Retracted: Morusinol Exhibits Selective and Potent Antitumor Activity Against Human Liver Carcinoma by Inducing Autophagy, G2/M Cell Cycle Arrest, Inhibition of Cell Invasion and Migration, and Targeting of Ras/MEK/ERK Pathway.

An editorial decision has been made to retract this manuscript due to breach of publishing guidelines, following the identification of non-original and manipulated figures. Reference: Zhen Zhu, Tianyu Xiao, Xuejiao Chang, Yanfei Hua, Jinli Gao: Morusinol Exhibits Selective and Potent Antitumor Activity Against Human Liver Carcinoma by Inducing Autophagy, G2/M Cell Cycle Arrest, Inhibition of Cell Invasion and Migration, and Targeting of Ras/MEK/ERK Pathway. Med Sci Monit 2019; 25:1864-1870. 10.12659/MSM.912992.

Primary malignant melanoma of the lung: a case report and literature review.

BACKGROUND: Malignant melanoma (MM) generally presents as a primary neoplasm of the skin, and most MM cases of the respiratory system are metastatic. Primary MM of the lung (PMML) is quite rare, and its diagnosis is relatively difficult. CASE PRESENTATION: We report the case of a 57-year-old male patient with PMML who denied any history of tumours. His initial complaint was frequent coughs with bloody sputum for 4 days. Chest radiography demonstrated a high-density shadow in the lower lobe of the right lung, which was suspected to be a large space-occupying lesion on subsequent computed tomography (CT) and to be a hypermetabolic tumour by positron emission tomography-CT. To confirm the diagnosis, exploratory surgery was performed. Finally, we confirmed the diagnosis of PMML. CONCLUSIONS: PMML is extremely rare and easily misdiagnosed as lung cancer. Because of its morphological and immunophenotypic variations, the diagnosis of PMML remains difficult. This case report discusses the diagnosis and case management of a patient while referring to the existing literature.

Morusinol Exhibits Selective and Potent Antitumor Activity Against Human Liver Carcinoma by Inducing Autophagy, G2/M Cell Cycle Arrest, Inhibition of Cell Invasion and Migration, and Targeting of Ras/MEK/ERK Pathway.

BACKGROUND Liver cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers across the globe. The treatment is often difficult as it is diagnosed mostly at advanced stages. Moreover, the lack efficacious and less toxic drugs are another problem in the treatment of liver cancer. Against this background, in this study we evaluated the anticancer activity of morusinol against SK-HEP-1 liver cancer cells. MATERIAL AND METHODS The proliferation rate of liver cancer cell line was investigated by MTT assay. Autophagy was detected by transmission electron microscopy and cell cycle analysis was performed by flow cytometry. The protein expression was examined by Western blotting. RESULTS Morusinol inhibited the proliferation of liver cancer SK-HEP-1 cells, with an IC50 of 20 µM against the SK-HEP-1liver cancer cells. Further investigations indicated that the antiproliferative effects of morusinol are due to initiation of autophagy and G2/M cell cycle arrest, which was also associated with altered expression of several important proteins. Morusinol also suppressed the migration and invasion of SK-HEP-1liver cancer cells, and it suppressed the expression of p-MEK and p-ERK, leading to suppression of the Raf/MEK/ERK signalling cascade. CONCLUSIONS We found that morusinol exerts significant anticancer and autophagic effects on liver cancer cells and our results suggest the potential of morusinol in treatment of liver cancer.

The construction of molecularly imprinted electrochemical biosensor for selective glucose sensing based on the synergistic enzyme-enzyme mimic catalytic system.

It is generally accepted that glucose oxidase (GOx) shows unique specificity in ß-d-glucose catalysis. However, it has been found that GOx can catalyze diverse monosaccharides. Therefore, the sensing accuracy for glucose biosensors using GOx as probes will be largely compromised by the presence of other monosaccharides. Herein, multifunctional bi-nanospheres (Fe3O4@Au NCs), which show both peroxidase-like and catalase-like catalytic activities in different working conditions, are successfully constructed and served as desirable platform with huge surface area for the immobilization of large amount of GOx probes. In acidic environment, hydroxyl radicals could be generated via the cascaded catalysis of ß-d-glucose by Fe3O4@Au-GOx, and then employed to initiate the polymerization of boric acid derivative to prepare molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) on the surface of GOx using ß-d-glucose as template. Then, the molecularly imprinted GOx are immobilized on the surface of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) electrode and an electrochemical biosensor (Fe3O4@Au-GOx-HOPG) for glucose sensing is successfully obtained. Interestingly, the as-prepared biosensors could selectively detect glucose in the range of 10.0 µM - 5.0 mM with a LOD = 5.0 µM with the help of MIPs, which is comparable or better than other glucose sensors reported recently.