Abstract Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis), one of the main pathogens responsible for refractory periapical periodontitis and nosocomial infections, exhibits markedly higher pathogenicity in biofilms. Objectives Studies have shown that caseinolytic protease P (ClpP) is involved in biofilm formation. However, to date, few studies have investigated the role of ClpP in the survival of E. faecalis, and in enhancing biofilm formation. Therefore, we investigated the role of ClpP in the formation of E. faecalis biofilms. Methodology In our study, we used homologous recombination to construct clpP deleted and clpP complement strains of E. faecalis ATCC 29212. A viable colony counting method was used to analyze the growth patterns of E. faecalis. Crystal violet staining (CV) and confocal scanning laser microscopy (CLSM) were used to characterize biofilm mass formation and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the biofilm microstructure. Data was statistically analyzed via Student’s t-test or one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results The results exhibited altered growth patterns for the clpP deletion strains and depleted polysaccharide matrix, resulting in reduced biofilm formation capacity compared to the standard strains. Moreover, ClpP was observed to increase biofilm formation in E. faecalis. Conclusion Our study shows that ClpP can increase biofilm formation in E. faecalis and emphasizes the importance of ClpP as a potential target against E. faecalis.

A hand-held near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy device is much more convenient than a traditional desktop NIR instrument. Thus, it is more suitable for the practical application. An automatic and rapid tool for grading tobacco leaves on the spot using a hand-held digital light processing (DLP)-based NIR spectroscopy device is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the spectral data of the samples is scanned with a hand-held NIR device directly from the tobacco leaves without any samples preparation procedures. Then, the training model of different classes is built and the class of each test sample is predicted by using sparse representation classification (SRC) algorithm. Comparing with the traditional linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and support vector machine (SVM) algorithms, the classification accuracy of SRC method is the highest and has the least computation time. The results show that hand-held NIR spectroscopy technology could be a novel classification tool for grading tobacco leaves in the purchasing on the spot.

A cigarette brand automatic classification method using near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and sparse representation classification (SRC) algorithm is put forward by the paper. Comparing with the traditional methods, it is more robust to redundancy because it uses non-negative least squares (NNLS) sparse coding instead of principal component analysis (PCA) for dimensionality reduction of the spectral data. The effectiveness of SRC algorithm is compared with PCA-linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and PCA-particle swarm optimization-support vector machine (PSO-SVM) algorithms. The results show that the classification accuracy of the proposed method is higher and is much more efficient.

In order to study the dynamic recrystallization (DRX) behavior of as-extruded 42CrMo high-strength steel, a series of isothermal upsetting experiments were carried out in a temperature range of 1123~1348 K and a strain rate range of 0.01~10 s-1 on Gleeble 1500. It was found that DRX softening is more recognizable at higher temperatures and lower strain rates, and stress level increases with increasing strain rate and decreasing deformation temperature. The types of flow stress evolution were distinguished by the following three characteristics: WH followed by DRX, WH followed by DRV, and WH followed by no dynamic softening. At a fixed temperature, the average grain size refined by DRX linearly decreases with increasing strain rate in log scale. At a fixed strain rate, the average grain size remains almost constant below 1273 K, while it rapidly increases above 1273 K. At a larger strain rate, data set of grain sizes has a smaller standard deviation to the average size value, and data have tightly grouped. This indicates that as strain rate increases, the microstructure becomes more and more uniform. The relationships between the average grain size and Zener-Hollomon parameter were nonlinearly fitted by the equation D A = 319.81202 - 13.6114 lnZ + 0.15322 (lnZ)². The results from this equation show that the average grain size decreases with increasing Zener-Hollomon parameter. On the plot of D A versus lnZ, the regions corresponding to DRV (lnZ 37.8) and DRX (lnZ 37.8) were clarified clearly.

Loss of Imprinting (LOI) of IGF2 and over-expressed IGF2 are associated with tumorigenesis. Our previous epidemiological study found a relatively high frequency of IGF2 LOI in healthy mid-gestation pregnant women. The aim of this study is to determine whether the expression of IGF2 is associated with its imprinting status in healthy Chinese pregnant women. The IGF2 imprinting status of 300 pregnant women was analyzed. 20 cases of IGF2 LOI and 20 cases of IGF2 retention of imprinting (ROI) were selected randomly for IGF2 expression analysis. The expression pattern of IGF2 between the group with IGF2 ROI and group with IGF2 LOI in healthy Chinese pregnant women was evaluated by real time PCR and western blot. The result showed no significant differences between IGF2 ROI and LOI groups in mRNA and protein levels. These results imply that IGF2 imprinting status has no obvious impact on its expression. There may be some unknown important factors other than imprinting status driving IGF2 expression.

Uma série de novos conjugados de camptotecina e 5-fluorouracil foi sintetizada pela primeira vez e suas atividades citotóxicas contra duas linhagens de células humanas tumorais (SGC-7901 e A-549) assim como a determinação farmacocinética in vitro da estabilidade de lactona foram investigadas. Dentre estes compostos, a maioria apresentou atividades citotóxicas comparáveis ou superiores a 2, mas menos potentes quando comparados a 1. Em particular, os conjugados 10b e 10d foram altamente ativos contra A-549 com valores de IC50 de 0,45 e 0,38 mmol L-1, respectivamente. Além disto, a determinação farmacocinética in vitro dos níveis de lactona do composto representativo 10b mostraram que o tempo de vida biológico de suas formas de lactona em plasma humano e de rato aumentaram significativamente quando comparados com o composto-mãe 1. O método de relações quantitativas de estrutura-atividade (QSAR) foi então aplicado para o desenvolvimento de modelos lineares para prever as atividades citotóxicas destes derivados que ainda não foram sintetizados ou testados experimentalmente. Além disto, 'docking' molecular foi utilizado para esclarecer o modo de ligação destes derivados a DNA topoisomerase humana I. Ligações de hidrogênio importantes foram observadas entre estes derivados e seu receptor. Os resultados de modelagem molecular e estudos QSAR podem ser usados para guiar o design de novos conjugados com maior atividade antitumoral

A series of novel conjugates of camptothecin and 5-fluorouracil were first synthesized and their cytotoxic activities against two human tumor cell lines (SGC-7901 and A-549) as well as in vitro pharmacokinetic determination of lactone stability were studied. Among these compounds, most tested conjugates showed comparable or superior cytotoxic activities to 2, but less potent compared with 1. Particularly, conjugates 10b and 10d were highly active against A-549 with IC50 values of 0.45 and 0.38 µmol L-1, respectively. Also, the in vitro pharmacokinetic determination of lactone levels of representative compound 10b showed that the biological life span of their lactone forms in human and mouse plasma significantly increased compared with their mother compound 1. Quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) method was then applied for developing linear models to predict the cytotoxic activities of these derivatives that have not yet been synthesized or experimentally tested. In addition, molecular docking was used to clarify the binding mode of these derivatives to human DNA topoisomerase I. The important hydrogen-bonding interactions were observed between these derivatives and their receptor. The results from molecular modeling and QSAR study can guide the design of novel conjugates with higher antitumor activity.