PATRIC HAMBLETON¹, MANUEL ALEJANDRO BARBIERI^1,2,3,4,*

BIOCELL, Vol., , DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.011407

Abstract Cancerous cells display abnormalities in the signal transduction pathways responsible for responding to extracellular growth factors, or mitogens. Mutations that alter proteins involved in these types of pathways can lead to inappropriate or unregulated cell growth, and therefore predispose the cell to become malignant. The critical role of the Ras/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway in transducing growth signals to the interior of the cell and subsequently stimulating cell growth and proliferation is underscored by the fact that roughly one quarter of all human tumors contain mutant forms of Ras proteins. A particular focus on the signaling and membrane trafficking adaptor… More >

HANYU SHEN¹, SHIQI REN², WEI WANG², CHENLIN ZHANG³, HAIYAN HAO⁴, QIUYAN SHEN⁵, YINONG DUAN¹, ZIHENG WANG^2,6,*, WENLIANG GE^7,*

BIOCELL, Vol., , DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.011345

Abstract Sepsis, characterized as life-threatening sequential organ failure, is caused by a dysregulated host immune response to a pathogen. Conventional practice for sepsis is to control the inflammation source and administer highgrade antibiotics. However, the mortality rate of sepsis varies from 25–30% and can reach 50% if a septic shock occurs. In our current study, we used bioinformatics technology to detect immune status profiles in sepsis at the genomic level. We downloaded and analyzed gene expression profiles of GSE28750 from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database to determine differential gene expression and immune status between sepsis and normal samples. Next, we… More >

WENXI GAO^1,2,#, QIANQIAN MA^3,#, CHENYU TANG^2,#, YUELI ZHAN⁴, YINONG DUAN², HUIHUA NI^5,*, YUNZHAO XU^5,6,*

BIOCELL, Vol., , DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.011328

Abstract Cervical cancer (CESC) is one of the most common cancers and affects the female genital tract. Consistent HPV infection status has been determined to be a vital cause of tumorigenesis. HPV infection may induce changes to the immune system and limit the host’s immune response. Immunotherapy is therefore essential to improving the overall survival of both locally advanced and recurrent CESC patients. Using 304 relevant samples from TCGA, we assessed immune cell function in CESC patients to better understand the status of both tumor micro-environment cells and immune cells in CESC. Functional enrichment analysis, pathway enrichment analysis, and PPI network… More >

VIVEK KUMAR, VISHNU AGARWAL^*

BIOCELL, Vol., , DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.011090

Abstract The world is facing a new healthcare crisis with the rise and spread of novel coronavirus since December 2019. Also known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the disease associated with SARSCoV-2 is even called COVID-19. The infection is said to have originated from the bat community and transmitted to humans through an intermediate host (yet unknown) in Wuhan, in the Hubei region of China. COVID-19 is having a pulverizing impact on the scientific community. As of August 13, 2020, the number of confirmed cases had reached up to 20,439,814 and the death toll to 744,385, affecting more… More >

ALI RAZA^1,7,#,*, ABU BAKR UMER FAROOQ^2,#, WAQAR AHMAD KHAN³, AHSAN IQBAL⁴, SADETTIN ÇELİK⁵, MAHWISH ALI⁶, RAO SOHAIL AHMAD KHAN^1,*

BIOCELL, Vol., , DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.010207

Abstract Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) is a tremendously convenient approach used to discriminate between Brassica species owing to its accuracy and speed. RAPD primers generate adequate genetic information that can be used in the primer-marker system. In this work, twenty RAPD-PCR based markers were executed to generate polymorphic data, like polymorphic information content (PIC), mean resolving power (MRP), resolving power (RP), effective multiplex ratio (EMR), and marker index (MI) for the first time and genetic distance among and between six Brassica species were calculated. Our results indicated that 20 primers produced a total of 231 scored band and generated 87%… More >

XIAOLIN ZHU^1,3, XIAOHONG WEI^1,3,*, BAOQIANG WANG^2,3, XIAN WANG², MINGJUN ZHANG⁴

BIOCELL, Vol., , DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.010153

Abstract AP2/ERE-type transcription factors, as a type of plant-specific transcription factors, play a key role in plant biotic and abiotic stress. Meanwhile, they have been studied in many plants, but rarely in tomatoes. In this study, we performed a genome-wide analysis of the SlAP2/ERF gene family of tomato, and finally identified 29 SlAP2/ERF genes and divided them into different subfamilies. At the same time, its basic physical and chemical properties were analyzed. We also constructed phylogenetic trees with 30 Arabidopsis AP2/ERF proteins and 28 potatoes AP2/ERF proteins to ensure conservative homology between them. In addition, we mapped 29 SlAP2/ERF transcription factors… More >

AFRAH ALKHURIJI¹, ATEKAH ABDULLAH MOHAMMED ALRAQIBAH¹, AMAAL AWAD ALHARBI¹, ZENEB BABAY², FATIMAH BASIL AL-MUKAYNIZI³, ARWA ALTHOMALI³, SONYA S. ABDEL-RAZEQ⁴, ARJUMAND S. WARSY⁵

BIOCELL, Vol., , DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.09652

Abstract Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) deficiency is the most common genetic cause of hyperhomocysteinemia, which has been implicated in the etiology of recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA). This study was designed to investigate the association between two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) (rs1801133 [C677T] and rs1801131 [A1298C]) in the MTHFR gene and RSA, in Saudis. These two SNPs were selected as these polymorphisms have a different effect on the activity and stability of the enzyme, and significantly diverse effects have been reported in relation to the association with RSA. Ethical approval was acquired from the IRB at King Saud University (KKUH), Saudi Arabia, and… More >

YUE CHEN¹, ZHITING TANG², MIAO YU¹, RUI ZHANG^1,*, XINXIN DONG¹, LIANQUN CAO¹

BIOCELL, Vol., , DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.09422

Abstract Preoperative chemoradiation therapy (CRT) is becoming the standard treatment for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer. However, individual differences in response to treatment range from a complete response to complete resistance. Predicting the tumor response to radiotherapy may improve the efficacy of radiotherapy. This review mainly summarizes recent studies about the molecular biomarkers that can predict the response to radiotherapy in rectal cancer. These studies have indicated that the molecular markers involved in the response to radiotherapy mainly include genes related to radiosensitivity, cancer stem cell-related markers, non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and gene methylation, and other factors including… More >

Mingda Yang¹, Shouchen Ma², Fujian Mei¹, Li Wei¹, Tongchao Wang^1,*, Xiaokang Guan^1,*

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol., , DOI:10.32604/phyton.2020.013175

Abstract Knowledge of the interactive effects of water and nitrogen (N) on physio-chemical traits of maize (Zea mays L.) helps to optimize water and N management and improve productivity. A split-plot experiment was conducted with three soil water conditions (severe drought, moderate drought, and fully water supply referring to 45%–55%, 65%–75%, and 85%–95% field capacity, respectively) and four N application rates (N₀, N₁₅₀, N₂₄₀, and N₃₃₀ referring to 0, 150, 240, 330 kg N ha^–1 respectively) under drip fertigation in 2014 and 2015 in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain of China. The results indicated that drought stress inhibited physiological activity of plants (leaf… More >

Chi Zhang, Yong Shi^*, Xuwei Gui

Energy Engineering, Vol., , DOI:10.32604/EE.2021.014229

Abstract To realize effective utilization of renewable energy sources, a novel polymorphic topology with hybrid control strategy based LLC resonant converter was analyzed and designed in this paper. By combining the merits of a full bridge LLC resonant converter, three-level half bridge LLC resonant converter, and variable frequency control mode, the converter realizes an intelligent estimation of input voltage by automatically changing its internal circuit topology. Under this control strategy, different input voltages determine different operation modes. This is achieved in full bridge LLC mode when the input voltage is low. If the input voltage rises to a certain level, it… More >