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For recovering the water quality of a river, it is a key factor to improve purifying capacity of wastewater in wastewater treatment plants (WTPs). The relational model for some key parameters of WTP processes is important for it can reveal the current situation and handling ability of the WTP and offer managers more useful information to design the processes for the optimized operation. The seasonal artificial neural network (ANN) models were designed for improving purifying ability of wastewater in a WTP of Harbin, northeast of China. The ANN models revealed the relationship of raw water quality, energy consumption, and effluent water quality. The effluent water quality could be predicted by the models. The clustering analysis method, an important data mining method, was used to classify the WTP data for building seasonal models. Meanwhile, an annual model was built by the whole data. It indicates that the prediction accuracy of seasonal models is better than the annual model by contrasting the e...

Supplementary tables. (DOCX 27Â kb)

Supplementary text for estimating the sensitivity of regulatory SNPs identification. (DOCX 23Â kb)

Supplementary figures. (DOCX 574Â kb)

// Jingfei Guo 1, 2, * , Qian Zhang 3, * , Xinyu Bi 1 , Jianguo Zhou 1 , Zhiyu Li 1 , Zhen Huang 1 , Yefan Zhang 1 , Muxing Li 1 , Xiao Chen 1 , Xuhui Hu 1 , Chi Yihebali 4 , Junbo Liang 5 , Jianmei Liu 6 , Jianjun Zhao 1 , Jianqiang Cai 1 , Hong Zhao 1 1 Department of Abdominal Surgical Oncology, Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, P.R. China 2 Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China 3 Department of Gastroenterology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China 4 Department of Internal Medicine, Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, P.R. China 5 State Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China 6 Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, P.R. China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Hong Zhao, email: zhaohong@cicams.ac.cn Jianqiang Cai, email: caijianqiang@cicams.ac.cn Jianjun Zhao, email: zjj8424@sina.com Keywords: midgut neuroendocrine tumor, liver metastasis, palliative surgery, primary tumor resection, survival benefit Received: August 15, 2016 Accepted: November 07, 2016 Published: December 24, 2016 ABSTRACT Background: Treatment for midgut neuroendocrine tumor patients with unresectable liver metastasis has long been a controversial issue. This system review aims to summarize existing evidence concerning the value of primary tumor resection in this group of patients. Results: 8 cohort studies were identified for qualitative analysis. None of them strictly met with the inclusion criteria and meta-analysis was impossible. There was a tendency towards better overall survival for the primary tumor resected group in all 8 studies, in which 6 demonstrated significant difference. Progression free survival to liver disease was prolonged and less patients died of liver failure in the resected group. Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE and CENTRAL were searched until 2016/7/4 for relevant studies, with primary outcome being overall survival, and secondary outcome being progression free survival, cause of death and symptom relief. Conclusions: Current evidence supports resection of primary tumor for midgut neuroendocrine tumor patients with liver metastases, but randomized controlled trials are required to reach a final conclusion.

We functionally characterized RhoS/RSA-14-44 as a new member of Rho GTPase subfamily in spermatogenesis, which provides a direct link between Rho family GTPase and the proteasome biogenesis., Most Rho family GTPases serve as key molecular switches in a wide spectrum of biological processes. An increasing number of studies have expanded their roles to the spermatogenesis. Several members of Rho family have been confirmed to be essential for mammalian spermatogenesis, but the precise roles of this family in male reproduction have not been well studied yet. Here we report a surprising function of an atypical and testis-specific Rho GTPase, RSA-14-44 in spermatogenesis. Featured by unique structural and expressional patterns, RSA-14-44 is distinguished from three canonical members of Rho cluster. Thus, we define RSA-14-44 as a new member of Rho GTPases family and rename it RhoS (Rho in spermatogenic cells). RhoS associates with PSMB5, a catalytic subunit of the proteasome, in a series of stage-specific spermatogenic cells. More importantly, RhoS does not directly modulate the cellular proteasome activity, but participates in regulating the stability of “unincorporated” PSMB5 precursors. Meanwhile, our data demonstrate that the activation of RhoS is prerequisite for negatively regulating the stability of PSMB5 precursors. Therefore, our finding uncovers a direct and functional connection between the Rho GTPase family and the pathway of proteasome biogenesis and provide new clues for deciphering the secrets of spermatogenesis.

Junbo Liang,1,2 Binghao Li,3 Li Yuan,4 Zhaoming Ye3 1School of Clinical Medicine, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, 2Department of Orthopedics, Taizhou Hospital, Taizhou, 3Department of Orthopaedics, Institute of Orthopaedic Research, Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 4School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China Abstract: Accumulated evidence has indicated a correlation between IGF-1R and bone and soft tissue sarcoma (BSTS) progression. However, research on the prognostic role of IGF-1R in sarcomas has revealed very different or even totally opposite results. This meta-analysis aimed to unveil the controversial role IGF-1R plays in predicting the outcome of BSTS patients. Wesystematically reviewed the evidence for the effect of IGF-1R expression in multiple types of BSTSs, including osteosarcoma, Ewing’s sarcoma, synovial sarcoma, liposarcoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma, to elucidate this issue. The prognostic value of IGF-1R expression in BSTS patients was evaluated regarding overall survival, measured by pooled hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Seven studies including 627 patients were enrolled in this meta-analysis. Our results demonstrated that IGF-1R expression was associated with poor outcome in terms of overall survival in BSTS patients (pooled HR =2.15, 95% CI: 1.06–4.38; P=0.03). In subtypes of BSTSs, elevated IGF-1R expression was revealed to be significantly correlated with worse prognosis in osteosarcoma (pooled HR =2.20, 95% CI: 1.59–0.03; P

Rhomboid proteins perform a wide range of important functions in a variety of organisms. Recent studies have revealed that rhomboid proteins are involved in human cancer progression; however, the underlying molecular mechanism remains largely unclear. Here we show that RHBDD1, a rhomboid intramembrane serine protease, is highly expressed and closely associated with survival in patients with colorectal cancer. We observe that inactivation of RHBDD1 decreases tumor cell growth. Further studies show that RHBDD1 interacts with proTGFα and induces the ADAM-independent cleavage and secretion of proTGFα. The secreted TGFα further triggers the activation of the EGFR/Raf/MEK/ERK signalling pathway. Finally, the positive correlation of RHBDD1 expression with the EGFR/Raf/MEK/ERK signalling pathway is further corroborated in a murine model of colitis-associated colorectal cancer. These findings provide evidence of a growth-promoting role for RHBDD1 in colorectal cancer and may aid the development of tumor biomarkers or antitumor therapeutics., Rhomboid proteins are involved in human cancer progression. Here, the authors show that RHBDD1, a rhomboid intramembrane serine protease, promotes tumor growth in colorectal cancer via cleavage and secretion of TGFα, and activation of the EGFR/Raf/MEK/ERK signalling pathway.

The ankyrin repeat domain 49 (ANKRD49) is an evolutionarily conserved protein highly expressed in testes. However, the function of ANKRD49 in spermatogenesis is unknown. In this study, we found that ANKRD49 resides primarily in nucleus of spermatogonia, spermatocytes and round spermatids. ANKRD49 overexpression augments starvation-induced autophagy in male germ GC-1 cells whereas shRNA knockdown of ANKRD49 attenuates the autophagy. Inhibition of NF-κB pathway by its inhibitors or p65 siRNA prevents the ANKRD49-dependent autophagy augmentation, demonstrating that ANKRD49 enhances autophagy via NF-κB pathway. Our findings suggest that ANKRD49 plays an important role in spermatogenesis via promotion of autophagy-dependent survival.

Spermatogenesis is an extremely intricate process that is tightly regulated and orchestrated by a series of well-coordinated gene expression programmes. Nemo-like kinase (NLK) is an evolutionarily conserved serine/threonine kinase that functions in a wide variety of developmental events. Nevertheless, the function of NLK in spermatogenesis has not been investigated. In this study, we found that the distribution of NLK in mice exhibited a dynamic change during testicular development and gradually became concentrated in the acrosomes of elongated spermatids. NLK overexpression promoted etoposide-induced apoptosis of male germ cell-derived GC-1 cells, while knockdown of NLK by RNA interference (RNAi) attenuated etoposide-induced apoptosis. Our findings suggest that NLK plays an important role in etoposide-induced germ cell apoptosis and may be associated with spermatogenesis.