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Background: An increasing amount of attention has been paid to minimally invasive function-preserving gastrectomy, with an increase in incidence of early gastric cancer in the upper stomach. This study aimed to compare oncological outcomes, surgical stress, and nutritional status between robot-assisted proximal gastrectomy (RAPG) and laparoscopy-assisted proximal gastrectomy (LAPG). Methods: Eighty-nine patients were enrolled in this retrospective study between November 2011 and December 2013. Among them, 27 patients underwent RAPG and 62 underwent LAPG. Perioperative parameters, surgical stress, nutritional status, disease-free survival, and overall survival were compared between the 2 groups.

Calponin 2 plays an important role in regulating actin cytoskeleton, which is critical for cell division and migration. Previous studies have demonstrated that calponin 2 inhibits prostate cancer cell proliferation and metastasis. However, the role of calponin 2 in pancreatic tumor growth, metastasis and patient survival remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate that the level of calponin 2 is a positive prognostic factor for patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Patients with high calponin 2 expression in the tumor presented less lymph node metastasis and longer survival. Knockdown of calponin 2 facilitated pancreatic cancer cell proliferation and metastasis. Further experiments suggested that PI3K/AKT, NF-κB, Vimentin, Fibronectin, Snail and Slug were upregulated and E-cadherin was downregulated after calponin 2 was knocked down, implicating altered functions in PDAC proliferation and metastasis. In addition, we verified that calponin 2 functioned through inhibiting PI3K/AKT and NF-κB pathways. Our study suggests that the upregulation of calponin 2 in PDAC correlates to lower malignancy and presents a novel target for the development of new treatment.

Incorporation of precious metallic nanoparticles onto a carbon support material is used to obtain an electrocatalyst for ethanol oxidation. A composite material of spherical palladium nanoparticles (Pd NPs), reduced graphene oxide (rGO), and polydopamine (PDA) on three-dimensional nickel foam (NF) substrate (Pd/rGO/PDA@NF) has been synthesized for ethanol electrocatalysis. The Pd nanoparticles were obtained via reduction of precursor K 2 PdCl 4 using ascorbic acid at 60°C for 80 min. The rGO with large specific surface area was used in catalysts to provide large amounts of active sites for Pd NPs. Meanwhile, Pd NPs as an effective ingredient in catalyst exhibited excellent electrochemical activity of ethanol oxidation. Local surface plasmon resonance was carried out to determine the optimal concentration of precursor K 2 PdCl 4 aqueous solution, and the absorbance peak of Pd NPs was found at about 340-370 nm by UV-visible spectroscopy. An enhanced property of the composite material Pd/rGO/PDA@NF was demonstrated to catalyze the ethanol oxidation reaction in alkaline electrolyte solution. A higher ratio of forward scan peak current intensity (I f) to reverse scan peak current intensity (I b) was 1.59, which demonstrated the significant anti-poison effect to carbonaceous intermediates of the Pd/rGO/PDA@NF. The value of I f can maintain 90.6% after 400 cycles, indicating the higher cycling stability and better electrocatalytic performance toward ethanol oxidation.