Yingzi Liu

It is known that excessive adipogenesis contributes to osteoporosis, suggesting that trans-differentiation of adipogenic committed preadipocytes into osteoblasts may be a potential therapeutical approach for osteoporosis. We explored whether bone morphogenic protein 9 (BMP9) could induce 3T3-L1 preadipocytes to trans-differentiate into osteoblasts. BMP9 effectively increased expression of osteogenic markers and promoted mineralization in preadipocytes. However, BMP9 also led to ...

INTRODUCTION: The interpretation of equivocal Papanicolaou (Pap) smear results remains challenging, even with the addition of the high-risk human papillomavirus test (HPV-HR). Recently, methylated zinc finger protein 582 (ZNF582) (ZNF582 (m) ) was reported to be highly associated with cervical cancer. In this study, we compared the performance of ZNF582 (m) detection and HPV-HR genotyping in the triage of cervical atypical squamous cell of undetermined significance (ASC-US) and atypical ...

The Min pig (Sus scrofa) is a well-known indigenous breed in China. One of its main advantages over European breeds is its high meat quality. Additionally, different cuts of pig also show some different traits of meat quality. To explore the underlying mechanism responsible for the differences of meat quality between different breeds or cuts, the longissimus dorsi muscle (LM) and the biceps femoris muscle (BF) from Min and Large White pigs were investigated using transcriptome analysis. ...

Based on our recent investigations on chalcone derivatives as AChE inhibitors, a series of ferulic acid (FA) tertiary amine derivatives similar to chalcone compounds were designed and synthesized. The results of bioactivity evaluation revealed that most of new synthesized compounds had comparable or more potent AChE inhibitory activity than the control drug Rivastigmine. The alteration of carbon chain linking tertiary amine groups and ferulic acid scaffold markedly influenced the ...

Ovarian cancer is one of the most lethal malignancies of the female reproductive system. Platinum-resistance is the major obstacle in the successful treatment of ovarian cancer. Previous studies largely failed to identify the key genes associated with platinum-resistance by using candidate genes testing, bioinformatic analysis and GWAS method. The aim of the study was to utilize the whole human Genome-scale CRISPR-Cas9 knockout (GeCKO) library to screen for novel genes involved in ...

Glioma is a common brain malignancy for which new drug development is urgently needed because of radiotherapy and drug resistance. Recent studies have demonstrated that artemisinin (ARS) compounds can display antiglioma activity, but the mechanisms are poorly understood. Using cell lines and mouse models, we investigated the effects of the most soluble ARS analogue artesunate (ART) on glioma cell growth, migration, distant seeding and senescence and elucidated the underlying mechanisms. ...

MicroRNAs negatively regulate target gene expression at the post-transcriptional level during carcinogenesis. Recent advances revealed that the expression levels of several miRNAs are up- or down-regulated in endometrial carcinoma (EC). Here we identify dysregulated miRNAs in EC and we elucidate the essential role of let-7a. The expression of 86 miRNAs in EC was found to be different from adjacent normal endometrial tissues. Moreover, miR-let-7 members are down-regulated in EC and let-7 ...

LncRNAs have been suggested to be key modulators in many biological and pathological processes. LncARSR, a recently identified lncRNA, plays crucial roles in the progression of several cancers. However, the role of lncARSR in NSCLC is uninvestigated. In the present study, it was demonstrated that lncARSR expression was higher in NSCLC tissues than in noncancerous tissues. The expression of lncARSR was higher in four NSCLC cell lines than in a normal lung bronchial epithelial line. ...

A novel exopolysaccharide (EPS), namely, B4-EPS, is produced by Arthrobacter sp. B4. Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to optimize the fermentation medium for increasing B4-EPS production. Based on Plackett-Burman design (PBD), glucose, yeast extract, and KH2PO4 were selected as significant variables, which were further optimized by a central composite design (CCD). According to response surface and canonical analysis, the optimal medium was composed of 16.94 g/L glucose, ...

Lung cancer is the common cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Platinum-based chemotherapy is the cornerstone of treatment for lung cancer. Platinum sensitivity is a major possibility for effective cancer treatment. In this study, several potential biomarkers were identified for evaluating and predicting the response to platinum-based chemotherapy. LC-MS-based metabolomics was performed on plasma samples from 43 lung cancer patients with different chemotherapy efficacy. By combing ...

A novel molecularly imprinted copolymers sensor for fast and direct determination of tartrazine (TZ) was studied. The copolymers were immobilized on the surface of the glassy carbon electrode (GCE) directly via electropolymerization with m-dihydroxybenzene (m-DB) and o-phenylenediamine (o-PD) as monomers. After elution, the copolymer was filled with nanopores that can specially bounds with tartrazine molecule. The developed sensor (MIP-PmDB/PoPD-GCE) determinates tartrazine specifically ...

Low-dose computed tomography (CT) is desirable for treatment planning and simulation in radiation therapy. Multiple rescanning and replanning during the treatment course with a smaller amount of dose than a single conventional full-dose CT simulation is a crucial step in adaptive radiation therapy. We developed a machine learning-based method to improve image quality of low-dose CT for radiation therapy treatment simulation. We used a residual block concept and a self-attention strategy ...

Infections are a major complication of obesity, but the mechanisms responsible for impaired defense against microbes are not well understood. Here, we found that adipocyte progenitors were lost from the dermis during diet-induced obesity (DIO) in humans and mice. The loss of adipogenic fibroblasts from mice resulted in less antimicrobial peptide production and greatly increased susceptibility to Staphylococcus aureus infection. The decrease in adipocyte progenitors in DIO mice was ...

Pre-imidization has been found to have a determining role on the final properties of polyimide (PI) films. In this work, a series of 4,4'-(hexafluoroisopropylidene)diphthalic anhydride (6FDA)/2,2'-bis(trifluoromethyl)benzidine (TFMB) PI models with specified pre-imidization degree (pre-ID) were constructed and analyzed on the basis of molecular dynamic (MD) simulation to reveal the real-time evolution of structure and properties that occurred during the pre-imidization process. The MD ...