated with earlier diagnosis. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify the clinical features that affect age at diagnosis (AD) and time to the diagnosis of SCID. METHODS: From 2005 to 2016, 147 SCID patients were referred to the Asian Primary Immunodeficiency Network. Patients with genetic diagnosis, age at presentation (AP), and AD were selected for study. RESULTS: A total of 88 different SCID gene mutations were identified in 94 patients, including 49 IL2RG mutations, 12 RAG1 mutations, 8 RAG2 mutations, 7 JAK3 mutations, 4 DCLRE1C mutations, 4 IL7R mutations, 2 RFXANK mutations, and 2 ADA mutations. A total of 29 mutations were previously unreported. Eighty-three of the 94 patients fulfilled the selection criteria. Their median AD was 4 months, and the time to diagnosis was 2 months. The commonest SCID was X-linked (n = 57). A total of 29 patients had a positive FH. Candidiasis (n = 27) and bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine infection (n = 19) were the commonest infections. The median age for candidiasis and BCG infection documented were 3 months and 4 months, respectively. The median absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) was 1.05 × 109/L with over 88% patients below 3 × 109/L. Positive FH was associated with earlier AP by 1 month (p = 0.002) and diagnosis by 2 months (p = 0.008), but not shorter time to diagnosis (p = 0.494). Candidiasis was associated with later AD by 2 months (p = 0.008) and longer time to diagnosis by 0.55 months (p = 0.003). BCG infections were not associated with age or time to diagnosis. CONCLUSION: FH was useful to aid earlier diagnosis but was overlooked by clinicians and not by parents. Similarly, typical clinical features of SCID were not recognized by clinicians to shorten the time to diagnosis. We suggest that lymphocyte subset should be performed for any infant with one or more of the following four clinical features: FH, candidiasis, BCG infections, and ALC below 3 × 109/L.

Efficient coupling between dielectric waveguide modes and exterior plasmon whispering gallery modes.

Inefficient coupling between dielectric guided mode and plasmon mode has been overlooked in the past. The coupling mechanism is essentially different from the conventional coupling between dielectric modes. Based on qualitative theoretical analysis, we proposed two methods to strengthen the coupling between dielectric waveguide modes and exterior plasmon whispering gallery modes. One is using a U-shaped bent waveguide to break the adiabatic mode conversion process, and the other is to utilize higher-order dielectric mode to reach phase matching with plasmon mode. Both the transmission spectrum of waveguide and the energy spectrum of cavity demonstrate that the coupling efficiency can be greatly improved. These simple configurations are potential for wide applications, for example, tunable integrated optical devices and sensors.

Molecular diagnosis of severe combined immunodeficiency--identification of IL2RG, JAK3, IL7R, DCLRE1C, RAG1, and RAG2 mutations in a cohort of Chinese and Southeast Asian children.

Severe combined immunodeficiencies (SCID) are a group of rare inherited disorders with profound defects in T cell and B cell immunity. From 2005 to 2010, our unit performed testing for IL2RG, JAK3, IL7R, RAG1, RAG2, DCLRE1C, LIG4, AK2, and ZAP70 mutations in 42 Chinese and Southeast Asian infants with SCID adopting a candidate gene approach, based on patient's gender, immune phenotype, and inheritance pattern. Mutations were identified in 26 patients, including IL2RG (n = 19), IL7R (n = 2), JAK3 (n = 2), RAG1 (n = 1), RAG2 (n = 1), and DCLRE1C (n = 1). Among 12 patients who underwent hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, eight patients survived. Complications and morbidities during transplant period were significant, especially disseminated bacillus Calmette-Guérin disease which was often difficult to control. This is the first cohort study on SCID in the Chinese and Southeast Asian population, based on a multi-centered collaborative research network. The foremost issue is service provision for early detection, diagnosis, management, and definitive treatment for patients with SCID. National management guidelines for SCID should be established, and research into an efficient platform for genetic diagnosis is needed.

[Detecting the information of cucumber in greenhouse for picking based on NIR image].

For the cucumber harvesting robot, the identification of target information is one of important tasks in the automation of fruit-picking. In order to implement spatial fruit localization and quality discrimination in greenhouse, this paper presented a machine vision algorithm for the recognition and detection of cucumber fruits based on near-infrared spectral imaging. By comparing the spectral reflectance of cucumber plant (fruit, leaf and stem) from visible to infrared region (325-1 075 nm) measured by ASD FieldSpec Pro VNIR spectrometer, a monospectral near-infrared image at the 850 nm sensitive wavelength was captured to cope with the similar-color segmentation problem in complex environment. Then, a method of fruit extraction was developed on the basis of the following steps. Firstly, from the gray level histogram it was observed that the pixels of fruit distributed on the right are lesser than that of background, so "P parameter threshold method" was used to image segmentation. Subsequently, divided local image was partitioned into several sub-blocks by the application of adaptive template mining, which was feasible for processing the fruit with long-column feature. Finally, noises including parts of stem and leaf were eliminated using estimation condition of barycentre position and area size, proved by relative experiment In addition, the region for robotic grasping was established by gray variation between fruit-handle and fruit pedicel, as the quality feature was extracted with morphological characteristics of the centre-line length and the fruit flexure degree. A detecting experiment was carried out on 30 images with cucumber fruits and 10 images with no fruits, which were taken in a changing greenhouse environment. The results indicate that the accuracy rate of the recognition was 83.3% and 100%, while the success rate of effectively acquiring the grasping region was 83.3%, which can meet the demand of robotic fruit-harvesting.