Can Sexual Appeal, Beauty, or Virtue Increase the Opportunity for a Woman to Be Selected as a Spouse? The Mediating Role of Human Uniqueness.

High mating value is believed to correspond with high mating opportunities. On that premise, this study explores three cues that are linked to women of high long-term mating value, namely a "beautiful" facial appearance, "sexually attractive" body shape, and "virtuous" behavior. With exclusive attention focused on the above cues, this study examines what kind of human attributes would make a contribution to women's mating opportunities. The results reveal that both "beautiful" women and "virtuous" women were assessed (in this study) as having greater mating opportunities than "sexually attractive" women. In regard to the human attributes, only the "beautiful" woman was assessed as having high levels of human uniqueness and human nature. Meanwhile, "virtuous" women were assessed as having higher levels of human uniqueness but lower levels of human nature. In contrast, "sexually attractive" women were assessed as having lower levels of human uniqueness but higher levels of human nature. In addition, the results of a mediation analysis show that the trait of human uniqueness, and not human nature, was the mediator between the three types of women and women's mating opportunities. This finding means that, when women have higher levels of human uniqueness, they can acquire more mating opportunities. These findings contribute an improved understanding to why and how "beauty" or "virtue" increases the opportunity for woman to be selected as a spouse.

YQFC: a web tool to compare quantitative biological features between two yeast gene lists.

Nowadays high-throughput omics technologies are routinely used in biological research. From the omics data, researchers can easily get two gene lists (e.g. stress-induced genes vs. stress-repressed genes) related to their biological question. The next step would be to apply enrichment analysis tools to identify distinct functional/regulatory features between these two gene lists for further investigation. Although various enrichment analysis tools are already available, two challenges remain to be addressed. First, most existing tools are designed to analyze only one gene list, so they cannot directly compare two gene lists. Second, almost all existing tools focus on identifying the enriched qualitative features (e.g. gene ontology [GO] terms, pathways, domains, etc.). Many quantitative features (e.g. number of mRNA isoforms of a gene, mRNA half-life, protein half-life, transcriptional plasticity, translational efficiency, etc.) are available in the yeast, but no existing tools provide analyses on these quantitative features. To address these two challenges, here we present Yeast Quantitative Features Comparator (YQFC) that can directly compare various quantitative features between two yeast gene lists. In YQFC, we comprehensively collected and processed 85 quantitative features from the yeast literature and yeast databases. For each quantitative feature, YQFC provides three statistical tests (t-test, U test and KS test) to test whether this quantitative feature is statistically different between the two input yeast gene lists. The distinct quantitative features identified by YQFC may help researchers to study the underlying molecular mechanisms that differentiate the two input yeast gene lists. We believe that YQFC is a useful tool to expedite the biological research that uses high-throughput omics technologies. DATABASE URL: http://cosbi2.ee.ncku.edu.tw/YQFC/.

Do High Psychopaths Care More about Moral Consequences than Low Psychopaths in Chinese Culture? An Exploration Using the CNI Model.

Purpose: Fewer studies are about the influence of psychopath traits on moral judgment and the underlying psychological mechanism in Chinese cultural background. In this paper, we use the creative CNI (Consequences, Norms, Inaction versus action) model to quantify the subject's reaction to moral dilemmas. Method: In this research, the Chinese version of the Levenson Psychopathic Scale, CNI model materials, and a multinomial model to further analyze the associations among the psychopathy characteristics and utilitarian moral judgment are applied. The CNI model is proposed by Gawronski et al., which can quantify the subjects' sensitivity to moral consequence, sensitivity to moral norms, and the general preference for inaction or action in moral dilemmas. Result: This study finds that there were significant differences in the utilitarian moral judgment between the groups, t (360) = 3.24, p = 0.001, and Cohen's d = 0.36. The analysis results of the CNI model show that the high psychopathy group on the N parameter was significantly lower than the group of low psychopathy, ΔG2 (2) = 79.70, p = 0.001. In terms of the C parameter, we found no significant distinctions between the two groups, ΔG2 (2) = 1.356, p = 0.244. For the I parameter, the two groups also have no significant differences, ΔG2 (2) = 0.093, p = 0.76. Conclusion: Persons with high psychopathy traits prefer to make more utilitarian moral judgments and have a weak sensitivity to moral norms (N). The sensitivity to consequences (C) of the two groups is no significant difference. The general preference for inaction versus action (I) also has no significant differences between those two groups. Moreover, the CNI model fits well in Chinese subjects.

A Novel Biomarker Driving Poor-Prognosis Liver Cancer: Overexpression of the Mitochondrial Calcium Gatekeepers.

Several studies have indicated the biological role of mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake in cancer pathophysiology; however, its implications in predicting the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are not yet fully understood. Here, we collected tumor specimens and adjacent normal liver tissues from 354 confirmed HCC patients and analyzed the levels of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) responsive element binding protein 1 (CREB), mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU), mitochondrial calcium uptake 1 and 2 (MICU1, MICU2) using bioinformatics, qRT-PCR, and immunohistochemistry (IHC), and their relationship with clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis. HCC patients with low CREB/MICU1 and high MCU/MICU2 expression exhibited poor survival rate and prognosis in overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) analyses. Low CREB/MICU1 and low MICU1 alone indicated poor prognosis in stage I/II and III/IV patients, respectively. In the poor differentiation/undifferentiation group, low expression of MICU1 indicated poor clinical outcomes. Low CREB/MICU1 expression suggested poor outcomes in patients with or without hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and poor prognosis in the HCV infection group. In the non- hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection group, low MCU1 indicated a poor prognosis. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that CREB and MICU1 expression showed prognostic significance. This study demonstrates the prognostic significance of CREB, MCU, MICU1, and MICU2, in predicting HCC outcomes. Low CREB/MICU1 and high MCU/MICU2 in HCC tissues are associated with poor prognosis, thus offering a novel perspective in the clinical management for HCC patients.

Caprin-1 promotes HepG2 cell proliferation, invasion and migration and is associated with poor prognosis in patients with liver cancer.

The present study aimed to investigate the role of caprin-1 in liver cancer and its association with the clinicopathological features and prognosis of liver cancer, as well as the underlying mechanism of caprin-1 function. Caprin-1 expression levels in a tissue microarray containing 40 liver cancer tissues, 10 peritumoral tissues and 20 normal liver tissues were analyzed using immunohistochemistry. The clinical data of 154 patients with liver cancer were also collected from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. Kaplan-Meier analysis and a Cox proportional hazards regression model were used to assess the association between caprin-1 expression levels and survival in patients with liver cancer. The effects of caprin-1 knockdown on the mRNA levels of cyclin D1 and cyclin D2 as well as the proliferation, invasion and migration of HepG2 cells were also investigated. The expression level of caprin-1 in liver cancer tissues was significantly higher compared with normal liver tissues or cells (P<0.01). High caprin-1 expression levels were associated with advanced clinical stage (P<0.001) and enhanced tumor invasion (P<0.001). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that the overall survival time and disease-free survival time in patients with liver cancer with high caprin-1 expression were significantly shorter compared with patients with low caprin-1 expression levels (P=0.002 and P=0.033, respectively). The Cox proportional hazards regression model showed that high caprin-1 expression levels were an independent prognostic factor for liver cancer (P<0.001). Knockdown of caprin-1 in HepG2 cells significantly downregulated mRNA expression levels of cyclin D1 and cyclin D2, inhibited cell proliferation and invasion and the cells were arrested at G0/G1 phase. In conclusion, caprin-1 may be a novel prognostic indicator for patients with liver cancer.

Why People With High Alexithymia Make More Utilitarian Judgments.

Although recent studies have investigated the effect of alexithymia on moral judgments, such an effect remains elusive. Furthermore, moral judgments have been conflated with the moral inclinations underlying those judgments in previous studies. Using a process dissociation approach to independently quantify the strength of utilitarian and deontological inclinations, the present study investigated the effect of alexithymia on moral judgments. We found that deontological inclinations were significantly lower in the high alexithymia group than in the low alexithymia group, whereas the difference in the utilitarian inclinations between the two groups was nonsignificant. Furthermore, empathic concern and deontological inclinations mediated the association between alexithymia and conventional relative judgments (i.e., more utilitarian judgments over deontological judgments), showing that people with high alexithymia have low empathic concern, which, in turn, decreases deontological inclinations and contributes to conventional relative judgments. These findings underscore the importance of empathy and deontological inclinations in moral judgments and indicate that individuals with high alexithymia make more utilitarian judgments over deontological judgments possibly due to a deficit in affective processing.

Factor analysis approach unveils the influencing factors of dandruff in the normal teenage population.

The aim of this study was to explore the main factors affecting the occurrence of dandruff in healthy people (nondisease-induced scalp desquamation). This study analyzed the fungal microbial diversity of the scalp in Chinese teenage volunteers and measured scalp sebum secretion, the scalp pH value, and scalp transepidermal water loss. The amount and size of dandruff were measured, and the main factors that influence dandruff in the normal population were identified using principal component analysis. The results showed that an increase in Malassezia restricta led to an increased amount of dandruff in the mild and moderate groups. Conversely, this was not found for individuals in the severe group, whose dandruff symptoms were influenced by scalp barrier function. In terms of dandruff area grouping, the pH value and the amount of sebum secretion were the main factors, with the barrier function and microbial diversity being secondary factors. Dandruff cosmetics should emphasize different treatments for different types of dandruff to achieve better antidandruff effects. The results of this study provide a new theoretical basis for the development of multiple targets for antidandruff agents aimed at the normal population.

The Characteristics of Moral Judgment of Psychopaths: The Mediating Effect of the Deontological Tendency.

PURPOSE: Many studies explore the relationship between moral judgment and psychopathy in western culture, but the mechanism underlying this relationship remains unclear. By far, no research about this topic in the background of Chinese culture exists. In the current study, we adopt one of the creative process-dissociation approaches to explore the relationship between the psychopath and moral judgment. METHODS: Adopt the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathic Scale, the Chinese version of Interpersonal Reactivity and Process-dissociation approach to explore the relationship between the psychopath and moral judgment. RESULTS: Traditional utilitarian moral score of the high psychopathy group are significantly higher than that of low psychopathy group (t= 2.97, p<0.05), people with high psychopathy utilitarian tendency U factor score and people with low psychopathy have no significant difference (F= 0.85, p = 0.36). CONCLUSION: Individuals with high psychopathy tend to make fewer deontological moral judgments because of their decreased deontological tendencies rather than their increased utilitarian tendencies. They may make more acceptance choices not to increase the well-being of the majority of people, but because of their increased acceptance of hurting others in the moral dilemma.

Ultrasound-mediated delivery of RGD-conjugated nanobubbles loaded with fingolimod and superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles: targeting hepatocellular carcinoma and enhancing magnetic resonance imaging.

Nanobubbles (NBs) are considered to be a new generation of ultrasound-responsive nanocarriers that can effectively target tumors, accurately release multi-drugs at desired locations, as well as simultaneously perform diagnosis and treatment. In this study, we designed theranostic NBs (FTY720@SPION/PFP/RGD-NBs) composed of RGD-modified liposomes as the shell, and perflenapent (PFP), superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPION), and fingolimod (2-amino-2[2-(4-octylphenyl)ethyl]-1,3-propanediol, FTY720) encapsulated as the core. The prepared FTY720@SPION/PFP/RGD-NBs were black spheres with a diameter range of 160-220 nm, eligible for enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effects. The calculated average drug loading efficiency (LE) and encapsulation efficiency (EE) of the FTY720@SPION/PFP/RGD-NBs were 9.18 ± 0.61% and 88.26 ± 2.31%, respectively. With the promotion of low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU), the amount and the rate of FTY720 released from the prepared NB complex were enhanced when compared to the samples without LIFU treatment. In vitro magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) trials showed that the prepared FTY720@SPION/PFP/RGD-NBs had a high relaxation rate and MRI T2-weighted imaging (T2WI) scanning sensitivity conditions. The cell viability studies demonstrated that both HepG2 and Huh7 cells co-cultured with FTY720@SPION/PFP/RGD-NB (100 µg mL-1) + LIFU treatment had the lowest survival rate compared with the other groups at 24 h and 48 h, showing that FTY720@SPION/PFP/RGD-NB had the strongest anti-tumor efficiency among the prepared NBs. The cytotoxicity study also demonstrated that the prepared NBs had low toxicity to normal fibroblast 3T3 cells. Cellular uptake studies further indicated that both LIFU treatment and RGD modification could effectively improve the tumor-targeted effects, thereby enhancing the antitumor efficacy. The qRT-PCR results indicated that LIFU-mediated FTY720@SPION/PFP/RGD-NB could significantly cause the activation of Caspase3, Caspase9 and p53 compared to the control group, inducing HepG2 apoptosis. These results together indicated that FTY720@SPION/PFP/RGD-NBs combined with LIFU may serve as a multifunctional drug delivery platform for hepatocellular carcinoma treatment and provide a new strategy for tumor visualization by MRI.

[Group B streptococcus colonization in pregnant women and group B streptococcus infection in their preterm infants].

OBJECTIVE: To study the incidences of group B streptococcus (GBS) colonization in pregnant women and GBS infection in their preterm infants, and to investigate the risk factors for GBS colonization in preterm infants. METHODS: A total of 859 women who delivered before term from January 2017 to January 2018 were enrolled in this prospective cohort study. Bacterial culture was performed for GBS using the swabs collected from the rectum and the lower 1/3 of the vagina of the pregnant women on admission. A total of 515 of the above cases underwent real-time PCR assay for testing of GBS DNA. Bacterial culture was performed for GBS using the oropharyngeal secretion, gastric fluid or blood samples in preterm infants born to the 859 pregnant women. Peripheral blood samples from the pregnant women and umbilical cord blood samples from their preterm infants were collected to determine the level of anti-GBS capsular polysaccharide antibody. The incidence of GBS infection and perinatal risk factors for GBS colonization in the preterm infants were examined. RESULTS: The positive rate for GBS in the rectal and vaginal cultures was 14.8% (127/859) among the 859 pregnant women, and the positive rate in the GBS DNA testing was 15.1% (78/515). There were 976 live-birth preterm infants delivered by 859 pregnant women, and 4.4% (43/976) of whom were GBS positive. Four preterm infants had early-onset GBS diseases, including pneumonia in two cases and sepsis in two cases. In 127 preterm infants delivered by 127 GBS-positive pregnant women, the preterm infant group with a gestational age between 34 and 37 weeks had a significantly lower GBS positive rate and a significantly higher level of anti-GBS capsular polysaccharide antibody compared with the preterm infant group with a gestational age of less than 34 weeks (P=0.013 and 0.001 respectively). A multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that premature rupture of membranes time >18 hours and chorioamnionitis were independent risk factors for GBS colonization in preterm infants (OR=6.556 and 6.160 respectively; P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: GBS positive rate and anti-GBS capsular polysaccharide antibody level in preterm infants are correlated with gestational age. premature rupture of membranes time >18 hours and chorioamnionitis may increase the risk of GBS colonization in preterm infants.

Glycolic acid attenuates UVB-induced aquaporin-3, matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression, and collagen degradation in keratinocytes and mouse skin.

Ultraviolet-B exposure causes an inflammatory response, photoaged skin, and degradation of extracellular matrix proteins including collagen and elastin. The regulation of these genes was suggested as an important mechanism to attenuate skin aging. Glycolic acid (GA) is commonly present in fruits and recently used to treat dermatological diseases. We reported that GA slows down cell inflammation and aging caused by UVB. Little is known about GA retarding the skin premature senescence or how to impede these events. To investigate the potential of GA to regulate the expression of MMPs and collagen, GA was topically applied onto human keratinocytes and the C57BL/6J mice dorsal skin. In the present study, we demonstrated that GA reduced UVB-induced type-I procollagen expression and secretory collagen levels. GA reverted and dose-dependently increased the level of aquaporin-3 (AQP3), the expression of which was down-regulated by UVB. The UV-induced MMP-9 level and activity were reduced by GA pre-treatment. Concomitantly, GA reverted mitogen-activated protein kinase (MMP-9) activation and inhibited the extracellular signal-regulated kinase activation (p38, pERK) triggered by UVB. The animal model also presented that GA attenuated the wrinkles caused by UVB on the mouse dorsal skin. Finally, GA triggers the transient receptor potential vanilloid-1 (TRPV-1) channel to initiate the anti-photoaging mechanism in keratinocytes. These findings clearly indicated that the mechanisms of GA promote skin protection against UVB-induced photoaging and wrinkle formation. GA might be an important reagent and more widely used to prevent UVB-induced skin aging.

Cell Reprogramming in Tumorigenesis and Its Therapeutic Implications for Breast Cancer.

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women worldwide and can be categorized into several subtypes according to histopathological parameters or genomic signatures. Such heterogeneity of breast cancer can arise from the reactivation of mammary stem cells in situ during tumorigenesis. Moreover, different breast cancer subtypes exhibit varieties of cancer incidence, therapeutic response, and patient prognosis, suggesting that a specific therapeutic protocol is required for each breast cancer subtype. Recent studies using molecular and cellular assays identified a link between specific genetic/epigenetic alterations and distinct cells of origin of breast cancer subtypes. These alterations include oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, and cell-lineage determinants, which can induce cell reprogramming (dedifferentiation and transdifferentiation) among two lineage-committed mammary epithelial cells, namely basal and luminal cells. The interconversion of cell states through cell reprogramming into the intermediates of mammary stem cells can give rise to heterogeneous breast cancers that complicate effective therapies of breast cancer. A better understanding of mechanisms underlying cell reprogramming in breast cancer can help in not only elucidating tumorigenesis but also developing therapeutics for breast cancer. This review introduces recent findings on cancer gene-mediated cell reprogramming in breast cancer and discusses the therapeutic potential of targeting cell reprogramming.

Belief Bias Effect in Older Adults: Roles of Working Memory and Need for Cognition.

Belief bias is the tendency in syllogistic reasoning to rely on prior beliefs rather than to fully obey logical principles. Few studies have investigated the age effect on belief bias. Although several studies have recently begun to explore this topic, little is known about the psychological mechanisms underlying such an effect. Accordingly, we investigated belief bias in older and young adults and explored the roles of working memory (WM) and need for cognition (NFC) in the relationship between age and reasoning performance. We found that older adults showed a lower accuracy rate compared with young adults when conclusion believability and logical validity were incongruent. However, older adults showed a higher accuracy rate compared with young adults when conclusion believability and logical validity were congruent. The results indicated that in comparison with young adults, prior beliefs hampered logical reasoning more significantly in older adults under incongruent conditions and boosted logical reasoning more significantly under congruent conditions. Moreover, the logic index in older adults was significantly lower than in young adults, and the interaction index of believability and validity in older adults was significantly below zero. Furthermore, NFC mediated the age effect on reasoning performance under the two conditions. By contrast, WM mediated the age effect on reasoning performance only under incongruent conditions and did not act as a mediator under congruent conditions.

Synergistic effect of platelet-rich plasma injections and scalp lifting in androgenetic alopecia.

Androgenetic alopecia (AGA) is a common hair loss disorder, especially in men and the elderly. In this study, we analyzed the therapeutic effects of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections and embedded sutures in patients with AGA. In each participant, we administered different treatments in one area of hair loss that was divided into four sections. Each section received one of the following treatments: No treatment, PRP injection, suture embedding, and combined PRP injection/suture-embedded areas. The thickness of the scalp, and scalp perfusion were measured using an ultrasound imaging system and Moor FLPI full-field laser perfusion imaging system, respectively. The diameters of the hair were measured using optical microscopy. Our results show that PRP injection treatments increased the diameter of the hair (P = 0.034), and the combined PRP injection/suture-embedded treatments had a significant effect on the thickness of the scalp (P = 0.002), the blood flow (P = 0.014) through the scalp, and the diameter of the hair (P= 0.013). This study has demonstrated that there is a synergistic effect between PRP injections and suture embedding for increasing the thickness and blood flow of the scalp, and diameter of the hair. Combined PRP injection/suture-embedded PRP injections might have therapeutic benefit for patients with AGA.

Protective effects of curcumin on acrolein-induced neurotoxicity in HT22 mouse hippocampal cells.

BACKGROUND: Aging is one of the most important inevitable risk factors of Alzheimer disease (AD). Oxidative stress plays a critical role in the process of aging. Curcumin has been proposed to improve neural damage, especially neurodegenerative injury, through its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Therefore, we investigated the effects of curcumin on acrolein-induced AD-like pathologies in HT22 cells. METHODS: HT22 murine hippocampal neuronal cells were treated with 25µM acrolein for 24h with or without pre-treating with curcumin at the selected optimum concentration (5µg/mL) for 30min. Cell viability and apoptosis were measured by CCK8 assay and flow cytometric analysis. Levels of glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and malondialdehyde (MDA) were detected by a GSH assay kit or commercial assay kits, respectively. Alterations in the expression of BDNF/TrkB and key enzymes involved in amyloid precursor protein (APP) metabolism were assessed by western blotting. RESULTS: Data showed that curcumin significantly reversed acrolein-induced oxidative stress indicated by depletion of GSH and SOD, and elevation of MDA. The findings also suggested curcumin's potential in protecting HT22 cells against acrolein through regulating the BDNF/TrkB signaling. In addition, acrolein-induced reduction in A-disintegrin and metalloprotease, and the increase of amyloid precursor protein, ß-secretase, and receptor for advanced glycation end products were reversed either, and most of them were nearly restored to the control levels by curcumin. CONCLUSION: These findings demonstrate the protective effects of curcumin on acrolein-induced neurotoxicity in vitro, which further suggests its potential role in the treatment of AD.

Evaluating the Prognostic Value of ERCC1 and Thymidylate Synthase Expression and the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutation Status in Adenocarcinoma Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer.

The present study evaluated the prognostic value of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation status, and excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1) and thymidylate synthase (TS) expression following intercalated tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy and platinum- and pemetrexed-based chemotherapies (subsequent second-line treatment) for patients with adenocarcinoma non-small-cell lung cancer (AC-NSCLC). In total, 131 patients with AC-NSCLC were enrolled. The EGFR mutation status and ERCC1 and TS expression were evaluated through direct DNA sequencing and immunohistochemical analyses, respectively. The EGFR mutation status and ERCC1 and TS expression were the significant predictors of clinical outcomes. The EGFR mutation status was the main outcome predictor for overall survival (OS) benefits in the overall population. Further exploratory ERCC1 and TS expression analyses were conducted to provide additional insights. Low TS expression was predictive of improved OS of patients with negative EGFR-mutated advanced AC-NSCLC, whereas high ERCC1 expression resulted in poor OS in patients with positive EGFR-mutated advanced AC-NSCLC. TS and ERCC1 expression levels were effective prognostic factors for negative and positive EGFR-mutated AC-NSCLC, respectively. In conclusion, the present results indicate that the EGFR mutation status and TS and ERCC1 expression can be used as the predictors of OS after subsequent second-line treatments for AC-NSCLC.

Clinical analysis of NSCLC patients reveals lack of association between EGFR mutation and TET1 downregulation.

Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of death from cancer worldwide, with a poor prognosis in advanced cases. In the past decade, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors have shown significant efficacy towards treatment for EGFR mutant lung cancer. Expanding our knowledge of oncogenic EGFR signaling pathways is therefore of highly importance for the cancer field. Recently it has been proposed that mutant EGFR transcriptionally silences the TET1 (ten-eleven translocation methylcytosine dioxygenase 1) gene in cellular and animal models of lung cancer. Since TET1 is a known DNA demethylase, EGFR-mediated TET1 silencing therefore downregulates demethylation of tumor suppressor genes, which then leads to tumor growth inhibition, potentiating the role of TET1 as a tumor suppressor gene in NSCLC. In our study, we examined the role of EGFR-TET1 silencing in NSCLC patient samples. By independently analyzing the TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) NSCLC data set as well as a cohort of patient samples from our hospital and a data set from publicly deposited databases, we did not observe the aforementioned mutant EGFR silencing of TET1. Conversely, in our cohort, TET1 expression levels were significantly elevated in EGFR mutant samples (P=0.007). Patients with higher TET1 levels showed a trend of better response rates to EGFR inhibitors compared to low TET1 staining levels, although the result was not significant (P=0.08). Furthermore, we did not observe a correlation between TET1 expression levels and patient survival. We conclude that while oncogenic EGFR suppression of TET1 is established in cellular and animal models of lung cancer, its role in patient outcome and prognosis remains inconclusive and warrants further investigation.

Tricetin suppresses human oral cancer cell migration by reducing matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression through the mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway.

Tricetin is a flavonoid derivative and a potent anti-inflammatory and anticancer agent. However, the molecular mechanism underlying the effects of tricetin on human oral cancer cell migration remains unclear. The cell migration and invasion abilities of three oral cancer cell lines (SCC-9, HSC-3, and OECM-1) were analyzed using Boyden chamber migration assays. Our results demonstrated that tricetin attenuates 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate-induced SCC-9, HSC-3, and OECM-1 cell invasiveness and migration by reducing matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 enzyme activity. The reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and luciferase reporter assay revealed that tricetin downregulates the mRNA expression and promoter activity of MMP-9. In addition, Western blot analysis revealed that tricetin significantly reduced the levels of phosphorylated c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) 1/2 and p38 levels but not those of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that tricetin suppresses MMP-9 enzymatic activity by downregulating the p38/JNK1/2 pathway and might be a beneficial chemopreventive agent.