S100 calcium-binding proteins such as S100B are elevated in primary malignant melanoma and are used as markers for this and numerous other cancers. Wild-type p53 protein levels are relatively low in these cancer cells (i.e. when compared with cells without S100B) but are elevated when RNA antisense to S100B is introduced. This result implicates S100B in the down-regulation of p53 and is consistent with the large decreases in p53 protein levels observed previously in transient cotransfections of p53 and S100B (Lin, J., Blake, M., Tang Down-regulation of p53 in primary malignant melanoma cells is likely the result of a direct interaction with S100B, which was observed by co-immunoprecipitation experiments. Furthermore, p53 binds regions of the S100B promoter, one of which matches the 20-nucleotide p53-binding consensus DNA sequence perfectly. Therefore, when p53 levels increase, it contributes to its own demise by up-regulating the transcription of S100B as part of a negative feedback loop. This is analogous to what is found for another protein that down-regulates p53, namely hdm2 (human double mutant 2).

No abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the pharmacokinetic (PK) characteristics, clinical efficiency, and pharmacoeconomic parameters of piperacillin/tazobactam administered by extended infusion (EI) or intermittent infusion (II) in the treatment of hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) in critically ill patients with low illness severity in China. Fifty patients completed the study, with 25 patients receiving 4/0.5 g piperacillin/tazobactam over 30 min as the II group and 25 patients receiving 4/0.5 g piperacillin/tazobactam over 3 h every 6 h as the EI group. Drug assay was performed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The percentage of the dosing interval for which the free piperacillin concentration (%fT) exceeds the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was calculated. The patients' therapy cost, clinical efficiency, and adverse effects were also recorded. %fT>MIC was about 100, 98.73, and 93.04 % in the EI arm versus 81.48, 53.29, and 42.15 % in the II arm, respectively,

Adult undifferentiated embryonal sarcoma of the liver (UESL) is an aggressive malignant tumor. As UESL is rare, the literature predominantly includes case reports, with a limited number of small case series. The aim of the present study was to investigate the presentation, treatment modalities and outcomes of this rare tumor. The present study includes a case series of adult UESL and a systematic review. A single-institution case series of adult UESL were retrospectively analyzed, and a systematic review of adult UESL was performed by searching MEDLINE, Web of Science, EMBASE, the Google Scholar database and the Cochrane Library. For all identified adult UESL cases, the demographic variables, treatments and survival were analyzed. Three female adult patients with UESL (median age, 21 years) were successfully treated by complete tumor resection, with or without adjuvant chemotherapy, at Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital between 2015 and 2018. Of these patients, two are currently alive (follow-up, 9 and 41 months), and one died after pulmonary recurrence 17 months post-diagnosis. The present systematic review identified 108 cases of adult UESL. Among all 111 analyzed cases, the median overall and disease-free survival rates were as follows: 1-year, 72 and 67%; 3-year, 56 and 40%; and 5-year, 47 and 35%, respectively. Treatment strategies combining complete tumor resection and chemotherapy promoted improved overall and disease free survival time compared with radical tumor resection alone. The present analysis included one of the largest case series of UESL in adults, and is the first such study to present survival rates. The results of the present study confirmed that survival was improved by treatment strategies combining complete tumor resection and chemotherapy.

This study examined the associations between adherence to 24-hour movement behavior guidelines (24-HMB) and the mental-health-related outcomes of depressive symptoms and anxiety in Chinese children. Data on movement behavior from 5357 children (4th and 5th grades), including physical activity, recreational screen time and sleep, were self-reported using the Health Behavior School-Aged Children Survey. Depressive symptoms and anxiety were self-reported using the Chinese version of the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale, respectively. Depressive symptoms and anxiety were treated as categorical variables. Only 3.2% of the participants met physical activity, screen time, and sleep 24-HMB guidelines. Ordinal logistic regressions showed that, compared with participants who met the 24-HMB guidelines, participants who met none (odds ratio (OR) = 2.62, 95% CI: 1.76–3.90) or any one of the guidelines (OR = 1.88, 95% CI: 1.27–2.77) had higher odds of depressive symptoms. Similarly, there were higher odds of anxiety in participants who met none (OR = 2.32, 95% CI: 1.45–3.70) or any one of the recommendations (OR = 1.62, 95% CI: 1.03–2.57) compared with participants who met all the 24-HMB guidelines. Meeting the 24-HMB guidelines is associated with better mental-health-related outcomes in Chinese children. Because of the low prevalence of Chinese children meeting the 24-HMB recommendations, the present findings highlight the need to encourage children to regularly engage in physical activity, decrease their time spent sitting, and improve their sleep patterns.

High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has proved extremely versatile over the past 25 yr for the isolation and purification of peptides varying widely in their sources, quantity and complexity. This article covers the major modes of HPLC utilized for peptides (size-exclusion, ion-exchange, and reversed-phase), as well as demonstrating the potential of a novel mixed-mode hydrophilic interaction/cation-exchange approach developed in this laboratory. In addition to the value of these HPLC modes for peptide separations, the value of various HPLC techniques for structural characterization of peptides and proteins will be addressed, e.g., assessment of oligomerization state of peptides/proteins by size-exclusion chromatography and monitoring the hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity of amphipathic alpha-helical peptides, a vital precursor for the development of novel antimicrobial peptides. The value of capillary electrophoresis for peptide separations is also demonstrated. Preparative reversed-phase chromatography purification protocols for sample loads of up to 200 mg on analytical columns and instrumentation are introduced for both peptides and recombinant proteins.

LDL-C/HDL-C ratio is helpful in assessing and reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease caused by impaired lipid metabolism in type 2 diabetic patients.

Illumination and resolution analysis provides vital information regarding the response of an imaging system to subsurface structures. However, generating the resolution function is often computationally intensive, which prevents it from being widely used in practice. This problem is particularly severe for the time-domain migration method, such as reverse time migration (RTM). To solve this problem, we have developed a fast full-wave-based illumination and resolution analysis method. The source- and receiver-side waves are extrapolated to the subsurface for simulating the imaging process. To create the relations linking the incident and scattering directions to the target wavenumber components, we have adopted an efficient Poynting-vector-based method for wavefield angle decomposition. By taking the approximation that the time-domain wavefield preserves the source spectrum during propagation, massive input/output and trace-by-trace Fourier transform can be avoided and the finite-frequency calculated broadband signal can be directly converted to the wavenumber domain for calculating the point spreading functions (PSFs). Combining these approaches, the resulting method avoids intensive calculations, massive input/output, and huge storage requirements commonly involved in generating the illumination and resolution functions. The method is highly efficient and particularly suitable to team with RTM for resolution analysis. Numerical examples are used to validate this method. We have determined how to calculate the acquisition dip response and PSFs, based on which, the quality of the depth image can be significantly improved.