ABSTRACT
@#[Abstract] Objective: To investigate the expression of tight junction protein claudin-7 (CLDN-7) in pancreatic cancer and its correlation with the clinicopathological features and prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients. Methods: Oncomine, GEPIA and GEO databases were used to comprehensively analyze the mRNA expression level of CLDN-7 in pancreatic cancer, and Kaplan-Meier Plotter database was used to analyze the relationship between the expression of CLDN-7 and the survival prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients. Immunohistochemical staining was used to detect the protein level of CLDN-7 in 44 cases of pancreatic cancer tissues and 31 cases of para-cancerous tissues resected in the Department of General Surgery of the Second Hospital of Lanzhou University from 2015 to 2018, and the relationship between CLDN-7 expression and clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of patients was also analyzed. GO (Gene Ontology) analysis and KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) pathway enrichment analysis were conducted to analyze the possible signaling pathways that CLDN-7 may involve in and their main functions, which were further verified in TCGA and GEPIA databases. Results: Analysis of both the databases and the clinical samples showed that CLDN-7 was significantly over-expressed in pancreatic cancer tissues, and its high expression was correlated with clinical prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients; moreover, CLDN-7 expression was an independent factor affecting the overall survival time of pancreatic cancer patients (all P<0.05). GO analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis confirmed that CLDN-7 was involved in DNA damage repair and glucose metabolism in pancreatic cancer patients. TCGA and GEPIA database validation showed that CLDN-7 expression in pancreatic cancer was significantly and positively correlated with the expression of DNA damage repair related genes (POLD4, SMUG1, NTHL1) and glucose metabolism related genes (ALDOA, TALDO1, PGLS) (all P<0.01). Conclusion: CLDN-7 is highly expressed in pancreatic cancer and indicates a worse clinical prognosis; moreover, CLDN-7 is associated with DNA damage repair and intratumoral glucose metabolism in pancreatic cancer.
ABSTRACT
Modeling a protein functional network in concerned species is an efficient approach for identifying novel genesin certain biological pathways. Tea plant (Camellia sinensis) is an important commercial crop abundant innumerous characteristic secondary metabolites (e.g., polyphenols, alkaloids, alkaloids) that confer tea qualityand health benefits. Decoding novel genes responsible for tea characteristic components is an important basisfor applied genetic improvement and metabolic engineering. Herein, a high-quality protein functional networkfor tea plant (TeaPoN) was predicted using cross-species protein functional associations transferring andintegration combined with a stringent biological network criterion control. TeaPoN contained 31,273 nonredundant functional interactions among 6,634 tea proteins (or genes), with general network topologicalproperties such as scale-free and small-world. We revealed the modular organization of genes related to themajor three tea characteristic components (theanine, caffeine, catechin) in TeaPoN, which served as strongevidence for the utility of TeaPoN in novel gene mining. Importantly, several case studies regarding geneidentification for tea characteristic components were presented. To aid in the use of TeaPoN, a concise webinterface for data deposit and novel gene screening was developed (http://teapon.wchoda.com). We believe thatTeaPoN will serve as a useful platform for functional genomics studies associated with characteristic secondarymetabolites in tea plant.
ABSTRACT
Objective@#To evaluate the use of dental operating microscope in treating calcified canals. @*Methods@#369 calcified canals were treated with C-Pilot files and ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) under dental operating microscope. The canals were grouped based on the calcified teeth site and calcified location in canals, and then the success rates of negotiating were analyzed with χ2 test.@*Results @#310 of 369 calcified canals were negotiated under dental operating microscope, the negotiating rate was 84.01%. For the anterior, premolar and molar, the negotiating rate were 94.78%, 85.98%, and 74.15% respectively. There were significant differences between anterior and molar teeth (χ2 = 19.658, P<0.05). When the calcification was located in straight canals or above the root canal curvature, canals were negotiated with a success rate of 96.85%. However, it decreased to 39.76% when the calcified portion located below the root canal curvature (χ2 = 156.113, P<0.05).@*Conclusion @# It is an effective way to use dental operating microscope and C-Pilot files to treat calcified canals, but the therapeutic effects might be affected by sites of the teeth and the calcified location in canals.