No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with inflammation. Increased serum C-reactive protein (CRP) levels are important representatives of an inflammatory state of AF. A variety of studies have evaluated whether increased CRP levels have an association with AF recurrence after catheter ablation. However, the results remain inconsistent, therefore, this meta-analysis was conducted to offer suggestions. Hypothesis: Increased baseline CRP have an association with AF recurrence after catheter ablation. Methods: Electronic databases including PubMed, Embase, Medline, ISI Web of Knowledge, and ScienceDirect were searched until December 31, 2012 for any CRP-associated studies. Overall and subgroup analyses were performed. Standardized mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to evaluate the associations between CRP levels and postablation AF recurrence. Statistical analysis was performed with Review Manager 5.2 and Stata 11.0. Results: Seven available studies were identified, which included 526 patients (179 recurrence vs 347 no recurrence). Overall, increased baseline CRP levels had significant positive association with postablation AF recurrence. The SMD in the CRP levels was 0.65 units (95% CI: 0.30-0.99), and the z-score for overall effect was 3.70 (P = 0.0002). The heterogeneity test showed that there were moderate differences between individual studies (P = 0.006, I 2 = 67%). Metaregression revealed that different sample sizes of studies possibly accounted for the heterogeneity. Positive associations were also found in subgroup analyses based on sample size. When stratifying for ethnicity, similarly significant associations were found in both European (Caucasian) and Asian populations. Conclusions: Investigations demonstrate that baseline CRP levels are greater in patients with postablation AF recurrence. Further studies with larger sample size and delicate design for CRP should be conducted. IntroductionAtrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia encountered in clinical practice, and approximately onethird of all cardiac arrhythmia-related hospitalizations are due to AF.

No abstract

In order to solve the problems of receptor promiscuity and poor blood‐brain barrier (BBB) penetration in the treatment of glioblastomas (GBM), a novel dual‐functional nanocomplex drug delivery system is developed based on the strategy of peptide‐drug conjugates. In this study, SynB3‐PVGLIG‐PTX is designed and screened out by matrix metalloproteinase‐2 (MMP‐2), to which it exhibits the best affinity. The MMP‐2‐sensitive peptide (PVGLIG) and a cell‐penetration peptide (SynB3) are combined to form a dual‐functional peptide. Moreover, as a drug‐peptide nanocomplex, SynB3‐PVGLIG‐PTX exhibited a high potential to form an aggregation with good solubility that can release paclitaxel (PTX) through the cleavage of MMP‐2. From a functional perspective, it is found that SynB3‐PVGLIG‐PTX can specifically inhibit the proliferation, migration, and invasion of GBM cells in vitro in the presence of MMP‐2, in contrast to that observed in MMP‐2 siRNA transfected cells. Further investigation in vivo shows that SynB3‐PVGLIG‐PTX easily enters the brain of U87MG xenograft nude mice and can generate a better suppressive effect on GBM through a controlled release of PTX from SynB3‐PVGLIG‐PTX compared with PTX and temozolomide. Thus, it is proposed that SynB3‐PVGLIG‐PTX can be used as a novel drug‐loading delivery system to treat GBM due to its specificity and BBB permeability.

The wild silkworm Bombyx mandarina was domesticated to produce silk in China approximately 5000 years ago. Silk production is greatly improved in the domesticated silkworm B. mori, but the molecular basis of the functional evolution of silk gland remains elusive. We performed shotgun proteomics with label-free quantification analysis and identified 1012 and 822 proteins from the posterior silk glands (PSGs) of wild silkworms on the third and fifth days of the fifth instar, respectively, with 128 of these differentially expressed. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that, with the development of the PSG, the up-regulated proteins were mainly involved in the ribosome pathway, similar to what we previously reported for B. mori. Additionally, we screened 50 proteins with differential expression between wild and domesticated silkworms that might be involved in domestication at the two stages. Interestingly, the up-regulated proteins in domesticated compared to wild silkworms were enriched in the ribosome pathway, which is closely related to cell size and translation capacity. Together, these results suggest that functional evolution of the PSG during domestication was driven by reinforcing the advantageous pathways to increase the synthesis efficiency of silk proteins in each cell and thereby improve silk yield.

Robust proliferation and apoptosis inhibition of tumor cells are responsible for the high mortality and poor outcome of patients with high-grade gliomas. miR-29a/b/c have been reported to be important suppressors in several human tumor types. However, their exact roles in gliomagenesis and their relevance to patient prognosis remain unclear. In this study, using 187 human glioma specimens and 20 nontumoral brain tissues, we demonstrated that the expression of miR-29a/b/c decreased progressively as the grade of glioma and the Ki-67 index increased. However, the expression of TRAF4, the functional target of miR-29a/b/c, exhibited the inverse trend, and its level was inversely correlated with the levels of miR-29a/b/c. A Kaplan–Meier analysis demonstrated that the miR-29a/b/c and TRAF4 levels were closely associated with patient survival even in patients with the same tumor grade and identical IDH gene status. A functional study verified that miR-29a/b/c induced apoptosis and suppressed the proliferation of glioma cells by directly targeting TRAF4. An investigation of the mechanism revealed that miR-29a/b/c promoted apoptosis through the TRAF4/AKT/MDM2 pathway in a p53-dependent manner, while miR-29a/b/c induced G1 arrest and inhibited tumor cell proliferation by blocking the phosphorylation of AKT and GSK-3β, and the expression of cyclin D1 and c-Myc. Furthermore, TRAF4-knockdown perfectly simulated the anti-glioma effects of miR-29a/b/c. These findings enrich our understanding of gliomagenesis, highlight the prognostic value of miR-29a/b/c and TRAF4, and imply their potential therapeutic roles in malignant gliomas.