Abstract Long non-coding RNA AK001796 was initially identified altered in lung cancer. Recent research showed it could participate in the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the general biological role of AK001796 and its underlying mechanisms in HCC remain unclear. Here we demonstrated that the expression level of AK001796 in HCC tissues and cell lines was up-regulated. Silencing AK001796 suppressed the proliferation ability of HCC cells. Through dual luciferase reporter assays and loss/gain of functions studies, we identified that AK001796 could bind to miR-150, a star microRNA, promoting HCC proliferation. Furthermore, it was reported that growth factor receptor binding protein 2-associated binder 1 (GAB1) is a target gene of miR-150. Owing to AK001796 being a decoy for miR-150 and binding the same putative sites of miR-150 as GAB1, we presented that inhibition of miR-150 in AK001796 silencing cells reversed the reduction in GAB1. Subsequently, our findings demonstrated that silencing AK001796 can impair phospho-ERK1/2 and phospho-AKT. In conclusion, our investigation revealed that AK001796 promoted proliferation by enhancing phospho-ERK1/2 and phospho-AKT through AK001796/miR-150/GAB1 axis in HCC. These results provided further evidence for the critical roles of AK001796 accumulating HCC and suggested that AK001796 might act as an HCC biomarker in clinical treatment.

ABSTRACT While excavation activities in mountain terrain regions, the exposure of carbonaceous mudstone could deteriorate the strength under the water-rock interaction, which impacts slope stability and affects the safety of the engineering project. The present study conducted the Point Loading Test (PLT), Acoustic Emission (AE), and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to investigate the degradation of its mechanical properties under the water-rock interaction. The results reveal that: (1) The Total Organic Carbon (TOC) content and water content correspond to a negative correlation, and the carbonaceous mudstone possesses a softening boundary which makes the mudstone strength decay rapidly resulting in the strength decrease by 80% once the water content exceeds the boundary value; (2) Water-rock interaction weakens the acoustic emission capacity and the acoustic emission characteristic in the failure process of carbonaceous mudstone with different TOC can reflect the influence of water-rock interaction on its macroscopic strength and fracture structure deterioration, and the damage degree under immersion is over 50%; (3) The inhomogeneity of water-rock interaction causes unbalanced forces in the rock, as dissolved soluble minerals and oxidation-reduction of organic matter accelerate the deterioration of carbonaceous mudstone making the water-rock interaction is slowed down by the water-swelling filling of minerals in a time period. Therefore, this study has investigated the strength deterioration of carbonaceous mudstone subjected to water-rock interaction from macro-scale and micro-scale perspectives, which provides a reference for preventing and controlling carbonaceous mudstone deterioration resulting from catastrophes.

ABSTRACT Background: This study aims to explore the epidemiology, clinical profile and strain characteristics of cryptococcosis from 2013 to 2017 in a major teaching hospital in China. Methods: Trends in antifungal drug susceptibility of 217 consecutive non-repetitive cryptococcal isolates collected from patients of an university hospital in China were analyzed between 2013 and 2017. Of those, 98 isolates were conserved for identification by internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequencing and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) system. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) was used to designate molecular types. Clinical characteristics of the 98 patients with cryptococcosis during the period of 2013-2017 were retrospectively evaluated. Results: There was a trend for gradual increase in the MIC range of fluconazole was from 2013 to 2017. The conserved 98 clinical cryptococcal isolates included 97 C. neoformans and one C. gattii, and 90 (91.8%) isolates belonged to ST5 genotype VNI. Out of the 98 patients with cryptococcosis, 28 (28.6%) were HIV-infected and 32 (32.7%) had no underlying diseases. HIV-infected patients had higher mortality than HIV-uninfected patients (28.6% vs 14.3%, p = 0.147). Conclusions: Most of the patients with cryptococcosis were not HIV-infected in this study, while patients with HIV had a higher mortality. Reduced susceptibility to fluconazole was observed among C. neoformans isolates, most of them belonged to ST5 genotype VNI having an impact on the effective dose of fluconazole.

Abstract: Epidermolysis bullosa acquisita is a severe autoimmune subepidermal bullous disease. In this report, we described for the first time a patient with epidermolysis bullosa acquisita who developed acute renal failure. There is a possibility that epidermolysis bullosa acquisita and acute renal failure’s pathogenesis shared some common autoimmune pathways. Moreover, acute blood volume reduction may be another cause of prerenal kidney failure. Further studies are needed to verify our hypothesis.

Purpose The determination of the size of a renal tumor is important for staging, prognosis and selection of the appropriate surgical treatment. We investigated the difference of radiographic and pathologic size of renal tumors in a contemporary cohort of patients who underwent nephron sparing surgery and evaluated its clinical implications. Materials and Methods The records of 169 patients who received nephron sparing surgery for renal lesions suspicious for malignancy between January 2006 and December 2010 were reviewed retrospectively. Radiographic tumor size, defined as the largest diameter of tumor measured by CT images, and pathologic size, the largest diameter of tumor measured in the surgical specimen, were compared and analyzed. Results Among all subjects, mean radiographic and pathologic tumor size were 3.25 ± 1.78 cm and 3.03 ± 1.91 cm, respectively (P < 0.001), with a discrepancy of just 0.22 cm. When the patients were categorized according to radiographic tumor size in the 1 cm range, the mean radiographic tumor size was significantly greater than pathologic tumor size in the following groups: 2 to 3 cm (P < 0.001), 3 to 4 cm (P < 0.001), and 4 to 5 cm (P = 0.028). When radiographic and pathologic tumor sizes were compared according to the pathologic tumor subtype, a significant difference was observed only among those with clear cell renal carcinoma (P < 0.001). Conclusions Renal tumor size was overestimated by radiography as compared with pathology. The difference was just 0.22 cm with little clinical significance, suggesting that CT provides an accurate method to estimate renal tumor size preoperatively.

The level of variation of simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers in cultivated alfalfa from American, Australian and Chinese sources was evaluated using a novel autotetraploid statistical method to calculate the effective number of alleles, the allele frequencies and heterozygosity. We used 19 SSR primers to screen seven polymorphic SSR loci in 320 plants from eight populations. The genetic distance and phylogenetic analysis (DISPAN) program was used to calculate the inter- and intra-population genetic relationships using the conventional binary absence/presence (0/1) method and our novel autotetraploid method. The autotetraploid method resulted in significantly higher heterozygosity (p < 0.01), average effective number (p < 0.01) and lower standard genetic distance (p < 0.01) than the binary method. Our results suggest that our new autotetraploid method is a very useful tool for assessing genetic variation and genetic relationships in all autotetraploid plant species.