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Due to frequent and often severe lung affections caused by COVID-19, murine models of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are increasingly used in experimental lung research. The one induced by a single lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exposure is practical. However, whether it is preferable to administer LPS intranasally or intratracheally remains an open question. Herein, female C57Bl/6 J mice were exposed intranasally or intratracheally to one dose of either saline or 3 mg/kg of LPS. They were studied 24 h later. The groups treated with LPS, either intranasally or intratracheally, exhibited a pronounced neutrophilic inflammation, signs of lung tissue damage and protein extravasation into the alveoli, and mild lung dysfunction. The magnitude of the response was generally not different between groups exposed intranasally versus intratracheally. However, the variability of some the responses was smaller in the LPS-treated groups exposed intranasally versus intratracheally. Notably, the saline-treated mice exposed intratracheally demonstrated a mild neutrophilic inflammation and alterations of the airway epithelium. We conclude that an intranasal exposure is as effective as an intratracheal exposure in a murine model of ARDS induced by LPS. Additionally, the groups exposed intranasally demonstrated less variability in the responses to LPS and less complications associated with the sham procedure.

Treatment effectiveness in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) depends on early detection and precision-medicine-based patient stratification for targeted therapies. However, the lack of robust biomarkers, particularly a non-invasive diagnostic tool, precludes significant improvement of clinical outcomes for HCC patients. Serum metabolites are one of the best non-invasive means for determining patient prognosis, as they are stable end-products of biochemical processes in human body. In this study, we aimed to identify prognostic serum metabolites in HCC. To determine serum metabolites that were relevant and representative of the tissue status, we performed a two-step correlation analysis to first determine associations between metabolic genes and tissue metabolites, and second, between tissue metabolites and serum metabolites among 49 HCC patients, which were then validated in 408 additional Asian HCC patients with mixed etiologies. We found that certain metabolic genes, tissue metabolites and serum metabolites can independently stratify HCC patients into prognostic subgroups, which are consistent across these different data types and our previous findings. The metabolic subtypes are associated with β-oxidation process in fatty acid metabolism, where patients with worse survival outcome have dysregulated fatty acid metabolism. These serum metabolites may be used as non-invasive biomarkers to define prognostic tumor molecular subtypes for HCC.

Three-dimensional cell culture methods are viable in vitro approaches that facilitate the examination of biological features cancer cells present in vivo. In this study, we demonstrate that hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells in porous alginate scaffolds can generate organoid-like spheroids that mimic numerous features of glandular epithelium in vivo, such as acinar morphogenesis and apical expression patterns of EpCAM, a hepatic stem/progenitor cell marker highly expressed in a subset of HCC with stemness features. We show that the activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling, an essential pathway for maintaining HCC stemness, is required for EpCAM+ HCC spheroid formation as well as the maintenance of the acinous structure. Furthermore, we demonstrate that EpCAM+ HCC cells cultured as spheroids are more sensitive to TGF/β-induced epithelial-mesenchymal transition with highly tumorigenic and metastatic potential in vivo compared to conventional two-dimensional (2D) culture. In addition, HCC cells in EpCAM+ spheroids are more resistant to chemotherapeutic agents than 2D-cultured cells. The alginate scaffold-based organotypic culture system is a promising, reliable and easy system that can be configured into a high throughput fashion for the identification of critical signaling pathways and screening of molecular drug targets specific for HCC.

We report the measurement of the fourth cumulant of current fluctuations in a tunnel junction under both dc and ac (microwave) excitation. This probes the non-Gaussian character of photo-assisted shot noise. Our measurement reveals the existence of correlations between noise power measured at two different frequencies, which corresponds to two-mode intensity correlations in optics. We observe positive correlations, i.e. photon bunching, which exist only for certain relations between the excitation frequency and the two detection frequencies, depending on the dc bias of the sample.