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Background: Advances in regenerative medicine technologies have been strongly proposed in the management of thyroid diseases. Mechanistically, the adoption of thyroid bioengineering requires a scaffold that shares a similar three-dimensional (3D) space structure, biomechanical properties, protein component, and cytokines to the native extracellular matrix (ECM).Methods: 24 male New Zealand white rabbits were used in this experimental study. The rabbit thyroid glands were decellularized by immersion/agitation decellularization protocol. The 3D thyroid decellularization scaffolds were tested with histological and immunostaining analyses, scanning electron microscopy, DNA quantification, mechanical properties test, cytokine assay and cytotoxicity assays. Meanwhile, the decellularization scaffold were seeded with human thyroid follicular cells, cell proliferation and thyroid peroxidase were determined to explore the biocompatibility in vitro.Results: Notably, through the imaging studies, it was distinctly evident that our protocol intervention minimized cellular materials and maintained the 3D spatial structure, biomechanical properties, ECM composition, and biologic cytokine. Consequently, the decellularization scaffold was seeded with human thyroid follicular cells, thus strongly revealing its potential in reinforcing cell adhesion, proliferation, and preserve important protein expression.Conclusions: The adoption of our protocol to generate a decellularized thyroid scaffold can potentially be utilized in transplantation to manage thyroid diseases through thyroid bioengineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhodococcus rhodochrous ATCC 17895 possesses an array of mono- and dioxygenases, as well as hydratases, which makes it an interesting organism for biocatalysis. R. rhodochrous is a Gram-positive aerobic bacterium with a rod-like morphology. Here we describe the features of this organism, together with the complete genome sequence and annotation. The 6,869,887 bp long genome contains 6,609 protein-coding genes and 53 RNA genes. Based on small subunit rRNA analysis, the strain is more likely to be a strain of Rhodococcus erythropolis rather than Rhodococcus rhodochrous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Basigin, which has four isoforms, has been demonstrated to be involved in progression of various human cancers. The aim of this study was to examine the prognostic value of basigin-2 protein expression in epithelial ovarian cancer. Furthermore, the function of basigin-2 in ovarian cancer was further investigated in cell culture models.Methods: Immunohistochemistry staining was performed to investigate basigin-2 expression in a total of 146 ovarian tissue specimens. Kaplan Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards model were applied to assess the relationship between basigin-2 and progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Real-time PCR, RT-PCR and western blot were used to explore basigin-2, basigin-3 and basigin-4 expression in ovarian cancer cell lines and tissues. To evaluate possible contributions of basigin-2 to MMP secretion and cell migration and invasion, the overexpression vectors pcDNA3.1-basigin-2 and basigin-2 siRNA were transfected into HO-8910 and HO-8910 PM cells respectively.Results: High basigin-2 expression was associated with lymph-vascular space involvement, lymph node metastasis and poor prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer. Multivariate analyses indicated that basigin-2 positivity was an independent prognostic factor for PFS (P = 0.006) and OS (P = 0.019), respectively. Overexpression of basigin-2 increased the secretion of MMP-2/9 and cancer cell migration and invasion of HO-8910 cells, whereas knockdown of basigin-2 reduced active MMP-2/9 production, migration and invasion of HO-8910 PM cells.Conclusions: The expression of basigin-2 might be an independent prognostic marker and basigin-2 inhibition would be a potential strategy for epithelial ovarian cancer patients, especially in inhibiting and preventing cancer cell invasion and metastasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The incidence of pain disorders in women is higher than in men, making gender differences in pain a research focus. The human insular cortex is an important brain hub structure for pain processing and is divided into several subdivisions, serving different functions in pain perception. Here we aimed to examine the gender differences of the functional connectivities (FCs) between the twelve insular subdivisions and selected pain-related brain structures in healthy adults., Methods: Twenty-six healthy males and 11 age-matched healthy females were recruited in this cross-sectional study. FCs between the 12 insular subdivisions (as 12 regions of interest (ROIs)) and the whole brain (ROI-whole brain level) or 64 selected pain-related brain regions (64 ROIs, ROI-ROI level) were measured between the males and females., Results: Significant gender differences in the FCs of the insular subdivisions were revealed: (1) The FCs between the dorsal dysgranular insula (dId) and other brain regions were significantly increased in males using two different techniques (ROI-whole brain and ROI-ROI analyses); (2) Based on the ROI-whole brain analysis, the FC increases in 4 FC-pairs were observed in males, including the left dId - the right median cingulate and paracingulate/ right posterior cingulate gyrus/ right precuneus, the left dId - the right median cingulate and paracingulate, the left dId - the left angular as well as the left dId - the left middle frontal gyrus; (3) According to the ROI-ROI analysis, increased FC between the left dId and the right rostral anterior cingulate cortex was investigated in males., Conclusion: In summary, the gender differences in the FCs of the insular subdivisions with pain-related brain regions were revealed in the current study, offering neuroimaging evidence for gender differences in pain processing., Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02820974 . Registered 28 June 2016.

Background: Researchers from several different countries have found the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) to have good psychometric properties. However, to our knowledge, no studies on this subject have been reported in Mainland China. In this study, we investigated the psychometric properties of the Chinese Mandarin version of the SRS when used in Mainland China., Methods: The reliability and validity of the parent-report SRS in a sample of 749 children of 4- to 14-year-olds: 411 typically developing and 338 clinical participants (202 with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)) were examined., Results: Internal consistency for total scale (0.871-0.922), test-retest reliability (0.81-0.94), and convergent validity with the Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC) (0.302-0.647) were satisfactory. The SRS total score discriminated between the ASD and other developmental disorders. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses revealed that the SRS was predicted to accurately classify 69.2-97.2% of youth ASD. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) supported a single-factor solution for the ASD subsample. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) did not confirm the theoretical construct of five factors model with inadequate fit in the ASD subsample., Conclusions: Overall, our findings supported the reliability and validity of the parent-report SRS as one ASD screening instrument. In addition, we also suggest that the use of separate cut-offs for screening purposes (optimizing sensitivity) vs. clinical confirmation (optimizing specificity) should be considered.

Background: Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) caused by enterovirus 71 (EV71) is a potentially life-threatening infectious disease that commonly occurs in children. Diagnosis of HFMD caused by EV71 largely depends on clinical manifestations and rare serological biomarkers used to identify children suffering from HFMD. Serum cholinesterase (SChE) activity has frequently been reported as a potential biomarker for solid central nervous system tumors, chronic heart failure, and liver cirrhosis. However, its potential value in the diagnosis of neurotropic virus infections, such as HFMD caused by EV71, remains to be determined., Findings: In our study, 220 children hospitalized with HFMD caused by EV71, 34 inpatients infected with coxsackievirus A16 (CVA16), and 43 undefined enterovirus-infected HFMD inpatients were recruited at the Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital between January 2011 and December 2012. SChE activity was measured. The non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test showed that SChE activity in children diagnosed with HFMD caused by EV71 was significantly higher than in healthy controls (p < 0.001), as well as in children with upper respiratory tract infections (p = 0.011), bronchopneumonia (p < 0.001), septicemia (p < 0.001), amygdalitis (p < 0.001), and appendicitis (p < 0.001). In addition, higher SChE activity was observed in male inpatients with HFMD caused by EV71 (47.7 % positivity) compared to female inpatients (26.1 % positivity) (chi-square test, p = 0.002). In our study, no significant differences in SChE levels were observed among different ages (up to 120 months) (r = -0.112, p > 0.05). An important finding was that SChE activity declined in the recovery phase of HFMD caused by EV71 compared to the acute phase (p < 0.001)., Conclusions: Elevated SChE activity was observed in patients with severe HFMD caused by EV71. Therefore, SChE might be a potential assistant biomarker for the diagnosis of HFMD caused by EV71 in children.