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BackgroundConventional research has asserted that cognitive function, particularly, response inhibition, is closely related to the inferior frontal cortex (IFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), or orbital frontal cortex (OFC), which belong to the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Different targets of anodal or cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (a-tDCS or c-tDCS) would affect the experimental results, but the stimulation of the same brain target would produce inconsistent findings.PurposeThis study aimed to investigate the effects of a-tDCS and c-tDCS applied over the PFC for healthy populations on reactive and proactive control process compared with sham or no tDCS conditions, as assessed using the Stop-signal task (SST) and Go/NoGo (GNG) task performance.MethodsThis systematic review was performed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines. Search was conducted on Web of Science, Google Scholar, PubMed, Elsevier, Scopus, and Science Direct until March 2024. Studies that assessed the inhibitory control in SST or/and GNG tasks were included to achieve a homogenous sample.ResultsFourteen studies were included for meta-analyses, which were performed for two outcome measures, namely, stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) and commission error (CE) rate. A-tDCS and c-tDCS over the PFC had significant ergogenic effects on SST performance (mean difference = −17.03, 95% CI [−24.62, −9.43], p

Objective: This study aimed to explore the molecular response mechanisms of differential blood metabolites before and after 8 weeks of threshold and polarized training models using metabolomics technology combined with changes in athletic performance. Methods: Twenty-four male rowers aged 14–16 were randomly divided into a THR group and a POL group (12 participants each). The THR group followed a threshold training model (72%, 24%, and 4% of training time in low-, moderate-, and high-intensity zones, respectively), while the POL group followed a polarized training model (78%, 8%, and 14% training-intensity distribution). Both groups underwent an 8-week training program. Aerobic endurance changes were assessed using a 2 km maximal rowing performance test, and untargeted metabolome analysis was conducted to examine blood metabolomic changes before and after the different training interventions. Aerobic endurance changes were assessed through a 2 km maximal rowing test. Non-targeted metabolomics analysis was employed to evaluate changes in blood metabolome profiles before and after the different training interventions. Results: After 8 weeks of training, both the THR and POL groups exhibited significant improvements in 2 km maximal rowing performance (p < 0.05), with no significant differences between the groups. The THR and POL groups had 46 shared differential metabolites before and after the intervention, primarily enriched in sphingolipid metabolism, glutathione metabolism, and glycine, serine, and threonine metabolism pathways. Nine unique differential metabolites were identified in the THR group, mainly enriched in pyruvate metabolism, glycine, serine, and threonine metabolism, glutathione metabolism, and sphingolipid metabolism. A total of 14 unique differential metabolites were identified in the POL group, predominantly enriched in sphingolipid metabolism, glycine, serine, and threonine metabolism, aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, and glutathione metabolism. Conclusions: The 8-week THR and POL training models demonstrated similar effects on enhancing aerobic performance in adolescent male rowers, indicating that both training modalities share similar blood metabolic mechanisms for improving aerobic endurance. Furthermore, both the THR group and the POL group exhibited numerous shared metabolites and some differential metabolites, suggesting that the two endurance training models share common pathways but also have distinct aspects in enhancing aerobic endurance.

Green macroalgae bloom (GMB), with the dominant species of Ulva prolifera, has regularly occurred since 2007 along the China coast. Although disaster prevention and control achieved favorable results in 2020, the satellite-observed GMB annual maximum coverage (AMC) rebounded sharply in 2021 to an unprecedented level. The reasons for this rebound and the significant interannual variability over past 15 years are still open questions. Here, by using long-term time-series (2007–2022) optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite observations (1000+ scenes), meteorological data and water quality statistics, the mechanism analysis was performed by exploring effects from natural factors and human activities. Two key determinants for AMC are successfully identified from numerous potential factors which are the macroalgae distribution in a key area (the Subei Shoal) during a critical period (from April to May 20) and the nutrient availability. Furthermore, by using these two parameters, a novel model for AMC prediction (R2 = 0.87, p

Abstract Background In this study, by analyzing the correlation between various components of health-related physical fitness (HPF) and liver function indicators, the indicators of physical fitness that were highly correlated with liver function and could be monitored at home were screened to prevent more serious liver disease in the future, and to provide experimental basis for prescribing personalized exercise. Methods A total of 330 faculties (female = 198) of a university were recruited. The indicators of HPF and liver function were measured. Spearman correlation analysis, multivariate linear regression, and cross-lagged panel model was used to data statistics. Results In males, body fat (BF) was positively correlated with alanine aminotransferase (ALT); vital capacity and the vital capacity index were positively correlated with albumin; and vertical jump was positively correlated with globulin and negatively correlated with the albumin-globulin ratio (P

Objectives: To explore the optimal exercise parameters of Tai Chi for improving glucose and lipid metabolism in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. Methods: This meta-analysis was conducted in accordance with the reporting guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Six databases were retrieved, with retrieval dates ranging from the establishment of the databases to December 2022. Data extraction and study quality assessment were independently performed by two researchers according to the Physical Therapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale. The effects of different Tai Chi exercise parameters on glucose and lipid metabolism in T2DM patients were analyzed by subgroup analyses and meta-regressions. Results: A total of sixteen randomized controlled trials were included in the meta-analysis. The results indicated that Tai Chi had a significant and moderate impact on fasting blood glucose in T2DM patients, as well as a significant and large impact on glycosylated hemoglobin. Tai Chi had a significant and moderate impact on triglyceride, and a small, non-significant improvement on total cholesterol. The intervention frequency and duration of a single session were identified as predictors of the impact of Tai Chi on triglyceride. The optimal exercise parameters identified were the 24-style simplified Tai Chi, with a recommended exercise duration of 45–60 min per session, performed 5–7 times per week, and continued for at least 4–7 weeks. Conclusions: Tai Chi can significantly improve the glucose and lipid metabolism in T2DM patients, and the 24-style simplified Tai Chi with high exercise frequency and short duration may be the optimal exercise parameter for enhancing glucose and lipid metabolism. Prospero: Registration number: CRD42023395282

Automatically detecting macroalgae from optical remote sensing images has been a long-standing problem in ocean monitoring. Existing operational spectral-based techniques tend to assign a threshold to an indicator such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to determine whether or not macroalgae exists in a pixel. This thresholding scheme relies on individual pixel features and cannot address the environment variability among different images or even across one single image. To address these limitations, we develop the unsupervised classification method taking the ecological indicator of NDVI as input by exploiting a region-based level set driven by context-sensitive energy function for macroalgae detection from optical remote sensing images. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations based on satellite optical images with various imaging time and spatial resolutions (16–250 m) from GF-1, GF-4, Landsat-8, and Aqua demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness for Ulva prolifera detection. The model is proved to be superior to the traditional NDVI thresholding method and state-of-the-art level set methods in terms of higher accuracy (Kappa coefficients 0.87–0.92) and automation (without artificial threshold/parameter adjustment). Moreover, the model has the advantage of accommodating complex environmental conditions (such as different water turbidity, thin clouds and sun glint), and can be utilized for detection of Sargassum bloom. The model could facilitate the accurate extraction of macroalgae information and thus serve disaster prevention and control. It may also be used to assist high-accuracy training data preparation for supervised classification and detect the objects with obvious texture and spectral characteristics (such as oil spills) based on customized bands combination.

Abstract Hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HSCC) accounts 95% of hypopharyngeal cancer, which is characterized by high early metastasis rate and poor prognosis. It is reported that circular RNA is involved in the occurrence and development of cancer; however, the role of circRNA in hypopharyngeal cancer has little been investigated. We performed hypopharyngeal carcinoma circRNA microarray and qRT-PCR verification. The results showed circ_0058106 expression level was significantly upregulated in tumor tissues than in corresponding normal tissues. We found that circ_0058106 upregulation promoted proliferation, migration and invasion of HSCC cells, while knockdown of circ_0058106 inhibited proliferation, migration and invasion of HSCC cells both in vitro and in vivo. Bioinformatics predicted circ_0058106 may interact with miR-185-3p. We verified circ_0058106 directly bound miR-185-3p and downregulated miR-185-3p expression by using dual-luciferase reporter assay and qRT-PCR. Moreover, we proved circ_0058106 promoted HSCC cells tumorigenesis and EMT process by regulating Wnt2b/β-catenin/c-Myc pathway via miR-185-3p. In conclusion, our findings firstly confirmed the carcinogenic effect of circ_0058106 in promoting HSCC cells tumorigenesis, metastasis, invasion and EMT process by regulating Wnt2b/β-catenin/c-Myc pathway through sponging miR-185-3p, indicating that circ_0058106 may be a new therapeutic target and prognostic marker for HSCC.

Abstract Background G protein‐coupled receptor 12 (GPR12) is an orphan receptor with no confirmed endogenous ligands. It plays important roles in both physiological and pathological conditions such as neurogenesis and neural inflammation. However, it remains unclear whether GPR12 regulates carcinogenesis and progression in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), such as esophageal cancer (EC) and hypopharyngeal cancer (HC). Methods The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database was applied to explore the expression of GPR12. Quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR) was used to detect the expression of GPR12 in cancer tissues. Wound healing and transwell assays were carried out to verify the effect of GPR12 on cell migration. Flow cytometric analysis and caspase‐Glo 3/7 assay were carried out to verify the influence of GPR12 on cell apoptosis. Western blotting was used to measure the expression of proteins related to migration and apoptosis. Result The qRT‐PCR analyses showed that the expression of GPR12 decreased in EC and HC than that in their paired adjacent normal tissues. Wound healing assay and transwell assay demonstrated that GPR12 inhibited tumor cell migration. Flow cytometry analysis and Caspase‐Glo 3/7 Assay suggested that GPR12 promoted apoptosis. The mechanism of GPR12 may function via modulating caspase‐7, E‐cadherin, and α‐catenin in EC and HC cells. Conclusion In conclusion, GPR12 induced apoptosis by activating caspase‐7 and inhibited migration through epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) in EC and HC. Our findings demonstrated that GPR12 as a potential tumor suppressor mediated cell migration and apoptosis in EC and HC.

Abstract Background Conservative surgery has proven advantageous in controlling hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HSCC) and preserving speech and swallowing function in carefully selected patients, typically with early T-stages diseases. A variety of modified surgical procedures or techniques have been proposed. Methods In this study, we present a novel surgical approach for hypopharyngeal carcinoma resection utilizing the paraglottic space. Results The paraglottic space approach can help expose neoplasms under direct vision and save mucosa during surgery while sufficiently preserving laryngeal function, thus benefiting postoperative swallowing and reducing complications. A large cohort of 426 patients with HSCC underwent surgical treatment at our institution using this approach, demonstrating an overall survival (OS) rate of 52.3% and low incidences of postoperative complications. Conclusions This surgical approach can be applied in patients with the lesions that do not involve the paraglottic space.

The classification of remote sensing images with high spatial resolution requires considerable training samples, but the process of sample making is slow and laborious. How to guarantee the accuracy of supervised classification under the condition of limited samples is an urgent problem to be solved in the field of supervised classification. For addressing this problem, we propose an improved conditional generative adversarial network with edge feature (ECGAN) to augment limited training data for the classification of remote sensing images with high spatial resolution in this article. On the basis of conditional generative adversarial network, feature factors of interclass boundaries and intraclass edges are added to networks, and an objective function with multiscale and multilevel features is constructed. The ISPRS potsdam and Vaihingen remote sensing datasets are regarded as examples. Results indicate that the high-resolution remote sensing images generated by using the network proposed in this article have abundant texture, accurate edges, and are highly similar to real images. The generated images are used to augment training samples, and an experiment for classifying high-resolution remote sensing images is conducted. The classification results of the proposed augmentation method perform better than that of the traditional sample augmentation method. We prove that ECGAN as a means of sample augmentation can effectively solves the problem that the classification effect is unideal when the supervised classification sample is insufficient.

Hypopharyngeal cancer (HC) is the most common subset of head and neck cancers. These tumors often have an aggressive clinical outcome characterized by local invasion and regional nodal metastasis. Upregulated miRNAs might be useful as biomarkers for prognosis and molecular targets for these tumors. We determined tumor expression of candidate miRNAs using microarray in 8 HC patients and validated in 372 HC patients. We also used paired tumorous and mucosal tissue to verify the miRNA expression. Log-rank test and Cox model were used to evaluate the survival; and Harrell's C-index was used to compare concordance of Cox models. Our results indicated 7 miRNAs aberrantly expressed in HC. Three of these candidate miRNAs (miRNA-4415, miRNA-200a, and miRNA-30b) were selected for further qRT-PCR validation and all of them were frequently found upregulated in HC tumors; with miR-4451 being the most differentially expressed. Moreover, high expression of miR-4451 was positively correlated with advanced tumor stage and increased mortality risk (HR: 1.6, 95% CI: 1.2–2.3; adjusted HR: 1.5, adjusted 95% CI: 1.1–2.1). Finally, significantly higher expression of miR-4451 in tumors compared to in fresh adjacent normal tissues indicates an oncogenic role of miR-4451 in this tumor. Upregulated miR-4451 in HC samples were frequently found and is significantly associated with advanced stage and poor survival of HC, which may indicate an association of this miRNA with the carcinogenesis process in this tumor site; and they could serve as a prognostic biomarker as well as help develop potential new targets for therapy.

Background/Aims: Researchers have shown that long noncoding RNAs are closely associated with the pathogenesis of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). However, the role of the long noncoding RNA taurine-upregulated gene 1 (TUG1) in the pathogenesis of LSCC remains unclear, although it is recognized as an oncogenic regulator for several types of squamous cell carcinoma. Methods: qRT-PCR was performed to measure the expression of TUG1 in LSCC tissues and cell lines. 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2-H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) was used to measure the effect of TUG1 on cell proliferation. Transwell assay and flow cytometry were employed to determine the effect of TUG1 on cell migration and invasion. Western-blot were performed to explore the relation of TUG1 and p53 mRNA. Results: Higher TUG1 expression in LSCC than in paired normal tumor-adjacent tissue specimens (N = 64) was observed using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Also, high TUG1 expression was positively associated with advanced T category, worse lymph node metastasis and late clinical stage. Furthermore, in vitro experiments demonstrated that silencing of TUG1 markedly inhibited proliferation, cell-cycle progression, migration, and invasion of LSCC cells, whereas depletion of TUG1 led to increased apoptosis. Conclusion: These findings demonstrated that upregulated TUG1 expression exerted oncogenic effects by promoting proliferation, migration, and invasion, and inhibiting apoptosis in LSCC cells.

Objectives. We sought to identify the expression of CD68-tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) and CD34-microvascular density (MVD) in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC), to study the relationship with clinical pathological parameters and to determine whether their expression is predictive of disease. Methods. Pathologically confirmed 45 LSCC tissue and 20 peritumoral non-tumor tissue were examined. Immunohistochemical studies were used to detect the expression of CD68-TAMs and CD34-MVD. Results. The positive expression rate of CD68 in LSCC tissue was 82% (37/45), which was higher than the 10% (2/20) expression rate of the peritumoral tissue (P

The sea surface temperature (SST) is an important parameter of the energy balance on the Earth’s surface. SST prediction is crucial to marine production, marine protection, and climate prediction. However, the current SST prediction model still has low precision and poor stability. In this study, a medium and long-term SST prediction model is designed on the basis of the gated recurrent unit (GRU) neural network algorithm. This model captures the SST time regularity by using the GRU layer and outputs the predicted results through the fully connected layer. The Bohai Sea, which is characterized by a large annual temperature difference, is selected as the study area, and the SSTs on different time scales (monthly and quarterly) are used to verify the practicability and stability of the model. The results show that the designed SST prediction model can efficiently fit the results of the real sea surface temperature, and the correlation coefficient is above 0.98. Regardless of whether monthly or quarterly data are used, the proposed network model performs better than long short-term memory in terms of stability and accuracy when the length of the prediction increases. The root mean square error and mean absolute error of the predicted SST are mostly within 0–2.5 °C.

Timely monitoring of marine aquaculture has considerable significance for marine ecological protection and maritime safety and security. Considering that supervised learning needs to rely on a large number of training samples and the characteristics of intensive and regular distribution of the laver aquaculture zone, in this paper, an inaccurate supervised classification model based on fully convolutional neural network and conditional random filed (FCN-CRF) is designed for the study of a laver aquaculture zone in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province. The proposed model can extract the aquaculture zone and calculate the area and quantity of laver aquaculture net simultaneously. The FCN is used to extract the laver aquaculture zone by roughly making the training label. Then, the CRF is used to extract the isolated laver aquaculture net with high precision. The results show that the k a p p a coefficient of the proposed model is 0.984, the F 1 is 0.99, and the recognition effect is outstanding. For label production, the fault tolerance rate is high and does not affect the final classification accuracy, thereby saving more label production time. The findings provide a data basis for future aquaculture yield estimation and offshore resource planning as well as technical support for marine ecological supervision and marine traffic management.

Mariculture is crucial in environmental monitoring and safety assurance of marine environments. Certain mariculture areas are often partially or completely submerged in water, which causes the target signal to be extremely weak and difficult to detect. A method of target recognition and classification based on the convolutional neural network called semantic segmentation can fully consider the space spectrum and context semantic information. Therefore, this study proposes a target extraction method on the basis of multisource feature fusion, such as nNDWI and G/R ratio. In this work, the proposed recognition algorithm is verified under the conditions of uniform distribution of strong, weak, and extremely weak signals. Results show that the G/R feature is superior under the condition of uniform distribution of strong and weak signals. Its mean pixels accuracy is 2.32% higher than RGB (combination of red band, green band, and blue band), and its overall classification accuracy is 98.84%. Under the condition of extremely weak signal, the MPA of the multisource feature method based on the combination of G/R and nNDWI is 10.76% higher than RGB, and the overall classification accuracy is 82.02%. Under this condition, the G/R features highlight the target, and nNDWI suppresses noise. The proposed method can effectively extract the information of weak signal in the marine culture area and provide technical support for marine environmental monitoring and marine safety assurance.

Monitoring of offshore aquaculture zones is important to marine ecological environment protection and maritime safety and security. Remote sensing technology has the advantages of large-area simultaneous observation and strong timeliness, which provide normalized monitoring of marine aquaculture zones. Aiming at the problems of weak generalization ability and low recognition rate in weak signal environments of traditional target recognition algorithm, this paper proposes a method for automatic extraction of offshore fish cage and floating raft aquaculture zones based on semantic segmentation. This method uses Generative Adversarial Networks to expand the data to compensate for the lack of training samples, and uses ratio of green band to red band (G/R) instead of red band to enhance the characteristics of aquaculture spectral information, combined with atrous convolution and atrous space pyramid pooling to enhance the context semantic information, to extract and identify two types of offshore fish cage zones and floating raft aquaculture zones. The experiment is carried out in the eastern coastal waters of Shandong Province, China, and the overall identification accuracy of the two types of aquaculture zones can reach 94.8%. The results show that the method proposed in this paper can realize high-precision extraction both of offshore fish cage and floating raft aquaculture zones.

The PHLPP (pleckstrin homology [PH] domain leucine rich repeat protein phosphatase) family, which represents a family of novel Ser/Thr protein phosphatases, is composed of 2 members: PHLPP1 and PHLPP2. PHLPPs partake in diverse cellular activities to exhibit their antitumor and metastasis suppressor functions. It is necessary to investigate the expression patterns of PHLPP1 and PHLPP2 in hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas (HSCCs) and clarify their clinical significance. A total of 138 patients with primary HSCC who underwent curative surgical treatment as an initial treatment were enrolled in this study. A total of 138 HSCC specimens and 64 adjacent noncancerous mucosal epithelial tissues were collected. The expression levels of PHLPP1 and PHLPP2 were examined by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry assays. Correlations between clinicopathological parameters of the patients were further evaluated. PHLPP1 and PHLPP2 mRNA transcript levels were significantly lower in tumor samples than in paired adjacent nontumor mucosae (P

The question of whether "recurrent" laryngeal carcinoma is truly a new tumour with a clonal origin that differs from that of the primary tumour has remained unanswered. The objective of this study was to determine whether recurrent tumours have the same genetic basis as primary tumours, as the answer to this question is important for the development of treatment strategies.Matched samples consisting of primary tumour, recurrent tumour and normal tissue were obtained from the same patient. A total of 37 patients with laryngeal cancer were examined for loss of heterozygosity (LOH) on the 3p, 5p, 7q, 8p, 9p, 13p, 17p and 18q chromosomal arms using PCR to amplify microsatellite markers. All patients were routinely followed up and 5-year survival rates were calculated using directly calculating method and Kaplan-Meier's method.A total of 28 out of 37 (75.6%) patients showed LOH at a minimum of one locus, and 19 out of 37 (51.3%) patients showed LOH at two loci. Primary and recurrent tumours in each patient showed identical allelic loss patterns and incidence rates. Patients without LOH had a longer average time to recurrence than patients with LOH (P

Many well-established models exist for predicting the dispersion of radioactive particles that will be generated in the surrounding environment after a nuclear weapon explosion. However, without exception, almost all models rely on accurate source term parameters, such as DELFIC, DNAF-1, and so on. Unlike nuclear experiments, accurate source term parameters are often not available once a nuclear weapon is used in a real nuclear strike. To address the problems of unclear source term parameters and meteorological conditions during nuclear weapon explosions and the complexity of the identification process, this article proposes a nuclear weapon source term parameter identification method based on a genetic algorithm (GA) and a particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO) by combining real-time monitoring data. The results show that both the PSO and the GA are able to identify the source term parameters satisfactorily after optimization, and the prediction accuracy of their main source term parameters is above 98%. When the maximum number of iterations and population size of the PSO and GA were the same, the running time and optimization accuracy of the PSO were better than those of the GA. This study enriches the theory and method of radioactive particle dispersion prediction after a nuclear weapon explosion and is of great significance to the study of environmental radioactive particles.

Background: Several long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in oncogenesis. Methods and Results: Our microarray analysis showed that numerous lncRNAs are dysregulated in hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HSCC) tumor tissues as compared with normal tissues. Among those lncRNAs, urothelial carcinoma-associated 1 (UCA1) has been found to have an oncogenic role in HSCC. We confirmed the upregulation of UCA1 in HSCC by assessing its expression levels in a cohort of 53 patient tumors and paired non-tumor samples. In addition, we found that high UCA1 expression was significantly associated with advanced T category, late clinical stage, greater lymphatic invasion, and worse prognosis. Furthermore, in vitro experiments demonstrated that UCA1 functioned as an oncogene by promoting the proliferation and invasion and preventing the apoptosis of HSCC cells. Conclusions: Taken together, our findings for the first time identify the role of UCA1 as a tumor promoter and a prometastatic factor in HSCC, demonstrating that UCA1 is a potential prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target in HSCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to identify the role of caveolin-1 (CAV1) in hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HSCC) and identify its possible correlation with tumor clinical parameters. Expression of CAV1 was measured using immunohistochemical staining of 66 HSCC samples and 44 samples from morphologically normal tissues adjacent to the carcinomas. Expression of CAV1 in HSCC and paracancerous tissues were 71.2 and 9.5% respectively. Levels of CAV1 expression were significantly associated with tumor differentiation, tumor-node-metastasis stage and lymph nodes metastasis (P<0.05). The present study identified that expression of CAV1 in HSCC is significantly higher than in paracancerous tissues, suggesting that this high expression of CAV1 is associated with tumor invasion and metastasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laryngeal cancer is an uncommon form of cancer. The tumor suppressor P16, known to be mutated or deleted in various types of human tumor, including laryngeal carcinoma, is involved in the formation and development of laryngeal carcinoma. It has been previously reported that the inactivation or loss of P16 is associated with the acquisition of malignant characteristics. The current study hypothesized that restoring wild-type P16 activity into P16-null malignant Hep2 cells may exert an antitumor effect. A recombinant adenovirus carrying the P16 gene (Ad-P16) was used to infect and express high levels of P16 protein in P16-null Hep2 cells. Cell proliferation and invasion assays and polymerase chain reaction were performed to evaluate the effects of the P16 gene on cell proliferation and the antitumor effect on Hep2 cells. The results demonstrated that the Hep2 cells infected with Ad-P16 exhibited significantly reduced cell proliferation, invasion and tumor volume compared with untreated or control adenovirus cells. Furthermore, the expression of laryngeal carcinoma-associated genes, EGFR, survivin and cyclin D1, were measured in Ad-P16-infected cells and were significantly reduced compared with control groups. The results of the current study demonstrate that restoring wild-type P16 activity into P16-null Hep2 cells exerts an antitumor effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Claudin-l and cyclin B1 are abnormally expressed in certain malignancies, but their expression in hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HSCC) has not been reported thus far. Studying the expression levels of claudin-1 and cylin B1 in HSCC tissues and their association with clinical stage, pathological grade and prognosis in patients with HSCC may provide a theoretical basis and guide future research on HSCC targeted therapy. The protein expression levels of the above two biomarkers was immunohistochemically detected in 97 HSCC cases and 90 matched adjacent tissue samples. The correlation between the expression levels of claudin-1 and cylin B1 and the patients' clinical parameters was analyzed via Pearson's χ² test, while survival analysis was performed using a log-rank test. The results of the current study revealed that claudin-1 and cyclin B1 were highly expressed in HSCC tissues, and the expression of claudin-1 was associated with tumor differentiation degree and lymph node metastasis, while cyclin B1 expression was associated with tumor differentiation degree. Furthermore, Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that claudin-1 expression correlated with survival (P=0.003), and the expression levels of claudin-1 and cyclin B1 were observed to be positively correlated, in patients with HSCC. Cyclin B1 and claudin-1 exhibited an elevated expression in HSCC specimens, thus suggesting their use as tumor markers. Therefore, the joint detection of claudin-1 and cyclin B1 may aid to guide cancer therapy and to determine prognosis in HSCC. Furthermore, claudin-1 may be used as an HSCC-monitoring index, and may serve as a therapeutic target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical patterns in young Chinese patients (less than 40 years old) with laryngeal squamous cell cancer (LSCC) and the outcome of primary open surgery. Methods: Thirty-four young patients, with histologically confirmed LSCC between 1985 and 2005 at Qilu Hospital and Affiliated Hospital of Weifang Medical College, who underwent primary open surgery were retrospectively evaluated according to the clinical patterns in comparison with 374 non-young patients (older than 40 years). The Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate the survival rate. The relevance of smoking, tumor location, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging, lymph node involvement, tumor size, and histological differentiation to overall survival was tested by multivariate analysis. Results: There was a significantly higher rate of smoking (p = 0.020) in the non-young patients compared to the young patients, but no significant difference was observed in alcohol consumption, tumor location, tumor size, TNM staging, lymph node metastasis, histological grade, and 5-year overall survival. One-year survival rates were 100 %, 3-year survival rates were 79.41 %, and 5-year survival rates were 67.65 %. In the multivariate analysis, lymph node involvement (p = 0.006), tumor stage (p = 0.022), and tumor size (p = 0.004) proved to be significant predictors of overall survival. Conclusions: The incidence of smoking was significantly higher in non-young patients compared to young patients. Primary surgery with or without radiotherapy may provide a value treatment option for young LSCC. Nodal status, tumor stage, and tumor size were the primary determinants of overall survival in multivariate analysis. These data may provide useful information for counseling and treatment planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to determine the expression of cellular FLICE-like inhibitory protein (cFLIP) in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and revealed its possible correlation to Fas protein and tumour clinical parameters. The expression of cFLIP was analysed in 58 HNSCC samples and 30 morphologically normal tissues adjacent to the carcinomas using immunohistochemistry, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and western blot analysis. Furthermore, its possible correlation to the expression of Fas protein and tumour clinicopathologic parameters were discussed. Cellular FLICE-like inhibitory protein was demonstrated to be up regulated in most HNSCC than in normal tissues by immunohistochemistry ( p < 0.01). Although the mRNA levels of both isoforms of cFLIP, long form (cFLIPL) and short form (cFLIPS), in HNSCC were higher than those in normal tissues ( p < 0.01), only cFLIPL protein could be detected by western blot. Furthermore, the expression of cFLIPL protein was significantly associated with tumour clinical stage ( p < 0.01) and lymph node metastasis ( p = 0.01). Since all of the tumours with Fas immunostaining also express cFLIP protein, there was no significant correlation between them ( p > 0.05). Overexpression of cFLIPL is a frequent event in HNSCC and HNSCC cells in vivo may need it to evade apoptosis mediated by Fas or other receptors, which might contribute to tumour development and progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]