Beyond Photometric Consistency: Geometry-Based Occlusion-Aware Unsupervised Light Field Disparity Estimation.

Although learning-based light field disparity estimation has achieved great progress in the most recent years, the performance of unsupervised light field learning is still hindered by occlusions and noises. By analyzing the overall strategy underlying the unsupervised methodology and the light field geometry implied in epipolar plane images (EPIs), we look beyond the photometric consistency assumption, and design an occlusion-aware unsupervised framework to deal with the situations of photometric consistency conflict. Specifically, we present a geometry-based light field occlusion modeling, which predicts a group of visibility masks and occlusion maps, respectively, by forward warping and backward EPI-line tracing. In order to learn better the noise-and occlusion-invariant representations of the light field, we propose two occlusion-aware unsupervised losses: occlusion-aware SSIM and statistics-based EPI loss. Experiment results demonstrate that our method can improve the estimation accuracy of light field depth over the occluded and noisy regions, and preserve the occlusion boundaries better.

The Scavenger Receptor MARCO Expressed by Tumor-Associated Macrophages Are Highly Associated With Poor Pancreatic Cancer Prognosis.

Macrophage-targeting therapies have become attractive strategies for immunotherapy. Deficiency of MARCO significantly inhibits tumor progression and metastasis in murine models of pancreatic cancer. However, the role of MARCO in patients with pancreatic cancer remains unclear. In the present study, we analyzed tumor-associated macrophage (TAM)-related changes using the Cancer Genome Atlas database. We observed a significant enrichment of M2 macrophages in pancreatic cancer tissues. We found that several pro-tumor markers are increased in cancer tissues, including CD163, CD206, SIRPα, LILRB1, SIGLEC10, AXL, MERTK, and MARCO. Crucially, MARCO is highly or exclusively expressed in pancreatic cancer across many types of solid tumors, suggesting its significant role in pancreatic cancer. Next, we investigated the expression of MARCO in relation to the macrophage marker CD163 in a treatment-naïve pancreatic cancer cohort after surgery (n = 65). MARCO and CD163 were analyzed using immunohistochemistry. We observed increased expression of CD163 and MARCO in pancreatic cancer tissues compared with paracancerous tissues. Furthermore, we observed a large variation in CD163 and MARCO expression in pancreatic cancer tissues among cases, suggesting the heterogeneous expression of these two markers among patients. Correlation to clinical data indicated a strong trend toward worse survival for patients with high CD163 and MARCO macrophage infiltration. Moreover, high CD163 and MARCO expression negatively affected the disease-free survival and overall survival rates of patients with pancreatic cancer. Univariate and multivariate analysis revealed that CD163 and MARCO expression was an independent indicator of pancreatic cancer prognosis. In conclusion, high CD163 and MARCO expression in cancer tissues is a negative prognostic marker for pancreatic cancer after surgery. Furthermore, anti-MARCO may be a novel therapy that is worth studying in depth.

A Natural High-Sugar Diet Has Different Effects on the Prokaryotic Community Structures of Lower and Higher Termites (Blattaria).

The lignocellulosic digestive symbiosis in termites is a dynamic survival adaptation system. While the contribution of hereditary and habitat factors to the development of the symbiotic bacterial community of termites had been confirmed, the manner in which these factors affect functional synergism among different bacterial lineages has still not been fully elucidated. Therefore, the 16S rRNA gene libraries of Odontotermes formosanus Shiraki (Blattodea: Termitidae) and Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki (Blattodea: Rhinotermitidae) sampled from sugarcane fields (high sugar) or pine tree forests (no free sugar) were sequenced. The results verify that the prokaryotic community structures of termites could be significantly reshaped by native dietary isolation within a species. Although the most dominant phyla are convergent in all samples, their relative abundances in these two termite species exhibited a reverse variation pattern when the termite hosts were fed on the high-sugar diet. Furthermore, we showed that the taxonomic composition of the dominant phyla at the family or genus level differentiate depending on the diet and the host phylogeny. We hypothesize that the flexible bacterial assemblages at low taxonomic level might exert variable functional collaboration to accommodate to high-sugar diet. In addition, the functional predictions of Tax4Fun suggest a stable metabolic functional structure of the microbial communities of the termites in both different diet habitats and taxonomy. We propose that the symbiotic bacterial community in different host termites developed a different functional synergistic pattern, which may be essential to maintain the stability of the overall metabolic function for the survival of termites.

The diagnostic value of combined detection of genetic markers and serum protein markers on breast cancer.

Objective: The research is to explore the diagnostic value of several detection methods including separated and combined detection of the related genes and related proteins of breast cancer and combined detection of all genetic markers and serum protein markers on breast cancer. Method: The mRNA level expression of the related genes of breast cancer was detected by FQ-PCR technique and the ratio of BRCA-1, Myc, C-erbB2 and ß2 micro-globulin was used to express levels of BRCA-1, Myc and C-erbB2; the related proteins of breast cancer were detected through ELISA. Then the research data was analyzed by SPSS19.0 software with t-test as comparison method, and ROC curve was used to calculate the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of the diagnostic models. Result: No difference can be found among the six indexes in the control group and benign breast tumor group while compared with the benign breast tumor group and the control group, the breast cancer group was significantly different from them; combined detection of genes and that of proteins were both superior to their separated detection; all-marker combined detection was superior to separated detection, which is consistent with combined detection of genes and proteins. Conclusion: More detection indexes will not necessarily outcome better detection effect. Hence, appropriate detection indexes and number are needed to achieve better diagnosis effect. In order to conduct more specific method, more test samples are needed for further researches.

High expression of programmed cell death protein 1 on peripheral blood T-cell subsets is associated with poor prognosis in metastatic gastric cancer.

Immune checkpoints in solid tumors serve important roles in metastasis. The present study was designed to explore the expression of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) on peripheral blood T-cell subsets and its role in the clinicopathological features and prognosis of patients with metastatic gastric cancer. The expression of PD-1 in peripheral blood T-cell subsets was detected in 100 metastatic gastric cancer patients prior to the first line chemotherapy by flow cytometric analysis. The potential associaton between the peripheral blood T-cell subsets PD-1 level and the clinicopathological features of patients with metastatic gastric cancer and the clinical outcomes was analyzed. The percent of high PD-1 expressed cluster of differentiation (CD)3+, CD3+CD4+ and CD3+CD8+ T-cells was 20.4, 13.0 and 9.4%, respectively in patients with metastatic gastric cancer. The overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) rate of the 100 patients with metastatic gastric cancer was 12.2 and 3.9 months, respectively. Kaplan-Meier curve with long-rank analysis indicated that patients with higher PD-1+/CD3+, PD-1+/CD3+CD4+ and PD-1+/CD3+CD8+ levels had a worse prognosis (all P<0.05). Univariate and multivariate analysis revealed that high PD-1+/CD3+ [hazard ratio (HR), 2.145; P=0.015], high PD-1+/CD3+CD4+ (HR, 1.866; P=0.034) and high PD-1+/CD3+CD8+ (HR, 1.817; P=0.033) level in peripheral blood were independent risk factors for predicting the survival time of patients with metastatic gastric cancer. High PD-1+/CD3+, high PD-1+/CD3+CD4+ and high PD-1+/CD3+CD8+ expression conferred a lower overall survival rate in patients with metastatic gastric cancer. These results suggest that high PD-1 expression on peripheral blood T-cell subsets may potentially be novel prognostic biomarker for metastatic gastric cancer.

Postoperative recurrence analysis of breast cancer patients based on clinical serum markers using discriminant methods.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is a common gynecological malignant tumor and currently its clinical diagnosis mainly depends on methods of iconography and measurement of serum level. OBJECTIVE: To analyze correlation between serum index levels and prognosis of patients with breast cancer in one week and six months after operation, and to establish support vector machine (SVM) model to evaluate its effectiveness. METHODS: One hundred sixty eight patients diagnosed with breast cancer at Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University were collected, 46 of which did palindromia while other 122 didn't six months after operation. Serum CA153, CA125 and CEA levels of different periods in two groups were analyzed from their differences. Through receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, their diagnostic threshold values were calculated, at the same time, SVM model was built. RESULTS: There was a significant difference between serum index levels of recurrence group and non-recurrence group in one week and six months after operation (P< 0.05); SVM model was established with an accuracy of 96.67% (29/30), a sensitivity of 90% (9/10) and a specificity of 100% (20/20). CONCLUSIONS: Serum CAl53, CEA and CA125 levels after operation have certain instructional significance for prognosis of breast cancer patients, and the established SVM model has high clinical application value.

Study of lung cancer regulatory network that involves erbB4 and tumor marker gene.

Our purpose is to screen out serum tumor markers closely correlated to the nature of solitary pulmonary nodule (SPN) and to draw a regulatory network containing genes correlated to lung cancer. Two hundred and sixty cases of SPN patients confirmed through pathological diagnosis were collected as subjects, factors closely correlated to the nature of SPN were screened out from eight tumor markers through Fisher discriminant method, and functional annotation and pathway analysis were conducted on erbB4 as well as its tumor marker genes by GO and KEGG databases. Four key tumor markers: CYFRA21-1, CA125, SCC-Ag and CA153 were successfully screened out and the first three proteins' corresponding gene were KRT19, MUC16 and SERPINB3 while that of CA153 was not found. GO analysis on erbB4, KRT19, MUC16 and SERPINB3 showed that they covered three domains, cell components, molecular function and biological process; meanwhile, combined with KEGG database and based on signal pathway of erbB4, a regulatory network of lung cancer cells escaping from apoptosis was successfully made. This study indicates that serum tumor marker genes play an important role in the occurrence and development of lung cancer, besides, this study primarily discussed the molecular mechanism of these tumor markers in predicting tumor, which provides a basis for in-depth information about lung cancer.

Character of cellulase activity in the guts of flagellate-free termites with different feeding habits.

Cellulose digestion in termites (Isoptera) is highly important for ecological reasons and applications in biofuel conversion. The speciose Termitidae family has lost flagellates in the hindgut and developed diverse feeding habits. To address the response of cellulase activity to the differentiation of feeding habits, a comparative study of the activity and distribution of composite cellulases, endo-ß-1,4-glucanase, and ß-glucosidase was performed in seven common flagellate-free termites with three feeding habits: the humus-feeding termites Sinocapritermes mushae (Oshima et Maki), Malaysiocapritermes zhangfengensis Zhu, Yang et Huang and Pericapritermes jiangtsekiangensis (Kemner); the fungus-growing termites Macrotermes barneyi Light and Odontotermes formosanus (Shiraki); and the wood-feeding termites Nasutitermes parvonasutus (Shiraki) and Havilanditermes orthonasus (Tsai et Chen). The results showed that in diverse feeding groups, the wood-feeding group had the highest total composite cellulase and endo-ß-1,4-glucanase activities, while the fungus-growing group had the highest ß-glucosidase activity. In terms of the distribution of cellulase activity in the alimentary canals, the cellulase activities in wood-feeding termites were concentrated in the midgut, but there was no significant difference between all gut segments in humus-feeding termites. As for the fungus-growing termites, the main site of composite cellulase activity was in the midgut. The endo-ß-1,4-glucanase activity was restricted to the midgut, but the primary site of ß-glucosidase activity was in the foregut and the midgut (Mac. barneyi). The functions of the gut segments apparently differentiated between feeding groups. The results suggest that the differentiation of feeding habits in flagellate-free termites was characterized by the distribution of cellulases in the gut rather than by variations in cellulase activity.