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Background/Aims: Chronic renal failure (CRF) is usually associated with chronic diseases such as congestive heart failure and diabetes mellitus, the prevalence of which is increased with age. This study is designed to investigate the role of long intergenic non-coding RNA (lincRNA) LINC00963 in renal interstitial fibrosis (RIF) and oxidative stress (OS) of CRF via the forkhead box O (FoxO) signaling pathway. Methods: Microarray data and annotated probe files related to CRF were downloaded by retrieving Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database to screen differentially expressed lncRNA. Multi Experiment Matrix (MEM) website and dual-luciferase reporter gene assay were used to predict and verify the target gene of LINC00963, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis to identify the major signaling pathways involved. A total of 60 Wistar male rats were randomly selected and divided into the sham (n = 10) and model (n = 50) groups. Five rats in the sham group and thirty rats in the model group were sub-categorized into the control, blank, negative control (NC), LINC00963 vector, si-LINC00963, si-FoxO3, and si-LINC00963 + si-FoxO3 groups (n = 5). Reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and western blot analysis were performed to evaluate the expressions of LINC00963, FoxO3a, TGF-β1, FN, GSH-PX, Bax, and Bcl-2. Measurement of changes in OS indexes including BUN, MDA, GSH-Px, SOD, and Na⁺-K⁺-ATP were conducted. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to determine the levels of inflammatory factors including TNF-α, IL-6, ICAM-1 and FN. TUNEL staining was performed to evaluate cell apoptosis. Results: LINC00963 was highly expressed in CRF rats and FoxO3 was predicted and then verified as a target gene of LINC00963. FoxO3 gene participated in the FOXO signaling pathway. Compared with the blank and NC groups, there were significantly decreased expressions of LINC00963, TGF-β1, FN, and Bax in the si-LINC00963 group, while increased expressions of GSH-PX, FoxO3a, and Bcl-2. The vitality values of BUN and MDA in the si-LINC00963 group declined, while enzymatic activities of GSH-Px, SOD and Na⁺-K⁺-ATP elevated in comparison to the blank and NC groups. The levels of TNF-α, IL-6, ICAM-1 and FN, and cell apoptosis rate in the si-LINC00963 group decreased in comparison to the blank and NC groups. All the results in the si-LINC00963 group were opposite in the LINC00963 vector and si-FoxO3 groups. Conclusion: Taken together, we conclude that down-regulation of LINC00963 suppresses RIF and OS of CRF by activating the FoxO signaling pathway.

Abstract:Reasoning with large amounts of data together with ontological knowledge is becoming a pertinent issue. In this chapter, we will give an overviewof wellknown ontology repositories, including native stores and database based stores, and highlight strengths and limitations of each store. We take Minerva as an example to analyze ontology storage in databases in depth, as well as to discuss efficient indexes for scaling up ontology repositories. We then discuss a scalable reasoning method for handling expressive ontologies, as well as summarize other similar approaches. We will subsequently delve into the details of one particular ontology language based on Description Logics called WSML-DL and show that reasoning with this language can be done by a transformation from WSML-DL to OWL DL and support all main DL-specific reasoning tasks. Finally, we illustrate reasoning and its relevance by showing a reasoning example in a practical business context by presenting the Semantic Business Process Repository (SBPR) for systemical management of semantic business process models. As part of this, we analyze the main requirements on a such a repository. We then compare different approaches for storage mechanisms for this purpose and show how a RDBMS in combination with the IRIS inference engine provides a suitable solution that deals well with the expressiveness of the query language and the required reasoning capabilities even for large amounts of instance data.

BackgroundStomatin-like protein 2 (SLP-2, also known as STOML2) is a stomatin homologue of uncertain function. SLP-2 overexpression has been suggested to be associated with cancer progression, resulting in adverse clinical outcomes in patients. Our study aim to investigate SLP-2 expression in epithelial ovarian cancer cells and its correlation with patient survival.MethodsSLP-2 mRNA and protein expression levels were analysed in five epithelial ovarian cancer cell lines and normal ovarian epithelial cells using real-time PCR and western blotting analysis. SLP-2 expression was investigated in eight matched-pair samples of epithelial ovarian cancer and adjacent noncancerous tissues from the same patients. Using immunohistochemistry, we examined the protein expression of paraffin-embedded specimens from 140 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer, 20 cases with borderline ovarian tumours, 20 cases with benign ovarian tumours, and 20 cases with normal ovarian tissues. Statistical analyses were applied to evaluate the clinicopathological significance of SLP-2 expression.ResultsSLP-2 mRNA and protein expression levels were significantly up-regulated in epithelial ovarian cancer cell lines and cancer tissues compared with normal ovarian epithelial cells and adjacent noncancerous ovarian tissues. Immunohistochemistry analysis revealed that the relative overexpression of SLP-2 was detected in 73.6 % (103/140) of the epithelial ovarian cancer specimens, 45.0 % (9/20) of the borderline ovarian specimens, 30.0 % (6/20) of the benign ovarian specimens and none of the normal ovarian specimens. SLP-2 protein expression in epithelial ovarian cancer was significantly correlated with the tumour stage (P < 0.001). Epithelial ovarian cancer patients with higher SLP-2 protein expression levels had shorter progress free survival and overall survival times compared to patients with lower SLP-2 protein expression levels. Multivariate analyses showed that SLP-2 expression levels were an independent prognostic factor for survival in epithelial ovarian cancer patients.ConclusionsSLP-2 mRNA and proteins were overexpressed in epithelial ovarian cancer tissues. SLP-2 protein overexpression was associated with advanced stage disease. Patients with higher SLP-2 protein expression had shorter progress free survival and poor overall survival times. Thus, SLP-2 protein expression was an independent prognostic factor for patients with epithelial ovarian cancer.

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