Morgannymand5797

Background Keratoconus (KTCN) is a protrusion and thinning of the cornea, resulting in loss of visual acuity. The etiology of KTCN remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to assess the potential involvement of new genetic variants in KTCN etiology based on both the genomic and transcriptomic findings recognized in the same corneal tissues. Methods Corneal tissues derived from five unrelated Polish individuals with KTCN were examined using exome sequencing (ES), followed by enrichment analyses. For comparison purposes, the datasets comprising ES data of five randomly selected Polish individuals without ocular abnormalities and five Polish patients with high myopia were used. Expression levels of selected genes from the overrepresented pathways were obtained from the previous RNA-Seq study. Results Exome capture discovered 117 potentially relevant variants that were further narrowed by gene overrepresentation analyses. In each of five patients, the assessment of functional interactions revealed rare (MAF ≤ 0.01) DNA variants in at least one gene from Wnt signaling (VANGL1, WNT1, PPP3CC, LRP6, FZD2) and focal adhesion (BIRC2, PAK6, COL4A4, PPP1R12A, PTK6) pathways. No genes involved in pathways enriched in KTCN corneas were overrepresented in our control sample sets. Conclusions The results of this first pilot ES profiling of human KTCN corneas emphasized that accumulation of sequence variants in several genes from Wnt signaling and/or focal adhesion pathways might cause the phenotypic effect and further points to a complex etiology of KTCN. © 2020 Karolak et al.Background Conyza blinii H. Lév is a medicinal plant that has a variety of pharmacological activities, but its study is at a standstill due to the shortage of resources. Method This study utilized the surface sterilization method to isolate endophytic fungi, and they were preliminarily identified by morphology. Flavonoid-producing strains were screened by NaNO2-Al(NO)3 colorimetry and further identified by the ITS sequence. Additionally, we used five antioxidant assays (DPPH, Hydroxyl radical, ABTS, FRAP and T-AOC assays) to systematically evaluate the antioxidant capacity of total flavonoids , and we also determined their antibacterial activity. CHIR124 Results In this study, 21 endophytic fungi were isolated from wild Conyza blinii H. Lév for the first time. There were six flavonoid-producing strains, especially CBL11, whose total flavonoid content reached 50.78 ± 2.4 mg/L. CBL12, CBL12-2 and CBL1-1 all exhibited excellent antioxidant activity. The effect of CBL12 was similar to that of ascorbic acid at low concentrations, and its radical scavenging rates for DPPH and ABTS were 94.56 ± 0.29 % and 99.88 ± 0.27%, respectively, while its IC50 values were only 0.11 ± 0.01 mg/mL and 0.2 ± 0.01 mg/mL. Through LC-MS, we found that CBL12 could produce many high-value flavonoids, such as 3-methoxyflavone, nobiletin, formononetin, scopoletin, and daidzein. Additionally, CBL9 had good antibacterial activity against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Notably, we obtained the high-yield strains CBL12 and CBL9, which not only had high yields (10.64 ± 1.01 mg/L and 10.17 ± 0.11 mg/L, respectively) but also had excellent biological activity. Hence, the results of this study provide new ideas for endophytic fungi that can be exploited as a source of flavonoids and other medicinal components from Conyza blinii H. Lév. Moreover, this study can serve as a reference for the development of rare medicinal materials. ©2020 Tang et al.Background Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common malignant bone tumor with high mortality in children and adolescents. REG γ is overexpressed and plays oncogenic roles in various types of human cancers. However, the expression and potential roles of REG γ in osteosarcoma are elusive. This study aims at exploring possible biological functions of REG γ in the pathogenesis of osteosarcoma and its underlying mechanism. Methods Quantitativereverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), western blotting andimmunohistochemistry (IHC)were performed to detect the expression levels of REG γ in OS tissues and cell lines. Then, the effects of REG γ expression on OS cell proliferation in vitro were analyzed by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8), ethylene deoxyuridine (EdU), colony formation, flow cytometry. The protein levels of apoptosis and cell-cycle related proteins were evaluated using western blotting. Results In present study, we found for the first time that REG γ is overexpressed in osteosarcoma tissues and cell lines and knockdown of REG γ significantly inhibits cell proliferation and induces apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in osteosarcoma cells. Furthermore, we observed that p21, caspase-3 and cleaved caspase-3 are increased while the expression of cycinD1 and bcl-2 are decreased after REG γ depletion in osteosarcoma cells. In conclusion, REG γ may be involved in the proliferation of osteosarcoma and serve as a novel therapeutic target in patients with osteosarcoma. ©2020 Yin et al.Background The meat quality of yellow feathered broilers is better than the quality of its production. Growth traits are important in the broiler industry. The exploration of regulation mechanisms for the skeletal muscle would help to increase the growth performance of chickens. At present, some progress has been made by researchers, but the molecular mechanisms of the skeletal muscle still remain unclear and need to be improved. Methods In this study, the breast muscles of fast- and slow-growing female Jinghai yellow chickens (F4F, F8F, F4S, F8S) and slow-growing male Jinghai yellow chickens (M4S, M8S) aged four and eight weeks were selected for transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq). All analyses of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and functional enrichment were performed. Finally, we selected nine DEGs to verify the accuracy of the sequencing by qPCR. Results The differential gene expression analysis resulted in 364, 219 and 111 DEGs (adjusted P-value ≤ 0.05) for the three comparison groups, F8FvsF4F, F8Ss. The results would help to reveal the regulation mechanism of the growth and development of chickens and serve as a guideline to propose an experimental design on gene function with the DEGs and pathways. ©2020 Wu et al.