Fenofibrate Increases Radiosensitivity in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma via Inducing G2/M Arrest and Apoptosis

Liu, Jia,Ge, Yang-Yang,Zhu, Hong-Cheng,Yang, Xi,Cai, Jing,Zhang, Chi,Lu, Jing,Zhan, Liang-Liang,Qin, Qin,Yang, Yan,Yang, Yue-Hua,Zhang, Hao,Chen, Xiao-Chen,Liu, Zhe-Ming,Ma, Jian-Xin,Cheng, Hong-Yan,S Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2014 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.15 No.16

Radiation therapy is an important treatment for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). However, how to promote radiation sensitivity in HNSCC remains a challenge. This study aimed to investigate the radiosensitizing effects of fenofibrate on HNSCC and explore the underlying mechanisms. HNSCC cell lines CNE-2 and KB were subjected to ionizing radiation (IR), in the presence or absence of fenofibrate treatment. Cell growth and survival, apoptosis and cell cycle were evaluated. In addition, CNE-2 cells were xenografted into nude mice and subjected to IR and/or fenofibrate treatment. The expression of cyclinB and CDK1 was detected by Western blotting. Our results showed that fenofibrate efficiently radiosensitized HNSCC cells and xenografts in mice, and induced apoptosis and G2/M arrest via reducing the activity of the CDK1/cyclinB1 kinase complex. These data suggest that fenofibrate could be a promising radiosensitizer for HNSCC radiotherapy.

Expression and Clinical Significance of mTOR in Surgically Resected Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Tissues: a Case Control Study

Liu, Zhe,Wang, Liang,Zhang, Li-Na,Wang, Yue,Yue, Wen-Tao,Li, Qi Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2012 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.13 No.12

Aims: Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is master regulator of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway and plays an important role in NSCLCs. Here we characterized mRNA and protein expression levels of mTOR and its functional associated molecules including PTEN, IGF-1R and 4EBP1 in surgically resected NSCLCs. Methods: Fifty-four patients with NSCLCs who underwent pulmonary resection were included in current study. mRNA levels of mTOR, PTEN, IGF-1R, and 4EBP1 were evaluated by RT-PCR and protein expression of mTOR, PTEN, and IGF-1R by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Association of expression of the relevant molecules with clinical characteristics, as well as correlations between mTOR and PTEN, 4EBP1 and IGF-1R were also assessed. Results: The results of RT-PCR showed that in NSCLCs, the expression level of mTOR increased, while PTEN, 4EBP1 and IGF-1R decreased. Statistical analysis indicated high IGF-1R expression was correlated with advanced clinical stage (stage III) and PTEN expression was reversely associated with tumor size (P=0.16). The results of IHC showed mTOR positive staining in 51.8% of cases, while IGF-1R positive staining was found in 83.3% and loss of PTEN in 46.3%. Protein expression of mTOR was correlated with its regulators, PTEN and IGF-1R, to some extent. Conclusions: Abnormal activation of mTOR signaling, high expression of IGF-1R, and loss of PTEN were observed in resected NSCLC specimens. The poor expression agreement of mTOR with its regulators, PTEN, and IGF-1R, implied that combination strategy of mTOR inhibitors with other targets hold significant potential for NSCLC treatment.

Adjuvant Radiotherapy after Breast Conserving Treatment for Breast Cancer:A Dosimetric Comparison between Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy and Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy

Liu, Zhe-Ming,Ge, Xiao-Lin,Chen, Jia-Yan,Wang, Pei-Pei,Zhang, Chi,Yang, Xi,Zhu, Hong-Cheng,Liu, Jia,Qin, Qin,Xu, Li-Ping,Lu, Jing,Zhan, Liang-Liang,Cheng, Hong-Yan,Sun, Xin-Chen Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2015 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.16 No.8

Background: Radiotherapy is an important treatment of choice for breast cancer patients after breast-conserving surgery, and we compare the feasibility of using dual arc volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT2), single arc volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT1) and Multi-beam Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (M-IMRT) on patients after breast-conserving surgery. Materials and Methods: Thirty patients with breast cancer (half right-sided and half left-sided) treated by conservative lumpectomy and requiring whole breast radiotherapy with tumor bed boost were planned with three different radiotherapy techniques: 1) VMAT1; 2) VMAT2; 3) M-IMRT. The distributions for the planning target volume (PTV) and organs at risk (OARs) were compared. Dosimetries for all the techniques were compared. Results: All three techniques satisfied the dose constraint well. VMAT2 showed no obvious difference in the homogeneity index (HI) and conformity index (CI) of the PTV with respect to M-IMRT and VMAT1. VMAT2 clearly improved the treatment efficiency and can also decrease the mean dose and V5Gy of the contralateral lung. The mean dose and maximum dose of the spinal cord and contralateral breast were lower for VMAT2 than the other two techniques. The very low dose distribution (V1Gy) of the contralateral breast also showed great reduction in VMAT2 compared with the other two techniques. For the ipsilateral lung of right-sided breast cancer, the mean dose was decreased significantly in VMAT2 compared with VMAT1 and M-IMRT. The V20Gy and V30Gy of the ipsilateral lung of the left-sided breast cancer for VMAT2 showed obvious reduction compared with the other two techniques. The heart statistics of VMAT2 also decreased considerably compared to VMAT1 and M-IMRT. Conclusions: Compared to the other two techniques, the dual arc volumetric modulated arc therapy technique reduced radiation dose exposure to the organs at risk and maintained a reasonable target dose distribution.

High-Performance Ideal Lattice-Based Cryptography on 8-Bit AVR Microcontrollers

Liu, Zhe,Pö,ppelmann, Thomas,Oder, Tobias,Seo, Hwajeong,Roy, Sujoy Sinha,Gü,neysu, Tim,Großschä,dl, Johann,Kim, Howon,Verbauwhede, Ingrid Association for Computing Machinery 2017 ACM transactions on embedded computing systems Vol.16 No.4

<P>Over recent years lattice-based cryptography has received much attention due to versatile average-case problems like Ring-LWE or Ring-SIS that appear to be intractable by quantum computers. In this work, we evaluate and compare implementations of Ring-LWE encryption and the bimodal lattice signature scheme (BLISS) on an 8-bit Atmel ATxmega128 microcontroller. Our implementation of Ring-LWE encryption provides comprehensive protection against timing side-channels and takes 24.9ms for encryption and 6.7ms for decryption. To compute a BLISS signature, our software takes 317ms and 86ms for verification. These results underline the feasibility of lattice-based cryptography on constrained devices.</P>

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of 3,6-diaryl-7H-thiazolo[3,2-b] [1,2,4]triazin-7-one Derivatives as Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors

Zhe Jin,Liu Yang,Si-Jie Liu,Jian Wang,Shuo Li,Huang-Quan Lin,David Chi Cheong Wan,Chun Hu 대한약학회 2010 Archives of Pharmacal Research Vol.33 No.10

Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors played an important role in developing a cure for Alzheimer’ s disease. In order to study on the influence of modifications at different groups and side chains on the AChE inhibitory ability and the active sites of 7H-thiazolo[3,2-b][1,2,4]triazin-7-one derivatives, fourteen 3,6-diaryl-7H-thiazolo[3,2-b][1,2,4]triazin-7-one derivatives were designed and synthesized. The study of AChE inhibitory activity was carried out using the Ellman colorimetric assay with huperzine-A as the positive control drug. Most of the target compounds exhibited more than 50% inhibition at 10 μM. Some target compounds showed strong inhibition against AChE. The molecular fields analysis and preliminary structureactivity relationships are discussed.

Efficient Implementation of NIST-Compliant Elliptic Curve Cryptography for 8-bit AVR-Based Sensor Nodes

Zhe Liu,Hwajeong Seo,Grosschadl, Johann,Howon Kim IEEE 2016 IEEE transactions on information forensics and sec Vol.11 No.7

<P>In this paper, we introduce a highly optimized software implementation of standards-compliant elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) for wireless sensor nodes equipped with an 8-bit AVR microcontroller. We exploit the state-of-the-art optimizations and propose novel techniques to further push the performance envelope of a scalar multiplication on the NIST P-192 curve. To illustrate the performance of our ECC software, we develope the prototype implementations of different cryptographic schemes for securing communication in a wireless sensor network, including elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) key exchange, the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA), and the elliptic curve Menezes-Qu-Vanstone (ECMQV) protocol. We obtain record-setting execution times for fixed-base, point variable-base, and double-base scalar multiplication. Compared with the related work, our ECDH key exchange achieves a performance gain of roughly 27% over the best previously published result using the NIST P-192 curve on the same platform, while our ECDSA performs twice as fast as the ECDSA implementation of the well-known TinyECC library. We also evaluate the impact of Karatsuba's multiplication technique on the overall execution time of a scalar multiplication. In addition to offering high performance, our implementation of scalar multiplication has a highly regular execution profile, which helps to protect against certain side-channel attacks. Our results show that NIST-compliant ECC can be implemented efficiently enough to be suitable for resource-constrained sensor nodes.</P>

Synthesis of Au@MoS2-CdS Ternary Composite Structure with Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity

Zhe Liu,Liwei Wang,Ruoping Li,Mingju Huang 성균관대학교(자연과학캠퍼스) 성균나노과학기술원 2019 NANO Vol.14 No.9

Au@MoS2-CdS, as ternary composite structure, was successfully synthesized by a facile process combining hydrothermal and seed-growth methods. The introduction of Au nanoparticles (NPs) into MoS2 spheres, forming a core–shell structure, demonstrats strong plasmonic absorption enhancement. The incorporation of CdS NPs into the Au@MoS2 core–shell structure further extends the absorption range of visible light and enhances exciton dissociation. The resultant composite structure exhibits the highest photocatalytic activity in photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) solution, compared with Au NPs, MoS2 spheres, Au@MoS2 core–shell and MoS2-CdS heterostructures. The above phenomena are supported by a series of characterization results such as SEM, TEM, XRD, EDS and UV-Vis, etc. Based on structural and morphological analyses, we propose the synthesis method of ternary composite structure photocatalysts, which is helpful for the synthesis of future multicomponent photocatalytic materials.

Association between Initial Chest CT or Clinical Features and Clinical Course in Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pneumonia

Liu Zhe,Jin Chao,Wu Carol C.,Liang Ting,Zhao Huifang,Wang Yan,Wang Zekun,Li Fen,Zhou Jie,Cai Shubo,Zeng Lingxia,Yang Jian 대한영상의학회 2020 Korean Journal of Radiology Vol.21 No.6

Objective: To identify the initial chest computed tomography (CT) findings and clinical characteristics associated with the course of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia. Materials and Methods: Baseline CT scans and clinical and laboratory data of 72 patients admitted with COVID-19 pneumonia (39 men, 46.2 ± 15.9 years) were retrospectively analyzed. Baseline CT findings including lobar distribution, presence of ground glass opacities, consolidation, linear opacities, and lung severity score were evaluated. The outcome event was recovery with hospital discharge. The time from symptom onset to discharge or the end of follow-up (for those remained hospitalized) was recorded. Data were censored in events such as death or discharge without recovery. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression was used to explore the association between initial CT, clinical or laboratory findings, and discharge with recovery, whereby hazard ratio (HR) values < 1 indicated a lower rate of discharge at four weeks and longer time until discharge. Results: Thirty-two patients recovered and were discharged during the study period with a median length of admission of 16 days (range, 9 to 25 days), while the rest remained hospitalized at the end of this study (median, 17.5 days; range, 4 to 27 days). None died during the study period. After controlling for age, onset time, lesion characteristics, number of lung lobes affected, and bilateral involvement, the lung severity score on baseline CT (> 4 vs. ≤ 4 [reference]: adjusted HR = 0.41 [95% confidence interval, CI = 0.18–0.92], p = 0.031) and initial lymphocyte count (reduced vs. normal or elevated [reference]: adjusted HR = 0.14 [95% CI = 0.03–0.60], p = 0.008) were two significant independent factors that influenced recovery and discharge. Conclusion: Lung severity score > 4 and reduced lymphocyte count at initial evaluation were independently associated with a significantly lower rate of recovery and discharge and extended hospitalization in patients admitted for COVID-19 pneumonia.

Improved Performances of AlN/Polyimide Hybrid Film and its Application in Redistribution Layer

Zhe Liu,Guifu Ding,Jiangbo Luo,Wen Lu,Xiaolin Zhao,Ping Cheng,Yanlei Wang 대한금속·재료학회 2016 ELECTRONIC MATERIALS LETTERS Vol.12 No.5

The AlN/polyimide (PI) hybrid film was studied as thedielectric layer in the redistribution layer (RDL) in this work. The incorporation of the AlN into the PI matrix was achievedby mechanical ball-milling process. The spin-coating processwas used to fabricate the AlN/PI hybrid film, which iscompatible with micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS)technology for fabricating RDL. The AlN/PI hybrid film wascharacterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrumand thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The effect of the AlNcontent on the thermal stability, thermal expansion coefficient,hardness and water adsorption of the AlN/PI hybrid film wasstudied. The results indicated that the addition of AlN nanoparticlesimproved the thermal stability and hardness, butdecreased the thermal expansion coefficient and waterabsorption of the pure PI film. As an example of its typicalapplication, the AlN/PI hybrid film with 8 wt.% AlN waspatterned using micromachining technology and used as thedielectric layer in RDL successfully.

Polymorphisms in MHC class Ia genes and resistance to IHNV in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

Zhe Liu,Dan Dan Hu,Shu Juan Shao,Juan Yang,Jian Fu Wang,Jin Qiang Huang 한국유전학회 2013 Genes & Genomics Vol.35 No.5

Infectious haematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) is detrimental to the farming of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and other salmonids in the Northern hemisphere. The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) plays a key role in immune response in invertebrates, as evidenced by the close correlation of MHC polymorphisms with disease resistance/susceptibility. To analyse the correlation between rainbow trout resistance and susceptibility to IHNV and genetic variation in exon 2 of MHC class Ia gene, UBA, we employed two approaches, namely, polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformation polymorphism analysis and cloning/sequencing. From 102 resistant and 82 susceptible individuals, a total of 12 alleles in UBA exon 2 (GenBank: JX136662–JX136673) were identified, including 11 novel alleles. The maximum number of these alleles in a single individual was four, suggesting that UBA exon 2 most likely resides on at least two loci in the genome. Most of the variations in UBA exon 2 were located in the peptide-binding region and were determined to have been subject to positive selection during evolution. Correlation analysis revealed that Onmy-UBA*0111 and Onmy-UBA*0107 are highly associated with IHNV susceptibility (P = 0.001), whereas Onmy-UBA*0101, Onmy-UBA*0102, and Onmy-UBA*0103 are highly related to IHNV resistance (P = 0.000). In addition, the three resistant alleles were predominant in the IHNV disease-resistant population; thus, these molecular markers can be used for anti-IHNV breeding of rainbow trout.