Epigenetic upregulation of spleen tyrosine kinase in cancer cells through p53-dependent downregulation of DNA methyltransferase.

Syk is a tumor suppressor gene in some solid tumors. Currently, it remains unknown how Syk gene hypermethylation is controlled by DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) and p53. In colorectal cancer HCT116 cells, we found that protein and mRNA levels of Syk were much higher in WT than in p53-/- cells. Both p53 inhibitor PFT-α and p53 silencing can reduce the protein and mRNA expression of Syk in WT cells, while DNMT inhibitor 5-Aza-2'-dC can increase Syk expression in p53-/- cells. Interestingly, the DNMT expression in p53-/- HCT116 cells was higher than that in WT cells. PFT-α can not only enhance Syk gene methylation but also increase DNMT1 protein and mRNA levels in WT HCT116 cells. In metastatic lung cancer cell lines A549 and PC9, which express WT p53 and gain function of p53, respectively, PFT-α can also downregulate Syk mRNA and protein expression. However, the Syk methylation level was increased by PFT-α in A549 but not in PC9 cells. Likewise, 5-Aza-2'-dC transcriptionally increased Syk gene expression in A549 cells, but not in PC9 cells. In summary methylation of Syk promoter requires DNMT1, and p53 can upregulate Syk expression via downregulation of DNMT1 at the transcriptional level.

The roles of branched-chain amino acids metabolism in tumorigenesis and progression.

Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), including leucine, valine, and isoleucine, play crucial roles in regulating metabolic balance and maintaining physiological functions in the body. Extensive studies have been focused on their implications in obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. Nevertheless, accumulating evidence suggests that BCAAs metabolism also plays significant roles in tumorigenesis and progression. In this review, we overview recent progress of the study on BCAAs metabolism including its relationship with epigenetic regulation. Particularly, we discuss the metabolic reprogramming and metabolic sensing of BCAAs and its intermediate metabolites in tumor cells and microenvironment to decipher their functions. An enhanced understanding of the roles and mechanism of BCAAs metabolism in tumorigenesis and progression will contribute to development of novel therapeutic strategies against tumor.

Clinical study of suture anchors in the treatment of radial head fractures.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to analyze and study the clinical effect of suture anchors in the treatment of radial head fractures (RHFs). METHODS: A total of 11 patients (five male and six female) with RHFs who were treated from March 2016 to June 2021 were included in this study. They were 17-61 (average 38.5) years old. In terms of the Johnston-Mason classification, two cases were type II, seven cases were type III, and two cases were type IV. All patients were treated with open reduction and anchor internal fixation. RESULTS: All 11 patients were followed up, all incisions healed by first intention, and the duration of follow-up was 14-20 months. The average operation time was 40 ± 15 min. The clinical healing time was 4-6 (average 5) weeks. No patients had any complications, such as traumatic arthritis, malunion, nerve injury, joint stiffness, or incision infection. The clinical effects were evaluated according to the Mayo Elbow Performance Score. The scores of all 11 cases were 90-95, all excellent. CONCLUSION: The application of suture anchor internal fixation in the treatment of RHFs has the advantages of accurate reduction, no need for a secondary operation to remove the fixation materials, less trauma, fewer complications, good fracture healing, and good recovery of elbow extension, flexion, and rotation functions.

On-farm comparison in grain quality between main and ratoon crops of ratoon rice in Hubei Province, Central China.

BACKGROUND: While ratoon rice has been increasingly practiced by farmers recently in China, on-farm performance in grain quality of main and ratoon crops in the mechanized rice ratooning system is less studied and remains poorly understood. Therefore, a multi-location on-farm survey was conducted to collect rice grain samples from farmers' fields to determine grain quality of main and ratoon crops of ratoon rice at 12 locations across Hubei Province, central China, in 2016. RESULTS: On average, milled and head rice percentage in the ratoon crop was 70.2% and 65.7%, which was significantly higher than in the main crop, whereas chalky grain percentage and grain chalkiness in ratoon crop (10.1% and 2.8%, respectively) were significantly lower than those in the main crop (36.6% and 14.2%, respectively). The differences in these quality traits between the two crops were consistent at all locations. Averaged across 12 locations, scores of translucency and gel consistency were significantly lower but amylose content and alkali spreading value were significantly higher in the ratoon crop than in the main crop, with the difference between the two crops varying in gel consistency by location. CONCLUSION: Overall, grain quality, especially milling and appearance of the ratoon crop, was superior to the main crop in the mechanized rice ratooning system. As a result, this study emphasizes the potential role of the rice ratooning system in other regions with a similar biophysical background producing high-quality rice. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

Low-stray-light concave holographic gratings processed by combining the methods of photoresist hot-melting and oxygen-ion ashing.

The principal motivation for this paper is to reduce stray light and line roughness in concave holographic gratings (CHG). Compared with other previously reported line-smoothing grating techniques such as dynamic-exposure near-field holography, we successfully improve the line smoothing of CHG to approximately 10 nm from 2 nm. Our method uses optimization technologies and a combination of photoresist hot-melting (PHM) and oxygen-ion ashing (OIA), thereby improving the degree of stray light before and after optimization by one order of magnitude; the level processed by OIA, PHM, and OIA successively is ${7.85} \times {{10}^{ - 5}}$7.85×10-5. Combining the two technologies, we achieve lower stray light and straighter groove lines for the concave gratings, which is more effective, easy to implement, and incurs a low cost.

Analytical design of a high-performing +1st order diffraction convex grating imaging spectrometer.

A novel concentric spectrometer having one convex grating and one concave mirror, working at ${+}{1}$+1st order diffraction, and with a small size, high resolution, and high diffraction efficiency, is proposed. It can simultaneously achieve high resolution and compactness by increasing the grating groove density. A compact spectrometer operating at a wavelength of 740-790 nm with an excellent imaging quality is designed. Its spectral resolution reaches 0.049 nm, and its diffraction efficiency improves by 27% compared to the conventional Offner spectrometer with convex grating working at ${-}{1}$-1st order diffraction. This is suitable for small, light, and low-cost atmospheric gas monitoring satellites.

Two-dimensional stretchable blazed wavelength-tunable grating based on PDMS.

This paper reports a two-dimensional stretchable blazed wavelength-tunable grating based on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). In the elastic range, stretch the grating along (Y-axis) and perpendicular to (X-axis) the grating line, fix the position of the +1st-order spot to maintain the grating period, and only change the groove angle to tune the blazed wavelength. By stretching the grating up to 20% of the Y-axis, and 5.2% of the X-axis, the groove angle is reduced by 1.33°, and the blazed wavelength of the first-order diffraction shifts toward the short-wave direction by 42.3 nm. The sensitivity of a spectrometer can be enhanced by tuning the blazed wavelength of the PDMS grating to the wavelength of the spectrum peak under observation in the bands from 460.8 nm to 503.1 nm.

Changes in rice yield and yield stability in China during the past six decades.

BACKGROUND: Increasing rice yield and its stability are important to achieving the sustainability of rice production. Rice yields have increased substantially in China during recent decades, but information on the trend in yield stability has been limited. In this study, the trends in rice yield and rice yield stability from 1949 to 2015 were analysed in China's rice production. RESULTS: The results showed that rice yields for all 16 provinces presented an increasing trend during the study period. The national annual rice yield gain was 86.0 kg ha-1 during the last six decades, varying from 48.4 to 106.0 kg ha-1 in different provinces and exhibiting linear, bilinear, or trilinear relationships. Remarkably, the annual yield increase was smaller in provinces dominated by double rice cropping systems than in the other provinces. Notably, rice yield stagnations have occurred in recent years at provincial and national levels. Absolute residuals over time showed slight increases in four of 16 provinces, indicating a reduction in yield stability in these four provinces. However, the relative yield residuals exhibited a clear trend towards increased yield stability for all 16 provinces. The rice yields of newer cultivars planted with improved crop management practices were consistently higher and more stable than with cultivars from the beginning of the study period. CONCLUSION: This study revealed that rice yield in China has increased substantially, accompanied by improved stability over the last six decades. Given the spatial difference, this study emphasizes the priority of orienting long-term on-farm studies to investigate yield stability. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry.

Doxorubicin-polyglycerol-nanodiamond conjugate is a cytostatic agent that evades chemoresistance and reverses cancer-induced immunosuppression in triple-negative breast cancer.

BACKGROUND: Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) has the poorest prognosis of all breast cancer subtypes and is one of the most fatal diseases for women. Combining cytotoxic chemotherapy with immunotherapy has shown great promise for TNBC treatment. However, chemotherapy often leads to the development of chemoresistance and severe systemic toxicity compromising the immune functions that are crucial to anti-TNBC immune therapy. Tumor-induced immunosuppression also poses a great hindrance to efficacious anti-TNBC immunotherapy. Nanomedicine holds great promise to overcome these hurdles. RESULTS: Doxorubicin-polyglycerol-nanodiamond conjugate (Nano-DOX) was firstly found to be a cytostatic agent to the 4T1 cells and displayed a lower apparent therapeutic potency than DOX. However, the tumor-bearing animals, particularly some key immune cells thereof, showed good tolerance of Nano-DOX as opposed to the severe toxicity of DOX. Next, Nano-DOX did not induce significant upregulation of P-gp and IL-6, which were demonstrated to be key mediators of chemoresistance to DOX in the 4T1 cells. Then, Nano-DOX was shown to downregulate tumor-derived granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) and suppresses the induction and tissue filtration of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) that are the principal effectors of cancer-associated systemic immunosuppression. Nano-DOX also alleviated the phenotype of MDSCs induced by 4T1 cells. Finally, Nano-DOX induced the 4T1 cells to emit damage associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) that stimulated the tumor immune microenvironment through activating key immune effector cells involved in anti-tumor immunity, such as macrophages, dendritic cells and lymphocytes in the tumor tissue. CONCLUSIONS: Nano-DOX is a cytostatic agent with good host tolerance which is capable of evading chemoresistance and reversing cancer-induced immunosuppression both at the systemic level and in the tumor microenvironment in TNBC. Our work presents Nano-DOX as an interesting example that a chemotherapeutic agent in nano-form may possess distinct biochemical properties from its free form, which can be exploited to join chemotherapy with immunotherapy for better treatment of cancer.

Optimized multielement accommodative intraocular lens with a four-freeform-surface Alvarez lens and a separate aspheric lens.

This paper proposes an accommodative intraocular lens (IOL), which consists of a two-element Alvarez lens and an aspheric lens for changing focal power and refractive power, respectively. The four-freeform-surface Alvarez lens is optimized for a multiple field of view; further, the aspheric lens also corrects the aberrations induced by the corneal asphericity of the human eye over the whole range of accommodation. A simulation using optical design software demonstrates its excellent performance in that the values of the modulation transfer function at 100 cycles/mm all reach ∼0.4 with a ±5° field of view for 3 and 5 mm pupils.

Multifacet echelle grating for intensity broadening on spectral plane fabricated by rotating ion-beam etching.

This paper describes a new type of multifacet echelle grating (MFEG) for use in an echelle spectrometer. This new type of echelle grating broadens the spectral distribution on the spectral plane. We built a geometric model of MFEG to analyze the influence of the blaze angle and number of facet shapes on the spectral evolution. A dual-facet echelle grating and a four-facet echelle grating with different parameters were fabricated by rotating ion-beam etching with a self-shadowing rotating mask, based on the existing single-facet echelle grating (SFEG) with a line density of 52.7 g/mm and a blaze angle of 63.5°. The distributions of diffraction efficiency for different orders were measured with a He-Ne laser (632.8 nm); furthermore, these echelle gratings were applied in an echelle spectrometer (ICP-OES, Plasma2000), and testing spectra were obtained. The experimental results demonstrate that the MFEG can broaden the intensity distribution on the spectral plane, overcoming the weak spectral margin signal of SFEG spectrometers.

Can ratoon cropping improve resource use efficiencies and profitability of rice in central China?

Identifying cropping systems with small global warming potential (GWP) per unit of productivity is important to ensure food security while minimizing environmental footprint. During recent decades, double-season rice (DR) systems in central China have progressively shifted into single-crop, middle-season rice (MR) due to high costs and labor requirements of double-season rice. Ratoon rice (RR) has been proposed as an alternative system that reconciliates both high annual productivity and relatively low costs and labor requirements. Here we used on-farm data collected from 240 farmer fields planted with rice in 2016 to evaluate annual energy balance, environmental impact, and net profit of MR, DR, and RR cropping systems in central China. Energy factors, emission values, and commodity prices obtained from literature and official statistics were used to estimate energy balance, GWP, and economic profit. Average annual yield was 7.7, 15.3. and 13.2 Mg ha-1 for MR, DR, and RR systems, respectively. Average total annual energy input (36 GJ ha-1), GWP (9783 kg ha-1), and production cost (3057 $ ha-1) of RR were 35-48% higher than those of MR. However, RR achieved 72-129% higher annual grain yield (13.2 Mg ha-1), net energy yield (159 GJ ha-1), and net economic return (2330 $ ha-1) than MR. Compared with DR, RR produced statistically similar net energy yield while doubling the net economic return, with 32-42% lower energy input, production costs, and GWP. Consequently, RR exhibited significantly higher net energy ratio and benefit-to-cost ratio, and substantially lower yield-scaled GWP than the other two cropping systems. In the context of DR being replaced by MR, our analysis indicated that RR can be a viable option to achieve both high annual productivity and large positive energy balance and profit, while reducing the environmental impact.

[comIdiopathic scrotal calcinosis: A report of 10 cases and review of the literature].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinical features, pathogenesis, diagnosis and scrotal reconstruction in the treatment of idiopathic scrotal calcinosis (ISC). METHODS: From March 2007 to October 2018, 10 ISC patients, aged 28－79 (mean 45) years and with a disease course of 6－497 (mean 128.4) months, were treated in our hospital. We retrospectively analyzed their clinical data and reviewed related literature. RESULTS: All the patients underwent physical examination and biochemical and parathyroid function tests. None of them had a history of endocrine or metabolic disease, or trauma, or a family member with similar diseases, and none had subjective symptoms except local pruritus in 1 case. All were treated surgically and post-operative follow-up revealed no recurrence. Histopathological examination of the excised lesion confirmed it to be ISC. CONCLUSIONS: ISC is a rare localized benign disease, of which surgery seems an effective option for the definite diagnosis and treatment. Occasionally scrotal reconstruction may be required in case of extensive involvement of the scrotal skin.

[Surgical repair of the tunica albuginea for penis fracture: Selection of incision].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the diagnosis and management of penile fracture. METHODS: From June 1993 to May 2017, 46 cases of penile fracture were treated in our hospital, averaging 33.5 (25－42) years of age and 3.45 (1－10) hours in duration, of which 41 occurred during sexual intercourse, 4 during masturbation and 1 during prone sleeping, 4 with hematuria, but none with dysuria or urethral bleeding. Hematoma was confined to the penis. Emergency surgical repair was performed for all the patients, 45 under spinal anesthesia and 1 under local anesthesia, 16 by coronal proximal circular incision and the other 30 by local longitudinal incision according to the rupture location on ultrasonogram. The tunica albuginea ruptures averaged 1.31 (0.5－2.5) cm in length, which were sutured in the "8" pattern for 6 cases and with the 3－0 absorbable thread for 18 cases. The skin graft or negative pressure drainage tube was routinely placed, catheters indwelt, and gauze used for early pressure dressing. In the recent few years, elastic bandages were employed for 3－5 days of pressure dressing and antibiotics administered to prevent infection. The stitches and catheter were removed at 7 days after surgery. RESULTS: Short-term postoperative foreskin edema occurred in 14 of the 16 cases of circular degloving incision, but no postoperative complications were observed in any of the cases of local incision. Twenty-eight of the patients completed a long-term follow-up of 49.4 (10－125) months, which revealed good erectile function, painless erection, and satisfactory sexual intercourse. CONCLUSIONS: For most penile fractures, local longitudinal incision is sufficient for successful repair of the tunica albuginea, with mild injury, no influence on the blood supply or lymph reflux, and a low rate complications. It therefore is obviously advantageous over circular degloving incision except when the cavernous body of urethra is to be explored, which necessitates circular degloving incision below the coronal groove.

Research on Straightness Error Compensation of Grating Ruling Machine.

Echelle grating is a kind of special diffraction grating. Working with high diffraction orders and big diffraction angle, which has the advantages of high resolution and full wave shining. It has been widely used in high-end spectrum instrument, which greatly promoted the development of aerospace, astronomy, medical, military, environment and other cutting-edge technology. However, professional scoring system needs to be customized, and the price is very expensive. The use of sophisticated ultra precision machining equipment to process in the ladder grating can greatly reduce the preparation cost of the mother plate of the ladder grating. Due to the bad straightness and high accumulative error of ultra precision single point diamond lathe, it can't satisfy the demand of preparation when preparing the echelle grating, casuing the bad diffraction wave front. In order to reduce the straightness error, this paper comes up with the error compensation for the single point diamond lathe. Firstly, we make the first compensation based on the accumulative error curve. When the compensation ratio is 0.75 to 0.85, the peak valley value (pv) of the diffraction wave front is about 400 nm, reaching its greatest effect of the first straightness compensation. Secondly, we make the straightness compensation according to the diffraction wave front curve of the blazed order. The pv of the diffraction wave front is about 83nm. The results show that the diffraction wave front is greatly improved which is beneficial to improve the quality of the grating, and has a guiding role in the actual grating characterization.

Attenuation of respiratory syncytial virus-induced and RIG-I-dependent type I IFN responses in human neonates and very young children.

Newborn infants, including those born at term without congenital disorders, are at high risk of severe disease from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection. Indeed, our current local surveillance data demonstrate that approximately half of children hospitalized with RSV were ≤3 mo old, and 74% were born at term. Informed by this clinical epidemiology, we investigated antiviral innate immune responses in early life, with the goal of identifying immunological factors underlying the susceptibility of infants and young children to severe viral lower respiratory tract infections. We compared RSV-induced innate cytokine production in blood mononuclear cells from neonates, young children aged 12-59 mo, and healthy adults. RSV-induced IFN-α production was primarily mediated by plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), and was significantly lower in term infants and young children < 5 y of age than in adults (p < 0.01). RSV-induced IFN-α production in human pDCs proceeded independently of endosomal TLRs, and human pDCs from healthy adult donors produced IFN-α in a retinoic acid-inducible gene I protein (RIG-I)-dependent manner. Of interest, young age and premature birth were independently associated with attenuated RIG-I-dependent IFN-α responses (p < 0.01). In contrast to IFN-α production, proinflammatory IL-6 responses to RSV were mediated by monocytes, appeared less dependent on RIG-I, and were significantly impaired only among preterm infants, not in term infants and young children. Our results suggest that human pDCs are less functional in early life, which may contribute to the increased susceptibility of infants and young children to severe RSV disease.

The association between medical students' lifestyles and their attitudes towards preventive counseling in different countries.

BACKGROUND: Preventive counselling is an effective approach to reducing the prevalence of non-communicable diseases. Studies have shown that there is a positive association between healthy behaviors of Colombian medical students and favorable attitudes towards preventive counselling. However, there is limited research that explores this relationship in different countries. The current study aimed to determine how the health behaviors of medical students from China, U.S., and Australia, are associated with attitudes towards preventive counseling. METHODS: Students from five Chinese medical schools, Duke University in the U.S., and the University of Queensland in Australia, completed a 32-item, self-reported online survey. The survey was used to examine the prevalence of healthy behaviors and their association with attitudes towards preventive counseling. The target sample size was 150 students from each grade, or 450 students in total from different medical universities. Logistic regression analyses were used to assess the association between health behaviors and attitudes towards preventive counseling, stratified by grade and adjusted by gender. RESULTS: A positive association was found between healthy behaviors and attitudes towards preventive counseling for all medical students. There are significant differences among medical students' self-reported health behaviors and their attitudes towards preventive counselling from three different countries (P < 0.05). Chinese medical students were more positive in stress control (OR > 1) and more passive in limiting their smoking and alcohol behaviors compared to medical students in Duke University. However, compared to medical students in University of Queensland, five Chinese medical students were more passive in stress control (OR < 1). CONCLUSION: Based on the finding that healthy behaviors are positively related to favorable attitudes towards preventative counselling, medical students should adopt targeted courses and training in preventive counseling and develop healthy lifestyles.

[Monitoring of Crack Propagation in Repaired Structures Based on Characteristics of FBG Sensors Reflecting Spectra].

In order to improve the security of aircraft repaired structures, a method of crack propagation monitoring in repaired structures is put forward basing on characteristics of Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) reflecting spectra in this article. With the cyclic loading effecting on repaired structure, cracks propagate, while non-uniform strain field appears nearby the tip of crack which leads to the FBG sensors' reflecting spectra deformations. The crack propagating can be monitored by extracting the characteristics of FBG sensors' reflecting spectral deformations. A finite element model (FEM) of the specimen is established. Meanwhile, the distributions of strains which are under the action of cracks of different angles and lengths are obtained. The characteristics, such as main peak wavelength shift, area of reflecting spectra, second and third peak value and so on, are extracted from the FBGs' reflecting spectral which are calculated by transfer matrix algorithm. An artificial neural network is built to act as the model between the characteristics of the reflecting spectral and the propagation of crack. As a result, the crack propagation of repaired structures is monitored accurately and the error of crack length is less than 0.5 mm, the error of crack angle is less than 5 degree. The accurately monitoring problem of crack propagation of repaired structures is solved by taking use of this method. It has important significance in aircrafts safety improvement and maintenance cost reducing.

[Retrospective analysis for clinical and histopathological characteristics of basal cell carcinoma in 418 patients].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinical and histopathological characteristics of basal cell carcinoma (BCC) in Chinese patients. METHODS: Clinical and pathological data of BCC confirmed by histology from 2010 to 2012 in Peking University First Hospital were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: Among 418 patients enrolled, the male/female ratio was 0.77:1. The average age was (65.39±13.51) years. Among the patients younger than 60 years who occupied 29% of all the cases, the male/female ratio was 1.16:1. In terms of the histology subtypes of the BCCs, 81.8% were nodular, followed by superficial (9.8%), and the others were in very small proportion. The head and face were the most common sites of BCC (86.6%). All morpheaform subtypes, and the majority of the nodular subtypes were located on the head and face, whereas the trunk and extremities were the most common locations for the others. Clinically, 86.6% of the BCC were pigmented and 80.4% were not ulcerated. The diagnostic accordance rates of BCC on the head and face (84.7%) and on the trunk (79.1%) were higher than those on the extremities (46.2%, P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The most clinical and histopathological characteristics of our cases were similar to those of Caucasian. This study displays some unique characteristics. The young and middle aged patients occupied relative higher proportion, and their gender ration was different from that of the aged group. Tumor with hyperpigmentation was popular and few cases were ulcerated. In this study, multiple BCC cases were seldom, and the BCC patients with nevus sebaceous were older than those in other reports. The research of the diagnostic accordance rates of BCC revealed that both doctors and patients should pay more attention to BCC.

[Performance comparison of coronene film for UV-CCD prepared by spin-coating and physical vapor deposition].

In the present paper, the methods of spin-coating and physical vapor deposition (PVD) were researched to prepare the coronene film for UV-CCD, and their properties were characterized and compared with each other. The results of the experiment show that the process of spin-coating is relatively simple, which takes advantage of materials and retains the inherent crystal structure of coronene. However, the roughness of the film is a little more than that of PVD method; the film prepared by PVD method can absorb ultraviolet more effectively and then emits fluorescence with more intensity. Compared with the method of spin-coating, the surface of PVD film is more smoothly, and the process of thermal evaporation changes the crystal structure of coronene and forms another new crystalline state according to the XRD graph. While the whole process of PVD is morecomplex and it needs larger cost of production than spin-coating method. Besides, the comparison research work provided theoretical direction for preparing the photoluminescence down-conversion film under different requirements, such as fluorescence intensity, surface roughness and cost of production.