Low-grade oncocytic tumor of kidney harboring TSC/MTOR mutation: clinicopathologic, immunohistochemical and molecular characteristics support a distinct entity.

Low-grade oncocytic tumor (LOT) has recently been described as a distinct renal tumor. LOT shows consistent morphologic features and a CK7-positive/CD117-negative immunophenotype. To examine the clinicopathological, immunohistochemical, and molecular features of LOT, we searched our institutional archives and identified seven cases of LOT. All patients were female, with a mean age of 66 years (range 44-79 years). The average tumor size was 3.2 cm (range 1.6-5.5 cm). Macroscopically, the tumors showed tan-brown and solid cut surfaces. Microscopically, the tumors showed compact nested to solid growth pattern, three cases with areas of edematous stroma containing loosely connected small clusters, cords or dispersed single tumor cells. The tumor cells had uniformly round to oval nuclei with eosinophilic cytoplasm, and showed perinuclear halos. Two cases focally had nuclear irregularities and binucleated cells were occasionally seen in three cases. Immunohistochemically, diffuse positivity for CK7 and lack of CD117 expression were present in all cases. All of the tumors were negative for CD10, CK20, vimentin, CA9, TFE3, TFEB, HMB45, and Melan-A. All tumors were positive for MTOR and negative for Cathepsin-K. FH and SDHB were retained. Next generation sequencing identified genetic variations in the MTOR pathway related genes: TSC1 (4/7), TSC2 (5/7), and MTOR (1/7). All patients were alive and without disease progression, after a mean follow-up of 43 months (range 6-89 months). LOT is an uncommon eosinophilic renal neoplasm with unique morphological and characteristic immunophenotypic features, and may represent an emerging separate renal entity characterized by mutations in the TSC/MTOR pathway.

[Tanshinone IIa attenuates vascular calcification through inhibition of NF-κB and ß-catenin signaling pathways].

Tanshinone IIa is a key ingredient extracted from the traditional Chinese medicine Salvia miltiorrhiza (Danshen), and is widely used to treat various cardiovascular diseases. Vascular calcification is a common pathological change of cardiovascular tissues in patients with chronic kidney disease, diabetes, hypertension and atherosclerosis. However, whether Tanshinone IIa inhibits vascular calcification and the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. This study aims to investigate whether Tanshinone IIa can inhibit vascular calcification using high phosphate-induced vascular smooth muscle cell and aortic ring calcification model, and high dose vitamin D3 (vD3)-induced mouse models of vascular calcification. Alizarin red staining and calcium quantitative assay showed that Tanshinone IIa significantly inhibited high phosphate-induced vascular smooth muscle cell and aortic ring calcification. qPCR and Western blot showed that Tanshinone IIa attenuated the osteogenic transition of vascular smooth muscle cells. In addition, Tanshinone IIa also significantly inhibited high dose vD3-induced mouse aortic calcification and aortic osteogenic transition. Mechanistically, Tanshinone IIa inhibited the activation of NF-κB and ß-catenin signaling in normal vascular smooth muscle cells. Similar to Tanshinone IIa, inhibition of NF-κB and ß-catenin signaling using the chemical inhibitors SC75741 and LF3 attenuated high phosphate-induced vascular smooth muscle cell calcification. These results suggest that Tanshinone IIa attenuates vascular calcification at least in part through inhibition of NF-κB and ß-catenin signaling, and Tanshinone IIa may be a potential drug for the treatment of vascular calcification.

Primary adrenal diffuse large B cell lymphoma arising within an adrenal myelolipoma: A case report and review of the literature.

Adrenal myelolipoma (AML) is a benign tumor that consists of mature adipose tissue and bone marrow elements. We report a case of a 57-year-old woman who presented with complaint of lower abdominal discomfort. Computed tomography scan of abdomen and pelvis revealed a mass in the left adrenal measuring 2.0 cm which was radiologically considered to be AML. Pathological evaluation of the lesion showed foci of lymphoid aggregate in a background of AML that were confirmed to be diffuse large B cell lymphoma by immunohistochemistry and gene rearrangement. To our knowledge, this collision tumor has not been reported previously. The clinical, radiological, pathological features, and treatment are discussed.

AFP-producing Xp11 translocation renal cell carcinoma: Case report and review of the literature.

Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) is a useful tumor marker for hepatocellular carcinomas and yolk sac tumors. Rare extrahepatic visceral malignancies may be associated with AFP production and those exhibiting a hepatoid differentiation by morphology and immunohistochemical are classified as hepatoid adenocarcinoma. Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) producing AFP is a rare entity. To date, only one case of AFP-producing Xp11 translocation RCC has been reported. We reported another case of Xp11 translocation RCC, in which the tumor cells displayed strong immunostaining for AFP, HepPar1, and GPC-3. Additionally, the other published cases are reviewed.

TFE3 rearranged epithelioid hemangioendothelioma of bone: A clinicopathological, immunohistochemical and molecular study of two cases.

Epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (EHE) is a rare malignant angiocentric vascular neoplasm. Around 90% of classic EHE has a t(1;3)(p36;q25) that results in a WWTR1-CAMTA1 fusion gene, a histologically distinctive subset of EHE has been recently shown to have a t(10;14)(p13;q42)that results in a different fusion gene, YAP1-TFE3. Twenty-one cases of TFE3 Rearranged Epithelioid Hemangioendothelioma have been reported in the literature, and only two cases occurred in bone. In the report, we report additional two cases occurred in the femur and skull and review the related literature.

The Effect of Carbonic Maceration during Winemaking on the Color, Aroma and Sensory Properties of 'Muscat Hamburg' Wine.

This is the first study on the effect of carbonic maceration on the quality (color, aroma profile and sensory properties) of Muscat Hamburg, contrasting two winemaking procedures used in Tianjin (classical white and red-winemaking techniques). The values of C* (psychometric chroma), a* (measure of redness) and b* (measure of yellowness) were significantly higher (p < 0.01) in the carbonic macerated wine than in red wine. However, there were no visual differences in color, and classical red wine and carbonic macerated wine had similar h (hue angle) values and located in the red region. Thirty-two aromatic compounds were identified and quantified in Muscat Hamburg wines. The content of volatile compounds (6384.97 µg/L) was significantly higher (p < 0.001) in the carbonic macerated Muscat Hamburg wine than in the other kinds of wine. This result led to the carbonic macerated wine having the highest odor activity values (OAVs) and sensory evaluation scores (86.8 points), which correlates with an "excellent" sensory perception. This study demonstrated that carbonic maceration significantly improved the quality of Muscat Hamburg wine based on volatile analysis and sensory evaluation compared with other conventional methods. Therefore, carbonic maceration could be well suited for making Muscat Hamburg wine.

Complete Genome Sequence of Streptomyces olivoreticuli ATCC 31159 Which can Produce Anticancer Bestatin and Show Diverse Secondary Metabolic Potentials.

Because of its competitive inhibitor activity against aminopeptidase B, bestatin isolated from the broth of Streptomyces olivoreticuli ATCC 31159 is famous and currently used as an approved therapeutic agent for cancer and bacterial infections. It can be used alone or in combination with other antibiotics or anticancer drugs as adjuvant therapy drug for chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Due to the therapeutic importance of bestatin, mining of its biosynthetic mechanism is imperative. Genome mining, one of the bioinformatics-based approaches for the discovery of novel natural product, has been developed and applied widely. Herein, we reported the complete genome of Streptomyces olivoreticuli ATCC 31159 obtained from American Type Culture Collection (ATCC). It consists of 8,809,793 base pairs with a linear chromosome, GC content of 71.1%, 7520 protein-coding genes, 75 tRNA operons, 21 rRNA operons, 63 sRNAs. In addition, predictive analysis showed that at least 37 putative biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) of the secondary metabolites were obtained, 18 new BGCs with low similarity (< 25%) were included. The availability of novel and abundant gene clusters not only will provide clues for cracking the biosynthetic mechanism of bestatin, but also will provide valuable insight for mining the diverse bioactive compounds based on rational strategies.

Putative model based on iTRAQ proteomics for Spirulina morphogenesis mechanisms.

The morphology of Spirulina during cultivation is susceptible to external interferences, but the morphogenesis mechanism is still unclear. Here the proteomic changes of linear Spirulina and spiral Spirulina were comparatively investigated via isobaric tag for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ). Totally 165 and 167 differences in proteins expression were screened out from the TJSD2/TJSD3 and TJBC4-1/TJBC4-2 groups, respectively. Gene ontology and metabolic pathway analysis of differences in proteins expression uncovered the metabolic pathways (photosynthesis, carbon fixation, sugar metabolism) that were significantly enriched with the proteins correlated with Spirulina morphogenesis. The results of differences in proteins expression in metabolic pathway were verified by quantitative real-time PCR. We also built a putative model of Spirulina morphogenesis mechanism and thought multiple metabolic pathways interact and take part in Spirulina morphogenesis.

Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptor-Associated Factor 6 (TRAF6) Mediates Ubiquitination-Dependent STAT3 Activation upon Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium Infection.

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium can inject effector proteins into host cells via type III secretion systems (T3SSs). These effector proteins modulate a variety of host transcriptional responses to facilitate bacterial growth and survival. Here we show that infection of host cells with S Typhimurium specifically induces the ubiquitination of tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated factor 6 (TRAF6). This TRAF6 ubiquitination is triggered by the Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 (SPI-1) T3SS effectors SopB and SopE2. We also demonstrate that TRAF6 is involved in the SopB/SopE2-induced phosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), a signaling event conducive to the intracellular growth of S Typhimurium. Specifically, TRAF6 mediates lysine-63 ubiquitination within the Src homology 2 (SH2) domain of STAT3, which is an essential step for STAT3 membrane recruitment and subsequent phosphorylation in response to S Typhimurium infection. TRAF6 ubiquitination participates in STAT3 phosphorylation rather than serving as only a hallmark of E3 ubiquitin ligase activation. Our results reveal a novel strategy in which S Typhimurium T3SS effectors broaden their functions through the activation of host proteins in a ubiquitination-dependent manner to manipulate host cells into becoming a Salmonella-friendly zone.

Rapid Isolation of Phenol Degrading Bacteria by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy.

Phenol is an important chemical engineering material and ubiquitous in industry wastewater, its existence has become a thorny issue in many developed and developing country. More and more stringent standards for effluent all over the world with human realizing the toxicity of phenol have been announced. Many advanced biological methods are applied to industrial wastewater treatment with low cost, high efficiency and no secondary pollution, but the screening of function microorganisms is certain cumbersome process. In our study a rapid procedure devised for screening bacteria on solid medium can degrade phenol coupled with attenuated total reflection fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) which is a detection method has the characteristics of efficient, fast, high fingerprint were used. Principal component analysis (PCA) is a method in common use to extract fingerprint peaks effectively, it couples with partial least squares (PLS) statistical method could establish a credible model. The model we created using PCA-PLS can reach 99. 5% of coefficient determination and validation data get 99. 4%, which shows the promising fitness and forecasting of the model. The high fitting model is used for predicting the concentration of phenol at solid medium where the bacteria were grown. The highly consistent result of two screening methods, solid cultural with ATR-FTIR detected and traditional liquid cultural detected by GC methods, suggests the former can rapid isolate the bacteria which can degrade substrates as well as traditional cumbersome liquid cultural method. Many hazardous substrates widely existed in industry wastewater, most of them has specialize fingerprint peaks detected by ATR-FTIR, thereby this detected method could be used as a rapid detection for isolation of functional microorganisms those can degrade many other toxic substrates.

Restricted access chiral stationary phase synthesized via reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization for direct analysis of biological samples by high performance liquid chromatography.

Novel hydrophilic microparticles containing ß-cyclodextrin (ß-CD) were prepared via one-pot synthesis using reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) precipitation polymerization, a "controlled/living" radical polymerization technique. The polymerization was initiated by hydrophilic macromolecular chain-transfer agent [poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate), PHEMA]. The hydrophilic PHEMA on the surface of microparticles can well improve their surface hydrophilicity and lead to their biological compatibility. As chiral restricted access material (RAM), the hydrophilic microparticles can be used for determination of enantiomers in biological samples with direct injection via HPLC analysis.

[Effects of rice straw returning mode on rice grain yield and soil carbon pool management index in double rice-cropping system].

A 2-year field experiment was conducted to study the effects of different rice straw returning modes on the rice grain yield and soil carbon pool management index (CPMI) in a double rice-cropping system. Four treatments were installed, including balanced mineral fertilization (NPK), NPK plus cut rice straw returning (SNPK), NPK plus incinerated rice straw returning (SINPK), and no fertilization (CK). In treatments SNPK and SINPK, the 2 years average grain yield of early rice and late rice was basically the same, and much higher than that in treatment NPK, with an increment of 5.7%-7.3%. As compared with treatments NPK and SINPK, treatment SNPK increased the grain yield of early rice significantly by 3.8%-8.8%, and enhanced the contents of various soil carbon forms and the soil CPMI, with the soil total organic carbon, active carbon, mineralized carbon contents, and the soil CPMI increased by 1.8%-2.0%, 5.9%-6.5%, 16.0%-41.6%, and 7.3%-7.8%, respectively. There was a significant parabolic correlation between soil CPMI and rice grain yield (r = 0.999 and r = 0.980 in early- and late-rice season, respectively). Treatment SNPK also increased the grain yield, the contents of various soil carbon forms, and the soil CPMI in the next early rice season.

[Study on spatial interpolation of the average temperature in the Yili River Valley based on DEM].

On the basis of the monthly mean temperature data of 19 meteorological stations from 1961 to 2008 in the Yili River Valley, the correlation between mean annual temperature and elevation was analyzed to get access to the temperature lapse rate of 0.564 degrees C/100 m. The main purpose of this study was to apply a spatial interpolation method based on DEM and compare with the traditional ones of inverse distance weight (IDW) and Kriging methods. According to the cross-validation results, it was concluded that the accuracy of interpolation method based on DEM was superior to the other two methods. Combined with DEM data, the mean annual temperature distribution map with 90 m resolution was established and it expressed the main trend of temperature changing with terrain and reflected the spatial variability of temperature.

[Analysis of DNA homology and 16S rDNA sequence of rhizobia, a new phenotypic subgroup, isolated from Xizang Autonomous Region of China].

Based on the studies of numerical taxonomy, the seven rhizobial strains isolated from the root nodules of leguminous plants Trigonella spp. and Astragalus spp. growing in the Xizang Autonomous Region of China constituted a new phenotypic subgroup, where wide phenotypic and genotypic diversity among legume crops had been reported due to complex terrain and various climate. The new phenotypic subgroup were further identified to clarify its taxonomic position by DNA homology analysis and 16S rDNA gene sequencing. The mol% G + C ratio of the DNA among members of the new subgroup ranged from 59.5 to 63.3 mol% as determined by T (m) assay. The levels of DNA relatedness, determined by using the DNA liquid hybridization method, among the members of the new subgroup were between 74.3% and 92.3%, while level of DNA relatedness between the central strains XZ2-3 of the new subgroup and the type strains of known species of Rhizobium was less than 47.4%. These results indicated that the new phenotypic subgroup is a DNA homological group different from described species of Rhizobium. Therefore, this new phenotypic subgroup was supposed to be a new species in the genus of Rhizobium since the strains in the same species generally exhibit levels of DNA homology ranging from 70 to 100%. A systematic identification method-16S rDNA gene sequence comparison was carried out to determine the phylogenetic relationships of the new subgroup with the described species of Rhizobium. The GenBank accession number for the 16S rDNA sequence of the central strain XZ2-3 of the new subgroup is DQ099745. The full-length 16S rDNA gene sequence were sequenced by chain terminator techniques and analyzed with PHYLIP. The phylogenetic trees were constructed by using the programs DRAWTREE. The phylogenetic analysis indicated that new subgroup occupy a independent sub-branch in phylogenetic tree. The sequence similarities between the center strain XZ2-3 and the closest relatives, strain R. leguminosarum USDA2370T and R. etli CFN42T, were 96.55% and 96.62% respectively. Both the 16S rDNA sequence data and the DNA relatedness data suggested that the new phenotypic subgroup isolated from the root nodules of leguminous plants Trigonella spp. and Astragalus spp. obtained from the Xizang Autonomous Region of China represents a new rhizobial species in the genus of Rhizobium according to the minimal standards for the description of new genera and species of root-and stem-nodulating bacteria.