KUNLUN LI¹, DANDAN LI², BARBOD HAFEZ^3,*, MOUNIR M. SALEM BEKHIT⁴, YOUSEF A. BIN JARDAN⁴, FARS KAED ALANAZI⁴, EHAB I. TAHA⁴, SAYED H. AUDA⁴, FAIQAH RAMZAN^5,*, MUHAMMAD JAMIL⁶

Oncology Research, Vol.32, No.4, pp. 737-752, 2024, DOI:10.32604/or.2023.042925

Abstract Kidney Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma (KIRC) is a malignant tumor that carries a substantial risk of morbidity and mortality. The MMP family assumes a crucial role in tumor invasion and metastasis. This study aimed to uncover the mechanistic relevance of the MMP gene family as a therapeutic target and diagnostic biomarker in Kidney Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma (KIRC) through a comprehensive approach encompassing both computational and molecular analyses. STRING, Cytoscape, UALCAN, GEPIA, OncoDB, HPA, cBioPortal, GSEA, TIMER, ENCORI, DrugBank, targeted bisulfite sequencing (bisulfite-seq), conventional PCR, Sanger sequencing, and RT-qPCR based analyses were used in the present study to analyze MMP… More >

HAO LV¹, BO ZHU^1,2, DEGAO CHEN^1,2,*

BIOCELL, Vol.48, No.3, pp. 363-378, 2024, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2023.046367

Abstract Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are emerging as targets for tumor therapy because of their primary role in promoting tumor progression. Several studies have been conducted to target TAMs by reducing their infiltration, depleting their numbers, and reversing their phenotypes to suppress tumor progression, leading to the development of drugs in preclinical and clinical trials. However, the heterogeneous characteristics of TAMs, including their ontogenetic and functional heterogeneity, limit their targeting. Therefore, in-depth exploration of the heterogeneity of TAMs, combined with immune checkpoint therapy or other therapeutic modalities could improve the efficiency of tumor treatment. This review focuses on the heterogeneous ontogeny and… More >

SHAN OU^#, YUN XU^#, QINGLAN LIU, TIANWEN YANG, WEI CHEN, XIU YUAN, XIN ZUO, PENG SHI^*, JIE YAO^*

BIOCELL, Vol.48, No.3, pp. 415-429, 2024, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2024.046178

Abstract Background: The interrelation between intestinal polyps, metabolic syndrome (MetS), and colorectal cancer (CRC) is a critical area of study. This research focuses on pinpointing potential molecular targets to understand the link between intestinal polyp formation, metabolic irregularities, and CRC progression. Methods: We examined clinical samples from patients with intestinal polyps coexisting with MetS and compared them with samples from patients with standard intestinal polyps. Transcriptome sequencing and public database analysis were employed to identify significant pathways and genes. These targets were then validated through immunohistochemistry (IHC). Following the RNA interference of key target expression, a series of experiments, including the… More > Graphic Abstract

YAN LI¹, HUZHI CAI², XIAOLING PENG³, YOUHUI LIU⁴, QINGYANG CHEN⁴, XIANGDONG LIN⁵, XINYU CHEN^6,*

BIOCELL, Vol.48, No.3, pp. 501-511, 2024, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2023.030854

Abstract Background: Renal fibrosis is an important process in the development of chronic kidney disease. Understanding the pathogenesis and finding effective treatments for renal fibrosis is crucial. This study aims to investigate whether a newly discovered long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) called LOC103694972 could be a potential target for treating fibrosis of NRK-49F cells. Methods:: LncRNA Chip was used to identify differentially expressed lncRNAs between TGF-β1-induced NRK-49F cells and normal cells. The dual-luciferase assay confirmed the binding between miR-29c-3p and signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT3), as well as between miR-29c-3p and lncRNA LOC103694972. Si-LOC103694972 and miR-29c-3p mimic were then transfected… More > Graphic Abstract

Liqiu Ren, Zhanying Li^*, Xueyu He, Lingyan Kong, Yinghao Zhang

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.78, No.2, pp. 2829-2845, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2024.047028

Abstract For underwater robots in the process of performing target detection tasks, the color distortion and the uneven quality of underwater images lead to great difficulties in the feature extraction process of the model, which is prone to issues like error detection, omission detection, and poor accuracy. Therefore, this paper proposed the CER-YOLOv7(CBAM-EIOU-RepVGG-YOLOv7) underwater target detection algorithm. To improve the algorithm’s capability to retain valid features from both spatial and channel perspectives during the feature extraction phase, we have added a Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM) to the backbone network. The Reparameterization Visual Geometry Group (RepVGG) module is inserted into the… More >

Lanyao Zhang¹, Shichao Kan², Yigang Cen³, Xiaoling Chen¹, Linna Zhang^1,*, Yansen Huang^4,5

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.78, No.2, pp. 1631-1648, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2024.046924

Abstract Unsupervised methods based on density representation have shown their abilities in anomaly detection, but detection performance still needs to be improved. Specifically, approaches using normalizing flows can accurately evaluate sample distributions, mapping normal features to the normal distribution and anomalous features outside it. Consequently, this paper proposes a Normalizing Flow-based Bidirectional Mapping Residual Network (NF-BMR). It utilizes pre-trained Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and normalizing flows to construct discriminative source and target domain feature spaces. Additionally, to better learn feature information in both domain spaces, we propose the Bidirectional Mapping Residual Network (BMR), which maps sample features to these two spaces… More > Graphic Abstract

Yuecheng Yu^1,*, Liming Cai¹, Anqi Ning¹, Jinlong Shi¹, Xudong Chen², Shixin Huang¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.78, No.2, pp. 1915-1931, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2024.046125

Abstract Under the influence of air humidity, dust, aerosols, etc., in real scenes, haze presents an uneven state. In this way, the image quality and contrast will decrease. In this case, It is difficult to detect the target in the image by the universal detection network. Thus, a dual subnet based on multi-task collaborative training (DSMCT) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, in the training phase, the Gated Context Aggregation Network (GCANet) is used as the supervisory network of YOLOX to promote the extraction of clean information in foggy scenes. In the test phase, only the YOLOX branch needs to be… More >

HUI SUN, MASANORI KAWANO^*, TATSUYA IWASAKI, ICHIRO ITONAGA, YUTA KUBOTA, HIROSHI TSUMURA, KAZUHIRO TANAKA

Oncology Research, Vol.32, No.3, pp. 463-476, 2024, DOI:10.32604/or.2023.044085

Abstract An important factor in the emergence and progression of osteosarcoma (OS) is the dysregulated expression of microRNAs (miRNAs). Transcription factor 7-like 1 (TCF7L1), a member of the T cell factor/lymphoid enhancer factor (TCF/LEF) transcription factor family, interacts with the Wnt signaling pathway regulator β-catenin and acts as a DNA-specific binding protein. This study sought to elucidate the impact of the interaction between miR-329-3p and TCF7L1 on the growth and apoptosis of OS and analyze the regulatory expression relationship between miRNA and mRNA in osteosarcoma cells using a variety of approaches. MiR329-3p was significantly downregulated, while TCF7L1 was considerably up-regulated in… More > Graphic Abstract

YUANYUAN XU, XIAOKE CHEN^*

Oncology Research, Vol.32, No.3, pp. 517-528, 2024, DOI:10.32604/or.2023.030293

Abstract Background: The aberrant intracellular expression of a mitochondrial aspartyl-tRNA synthetase 2 (DARS2) has been reported in human cancers. Nevertheless, its critical role and detailed mechanism in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remain unexplored. Methods: Initially, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)-based Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) database () was used to analyze the prognostic relevance of DARS2 expression in LUAD. Further, cell counting kit (CCK)-8, immunostaining, and transwell invasion assays in LUAD cell lines in vitro, as well as DARS2 silence on LUAD by tumorigenicity experiments in vivo in nude mice, were performed. Besides, we analyzed the expression levels of p-PI3K (phosphorylated-Phosphotylinosital3… More >

YANG LI^1,2, JIAN LIU^1,3,*, YUEDI HU^1,2, CHENGZHI CONG^1,2, YIMING CHEN^1,2, QIAO ZHOU^1,2

BIOCELL, Vol.48, No.1, pp. 9-19, 2024, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2023.045862

Abstract Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a prevalent autoimmune disease whose main features include chronic synovial inflammation, bone destruction, and joint degeneration. Neutrophils are often considered to be the first responders to inflammation and are a key presence in the inflammatory milieu of RA. Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), a meshwork of DNA-histone complexes and proteins released by activated neutrophils, are widely involved in the pathophysiology of autoimmune diseases, especially RA, in addition to playing a key role in the neutrophil innate immune response. NETs have been found to be an important source of citrullinated autoantigen antibodies and inflammatory factor release, which can… More > Graphic Abstract