miR-522 facilitates the prosperities of endometrial carcinoma cells by directly binding to monoamine oxidase B.

It is well known that microRNAs (miRNAs) are crucial regulatory factors in tumorigenesis, as tumor suppressors or cancer-promoting factors. However, the study of endometrial carcinoma relevance in miR-522 is rare, indicating an undefined molecular mechanism for its role. Therefore, we performed this study to examine the role of miR-522 on the biological behaviors of endometrial carcinoma. In this work, we found that miR-522 was highly expressed in endometrial carcinoma and negatively regulated monoamine oxidase B (MAOB) expression. They also have the opposite effect on prognosis of endometrial carcinoma patients. More importantly, miR-522 could decreased MAOB expression by binding to MAOB with a putative site, thereby promoting cell proliferation, migration, and invasion through in vitro functional analyses, including MTT assay, wound-healing and transwell invasion experiments. Upregulation of MAOB rescued the impacts of miR-522 mimic on cell behaviors. In conclusion, our observations demonstrated that miR-522 accelerated the progression of endometrial carcinoma by inhibiting MAOB, which might lead to a novel therapeutic therapy for endometrial carcinoma.

Clinical application of fast-track surgery with Chinese medicine treatment in the devascularization operation for cirrhotic portal hypertension.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinical effect of fast-track surgery combined with Chinese medicine treatment in devascularization operation for cirrhotic esophageal varices. METHODS: Seventy-two patients with cirrhotic esophageal varices were selected from January 2009 to June 2013, and randomly assigned to a conventional group and a fast-track group (fast-track surgery combined with Chinese medicine treatment) using a randomized digital table, 36 cases in each group. Operation and anesthesia recovery time, postoperative hospitalization and quality of life were recorded and compared between groups during the perioperative period. RESULTS: Compared with the conventional group, the fast-track group had longer operation time (253.6±46.4 min vs. 220.6±51.0 min) and anesthesia recovery time (50.5±15.9 min vs. 23.5±9.6 min; P<0.01); less bleeding (311.3±46.8 mL vs. 356.2±57.5 mL; P<0.01) and less transfusion (1932.3±106.9 mL vs. 2045.6±115.4 mL; P<0.01); as well as faster recovery of gastrointestinal function, shorter postoperative hospitalization and higher quality of life. There were no serious postoperative complications and no further bleeding occurred. CONCLUSION: Fast-track surgery combined with Chinese medicine treatment is a safe and feasible approach to accelerate the recovery of patients with cirrhotic portal hypertension in perioperative period of devascularization operation.

The distributions, removals and estrogenic effects of selected endocrine disrupting chemicals in two drinking water factories in China.

The distributions and effects of 31 selected endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in two drinking water factories were analyzed in this study. The distributions of EDCs were analyzed by solid phase extraction (SPE) combined with liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The concentrations of these EDCs were from lower than the LOD (limit of detection) to 23.13 ng L (- 1) in the samples; most of them were lower than 1 ng L (- 1). The highest concentration (23.13 ± 1.45 ng L (- 1)) was detected in the raw water. Twenty-six chemicals were found in the raw water and only five in the finished water of drinking water factory A, while 25 chemicals were detected in the raw water and two in the finished water of drinking water factory B. The results indicate that most of the EDCs can be removed by the water treatment process. In the advanced treatment process, the ozonation processes have the highest removal efficiency. Separate analyses in May and September show similar results. Apart from the chemical analysis, yeast strain transformed when the estrogen receptor α (ERα) gene was employed to test the estrogenic effects of the water samples. Due to the low concentrations of these EDCs, no significant estrogenic effects were found from the samples.

Ab initio molecular dynamics simulation on the formation process of He@C60 synthesized by explosion.

The applications of endohedral non-metallic fullerenes are limited by their low production rate. Recently, an explosive method developed in our group shows promise to prepare He@C60 at fairly high yield, but the mechanism of He inserting into C60 cage at explosive conditions was not clear. Here, ab initio molecular dynamics analysis has been used to simulate the collision between C60 molecules at high-temperature and high-pressure induced by explosion. The results show that defects formed on the fullerene cage by collidsion can effectively decrease the reaction barrier for the insertion of He into C60, and the self-healing capability of the defects was also observed.

MCX based solid phase extraction combined with liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry for the simultaneous determination of 31 endocrine-disrupting compounds in surface water of Shanghai.

A novel analytical method employing MCX (mixed-mode cationic exchange) based solid phase extraction (SPE) coupled with liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was developed to detect 31 endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) in surface water samples simultaneously. The target EDCs belong to five classes, including seven estrogens, eight androgens, six progesterones, five adrenocortical hormones and five industrial compounds. In order to simultaneously concentrate the target EDCs and eliminate matrix interferences in the water samples, MCX SPE cartridges were employed for SPE, and then followed by a simple and highly efficient three-step sequential elution procedure. Two electrospray ionization (ESI) detection modes, positive (ESI+) and (ESI-), were optimized for HPLC-MS/MS analysis to obtain the highest sensitivity for all the EDCs. The limits of detection (LODs) were 0.02-1.9 ng L(-1), which are lower than or comparable to these reported in references. Wide linear ranges (LOD-100 ng L(-1) for ESI+ mode, and LOD-200 ng L(-1) for ESI- mode) were obtained with determination coefficients (R(2)) higher than 0.99 for all the compounds. With five internal standards, good recoveries (84.4-103.0%) of all the target compounds were obtained in selected surface water samples. The developed method was successfully applied to investigate the EDCs occurrence in the surface water of Shanghai by analyzing surface water samples from 11 sites. The results showed that nearly all the target compounds (30 in 31) were present in the surface water samples of Shanghai, of which three industrial compounds (4-t-OP, BPA, and BPF) showed the highest concentrations (median concentrations were 11.88-23.50 ng L(-1)), suggesting that industrial compounds were the dominating EDCs in the surface water of Shanghai, and much more attention should be paid on these compounds. Our present research demonstrated that SPE with MCX cartridges combined with HPLC-MS/MS was convenient, efficient and reliable for multiclass analysis of EDCs in surface water.

Development of molecular docking-based binding energy to predict the joint effect of BPA and its analogs.

A general proposal for predicting the joint effect of endocrine disrupting chemicals by examining binding energy models was developed in this study. 2,2-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)propane (BPA) and 11 of its analogs were chosen, and the estrogenic activity of each compound was measured by determining its EC50 value using a recombinant gene yeast assay. Binding energies (BEs) were calculated using Surflex-Docking software. The analysis of the relationship between EC50 values and BEs showed that there is a linear correlation between the BEs and EC50 values. Furthermore, the analysis of the given binary and quaternary mixtures of BPA and three of its analogs showed that the joint effects of the mixtures were affected by the proportions of the chemicals in each mixture and their relative binding energy. The correlation between the joint effects of mixtures and the binding energy of the individual compounds has been described using one formula, which can be used to predict the joint effects of other mixtures.

[Jointed estrogenic activities of bisphenol A and three of its analogs].

The combined effect of environmental endocrine disruptors (EEDs) is one of the hottest topics. The estrogenic activities of BPA, BPAF, BPAP, BPF were tested based on recombinant gene yeast assay. Six mixtures were designed based on the result of the test,each of which had an equitoxic ratio ray (EC10 or EC50). The EC50 values are 6.81 x 10(-6) mol x L(-1), 7.44 x 10(-7) mol x L(-1), 1.43 x 10(-5) mol x L(-1), 7.52 x 10(-6) mol x L(-1) for BPA, BPAF, BPAP and BPF respectively,which reveals that the estrogenic activities order among the four bisphenols was BPAF> BPA> BPF> BPAP. The experiment shows that when BPA mixes with BPAF, BPAP and BPF in different ratios individually, different combination effects are produced. It reveals that the combined ratios of the components may affect the combined effect. The dose addition model and the independent action model are used to identify the combined effect. They are testified to be more intuitionistic and more comprehensive than other joint effect indices.

Leupeptin-sensitive proteases involved in cell survival after X-ray irradiation in human RSa cells.

Proteases have received attention as important cellular components responsible for stress response in human cells. However, little is known about the role of proteases in the early steps of cell response after X-ray irradiation. In the present study, we first searched for proteases whose activity levels are changed soon after X-ray irradiation in human RSa cells with a high sensitivity to X-ray cell-killing. RSa cells showed an increased level of fibrinolytic protease activity within 10 min after irradiation with X-ray (up to 3 Gy). The induced protease activity was proved to be inhibited by leupeptin. We next examined whether this protease inducibility is related to the X-ray susceptibility of cells. Treatment of RSa cells with leupeptin prior to X-ray irradiation resulted in lowered colony survival and an increased ratio of G(2)/M-arrested cells and apoptotic cells. These results suggest that leupeptin-sensitive proteases are involved in the resistance of human RSa cells to X-ray cell-killing.

Increased levels of UV-induced protease activity in human UVAP-1 cells exposed to gravity-changing stress: involvement of E-64-sensitive proteases in suppression of UV mutagenicity.

Under the 1G condition, the increase in antipain-sensitive protease activity promptly after UV (mainly 254 nm wavelength) irradiation in cultured human cells is detected and found to be one of the intriguing events involved in suppression of cell mutability. It was found that two cell lines, RSa and its variant UVAP-1 cells are applicable; the former is hypermutable and not susceptible to protease activation, while the latter is hypomutable and susceptible. In the present study it was investigated whether the increase in protease activity by UV irradiation is also observed in hypomutable human UVAP-1 cells exposed to gravity-changing stress and whether the increase is involved in suppression of UV mutagenicity. Exposure of human UVAP-1 cells to gravity-changing stress such as free-fall and parabolic flight prior to UV irradiation resulted in a pronounced increase in protease activity, but not to hypergravity conditions (2 and 10G) prior to UV irradiation. To characterize the proteases, components of lysates from the cells exposed to free-fall prior to UV irradiation were fractionated by high performance liquid chromatography, indicating two separate fractions with highly increased levels of E-64-sensitive protease activity. In the cells treated with E-64 during their exposure to free-fall, K-ras codon 12 base substitution mutation was detected after UV irradiation, although the mutation was not detected after UV irradiation alone. Thus, the increase in E-64-sensitive protease activity may be involved in the suppression of UV mutagenicity in UVAP-1 cells exposed to free-fall.