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Circadian rhythm disruption is associated with immune system disturbance and has been observed in many health problems where chronic-inflammation acts as a major contributor. We aim to examine whether rest-activity circadian rhythm is associated with chronic inflammation using white blood-cell-based inflammatory indices including white blood cell (WBC) count, neutrophil count, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and systemic immune-inflammation index (SII). We analyzed the data from 8089 adults (age≥20) with at least 4 days of validated accelerometer recordings and a valid WBC count from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011–2014. Non-parametric rest-activity circadian rhythm parameters were derived from the accelerometer recordings. In the models adjusting multiple covariates, a one-quantile increase in relative amplitude (i.e. more robust circadian rhythm) was associated with 1 × 108 cells/L decrease in WBC number (95% CI: 5 × 107 to 1.5 × 108, P <.001), 7 × 107 cells/L decrease in neutrophils (95% CI: 3 × 107 to 1.1 × 108, P =.003) and 15.2 × 109 /L decrease in SII (95% CI: 6 × 109 /L to 20 × 109/L, P =.019). Consistent results were also observed for the association of M10 value and L5 value with these inflammatory indices. Our results indicated that blunted rest-activity circadian rhythm is associated with increased white blood-cell-based inflammatory indices in adults, suggesting interventions aiming at enhancing circadian rhythm by lifestyle programs may be a novel approach to improve the general health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the expression and role of ERAP1 in preeclampsia pathogenesis.Methods: ERAP1 expression of placental tissues was analyzed by Real-Time PCR and western blot. The location of ERAP1 was detected by immunohistochemistry. Cellular preeclampsia model was established by hypoxia treatment of HTR-8/SVneo cells (2% oxygen).Results: The present study revealed that ERAP1 expression were significantly elevated in placental tissues of preeclampsia, and hypoxiaincreased ERAP1 expression in trophoblast, suggesting that ERAP-1 may be involved in the development of preeclampsia.Conclusion: These finds highlight the role of ERAP1 in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of cloud computing technology, more and more users choose to outsource image data to clouds. To protect users' privacy and guarantee data's confidentiality, images need to be encrypted before being outsourced to CSP, but this brings new difficulties to some basic yet important data services, such as content-based image retrieval (CBIR). In this paper, a privacy-preserving image retrieval method based on an improved BoVW model is proposed. An improved BoVW method based on Hamming embedding can provide binary signatures that refine the matching based on visual words; therefore, retrieval precision is improved significantly; orthogonal transformation is utilized to implement privacy-preserving image retrieval, where image features are divided into two different fields with orthogonal decomposition, for which encryption and distance comparison are executed separately, and two kinds of operation results are fused in the final vector with orthogonal composition. As a result, cloud server can extract components from encrypted features directly and compare distance with those of query image, without violating the privacy of images and features. Any algorithm can be used to encrypt features, which enhance the practicability of the proposed method. The security analysis and experimental results prove its security and retrieval performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four inorganic–organic hybrid compounds, [M2(CuL)4(V4O12)]·2H2O (M = Co (1), Mn (2)), [Mn2(NiL)4(V4O12)]·2H2O (3), and [Zn2(CuL)4(V4O12)]·2CH3OH·2H2O (4) (M′L, H2L = 2,3-dioxo-5,6,14,15-dibenzo-1,4,8,12-tetraazacyclo-pentadeca-7,13-dien), have been synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, IR, UV, fluorescence spectra, and X-ray diffraction analysis. Single-crystal X-ray analysis reveal that both [V4O12]4−and M2V4adapt a chair-like configuration in four structures. The cyclovanadate group [V4O12]4−is a tetradentate bridging ligand linking two [M(M′L)2]2+fragments, producing centroantisymmetric heterometallic hexanuclear [M2M′4] complexes. The variable-temperature magnetic susceptibility measurements (2–300 K) of1and2show weak antiferromagnetic interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The copper hydroxyphosphate nanostructured microspheres with uniform diameter have been achieved via a template-free hydrothermal synthetic route with ammonia as alkali and complexing agent. Powder x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectrometry, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to characterize the morphologies and structures of the products. It has been found that the morphology of the final product depends strongly on the concentrations, molar ratios of the starting reagents, and the kinds of alkali. The possible formation process of the microspheres is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reduced glutathione (GSH) is generally administered for patients with cancer to reduce the side-effects of anti-cancer drugs. However, whether its protective effects interfere with anti-carcinogenicity is still unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of exogenous GSH on effects of oxaliplatin (L-OHP) or cisplatin (CDDP) by observing the proliferation and apoptosis of lung carcinoma cell line A549. Cell proliferation was evaluated by sulforhodamine-B assay and morphological changes were observed by an inverted microscope. Cell cycle distribution and apoptosis rate were observed by flow cytometry (FCM). Results showed that GSH did not change the inhibiting effects of L-OHP and CDDP on A549 proliferation, and did not reduce the apoptosis induced by CDDP. The FCM analysis showed the GSH combined with the CDDP group had fewer cells in the S-phase and had an apoptotic peak, which was not significantly different from that of the CDDP alone group ( p > 0.05). These results indicated that GSH does not reduce the effects of L-OHP and CDDP to inhibit A549 growth in vitro, and doesn't affect the apoptosis induced by CDDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aberrant expression of Anillin (ANLN) has been shown to function in the development of multiple cancers. However, its effects on colorectal carcinoma (CRC) remain unclear. We aimed to explore the role of ANLN in CRC development. By real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), Western blot, and immunohistochemistry (IHC), we assessed the expression level of ANLN in CRC tissues and cell lines. The role of ANLN in CRC cell proliferation was evaluated by CCK-8 assays, colony formation assays, EdU assays and cell cycle assays. A mouse tumorigenic model was established to evaluate the in vivo function of ANLN. We found that ANLN was overexpressed in CRC tissues and cell lines. Highly expressed ANLN correlated with tumor size, tumor number, and stage in patients with CRC. Silencing ANLN in CRC cell lines suppressed proliferation both in vitro and in vivo and induced G0/G1 cell cycle arrest. Downregulation of ANLN led to reduced phosphorylated levels of AKT and ERK. However, total AKT protein showed no change. SP2, a critical transcription factor, was implicated in the upregulation of ANLN. Our study demonstrated that ANLN regulates CRC cell proliferation via the PI3K/AKT and MAPK pathways, indicating that ANLN may represent a novel and effective target for CRC treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]