Down-regulation of mi R-30a-3p/5p promotes esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cell proliferation by activating the Wnt signaling pathway

AIM To investigate the potential role of micro RNA-30 a(mi R-30 a) in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma(ESCC).METHODS Expression of mi R-30 a-3 p/5 p was analyzed using microarray data and fresh ESCC tissue samples. Both in vitro and in vivo assays were used to investigate the effects of mi R-30 a-3 p/5 p on ESCC cell proliferation. Furthermore,Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis was performed to explore underlying mechanisms involved in ESCC,and then,assays were carried out to verify the potential molecular mechanism of mi R-30 a in ESCC.RESULTS Low expression of mi R-30 a-3 p/5 p was closely associated with advanced ESCC progression and poor prognosis of patients with ESCC. Knock-down of mi R-30 a-3 p/5 p promoted ESCC cell proliferation. Increased mi R-30 a-3 p/5 p expression inhibited the Wnt signaling pathway by targeting Wnt2 and Fzd2.CONCLUSION Down-regulation of mi R-30 a-3 p/5 p promotes ESCC cell proliferation by activating the Wnt signaling pathway through inhibition of Wnt2 and Fzd2.

Neural Network Based Adaptive Tracking of Nonlinear Multi-Agent System

In this paper,the problems of robust consensus tracking control for the second-order multi-agent system with uncertain model parameters and nonlinear disturbances are considered.An adaptive control strategy is proposed to smooth the agent’s trajectory,and the neural network is constructed to estimate the system’s unknown components.The consensus conditions are demonstrated for tracking a leader with nonlinear dynamics under an adaptive control algorithm in the absence of model uncertainties.Then,the results are extended to the system with unknown time-varying disturbances by applying the neural network estimation to compensating for the uncertain parts of the agents’models.Update laws are designed based on the Lyapunov function terms to ensure the effectiveness of robust control.Finally,the theoretical results are verified by numerical simulations,and a comparative experiment is conducted,showing that the trajectories generated by the proposed method exhibit less oscillation and converge faster.

Anti-Müllerian hormone, antral follicle count and folliclestimulating hormone for predicting the number of oocytes retrieved in IVF/ICSI cycles

Objective To evaluate the efficacy of anti-Müllerian hormone（AMH）, antral follicle count（AFC） and follicle-stimulating hormone（FSH） for predicting the number of oocytes retrieved in in-vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection（IVF/ICSI）cycles.Methods In this retrospective study, a total of 122 infertile women were divided into two groups： group A, 〈35 years（n=71）; group B, ≥35 years（n=51）. AMH and FSH were determined on 2-5 d of the early menstrual cycle. AFC was tested on the second day of the menstrual cycle before the start of stimulation.Results Group B had higher FSH levels compared with group A（8.2±3.5 IU/L vs 6.8±2.4 IU/L, P〈0.05）. However, levels of AMH and AFC in group B were lower than those of group A（AMH： 4.2±3.5 μg/L vs 2.7±2.7 μg/L; AFC： 9.0±3.9 vs 5.4±3.3, P〈0.05）. The number of oocyte retrieved in the two groups was not significantly different（11.5±6.8 vs 9.6±6.9, P〉0.05）. The level of AMH was more strongly correlated with the number of oocytes retrieved than that of AFC or FSH level. The strengths of the correlation degrees were AMH level, AFC, and FSH level in turn（r=0.600, 0.511,-0.369）.Conclusion AMH would be a useful predictor for ovarian response.