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Background Chemotherapy resistance is an important bottleneck affecting the efficacy of chemotherapy in colon cancer. Therefore, improving the chemotherapy sensitivity of colorectal cancer cells is of great significance for improving the prognosis of patients with colon cancer. Methods CCK-8 assay was employed to examine the cell viability of colorectal cancer cell lines. Realtime-PCR and western blot were used to explore toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) expression in colorectal cancer cell lines. The functions of TLR4 in the stemness of the colorectal cancer cell lines were analyzed by infecting cells with lentivirus containing TLR4 siRNA. Results We found that aspirin could effectively enhance the chemosensitivity of CT26 and HCT116 colorectal cancer cell lines. Aspirin can also inhibit the stemness of colorectal cancer cell including inhibiting the number of clone formation and reducing the volume and number of cell spheres and inducing the down-regulation of stemness-related genes. Besides that, aspirin also lead to down-regulation of TLR4 expression in colorectal cancer cells. The TLR4 positive colorectal cancer cells demonstrated a higher chemotherapy resistance potential than TLR4 negative colorectal cancer cells. In addition, the stemness of TLR4 positive colorectal cancer cells is stronger than TLR4 negative colorectal cancer cells. Conclusion The results of our study indicate that aspirin increases chemosensitivity of colorectal cancer cells and inhibits the expression of toll-like receptor 4.

Grain weight is an important factor contributing to grain yield in wheat. Markers closely linked to grain weight could be used in marker-assisted selection (MAS) to accelerate the wheat breeding process. In this paper, a second backcross recombinant inbred line (BC2F4) population, a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population, and one natural population were used to study the relationship between allelic variants of the grain weight gene TaGW2-6A and grain weight, width, and length with the goal of verifying the feasibility using the functional marker Hap-6A-P1/P2 in MAS. The differences in average grain weight, width, and length between haplotypes Hap-6A-G and Hap-6A-A were 8.09 g, 0.22 mm, and 0.38 mm, respectively, in the BC2F4 population; 4.01 g, 0.11 mm, and 0.10 mm in the RIL population; and 3.95 g, 0.10 mm, and 0.20 mm in the natural population. All the differences were significant. Sequencing results of the products of second round PCR indicated that a 167 bp TaqI restriction fragment had been generated from small-grain-size materials because of three TaqI restriction sites (TCGA). However, the large-grain-size variant generated a 218 bp fragment due to a single-nucleotide mutation (SNP) (TCGA → TCGG) at the third site. TaGW2-6A expression levels were negative with respect to grain width, length, and weight. For this reason, Hap-6A-G was considered a superior allele. These results contradict those of a previous study, which showed Hap-6A-A to be significantly associated with wider grain and higher grain weight.

The dwarf-male-sterile wheat is unique to China and has been improved by introducing good germplasm. In order to clear the subunits background of Dwarf-Male-Sterile wheat, sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) was used to detect the high and low molecular weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GS and LMW-GS) compositions in BC1F1, F2 and F3 generations from Dwarf-Male-Sterile wheat. Twenty-five alleles and 49 HMW-GS compositions at the Glu-1 loci were detected in different generations. Null and subunit 1 were mainly existed at Glu-A1 , and 7 + 8 and 7 + 9 were primarily detected at Glu-B1 in different generations. Subunit combination 5 + 10 mainly appeared in BC1F1, while 2 + 12 major presented in F2 and F3 generations. HMW-GS compositions null, 7 + 8, 5 + 10 and null, 7 + 9, 5 + 10 showed higher frequencies than other banding patterns, followed by null, 14 + 15, 5 + 10 and null, 7 + 9, 2 + 12 combinations. In addition, some rare subunit combinations such as 14 + 15, 13 + 16, 17 + 1...