Tortuosity of the superficial femoral artery and its influence on blood flow patterns and risk of atherosclerosis

Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology - The superficial femoral artery (SFA) is a typical atherosclerosis-prone site. We aimed to explore whether the tortuosity of the SFA associates with the...     

Intratumoral expression of IL-17 and its prognostic role in gastric adenocarcinoma patients

In this study, we characterized the intratumoral expression of IL-17 and CD8(+) TILs in gastric adenocarcinoma patients after resection and determined the correlation between the survival probability of gastric adenocarcinoma patients and the expression of IL-17 in tumor. Expression of IL-17 and CD8 was assessed by immunohistochemistry, and the prognostic effects of intratumoral IL-17 expression and CD8(+) TILs were evaluated by Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier analysis. Immunohistochemical detection revealed the presence of IL-17 and CD8(+) cells in gastric adenocarcinoma tissue samples (90.6%, 174 out of 192 patients and 96.9%, 186 out of 192 patients, respectively). We have also found that intratumoral IL-17 expression was significantly correlated with age (p=0.004) and that the number of CD8(+)TILs was significantly correlated with UICC staging (p=0.012) and the depth of tumor invasion (p=0.022). The five-year overall survival probability among patients intratumorally expressing higher levels of IL-17 was significantly better than those expressing lower levels of IL-17 (p=0.036). Multivariate Cox proportional hazard analyses revealed that intratumoral IL-17 expression (HR: 0.521; 95% CI: 0.329-0.823; p=0.005) was an independent factor affecting the five-year overall survival probability. We conclude that low levels of intratumoral IL-17 expression may indicate poor prognosis in gastric adenocarcinoma patients.     

Adaptation of Saffold virus 2 for high-titer growth in mammalian cells

Saffold viruses (SAFV) are a recently discovered group of human Cardioviruses closely related to Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis viruses (TMEV). Unlike TMEV and encephalomyocarditis virus, each of which is monotypic, SAFV are genetically diverse and include at least eight genotypes. To date, only Saffold virus 3 (SAFV-3) has been grown efficiently in mammalian cells in vitro. Here, we report the successful adaptation of SAFV-2 for efficient growth in HeLa cells after 13 passages in the alpha/beta interferon-deficient human glial cell line U118 MG. Nine amino acid changes were found in the adapted virus, with single mutations in VP2, VP3, and 2B, while 6 mutations arose in VP1. Most capsid mutations were in surface loops. Analysis of SAFV-2 revealed virus growth and cytopathic effect only in human cell lines, with large plaques forming in HeLa cells, with minimal cell association, and without using sialic acid to enter cells. Despite the limited growth of SAFV-2 in rodent cells in vitro, BALB/c mice inoculated with SAFV-2 showed antibody titers of >1:10(6), and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis revealed only minimal cross-reactivity with SFV-3. Intracerebral inoculation of 6-week-old FVB/n mice produced paralysis and acute neuropathological changes, including meningeal infiltrates, encephalitis, particularly of the limbic system, and spinal cord white matter inflammation.     

空间异质性对样地数据空间外推的影响

应用模型结合的方法模拟了3个空间异质性等级预案下反应变量(气候变化下景观水平的树种分布面积)的变化情况,并分析模拟结果在预案之间的差异性,探讨了环境空间异质性对样地观测到的树种对气候变化响应向更大空间尺度外推的影响.结果表明：空间异质性在一般情况下对样地数据向土地类型尺度外推没有影响,而对样地尺度外推到海拔带尺度的影响则有较复杂的情况.对于对气候变化不敏感的树种以及非地带性树种,空间异质性对样地数据向海拔带尺度外推没有影响;对于大多数对气候变化敏感的地带性树种而言,空间异质性对样地数据向海拔带尺度外推则有影响.     

Bayesian image processing of data from constrained source distributions—II. valued,uncorrelated and correlated constraints

Bayesian image processing formalisms which incorporatea priori information about valued-uncorrelated and valued-correlated (patterned) source distributions are introduced and the corresponding iterative algorithms are derived using the EM technique. Striking improvement in image processing is demonstrated when applying these algorithms to Poisson and Gaussian randomized data in one-dimensional cases.     

Nucleotide modifications in three functionally important regions of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae ribosome affect translation accuracy

Important regions of rRNA are rich in nucleotide modifications that can have strong effects on ribosome biogenesis and translation efficiency. Here, we examine the influence of pseudouridylation and 2′-O-methylation on translation accuracy in yeast, by deleting the corresponding guide snoRNAs. The regions analyzed were: the decoding centre (eight modifications), and two intersubunit bridge domains—the A-site finger and Helix 69 (six and five modifications). Results show that a number of modifications influence accuracy with effects ranging from 0.3- to 2.4-fold of wild-type activity. Blocking subsets of modifications, especially from the decoding region, impairs stop codon termination and reading frame maintenance. Unexpectedly, several Helix 69 mutants possess ribosomes with increased fidelity. Consistent with strong positional and synergistic effects is the finding that single deletions can have a more pronounced phenotype than multiple deficiencies in the same region. Altogether, the results demonstrate that rRNA modifications have significant roles in translation accuracy.