Flower color polymorphism is relatively uncommon in natural flowering plants, suggesting that maintenance of different color morphs within populations is difficult. To address the selective mechanisms shaping pollen-color dimorphism, pollinator preferences and reproductive performance were studied over three years in Epimedium pubescens in which some populations had plants with either green or yellow pollen (and anthers). Visitation rate and pollen removal and receipt by the bee pollinator (Andrena emeishanica) did not differ between the two...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a liver disease with a complex underlying mechanism, and patients with HCC have low survival rates. Iron metabolism plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of HCC; however, the prognostic value of iron metabolism-related and methylated genes for HCC needs to be further explored. In the present study, we identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that play a role in iron metabolism and DNA methylation in HCC from The Cancer Genome Atlas....

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a liver disease with a complex underlying mechanism, and patients with HCC have low survival rates. Iron metabolism plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of HCC; however, the prognostic value of iron metabolism-related and methylated genes for HCC needs to be further explored. In the present study, we identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that play a role in iron metabolism and DNA methylation in HCC from The Cancer Genome Atlas....

Aberrant expression of the chemokine CXC receptor 4 (CXCR4) is closely associated with cancer progression and drug-resistance in multiple cancers, and we first investigated the role of CXCR4 in regulating cancer pathogenesis and cisplatin (DDP)-resistance in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) in the present study. Here, we identified that CXCR4 acted as an oncogene to promote cancer progression and genetically silencing of CXCR4 increased cisplatin (DDP)-sensitivity in ccRCC in vitro and in vivo. Functionally,...

Bees are often considered to be effective pollinators in both agricultural and natural ecosystems, but could be ‘ugly’ pollinators in that they collect large quantities of pollen for food provision but deliver little to stigmas. Male bees do not collect pollen to feed larvae, and their pollination role has been underappreciated. Here we compare pollination transfer efficiency and effectiveness between female and male individuals of a mining bee, Andrena emeishanica, visiting a nectariferous spring flower...

Uric acid (UA) is the main metabolite of the human body. Although UA is only a product of metabolism, it is important biological regulator. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) has important biological functions. However, so far, the effect of UA on EGF’s activity has not been revealed. For this, in the current study, we systematically studied the effect of OA on the biological activity of EGF. Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs) were used as an...

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are involved in multiple physiological processes. However, whether circRNAs function as the indicators of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remains unclear. Three LUAD-related microarray datasets were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database, and overlapping differentially expressed circRNAs (DECs) in LUAD were identified. circ_0007618 and circ_0029426 were revealed to be significantly dysregulated in LUAD and verified in LUAD tissues and serum obtained in this study. Subsequently, the overall survival curve and receiver operating characteristics...

Effective tiller number (ETN) is an important factor affecting plant architecture and wheat yield. The reduction of genetic diversity in common wheat breeding forces us to explore new genetic resources for ETN from wheat related species to increase wheat yield. Here, a tetraploid wheat recombinant inbred line (RIL) population developed from the cross between a durum and a wild emmer accession was used to construct a genetic map using the wheat 55 K single nucleotide...

Effective tiller number (ETN) is an important factor affecting plant architecture and wheat yield. The reduction of genetic diversity in common wheat breeding forces us to explore new genetic resources for ETN from wheat related species to increase wheat yield. Here, a tetraploid wheat recombinant inbred line (RIL) population developed from the cross between a durum and a wild emmer accession was used to construct a genetic map using the wheat 55 K single nucleotide...

Vitamin D is widely considered to have a regulatory effect on the immune system. Some clinical investigations have shown that the demand for vitamin D increases with age. Calcitriol is the biologically active form of vitamin D. However, its effect on human natural killer (NK) cells remains unclear. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the anti-aging and immunomodulatory effects of calcitriol on NK cells using a series of immunological methods to explore its important role...

Invasion is a critical pathway leading to tumor metastasis. This study constructed an invasion-related polygenic signature to predict osteosarcoma prognosis. We initially determined two molecular subtypes of osteosarcoma, Cluster1 (C1) and Cluster2 (C2).. A 3 invasive-gene signature was established by univariate Cox analysis and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression analysis of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the two subtypes, and was validated in internal and two external data sets (GSE21257...

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) can target cardiomyocytes (CMs) to directly invade the heart resulting in high mortality. This study aims to explore the biological characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 infected myocardium based on omics by collecting transcriptome data and analyzing them with a series of bioinformatics tools. Totally, 86 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were discovered in SARS-CoV-2 infected CMs, and 15 miRNAs were discovered to target 60 genes. Functional enrichment analysis indicated that these...

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) can target cardiomyocytes (CMs) to directly invade the heart resulting in high mortality. This study aims to explore the biological characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 infected myocardium based on omics by collecting transcriptome data and analyzing them with a series of bioinformatics tools. Totally, 86 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were discovered in SARS-CoV-2 infected CMs, and 15 miRNAs were discovered to target 60 genes. Functional enrichment analysis indicated that these...

Objective: Imatinib mesylate (IM), a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, exhibits clinically prominent effects against chronic myeloid leukemia (CML); however, a few patients have shown resistance to IM treatment, resulting in disease progression. Smad4 is a tumor inhibitor that transduces TGF-β signaling and modulates genomic stability. Previous studies have indicated that decreased Smad4 expression played a bidirectional role in chemosensitivity in many types of cancers. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the association between IM sensitivity and...

Background: Several studies scatteredly identified the myelodysplastic syndromes’ transcriptomic profiles (MDS). However, the exploration of transcriptional signatures, key signalling pathways, and their association with prognosis and diagnosis in the integrated multiple datasets remains lacking. Methods: We integrated the GSE4619, GSE19429, GSE30195, and GSE58831 microarray datasets of CD34 + cells for identifying the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the MDS. The series of bioinformatics methods are applied to identify the key hub genes, gene clusters, prognostic...

There is growing evidence that circular RNAs (circRNAs) play a vital role in many kinds of diseases, including erectile dysfunction (ED). Nevertheless, the role of circRNAs in cavernous nerve-damaging ED (CNI-ED) is unknown. Here, we aimed to discover novel circRNAs, probed their potential role in the CNI-ED, and construct a ceRNA network of circRNAs. Twelve male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into 2 groups by us: bilateral cavernous nerve crush (BCNC) and control groups....

Steroid-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head (SONFH) is a progressive disease that leads to an increased disability rate. This study aimed to ascertain biomarkers, infiltrating immune cells, and therapeutic drugs for SONFH. The gene expression profile of the GSE123568 dataset was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified using the NetworkAnalyst platform. Functional enrichment, protein-protein interaction network (PPI), and module analyses were performed using Metascape tools. An...

Exosomes mediate the interaction between cancer cells and their microenvironment, and play a key role in tumor development. Although exosomes can package lncRNAs to mediate extracellular communication, the role of exosomal lncRNA AY927529 in prostate cancer (PCa) remains unclear. Exosomes were extracted from normal human prostatic epithelial cell lines (BPH-1 and RWPE-1) and PCa cell lines (VCaP and LNCaP, DU145, PC3) by ultrahigh speed centrifugation. Results of Western blot indicated that Alix, HSC70 and TSGl01...

Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC)-producing K. pneumoniae (KPC-KP) have disseminated worldwide and emerged as major threats to public health. Of epidemiological significance, the international pandemic of KPC-KP is primarily associated with CG258 isolates and blaKPC-IncF plasmids. CRISPR-Cas system is an adaptive immune system that can hinder gene expansion driven by horizontal gene transfer. Because of blaKPC-IncF plasmids are favored by CG258 K. pneumoniae, it was of interest to examine the co-distribution of CRISPR and blaKPC-IncF plasmids...

While the prognosis of multiple myeloma (MM) has significantly improved over the last decade because of new treatment options, it remains incurable. Aetiological explanations and biological targets based on genomics may provide additional help for rational disease intervention. Three microarray datasets associated with MM were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. GSE125364 and GSE39754 were used as the training set, and GSE13591 was used as the verification set. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs)...

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common RCC subtype with high metastasis, poor prognosis and conventional chemotherapy resistance. Prostate cancer associated transcript 1 (PCAT1) is an important lncRNA that was reported to be involved in cell proliferation, migration and invasion of several types of cancer cells. However, its role in ccRCC is still undetermined. This study found that PCAT1 levels were elevated in ccRCC tumors as well as several ccRCC cells, and...

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging infectious disease with increasing spread. Currently SFTS transmission has expanded beyond Asian countries, however, with definitive global extents and risk patterns remained obscure. Here we established an exhaustive database that included globally reported locations of human SFTS cases and the competent vector, Haemaphysalis longicornis (H. longicornis), as well as the explanatory environmental variables, based on which, the potential geographic range of H. longicornis and risk areas...

To investigate the differential expression of microRNA-150-5p (miR-150-5p) and early growth response 1 (EGR1) in myocardial fibrosis (MF) cells, and determine the effect between miR-150-5p and EGR1 on MF. Human MF cells were generated via Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi) infection, a mouse model of MF was generated via angiotensin II. The expression levels of miR-150-5p and EGR1 were detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and western blot assay. The correlation between miR-150-5p and...

The synergetic effect of chemoradiotherapy achievement is encouraging but significantly hampered by the prevalence of hypoxia, leading to drug/radiation resistance in solid tumor. To address the problem and improve the efficiency of cancer therapy, a lamellar-structure multifunctional graphene oxide (GO) drug-delivery system with an average size of 243nm, co-delivering of metronidazole (MI), 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and FePt magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), was successfully designed and synthesized in the study. The integration of hypoxic drug carrier loading radiosensitizers...

Oral leukoplakia is one of the most common oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs) and its malignant transformation to oral cancer is highly associated with chronic inflammation. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) or exosome-delivered microRNAs modulate inflammatory responses and alleviate irritations that predisposes to cancer. We previously reported that microRNA-185 (miR-185) was significantly decreased in the buccal tissue of patients with oral cancer. In this study, we utilized genetically modified mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived EVs with high...