Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common degenerative disease that lacks efficient treatment. Myelin-associated neurite outgrowth inhibitor A (Nogo-A) is relevant with inhibition of nerve regeneration and may play vital role in pathogenesis of PD. The study aimed to establish the shRNA expression plasmids of Nogo-A gene and explore the regulatory effects of Nogo-A silencing on the expression of inflammation factor tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) as well as tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) in lipopolysaccharide- (LPS-) stimulated rat PC12 cells. The results showed that both mRNA and protein levels of Nogo-A in pGenesil-nogoA-shRNA group were downregulated. The viabilities of PC12 cells decreased with increase of LPS concentrations. LPS significantly increased the supernatant TNF-alpha and IL-6 concentrations and reduced TH protein expression in PC12 cells, while silencing Nogo-A could block these effects. These results suggested that LPS can activate PC12 cells to secrete inflammatory cytokines and lower the TH expression, which can be regulated by Nogo-A gene silencing. Nogo-A silencing might provide new ideas for PD treatment in the future.

In the process of urban rail transit network design, the urban road network, urban trips and land use are the key factors to be considered. At present, the subjective and qualitative methods are usually used in most practices. In this paper, a quantitative model is developed to ensure the matching between the factors and the urban rail transit network. In the model, a basic network, which is used to define the roads that candidate lines will pass through, is firstly constructed based on the locations of large traffic volume and main passenger flow corridors. Two matching indexes are proposed: one indicates the matching degree between the network and the trip demand, which is calculated by the deviation value between two gravity centers of the stations’ importance distribution in network and the traffic zones’ trip intensity; the other one describes the matching degree between the network and the land use, which is calculated by the deviation value between the fractal dimensions of stations’ importance distribution and the traffic zones’ land-use intensity. The model takes the maximum traffic turnover per unit length of network and the minimum average volume of transfer passengers between lines as objectives. To solve the NP-hard problem in which the variables increase exponentially with the increase of network size, a neighborhood search algorithm is developed based on simulated annealing method. A real case study is carried out to show that the model and algorithm are effective.

NogoA is a myelin‑associated protein, which is important in the inhibition of axonal fiber growth and in regeneration following injury of the mammalian central nervous system. A previous study suggested that NogoA may be key in the process of Parkinson's disease (PD), which is the second most common chronic neurodegenerative disorder worldwide. The regulatory mechanism underlying the effect of NogoA on the process of PD remains to be fully elucidated. The present study aimed to investigate the effect and underlying mechanism of NogoA on cellular viability, apoptosis and autophagy induced by 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP+) in PC12 cells, a commonly used in vitro PD model. PC12 cells were treated with 1 mM MPP+ for 24 h and the cells were harvested for western blotting. The results demonstrated that the protien expression levels of NogoA were increased in the PC12 cells treated with MPP+. Subsequently, NogoA small interfering RNA was synthesized and transfected into PC12 cells to silence the expression of NogoA. NogoA knockdown significantly reduced the MPP+‑induced decrease in cell viability and apoptosis, detected using a cell counting kit‑8 and flow cytometric analysis, respectively. Interference in the expression of NogoA increased the MPP+‑induced decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential, determined quantitatively by flow cytometry using JC-1 dye, and the protein levels of Beclin‑1. In addition, MPP+ treatment activated the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling pathway. Knockdown of NogoA significantly inhibited the expression levels of mTOR and STAT3. Furthermore, overexpression of NogoA had similar neurotoxic effects on the PC12 cells as MPP+ treatment. Treatment with rapamycin, an inhibitor of the mTOR/STAT3 signaling pathway had a similar effect to that of NogoA knockdown in the MPP+‑treated PC12 cells. Taken together, the results from the present study demonstrated that NogoA may regulate MPP+‑induced neurotoxicity in PC12 cells via the mTOR/STAT3 signaling pathway and provided an explanation regarding the regulatory mechanism of NogoA on the process of PD.