Objective To evaluate the expression of metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT-1) in ovarian cancer cell lines, and to investigate the biological effects of down-regulated MALAT-1 on OVCAR3 cells.Methods qRT-PCR analysis was used to examine the expression level of MALAT-1 gene in ovarian cancer cells, including ES-2, A2780, SKOV3 and OVCAR3 cell lines.For functional research, four shRNA oligos specially targeting MALAT-1 and a empty vector were designed and constructed into pGPU6/GFP/Neo, then transfected into OVCAR3 cells.qRT-PCR was used to confirm the effective suppression of MALAT-1.Changes of proliferation and adhesion of cells were analyzed by CCK-8 and adhesion assays.Wound-healing, transwell migration and invasion assays were used to examine migration and invasion of MALAT-l-silencing cells in vitro.Results The expression of MALAT-1 gene in OVCAR3 cells was high, and qRT-PCR results confirmed successfully the knockdown of MALAT-1 after transient transfection.After successful suppression of MALAT-1, the proliferation, wound-healing and adhesion ability in vitro were inhibited to some degree.In transwell migration assay, the number of migration cells in MALAT-1-silencing group was 52.17±4.48, which is much less than that in the negative and control groups (286.50± 12.23 and 295.67±6.96, respectively).In invasion assay, the number of invasion cells passing the transwell membrane in MALAT-1-silencing group (37.33±2.40) was also decreased significantly, compared to that in the negative and control groups (239.00±15.72 and 222.67±20.85, P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions shRNA-mediated silence of MALAT-1 can effectively inhibit the proliferation, adhesion, migration and invasion abilities of ovarian cancer cell line OVCAR3 in vitro, indicating MALAT-1 is expected to be a target gene for the treatment of ovarian cancer.

Objective To evaluate biomechanical strength of locking compression plate (LCP) for fixation of periprosthetic proximal femur fractures (PPFF). Methods Eight matched pairs of Vancouver type B1 adult cadaveric PPFF specimens were fixed with the LCP and the inverted distal femoral less invasive stabilization system (LISS), respectively. Four bicortical locking screws (LCP group) and four unicortical locking screws were used to the length of prosthesis stem, and four double cortical locking screws were used to fix the distal end of the fracture in two groups, the distance from the locking screws to the fracture were also equal. The maximum bending load, maximum bending displacement, bending stiffness, maximum torque, maximum torsional angle and torsional stiffness of two groups in four-point bending test and torsion test were compared and analyzed. Results The maximum bending load, maximum bending displacement and bending stiffness of LCP group were all larger than those of LISS group, but the difference was not statistically significant (P>0.05). The maximum torque, maximum torsional angle and torsional stiffness of LCP group were obviously larger than those of LISS group，and there was a statistical difference between two groups (P<0.05). Conclusions The stiffness of anti-torsion with LCP is significantly better than that with LISS. Consequently, LCP has better biomechanical stability for PPFF.

With the gradual maturity of sequencing technology, many microbiome studies have published, driving the emergence and advance of related analysis tools. R language is the widely used platform for microbiome data analysis for powerful functions. However, tens of thousands of R packages and numerous similar analysis tools have brought major challenges for many researchers to explore microbiome data. How to choose suitable, efficient, convenient, and easy-to-learn tools from the numerous R packages has become a problem for many microbiome researchers. We have organized 324 common R packages for microbiome analysis and classified them according to application categories (diversity, difference, biomarker, correlation and network, functional prediction, and others), which could help researchers quickly find relevant R packages for microbiome analysis. Furthermore, we systematically sorted the integrated R packages (phyloseq, microbiome, MicrobiomeAnalystR, Animalcules, microeco, and amplicon) for microbiome analysis, and summarized the advantages and limitations, which will help researchers choose the appropriate tools. Finally, we thoroughly reviewed the R packages for microbiome analysis, summarized most of the common analysis content in the microbiome, and formed the most suitable pipeline for microbiome analysis. This paper is accompanied by hundreds of examples with 10,000 lines codes in GitHub, which can help beginners to learn, also help analysts compare and test different tools. This paper systematically sorts the application of R in microbiome, providing an important theoretical basis and practical reference for the development of better microbiome tools in the future. All the code is available at GitHub github.com/taowenmicro/EasyMicrobiomeR.
Software ; Microbiota ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Language