Prognosis of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) is generally poor because of the lack of simple, convenient, and noninvasive tools for CRC detection at the early stage. The discovery of microRNAs (miRNAs) and their different expression profiles among different kinds of diseases has opened a new avenue for tumor diagnosis. We built a serum microRNA expression profile signature and tested its specificity and sensitivity as a biomarker in the diagnosis of CRC. We also studied its possible role in monitoring the progression of CRC. We conducted a two phase case-control test to identify serum miRNAs as biomarkers for CRC diagnosis. Using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reactions, we tested ten candidate miRNAs in a training set (30 CRCs vs 30 controls). Risk score analysis was used to evaluate the diagnostic value of the serum miRNA profiling system. Other independent samples, including 83 CRCs and 59 controls, were used to validate the diagnostic model. In the training set, six serum miRNAs (miR-21, let-7g, miR-31, miR-92a, miR-181b, and miR-203) had significantly different expression levels between the CRCs and healthy controls. Risk score analysis demonstrated that the six-miRNA-based biomarker signature had high sensitivity and specificity for distinguishing the CRC samples from cancer-free controls. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of the six-miRNA signature profiles were 0.900 and 0.923 for the two sets of serum samples, respectively. However, for the same serum samples, the areas under the ROC curve used by the tumor markers carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) were only 0.649 and 0.598, respectively. The expression levels of the six serum miRNAs were also correlated with CRC progression. Thus, the identified six-miRNA signature can be used as a noninvasive biomarker for the diagnosis of CRC, with relatively high sensitivity and specificity.

Soil microbial activity played a key role in the bioefficacy persistence of neonicotinoid insecticides and therefore significantly affected their technical profile after soil application.

As a fundamental and important task in remote sensing, remote sensing image scene understanding (RSISU) has attracted tremendous research interest in recent years. RSISU includes the following sub-tasks: remote sensing image scene classification, remote sensing image scene retrieval, and scene-driven remote sensing image object detection. Although these sub-tasks have different goals, they share some communal hints. Hence, this paper tries to discuss them as a whole. Similar to other domains (e.g., speech recognition and natural image recognition), deep learning has also become the state-of-the-art technique in RSISU. To facilitate the sustainable progress of RSISU, this paper presents a comprehensive review of deep-learning-based RSISU methods, and points out some future research directions and potential applications of RSISU.

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Our study revealed that NAIF1 plays a role in regulating cellular migration and invasion through the MAPK pathways. It could be a therapeutic target for gastric cancer.

Ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase-L1 (UCHL1) is a de-ubiquitinating enzyme, which enzymatic activity relies on the C90 site. The function of UCHL1 is controversial in different types of cancer, and its role in gastric cancer progression remains unclear. In this study, immunohistochemistry staining was applied to detect the expression of UCHL1 in primary gastric cancer and liver metastases from gastric cancer. MKN45 and BGC823 cell lines with stable expression of de-ubiquitinase active UCHL1 or inactive UCHL1-variant C90S were established by lentiviral infection. The effect of UCHL1 on cell proliferation was evaluated by MTT and colony formation assays. The abilities of cell migration and invasion were determined by transwell assay. Protein expression levels were determined by Western blot. The results indicated that UCHL1 had a significantly higher positive expression rate in liver metastases from gastric cancer compared with primary gastric cancer. Overexpression of UCHL1 in MKN45 and BGC823 cells promoted cell proliferation, migration, and invasion depending on its de-ubiquitinase activity. UCHL1 activated Akt and Erk1/2, which process also required enzymatic activity and was necessary for mediating cell migration and invasion. These findings demonstrated that UCHL1 promoted cell proliferation, migration, and invasion depending on its de-ubiquitinase activity by activating Akt and Erk1/2, which may account for its higher positive expression rate in liver metastases from gastric cancer. UCHL1 could be a candidate biomarker and a therapeutic target for gastric cancer metastasis.

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to identify a panel of serum noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) as potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for breast cancer.Material/MethodsPatients with breast cancer (n=30), and normal controls (n=30) were included in the ‘training set.’ A ‘validation set’ included cases of breast cancer (n=128) and controls (n=77). All cases provided blood samples for serum analysis. All cases of breast cancer were confirmed histologically and were staged. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was used to detect the expression of 11 candidate ncRNAs, including long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs), in the serum. The expression of the panel of ncRNAs was further analyzed following surgery or chemotherapy.ResultsThe four ncRNAs identified in the serum of patients with breast cancer included let-7a, miR-155, miR-574-5p, and metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1). Analysis based on the risk score showed that the panel of these four ncRNAs could effectively distinguish between patients with breast cancer and the control group. For the training set and the validation set, analysis of the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve showed that the areas under the curve (AUCs) were 0.960 and 0.968, respectively. Also, the serum expression levels of the four ncRNAs differed in the pre-treatment and the post-treatment patients with breast cancer, with levels of miR-155 showing a significant decrease following chemotherapy.ConclusionsA panel of serum ncRNAs, including let-7a, miR-155, miR-574-5p, and MALAT1, was shown to be present in patients with breast cancer.

Deletion of ribosomal protein L32 genes resulted in a nonsexual flocculation of fission yeast. Nonsexual flocculation also occurred when two other ribosomal protein genes, rpl21-2 and rpl9-2, were deleted. However, deletion of two nonribosomal protein genes, mpg and fbp, did not cause flocculation. Overall transcript levels of rpl32 in rpl32-1⌬ and rpl32-2⌬ cells were reduced by 35.9% and 46.9%, respectively, and overall ribosome levels in rpl32-1⌬ and rpl32-2⌬ cells dropped 31.1% and 27.8%, respectively, compared to wild-type cells. Interestingly, ribosome protein expression levels and ribosome levels were also reduced greatly in sexually flocculating diploid YHL6381/WT (h ؉ /h ؊ ) cells compared to a mixture of YHL6381 (h ؉ ) and WT (h ؊ ) nonflocculating haploid cells. Transcriptome analysis indicated that the reduction of ribosomal levels in sexual flocculating cells was caused by more-extensive suppression of ribosomal biosynthesis gene expression, while the reduction of ribosomal levels caused by deleting ribosomal protein genes in nonsexual flocculating cells was due to an imbalance between ribosomal proteins. We propose that once the reduction of ribosomal levels is below a certain threshold value, flocculation is triggered.