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Urotensin II (UII) is a vasoactive peptide composed of 11 amino acids that has been implicated to contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether UII affects the development of atherosclerosis in cholesterol-fed rabbits. UII was infused for 16 weeks through an osmotic mini-pump into male Japanese White rabbits fed on a high-cholesterol diet. Plasma lipids and body weight were measured every 4 weeks. Aortic atherosclerotic lesions along with cellular components, collagen fibers, matrix metalloproteinase-1 and -9 were examined. Moreover, vulnerability index of atherosclerotic plaques was evaluated. UII infusion significantly increased atherosclerotic lesions within the entire aorta by 21% over the control (P = 0.013). Atherosclerotic lesions were increased by 24% in the aortic arch (P = 0.005), 11% in the thoracic aorta (P = 0.054) and 18% in the abdominal aorta (P = 0.035). These increases occurred without changes in plasma levels of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides or body weight. Immunohistochemical staining revealed that macrophages and matrix metalloproteinase-9 were significantly enhanced by 2.2-fold and 1.6-fold in UII group. In vitro studies demonstrated that UII up-regulated the expression of vascular cell adhesion protein-1 and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 in human umbilical vein endothelial cells, which was inhibited by the UII receptor antagonist urantide. In conclusion, our results showed that UII promotes the development of atherosclerotic lesions and destabilizes atherosclerotic plaques in cholesterol-fed rabbits.

To help doctors and patients evaluate lumbar intervertebral disc degeneration (IVDD) accurately and efficiently, we propose a segmentation network and a quantitation method for IVDD from T2MRI. A semantic segmentation network (BianqueNet) composed of three innovative modules achieves high-precision segmentation of IVDD-related regions. A quantitative method is used to calculate the signal intensity and geometric features of IVDD. Manual measurements have excellent agreement with automatic calculations, but the latter have better repeatability and efficiency. We investigate the relationship between IVDD parameters and demographic information (age, gender, position and IVDD grade) in a large population. Considering these parameters present strong correlation with IVDD grade, we establish a quantitative criterion for IVDD. This fully automated quantitation system for IVDD may provide more precise information for clinical practice, clinical trials, and mechanism investigation. It also would increase the number of patients that can be monitored.

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Glycoprotein nonmetastatic melanoma B (GPNMB) is a type I transmembrane glycoprotein which is overexpressed in many tumors and seems to play a critical role in metastasis of malignant tumors. The purpose of this study was to determine GPNMB expression in small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and analyze the prognostic value in patients with SCLC. A total of 132 cases of SCLCs were analyzed immunohistochemically on tissue microarrays (TMAs). Patients were divided into weak-positive and strong-positive GPNMB groups. In addition, serum GPNMB was evaluated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The average serum GPNMB concentration was 1054.15 ± 363.71 pg/mL in the weak-positive group, 2611.52 ± 457.57 pg/mL in the strong-positive group, and 427.61 ± 273.9 pg/mL in the control. The strong-positive group showed significantly higher serum GPNMB levels than the weak-positive group and healthy control (p < 0.01). Overall survival in the weak-positive GPNMB group was significantly longer than in the strong-positive group (27 months vs 15 months, p < 0.01). These results suggest that the expression of GPNMB may be useful as a prognostic indicator in patients with SCLC.

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Our results showed that HFCD induced IR, increased adipose accumulation and atherosclerotic lesions in rabbits, suggesting that the HFCD-fed rabbits can serve as a model for the research on human IR and lipid metabolism abnormalities.

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