IL-8, a member of the chemokine family, has been shown to play an important role in tumor growth, angiogenesis, and metastasis. The objective of this study was to determine the mechanism of IL-8-mediated angiogenesis. We examined the direct role of IL-8 in angiogenesis by examining IL-8 receptor expression on endothelial cells and their proliferation, survival, and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) production. We demonstrate that HUVEC and human dermal microvascular endothelial cells constitutively express CXCR1 and CXCR2 mRNA and protein. Recombinant human IL-8 induced endothelial cell proliferation and capillary tube organization while neutralization of IL-8 by anti-IL-8 Ab blocks IL-8-mediated capillary tube organization. Incubation of endothelial cells with IL-8 inhibited endothelial cell apoptosis and enhanced antiapoptotic gene expression. Endothelial cells incubated with IL-8 had higher levels of Bcl-xL:Bcl-xS and Bcl-2:Bax ratios. Furthermore, incubation of endothelial cells with IL-8 up-regulated MMP-2 and MMP-9 production and mRNA expression. Our data suggest that IL-8 directly enhanced endothelial cell proliferation, survival, and MMP expression in CXCR1- and CXCR2-expressing endothelial cells and regulated angiogenesis.

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST, also called the Guo Shou Jing Telescope) is a special reflecting Schmidt telescope. LAMOST's special design allows both a large aperture (effective aperture of 3.6 m-4.9 m) and a wide field of view (FOV) (5 • ). It has an innovative active reflecting Schmidt configuration which continuously changes the mirror's surface that adjusts during the observation process and combines thin deformable mirror active optics with segmented active optics. Its primary mirror (6.67 m×6.05 m) and active Schmidt mirror (5.74 m×4.40 m) are both segmented, and composed of 37 and 24 hexagonal sub-mirrors respectively. By using a parallel controllable fiber positioning technique, the focal surface of 1.75 m in diameter can accommodate 4000 optical fibers. Also, LAMOST has 16 spectrographs with 32 CCD cameras. LAMOST will be the telescope with the highest rate of spectral acquisition. As a national large scientific project, the LAMOST project was formally proposed in 1996, and approved by the Chinese government in 1997. The construction started in 2001, was completed in 2008 and passed the official acceptance in June 2009. The LAMOST pilot survey was started in October 2011 and the spectroscopic survey will launch in September 2012. Up to now, LAMOST has released more than 480 000 spectra of objects. LAMOST will make an important contribution to the study of the large-scale structure of the Universe, structure and evolution of the Galaxy, and cross-identification of multiwaveband properties in celestial objects.

The Large sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) general survey is a spectroscopic survey that will eventually cover approximately half of the celestial sphere and collect 10 million spectra of stars, galaxies and QSOs. Objects in both the pilot survey and the first year regular survey are included in the LAMOST DR1. The pilot survey started in October 2011 and ended in June 2012, and the data have been released to the public as the LAMOST Pilot Data Release in August 2012. The regular survey started in September 2012, and completed its first year of operation in June 2013. The LAMOST DR1 includes a total of 1202 plates containing 2 955 336 spectra, of which 1 790 879 spectra have observed signalto-noise ratio (SNR) ≥ 10. All data with SNR ≥ 2 are formally released as LAMOST DR1 under the LAMOST data policy. This data release contains a total of 2 204 696 spectra, of which 1 944 329 are stellar spectra, 12 082 are galaxy spectra and 5017 are quasars. The DR1 not only includes spectra, but also three stellar catalogs with measured parameters: late A,FGK-type stars with high quality spectra (1 061 918 entries), A-type stars (100 073 entries), and M-type stars (121 522 entries). This paper introduces the survey design, the observational and instrumental limitations, data reduction and analysis, and some caveats. A description of the FITS structure of spectral files and parameter catalogs is also provided.

Organic/inorganic nanohybrids have attracted widespread interests due to their favorable properties and promising applications in biomedical areas. Great efforts have been made to design and fabricate versatile nanohybrids. Among different organic components, diverse polymers offer unique avenues for multifunctional systems with collective properties. This review focuses on the design, properties, and biomedical applications of organic/inorganic nanohybrids fabricated from inorganic nanoparticles and polymers. We begin with a brief introduction to a variety of strategies for the fabrication of functional organic/inorganic nanohybrids. Then the properties and functions of nanohybrids are discussed, including properties from organic and inorganic parts, synergistic properties, morphology-dependent properties, and self-assembly of nanohybrids. After that, current situations of nanohybrids applied for imaging, therapy, and imaging-guided therapy are demonstrated. Finally, we discuss the prospect of organic/inorganic nanohybrids and highlight the challenges and opportunities for the future investigations.

Phox2b-expressing neurons of the retrotrapezoid nucleus (RTN), located in the ventrolateral brainstem, are sensitive to changes in PCO 2 /pH, have excitatory projections to the central respiratory rhythm/pattern generator, and their activation enhances central respiratory drive. Using in vivo (conscious and anesthetized rats) and in situ (arterially perfused rat brainstem-spinal cord preparations) models, we evaluated the functional significance of this neuronal population for both resting respiratory activity and the CO 2 -evoked respiratory responses by reversibly inhibiting these neurons using the insect peptide allatostatin following transduction with a lentiviral construct to express the G-protein-coupled Drosophila allatostatin receptor. Selective inhibition of the Phox2b-expressing neurons in the ventrolateral brainstem, including the RTN, using allatostatin was without effect on resting respiratory activity in conscious rats, but decreased the amplitude of the phrenic nerve discharge in anesthetized rats and the in situ rat preparations. Postinspiratory activity was also reduced in situ. In the absence or presence of the peripheral chemoreceptor input, inhibiting the Phox2b-expressing neurons during hypercapnia abolished the CO 2 -evoked abdominal expiratory activity in anesthetized rats and in situ preparations. Inspiratory responses evoked by rising levels of CO 2 in the breathing air were also reduced in anesthetized rats with denervated carotid bodies and conscious rats with peripheral chemoreceptors intact (by 28% and 60%, respectively). These data indicate a crucial dependence of central expiratory drive upon Phox2b-expressing neurons of the ventrolateral brainstem and support the hypothesis that these neurons contribute in a significant manner to CO 2 -evoked increases of inspiratory activity.

We produced local tissue acidosis in various brain stem regions with 1-nl injections of acetazolamide (AZ) to locate the sites of central chemoreception. To determine whether the local acidosis resulted in a stimulation of breathing, we performed the experiment in chloralose-urethan anesthetized vagotomized carotid-denervated (cats) paralyzed servo-ventilated cats and rats and measured phrenic nerve activity (PNA) as the response index. Measurements of extracellular brain tissue pH by glass microelectrodes showed that AZ injections induced a change in pH at the injection center equivalent to that produced by an increase in end-tidal PCO2 of approximately 36 Torr and that the change in brain pH was limited to a tissue volume with a radius of < 350 microns. We found AZ injections sites that caused a significant increase in PNA to be located 1) within 800 microns of the ventrolateral medullary surface at locations within traditional rostral and caudal chemosensitive areas and the intermediate area, 2) within the vicinity of the nucleus tractus solitarii, and 3) within the vicinity of the locus coeruleus. Single AZ injections produced increases in PNA that were < or = 69% of the maximum value observed with an increase in end-tidal PCO2. We conclude that central chemoreceptors are distributed at many locations within the brain stem, all within 1.5 mm of the surface, and that stimulation of a small fraction of all central chemoreceptors can result in a large ventilatory response.

Recent studies have unequivocally identified multipotent stem/progenitor cells in mammary glands, offering a tractable model system to unravel genetic and epigenetic regulation of epithelial stem/progenitor cell development and homeostasis. In this study, we show that Pygo2, a member of an evolutionarily conserved family of plant homeo domain–containing proteins, is expressed in embryonic and postnatal mammary progenitor cells. Pygo2 deficiency, which is achieved by complete or epithelia-specific gene ablation in mice, results in defective mammary morphogenesis and regeneration accompanied by severely compromised expansive self-renewal of epithelial progenitor cells. Pygo2 converges with Wnt/β-catenin signaling on progenitor cell regulation and cell cycle gene expression, and loss of epithelial Pygo2 completely rescues β-catenin–induced mammary outgrowth. We further describe a novel molecular function of Pygo2 that is required for mammary progenitor cell expansion, which is to facilitate K4 trimethylation of histone H3, both globally and at Wnt/β-catenin target loci, via direct binding to K4-methyl histone H3 and recruiting histone H3 K4 methyltransferase complexes.

Interleukin-8 (IL-8/CXCL8), a paracrine angiogenic factor, modulates multiple biologic functions in CXCR1 and CXCR2 expressing endothelial cells. Several reports suggest that inflammation, infection, cellular stress and tumor presence regulate IL-8 production in endothelial cells. In the present study, we test the hypothesis that IL-8 regulates multiple biological effects in endothelial cells in an autocrine manner. We examined the autocrine role of IL-8 in regulating angiogenesis by using a neutralizing antibody to IL-8, CXCR1 or CXCR2 in human vein umbilical endothelial cell (HUVEC) and human dermal microvascular endothelial cell (HMEC). Neutralizing antibody to IL-8, CXCR1 or CXCR2 inhibited endothelial cell proliferation, and MMP-2 production as compared to cells cultured with medium alone or control antibody. In addition, we observed that the number of apoptotic cells was significantly higher in anti-IL-8, anti-CXCR1 and anti-CXCR2 treated endothelial cells, which coincided with decreased survival-associated gene expression. We observed reduced migration of endothelial cells treated with anti-IL-8 and anti-CXCR2 antibody, but not anti-CXCR1 antibody as compared to controls. Further, we observed an inhibition of capillary tube formation and neovascularization following treatment with anti-IL-8, anti-CXCR1 and anti-CXCR2 antibodies. Together these data suggest that IL-8 functions as an important autocrine growth and angiogenic factor in regulating multiple biological activities in endothelial cells.