Search

Objective: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) participate in multiple processes of malignant tumors, including glioma. In this study, we aimed to explore the effect of LINC00346 on glioma and its underlying mechanism., Materials and Methods: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) databases were used to analyze the expression patterns and survival risk of LINC00346, miR-128-3p and SUZ RNA binding domain containing 1 (SZRD1) in glioma tissues. The binding sites were predicted by bioinformatic databases, and then, validated by Dual-Luciferase assay and RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP). qRT-PCR and Western blot were performed to evaluate the gene expression levels. CellTiter-Glo® and colony formation assays were used to detect the proliferation of glioma cells. Flow cytometric analysis was used to evaluate the apoptosis of glioma cells. The xenograft models were established to investigate the impact of LINC00346 on tumor growth in vivo., Results: We found that both LINC00346 and SZRD1 expression were negatively related to the poor overall survival rate in glioma patients. However, miR-128-3p showed the opposite effect of survival outcomes. LINC00346 knockdown remarkably restrained cell proliferation both in vitro and in vivo, as well as inducing apoptosis by acting as a molecular sponge of miR-128-3p. Moreover, miR-128-3p bound to SZRD1 3'-UTR in a sequence-specific manner. In addition, LINC00346 knockdown significantly inhibited the expression of SZRD1 and the inhibition could be reversed by miR-128-3p mimics. Furthermore, cell proliferation and apoptosis affected by LINC00346 were partially rescued by modulating miR-128-3p or SZRD1 expression., Conclusions: LINC00346/miR-128-3p/SZRD1 axis played a crucial role in modulating the malignant progression of glioma, which may serve as a prognostic indicator and a probable therapeutic target for glioma.

Objective: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play critical roles in tumour progression. However, the function of lncRNA small nucleolar RNA host gene 11 (SNHG11) in glioma has not been mentioned before. Our study aims to uncover the biological roles of SNHG11 in the progression of glioma and throw light for clinical treatment of glioma., Materials and Methods: The Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) dataset was used to analyze the SNHG11 expression between glioma and normal tissue, as well as survival benefit. The quantitative Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to detect SNHG11 and miR-154-5p expression. Celltiter-Glo, colony formation, and transwell assays were utilized to detect the influence of SNHG11 to the malignancy of U87 and U251 cells. The underlying pathways affected by SNHG11 were measured using Western blot. Furthermore, Luciferase reporter assay was applied to verify the interaction between SNHG11 and miR-154-5p., Results: SNHG11 was upregulated in glioblastoma tissues and five malignant glioma cell lines. SNHG11 expression was negatively correlated with overall survival of glioma patients. Moreover, silencing of SNHG11 could decrease glioma cell viability both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, the inhibition of SNHG11 suppressed proliferation, invasion and migration via regulating epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). In addition, SNHG11 could bind miRNA-154-5p and negatively regulate its level., Conclusions: SNHG11 functioned as an oncogene in glioma and promoted proliferation, invasion, and migration via EMT by sponging miR-154-5p. These findings provided a new therapeutic target for glioma.

Aim: To compare the outcomes of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) for degenerative spondylolisthesis transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) and oblique lumbar interbody fusion (OLIF). Materials & methods: The clinical and surgical characteristics and outcomes of 38 patients with MIS-OLIF and 55 with MIS-TLIF were retrospectively evaluated. Results: Procedures and hospital stay were shorter and blood loss was less, with MIS-OLIF than with MIS-OLIF. The clinical and radiographic outcomes were similar. Postoperative changes in disk height and foraminal dimension were greater and patient satisfaction was better with MIS-OLIF than with MIS-TLIF. Conclusion: The clinical findings associated with the two procedures were similar; but patients preferred MIS-OLIF, which is less invasive, to MIS-TLIF. Clinical trial registration number: ChiCTR1800019443.

Background: H3K27M is the most frequent mutation in brainstem gliomas (BSGs), and it has great significance in the differential diagnosis, prognostic prediction and treatment strategy selection of BSGs. There has been a lack of reliable noninvasive methods capable of accurately predicting H3K27M mutations in BSGs., Methods: A total of 151 patients with newly diagnosed BSGs were included in this retrospective study. The H3K27M mutation status was obtained by whole-exome, whole-genome or Sanger's sequencing. A total of 1697 features, including 6 clinical parameters and 1691 imaging features, were extracted from pre- and post-contrast T1-weighted and T2-weighted images. Using a random forest algorithm, 36 selected MR image features were integrated with 3 selected clinical features to generate a model that was predictive of H3K27M mutations. Additionally, a simplified prediction model comprising the Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) at diagnosis, symptom duration at diagnosis and edge sharpness on T2 was established for practical clinical utility using the least squares estimation method., Results: H3K27M mutation was an independent prognostic factor that conferred a worse prognosis (p = 0.01, hazard ratio = 3.0, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.57-5.74). The machine learning-based model achieved an accuracy of 84.44% (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.8298) in the test cohort. The simplified model achieved an AUC of 0.7839 in the test cohort., Conclusions: Using conventional MRI and clinical features, we established a machine learning-based model with high accuracy and a simplified model with improved clinical utility to predict H3K27M mutations in BSGs., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Root biomass exponential regression method was used to distinguish root respiration from soil microbial respiration in a Leymus Chinensis steppe in the Xilin River Basin of Inner Mongolia, China. The contribution of root respiration to soil respiration averaged (24 +/- 3)%, ranging from 13%-52%; while the contribution of microbial respiration to soil respiration averaged (76 +/- 3)%, ranging from 48%-87%. Correlation between soil respiration and root biomass was relatively unstable. Root respiration vitality decreased exponentially with the ratio of root to shoot biomass (R2 = 0.661, P = 0.20), while it increased exponentially with soil water content at 0-10 cm, 10-20 cm, 20-30 cm and 30-40 cm (P < 0.0001). CO2 released by root respiration and the contribution of root respiration to soil respiration increased exponentially with root respiration vitality (R = 0.848, P = 0.01; R2 = 0.818, P = 0.01, respectively).

Static opaque chamber-chromatographic technique was applied to measure the ecosystem respirations of Leymus chinensis steppe and Stipa baicalensis steppe. The affecting factors of ecosystem respiration were analyzed. The difference between ecosystem respirations of the two grasslands was compared and the reasons resulting in the difference were analyzed. Ecosystem respiration of Leymus chinensis steppe [averaged (12.03 +/- 2.10) mg x (m2 x min)(-1)] was significantly smaller than that of Stipa baicalensis steppe [averaged (20.09 +/- 4.41) mg x (m2 x min)(-1)], while aboveground biomass of Leymus chinensis steppe was significantly larger than that of Stipa baicalensis steppe (p < 0.001). CO2 fluxes of Leymus chinensis steppe and Stipa baicalensis steppe were significantly correlated with air temperature in chamber, soil temperature at 5 cm and 15 cm depth. The results of partial correlation analysis showed that there were no significantly correlation between CO2 flux and Eh, pH, biomass of litter when soil temperature was unchanged, while it shows some correlation with biomass of living plant. The apparent liner relationship between CO2 flux and Eh, pH may be caused by the change of soil temperature. The CO2 fluxes of the two grasslands can be well explained by exponential models based on temperatures. Soil temperature can explain more variations of ecosystem respirations (R2 0.568-0.639) than air temperature in chamber (R2 0.323-0.426). Soil temperature was the most important affecting factor of ecosystem respiration and it may had concealed the effect of aboveground biomass on CO2 flux. The contribution of soil respiration to ecosystem respiration was large in this region and its higher soil organic matter content led to higher CO2 flux of Stipa baicalensis steppe.

Using the static opaque chamber method, the soil respiration rates (SR) were measured through the continuous experiments in situ in semiarid Stipa grandis steppe in Xilin River Basin of Inner Mongolia, China from June 2001 to June 2003, in parallel, the difference between the SR and the ecosystem respiration rates (TER) were compared. The results indicated that the seasonal variations of the SR and TER were obvious with higher emissions in growing season and a relatively low efflux level in non-growing season, furthermore, the negative effluxes were found in the observation site in winter; the annual CO2 efflux of total ecosystem ranged from 160.5 gC/(m2 x a) to 162.8 gC/(m2 x a) and that of soil ranged from 118.7 gC/(m2 x a) to 152.3 gC/(m2 x a). The annual SR accounted for about 74.0% to 93.5% of the annual TER, but the results of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) indicated that the difference between the annual average TER and SR did not reach the significance level of 0.05. The TER was under similar environmental controls as SR, in growing seasons of drought years, the variations of soil moisture at 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm depth could account for 79.1%-95.6% of the changes of the SR and TER, but in non-growing season, more than 75% of the variations of the SR and TER could be explained by the changes of the ground temperature of soil surface layers.

Using static dark enclosed chamber technique, the emissions of CO2 from typical temperate grasslands such as Stipa baicalensis, Leymus chinensis, Stipa grandis and Stipa krylovii in Xilin River Basin of Inner Mongolia were measured. And the contents of organic carbon and total nitrogen in different soil layers were also studied to analyze the correlation between the emissions of CO2 and the contents of C & N. The results showed that the emissions of CO2 from the 4 grassland communities were significantly positively correlated with soil organic carbon and total nitrogen in different layers of grassland soils, and the correlation coefficients were almost all above 0.8. That meant the flux of CO2 is severely influenced by the contents of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen when environmental factors were similar. The decreases of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen with the depth into soils (more than 70% of the contents centralizes above 0-30 cm layer) showed that most of them came from the decomposition of organic matter on the earth's surface. In the 0-100 cm layer of grassland soils, the decreases of amount of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen from Stipa baicalensis, Stipa grandis and Leymus chinensis grasslands to Stipa krylovii grassland orderly showed that the impacts of precipitation, evaporation and dryness index on the distribution of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen were important.

NK T cells are a unique subset of T cells that recognize lipid antigens presented by CD1d. After activation, NK T cells promptly produce large amounts of cytokines, which may modulate the upcoming immune responses. Previous studies have documented an association between decreased numbers of NK T cells and the progression of some autoimmune diseases, suggesting that NK T cells may control the development of autoimmune diseases. To investigate the role of NK T cells in autoimmune diabetes, we crossed CD1 knockout (CD1KO) mutation onto the nonobese diabetic (NOD) genetic background. We found that male CD1KO NOD mice exhibited significantly higher incidence and earlier onset of diabetes compared with the heterozygous controls. The diabetic frequencies in female mice showed a similar pattern; however, the differences were less profound between female CD1KO and control mice. Early treatment of NOD mice with alpha-galactosylceramide, a potent NK T cell activator, reduced the severity of autoimmune diabetes in a CD1-dependent manner. Our results not only suggest a protective role of CD1-restricted NK T cells in autoimmune diabetes but also reveal a causative link between the deficiency of NK T cells and the induction of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.