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Zhaohui Zhang,1 Hao Hu,2 Qian Li,1 Fumei Yi,1 Yan’e Liu1 1Department of Tumor Chemotherapy and Radiation Sickness, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, 100191, People’s Republic of China; 2Beijing 100biotech Co., Ltd., Beijing, 100006, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Zhaohui ZhangDepartment of Tumor Chemotherapy and Radiation Sickness, Peking University Third Hospital, Huayuan Bei Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100191, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail zhaobj429@sina.comIntroduction: Circular RNAs (circRNAs), a new type of non-coding RNA, have been demonstrated to play critical roles in the progression of various of malignant cancers. However, the function of circRNAs in breast cancer is not clearly understood.Methods: qPCR was used to evaluate the gene expression. Function studies including MTT, transwell, wound healing and colony formation assay were performed to evaluate the function of circPTCD3 in breast cancer. Luciferase and RNA pull-down assays were used to verify the interaction between circPTCD3 and miR-198. The xenograft model was established to evaluate the function of circPTCD3 in vivo.Results: In the present study, we identified a novel circRNA termed as circPTCD3 which was indicated to be significantly up-regulated in breast cancer tissues and cell lines. The results revealed that ectopic expression of circPTCD3 promoted the cell proliferation, migration and colony formation ability of breast cancer cells. Constantly, silencing of circPTCD3 inhibited those of breast cancer cells. Furthermore, we identified that circPTCD3 was able to target miR-198 in breast cancer cell. miR-198 has the function of inhibiting proliferation and migration of breast cancer cells which can be reversed by circPTCD3.Conclusion: Taken together, our findings for the first time identified a novel circRNA (circPTCD3) and revealed its oncogenic role in breast cancer. Mechanically, we reported that circPTCD3 served as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) to sponge miR-198. These findings provide insights into breast cancer progression and also potential new targets for diagnosis or treatment of breast cancer.Keywords: circPTCD3, breast cancer, miR-198

Understanding the relationships between the vertical distribution of liverwort communities and associated environmental factors is vital for biodiversity conservation in karst sinkholes. The abunda...

Soil erosion in karst areas not only destroys the natural environment but also accelerates the decline in land productivity together with the associated increase in poverty for local communities. There are no simple or straightforward answers to controlling soil erosion on karst. Such erosion has become a serious problem in China. This study addresses both the diversity of vegetation (mosses, herbs, shrubs and trees) on karst and the underlying soil chemical characteristics, in order to provide a scientific basis by which suitable plant species can be selected for recovery and restoration of karst degraded by soil erosion. Vegetation diversity and soil chemistry were assessed in areas with five different grades of soil erosion in Guiyang Karst Park, Guizhou, China. Mosses are more tolerant than vascular plants of soil erosion and associated environmental degradation of karst and the order of species diversity was: mosses herbs shrubs trees. Mosses were found to play a major role in ecological restoration of microhabitats on karst. Soil microbial biomass carbon was found to be significantly higher in soil under mosses than in bare soil associated with other plant categories. Mosses were more effective in converting unavailable potassium to available potassium. Vascular plants were found to have a positive effect on total nitrogen fixation and the availability of phosphorus in the soil. Increasing soil degradation was associated with lower levels of total Nitrogen in soil underlying mosses than in soil underlying vascular plants. Thus, based on their different but complementary contributions to soil chemistry, mosses and vascular plants in combination can provide the most practical outcome for the repair and restoration of areas of karst affected by soil erosion. The combination of the moss species, Homomallium plagiangium, Cyrto-hypnum pygmaeuman and Brachythecium perminusculum, the herbs Veronica arvensis and Youngia japonica, and the tree Prunus salicina, are recommended as suitable pioneer plant species to cultivate for use in restoration of regions of karstic soil erosion.

Remote limb ischemic post-conditioning (RLIPostC) has been shown to be neuroprotective in cerebral ischemia, whereas the effect of RLIPostC on synaptogenesis remains elusive. In the present study, we investigated the effects of RLIPostC on synaptogenesis in an experimental stroke rat model.Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to left middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) and were randomly divided into a control group, an RLIPostC group and a sham group. The RLIPostC group received three cycles of RLIPostC treatment immediately after reperfusion (ten minutes ischemia and ten minutes reperfusion in bilateral femoral artery). The neurological function was assessed by neurological deficit scores and the foot fault test at days 7 and 14 after MCAO. At day 14 after MCAO, the infarct volume and oedema were determined by cresyl violet (CV) staining and by measuring brain water content, respectively. Synaptogenesis was evaluated by western blotting and immunofluorescence staining.Our results showed that RLIPostC treatment significantly promoted the recovery of behavioural function, reduced infarct volume and brain oedema, and increased the expressions of SYN1, PSD95 and GAP43.These results confirmed that RLIPostC treatment for cerebral ischemia was safe and effective. A possible molecular mechanism of the beneficial effects of RLIPostC treatment may be the promotion of synaptogenesis.

A solution to the problem of Gaussian beam scattering by an anisotropically coated circular cylinder is presented. The incident Gaussian beam source is expanded as an approximate expression in the simple form with a Tayor’s series. The transmitted field in the anisotropically coated region is expressed as a infinite summation of eigen plane waves with different polar angles. The unknown coefficients of the scattered fields are obtained with the aid of the boundary conditions. The infinite series can be truncated under the prerequisite of achieving the solution convergence. Only the case of transverse-electric polarization is discussed. The similar formulation of transverse-magnetic polarization can be obtained by adopting the similar method. Some numerical results are presented and discussed. The result is in agreement with that available as expected when the Gaussian beam degenerates to a plane wave incidence case.

A novel adsorbent, bioglass nanospheres (BGN), has been prepared by a facile process. The BGN were spheres with an amorphous structure and a relatively high specific surface area, as indicated by SEM, transmission electron microscopy, BET, FTIR, and XRD. This paper was aimed at evaluating the adsorption behavior of this new material for the adsorptive removal of cationic (methylene blue, neutral red) and anionic (congo red) dyes from aqueous solution. The effects of the initial dye concentration, contact time, solution pH, and temperature were investigated. The adsorption kinetics showed that the adsorption behavior followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The adsorption isotherm fit well to the Langmuir model. Thermodynamic analyses showed that the adsorption was physisorption, and it was also a spontaneous and endothermic process. The BGN exhibited a good reusability after five consecutive cycles for cationic dyes. In addition, the possible adsorption mechanism was also proposed based on ...

Changes in tissue structure and rheological properties of abalone meat with cold air drying and natural drying were studied. Natural drying took 168 h, while cold air drying took 120 h, which was 71% of natural drying. Nutrition loss of cold air drying abalone meat was less than that of natural drying samples. Muscle fibers in heated samples reassembled, and voids in muscular tissue extended. With drying time increasing, muscle fibers in abalone meat shrank, and the size of aperture among myofibrils decreased. While drying finished, myofibrils in cold air drying abalone meat had a homogeneous network structure, which was fit for water restoration. Rheological properties (elasticity modulus E, viscosity modulus η, and rupture strength) in heated samples were smaller than those in raw samples, while the relaxation time τ was greater. During the drying process, E, η, and rupture strength tended to increase, and the relaxation time τ had no significant regularity changes. Compared with natural drying,...

Controlled proteolysis is important for target hydrolysates. The hydrolysis kinetics of pollock bone protein (PBP) was obtained by mathematic deduction and experimental analysis. The equation of degree of hydrolysis was as follows: DH = 2.801 ln|1 + (0.06044E0/S0−0.1005)t|, which could predict the hydrolysis process of PBP when hydrolysis condition was strictly controlled. However, the hydrolysis reaction was affected by several factors, and the predicted value may be against the experimental result. Therefore, online monitoring was necessary for obtaining the target peptides. Biosensor and artificial neural network (ANN) were employed for monitoring hydrolysis process online. Free lysine level was chosen as the monitoring factor determined by immobilized lysine oxidase electrodes. Based on the lysine biosensor and ANN, the hydrolysis monitoring model LYS-ANN was built, including 3 input layer nodes (E0, S0, and LYS), 1 output layer node (DH), and 11 hidden layer nodes. R2 value between sample val...

A novel magnetic dummy molecularly imprinted polymer based on multiwalled carbon nanotubes was prepared with 2-amino-4-chlorophenol as the dummy template for rapid separation and enrichment of 4-chlorophenol in aqueous samples. The magnetic dummy molecularly imprinted polymer was characterized by infrared spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometry. The saturation adsorption capacity of the magnetic dummy molecularly imprinted polymer toward 4-chlorophenol was up to 54.3 mg g−1 at 298 K, which is higher than for previously reported imprinted polymers. The magnetic dummy molecularly imprinted polymers were coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography to isolate and determine 4-chlorophenol in fish bile and river water with the recoveries from 95.8 to 98.9% and 96.6 to 99.1%, respectively.

Abandoned objects in a road can be a potential threat to urban traffic. In this article we present a new threat degree analysis method of abandoned objects, which is based on dynamic multifeature fusion to detect the abandoned objects and analyze the threat degree automatically. The image sequence is acquired with a visible sensor installed at overbridges, and is processed by a PC-based image-processing system. In this method, we first put forward a multivehicle tracking algorithm to acquire the vehicles' moving information as preprocessing. Then we extracted the dynamic features and built a security threat model upstream of the abandoned object to facilitate further analysis. Finally, we proposed a fusion decision method, based on dynamic multiple features, to analyze the threat degree. The experiments show that the developed method can determine the threat degree of abandoned objects well and truly, and it is appropriate in the intelligent traffic monitoring system.

Odor problems in drinking water have drawn worldwide concern. Chlorine oxidation of odor in water can produce disinfection byproducts (DBPs). In this study, effect of disinfection method (common disinfections (sodium hypochlorite disinfection, chloramine disinfection, chlorine dioxide disinfection), synergistic disinfection of chlorine dioxide and sodium hypochlorite, sequential chlorine disinfection, and UV synergistic disinfection) on odor and DBP control in drinking water treatments were investigated. The results showed that chloramine and chlorine dioxide could better control odor and DBP. The best ratio of sodium hypochlorite to chlorine dioxide (synergistic disinfection) for odor and DBP control was 1:1. UV synergistic disinfection (compared with chloramine and chlorine dioxide) had little effect on odor and DBP control. Disinfection methods showed little effect on odor and DBP control during pre-chlorination + conventional water treatment process. Odor and DBP could be efficiently controlle...

Magnetic anion exchange (MIEX) has been increasingly concerned owing to its excellent performance for the removal of dissolved organic carbon in the treatment of drinking water. In this study, the ability of ultrafiltration (UF) membrane fouling control was analyzed by different combination processes of MIEX-UF. A single cycle and multi-cycle operations were conducted, and the separated and integrated processes of MIEX-UF were compared. Membrane filtration resistance, removal of organics, and morphologies of the membrane surface were analyzed. The results of the short-term operation did not show any obvious improvement in the membrane fouling control in the separated process (compared to UF alone); however, a marked improvement was obtained in the integrated process. The membrane filtration resistance analysis showed that the cake resistance (Rc) and pore blocking resistance (Rp) in the integrated process were only 52 and 24% of the values in the separated process. The multi-cycle operation demons...

Piggery wastewater is characterized by its high ammonium concentration and low COD/nitrogen ratio. The indiscriminate discharge of untreated piggery wastewater from scattered household pig farms has posed a potential risk of surface water pollution in rural areas of southern China. In this study, an anoxic/oxic (A/O) process with elastic fillers tightly packed in each tank was investigated for piggery wastewater treatment. Two anoxic tanks and two aerobic tanks were used in series and the hydraulic retention time of each was 24 h. Dissolved oxygen concentration in the aerobic tanks was intentionally controlled at below 2 mg L–1 for the implementation of nitritation. After sludge acclimation, three recycle ratios from 100 to 300% were tested. More than 90% of organic matter was removed from raw piggery wastewater despite recycle ratio values. However, the NH4+-N concentrations in the effluent slightly increased from 30 to 65 mg L–1 as the recycle ratio increased. Higher recycle ratio benefited the ...

In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Pampus minor has been determined by long polymerase chain reaction and primer walking methods. The mitochondrial genome is a circular mo...

In this study, we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome of Pampus cinereus (Bloch, 1795). This mitochondrial genome, consisting of 16,540 base pairs (bp), contains 13 protein-coding genes, two ribosomal RNAs, 22 transfer RNAs, and two mainly noncoding regions (control region and origin of light-strand replication) as those found in other vertebrates. Control region with 846 bp in length, is located between tRNAPro and tRNAPhe. The overall base composition of the heavy strand shows 27.4% of T, 27.5% of C, 30.0% of A, and 15.2% of G, with a slight A + T rich bias (57.4%). The complete mitochondrial genome data will provide useful genetic markers for the studies on the molecular identification, population genetics, phylogenetic analysis and conservation genetics.

The degradation of di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP), which is a pollutant of concern in an aqueous environment, was investigated using the combination of ozonation with ultraviolet irradiation (O3/UV) in this study. Compared with either ozonation or UV irradiation, the hybrid system stimulated the O3 molecule photolysis and the hydroxyl radical () generation; therefore, the DBP degradation through the pathway of attack was markedly reinforced. Since was a more vigorous oxidant than O3, both the kinetics of the DBP removal and the mineralization were increased. With the aqueous O3 fed rate of 4.03 mg/(L min), the spiked DBP molecules almost completely disappeared in 60 min, approximately 70% of which were converted into H2O and CO2. The effects of DBP concentration, aqueous O3 fed rate, and solution pH on the DBP degradation were also investigated. Pseudo-first-order kinetics model was able to depict the experimental data under different conditions. Eight intermediates were identified, and the DBP degrad...

The volatile compounds in Alaska pollock frame and Alaska pollock frame hydrolysates were analyzed by solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for identifying and comparing their flavor characteristics. The optimized SPME extraction conditions were 75 μm carboxen/polydimethyl siloxane fiber, adsorption time of 40 min, and extraction temperature of 65°C. Compared to Alaska pollock frame, Alaska pollock frame hydrolysates have more aromas detected and identified. Numerous volatile compounds were responsible for the overall aroma of Alaska pollock frame hydrolysates, such as 1-penten-3-ol, 2-penten-1-ol, ethyl acetate, methacrolein, 3-methylbutanal, hexanal, octanal, nonanal, 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, and so on. However, only a relatively small proportion showed similar composition. Although Alaska pollock frame hydrolysates was prepared by the same raw material, each Alaska pollock frame hydrolysate exhibited its individual flavor characteristics. Thus, the type of enzyme was prob...

A highly selective imprinted amino-functionalized silica gel microsphere was prepared by a simple molecular imprinting technique with a sol–gel process. Theophylline was used as template; 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS) as functional monomer and tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) as reticulating agent. These theophylline imprinted silica microspheres were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron micrographs (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in detail. The results showed that monodispersive APTMS-silica imprinted microspheres with size of 250 nm were synthesized successfully. Two kind of binding sites exist between the sol–gel imprinted microspheres and theophylline with K D and Q max for the higher affinity binding parameters was 1.89 μg/mL and 7.47 μg/mg dry polymers, and for the lower affinity binding sites were found to be 0.18 μg/mL and 3.47 μg/mg dry polymers, respectively. Packed in column, the impr...

Direct application of monolithic column of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for selective separation and purification of protocatechuic acid from the crude extract of seeds of Cirsium segetum Bunge was attempted in present work. An in-situ polymerization technique was used for the preparation of MIPs monolith using protocatechuic acid as the template, acrylamide as functional monomer, 1,1,1-Trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate (TRIM) as cross-linker, and a mixture of tetrahydrofuran-iso-octane (1:2, v/v) as porogenic agents. The preparation procedure was optimized and the retention behavior and selectivity of this monolith evaluated by chromatographic analysis. Then, this monolith was directly connected into the liquid phase chromatographic system to trap target molecule from crude extract. Results indicated its high selectivity for protocatechuic acid, good affinity to its structurally related compounds, and good workability in herb matrix. Sample matrix compounds in a crude extract of this p...

The effect of the extraction methods (conventional immersion extraction, ultrasonic‐assisted extraction, microwave‐assisted extraction, and Soxhlet extraction) on the molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) sensor function has been investigated in this paper. The molecularly imprinted polymer was synthesized by copolymerizing template analyte (theophylline) with methacrylic acid in the presence of the cross‐linker (ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) in tetrahydrofuran. Piezoelectric quartz crystal (PQC) sensors were modified with the MIP extracted by different methods. The electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the diameters of the polymer are 0.08∼0.15 µm. Response performance, selectivity, and recovery of the different sensors were compared and influencing factors were studied. From all the methods tested, microwave‐assisted extraction is the fastest method; the frequency response of the sensor modified with the MIP extracted by Soxhlet method is higher than the other extraction methods. This work was ...

Dipyridamole molecularly imprinted post‐microspheres were synthesized and studied using a bulk acoustic wave (BAW) sensor technique. Compared with other molecularly imprinted polymerized particles, this kind of post‐microsphere exhibits higher selectivity and sensitivity to dipyridamole. The linear response range of such post‐microsphere based sensor was from 4 × 10−8 to 1 × 10−4 M, with a detection limit of 4 × 10−9 M. TEM study indicates that there is a cavity existing in each post‐microsphere with an average diameter of 150 nm. It is suggested that this kind of post‐microsphere will find its application in many aspects.

In this study, we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome of Hippocampus mohnikei (Gasterosteiformes, Syngnathidae). This mitochondrial genome, consisting of 16 518 base pairs (bp), contains 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNAs, 22 transfer RNAs, and a non-coding control region as those found in other vertebrates. The control region, of 878 bp in length, is located between tRNAPro and tRNAPhe. The overall base composition of the heavy strand shows 29.90% of T, 22.98% of C, 32.12% of A, and 15.00% of G, with a slight A + T rich feature (62.02%).

In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequence of Coilia grayii has been determined by long polymerase chain reaction and primer walking methods. The mitogenome is a circular molecule of 16,851 bp in length and contains 37 mitochondrial genes including 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA (rRNA), 22 transfer RNAs (tRNAs) and a control region as other bony fishes. Within the control region, we identified the termination-associated sequence domain (TAS), the central conserved sequence block domains (CSB-F, CSB-E and CSB-D), and the conserved sequence block domains (CSB-1, CSB-2 and CSB-3).

In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequence of Saurida undosquamis has been determined by long polymerase chain reaction and primer walking methods. The complete mitochondrial genome is 16,550 bp in length and contains 37 mitochondrial genes (13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA (rRNA), 22 transfer RNA (tRNA)), and a control region as other bony fishes. Within the control region, we identified the termination-associated sequence domain (TAS), the central conserved sequence block domains (CSB-F, CSB-E, CSB-D, CSB-C, CSB-B and CSB-A), and the conserved sequence block domains (CSB-1, CSB-2 and CSB-3).