Suchergebnisse

Implementing another round of massive collective forest tenure reform in China since in 2008 has not materialized the government's expectation on small-scale timber forestry–improved management practices and resource quality. One underlying cause to this outcome is farmer's risk-averse attitude, which has thus far garnered little research attention. In this study, we combine the prospect theory and a lottery experiment to measure individual risk preferences on timber forestry investment. Based on a sample of 303 households conducted in 2018 in Fujian, China, we find that the 'household risk preference' parameter has a significant negative impact on both the decision to invest in timber forestry and the intensity of investment. Further, the 'loss aversion' and 'probability weighting' parameters affect household investment intensity negatively. These results indicate that the more risk averse rural households are, the less willing they are to invest in timber forestry, and the lower their investment intensities are. Also, the effect of the risk preferences on cash outlay is larger than on labor cost. These insights have direct implications for better designing tenure reform and other policies to promote smallholder forestry in China and beyond. ; Peer reviewed

Yong-Hui Ding,1,2 Zhi-Wei Zhou,2,3 Chun-Fang Ha,1 Xue-Yu Zhang,1 Shu-Ting Pan,4 Zhi-Xu He,3 Jeffrey L Edelman,2 Dong Wang,5 Yin-Xue Yang,6 Xueji Zhang,7 Wei Duan,8 Tianxin Yang,9 Jia-Xuan Qiu,4 Shu-Feng Zhou2,3 1Department of Gynecology, General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, People's Republic of China; 2Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA ; 3Guizhou Provincial Key Laboratory for Regenerative Medicine, Stem Cell and Tissue Engineering Research Center and Sino-US Joint Laboratory for Medical Sciences, Guiyang Medical University, Guiyang, 4Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, 5Cancer Center, Daping Hospital and Research Institute of Surgery, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 6Department of Colorectal Surgery, General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, 7Research Center for Bioengineering and Sensing Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, People's Republic of China; 8School of Medicine, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Australia; 9Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah and Salt Lake Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Salt Lake City, UT, USA Abstract: Ovarian cancer is a leading killer of women, and no cure for advanced ovarian cancer is available. Alisertib (ALS), a selective Aurora kinase A (AURKA) inhibitor, has shown potent anticancer effects, and is under clinical investigation for the treatment of advanced solid tumor and hematologic malignancies. However, the role of ALS in the treatment of ovarian cancer remains unclear. This study investigated the effects of ALS on cell growth, apoptosis, autophagy, and epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), and the underlying mechanisms in human epithelial ovarian cancer SKOV3 and OVCAR4 cells. Our docking study showed that ALS, MLN8054, and VX-680 preferentially bound to AURKA over AURKB via hydrogen bond formation, charge interaction, and π-π stacking. ALS had potent growth-inhibitory, proapoptotic, proautophagic, and EMT-inhibitory effects on SKOV3 and OVCAR4 cells. ALS arrested SKOV3 and OVCAR4 cells in G2/M phase and induced mitochondria-mediated apoptosis and autophagy in both SKOV3 and OVCAR4 cell lines in a concentration-dependent manner. ALS suppressed phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase B (Akt)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways but activated 5′-AMP-dependent kinase, as indicated by their altered phosphorylation, contributing to the proautophagic activity of ALS. Modulation of autophagy altered basal and ALS-induced apoptosis in SKOV3 and OVCAR4 cells. Further, ALS suppressed the EMT-like phenotype in both cell lines by restoring the balance between E-cadherin and N-cadherin. ALS downregulated sirtuin 1 and pre-B cell colony enhancing factor (PBEF/visfatin) expression levels and inhibited phosphorylation of AURKA in both cell lines. These findings indicate that ALS blocks the cell cycle by G2/M phase arrest and promotes cellular apoptosis and autophagy, but inhibits EMT via phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt/mTOR-mediated and sirtuin 1-mediated pathways in human epithelial ovarian cancer cells. Further studies are warranted to validate the efficacy and safety of ALS in the treatment of ovarian cancer. Keywords: alisertib, Aurora kinase A, epithelial ovarian cancer, cell cycle, apoptosis, autophagy, epithelial to mesenchymal transition, sirtuin 1