Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common form of bone malignancy in children and adolescents. A class of molecules known as microRNAs (miRNAs) have been routinely associated in the development and progression of OS. The present study was centered on the less well-known miRNA, miRNA (miR)-150, and its role in OS was investigated. The levels of miR-150 were examined in 40 tissue specimens from patients with OS and adjacent normal tissues using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) analysis. In addition the expression levels of miR-150 were examined in three OS cell lines and a normal osteoblast cell line. Cell proliferation, migration and invasion assays were performed to establish the correlation between miR-150 and metastasis. The potential targets of miR-150 were theoretically predicted and one high-scoring target, Rho-associated kinase 1 (ROCK1), was established to be a direct target using RT-qPCR and western blot analyses and Pearson's correlation analysis. The results indicated that miR-150 was downregulated in tissues from patients with OS and cell lines. Secondly, it was shown that the overexpression of miR-150 was inversely correlated with OS cell proliferation, migration and invasion. It was also shown that miR-150 negatively regulated the gene expression of ROCK1 in the OS cell lines. Finally, the interaction between miR-150 and ROCK1 was established and it was shown that miR-150 directly targeted ROCK1. In conclusion, miR-150 was found to be a tumor suppressor, and the suppression of miR-150 resulted in elevation in the levels of ROCK1. This interaction between miR-150 and ROCK1 may be key in the progression of OS. Furthermore, miR-150 or ROCK1 may be potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of OS.

No abstract

Rheological properties and oxygen mass transfer coefficient (kL a) were investigated in a stirred reactor (10 dm3) in the course of fermentations producing microbial polysaccharides—pullulan and xanthan. The fermentation broths behaved as pseudoplastic non‐Newtonian fluids in both cases. Studies on the relationship between fluid rheological properties and kL a were also carried out. The oxygen mass transfer coefficient decreases during the fermentation and exponential equations have been obtained to describe the relationship between the oxygen mass transfer coefficient, the agitation speed and the apparent viscosity of the broths. Furthermore, comparison of results between pullulan and xanthan fermentations was investigated. For the xanthan fermentation process, mixing and mass transfer in the reactor were more difficult than those for the pullulan fermentation.

Isoflavones are among the major bioactive compounds found in a wide variety of plant-derived foods, especially in soybeans and soy-based foods. In this study, the effect of a soy-derived isoflavone mixture (designated as SI-I, containing 71% daidzein, 14.3% genistein and 14.7% glycitein) on HeLa cells and its mechanism were investigated. SI-I in concentration range 5-80 μg/ml significantly reduced the survival rate of HeLa cells by MTT assay, whereas showed no side effect on that of L929 cells. After HeLa cells were exposed to 10, 20 and 40 μg/ml SI-I for 4 days, typical apoptotic morphological changes, including nuclear fragmentation, cytoplasm shrinkage and decrease of cell volume, were observed by fluorescence microscope and CLSM, respectively. FCM analysis revealed that the percentages of early apoptotic cells with lost Δψm increased by 2.27, 2.74 and 4.05 folds respectively, compared with control. The results showed that SI-I inhibited HeLa cell growth through inducing apoptosis via the mitochondrial pathway and comparisons with reported data indicated that synergistic effect existed between the isoflavone species contained in SI-I. It is proposed that natural soy-derived isoflavones are potential candidates as chemotherapeutic agents against human cervical cancer.

Transglutaminase (TG) is an alternative coacervate cross-linking agent to aldehydes due to its safety. In this work, the cross-linking conditions of soybean protein isolate (SPI)-chitosan coacervates with TG-utilizing capsanthin as the model core were optimized and its cross-linking effectiveness was compared with that of glutaraldehyde. Results indicated that the optimum capsanthin microcapsule cross-linking conditions were as follows: a suspension pH of 6.0, an incubation duration of 3 h, a TG concentration of 18.75 U/g SPI and a reaction temperature of 45 °C. Under these conditions, TG provided a cross-linking effectiveness comparable with that of glutaraldehyde in regards to microcapsule stability against swelling in 80 °C water and heating at 150 °C. Differential scanning calorimetry analysis revealed that TG cross-linking increased the integrity of the microcapsule walls. It was concluded that the SPI-chitosan coacervation pair has potential applications in the food industry in terms of cross-linker safety and effectiveness.