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Cell-penetrating peptide (CPP) is used for the delivery of biomacromolecules across the cell membrane and is limited in cancer therapy due to the lack of cell selectivity. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) has been widely us...
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Cell-penetrating peptide (CPP) is used for the delivery of biomacromolecules across the cell membrane and is limited in cancer therapy due to the lack of cell selectivity. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) has been widely used in clinical targeted therapy for tumours. Here, we reported a novel tumour targeting cell-penetrating peptide (TCPP), EHB (ELBD-C6H) with 20-fold and 3000-fold greater transmembrane ability and tumour cell selectivity than our previously reported S3-HBD and classic CPP TAT, respectively. In this new TCPP, a specific alpha helix structure was inserted into a repeated amino acid (AA) sequence formed by tandem multiple selected key AA residues of vaccinia growth factor (VGF), and this sequence was then fused to a tailored heparin binding domain sequence (C6H) derived from heparin-binding epidermal growth factor-like growth factor to intensify its targeting delivery ability. EHB could carry anticancer proteins such as MAP30 (Momordica Antiviral Protein 30 kDa) into EGFR-overexpressing cancer cell and inhibit cell growth, but it had a greatly reduced interaction with normal cells. These results indicated that EHB, as a novel efficient TCPP for the selective delivery of drug molecules into cancer cells, would help to improve the efficacy and safety of anti-tumour drugs. ? 2018, ? 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
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The development of next generation sequencing (NGS) techniques has enabled researchers to study and understand the world of microorganisms from broader and deeper perspectives. The contemporary advances in DNA sequencing technolog...
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The development of next generation sequencing (NGS) techniques has enabled researchers to study and understand the world of microorganisms from broader and deeper perspectives. The contemporary advances in DNA sequencing technologies have not only enabled finer characterization of bacterial genomes but also provided deeper taxonomic identification of complex microbiomes which in its genomic essence is the combined genetic material of the microorganisms inhabiting an environment, whether the environment be a particular body econiche (e.g., human intestinal contents) or a food manufacturing facility econiche (e.g., floor drain). To date, 16S rDNA sequencing, metagenomics and metatranscriptomics are the three basic sequencing strategies used in the taxonomic identification and characterization of food-related microbiomes. These sequencing strategies have used different NGS platforms for DNA and RNA sequence identification. Traditionally, 16S rDNA sequencing has played a key role in understanding the taxonomic composition of a food-related microbiome. Recently, metagenomic approaches have resulted in improved understanding of a microbiome by providing a species-level/strain-level characterization. Further, metatranscriptomic approaches have contributed to the functional characterization of the complex interactions between different microbial communities within a single microbiome. Many studies have highlighted the use of NGS techniques in investigating the microbiome of fermented foods. However, the utilization of NGS techniques in studying the microbiome of non-fermented foods are limited. This review provides a brief overview of the advances in DNA sequencing chemistries as the technology progressed from first, next and third generations and highlights how NGS provided a deeper understanding of food-related microbiomes with special focus on non-fermented foods.
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Purpose: T helper cells play essential roles in anti-tumor immune response. However, the postoperative changes of peripheral T cell subsets and their clinical significance in breast cancer patients remain largely unknown. Methods:...
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Purpose: T helper cells play essential roles in anti-tumor immune response. However, the postoperative changes of peripheral T cell subsets and their clinical significance in breast cancer patients remain largely unknown. Methods: We evaluated the perioperative changes of T lymphocyte subsets in invasive breast cancer (IBC) patients and breast fibroadenoma (BF) patients preoperatively (preop) and 6, 24, 72 hours postoperatively (POH6, POH24, and POH72). Proportions of CD3, CD4, CD8, T helper (Th) 1, Th2, Th17 cells, regulatory T cells (Treg), and CD4+/CD8+, Th1/Th2 ratio were detected by flow cytometry. Changes in T helper cell quantity were correlated to clinicopathological parameters. Furthermore, we explored the association between the perioperative variations of T cell subsets and disease-free survival (DFS) of IBC patients. Results: In IBC patients, Th1 cells diminished while Tregs elevated in postoperative 72 hours in the peripheral blood. In contrast, no significant perioperative changes of T cell subsets were observed in BF patients. Postoperative lower Th1 cells at POH 72 of IBC patients were correlated with greater tumor burden, HER2 positive and Ki67 positive. The increased Tregs at POH 72 of IBC patients were correlated with larger tumor size and HER2 positive. Th1 cell decline and Treg increment were both associated with shorter DFS in IBC patients. Conclusions: The variations of peripheral T helper cell subsets showed postoperative immunosuppression and were associated with poor prognosis in IBC patients. ?2017 Taylor & Francis.
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We consider a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) interference channel (IC), where a single data stream per user is transmitted and each receiver treats interference as noise. The paper focuses on the open problem of computing t...
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We consider a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) interference channel (IC), where a single data stream per user is transmitted and each receiver treats interference as noise. The paper focuses on the open problem of computing the outermost boundary (so-called Pareto boundary-PB) of the achievable rate region under linear transceiver design. The Pareto boundary consists of the strict PB and non-strict PB. For the two user case, we compute the non-strict PB and the two ending points of the strict PB exactly. For the strict PB, we formulate the problem to maximize one rate while the other rate is fixed such that a strict PB point is reached. To solve this non-convex optimization problem which results from the hard-coupled two transmit beamformers, we propose an alternating optimization algorithm. Furthermore, we extend the algorithm to the multi-user scenario and show convergence. Numerical simulations illustrate that the proposed algorithm computes a sequence of well-distributed operating points that serve as a reasonable and complete inner bound of the strict PB compared with existing methods.
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Aims: To investigate the clinical significance of tumor tissue-infiltrating chemokines expression in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) microenvironment. Materials and methods: Fresh tissue samples were acquired from 50 patients w...
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Aims: To investigate the clinical significance of tumor tissue-infiltrating chemokines expression in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) microenvironment. Materials and methods: Fresh tissue samples were acquired from 50 patients with NSCLC after operation. Then, we quantified the total protein with the BCA Protein Assay Kit and tested 13 chemotactic factors in paired samples including tumor tissues, tumor adjacent tissues, and normal tissues with the CBA Kit. Results: We found that the chemokine CC subfamily of MCP-1, MIP-1? MIP-1? and MIP-3?and the chemokine CXC subfamily of IL-8, GRO? IP-10, and MIG expressions in tumor tissues were significantly higher than those in tumor-adjacent tissues and normal tissues. However, regulated upon activation normal T cell expressed and secreted (RANTES), human thymus activation regulated chemokine (TARC), chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 11 (CCL11), interferon-inducible T cell alpha chemoattractant (I-TAC), and ENA-78 expressions did not show significant difference. Analyzing the influence of chemokine expression level in tumor tissues on disease progression, we found the median progression-free survival (mPFS) of patients with GRO?high was significantly lower than those with GRO?low ; mPFS of patients with IP-10 low was significantly lower than those with IP-10 high ; and mPFS of patients with MIG low was significantly lower than those with MIG high . However, MCP-1, MIP-1? MIP-1? MIP-3? and IL-8 had no significant value to elevate the mPFS of patients with NSCLC. Conclusion: In summary, tumor tissue-infiltrating CXC chemokines, GRO?high , IP-10 low , and MIG low in the tumor microenvironment can be used as potential indicators for the progression of NSCLC. ?2017 Taylor & Francis.
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An important task in sensor networks is to sense locally to detect global properties that hold at some instant in physical time, namely, Instantaneously. We propose software logical clocks, called strobe clocks, that can be implem...
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An important task in sensor networks is to sense locally to detect global properties that hold at some instant in physical time, namely, Instantaneously. We propose software logical clocks, called strobe clocks, that can be implemented by the middleware when synchronized physical clocks are not available or are too expensive in resource-constrained environments. Strobe clocks come in two flavors--scalar and vector. Let $(n)$ be the number of sensors and $(p)$ be the upper bound on the number of relevant events sensed at a sensor. We propose an algorithm using vector strobes that can detect all occurrences of a conjunctive predicate in time $(O(n^3p))$. The algorithm has some false negatives but this is the best achievable accuracy in the face of race conditions. We also present a variant algorithm using scalar strobes; it needs time $(O(n^2p))$ but may also suffer from some false positives. We provide a characterization of the errors. Both algorithms can also detect relational predicates but with a greater chance of error. The message complexity of strobe clocks (scalar and vector) and both algorithms is $(O(np))$, which is the same as that of reporting each sensed event for detection of the predicate even with synchronized physical clocks. We formalize the physical time modality, Instantaneously, and show its relationship to the logical time modalities Definitely and Possibly.
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The problem of jointly estimating clock skew and offset for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in a pairwise broadcast synchronization (PBS) protocol is considered. The random part of the delay is supposed to be an exponential random...
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The problem of jointly estimating clock skew and offset for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in a pairwise broadcast synchronization (PBS) protocol is considered. The random part of the delay is supposed to be an exponential random variable. We consider two estimators, i.e., joint maximum-likelihood estimator (JMLE) and generalized ML-like estimator (GMLLE) proposed by Leng and Wu . For both estimators, the corresponding algorithms are explicitly derived and presented. For the GMLLE, the corresponding performance bound based on the reduced set of observations is derived and the optimal value of a user-defined parameter is identified accordingly. At last, analytical results are corroborated by numerical experiments. We observe that: (i) JMLE usually outperforms GMLLE at the cost of larger computational complexity; (ii) JMLE, while achieving the same estimation accuracy as that of the LP method presented in , enjoys significantly lower computational complexity than that of the latter.
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Introduction: Ovarian cancer (OC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death in women. Accumulating evidence showed an evolving role of HE4 in monitoring the progression and prognosis of OC but without a comprehensive an...
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Introduction: Ovarian cancer (OC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death in women. Accumulating evidence showed an evolving role of HE4 in monitoring the progression and prognosis of OC but without a comprehensive analysis for prognosis and survival data. Areas covered: The present meta-analysis aims to explore the association of HE4 with survival and the clinicopathological features of OC patients. PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) were searched for relevant studies regarding the role of both serum and tissue HE4 expression in ovarian cancer. Expert commentary: HE4 has been proposed as the most promising biomarker that may complement the CA125 expression and has been approved by the FDA in monitoring the follow-up and relapse of OC patients. Our results are in accordance with the most recent evidence suggesting its important role in the prognostic surveillance of OC and a better performance in the early prediction of OC recurrence than CA125. ?2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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In contrast with the existing approaches to exact bisimulation for fuzzy systems, we introduce a robust notion of behavioral distance to measure the behavioral similarity of nondeterministic fuzzy-transition systems which are a ge...
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In contrast with the existing approaches to exact bisimulation for fuzzy systems, we introduce a robust notion of behavioral distance to measure the behavioral similarity of nondeterministic fuzzy-transition systems which are a generalization of fuzzy automata. This behavioral distance provides a quantitative analogue of bisimilarity and is defined as the greatest fixed point of a suitable monotonic function. The behavioral distance has the important property that two systems are at zero distance if and only if they are bisimilar. Moreover, for any given threshold, we find that systems with behavioral distances bounded by the threshold are equivalent. In addition, we show that two system combinators—parallel composition and product—are nonexpansive with respect to our behavioral distance, which makes compositional verification possible. The theory developed here is applicable to the quantitative verification, approximate reduction, and reliability analysis of fuzzy-transition systems.
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