Alkali-earth atoms have a long-lived electronic excited state, and when atoms in this excited state are localized in the Fermi sea of ground state atoms by an external potential, they serve as magnetic impurities, due to the spin-exchange interaction between the excited and the ground state atoms. This can give rise to the Kondo effect. However, in order to achieve this effect in current atomic gas experiment, it requires the Kondo temperature to be increased to a sizable portion of the Fermi temperature. In this paper we calculate the confinement-induced resonance (CIR) for spin-exchanging interaction between the ground and the excited states of the alkali-earth atoms, and we propose that the spin-exchange interaction can be strongly enhanced by utilizing the CIR. We analyze this system by the renormalization group approach, and we show that nearby a CIR, the Kondo temperature can be significantly enhanced. * Electronic address: pengzhang@ruc.edu.cn † Electronic address: hzhai@tsinghua.edu.cn arXiv:1509.01350v3 [cond-mat.quant-gas]

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cThe adverse effects of azithromycin on the treatment of patients with chronic lung diseases (CLD) were evaluated in the present study. MEDLINE and other databases were searched for relevant articles published until August 2013. Randomized controlled trials that enrolled patients with chronic lung diseases who received long-term azithromycin treatment were selected, and data on microbiological studies and azithromycin-related adverse events were abstracted from articles and analyzed. Six studies were included in the meta-analysis. The risk of bacterial resistance in patients receiving long-term azithromycin treatment was increased 2.7-fold (risk ratio [

Discoidin domain receptors (DDRs) are a novel class of receptor tyrosine kinases that respond to several collagens and facilitate cell adhesion. DDR1 is highly expressed in a variety of human cancers, and it is clear that DDR1 is primarily expressed in epithelial cells including lung, colon and brain. Moreover, DDR1 expression can be stimulated by collagen types I, II, III, IV, V, VIII and XI, and aberrant signaling induced by DDR1 dysregulated expression is involved in various steps of tumorigenesis. However, the molecular mechanism underlying the role of DDR1 in cancer development is not well documented. In this study, we found that the expression of DDR1 is upregulated in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tissues and cells when compared with counterpart normal tissues and cells. Furthermore, collagen I could induce DDR1 expression, and activated DDR1 promoted NSCLC cell migration and invasion, while knockdown of DDR1 by transfection with siRNA resulted in a significant decrease in cell migrativeness and invasiveness. Enhanced DDR1 expression mediated by collagen I could activate MMP-2, N-cadherin and vimentin expression, but reduce E-cadherin expression; however, inhibition of DDR1 expression could suppress MMP-2, N-cadherin and vimentin expression and induce E-cadherin activation. In conclusion, our findings indicated that upregulation of DDR1 induced by collagen I may contribute to the development and progression of NSCLC and this effect may be associated with increased invasiveness, at least in part, via promoting epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition.

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The variation of G>T in the MUC5B promoter (rs35705950) has been associated with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and familial interstitial pneumonia (FIP) in Caucasians, but no information is available regarding this variant in the Chinese population. We recruited 405 patients with interstitial lung diseases (ILD), including 165 IPF patients and 2043 healthy controls, for genotyping the MUC5B gene in the Chinese population. One hundred three patients with pneumonia and 360 patients with autoimmune diseases (ADs) were recruited as disease controls. Our results indicated that the prevalence of the minor allele (T) of the polymorphism rs35705950 in healthy Chinese subjects was approximately 0.66%, which was lower than that described in the Caucasian population. The frequencies of the T allele were 3.33% and 2.22% in IPF and ILD patients, respectively, and these values were significantly higher than those of healthy controls (P = 0.001, OR = 4.332 for IPF, and P = 0.002, OR = 2.855 for ILD). A stratified analysis showed that this variant in MUC5B associated with the risk for ILD mainly in older male Chinese subjects. No difference was observed between patients with pneumonia, AD patients, and healthy controls.

Smoking is a risk factor for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), but the mechanism of the association remains unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of cigarette smoke extract (CSE) on A549 cells and human lung fibroblasts treated with transforming growth factor-beta1. A transwell two-chamber coculture system was used to study the proliferation, differentiation, morphologic changes and soluble factors production of A549 cells and myofibroblasts. Low concentrations of CSE promoted myofibroblasts proliferation; however, high concentrations of CSE inhibited their proliferation. Low concentrations of CSE also markedly increased extracellular secretion of hydrogen peroxide, inhibited proliferation, induced apoptosis and produced epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in cocultured A549 cells. This cigarette smoke-induced A549 cells EMT may become a new pathophysiological concept in the development of IPF. CSE possibly takes part in the development and progress of IPF by increasing oxidative stress.

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