Search

Placentation and tumorigenesis have many common features. Human placentation builds a maternal–fetal connection, circumvents maternal immune rejection of the fetus, and utilizes mechanisms that support tumorigenesis, such as proliferation, invasion, angiogenesis, and immune tolerance. Trophoblasts of the human placenta mimic the behavior of malignant cells, proliferating and invading the uterine decidua until reaching the myometrium and remodeling the spiral arteries that establish a new vascular system and escape the maternal immune response. These processes are under precise temporal and spatial regulation, and their dysregulation is associated with different pregnancy syndromes, including preeclampsia (PE), a pregnancy syndrome that is the leading cause of maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. At present, the precise mechanisms underlying the development of PE remain unclear. Here, we summarize and dissect the features between physiological placentation and pathological tumorigenesis to explore the pathogenesis of PE – which we believe to be the result of insufficient placentation, compared to the overaggression of tumorigenesis – to provide novel strategies to prevent and treat PE.

Pre-eclampsia (PE) is a pregnancy-related disorder that occurs after 20 weeks of gestation. It seriously affects the health of maternity and the fetus. However, the pathogenesis of PE is still unknown. Decidualization deficiency is considered a contributing factor to the development of PE. CTP synthetase (CTPS) which is the rate-limiting enzyme in the CTP de novo biosynthesis, is essential for nucleic acid synthesis and cellular energy metabolism, and often appears as cytoophidium in many cell types. Here, we found that the expression of CTPS was significantly downregulated in decidual tissues of patients with severe PE compared with healthy pregnant women. During in vitro decidualization, changes in CTPS were accompanied by opposite fluctuation of the AMPK signaling pathway. Moreover, the downregulation of CTPS by glutamine analogs or CTPS small interfering RNA inhibited the decidualization process and the AMPK signaling pathway. Investigating the underlying mechanism of action by co-immunoprecipitation coupled with mass spectrometry showed that CTPS interacted with ATP synthase (ATPS) and maintained the content of ATP on Day 3 of decidualization. However, when combined with mitochondrial stress protein STRESS-70 instead of ATPS, the concentration of ATP on Day 6 of induction was reduced. Corresponding to this, CTPS was mainly distributes in the cytoplasm on Day 3 of induction, while it appeared both in the cytoplasm and the nucleus on Day 6 in decidualized cells, which was similar to that in cells before induction. In summary, we believe that CTPS plays an important role in decidualization by participating in energy metabolism. Abnormal expression of CTPS in decidualization would lead to abnormal decidualization and consequently result in the occurrence of PE.

Asymmetric entanglement could provide a crucial layered key structure for quantum cryptography. A new symmetrical tripartite quantum key distribution scheme based on the simplest layered quantum key distribution (L-QKD) model is devised. With an interesting rotational symmetrical key distribution scheme, the proposed tripartite QKD protocol could establish a more integrated key system, which expands the number of conference keys for secure broadcast and distribute layered secret keys among any legitimate participants simultaneously. The proposed scheme is more flexible, robust and efficient to guarantee the fairness among communication parties than the original L-QKD protocol, and our scheme also could be applied to encryption in the butterfly network precisely. Moreover, based on three asymmetric (4, 4, 2) entangled state, a novel symmetric (4, 4, 4) entangled state to implement L-QKD scheme is discussed. Finally, the security of L-QKD scheme is analyzed via information-theoretic proof.

A theoretical quantum key distribution scheme based on random hybrid quantum channel with EPR pairs and GHZ states is devised. In this scheme, EPR pairs and tripartite GHZ states are exploited to set up random hybrid quantum channel. Only one photon in each entangled state is necessary to run forth and back in the channel. The security of the quantum key distribution scheme is guaranteed by more than one round of eavesdropping check procedures. It is of high capacity since one particle could carry more than two bits of information via quantum dense coding.

Historically, the information efficiency of the secret key in quantum key distribution (QKD) schemes based on binary signal formats was limited to 1 bit/particle. An efficient high-dimensional QKD protocol based on qudits transmission with the quantum Fourier transform is proposed. In the proposal, the inherent encoding framework provides a secure solution to key distribution, where the secret information can be hidden into the relative phases of the generated high-dimensional entangled state by performing the quantum Fourier transform and the quantum controlled-NOT gate. After the reverse operations are carried out, the key information can be decoded with the single-particle measurement chosen from two mutually unbiased bases. The secret key taking the form of the high-dimensional quantum state throughout the proposed QKD protocol enables to break the information efficiency limit. Besides, the security of the proposed QKD protocol is guaranteed by the decoy state method and it is proven to be secure even for the photon number splitting attack and the side-channel attack. The cryptographic performance in terms of security and capacity is better than that of traditional cryptographic protocols.

A quantum representation model for multiple images is firstly proposed, which could save more storage space than the existing quantum image representation models and allow quantum hardware to encrypt an arbitrary number of images simultaneously. Moreover, the definition and the quantum circuit of quantum 3D Arnold transform are given based on the proposed quantum representation model for multiple images. Furthermore, a novel quantum multi-image encryption scheme is devised by combining quantum 3D Arnold transform and quantum XOR operations with scaled Zhongtang chaotic system. Theoretically, the proposed quantum image encryption scheme could encrypt many images simultaneously. Numerical simulations and theoretical analyses demonstrate that the proposed quantum multi-image encryption scheme outperforms both its classical counterparts and the existing typical quantum image encryption algorithms in terms of security, robustness, encryption capacity and computational complexity.

The Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, which is strictly controlled by multiple negative regulators, has been reported commonly hyper activated and closely related to the progression of bladder cancer. However, how tumor cells override the negative regulatory effects to maintain constitutive activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling is still unclear. In the current study, we demonstrated that upregulation of miR-543-3p in bladder cancer activated Wnt/β-catenin signaling by directly targeting Wnt inhibitory factor 1 (WIF1) and Dickkopf 1 (DKK1), which are important antagonist molecules of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Expression of miR-543-3p was upregulated in both bladder cancer tissues and cells, and positively correlated with high-grade bladder cancer. Furthermore, ectopic overexpression of miR-543-3p promoted proliferation and inhibited apoptosis in bladder cancer cells. Notably, overexpression of miR-543-3p enhanced, while silencing miR-543-3p reduced, stem cell-like phenotype of bladder cancer cells. Therefore, our results suggest that miR-543-3p plays a significant role in promoting proliferation and stem cell-like phenotype in bladder cancer, which might be a potential target for anti-bladder cancer therapy.

to study pharmacological mechanism of Laosun Kangfu tablet.Blood-activating and stasis-removing was tested by establishing cute cold pathogens induced blood stasis rat model and microcirculation disturbance state rat model by means of dripping adrenine on the mensentery. The resisting oxidation was tested by establishing the freely falling body damages models. The kidney-notifying was tested by Acetic acid hydrocortisone-caused kidney asthenia of mice.All of the experimental results showed that there were Significant differences between the treatment groups and the control groups, such as promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis, resisting the oxidation, the kidney-notifying actions.Effects of Huoxue Xiaozhong and Xingqi Zhitong of Laosun Kangfu tablet is because the action of improving microcirculation, antioxidation and regulating endocrine.