Colorectal cancer (CRC), one of the common malignant cancers in the world, is caused by accumulated alterations of genetic and epigenetic factors over a long period of time. Along with that protein‐coding genes being identified as oncogenes or tumor suppressors in CRC, a number of lncRNAs have also been found to be associated with CRC. Considering the important regulatory role of lncRNAs, the first goal of this study was to identify CRC‐associated lncRNAs from a public database. One such lncRNA, LINC00472 , was verified to be downregulated in CRC cell lines and cancer tissues compared with adjacent tissues. In addition, the down‐regulation of LINC00472 seemed to be caused by DNA hypermethylation at its promoter region. Furthermore, the expression of LINC00472 and DNA methylation of promoter were significantly correlated with clinicopathological features. And DNA hypermethylation of LINC00472 may serve as a better diagnostic biomarker than its expression for CRC. Finally, we predicted the functions of LINC00472 and constructed a regulatory network and found LINC00472 may be involved in cell cycle and cell proliferation processes. Our results may provide a clue to further research into the function and regulatory mechanism of LINC00472 in CRC.

A retrospective study of all intra-ocular operations performed at Zhongshan Ophthalmic Centre, China between 1 January 2000 and 30 December 2009 was conducted to gain further knowledge about nosocomial acute-onset postoperative endophthalmitis. In total, 147,244 intra-ocular operations were performed during this period. Acute-onset postoperative endophthalmitis was diagnosed in 29 cases, giving a frequency of 0.020%. The frequency remained low and did not increase over the 10-year period. The highest rate of endophthalmitis was found following secondary intra-ocular lens implantation (0.129%). Cataract surgery had a rate of 0.01%, which is on the lower end of estimates from other large-scale studies. Gram-positive bacteria were the most commonly isolated organisms (71%), with the majority being Staphylococcus epidermidis (64%). However, no S. epidermidis was identified in the cases following cataract extraction; these patients received intracameral vancomycin at the end of the procedure. Visual outcomes of patients with postoperative endophthalmitis were generally poor. Three (10%) patients had visual acuity (VA) ≥20/40 at the final follow-up visit (all had undergone cataract surgery) and 15 (52%) patients had VA ≤20/400 at the final follow-up visit (10 had undergone pars plana vitrectomy). Factors associated with poor visual outcomes included initial VA of hand motions or worse, and positive culture results. The results of this 10-year study may serve as a source of comparison for other centres and future studies.

The brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens, is the most devastating rice insect pest to have given rise to an outbreak in recent years. RNA interference (RNAi) is a technological breakthrough that has been developed as a powerful tool for studying gene function and for the highly targeted control of insect pests. Here, we examined the effects of using a feeding-based RNAi technique to target the gene trehalose phosphate synthase (TPS) in N. lugens. The full-length cDNA of N. lugens TPS (NlTPS) is 3235 bp and has an open reading frame of 2424 bp, encoding a protein of 807 amino acids. NlTPS was expressed in the fat body, midgut and ovary. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis revealed that NlTPS mRNA is expressed continuously with little change during the life of the insect. Efficient silencing of the TPS gene through double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) feeding led to rapid and significant reduction levels of TPS mRNA and enzymatic activity. Additionally, the development of N. lugens larvae that had been fed with the dsRNA was disturbed, resulting in lethality, and the cumulative survival rates dropped to 75.56, 64.44, 55.56 and 40.00% after continuous ingestion of 0.5 mu g/mu l dsRNA for 2, 4, 7 and 10 days, respectively. These values were significantly lower than those of the insects in the control group, suggesting that NlTPS dsRNA may be useful as a means of insect pest control.