Search Our Scientific Publications & Authors

Psych J 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

Previous studies have demonstrated the possibility that when people are in standing rather than sitting postures, they have a stronger cognitive control propensity, making them inclined to agree more to sacrificing one innocent person and saving more people. Furthermore, this postural effect can be moderated by dual processes. In three studies, participants read dilemma scenarios followed by a proposed behavior to sacrifice one innocent person and save five or more people. Read More

Shock 2021 Apr 13. Epub 2021 Apr 13.

Dell Medical School, University of Texas, Austin TX Department of Surgery, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX.

Abstract: Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are a heterogenous population of immature myeloid cells hallmarked by their potent immunosuppressive function in a vast array of pathologic conditions. MDSCs have recently been shown to exhibit marked expansion in acute inflammatory states including traumatic injury, burn, and sepsis. Although MDSCs have been well characterized in cancer, there are significant gaps in our knowledge of their functionality in trauma and sepsis, and their clinical significance remains unclear. Read More

Phys Biol 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

The University of British Columbia, 1984 Mathematics Road, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z4, CANADA.

During epithelial morphogenesis, force generation at the cellular level not only causes cell deformation, but may also produce coordinated cell movement and rearrangement on the tissue level. In this paper, we use a novel three-dimensional vertex model to explore the roles of cellular forces during the formation of the salivary gland in the Drosophila embryo. Representing the placode as an epithelial sheet of initially columnar cells, we focus on the spatial and temporal patterning of contractile forces due to three actomyosin pools: the apicomedial actomyosin in the pit of the placode, junctional actomyosin arcs outside the pit, and a supracellular actomyosin cable along the circumference of the placode. Read More

Aging (Albany NY) 2021 Apr 21;13. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, P. R. China.

Unmasking the complex regulatory pathways that mediate the malignant phenotypes of cancer cells can provide novel targets for therapies that could limit the recurrence and metastasis of gastric cancer (GC). Herein, we intended to clarify the role of embryonic ectoderm development protein (EED), microRNA-228-5p (miR-338-5p), methyltransferase like 3 (METTL3) and CUB domain containing protein 1 (CDCP1) in GC. Differentially expressed miRNAs and their target genes were extracted by analysis. Read More

Aging (Albany NY) 2021 Mar 19;13. Epub 2021 Mar 19.

Department of Thoracic Surgery, Shengli Clinical Medical College of Fujian Medical University, Fujian Provincial Hospital, Fuzhou 350001, Fujian Province, China.

Chemo-resistance and refractoriness remain challenges for Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and the underlying molecular mechanisms haven't been fully explained. In this study, we investigated the influence of circUBAP2 on the NSCLC tumor cells. This study might provide novel therapeutic targets for NSCLC treatment. Read More

Int Immunopharmacol 2021 Apr 1;96:107630. Epub 2021 Apr 1.

Solid Tumor Research Center, Cellular and Molecular Medicine Research Institute, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran. Electronic address:

The novel SARS-CoV-2 which was first reported in China is the cause of infection known as COVID-19. In comparison with other coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV and MERS, the mortality rate of SARS-CoV-2 is lower but the transmissibility is higher. Immune dysregulation is the most common feature of the immunopathogenesis of COVID-19 that leads to hyperinflammation. Read More

Redox Biol 2021 Apr 18;43:101967. Epub 2021 Apr 18.

Institute for Chemical Research (IIQ), Scientific Research Centre "Isla de La Cartuja" (cicCartuja), University of Seville, CSIC, Avda. Américo Vespucio 49, Seville, 41092, Spain. Electronic address:

Repair of injured DNA relies on nucleosome dismantling by histone chaperones and de-phosphorylation events carried out by Protein Phosphatase 2A (PP2A). Typical histone chaperones are the Acidic leucine-rich Nuclear Phosphoprotein 32 family (ANP32) members, e.g. Read More

Transl Oncol 2021 Apr 18;14(7):101096. Epub 2021 Apr 18.

Department of Oncology, Third Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410013, Hunan, China. Electronic address:

Background: Breast cancer is the most common malignancy and has been considered as a leading cause of cancer death in women. Exploring the mechanism of breast cancer metastasis is extremely important for seeking novel therapeutic strategies and improving prognosis.

Methods: Clinical specimens and pathological characteristics were collected for evaluating the expression of forkhead box class O 3a (FOXO3a) and twist-related protein 1 (TWIST-1) in breast cancer tissues. Read More

J Genet Couns 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.

The increasing number of genetic counselors participating directly in clinical pharmacogenomic post-test counseling prompted our evaluation of pharmacogenomic education across genetic counseling training programs in North America. Thirty-one program leadership participants from both the United States (U.S. Read More

PLoS One 2021 21;16(4):e0239240. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Ruth & Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Department of Physiology, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.

Na+/H+ exchangers (NHEs), encoded by Solute Carrier 9A (SLC9A) genes in human, are ubiquitous integral membrane ion transporters that mediate the electroneutral exchange of H+ with Na+ or K+. NHEs, found in the kidney and intestine, play a major role in the process of fluid reabsorption together via Na+,K+-ATPase pump and Na+ channels. Nevertheless, the expression pattern of NHE in the lung and its role in alveolar fluid homeostasis has not been addressed. Read More

Sci Prog 2021 Apr-Jun;104(2):368504211011341

Department of Gynecology, Fujian Maternity and Child Health Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China.

Apelin (APLN) is recently demonstrated a direct association with many malignant diseases. However, its effects on cervical cancer remain unclear. This study therefore aims to evaluate the association between APLN expression and cervical cancer using publicly available data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Read More

J Med Chem 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Center of Excellence for Drug Design and Discovery, Department of Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis, Athens 15771, Greece.

The discovery of novel bioactive lipids that promote human health is of great importance. Combining "suspect" and targeted lipidomic liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) approaches, a previously unrecognized class of oxidized fatty acids, the saturated oxo fatty acids (SOFAs), which carry the oxo functionality at various positions of the long chain, was identified in human plasma. A library of SOFAs was constructed, applying a simple green photochemical hydroacylation reaction as the key synthetic step. Read More

Drugs 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Department of Dermatology, John Hopkins University School of Medicine, Cancer Research Building II Suite 206, 1550 Orleans Street, Baltimore, MD, 21231, USA.

Chronic pruritus is a debilitating symptom with limited treatment options. Identifying molecular targets underlying chronic pruritic dermatoses is essential for the development of novel, targeted therapies. IL-31 is an important mediator of itch by integrating dermatologic, neural, and immune systems. Read More

Intern Emerg Med 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Emergency Department, Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, Middle-Tuscany Local Health Agency, Florence, Italy.

In December 2019, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV-2) spread worldwide, challenging emergency departments (EDs) with the need of rapid diagnosis for appropriate allocation in dedicated setting. Many authors highlighted the role of lung ultrasound (LUS) in management of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The study aims to analyze the performance of LUS in the early identification of COVID-19 patients in ED during a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Read More

Cardiovasc Res 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

King's College London British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence, London, UK.

Calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) is the end result of active cellular processes that lead to the progressive fibrosis and calcification of aortic valve leaflets. In western populations, CAVD is a significant cause of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, and in the absence of effective drugs, it will likely represent an increasing disease burden as populations age. As there are currently no pharmacological therapies available for preventing, treating, or slowing the development of CAVD, understanding the mechanisms underlying the initiation and progression of the disease is important for identifying novel therapeutic targets. Read More

J Mater Chem B 2021 Apr 12;9(15):3401-3411. Epub 2021 Apr 12.

Key Laboratory of Inorganic Coating Materials CAS, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1295 Dingxi Road, Shanghai 200050, China.

Hydroxyapatite (HA) has attracted wide attention for medical application due to its biocompatibility and bioactivity. However, the infection problems of HA remain among the leading reasons for implantation failure. Thus, it is urgent to endow HA biomaterials with antibacterial activity. Read More

JMIR Med Inform 2021 Apr 21;9(4):e23587. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Key Laboratory of Network Oriented Intelligent Computation, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China.

Background: Family history information, including information on family members, side of the family of family members, living status of family members, and observations of family members, plays an important role in disease diagnosis and treatment. Family member information extraction aims to extract family history information from semistructured/unstructured text in electronic health records (EHRs), which is a challenging task regarding named entity recognition (NER) and relation extraction (RE), where named entities refer to family members, living status, and observations, and relations refer to relations between family members and living status, and relations between family members and observations.

Objective: This study aimed to introduce the system we developed for the 2019 n2c2/OHNLP track on family history extraction, which can jointly extract entities and relations about family history information from clinical text. Read More

Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, United States.

The liver plays a central role that influences cardiovascular disease outcomes through regulation of glucose and lipid metabolism. It is recognized that the local liver molecular clock regulates some liver-derived metabolites. However, it is unknown whether the liver clock may impact cardiovascular function. Read More

Org Lett 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Pesticide Science and Department of Chemistry, College of Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, P.R. China.

A novel visible-light-induced 1,4-hydroxysulfonylation of vinyl enynes with sulfonyl chlorides has been established, providing a highly efficient protocol to access multisubstituted sulfonyl allenic alcohols. Control experiments and mechanistic studies disclose that the target products result from sequential reactions of hydroxyl and tosyl radicals, among which chloride anion plays a key role to generate the requisite OH, thus bridging water and enynes. Moreover, the vinyl pendant is believed to decisively affect the site-selectivity of hydroxyl radical. Read More

ACS Sens 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Molecular Therapeutics and New Drug Development, Department of Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China.

The efficient capture and sensitive detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) play a vital role in cancer diagnosis and prognosis. However, CTCs in the peripheral blood are very rare and heterogeneous, which make them difficult to isolate and detect. Herein, a novel colorimetric nanobioplatform was successfully developed for the highly efficient capture and highly sensitive detection of heterogeneous CTCs, which consisted of two parts: the multivalent aptamer-modified gold nanoparticles as the capture unit and two kinds of aptamer-functionalized pH-sensitive allochroic dyes (thymolphthalein and curcumin) @ molybdenum disulfide nanoflakes (MoS NFs) acting as the visual simultaneous detection of heterogeneous CTCs. Read More

Br J Haematol 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Service d'Hématologie Clinique et Thérapie Cellulaire, Hôpital Saint-Antoine, Sorbonne Université, INSERM UMRs 938, Paris, France.

Myelofibrosis (MF) is a clonal stem cell neoplasm with heterogeneous clinical phenotypes and well-established molecular drivers. Allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) offers an important curative treatment option for primary MF and post-essential thrombocythaemia/polycythaemia vera MF or secondary MF. With a disease course that varies from indolent to highly progressive, we are now able to stratify risk of mortality through various tools including patient-related clinical characteristics as well as molecular genetic profile. Read More

Clin Sci (Lond) 2021 Apr;135(8):1015-1051

Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon.

Antithrombotic drugs are widely used for primary and secondary prevention, as well as treatment of many cardiovascular disorders. Over the past few decades, major advances in the pharmacology of these agents have been made with the introduction of new drug classes as novel therapeutic options. Accumulating evidence indicates that the beneficial outcomes of some of these antithrombotic agents are not solely related to their ability to reduce thrombosis. Read More

Gen Physiol Biophys 2021 Mar;40(2):103-114

Department of Oncology, Affiliated Hospital of Xiangnan University, Chenzhou, China.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) play crucial roles in multiple cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the effects and molecular mechanisms of circ_LRIG3 in HCC remain barely unknown. qRT-PCR assay was employed to detect the levels of circ_LRIG3, LRIG3, miR-449a and ring finger protein 38 (RNF38). Read More

Expert Rev Mol Med 2021 Apr 21;23:e4. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Noncommunicable Diseases Research Center, Bam University of Medical Sciences, Bam, Iran.

Today, cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Lately, cytokine and chemokine imbalances have gained attention amongst different involved pathways in cancer development and attracted much consideration in cancer research. CXCL16, as a member of the CXC subgroup of chemokines, has been attributed to be responsible for immune cell infiltration into the tumour microenvironment. Read More

Colorectal Dis 2021 Apr 20. Epub 2021 Apr 20.

Department of Colorectal Surgery. Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening reduces mortality but variation exists in uptake with poorer uptake in ethnic minority groups. We aim to evaluate the relationship between ethnicity and CRC screening uptake in West London.

Methods: CRC screening results from the Central London, West London, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow and Ealing Clinical commissioning group collaborative between 2012-2017 were retrospectively analysed. Read More

J Gastroenterol Hepatol 2021 Apr;36(4):841-847

Institute of Digestive Disease and Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, State Key Laboratory of Digestive Disease, Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong.

Gut microbiota has been shown to associate with the development of gastrointestinal diseases. In the last decade, development in whole metagenome sequencing and 16S rRNA sequencing technology has dramatically accelerated the gut microbiome's research and revealed its association with gastrointestinal disorders. Because of high dimensionality and complexity's intrinsic data characteristics, traditional bioinformatical methods could only explain the most significant changes with limited prediction accuracy. Read More

Genetica 2021 Apr 20. Epub 2021 Apr 20.

Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, K7L3N6, Canada.

Of Chargaff's four "rules" on DNA base frequencies, the functional interpretation of his second parity rule (PR2) is the most contentious. Thermophile base compositions (GC%) were taken by Galtier and Lobry (1997) as favoring Sueoka's neutral PR2 hypothesis over Forsdyke's selective PR2 hypothesis, namely that mutations improving local within-species recombination efficiency had generated a genome-wide potential for the strands of duplex DNA to separate and initiate recombination through the "kissing" of the tips of stem-loops. However, following Chargaff's GC rule, base composition mainly reflects a species-specific, genome-wide, evolutionary pressure. Read More

Cerebellum 2021 Apr 20. Epub 2021 Apr 20.

Discipline of Psychology, College of Science, Health, Engineering, and Education, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia.

Dual-site transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can be used to measure the cerebellar inhibitory influence on the primary motor cortex, known as cerebellar brain inhibition (CBI), which is thought to be important for motor control. The aim of this study was to determine whether age-related differences in CBI (measured at rest) were associated with an age-related decline in bilateral motor control measured using the Purdue Pegboard task, the Four Square Step Test, and a 10-m walk. In addition, we examined test re-test reliability of CBI measured using dual-site TMS with a figure-of-eight coil in two sessions. Read More

Mol Med Rep 2021 Jun 21;23(6). Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Department of Basic Stomatology, School of Savaid Stomatology, Hangzhou Medical College, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310053, P.R. China.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a frequent malignant tumor worldwide. Long non‑coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are known to play key roles in different types of cancer, including OSCC. It was previously reported that lncRNA deleted in lymphocytic leukemia 1 (DLEU1) is notably upregulated in OSCC; however, the role of DLEU1 in OSCC remains unclear. Read More

Mol Med Rep 2021 Jun 21;23(6). Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Liver Disease Research, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510630, P.R. China.

Snail family transcriptional repressor 1 (SNAIL1) is a master inducer of the epithelial‑to‑mesenchymal transition (EMT) process, contributing to tumor metastasis and recurrence. Our previous study reported that G2 and S phase‑expressed‑1 (GTSE1) served a role in regulating SNAIL1 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the underlying mechanism remains unknown. Read More