Chemokine-derived oncolytic peptide induces immunogenic cancer cell death and significantly suppresses tumor growth.

Chemokinostatin-1 (CKS1) is a 24-mer peptide originally discovered as an anti-angiogenic peptide derived from the CXCL1 chemokine. Here, we demonstrate that CKS1 acts not only as an anti-angiogenic peptide but also as an oncolytic peptide due to its structural and physical properties. CKS1 induced both necrotic and apoptotic cell death specifically in cancer cells while showing minimal toxicity in non-cancerous cells. Mechanistically, CKS1 disrupted the cell membrane of cancer cells quickly after treatment and activated the apoptotic pathway at later time points. Furthermore, immunogenic molecules were released from CKS1-treated cells, indicating that CKS1 induces immunogenic cell death. CKS1 effectively suppressed tumor growth in vivo. Collectively, these data demonstrate that CKS1 functions as an oncolytic peptide and has a therapeutic potential to treat cancer.

De facto Water Reuse: Investigating the Fate and Transport of Chemicals of Emerging Concern from Wastewater Discharge through Drinking Water Treatment Using Non-targeted Analysis and Suspect Screening.

Wastewater is a source for many contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), and surface waters receiving wastewater discharge often serve as source water for downstream drinking water treatment plants. Nontargeted analysis and suspect screening methods were used to characterize chemicals in residence-time-weighted grab samples and companion polar organic chemical integrative samplers (POCIS) collected on three separate hydrologic sampling events along a surface water flow path representative of de facto water reuse. The goal of this work was to examine the fate of CECs along the study flow path as water is transported from wastewater effluent through drinking water treatment. Grab and POCIS samples provided a comparison between residence-time-weighted single-point and integrative sample results. This unique and rigorous study design, coupled with advanced analytical chemistry tools, provided important insights into chemicals found in drinking water and their potential sources, which can be used to help prioritize chemicals for further study. K-means clustering analysis was used to identify patterns in chemical occurrences across both sampling sites and sampling events. Chemical features that occurred frequently or survived drinking water treatment were prioritized for identification, resulting in the probable identification of over 100 CECs in the watershed and 28 CECs in treated drinking water.

Suspect Screening Analysis of Pooled Human Serum Samples Using GC × GC/TOF-MS.

Humans interact with thousands of chemicals. This study aims to identify substances of emerging concern and in need of human health risk evaluations. Sixteen pooled human serum samples were constructed from 25 individual samples each from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' Clinical Research Unit. Samples were analyzed using gas chromatography (GC) × GC/time-of-flight (TOF)-mass spectrometry (MS) in a suspect screening analysis, with follow-up confirmation analysis of 19 substances. A standard reference material blood sample was also analyzed through the confirmation process for comparison. The pools were stratified by sex (female and male) and by age (≤45 and >45). Publicly available information on potential exposure sources was aggregated to annotate presence in serum as either endogenous, food/nutrient, drug, commerce, or contaminant. Of the 544 unique substances tentatively identified by spectral matching, 472 were identified in females, while only 271 were identified in males. Surprisingly, 273 of the identified substances were found only in females. It is known that behavior and near-field environments can drive exposures, and this work demonstrates the existence of exposure sources uniquely relevant to females.