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Background: Bladder cancer (BC) is a heterogeneous disease with high recurrence rate. The depth of response to platinum-based chemotherapeutic agents in urothelial neoplasm tissues varies greatly. Biomarkers that have practical value in prognosis stratification and early determination of therapeutic effect are increasingly needed. Our study aimed to select a set of BC-related genes involved in both platinum resistance and survival, then use these genes to establish the prognostic model.Methods: Platinum resistance-related DEGs and tumorigenesis-related DEGs were identified. Among the intersection of them, 10 most predictive genes were acquired through Cox, lasso, and stepwise regressions followed by building a risk score model with their regression coefficients. Survival analysis and ROC plot were used to evaluate the predictive accuracy of our model. Combined with age and TMN stages, a nomogram was generated to create a graphical representation of survival rates at 1-, 3-, 5-, and 8-year in BC patients. The prognostic performance of risk score was also validated in three independent BC datasets including cisplatin-treated patients and a gastric cancer cohort with platinum-based chemotherapy. The potential mechanism of the gene-based model was explored by enrichment analysis.Results: PPP2R2B, TSPAN7, ATAD3C, SYT15, SAPCD1, AKR1B1, TCHH, AKAP12, AGLN3, and IGF2 were selected for our prognostic model. Patients in high- and low-risk groups exhibited a significant survival difference (HR = 2.7, p < 0.0001). The prognostic nomogram of predicting 3-year OS for BC patients could yield an AUC of 0.819. In the external validation dataset, the risk score also has a robust predictive ability. Conclusion: A prognostic model derived from platinum resistance-related genes was constructed, we confirmed its value in predicting platinum-based chemotherapy benefits and overall survival for BC patients. The model might assist in therapeutic decisions for bladder malignancy.Subjects: Urology, Oncology, Bioinformatics, Molecular Biology.

Effective communication can improve coordination in cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL). One popular communication scheme is exchanging agents' local observations or latent embeddings and using them to augment individual local policy input. Such a communication paradigm can reduce uncertainty for local decision-making and induce implicit coordination. However, it enlarges agents' local policy spaces and increases learning complexity, leading to poor coordination in complex settings. To handle this limitation, this paper proposes a novel framework named Multi-Agent Incentive Communication (MAIC) that allows each agent to learn to generate incentive messages and bias other agents' value functions directly, resulting in effective explicit coordination. Our method firstly learns targeted teammate models, with which each agent can anticipate the teammate's action selection and generate tailored messages to specific agents. We further introduce a novel regularization to leverage interaction sparsity and improve communication efficiency. MAIC is agnostic to specific MARL algorithms and can be flexibly integrated with different value function factorization methods. Empirical results demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms baselines and achieves excellent performance on multiple cooperative MARL tasks.

In order to improve the intelligent level of man-machine interaction and auxiliary decision, this paper takes a bridge as the engineering background, selects box girder, pier, cap, pile foundation and so on to carry out parametric modeling. The secondary development process of Revit was explored. Based on IFC framework, Revit API functions were used to expand the data dimension of Revit. To make the bridge health inspection system redundant data visualization, to present the effect of real-time data model, can more intuitively understand the health of the bridge, the bridge disease status to make real-time diagnosis, early warning, and put forward the disposal countermeasures. Through the analysis of the model and data, the influence of the bridge under different climate conditions can be understood, so as to work out the most suitable bridge management and maintenance plan, increase the work efficiency in the operation and maintenance stage, and reduce the waste of funds.

SMARCA5 (circSMARCA5) is involved in the occurrence of different cancers, but its role in prostate cancer carcinogenesis and metastatic transformation remains elusive. Thus, we evaluated the circSMARCA5 functional relevance in prostate cancer and its associated molecular mechanism. First, circSMARCA5 expression and function in this cancer were evaluated. To determine the miR-181b-5p/miR-17-3p target and clarify how circSMARCA5 regulates the miR-181b-5p-TIMP3 and miR-17-3p-TIMP3 axis, RNA immunoprecipitation, biotin-coupled microRNA capture, luciferase reporter, Western blot, and quantitative real-time PCR assays were employed. In primary and metastatic prostate cancer tissues, circSMARCA5 was significantly downregulated compared with normal controls. Functionally, circSMARCA5 exhibited a suppressive effect on prostate cancer cells' metastasis and growth. At the molecular level, circSMARCA5 could affect the tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 3 (TIMP3) expression through miR-181b-5p or miR-17-3p interactions. Moreover, lysine acetyltransferase 5 (KAT5) induced circSMARCA5 biogenesis and regulated the miR-181b-5p-TIMP3 and miR-17-3p-TIMP3 axis. These results suggested that targeting circSMARCA5-miR-181b-5p-TIMP3 and circSMARCA5-miR-17-3p-TIMP3 axis might be a novel therapeutic strategy for prostate cancer.

Value-based multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) methods hold the promise of promoting coordination in cooperative settings. Popular MARL methods mainly focus on the scalability or the representational capacity of value functions. Such a learning paradigm can reduce agents' uncertainties and promote coordination. However, they fail to leverage the task structure decomposability, which generally exists in real-world multi-agent systems (MASs), leading to a significant amount of time exploring the optimal policy in complex scenarios. To address this limitation, we propose a novel framework Multi-Agent Concentrative Coordination (MACC) based on task decomposition, with which an agent can implicitly form local groups to reduce the learning space to facilitate coordination. In MACC, agents first learn representations for subtasks from their local information and then implement an attention mechanism to concentrate on the most relevant ones. Thus, agents can pay targeted attention to specific subtasks and improve coordination. Extensive experiments on various complex multi-agent benchmarks demonstrate that MACC achieves remarkable performance compared to existing methods.

Robotic adrenalectomy for pheochromocytoma is increasingly popular because of the advantage that have been proved by some researchers recently. However, prospective randomized clinical trials comparing robotic assisted laparoscopic adrenalectomy (RA) with traditional laparoscopic adrenalectomy (LA) for pheochromocytoma are rare. The aim of this study is to compare perioperative outcomes of RA versus LA for pheochromocytoma prospectively.From March 2016 to April 2019, all patients with pheochromocytoma suitable for laparoscopic adrenalectomy were assigned randomly to RA or LA. The primary endpoint was the operative (exclude docking time) time. Secondary endpoints were estimated blood loss and postoperative recovery. Demographics and perioperative data were prospectively collected.A total of 140 (RA 70, LA 70) patients were enrolled in this prospective research. The following significant differences were identified in favor of RA: shorter median operative (exclude docking time) time (92.5 vs 122.5 min, P = 0.007), however, RA group has higher total hospitalization cost (8869.9 vs 4721.8 $, P 0.001). Demographics and other perioperative outcomes were similar in both groups. The RA group showed a significant lower blood loss and operative (exclude docking time) time compared with LA group (P 0.05) for patients with high Nor-Metanephrine (NMN).Both RA and LA for pheochromocytoma are safe and effective. Patients with high NMN can benefit from less blood loss and operative time when a robotic surgery system was used, but RA has a significant higher cost.

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a malignant tumor that can metastasize easily. Hence, many patients have already developed metastasis when they are diagnosed. It is also one of the most common tumors that metastasize to the head and neck through extranodal disease. Herein, we reported a case of a 53-year-old man with cervical metastasis from bilateral RCC. Interestingly, whole exome sequencing (WES) and clonal evolution analysis revealed that bilateral renal tumor lesions and neck metastases (squamous cell carcinoma) share the same subclones and a large number of gene variants, while the pathological morphology is different (left nephrotic foci, a mixed pattern of mucinous tubular and spindle cell carcinoma (MTSCC) with papillary adenoma; right renal foci, papillary renal cell carcinoma (PRCC)). This was first reported in RCCs to the best of our knowledge. This case suggests that genotype analysis can be a powerful supplementary examination for clinical histopathological diagnosis. Gene detection has great significance for the accurate diagnosis and treatment of RCC metastasis or multiple lesions.

Background Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is an extremely rare malignant tumor with poor prognosis. Existing treatment options have limited effects, and new therapeutic targets urgently need to be discovered. TNFSF13B has been reported to be associated with the prognosis of clear cell renal cell carcinoma, but it has not been studied in ACC. Methods TNFSF13B expression was analyzed and compared between ACC tumors and normal tissues by using public datasets from TCGA and GTEx. Kaplan-Meier analysis was employed to evaluate survival, and Cox regression was employed to evaluate clinicopathologic features. The upstream and downstream regulatory mechanisms of TNFSF13B were also analyzed. GSEA was performed to explore the mechanisms of TNFSF13B in ACC. Finally, 14 ACC clinical samples were used to verify the relationships between TNFSF13B expression and disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Results TNFSF13B expression was significantly higher in ACC tissues than in normal tissues. The prognosis of ACC patients with high TNFSF13B expression was worse than that of patients with low TNFSF13B expression. High TNFSF13B expression was strongly correlated with poor prognosis, and TNFSF13B was a prognostic factor. TNFSF13B expression is modified by upstream miRNAs, methylation and ubiquitination, and downstream, it interacts with other proteins. GSEA showed that regulation of cholesterol biosynthesis by SREBP and SREBF, downstream signaling events of the B cell receptor (BCR) and activation of gene expression by SREBF and SREBP were significantly enriched in the TNFSF13B high-expression phenotype. Clinical samples confirmed that TNFSF13B expression was significantly associated with DFS but not with OS. Conclusions TNFSF13B may be a potential prognostic molecular marker of poor survival in ACC patients, offering a new therapeutic target.

For calculating the thin-walled closed curved box girder caused by the temperature gradient of the internal force and displacement, based on the fundamental differential equation of the curve beam and the principle of minimum energy, set a reverse statically indeterminate simply supported curve beam as the basic structure, consider the warping effect of the closed curve box girder, and put forward a kind of plane curve beam temperature deformation simple analytical calculation method. Compared with the finite element calculation results, the relative error of the analytical calculation results is less than 5%. It is concluded that the analytical method has sufficient accuracy in calculating the out-of-plane deformation of the thin-walled closed curved box girder under the temperature gradient.

Bladder cancer (BCa) is a common malignant tumor of urinary system with few treatments, so more useful therapeutic targets are still needed. Antitumor effects of tristetraprolin (TTP) have been explored in many type tumors, but its roles in bladder cancer are still unknown until now. In this study, public expression profiles and tissue microarray analysis showed that TTP mRNA and protein levels decreased in BCa relative to the normal bladder tissue. To explore biological functions of TTP in BCa, 488 TTP target genes, which could be both suppressed and bound by TTP, were identified by comprehensively analyzing publicly available high‐throughput data obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Gene enrichment analysis showed that these genes were enriched in pathways such as cell cycle, epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), and Wnt signaling. Clustering analysis and gene set variation analysis indicated that patients with high expression of TTP target genes had poorer prognosis and stronger tumor proliferation ability relative to the BCa patients with low expression of TTP target genes. In vitro experiments validated that TTP could suppress proliferation, migration, and invasiveness of BCa cells. And TTP could suppress mRNA expression of cyclin‐dependent kinase 1 (CDK1) in BCa cells by target its 3′ UTR. Then, we identified a new small double‐stranded RNA (dsRNA) named dsTTP‐973 which could increase TTP expression in BCa cells, in vivo and in vitro experiments revealed that dsTTP‐973 could suppress aggressiveness of BCa. In conclusion, TTP played a role of tumor suppressor gene in BCa like other tumors, and its dsRNA named dsTTP‐973 could induce TTP expression in BCa and suppress aggressiveness of BCa. With the help of materials science, dsTTP‐973 may become a potential treatment for BCa in the future., TTP overexpression can inhibit the malignant biological behaviors of BCa, and can be a potential therapeutic target for BCa. dsTTP‐973 which can induce TTP expression in BCa is able to suppress BCa progression, and dsTTP‐973 may be a potential treatment for BCa in the future.

Previous studies showed that miR-373 had the capacity to induce tumor suppressor gene E-cadherin expression in prostate cancer cells. However, whether miR-373 can activate the expression of E-cadherin in human bladder cancer (BCa) cells and inhibit cells remains to be elucidated. Here, we found that both miR-373 and E-cadherin were low expressed in BCa tissues and cell lines, and significantly correlated with tumor stage, grade, and lymph node metastasis. In addition, decreased E-cadherin expression or low expression of both miR-373 and E-cadherin is associated with poor overall survival in patients with BCa. Transfection of miR-373 into BCa cells readily activated E-cadherin expression by targeting promoter. Moreover, miR-373 exhibited robust capacity to inhibit cells proliferation, suppress migration and invasion by enhancing E-cadherin expression, and significantly suppress the growth of xenografts and metastasis in nude mice. Altogether, our findings indicate that miR-373 may as a tumor suppressor in BCa by activating E-cadherin expression.

Malignant pheochromocytoma (PHEO) is diagnosed only when metastasis has occurred, making it less likely for patients to obtain the benefits of traditional chemotherapy. Anti-oncogene TP53 mutation has been detected in PHEO and is possibly related to disease progression. However, whether the upregulation of wild-type TP53 has antitumoral effects on PHEO remains completely unknown. In the present study, we used RNA activation (RNAa) technique to upregulate the expression of wild-type TP53 by transfecting synthetic dsP53‑285 into PHEO cell line PC12. We found that the upregulation of wild-type p53 blocked the transition of PC12 cells from the G0/G1 to the S phase, with induction of apoptosis. Additionally, the above-mentioned findings were attested in vivo. Most importantly, dsP53-285-induced antitumoral effects were reversible following co-transfection with siRNA that targeted p53 mRNA. Collectively, our results revealed that the upregulation of p53 and possibly other anti-oncogenes may provide a potential effective therapeutic strategy for PHEO.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are novel treatments that significantly improve the survival time of MIBC patients, but immunotherapeutic responses are different among MIBC patients. Therefore, it is urgent to find predictive biomarkers that can accurately identify MIBC patients who are sensitive to ICIs. In this study, we computed the relative abundances of 24 immune cells based on the expression profiles of MIBC patients using single‐sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA). Unsupervised clustering analysis of the 24 immune cells was performed to classify MIBC patients into different immune‐infiltrating groups. Genome (gene mutation and copy number variation), transcriptome (mRNA, lncRNA, and miRNA), and functional enrichment were found to be heterogeneous among different immune‐infiltrating groups. We identified 282 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with immune infiltration by comparing the expression profiles of patients with different immune infiltration profiles, and 20 core prognostic DEGs were identified by univariate Cox regression analysis. An immune‐relevant gene signature (TIM signature) consisting of nine key prognostic DEGs (CCDC80, CD3D, CIITA, FN1, GBP4, GNLY, SPINK1, UBD, and VIM) was constructed using least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and subgroup analysis confirmed that the TIM signature was an ideal biomarker for predicting the prognosis of MIBC patients. Its value in predicting immunotherapeutic responses was also validated in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort (AUC = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.63‐0.74) and the IMvigor210 cohort (AUC = 0.64, 95% = 0.55‐0.74). The TIM signature demonstrates a powerful ability to distinguish MIBC patients with different prognoses and immunotherapeutic responses, but more prospective studies are needed to assess its reliability in the future., Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are novel treatments for MIBC and significantly improve survival time of MIBC patients, but ICIs are only effective for minority of MIBC patients. We first constructed a tumor immune infiltration–associated gene signature (TIM signature) for MIBC patients to predict prognosis and immunotherapeutic response by comprehensively comparing expression profiles of MIBC patients with different immune infiltrations in this study. This signature might be useful for future clinical immunotherapy of MIBC patients.

Background Abnormal expressions of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are very common in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), and some of these have been reported to be highly correlated with prognosis of ccRCC patients. Methods “edgeR” AND “DEseq” R packages were used to explore differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between normal and tumor tissues of ccRCC samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Univariable Cox survival analysis, robust likelihood-based survival model and multivariable Cox regression analysis were used to identify prognostic lncRNAs and construct lncRNAs signature. Finally, a graphic nomogram based on the lncRNAs signature was developed to predict 1-, 3- and 5-year survival probability of ccRCC patients by using rms R package. Results 8413 DEGs including 2740 lncRNAs and 4530 mRNAs were identified between normal and tumor tissues. 395 lncRNAs were found to be associated with prognosis of ccRCC patients (P

A P-Band high gain radio frequency (RF) amplifier is presented in this paper. It is fabricated in a 0.35 μm silicon-germanium (SiGe) heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology. Theory, simulation and measurement are shown. It is designed as a two-stage cascade amplifier. The input and output matching networks are designed on the chip. It achieves high power gain of 29.5 dB at 500 MHz, wide bandwidth of 1 GHz, low noise figure of 1.1 dB at 500 MHz, and high output 1 dB compression point of 11 dBm at 500 MHz. It is designed for narrow or wide bandwidth industrial and military applications that require high gain and low noise IF or RF amplification. It can also be easily integrated into a RF system-on-a-chip (SOC).

A high input impedance operational amplifier (OPA) with bipolar junction field effect transistor (Bi-JFET) technology is presented. By using JFET differential pair, it achieves very low input bias offset current (pA magnitude) and low noise (3 nV/sqrt(Hz)). Moreover, bipolar gain stage and output stage provides high open-loop gain (120 dB), high output voltage slew rate (more than 10 V/μs) and broadband performance (more than 10 MHz). The proposed OPA is very suitable for detecting and amplifying all kinds of weak signals.

Accumulating data suggest that micro RNAs (miRNAs) or double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) can activate gene expression by targeting promoters. The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21 (CIP1/WAF1) (p21) has also been shown to suppress epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) which plays a crucial role in the early stage of tumor metastases and invasiveness. In a previous study, we have reported that miR-370-5p is low-expressed in bladder cancer (BCa) tissues and cell lines. Here, we identified that miR-370-5p and sequence homology dsRNA (dsP21-555) fully complementary to promoter hold the potent abilities to induce p21 expression. Moreover, transfection of miR-370-5p or dsP21-555 into BCa cells remarkably inverts EMT-associated genes (increases epithelial cell makers E-cadherin and β-catenin, and decreases mesenchymal cell markers ZEB1 and Vimentin) expression mainly via regulating p21 expression. Besides, through manipulating p21, both the candidates can retard BCa cell migration and invasion. In summary, our results provide evidence that both endogenous and exogenous small RNAs may function to induce p21 expression by interacting with the similar promoter region and impede BCa metastasis.

e17529 Background: Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most common malignancies, with rising incidence rate in China. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) revealed 53% of patients with PCa had ETS family gene fusions. The most frequent fusion type of ETS fusions is TMPRSS2-ERG, which may predicts resistance to taxane and androgen-deprivation therapies. The prevalence of TMPRSS2-ERG fusion in Chinese PCa patients evaluated by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) or immunohistochemistry (IHC) varied from 7.5% to 78.0%. However, the sample sizes were small. In the present study, we investigated the prevalence and genetic features of TMPRSS2-ERG fusion by next generation sequencing (NGS) in a larger Chinese PCa cohort. Methods: Genomic profiling was performed through NGS from Chinese patients with PCa between January, 2017 and November, 2019. Formalin fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor specimens or blood samples from participants were collected for NGS. IHC staining for PD-L1 expression was performed using PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx assay or Ventana PD-L1 SP263 assay. Data analyses were performed using SPSS and R 3.6.1. Results: A total of 526 Chinese PCa patients were included in this study. The median age was 70 (range, 29-90) years old. We observed 13.1% patients with a positive PD-L1 expression, 3.0% patients with MSI-H, and a median TMB of 4.0 muts/Mb (range: 0-72.9). TMPRSS2 fusions were detected in 47 (8.9%) PCa patients, and 6.8% of patients had TMPRSS2-ERG fusion, which is significantly lower than that of Caucasian patients. The PD-L1 expression pattern and TMB distribution of the TMPRSS2-ERG fusion-positive patients were similar with TMPRSS2-ERG fusion-negative patients, however no fusion-positive patients were identified as MSI-H. Among these 36 TMPRSS2-ERG fusion-positive patients, the most frequently somatic mutations were detected in TP53 (38.9%), AR (11.1%), ATM (11.1%), and PTEN (11.1%). 9 (22.2%) patients harbored somatic mutations in PI3K/ AKT/mTOR pathway that has been previously demonstrated to collaborate with ERG to promote prostate cancer progression. Conclusions: This study revealed the prevalence and genetic features of TMPRSS2-ERG fusion in Chinese PCa patients by NGS in the first time. Our results provide a better understanding of molecular features in Chinese TMPRSS2-ERG fusion-positive PCa patients.

Previous studies have reported that double stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) have a potent ability to induce gene expression by targeting its promoter in cancer cells, which is called RNA activation (RNAa). In the present study, we have identified that a candidate dsRNA (dsEcad-215) could stimulate E-cadherin mRNA and protein expression via RNAa in renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Because the expression level of E-cadherin was down-regulated in RCC tissues compared to adjacent non-tumor tissues, dsEcad-215 was subsequently transfected into the RCC cell lines ACHN and 786-O. Expectedly, our results indicated that transfection of dsEcad-215 readily inhibited cell migration and invasion. In addition, several critical EMT-promoting genes (ZEB-1 and Vimentin) were down-regulated, while the anti-EMT gene β-catenin was up-regulated both at the mRNA and protein levels after dsEcad-215 transfection, suggesting that an enhanced E-cadherin level by dsEcad-215 suppressed EMT to inhibit cell motility. Collectively, our findings provide a potential effective therapeutic strategy for RCC, and dsEcad-215 might act as an alternative anti-cancer metastasis drug.

Current studies indicate that microRNAs (miRNAs) are widely decreased in various tumors and function as tumor suppressors by inhibiting cancer cell proliferation, survival, invasion, and migration. The potential application of using miRNAs to predict therapeutic responses to multiple types of cancer treatment holds high promise. In current study, we demonstrate that miR-3619-5p is downregulated in bladder cancer (BCa) tissues and cells. Exogenous overexpression of miR-3619-5p in BCa cells inhibits proliferation, migration, and invasion. Moreover, a nude mouse xenograft model shows that miR-3619-5p inhibits BCa cell growth. We also demonstrate that miR-3619-5p leads to the activation of p21 by targeting its promoter in BCa cells. Enforced miR-3619-5p expression consistently leads to the downregulation of β-catenin and cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) through predicted binding sites within the β-catenin and CDK2 3′-untranslated regions (UTRs), respectively. Moreover, β-catenin and CDK2 knockdown is able to mimic BCa cells growth and metastasis effects induced by overexpressing miR-3619-5p. We further confirm that miR-3619-5p inhibits Wnt-β-catenin signal pathway and EMT progression in BCa cells. We also found that miR-3619-5p-induced growth arrest and metastasis inhibition are p21-dependent in BCa cells. Taken together, these results confirm that miR-3619-5p plays a tumor suppressive role in BCa by interfering with cell growth and metastasis and may serve as a potential therapeutic target in BCa treatment.

Malignant pheochromocytoma is exactly diagnosed only upon the occurrence of metastatic foci. At that point, however, patients are less likely to experience many benefits from traditional chemotherapy. Therefore, a strategy worthy of consideration is inhibition or delay of metastasis with drugs. Recently, numerous studies have indicated that epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is involved in malignant pheochromocytoma, where there is over-expression of metastatic promoting genes and low expression of metastatic suppressor genes. In previous research, we confirmed that apogossypolone (ApoG2) could effectively inhibit tumor movement capabilities, but potential mechanisms for the inhibition were unknown. Here, we initially corroborated that ApoG2 could induce GSK-3/AKT complex formation to down-regulate phosphorylation of the PI3K/AKT pathway. Subsequently, ApoG2 inhibited cell mobilities via promotion of E-cadherin and β-catenin translocation from cytoplasm to membrane dependent on down-regulate of the PI3K/AKT pathway. Unexpectedly, ApoG2 seemed to promote tumor progression, instead of suppression when there were circulating tumor cells in vivo. Our results indicated that ApoG2 might be an effective target agent early in the disease rather than at the advanced stage where there are a majority of circulating tumor cells. Those cells rely on the mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) process to anchor to distant new sites. Hence, the so-called anti-tumor drugs with inhibition of migration and invasion should be carefully distinguished as to whether they are involved in EMT and MET processes or not. Most importantly, we identified that GSK-3 is not only a downstream effector but also an upstream regulator of the PI3K/AKT pathway.

Low expression levels of E‑cadherin are correlated with poor prognosis in patients with bladder cancer (BCa). A small activating RNA (saRNA) targeting a specific promoter region can activate gene expression. In the present study, two small double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) targeting the promoter region of human E‑cadherin were designed and synthesized, and the regulatory role of saRNAs in E‑cadherin expression was investigated. The results of reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blotting demonstrated that transfection of dsEcad‑346 into the BCa cell lines T24 and 5637 significantly activated E‑cadherin expression. Furthermore, transfection of dsEcad‑346 and miR‑373 induced cell cycle arrest in G0/G1 phase, promoted apoptosis and significantly inhibited migration and invasion of BCa cells. Results of immunofluorescence and western blotting indicated that β-catenin was redistributed from the nucleus to the cell membrane following transfection of dsEcad‑346 and miR‑373. Additionally, the expression of β-catenin/T-cell factor complex (TCF) target genes (c‑MYC, matrix metallopeptidase 2, cyclin D1) was suppressed following transfection of BCa cells with saRNA. Silencing of E‑cadherin expression blocked the inhibitory effect of dsEcad‑346 and miR‑373 on BCa cells. In conclusion, a novel designed dsEcad‑346 can activate the expression of E‑cadherin in BCa cells. saRNA-mediated activation of E‑cadherin expression inhibited the growth and metastasis of BCa cells by promoting the redistribution of β-catenin from nucleus to cell membrane and inhibiting the β-catenin/TCF target genes.

A novel class AB two stage operational amplifier was presented to deal with the problem of the conventional class A two stage operational amplifier’s limited slew rate. The output stage quiescent current was controlled accurately and the slew rate and unity gain bandwidth were enhanced significantly, along with no additional static power dissipation. Simulation results show that the positive and negative slew rates were raised to 35 and 2.2 times and unity gain bandwidth was raised to 5 times when compared with conventional class A operational amplifier.

The mechanism of dsRNA-induced gene activation (RNAa) is being gradually unveiled. The plentiful evidence that it existed in mammalian species other than human demonstrated that dsRNA-mediated RNAa is a conservative phenomenon. Simultaneously, accumulating evidence suggested that microRNAs could activate gene expression by targeting promoter. Nevertheless, it is ambiguous whether microRNA-induced gene activation in different human cells is a common phenomenon. The study we performed verified that miR-1236-3p (miR-1236) and miR-370-5p can activate p21 expression in bladder cancer (BCa) T24, EJ cells, and non-small-cell lung carcinoma A549 cells, while in hepatocellular HepG2 cells both microRNAs cannot effectively induce the expression of P21 WAF1/CIP1 (p21). In pancreatic cancer PANC-1 cells, only miR-370-5p had the potent abilities to induce p21 expression rather than miR-1236-3p. Unlike microRNA-mediated RNA activation, we can observe that dsP21-322 significantly activated p21 in above cells. Besides, we demonstrated that miR-1236 and miR-370 inhibited cyclin D1-CDK4/CDK6 pathway while upregulated E-cadherin expression by upregulation of p21 . Overexpression of these two microRNAs in A549 induced cell-cycle arrest and cell senescence, delayed cell proliferation and colony formation, and inhibited migration and invasion. In conclusion, microRNA-mediated RNAa depends on the cell context, and miR-1236 and miR-370 can inhibit non-small-cell lung carcinoma cell growth by upregulating p21 expression in vitro.

In our previous research, we have reported that a candidate microRNA (miR-1180-5p) has the capacity to induce overexpression of tumor suppressor gene p21 and inhibit the growth of human bladder cancer (BCa) cell lines in vitro. However, the exact mechanism as to how miR-1180-5p suppresses BCa cell proliferation remains unknown, and the inhibitory effect of miR-1180-5p in vivo also need to be investigated. In the present study, we found that the expression level of miR-1180-5p was lower in BCa cells than in normal human urothelial cells. Furthermore, we found that overexpression of p21, activated by miR-1180-5p, interfered with cell cycle progress by inhibiting the cell cycle related proteins (CDK4, CDK6, Cyclin D1 and Cyclin A2), and thereby suppressed BCa cell proliferation. In addition, miR-1180-5p also suppressed the tumor growth in vivo significantly. Taken together, our study provides evidence that up-regulation of p21 is mainly responsible for the suppressive effect of miR-1180-5p on BCa cells and miR-1180-5p can significantly inhibit tumorigenicity in vivo.

Recent studies have shown that miRNAs have potent abilities to activate gene expression by targeting promoter elements, a phenomenon known as RNA activation (RNAa). In the present study, we identified a new endogenous miR-3619-5p which was decreased in prostate cancer tissues and cells compared to corresponding normal controls. Moreover, overexpression of miR-3619-5p readily induced CDKN1A gene expression by directly targeting the putative site in the promoter. Besides, miR-3619-5p possessed considerable capacity to inhibit prostate cancer DU145 and PC3 cell growth, and downregulate several CDKN1A downstream genes, such as cyclin D1, CDK4 and CDK6. Notably, this antitumor function of miR-3619-5p was mainly achieved by stimulating CDKN1A expression.

To investigate the effects of a synthetic small double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) dsP21-555 on the development of bladder cancer cell lines T24 and EJ.According to the different treatments, bladder cancer cells were divided into three groups: negative control group (transfected with dsControl), positive control group (transfected with candidate microRNA, i.e. miR-370) and experimental group (transfected with dsP21-555). Real-time fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was conducted to detect the expressions of p21 mRNA and cyclin-dependent kinases 4/6 (CDK4/6) mRNA; Western blot was operated to verify the expression of P21 and CDK4/6 proteins. Cell cycle distribution was measured by flow cytometry after transfection. Cell proliferation assay was performed to evaluate the proliferative capacity of transfected cells. Colony formation assay was carried out to analyze the proliferative ability of single cancer cells.qPCR showed that, compared with the negative control group, dsP21-555 up-regulated the expressions of p21 mRNA by 2.46 times (P0.01) in T24 cells and 2.60 times (P0.01) in EJ cells; compared with the positive control group, the expression of p21 mRNA was no significantly different in the experimental group (P0.05). Compared with the dsControl group, dsP21-555 suppressed the expressions of CDK4 mRNA by 43% (P0.01) in T24 and 54% (P0.01) in EJ cells, the expression of CDK6 mRNA by 39% (P0.01) in T24 and 36% (P0.01) in EJ cells; the differences in the expression of CDK4 and CDK6 mRNAs between the miR-370 and dsP21-555 groups were not statistically significant (P0.05). Western blot verified the differences of p21 and CDK4/6 genes expression among groups. Flow cytometry revealed that the G0/G1 phase cells significantly increased while S and G2/M phase cells decreased in the miR-370 and the dsP21-555 groups, compared with the dsControl group. Cell proliferation assay showed that, compared with the dsControl group, the proliferative capacities of cells transfected with miR-370 or dsP21-555 decreased significantly (both P0.05), but the difference in proliferative capacities between the miR-370 and the dsP21-555 groups was no statistically significant (P0.05). Colony formation assay showed that the numbers of colonies formed in the miR-370 and the dsP21-555 groups were both smaller than that in the dsControl group.dsP21-555 may activate the expression of P21 protein by RNA activation, thereby significantly inhibit the growth of bladder cancer cells.

Qiangqiang Ge,1,* Chenghe Wang,2,* Yajun Ruan,1,* Zhong Chen,1 Jihong Liu,1 Zhangqun Ye1 1Department of Urology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, 2Department of Urology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally tothis work Abstract: Previous research has reported that a particular double-stranded RNA, named dsP53-285, has the capacity to induce expression of the tumor suppressor gene TP53 in chimpanzee cells by targeting its promoter. Usually, it is the wild-type p53 protein, rather than mutants, which exhibits potent cancer-inhibiting effects. In addition, nonhuman primates, such as chimpanzees, share almost identical genome sequences with humans. This prompted us to speculate whether dsP53-285 can trigger wild-type p53 protein expression in human prostate cancer (PCa) cells and consequently suppress cell growth. The human PCa cell lines LNCaP and DU145 were transfected with dsP53-285 for 72hours. Compared with the dsControl and mock transfection groups, expression of both p53 messenger RNA and p53 protein was significantly enhanced after dsP53-285 transfection, and this enhancement was followed by upregulation of p21, which indirectly indicated that dsP53-285 induced wild-type p53 expression. Moreover, overexpression of wild-type p53 mediated by dsP53-285 downregulated the expression of Cyclin D1 and cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6, thereby inducing PCa cell cycle arrest in G0/G1 phase and then inhibiting cell proliferation and clonogenicity. More importantly, dsP53-285 suppressed PCa cells mainly by modulating wild-type p53 expression. In conclusion, our study provides evidence that dsP53-285 can significantly stimulate wild-type p53 expression in the human PCa cell lines LNCaP and DU145 and can exert potent antitumor effects. Keywords: p53, small activating RNA, prostate cancer

Sequences for dsRNAs used in present study. Table S2. Sequences for real time quantitative PCR primers used in present study. (DOC 46 kb)