Search

Background: Although eukaryotic initiation factor 6 (eIF6) is a novel therapeutic target, data on its importance in the development of esophageal carcinoma (ESCA) remains limited. This study evaluated the correlation between eIF6 expression and metabolic analysis using fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) -Positron emission tomography (PET) and immune gene signatures in ESCA.Methods: This study employed The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to analyze the expression and prognostic value of eIF6, as well as its relationship with the immune gene signatures in ESCA patients. The qRT-PCR and Western blot analyses were used to profile the expression of eIF6 in ESCA tissues and different ESCA cell lines. The expression of tumor eIF6 and glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) was examined using immunohistochemical tools in fifty-two ESCA patients undergoing routine 18F-FDG PET/CT before surgery. In addition, the cellular responses to eIF6 knockdown in human ESCA cells were assessed via the MTS, EdU, flow cytometry and wound healing assays.Results: Our data demonstrated that compared with the normal esophageal tissues, eIF6 expression was upregulated in ESCA tumor tissues and showed a high diagnostic value with an area under curve of 0.825 for predicting ESCA. High eIF6 expression was significantly correlated with shorter overall survival of patients with esophagus adenocarcinoma (p = 0.038), but not in squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus (p = 0.078). In addition, tumor eIF6 was significantly associated with 18F-FDG PET/CT parameters: maximal and mean standardized uptake values (SUVmax and SUVmean) and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) (rho = 0.458, 0.460, and 0.300, respectively, p < 0.01) as well as GLUT1 expression (rho = 0.453, p < 0.001). A SUVmax cutoff of 18.2 led to prediction of tumor eIF6 expression with an accuracy of 0.755. Functional analysis studies demonstrated that knockdown of eIF6 inhibited ESCA cell growth and migration, and fueled cell apoptosis. Moreover, the Bulk RNA gene analysis revealed a significant inverse association between eIF6 and the tumor-infiltrating immune cells (macrophages, T cells, or Th1 cells) and immunomodulators in the ESCA microenvironment.Conclusion: Our study suggested that eIF6 might serve as a potential prognostic biomarker associated with metabolic variability and immune gene signatures in ESCA tumor microenvironment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual tracking has been an active research topic in the computer vision applications. By modeling the target appearance with a sparse approximation over a template set, sparse representation has been applied to the visual tracker, which called L1 tracker. Due to the need to solve the L1 norm related minimization problem for many times, this L1 tracker is very computationally demanding. Although various fast numerical solver is developed to solve the resulting L1 norm related minimization problem, the framework is still a L1 norm related minimization model. Similar to the face recognition problem, sparse approximations may not deliver the desired robustness and a simple L2 approach to the visual tracking problem is not only robust, but also much faster. It may be possible to apply the L2 minimization, instead of L1 minimization, to the visual tracking problems, which has been verified by experiments on challenging sequences in the paper.

Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) colon cancer-associated transcript 2 (CCAT2) has been demonstrated to play an important role in diverse tumorigenesis. However, the biological function of lncRNAs in glioma is still unknown. In this study, we found that lncRNA CCAT2 was overexpressed in glioma tissues and cell lines and associated with tumor grade and size. Furthermore, patients with high levels of lncRNA CCAT2 had poorer survival than those with lower levels of lncRNA CCAT2. Knocking down lncRNA CCAT2 expression significantly suppressed the glioma cell growth, migration, and invasion, as well as induced early apoptosis of glioma cells in vitro. Moreover, lncRNA CCAT2 regulated epithelialmesenchymal transition (EMT)-associated gene expression. In conclusion, lncRNA CCAT2 plays an important role in glioma tumorigenesis and progression and may act as a potential biomarker for therapeutic strategy and prognostic prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vesicular nucleotide transporter (SLC17A9) has been overexpressed in various cancers. Nonetheless, little is known about its influence on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including human lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC). Integrative bioinformatics analysis was performed to investigate the prognostic significance and underlying mechanisms of SLC17A9 in patients with NSCLC. Here, we found that SLC17A9 up-regulation was significantly correlated with overall survival in LUAD and LUSC ( P < 0.05). Gene set enrichment analysis and protein-protein interaction results revealed that SLC17A9 up-regulation was linked to metabolic process, the hallmark of MYC targets, DNA repair, coagulation and complement. SLC17A9 expression was negatively associated with overall survival and positively related to most LUSC immune cells and immunoinhibitor (20/23), particularly immuno A2aR, PD-1, and CTLA-4 ( P < 0.001). High SLC17A9 was associated with infiltrating levels of B cells, CD4 + T cells, M1 macrophages, and T cell exhaustion checkpoints such as PD-1, CTLA4, and LAG3 in LUAD. Moreover, Real-time PCR, MTS assay, EdU assay, ATP production assays and cell cycle analysis were performed to validate SLC17A9 knockdown in LUAD cells. SLC17A9 knockdown significantly inhibited cell proliferation and ATP levels by affecting P2X1, Cytochrome C, and STAT3 expression in lung cancer cells. In conclusion, the present study suggested that SLC17A9 could potentially serve as a prognostic biomarker and correlated with immune infiltrates in LUAD and LUSC., Competing Interests: None., (AJCR Copyright © 2023.)

To explore the cerebral metabolic patterns of cerebral palsy (CP) patients without structural abnormalities by brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, we evaluated 18 F-fluoro-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography ( 18 F-FDG PET) imaging features in patients. Thirty-one children with CP [Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) levels II-V] showing no structural abnormalities by MRI were enrolled in this study. Regional glucose metabolic activity values were calculated using Scenium software and compared between the right and left cerebral hemispheres. These comparisons revealed asymmetric metabolic reductions in the central region, cerebellum, frontal lobe, and parietal lobe ( p < 0.01). We next determined whether averaged brain metabolic activity values in different brain regions correlated with GMFCS levels. The metabolic activity values of basal ganglia, left temporal lobe, and cerebellum correlated negatively with GMFCS scores (all p < 0.05). This method was applied to the left cerebellum, which showed higher metabolic activity values than those in the right cerebellum in most patients (83.8%), and these values also correlated negatively with GMFCS scores (Spearman's r = -0.36, p = 0.01). Differential cortical glucose metabolism by 18 F-FDG PET, may help to distinguish between different CP diagnoses that are not detected by MRI., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Wu, Gao, Zhang, Chen, Tan, Zeng, Wan, Yang, Gu and Pei.)

Objective: Reporter gene/probe systems have proved to be reliable for monitoring gene/cell therapy. We sought to evaluate whether a reporter gene/probe system, namely the human estrogen receptor ligand binding domain (hERL)/16α- 18 F fluoro-17β-estradiol ( 18 F-FES), could be used for monitoring vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene expression and response to bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell (MSCs) therapy in ischemic heart disease., Animals and Methods: Reporter gene hERL and therapeutic gene VEGF165 were linked through internal ribosome entry site (IRES), and then the recombinant adenovirus vector Adenovirus 5-hERL-IRES-VEGF (Ad5-EIV) was constructed and transfected into MSCs, and named Ad5-EIV-MSCs. Rat myocardial infarction was induced by coronary arterial branch ligature, and Ad5-EIV-MSCs were transplanted by injection into the peripheral myocardium, while non-transfected MSCs transplantation used as controls. Fluorine-18-FDG micro-PET imaging was performed to confirm myocardial infarction 1 day after surgery. Fluorine-18-FES micro-PET/CT images were acquired 2 days after Ad5-EIV-MSCs transplantation. Myocardial specimens were obtained and stained with hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) staining to verify the myocardial infarction. The expression of estrogen receptor (ER) and VEGF was detected using immunohistochemistry (IHC)., Results: Rat myocardial infarction models were successfully produced and confirmed by H&E staining. Images of 18 F-FDG PET showed obvious reduced or absent uptake of 18 F-FDG on the infarct myocardium, while uniform and well-distribution on the normal myocardium. 18 F-FES micro-PET/CT showed the tracer notable accumulated in the apical region where Ad5-EIV-MSCs were injected with an uptake value of 0.38±0.09%ID/g, which was much higher than that of surrounding normal myocardium with nearly no uptake of 18 F-FES (0.10±0.03%ID/g, n=5, P<0.05). In the group of non-transfected MSCs, the apical uptake was similar to that of normal myocardium. Immunohistochemistry studies demonstrated positive expression of both ER and VEGF in the involved region accompanied by active angiogenesis., Conclusion: This study confirmed that hERL/ 18 F-FES could be used as a reporter gene/probe system for monitoring gene and cell therapy in the ischemic heart disease.

The purpose of the present study was to explore the role and mechanism of extracellular ecto-5'-nucleotidase (CD73) in human colorectal cancer growth. Firstly, CD73 expression was detected in colorectal cancer cell lines both at the mRNA and protein levels. Secondly, recombinant CD73 interference and overexpression lentiviruses were used, respectively. Colony formation assay, CCK-8 assay and flow cytometry were used to investigate the impact of CD73 on colorectal cancer cell proliferation and cell cycle distribution. Then, adenosine and CD73 enzyme activity inhibitor (APCP) were used to study the effect of CD73 on Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and β-catenin/cyclin D1 signaling pathways. Finally, a human colorectal cancer transplantation nude mouse model was used to observe the effect of CD73 on tumor growth in vivo. As the results showed, CD73 was highly expressed in the colorectal cancer cell lines. CD73 promoted colorectal cancer cell proliferation both in vivo and in vitro. CD73 activated EGFR and the β-catenin/cyclin D1 signaling pathways through its enzyme and non-enzyme activities. All of the results confirmed that CD73 promotes the growth of human colorectal cancer cells through EGFR and the β-catenin/cyclin D1 signaling pathway. CD73 may be used as a valuable biomarker of colorectal cancer.