No abstract

Dynamic DNA assemblies, including catalytic DNA circuits, DNA nanomachines, molecular translators, and reconfigurable nanostructures, have shown promising potential to regulate cell functions, deliver therapeutic reagents, and amplify detection signals for molecular diagnostics and imaging. However, such applications of dynamic DNA assembly systems have been limited to nucleic acids and a few small molecules, due to the limited approaches to trigger the DNA assemblies. Herein, we describe a binding-induced DNA strand displacement strategy that can convert protein binding to the release of a predesigned output DNA at room temperature with high conversion efficiency and low background. This strategy allows us to construct dynamic DNA assembly systems that are able to respond to specific protein binding, opening an opportunity to initiate dynamic DNA assembly by proteins.

Anthocyanins and flavonols have vital roles in flower coloration, plant development, and defense. Because anthocyanins and flavonols share the same subcellular localization and common biosynthetic substrates, these pathways may compete for substrates. However, the mechanism regulating this potential competition remains unclear. Here, we identified GhMYB1a, an R2R3-MYB transcription factor involved in the regulation of anthocyanin and flavonol accumulation in gerbera (Gerberahybrida). GhMYB1a shares high sequence similarity with that of other characterized regulators of flavonol biosynthesis. In addition, GhMYB1a is also phylogenetically grouped with these proteins. The overexpression of GhMYB1a in gerbera and tobacco (Nicotianatabacum) resulted in decreased anthocyanin accumulation and increased accumulation of flavonols by upregulating the structural genes involved in flavonol biosynthesis. We further found that GhMYB1a functions as a homodimer instead of interacting with basic helix-loop-helix cofactors. These results suggest that GhMYB1a is involved in regulating the anthocyanin and flavonol metabolic pathways through precise regulation of gene expression. The functional characterization of GhMYB1a provides insight into the biosynthesis and regulation of flavonols and anthocyanins.

S100A7 is an EF-hand calcium-binding protein that has been suggested to be implicated in cell proliferation, migration, invasion and tumor metastasis. However, its role in cervical cancer has not yet been fully clarified. The present study used immunohistochemistry analysis of S100A7 in clinical specimens of cervical cancer to show that S100A7 expression was significantly upregulated in cervical cancer tissues compared with normal cervical tissues and S100A7 expression in high grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasm (CIN) was significantly higher than cervical cancer. Statistical analysis showed that S100A7 expression was associated with tumor grade (P <0.01) and lymph node metastasis (P <0.05). Functional studies showed that overexpression of S100A7 in cervical cancer cells promoted migration, invasion and metastasis of cervical cancer cells without influencing cell proliferation. Furthermore, S100A7 was found to be secreted into the conditioned media and extracellular S100A7 enhanced cell migration and invasion. Mechanistically, S100A7 bound to RAGE and activated ERK signaling pathway. And S100A7 enhanced cell mesenchymal properties and induced epithelial–mesenchymal transition. In summary, these data reveal a crucial role for S100A7 in regulating cell migration, invasion, metastasis and EMT of cervical cancer and suggest that targeting S100A7 may offer a new targeted strategy for cervical cancer.

No abstract

Traditional post-disaster assessment of damage heavily relies on expensive GIS data, especially remote sensing image data. In recent years, social media has become a rich source of disaster information that may be useful in assessing damage at a lower cost. Such information includes text (e.g., tweets) or images posted by eyewitnesses of a disaster. Most of the existing research explores the use of text in identifying situational awareness information useful for disaster response teams. The use of social media images to assess disaster damage is limited. In this paper, we propose a novel approach, based on convolutional neural networks and class activation maps, to locate damage in a disaster image and to quantify the degree of the damage. Our proposed approach enables the use of social network images for post-disaster damage assessment, and provides an inexpensive and feasible alternative to the more expensive GIS approach.

BackgroundS100A14 is a member of the S100 calcium‐binding protein family that exerts important phenotypic effects on cell proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation, and motility. However, the functional role and potential clinical significance of S100A14 in lung adenocarcinoma has not yet been clarified.MethodsWe analyzed genomic alterations of S100A14 using The Cancer Genome Atlas lung adenocarcinoma genomic dataset. S100A14 displayed significant copy number amplification in lung adenocarcinoma. We detected S100A14 expression in lung adenocarcinoma and analyzed the correlation between S100A14 expression and clinicopathological characteristics.ResultsImmunohistochemical analysis showed that S100A14 expression was obviously upregulated in lung adenocarcinoma tissues compared to matched normal counterparts. Statistical analysis revealed that S100A14 expression strongly correlated with poor differentiation, metastasis, stage, smoking, and EGFR mutation. Furthermore, our data indicated that S100A14 serum levels were higher in lung adenocarcinoma patients than healthy controls. Intriguingly, S100A14 serum levels were related to distant metastasis (P = 0.028). High S100A14 expression was significantly associated with overall (P = 0.0016) and post progression (P = 0.039) survival. In addition, we investigated the biological functions of S100A14 in lung adenocarcinoma cell lines. The results demonstrated that S100A14 promoted cell migration and invasion of SPCA1 and Glc‐82 cells.ConclusionsS100A14 increases the motility of lung adenocarcinoma cells, and might be a diagnostic and prognostic serum biomarker and potential therapeutic target for lung adenocarcinoma.

Metastasis is a multi-step process. Tumor cells occur epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) to start metastasis, then, they need to undergo a reverse progression of EMT, mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET), to colonize and form macrometastases at distant organs to complete the whole process of metastasis. Although microRNAs (miRNAs) functions in EMT process are well established, their influence on colonization and macrometastases formation remains unclear. Here, we established an EMT model in MCF-10A cells with SNAI1 overexpression, and characterized some EMT-related microRNAs. We identified that miR-182, which was directly suppressed by SNAI1, could enable an epithelial-like state in breast cancer cells in vitro, and enhance colonization and macrometastases in vivo. Subsequent studies showed that miR-182 exerted its function through targeting its suppressor SNAI1. Moreover, higher expression level of miR-182 was detected in metastatic lymph nodes, compared with paired primary tumor tissues. In addition, the expression level of miR-182 was negatively correlated with that of SNAI1 in these clinical specimens. Taking together, our findings describe the role of miR-182 in colonization and macrometastases in breast cancer for the first time, and provide a promise for diagnosis or therapy of breast cancer metastasis.