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Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has been recognized worldwide as one of the major causes of cancer death. The medicinal fungus Antrodia cinnamomea (A. cinnamomea) has been served as a functional food for liver protection. The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential activity of A. cinnamomea extracts as a safe booster for the anticancer activity of sorafenib, a multi-kinase inhibitor approved for the treatment of HCC. The biologically active triterpenoids in the ethanolic extracts of A. cinnamomea (EAC) were initially identified by HPLC/LC/MS then the different extracts and sorafenib were assessed in vitro and in vivo. EAC could effectively sensitize HCC cells to low doses of sorafenib, which was perceived via the ability of the combination to repress cell viability and to induce cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in HCC cells. The ability of EAC to enhance sorafenib activity was mediated through targeting mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases, modulating cyclin proteins expression and inhibiting cancer cell invasion. Moreover, the proposed combination significantly suppressed ectopic tumor growth in mice with high safety margins compared to single-agent treatment. Thus, this study highlights the advantage of combining EAC with sorafenib as a potential adjuvant therapeutic strategy against HCC.

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In this paper, a CMOS multisensor readout circuit is presented. A multiple differential-input operational amplifier (MDI-OPA) with three distinct positive inputs and one common negative input is designed to make one of the three inputs to act as a general differential-input OPA through a built-in multiplexer. A voltage-to-current converter and a current-controlled oscillator are integrated with the MDI-OPA so that the selected analog input voltage can be used to generate a pulse output whose frequency is linearly proportional to the selected input voltage. The linearity of the transfer characteristic is at least 99.99% for input voltages below 1.44 V. An added current-offset structure is used to modify the transfer characteristic that usually varies owing to process variation. The measured output transfer characteristics of three input channels show nearly the same sensitivity of 90 Hz/mV or so with a linearity of at least 99.99% with the assistance of the current-offset mechanism.