A study on the significance of serine hydroxymethyl transferase expression and its role in bladder cancer.

Bladder cancer (BLCA) is a common malignant tumor in urinary system all over the world. However, due to its high recurrence rate and complex causes, clinicians often have limited options for surgical and drug treatments. Recent researchs on the molecular mechanism of BLCA have reveals its biological progress and potential for early diagnosis. Serine hydroxymethyltransferase 1/2 (SHMT1/2) is a crucial enzyme in the one-carbon metabolism of tumor cells, and the expression levels of these isozymes have been found to be associated with the biological progression of various malignant tumors. However, the impact of SHMT1/2 on the biological progression of bladder cancer and its molecular regulation mechanism remain unclear. In this research utilizes BLCA clinical sample data, the TCGA database, and in vitro cell experiments to predict the expression levels of SHMT1/2 in BLCA. The findings indicate that SHMT1 remained unchanged, while SHMT2 expression is increased in BLCA, which was related to poor prognosis. Additionally, SHMT2 affects the growth, migration, and apoptosis of bladder cancer cells in vitro. It also influences the expression levels of E-cadherin and N-cadherin, ultimately impacting the malignant biological progression of bladder tumors. These results establish a correlation between SHMT2 and the malignant biological progression of BLCA, providing a theoretical basis for the early diagnosis and treatment of bladder cancer.

Identification of key pathways and mRNAs in interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome treatment with quercetin through bioinformatics analysis of mRNA-sequence data.

BACKGROUND: Interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) is a chronic condition with painful bladder. At present, the pathogenesis of IC/BPS is still unknown. Quercetin (QCT) is a kind of natural flavonoid with wide sources and multiple biological activities. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of QCT on mRNA expression and related regulatory signal pathways in IC model rats. METHODS: LL-37 was used to induce the IC/BPS model rats. 20 mg/kg QCT was injected intraperitoneally into IC/BPS rats. ELISA, HE, Masson and TB staining were used to evaluate the level of inflammation and pathology. The concentration of QCT in rats was detected by HPLC. The mRNA sequencing was used to detect the differentially expressed (DE) mRNA in each group. The over-expression experiment of Lpl was carried out in IC/BPS model rats. RESULTS: QCT treatment significantly decreased the level of MPO, IL-1ß, IL-6 and TNF-α induced by LL-37 in rats, and alleviated bladder injury and mast cell degranulation. There were significant differences in mRNA sequencing data between groups, and the hub gene Lpl were screened by Cytohubba. The expression of Lpl was downregulated in IC/BPS rats. QCT intervention promoted Lpl expression. Overexpression of Lpl reduced the bladder injury induced by LL-37, increased GAG level and decreased the expression of MPO, IL-1ß, IL-6 and TNF-α. CONCLUSION: In this study, we provided the DE mRNA in IC/BPS rats treated with QCT, the signaling pathways for DE enrichment, screened out the hub genes, and revealed that Lpl overexpression alleviated IC/BPS model rats.

Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) may be a potential therapeutic target for interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome.

AIMS: To determine the potential diagnostic and therapeutic targets of Interstitial Cystitis/Bladder Pain Syndrome (IC/BPS). METHODS: We selected the GSE11783, GSE57560 and GSE621 datasets from the GEO database and merged them. R software was used to screen differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between IC/BPS and normal bladder tissues. The "String" online tool is used to analyze DEGs interaction and functional protein enrichment. CIBERSORT online tool was used to analyze the infiltration of immune cells. In addition, we verified the function of BTK in IC/BPS at the clinical samples and cells level. RESULTS: Bioinformatics analysis revealed that 5 genes were significantly overexpressed in IC/BPS, and the protein-protein interaction diagram showed that BTK was a critical link between these five proteins. At the same time, functional enrichment showed that they were significantly related to innate immunity. Immunoinfiltration showed that mast cell resting in IC/BPS was significantly higher. IHC staining of clinical samples showed that the mast cell markers Tryptase and BTK were highly expressed in IC/BPS tissues. At the cell level, knockdown of BTK inhibited proliferation, migration, invasion, and degranulation of mast cells. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a new perspective for understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in IC/BPS and suggests that BTK may be a target for treating IC/BPS.

Long term Follow-up of Transvaginal Anatomical Implant of Mesh in Pelvic organ prolapse.

Transvaginal mesh (TVM) is a minimally invasive but effective treatment for pelvic organ prolapse (POP). However, mesh exposure is a common and problematic complication after TVM. This study assessed the safety and long-term outcomes of TVM. A retrospective review was performed on the medical records of 175 consecutive patients who underwent TVM with the anatomical implant technique for pelvic organ prolapse at our center from April 2007 to December 2012. All operations were performed using TVM with the anatomical implant technique. Intraoperative variables, postoperative complications, and TVM outcomes were assessed. In average of 8 years (ranging from 4 to 10 years), the objective cure ratio reached 99.4%; and the subjective success rate of the TVM operation was 91.4%. Only 2 cases (1.1%) were identified as having mesh exposure. The reoperation rate was 4.0% (95% CI, 1.1-6.9%). No patients abstained from sex due to the operation or postoperative discomfort. Our anatomical implant technique for correcting POP is feasible in TVM procedures, which lead to favourable subjective and objective outcomes with the lowest rates of mesh exposure (1.1%) in published data. Therefore, performing TVM operations with the appropriate technique could consider to be permitted.

Upregulation of MAGEA4 correlates with poor prognosis in patients with early stage of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Esophageal cancer is a common type of cancer in the People's Republic of China. Many genes have been reported to be linked with it. Melanoma antigen gene family A (MAGEA) genes are frequently highly expressed in various types of carcinoma. However, the specific role of MAGEA gene expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) still remains unclear. MAGEA4 is a member of MAGEA genes. We aimed to investigate the expression and prognosis of MAGEA4 expression in ESCC. MAGEA4 messenger RNA expression levels of 120 pairs of tumor and nontumor tissues of patients with ESCC were measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The results showed that MAGEA4 messenger RNA was significantly elevated in tumor tissues of patients with ESCC compared to nontumor ones. In addition, overexpression of MAGEA4 messenger RNA was significantly correlated with poorer overall survival (P=0.018) in early stage of patients with ESCC (I-IIA). In conclusion, MAGEA4 played an important role in the early stage of ESCC and overexpression of MAGEA4 was expected to become a potential prognostic marker for patients with early stage of ESCC.

Is Urethrectomy Necessary During Cystectomy in Patients With Interstitial Cystitis or Bladder Pain Syndrome?

OBJECTIVE: To assess the outcome of cystectomy and cystourethrectomy in patients with intractable interstitial cystitis or bladder pain syndrome, and to identify whether urethrectomy is necessary. METHODS AND MATERIALS: During 2007-2014, 18 women were eligible and elected for surgical treatment after conservative treatment failed. Seven cystectomies with ileal conduit urinary diversions, 8 cystourethrectomies with ileal conduit urinary diversions, and 3 supratrigonal cystectomy with orthotopic ileocystoplasty were performed. Patient histories, perioperative medical records, and follow-up outcomes were evaluated and summarized. RESULTS: Patients reported subjectively improved social function and mental condition secondary to decreased urination frequency postoperatively. Pain also significantly decreased compared with baseline. To date, additional surgery to alleviate persistent symptoms or postoperative complications has not been necessary. Furthermore, there was no association between reported urethral pain and the initial transvaginal urethrectomy incidence (P = .326). More operation time and longer postoperative hospitalization duration were recorded without better surgical outcomes in the urethrectomy group (P values <.05). CONCLUSION: Cystectomy and cystourethrectomy is effective and adequate treatment for interstitial cystitis or bladder pain syndrome, and our experience indicates that urethrectomy is not routinely needed. However, further long-term, prospective studies involving a larger study group are needed.

Implication of lncRNAs in pathogenesis of esophageal cancer.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), transcripts as longer than 200 nt in length with a great number of varieties in human genomics, play important roles in the regulation of genetics and epigenetics including gene transcription and post-transcription. Increasing evidence have demonstrated the upregulation of lncRNAs in tumorigenesis and metastasis of esophageal cancer (EC), a type of malignant tumors particularly in Asia. In this review, we briefly discuss the profiles and functions of lncRNAs involved in the progression of EC, which may provide a new approach to improve EC diagnosis and treatment.

Upregulation of the long noncoding RNA PCAT-1 correlates with advanced clinical stage and poor prognosis in esophageal squamous carcinoma.

Recent studies reveal that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play critical regulatory roles in cancer biology. Prostate cancer-associated ncRNA transcript 1 (PCAT-1) is one of the lncRNAs involved in cell apoptosis and proliferation of prostate cancer. This study aimed to assess the potential role of PCAT-1 specifically in the pathogenesis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expression level of PCAT-1 in matched cancerous tissues and adjacent noncancerous tissues from 130 patients with ESCC, 34 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and 30 patients with gastric carcinoma (GC). The correlation of PCAT-1 with clinicopathological features and prognosis were also analyzed. The expression of PCAT-1 was significantly higher in human ESCC compared with the adjacent noncancerous tissues (70.8%, p < 0.01), and the high level of PCAT-1 expression was significantly correlated with invasion of the tumor (p = 0.024), advanced clinical stage (p = 0.003), lymph node metastasis (p = 0.032), and poor prognosis. However, PCAT-1 mRNA expression had no significant difference between paired primary cancerous tissues and the adjacent noncancerous tissues in 34 cases of NSCLC (p = 0.293) and 30 cases of GC (p = 0.125). High expression of PCAT-1 was specifically correlated with invasion of cancer tissues, metastasis of lymph node, and advanced tumor stage of ESCC. High expression of PCAT-1 might reflect poor prognosis of ESCC and indicate a potential diagnostic target in ESCC patients. Adjuvant therapy targeting PCAT-1 molecule might be effective in treatment of ESCC.

Identification of the long non-coding RNA POU3F3 in plasma as a novel biomarker for diagnosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Recent studies have demonstrated that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) were present in the blood of cancer patients and have shown great potential as powerful and non-invasive tumor markers. However, little is known about the value of lncRNAs in the diagnosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). We hypothesized that ESCC-related lncRNAs might be released into the circulation during tumor initiation and could be utilized to detect and monitor ESCC. METHODS: Ten lncRNAs (HOTAIR, AFAP1-AS1, POU3F3, HNF1A-AS1, 91H, PlncRNA1, SPRY4-IT1, ENST00000435885.1, XLOC_013104 and ENST00000547963.1) which previously found to be differently expressed in esophageal cancer were selected as candidate targets for subsequent circulating lncRNA assay. A four-stage exploratory study was conducted to test the hypothesis: (1) optimization of detected method to accurately and reproducibly measure ESCC-related lncRNAs in plasma and serum; (2) evaluation of the stability of circulating lncRNAs in human plasma or serum; (3) exploration the origin of ESCC-related lncRNAs in vitro and in vivo; (4) evaluation the diagnostic power of circulating lncRNAs for ESCC. RESULTS: ESCC-related lncRNAs were detectable and stable in plasma of cancer patients, and derived largely from ESCC tumor cells. Furthermore, plasma levels of POU3F3, HNF1A-AS1 and SPRY4-IT1 were significantly higher in ESCC patients compared with normal controls. By receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis, among the three lncRNAs investigated, plasma POU3F3 provided the highest diagnostic performance for detection of ESCC (the area under the ROC curve (AUC), 0.842; p < 0.001; sensitivity, 72.8%; specificity, 89.4%). Moreover, use of POU3F3 and SCCA in combination could provide a more effective diagnosis performance (AUC, 0.926, p < 0.001, sensitivity, 85.7%; specificity, 81.4%). Most importantly, this combination was effective to detect ESCC at an early stage (80.8%). CONCLUSIONS: Plasma POU3F3 could serve as a potential biomarker for diagnosis of ESCC, and the combination of POU3F3 and SCCA was more efficient for ESCC detection, in particular for early tumor screening.

Association of decreased expression of long non-coding RNA LOC285194 with chemoradiotherapy resistance and poor prognosis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Expression of the long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) LOC285194 was previously shown to be correlated with aggressive clinicopathological features and poor prognosis in several cancers. The aim of the present study was to explore the relationship between LOC285194 expression and clinical outcomes in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), so as to assess whether it could be a novel biomarker for prognosis and prediction of response to therapy on ESCC patients. METHODS: The method of quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to measure LOC285194 expression in pretreatment biopsy specimens and matched normal tissue derived from ESCC patients who underwent preoperative chemoradiotherapy followed by surgical resection (CRT + S group; n = 55) or from those who received surgical resection alone (S group; n = 87). The association between LOC285194 expression and clinicopathological features and prognosis were then analyzed. RESULTS: LOC285194 expression was significantly down-regulated in ESCC tumor tissues when compared with the adjacent normal tissues (p < 0.001). Low expression of LOC285194 was associated with larger tumor size (p = 0.002), advanced TNM stage (p = 0.018), more lymph node metastases (p = 0.013) and distant metastases (p = 0.015). In the CRT + S group, the pathological complete response rate was 57% (16/28) for the LOC285194-high group, and 15% (4/27) for the LOC285194-low group. Univariate analysis revealed that low expression of LOC285194 was significantly correlated with CRT response (p = 0.002). Moreover, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that patients with low expression of LOC285194 had a decreased disease free survival (DFS) (p < 0.001) and overall survival (OS) (p < 0.001). Multivariable analysis further identified low expression of LOC285194 as an independent prognosis factor for CRT response (p = 0.011), DFS (p < 0.001) and OS (p = 0.002). CONCLUSION: Decreased expression of LOC285194 could serve as a molecular marker to predict the clinical outcome of ESCC patients after surgery, and select patients who would benefit from preoperative CRT.

Transvaginal removal of mesh exposure involving the bladder.

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: We present three cases of transvaginal removal of mesh exposure involving the bladder, including patient follow-up. Mesh exposure occurred secondary to placement of transvaginal mesh for management of pelvic organ prolapse. METHODS: A pure transvaginal technique was performed to remove mesh exposure involving the bladder. Patient follow-ups were carefully recorded. RESULTS: All operative steps were completed transvaginally. The duration of follow-up for the three cases was 6, 11, and 19 months. One patient experienced recurrence of mesh exposure during follow-up. The other two patients were symptom-free after surgery. There were no major postoperative complications and no recurrence of cystocele. CONCLUSIONS: Transvaginal removal of mesh exposure involving the bladder is feasible. The pure transvaginal approach is applicable to various conditions with good outcomes, yet it cannot guarantee that exposure of residual fibers within the bladder will not recur.