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[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0177235.].

The four-transmembrane protein MAL2 and tumor protein D52 (TPD52) have been shown to be involved in tumorigenesis of various cancers. However, their roles in colorectal cancer (CRC) remain unclear. In this study, we explored the expressions of MAL2 and TPD52 in tumor specimens resected from 123 CRC patients and the prognostic values of the two proteins in CRC. Immunohistochemical analyses showed that MAL2 (P

Colorectal cancer, the third most common cancer in both men and women, has gradually increased in recent years. MYSM1has been investigated as a regulator of hematopoiesis and lymphocyte development in human. It has been reported that some tumor-related genes were modulated by MYSM1. However, its exact role in cancer development remains unclear. Herein, we aimed to examine the expression level of MYSM1 in tumor tissues and its correlation with clinicopathology and survivals of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC).MYSM1expressions in tumor specimens resected from 123 CRC patients were detected by immunochemistry and Western blot analysis. The results showed that MYSM1 was significantly highly expressed in carcinoma tissues compared with adjacent normal mucosa tissues (P

Sudangrass, Sorghum sudanense, is an important forage in warm regions. But little is known about its genome. In this study, the transcriptomes of sudangrass S722 and sorghum Tx623B were sequenced by Illumina sequencing. More than 4Gb bases were sequenced for each library. For Tx623B and S722, 88.79% and 83.88% reads, respectively were matched to the Sorghum bicolor genome. A total of 2,397 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were detected by RNA-Seq between the two libraries, including 849 up-regulated genes and 1,548 down-regulated genes. These DEGs could be divided into three groups by annotation analysis. A total of 44,495 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were discovered by aligning S722 reads to the sorghum reference genome. Of these SNPs, 61.37% were transition, and this value did not differ much between different chromosomes. In addition, 16,928 insertion and deletion (indel) loci were identified between the two genomes. A total of 5,344 indel markers were designed, 15 of which were selected to construct the genetic map derived from the cross of Tx623A and Sa. It was indicated that the indel markers were useful and versatile between sorghum and sudangrass. Comparison of synonymous base substitutions (Ks) and non-synonymous base substitutions (Ka) between the two libraries showed that 95% orthologous pairs exhibited Ka/Ks

The number of the overweight people continues to rise across the world. Studies have shown that being overweight can increase health risks, such as high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, and certain forms of cancer. Therefore, identifying the overweight status in people is critical to prevent and decrease health risks. This study explores a new technique that uses blood and biochemical measurements to recognize the overweight condition. A new machine learning technique, an extreme learning machine, was developed to accurately detect the overweight status from a pool of 225 overweight and 251 healthy subjects. The group included 179 males and 297 females. The detection method was rigorously evaluated against the real-life dataset for accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and AUC (area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve) criterion. Additionally, the feature selection was investigated to identify correlating factors for the overweight status. The results demonstrate that there are significant differences in blood and biochemical indexes between healthy and overweight people (p-value < 0.01). According to the feature selection, the most important correlated indexes are creatinine, hemoglobin, hematokrit, uric Acid, red blood cells, high density lipoprotein, alanine transaminase, triglyceride, and γ-glutamyl transpeptidase. These are consistent with the results of Spearman test analysis. The proposed method holds promise as a new, accurate method for identifying the overweight status in subjects.

Enteric dysbiosis plays an essential role in the pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease (ALD). Detailed characterization of the alterations in the gut microbiome is needed for understanding their pathogenic role in ALD and developing effective therapeutic approaches using probiotic supplementation. Mice were fed liquid Lieber-DeCarli diet without or with alcohol (5% v/v) for 6 weeks. A subset of mice were administered the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) from 6 to 8 weeks. Indicators of intestinal permeability, hepatic steatosis, inflammation and injury were evaluated. Metagenomic analysis of the gut microbiome was performed by analyzing the fecal DNA by amplification of the V3-V5 regions of the 16S rRNA gene and large-scale parallel pyrosequencing on the 454 FLX Titanium platform. Chronic ethanol feeding caused a decline in the abundance of both Bacteriodetes and Firmicutes phyla, with a proportional increase in the gram negative Proteobacteria and gram positive Actinobacteria phyla; the bacterial genera that showed the biggest expansion were the gram negative alkaline tolerant Alcaligenes and gram positive Corynebacterium. Commensurate with the qualitative and quantitative alterations in the microbiome, ethanol caused an increase in plasma endotoxin, fecal pH, hepatic inflammation and injury. Notably, the ethanol-induced pathogenic changes in the microbiome and the liver were prevented by LGG supplementation. Overall, significant alterations in the gut microbiome over time occur in response to chronic alcohol exposure and correspond to increases in intestinal barrier dysfunction and development of ALD. Moreover, the altered bacterial communities of the gut may serve as significant therapeutic target for the prevention/treatment of chronic alcohol intake induced intestinal barrier dysfunction and liver disease.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE:The significance of ubiquitin-specific protease 22 (USP22) as a potential marker has been growing in the field of oncology. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of USP22 and the association with its potential targets in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). METHODS:Immunohistochemistry was used to determine the expression of USP22 protein in 319 OSCC patients in comparison with 42 healthy controls. The clinical correlations and prognostic significance of the aberrantly expressed protein was evaluated to identify novel biomarker of OSCC. RESULTS:The incidence of positive USP22 expression was 63.32% in 319 conventional OSCC tissues. The protein expression level of USP22 was concomitantly up-regulated from non-cancerous mucosa to primary carcinoma and from carcinomas to lymph node metastasis (P

BACKGROUND: Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is a hepatic hormone involved in the regulation of lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. This study aims to test the hypothesis that elevated FGF21 concentrations are associated with the change of renal function and the presence of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in the different stages of chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: 240 subjects including 200 CKD patients (146 outpatients and 54 long-term hemodialytic patients) and 40 healthy control subjects were recruited. All CKD subjects underwent echocardiograms to assess left ventricular mass index. Plasma FGF21 levels and other clinical and biochemical parameters in all subjects were obtained based on standard clinical examination methods. Plasma FGF21 levels were significantly increased with the development of CKD from early- and end-stage (P

BACKGROUND: Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF-21) is a metabolic regulator with multiple beneficial effects on glucose homeostasis and lipid metabolism in animal models. The relationship between plasma levels of FGF-21 and coronary heart disease (CHD) in unknown. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: This study aimed to investigate the correlation of serum FGF-21 levels and lipid metabolism in the patients with coronary heart disease. We performed a logistic regression analysis of the relation between serum levels of FGF-21 and CHD patients with and without diabetes and hypertension. This study was conducted in the Departments of Endocrinology and Cardiovascular Diseases at two University Hospitals. Participants consisted of one hundred and thirty-five patients who have been diagnosed to have CHD and sixty-one control subjects. Serum FGF-21 level and levels of fasting blood glucose; triglyceride; apolipoprotein B100; HOMA-IR; insulin; total cholesterol; HDL-cholesterol; LDL-cholesterol; and C-reactive protein were measured. We found that median serum FGF-21 levels were significantly higher in CHD than that of control subjects (P