AMPK activation modulates JNK-NF-κB signaling cascade during hypoxia and reoxygenation stress conditions. Cardiac AMPK activation plays a critical role in maintaining mitochondrial function and inhibiting the inflammatory response caused by ischemic insults.

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PBK/TOPK expression is positively correlated with Ki67 and p53 expression, and can be used as an independent prognostic factor in NSCLC.

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The cyclocopolymerization of difunctional styrenic flexible monomers with maleic anhydride via reversible additionÀfragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) has been investigated. The reaction proceeded to yield gel-free copolymers soluble in organic solvents. The kinetic study indicated that the cyclocopolymerization of difunctional styrenic flexible monomer with maleic anhydride proceeded in a controlled manner. The structures of resulting crown ether cavity-containing copolymers were characterized by the use of NMR spectroscopy and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. The crown ether cavities in copolymers exhibited a selective recognition for certain dialkylammonium ions.

Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein L (hnRNP-L) is a promoter of various kinds of cancers, but its actions in bladder cancer (BC) are unclear. In this study, we investigated the function and the underlying mechanism of hnRNP-L in bladder carcinogenesis. Our results demonstrated that enhanced hnRNP-L expression in BC tissues was associated with poor overall survival of BC patients. Depletion of hnRNP-L significantly suppressed cell proliferation in vitro and inhibited xenograft tumor growth in vivo. Furthermore, downregulation of hnRNP-L resulted in G1-phase cell cycle arrest and enhanced apoptosis accompanied by inhibition of EMT and cell migration. All these cellular changes were reversed by ectopic expression of hnRNP-L. Deletion of hnRNP-L resulted in decreased expression of Bcl-2, enhanced expression of caspases-3, -6 and -9 and inhibition of the MAPK signaling pathway. These findings demonstrate that hnRNP-L contributes to poor prognosis and tumor progression of BC by inhibiting the intrinsic apoptotic signaling and enhancing MAPK signaling pathways.

Piwi- interacting RNAs (piRNAs), a new class of small RNAs discovered from mammalian testes, are involved in transcriptional silencing of retrotransposons and other genetic elements in germ line cells. In order to identify a full transcriptome set of piRNAs expressed in the sexually mature porcine testes, small RNA fractions were extracted and were subjected to a Solexa deep sequencing. We cloned 6,913,561 clean reads of Sus Scrofa small RNAs (18–30 nt) and performed functional characterization. Sus Scrofa small RNAs showed a bimodal length distribution with two peaks at 21 nt and 29 nt. Then from 938,328 deep-sequenced small RNAs (26–30 nt), 375,195 piRNAs were identified by a k-mer scheme and 326 piRNAs were identified by homology searches. All piRNAs predicted by the k-mer scheme were then mapped to swine genome by Short Oligonucleotide Analysis Package (SOAP), and 81.61% of all uniquely mapping piRNAs (197,673) were located to 1124 defined genomic regions (5.85 Mb). Within these regions, 536 and 501 piRNA clusters generally distributed across only minus or plus genomic strand, 48 piRNA clusters distributed on two strands but in a divergent manner, and 39 piRNA clusters distributed on two strands in an overlapping manner. Furthermore, expression pattern of 7 piRNAs identified by homology searches showed 5 piRNAs displayed a ubiquitous expression pattern, although 2 piRNAs were specifically expressed in the testes. Overall, our results provide new information of porcine piRNAs and their specific expression pattern in porcine testes suggests that piRNAs have a role in regulating spermatogenesis.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are 20-25 nt, endogenous non-coding RNA molecules that act by binding to the complementary sequence of target messenger RNAs. Many evidences showed that miRNAs were involved in the process of germ proliferation and differentiation. In the present study, miR-27a gene was selected as a candidate gene for litter size due to its biological function, its location near a mummified pigs QTL, and its differentially expressed profile in Large White and Chinese Erhualian PMSG-hCG stimulated preovulatory ovaries. By comparative sequencing of miR-27a gene in Large White and Chinese Meishan pigs, one SNP (T/C) which created an additional HpaII site was detected. Then associations of this SNP with litter size traits were assessed in Large White (n=142) and DIV (n=140) pig populations. The statistical analysis demonstrated that AA differed from AB (P<0.01) and BB (P<0.05) for total number of piglets born in the first parities, and also differed from AB (P<0.01) for the number of piglets born alive in all parities (P<0.05) in DIV pigs. No significant difference was observed between different genotypes in Large White pigs.