There exist several positively and negatively charged electrolytes or ions in human blood, urine, and other body fluids. Tests that measure the concentration of these ions in clinics are performed using a more affordable, portable, and disposable potentiometric sensing method with few sample volumes, which requires the use of ion-selective electrodes (ISEs) and reference electrodes. This review summarily descriptively presents progressive developments and applications of ion selective electrodes in medical laboratory electrolytic ion tests, from conventional ISEs, solid-contact ISEs, carbon nanotube based ISEs, to graphene-based ISEs.

BackgroundWnt/β-catenin signaling pathway plays important roles in human cancer progression. Better understanding the mechanism underlying regulation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway might provide novel therapeutic targets for cancer treatment.MethodsmiR-610 expression levels in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines, HCC tissues and 76 archived HCC specimens were determined using real-time PCR. Cell viability was measured by 3-[4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The level of DNA synthesis was determined by BrdU incorporation assay. Flow cytometry analysis was used to analyze cell cycle progression. The cells proliferation and tumorigenesis were determined by colony formation and anchorage-independent growth assays in vitro, and by xenograft tumors in vivo. Luciferase assay and micro-ribonucleoprotein complex immunoprecipitation assay were used to confirm the association of the targeted mRNAs with miR-610.ResultsmiR-610 was downregulated in human HCC cells and tissues, and correlated with HCC progression and patient survival. Inhibition of miR-610 promoted, but overexpression of miR-610 reduced, HCC cell proliferation and tumorigenicity both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, we found that inhibiting miR-610 activated, but overexpressing miR-610 decreased, the Wnt/β-catenin activity through directly suppressing lipoprotein receptor-related protein 6 (LRP6) and transducin β–like protein 1 (TBL1X). The in vitro analysis was consistent with the inverse correlation detected between miR-610 levels with expression of LRP6 and TBL1X in a cohort of human HCC samples.ConclusionsOur results indicate that miR-610 downregulation plays essential roles in HCC progression and reduced miR-610 is correlated with Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1476-4598-13-261) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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A method based on wavelet packet best basis decomposition (WPBBD) is investigated for the purpose of extracting features of electroencephalogram signals produced during motor imagery tasks in brain-computer interfaces. The method includes the following three steps. (1) Original signals are decomposed by wavelet packet transform (WPT) and a wavelet packet library can be formed. (2) The best basis for classification is selected from the library. (3) Subband energies included in the best basis are used as effective features. Three different motor imagery tasks are discriminated using the features. The WPBBD produces a 70.3% classification accuracy, which is 4.2% higher than that of the existing wavelet packet method.

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