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Parkinson's disease (PD) is a disorder characterized by a progressive loss of the dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra and a depletion of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the striatum. Our published results indicate that fasciculation and elongation protein zeta-1 (FEZ1) plays a role in the astrocyte-mediated protection of dopamine neurons and regulation of the neuronal microenvironment during the progression of PD. In this study, we examined the effects of engrafted type-2 astrocytes (T2As) with high expression of FEZ1 on the improvement of the symptoms and functional reconstruction of PD rats. T2As were stereotactically transplanted into the striatum of rats with PD induced by 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA). An examination of apomorphine (APO)-induced rotations was performed to evaluate dopamine neuron damage and motor functions. Remarkably, the grafted cells survived in the lesion environment for six weeks or longer after implantation. In addition, the transplantation of T2As decrease the average velocity and the duration time of the APO-induced rotations, and increase the actuation time, as measured in the rotation behavioural tests. In the substantia nigra, the transplantation of T2As reduced the PD-induced GFAP, TH and FEZ1 downregulation. The grafted cells exclusively migrated to other regions near the injection site in the striatum and differentiated into GFAP+ astrocytes or TH+ neurons. Furthermore, by detecting monoamine neurotransmitters through high-performance liquid chromatography, we found that the nigrostriatal pathway had been repaired to some extent. Taken together, these results suggest that engrafted T2As with high expression of FEZ1 improved the symptoms and functional reconstruction of PD rats, providing a theoretical basis for FEZ1 as a potential target and engraftment of T2As as a therapeutic strategy in the treatment of PD.

Salmonella infection is a major public health concern, and colonization in humans can be chronic and increases the risk of cancers. Wnt signaling is a key pathway for intestinal renewal and development, inflammation, and tumorigenesis. In the current study, we report a novel role of Wnt1 in infection and colon cancer using cell culture models, a Salmonella-colitis colon cancer model, and human samples. In contrast to the bacteria-induced increases in Wnt2 and Wnt11, Salmonella colonization significantly reduced the level of Wnt1 in intestinal epithelial cells in vivo and in vitro. The bacterial AvrA protein is known to activate the canonical Wnt pathway. Wnt1 expression level was downregulated by AvrA-expressing Salmonella but stabilized by AvrA-deficient Salmonella in the intestine of Salmonella-colitis mice. In a chronic Salmonella-infected cancer model, the Wnt1 protein level was decreased in the AvrA+ infected group. Thus, we further assessed the functional role of Wnt1 downregulation in the inflammatory response and colorectal cancer (CRC) progression. Moreover, downregulation of Wnt1 by the Crispr-Cas9 method affected cancer cell invasion and migration. Interestingly, we found that Wnt1 was downregulated in human CRC tissue, and Wnt1 downregulation may be correlated with cancer progression. Our study provides insights into mechanisms by which enteric bacteria regulate Wnt1 expression and potentially contribute to infection-associated colon cancer.

A simple and rapid analytical method of the three iridoids compounds, geniposidic acid (GPA), geniposide (GP) and aucubin (AU), which are naturally occurring bioactives were determined in Eucommia samples simultaneously by isocratic reverse phase high performance liquid chromatograph (RP-HPLC) using UV detection. All of these iridoids were identified with standard samples. A C18 column was used as the stationary phase, and the mobile phase was methanol-water-acetic acid=24.5:75:0.5 (V/V/V) at the flow rate of 1ml · min-1. The detection wavelength was set at 220 nm, and the column temperature was 25 °C. Three calibration curves were obtained, and the mean recoveries of GPA, GP and AU were 99.10%, 98.06% and 96.07% respectively.

H.264/AVC employs rate-distortion optimization (RDO) technique to select intra and inter prediction modes to achieve better coding efficiency at the cost of high computational complexity. To reduce the computational complexity of intra prediction, a fast intra 4×4 mode decision algorithm is proposed in this paper. We define a cost function FMPS, which uses three features: Previous Co-block Mode (PBM), Most Probable Mode (MPM) and the sum of absolute residual coefficients (SATD). Then several thresholds are given to determine the candidate prediction modes. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can reduce about 77% of the total encoding time without significant coding performance loss compared to the full search algorithm in JM 16.1.