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Summary Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins (hnRNPs) play critical roles in the nuclear export, splicing, and sensing of RNA. However, the role of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A/B (hnRNPAB) is poorly understood. In this study, we report that hnRNPAB cooperates with nucleoprotein (NP) to restrict viral mRNA nuclear export via inhibiting viral mRNA binding to ALY and NXF1. HnRNPAB restricts mRNA transfer from ALY to NXF1, inhibiting the mRNA nuclear export. Moreover, when cells are invaded by influenza A virus, NP interacts with hnRNPAB and interrupts the ALY-UAP56 interaction, leading to repression of ALY-viral mRNA binding, and then inhibits the viral mRNA binding to NXF1, leading to nuclear stimulation of viral mRNA. Collectively, these observations provide a new role of hnRNPAB to act as an mRNA nuclear retention factor, which is also effective for viral mRNA of influenza A virus, and NP cooperates with hnRNPAB to further restrict the viral mRNA nuclear export., Graphical Abstract, Highlights • HnRNPAB inhibits influenza A virus replication by repressing viral mRNA nuclear export • HnRNPAB interrupts viral mRNA transferring from ALY to NXF1 • NP cooperates with hnRNPAB to further restrict viral mRNA nuclear export • The ALY-viral mRNA binding is restricted by NP-hnRNPAB complex, Molecular Biology; Virology

Porcine delta coronavirus (PDCoV) is a novel emerging enterocytetropic virus causing diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration, and mortality in suckling piglets. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are known to be important regulators during virus infection. Here, we describe a comprehensive transcriptome profile of lncRNA in PDCoV-infected swine testicular (ST) cells. In total, 1,308 annotated and 1,190 novel lncRNA candidate sequences were identified. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis revealed that these lncRNAs might be involved in numerous biological processes. Clustering analysis of differentially expressed lncRNAs showed that 454 annotated and 376 novel lncRNAs were regulated after PDCoV infection. Furthermore, we constructed a lncRNA-protein-coding gene co-expression interaction network. The KEGG analysis of the co-expressed genes showed that these differentially expressed lncRNAs were enriched in pathways related to metabolism and TNF signaling. Our study provided comprehensive information about lncRNAs that would be a useful resource for studying the pathogenesis of and designing antiviral therapy for PDCoV infection.

Additional file 4. Baseline characteristics of included trials.

Additional file 5. Risk of bias assessment.

Additional file 1. Search strategy.

Additional file 6. Rank probability and SUCRAs.

Additional file 3. Software code used.

Additional file 7. Inconsistency analysis.

It is of great potential to develop efficient and robust Ru based bifunctional catalysts for water electrolysis. In this work, NiO/RuO2 heterojunction nano-sheets in situ grown on nickel foam (NiO/RuO2/NF) is successfully prepared, which shows good activity and stability for both oxygen and hydrogen evolution reaction (OER and HER). For overall water splitting (OWS), it only needs 1.44 V to obtain 10 mA cm−2 in 1.0 M KOH solution. Notably, it can work for 72 h at ± 1,500 mA cm−2 toward OER, HER and OWS with small activity decrease. Under simulated industrial conditions, 1.90 V is needed to drive 1,500 mA cm−2, and it also can work steadily for 72 h. The reason could be attributed to the heterogeneous interface coupling effect and nano-sheets with rough surface directly grown on NF. Hence, this work provides a feasible strategy for developing robust bifunctional Ru based water splitting catalysts.

Blending hydrogen into the natural gas network has a pivotal role in absorbing large-scale renewable energy sources and alleviating the supply-demand contradiction between the electricity and natural gas. This work focuses on the modeling and simulation of hydrogen blended gas-electricity integrated energy system and the influence analysis of hydrogen blending modes. The coupling characteristics between the power grid and natural gas network are fully considered in the modeling process. The simulation analyses are performed based on the real-scale natural gas network, renewable energy generation capacity and real user loads to compare the influence of hydrogen blending modes on the natural gas network pressure, flow rate and network loss. Results show that hydrogen blending in the upper line of natural gas network is superior to that in the lower line, and the concentrated hydrogen blending strategy is better than the dispersed one. Hydrogen blending behavior will certainly increase the loss of the natural gas network. The closer the hydrogen blending location is to the natural gas pipeline outlet, the smaller the natural gas network loss is, which can reduce the loss by about 36.5 %. The work provides a profitable reference for the hydrogen blended gas-electricity integrated energy system to absorb the surplus renewable energy sources.

Highlights Cost-effective and time-efficient process for hybrid reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosheets with special magnetoresistance properties was fabricated.The prepared hybrid rGO nanosheets have large magnetoresistance at low magnetic field at room temperature and used in wireless magnetic field sensors for quick detection of low electromagnetic radiation. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s40820-020-0403-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users., Very few materials show large magnetoresistance (MR) under a low magnetic field at room temperature, which causes the barrier to the development of magnetic field sensors for detecting low-level electromagnetic radiation in real- time. Here, a hybrid reduced graphene oxide (rGO)-based magnetic field sensor is produced by in situ deposition of FeCo nanoparticles (NPs) on reduced graphene oxide (rGO). Special quantum magnetoresistance (MR) of the hybrid rGO is observed, which unveils that Abrikosov’s quantum model for layered materials can occur in hybrid rGO; meanwhile, the MR value can be tunable by adjusting the particle density of FeCo NPs on rGO nanosheets. Very high MR value up to 21.02 ± 5.74% at 10 kOe at room temperature is achieved, and the average increasing rate of resistance per kOe is up to 0.9282 Ω kOe−1. In this paper, we demonstrate that the hybrid rGO-based magnetic field sensor can be embedded in a wireless system for real-time detection of low-level electromagnetic radiation caused by a working mobile phone. We believe that the two-dimensional nanomaterials with controllable MR can be integrated with a wireless system for the future connected society. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s40820-020-0403-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Since ancient times, Mediterranean pine forests have been habitat for human activity, providing a wide range of goods such as timber, seeds, resin and derived products. Among them, tar and resin have played an historical role on the interaction between human activity and forests. In Spain, the resin played an important role in the economic and social development in rural areas during 20th century. But after 1980, resin production plummeted and the virtual disappearance of resin tapping caused the abandonment of traditional forest activities and the subsequently losses of ecosystem forest services (provision, regulation and cultural). This paper deals with some of the ecosystem services provided by resin tapped pine forests and shows how the abandonment of this traditional forestry activity would lead to a loss of social welfare beyond the economic activity. Among these ecosystem services, special attention is paid to the biodiversity of the pine forests. For that purpose, a stratified vegetation sampling was conducted in the leading resin-tapping Spanish region. Ecological analysis was therefore compared with the social preferences for several attributes associated to resin-tapped pine forests in Spain, including the biodiversity of flora., Financial support from the SUDOE Interreg IV B – UE/EU FEDER/ERDF program (project SUST-FOREST, ref. SOE2/P2/E261) is acknowledged. This paper is also an accidental contribution of M.S. and S.M. to the project StarTree (funded by the European Union through the European Commission's FP7 Cooperation Work Programme).

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been rapidly integrated into Internet of Things (IoT) systems, empowering rich and diverse applications such as large-scale environment monitoring. However, due to the random deployment of sensor nodes (SNs), physical topology of the WSNs cannot be controlled and typically remains unknown to the IoT cloud server. Therefore, in order to derive the physical topology at the cloud for effective real-time event detection, a cloud-orchestrated physical topology discovery scheme for large-scale IoT systems using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is proposed in this paper. More specifically, the large-scale monitoring area is first split into a number of subregions for UAV-enabled data collection. Within the subregions, parallel Metropolis–Hastings random walk (MHRW) is developed to gather the information of WSN nodes, including their IDs and neighbor tables. The collected information is then forwarded to the cloud through UAVs for the initial generation of logical topology. Thereafter, a network-wide 3-D localization algorithm is further developed based on the discovered logical topology and multidimensional scaling method (Topo-MDS), where the UAVs equipped with global positioning system are served as mobile anchors to locate the SNs. Simulation results indicate that the parallel MHRW improves both the efficiency and accuracy of logical topology discovery. In addition, the Topo-MDS algorithm dramatically improves the 3-D location accuracy, as compared to the existing algorithms in the literature.

Internet of Things (IoT) is emerging as the underlying technology of our connected society, which enables many advanced applications. In IoT-enabled applications, information of application surroundings is gathered by networked sensors, especially wireless sensors due to their advantage of infrastructure-free deployment. However, the pervasive deployment of wireless sensor nodes generate massive amount of sensor data, and data outliers are frequently incurred due to the dynamic nature of wireless channels. As operation of IoT systems relies on sensor data, data redundancy and data outliers could significantly reduce the effectiveness of IoT applications or even mislead systems into unsafe conditions. In this paper, a cluster-based data analysis framework is proposed using recursive principal component analysis (R-PCA), which can aggregate the redundant data and detect the outliers in the meantime. More specifically, at a cluster head, spatially correlated sensor data collected from cluster members are aggregated by extracting the principal components (PCs), and potential data outliers are determined by the abnormal squared prediction error score, which is defined as the square of residual value after extraction of PCs. With R-PCA, the parameters of PCA model can be recursively updated to adapt to the changes in IoT systems. Cluster-based data analysis framework also releases the computational and processing burdens on sensor nodes. Practical databases-based simulations have confirmed that the proposed framework efficiently aggregates the correlated sensor data with high recovery accuracy. The data outlier detection accuracy is also improved by the proposed method compared to other existing algorithms.

Developing active and durable catalysts for water splitting is challenging, especially at high current density. Herein, unique volcano-like FeIr alloy self-supported on nickel foam (NF) is prepared by hydrothermal process. It only needs overpotentials of 220.0 and 25.6 mV for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reaction (OER, HER) at ± 10 mA cm−2 in 1.0 M KOH, and both of them can keep for 124 h at ± 1,000 mA cm−2. For overall water splitting, 1.51 and 1.75 V are needed to reach 10 and 500 mA cm−2, and it can work at 500 mA cm−2 for 100 h in 30 wt% KOH solution at 60 °C. This can be due to the self-supporting volcano-like FeIr alloy structure, which can enhance the HER/OER intrinsic activity, and it is good for bubbles release to improve the stability. Thus, this work provides a strategy for developing efficient catalyst towards water splitting.

// Suthakar Ganapathy 1, * , Bo Peng 1, * , Ling Shen 1 , Tianqi Yu 1 , Jean Lafontant 1 , Ping Li 2, 3 , Rui Xiong 3 , Alexandros Makriyannis 1 , Changyan Chen 1 1 Center for Drug Discovery, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA 2 The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China 3 The Institute of Clinic Sciences, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg, Sweden * These authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Changyan Chen, email: c.changyan@neu.edu Keywords: apoptosis, Ras, Akt, ROS, p73 Received: December 21, 2016 Accepted: February 28, 2017 Published: March 09, 2017 ABSTRACT Gain of functional mutations in ras occurs in more than 30% of human malignancies and in particular 90% of pancreatic cancer. Mutant ras , via activating multiple effector pathways, not only promote cell growth or survival, but also apoptosis, depending upon cell types or circumstances. In order to further study the mechanisms of apoptosis induced by oncogenic ras , we employed the ras loop mutant genes and demonstrated that Akt functioned downstream of Ras in human pancreatic cancer or HPNE cells ectopically expressing mutated K-ras for the induction of apoptosis after the concurrent suppression of PKC α and β. In this apoptotic process, the redox machinery was aberrantly switched on in the pancreatic cancer cells as well as prostate cancer DU145 cells. p73 was phosphorylated and translocated to the nucleus, accompanied with UPR activation and induction of apoptosis. The in vitro results were corroborated by the in vivo data. Thus, our study indicated that PKC α and β appeared coping with oncogenic Ras or mutated Akt to maintain the balance of the homeostasis in cancer cells. Once these PKC isoforms were suppressed, the redox state in the cancer cells was disrupted, which elicited persistent oncogenic stress and subsequent apoptotic crisis.

This chapter explores ‘image writing’, an independent nonfiction film practice of experimenting with and ‘writing’ through moving images as an artistic expression and cultural intervention in contemporary mainland China. As a concept similar to caméra-stylo that was advocated by Alexandre Astruc in his influential article ‘The Future of Cinema’ (1948), its motivation and aesthetic features are culturally and socially rooted in Chinese reality. The aesthetic form associated with yingxiang xiezuo can be understood as ‘essayistic’ in the sense that it is influenced by a Chinese literary essay tradition, Chinese language expression and socio-political conditions in China. Kiki Tianqi Yu argues that current criticism and theorisation around the essay film is largely rooted in western film studies; and that features of the essayistic or the ‘screen-writing’ process in cultures with different literary traditions, socio-political contexts and linguistic structures, such as those in China, require different methods of interrogation. The chapter includes a close reading of Chinese Zhao Liang’sBehemoth (2015), foremost his use of parallelism and juxtaposition.

The evolving fifth generation (5G) technologies will enable the pervasive deployment of Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems because of their advantages of massive connectivity, wide coverage, low latency and high throughput. However, the 5G-enabled IoT systems still face several critical challenges such as IoT device management, Big Data analytics and storage, and privacy and security protection. Blockchain technology is among the most promising solutions to address the related challenges. Specifically, blockchain is a decentralized database that can record and validate all the peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions executed in a distributed information and communication technology (ICT) system without relying on any central authority or third party for verification. The decentralized, secure and autonomous characteristics of blockchain technology make it possible to improve the performance of IoT systems through the introduction of many new mechanisms such as smart property trading, asset tracking, distributed data storage, and privacy and security management. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of how blockchain technology could facilitate IoT systems. The fundamental principle of blockchain technology is first presented. Existing applications of blockchain technology on strengthening the IoT systems are then surveyed. Finally, the main challenges of integrating blockchain technology into IoT applications are analyzed and future research directions of related areas are also identified.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) participate in regulating many biological processes. However, their roles in influenza A virus (IAV) pathogenicity are largely unknown. Here, we analyzed the expression profiles of lncRNAs and mRNAs in H3N2-infected cells and mock-infected cells by high-throughput sequencing. The results showed that 6129 lncRNAs and 50,031 mRNA transcripts in A549 cells displayed differential expression after H3N2 infection compared with mock infection. Among the differentially expressed lncRNAs, 4963 were upregulated, and 1166 were downregulated. Functional annotation and enrichment analysis using gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes databases (KEGG) suggested that target genes of the differentially expressed lncRNAs were enriched in some biological processes, such as cellular metabolism and autophagy. The up- or downregulated lncRNAs were selected and further verified by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a comparative expression analysis of lncRNAs in A549 cells infected with H3N2. Our results support the need for further analyses of the functions of differentially expressed lncRNAs during H3N2 infection. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s12250-019-00170-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Chromosome enumeration is an important but tedious procedure in karyotyping analysis. In this paper, to automate the enumeration process, we developed a chromosome enumeration framework, DeepACE, based on the region based object detection scheme. Firstly, the ability of region proposal network is enhanced by a newly proposed Hard Negative Anchors Sampling to extract unapparent but important information about highly confusing partial chromosomes. Next, to alleviate serious occlusion problems, we novelly introduced a weakly-supervised mechanism by adding a Template Module into classification branch to heuristically separate overlapped chromosomes. The template features are further incorporated into the NMS procedure to further improve the detection of overlapping chromosomes. In the newly collected clinical dataset, the proposed method outperform all the previous method, yielding an mAP with respect to chromosomes as 99.45, and the error rate is about 2.4%.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) play critical roles in various diseases. However, whether and how circular RNA regulates influenza A virus (IAV) infection is unknown. Here, we studied the role of circular RNA GATA Zinc Finger Domain Containing 2A (circ-GATAD2A) in the replication of IAV H1N1 in A549 cells. Circ-GATAD2A was formed upon H1N1 infection. Knockdown of circ-GATAD2A in A549 cells enhanced autophagy and inhibited H1N1 replication. By contrast, overexpression of circ-GATAD2A impaired autophagy and promoted H1N1 replication. Similarly, knockout of vacuolar protein sorting 34 (VPS34) blocked autophagy and increased H1N1 replication. However, the expression of circ-GATAD2A could not further enhance H1N1 replication in VPS34 knockout cells. Collectively, these data indicated that circ-GATAD2A promotes the replication of H1N1 by inhibiting autophagy.

The recent advancement of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies has enabled many emerging applications, including smart building and connected vehicles. These advanced applications generate massive amount of data at the edge of IoT networks, which usually need to be relayed to a remote data center for further real-time processing. However, uploading all these IoT data to the cloud platform imposes a heavy burden on the underlying network. The unavoidable long delay from data exchange and processing significantly reduces the time-responsiveness of real-time IoT applications. Recently, fog computing has been introduced to IoT applications as an intermediate between end devices and cloud for primary IoT data processing. In this paper, a temporal IoT data reduction scheme through fog computing is proposed to reduce the total amount of IoT data uploaded to the cloud. More specifically, IoT data are first modeled as multivariate normal distribution by the cloud. Dual Kalman filters (KF) with identical parameters are then deployed at both the cloud and fog platforms. The same predictions are simultaneously triggered by the dual KFs at both platforms. Only the measured IoT data out of predicted range are further uploaded from fog to cloud. Otherwise, predicted values at both platforms are used instead of measurements. A simple prototype IoT system is developed for performance evaluation. Experimental results indicate that the proposed scheme significantly reduces the number of packets uploaded to the cloud platform with high data accuracy.

Ai Weiwei's film Lao Ma Ti Hua (aka Disturbing the Peace, 2009) is one of the most influential activist documentaries that emerged during the aftermath of Sichuan earthquake in 2009. The film relates to Ai's ‘Public Citizen Investigation Project’, which gathers many volunteers to explore the substandard ‘tofu construction’ of school buildings that took thousands of children's lives when they collapsed in the earthquake. In August 2009, Ai's group went to Chengdu court to support another independent investigator, writer, and environmentalist Tan Zuoren who was prosecuted for subversion of state power. The night before the trial, Ai was beaten by secret security agents and the group was stopped from going to the court. The film subsequently records the group searching for an official explanation from the authorities. Whilst acknowledging the power of the film in constructing a collective political subjectivity, and the discursive effect through screenings and discussions raised, this paper focuses on the ve...

Side effects of anti-cancer drugs are always challenging for effective cancer treatments. The polysaccharides extracted from Phellinus linteus (PLGL) have been widely used in treating cancers. However, the mechanism by which PLGL antagonizes cancerous growth has not been fully investigated. The current study demonstrated that human colon cancer HCT116 and HT29 cells became highly susceptible to cell death when being co-treated with PLGL and low dose of camptothecin11 (CPT11, a topoisomerase inhibitor-based drug), the efficacy of which was comparable as that generated by the high dose of CPT11. However, the co-treatment, unlike high doses of CPT11, was not cytotoxic to the control immortalized colon Caco-2 cells. The co-treatment caused high percentages of the colon cancer cells to accumulate in S phase of the cell cycle, which was also seen in the same cells received the high dose of CPT11 treatment. Chk1 was phosphorylated, and then rapidly degraded in the cancer cells treated with the high dose of CPT11 or co-treatment, but not in the cells treated with PLGL alone or low doses of CPT11. PLGL appeared enhancing CPT11 inhibitory effect on topoisomerase, and Chk1 degradatopm in the cancer cells. Furthermore, cyclin E (clnE) became unstable at the transcription level in co-treated or PLGL-treated colon cancer cells. The data suggested that PLGL functions in two ways to achieve its lethal synergy with CPT11 in colon cancer cells. Our findings are of potential significance as PLGL represents a promising medicine for overcoming the side effects of CPT11 and perhaps also for improving other CPTs-based regimens.

A chimeric porcine circovirus type 1-2 (PCV1-2) infectious DNA clone has low transfection efficiency and exhibits low levels of proliferation. Electroporation and lipofection parameters were optimized for PK-15 and Dulac cells with the purpose of increasing the efficiency for rescuing infectious PCV1-2. Titers of PCV1-2 in Dulac cells were 100-fold higher than those in PK-15 cells following transfection. The electroporation efficiency into Dulac cells was high when three 400 μs pulses at 250 V with 6 μg of plasmid DNA was used, lipofection efficiency was high when the ratio of DNA to transfection reagent was 1:3. The proportion of infected cells was 55.6% compared with 44.2%, for the electroporation and lipofection techniques respectively. Virus titers were higher in Dulac cells, from 10(4.44) to 10(5.32)TCID50/mL compared with 10(1.90)-10(3.38)TCID(50)/mL for PK-15 cells. Dulac cells were more permissive to PCV1-2 than PK-15 cells regardless of the transfection technique.

Chinese independent documentary is no longer a fresh face for international audiences, having won awards at many International film festivals. Well known feature documentaries include Wang Bing's W...

Hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] is a well-known environment carcinogen. The exposure of Cr(VI) through contaminated soil, air particles, and drinking water is a strong concern for the public health worldwide. While many studies have been done, it remains unclear which intracellular molecules transduce Cr(VI)-mediated carcinogenic signaling in cells to promote cancer. In this study, we demonstrated that upon Cr(VI) treatment, the intracellular receptor src was activated, which further upregulated Ras activity, leading to the augmentation of ROS and onset of ER stress in human lung epithelial BEAS-2B or keratinocytes. These cells were formed colonies in soft agar cultures following the persistent Cr(VI) treatment. Furthermore, anti-apoptotic factor Bcl-2 was upregulated and activated in the colonies. Thus, our study suggests that Cr(VI), though activating the src and Ras signaling axis, perturbs redox state and invokes ER stress for the establishment of carcinogenic actions in the cells. In this process, Bcl-2 appears playing an important role. By uncovering these intracellular targets, our study may help developing novel strategies for better environmental protection, especially in areas contaminated or polluted by Cr(VI) as well as for effective cancer treatments.

Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) is subdivided into four genotypes: PCV2a, PCV2b, PCV2c and PCV2d. Here, for the first time, we compared the efficacy of two experimental inactivated chimeric PCV1-2 vaccines based on genotypes 2b and 2d. Seventeen 3-week-old pigs were divided randomly into four groups. Group 1 and 2 pigs were inoculated with genotype 2b- and 2d-based inactivated vaccines, respectively. At 28 days post-vaccination (DPV), pigs in groups 1–3 were challenged with the PCV2b 0233 strain. All experimental pigs were necropsied at 21 days post-challenge (DPC). Pigs vaccinated with the genotype 2b- or 2d-based vaccine had high antibody titres and lower PCV2b copy numbers in samples of sera, faeces and nasal secretions compared with pigs in the unvaccinated challenge group. Interestingly, we detected no DNA from the challenge strain in the superficial inguinal lymph nodes of the pigs immunized with the PCV2b vaccine, while one pig in the PCV2d- immunized group had detectable DNA from the challenge strain at 21 DPC. We found no significant differences in the humoral immune response, PCV2b load, or PCV-related microscopic lesions between the two vaccinated groups post-challenge. Therefore, both vaccines were equally effective at inducing immunity against challenge with PCV2b strain 0233.

Nf1 mutations or deletions are suggested to underlie the tumor predisposition of NF1 (neurofibromatosis type 1) and few treatments are available for treating NF1 patients with advanced malignant tumors. Aberrant activation of Ras in Nf1-deficient conditions is responsible for the promotion of tumorigenesis in NF1. PKC is proven to be an important factor in supporting the viability of Nf1-defected cells, but the molecular mechanisms are not fully understood. In this study, we demonstrate that the inhibition of protein kinase C (PKC) by 1-O-Hexadecyl-2-O-methyl-rac-glycerol (HMG, a PKC inhibitor) preferentially sensitizes Nf1-defected cells to apoptosis, via triggering a persistent mitotic arrest. In this process, Ral A is activated. Subsequently, Chk1 is phosphorylated and translocated to the nucleus. Silencing Ral A significantly blocks Chk1 nuclear translocation and releases HMG-treated Nf1-deficient cells from mitotic arrest, resulting in the reduction of the magnitude of apoptosis. Thus, our study reveals that PKC is able to maintain the homeostasis or viability of Nf1-defected cells and may serve as a potential target for developing new therapeutic strategies.

In drinking water and in workplace or living environments, low doses of arsenic can exist and operate as a potent carcinogen. Due to insufficient understanding and information on the pervasiveness of environmental exposures to arsenic, there is an urgent need to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms of arsenic regarding its carcinogenic effect on human health. In this study, we demonstrate that low doses of arsenic exposure mitigate or mask p53 function and further perturb intracellular redox state, which triggers persistent endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and activates UPR (unfolded protein response), leading to transformation or tumorigenesis. Thus, the results suggest that low doses of arsenic exposure, through attenuating p53-regulated tumor suppressive function, change the state of intracellular redox and create a microenvironment for tumorigenesis. Our study also provides the information for designing more effective strategies to prevent or treat human cancers initiated by arsenic exposure.

Background Porcine circovirus type-2b (PCV2b) is recognized as the etiological agent of the various clinical manifestations of porcine circovirus-associated disease (PCVAD). Previous studies have demonstrated effectiveness of chimeric PCV1-2 vaccines against PCV2b challenge. In this study, the efficacy of inactivated and live-attenuated (2 × 103.5 or 2 × 104.0 50 % tissue culture infective dose [TCID50] dose) chimeric PCV1-2b vaccines was compared side-by-side in conventional pigs. Methods Twenty-seven non-PCV2 viremic pigs without PCV2-specific antibody were randomly divided into six groups, including four vaccinated and challenged groups, a nonvaccinated challenged group, and a mock group. All pigs except those in the mock group were challenged at 28 days post vaccination (DPV) using PCV2b. Results Both inactivated and live-attenuated chimeric PCV1-2b vaccines induced a robust antibody responses, and significantly decreased microscopic lesion and lower viral loads in serum or superficial inguinal lymph nodes (SILN) compared with that in the nonvaccinated challenged group. PCV2 antibody titers decreased after 7 days post challenge (DPC) in pigs administered the inactivated PCV1-2b vaccine and they were lower than those in pigs inoculated with live-attenuated PCV1-2b on the day of necropsy. Moreover, no viremia was present in pigs inoculated with live-attenuated PCV1-2b vaccine at 21 DPC regardless of the dose difference. Conclusions The results demonstrated that both inactivated and live-attenuated chimeric PCV1-2b vaccines were effective to induce protective immunity against PCV2b infection.

Energy efficiency is one of the most critical issues in wireless sensor networks, since the sensor nodes are usually battery powered. These energy-constrained sensor nodes are usually densely distributed in indoor environments, which leads to spatially correlated sensor data and low network efficiency. Thus, one way to improve energy efficiency is to reduce the redundancy caused by the correlated data. In this paper, a new sensor scheduling algorithm, based on data correlation, is proposed. The sensor nodes are clustered into groups by a new adaptive dual-metric K-means (DK-means) algorithm. Within each group, the sensor nodes take turns to work as a group representative and transmit data to the sink. Thus, the energy consumed by the redundant transmissions of the correlated sensor data is saved. Performance evaluation of the proposed mechanism is conducted through OPNET simulations. The simulation results show that the adaptive DK-means algorithm significantly improves data reliability, as compared to the adaptive K-means algorithm. Furthermore, this improvement in reliability is achieved with minimal cost in terms of complexity. Finally, it is shown that the proposed sensor scheduling algorithm achieves energy savings of up to 58%, as compared to the baseline ZigBee protocol.