Metabolic characterization of sphere-derived prostate cancer stem cells reveals aberrant urea cycle in stemness maintenance.

Alteration of cell metabolism is one of the essential characteristics of tumor growth. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are the initiating cells of tumorigenesis, proliferation, recurrence, and other processes, and play an important role in therapeutic resistance and metastasis. Thus, identification of the metabolic profiles in prostate cancer stem cells (PCSCs) is critical to understanding prostate cancer progression. Using untargeted metabolomics and lipidomics methods, we show distinct metabolic differences between prostate cancer cells and PCSCs. Urea cycle is the most significantly altered metabolic pathway in PCSCs, the key metabolites arginine and proline are evidently elevated. Proline promotes cancer stem-like characteristics via the JAK2/STAT3 signaling pathway. Meanwhile, the enzyme pyrroline-5-carboxylate reductase 1 (PYCR1), which catalyzes the conversion of pyrroline-5-carboxylic acid to proline, is highly expressed in PCSCs, and the inhibition of PYCR1 suppresses the stem-like characteristics of prostate cancer cells and tumor growth. In addition, carnitine and free fatty acid levels are significantly increased, indicating reprogramming of fatty acid metabolism in PCSCs. Reduced sphingolipid levels and increased triglyceride levels are also observed. Collectively, our data illustrate the comprehensive landscape of the metabolic reprogramming of PCSCs and provide potential therapeutic strategies for prostate cancer.

The mechanism of USP43 in the development of tumor: a literature review.

Ubiquitination of the proteins is crucial for governing protein degradation and regulating fundamental cellular processes. Deubiquitinases (DUBs) have emerged as significant regulators of multiple pathways associated with cancer and other diseases, owing to their capacity to remove ubiquitin from target substrates and modulate signaling. Consequently, they represent potential therapeutic targets for cancer and other life-threatening conditions. USP43 belongs to the DUBs family involved in cancer development and progression. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing scientific evidence implicating USP43 in cancer development. Additionally, it will investigate potential small-molecule inhibitors that target DUBs that may have the capability to function as anti-cancer medicines.

Effect of Percutaneous Balloon Compression on Trigeminal Neuralgia and Clinical Significance of NLRP3 Before and After Treatment.

Objective: Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is very common in the middle-aged and elderly population and seriously affects the normal life of patients. This study aims to analyze the therapeutic effect of percutaneous balloon compression (PBC) on TN and to explore the clinical significance of NOD-like receptor thermal protein domain associated protein 3 (NLRP3), which not only can provide a reference for the clinical treatment of TN in the future, but also can help the clinic to find a reliable indicator for the assessment of TN condition. Methods: The length of stay, total cost of hospitalization, and adverse reactions during treatment were compared between the two groups. Patients were subjected to assessments or investigations of the Barrow Neurological Institute (BNI) scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) before and after treatment. In addition, NLRP3 in the peripheral blood of patients in the research group was measured, and the correlation of NLRP3 with BNI score and prognosis for recurrence was analyzed. Results: The length of stay and the total cost of hospitalization were respectively (12.10±2.20) d and (26445.96±5553.78) yuan in the research group, significantly reduced than those in the control group (P < .05). And the BNI score, PSQI and SAS/SDS were lower in the research group after treatment (P < .05), but the incidence of facial numbness, herpes orofacialis and masticatory muscle weakness were higher in the research group than in the control group (P < .05). After treatment, NLRP3 decreased in the research group, which was positively correlated with BNI score (P < .05). In addition, NLRP3 showed an excellent effect in predicting recurrence. Conclusion: PBC effectively improved the pain and negative psychological status of patients with TN, and NLRP3 was closely related to the pain of patients with TN. In the future, PBC is used in the clinic to treat TN and improve the prognosis of patients.

Classification Prediction of Alzheimer's Disease and Vascular Dementia Using Physiological Data and ECD SPECT Images.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) are the two most common forms of dementia. However, their neuropsychological and pathological features often overlap, making it difficult to distinguish between AD and VaD. In addition to clinical consultation and laboratory examinations, clinical dementia diagnosis in Taiwan will also include Tc-99m-ECD SPECT imaging examination. Through machine learning and deep learning technology, we explored the feasibility of using the above clinical practice data to distinguish AD and VaD. We used the physiological data (33 features) and Tc-99m-ECD SPECT images of 112 AD patients and 85 VaD patients in the Taiwanese Nuclear Medicine Brain Image Database to train the classification model. The results, after filtering by the number of SVM RFE 5-fold features, show that the average accuracy of physiological data in distinguishing AD/VaD is 81.22% and the AUC is 0.836; the average accuracy of training images using the Inception V3 model is 85% and the AUC is 0.95. Finally, Grad-CAM heatmap was used to visualize the areas of concern of the model and compared with the SPM analysis method to further understand the differences. This research method can quickly use machine learning and deep learning models to automatically extract image features based on a small amount of general clinical data to objectively distinguish AD and VaD.

Ubiquitin-Specific Protease 43 Impacts Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Prognosis by Altering Its Proliferation and Infiltration of Surrounding Immune Cells.

Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a devastating cancer, and the therapy options for PDAC remain restricted. The distinctive tumor immunological microenvironment (TIME) of PDAC, comprising a high number of stromal cells and a limited infiltration of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), rendered immunotherapy ineffective. The protein level of ubiquitin-specific protease 43 (USP43) was a prognostic predictor in numerous cancers; however, its function in PDAC is limited. This article focuses on the influence of USP43 expression on PDAC prognosis and TIME alteration. Methods: Based on TCGA database and tissue microarray staining, the expression of USP43 in PDAC was evaluated. The association between USP43 and prognosis was then investigated using tissue samples and online databases. In PDAC tumor tissues, the correlation between USP43 expression and clinicopathological characteristics, immune cell infiltration, and prognosis was investigated. The expression of USP43 in PDAC cell lines was evaluated using quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Using a cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) and a cell colony formation test, the viability of the cells was determined. On the basis of online databases and tissue samples, the link between USP43 and immune cell infiltration around PDAC was also examined. For statistical analyses, the software GraphPad, R, and SPSS 26.0 were utilized. Results: The expression of USP43 was considerably higher in PDAC compared to normal pancreatic tissue in both the TCGA database and the tissue microarrays of PDAC patients (P < 0.001). High USP43 expression was associated with poor overall survival in both the TCGA database and the tissue microarray of PDAC patients (P = 0.046 and 0.021, respectively). USP43 overexpression promoted PANC-1 cell proliferation (P = 0.0018), but USP43 knockdown decreased PANC02 cell proliferation (P < 0.001). According to the TCGA database, USP43 is associated with T cell activation and inhibits CD8+ T cell activation in PDAC, as proven by a study of cell lines. Moreover, in both TCGA and PDAC cell lines, USP43 expression was negatively linked with the chemokine signaling pathway. Conclusions: Overexpression of USP43 is a potential prognostic indicator for PDAC patients. USP43 is a potential biomarker associated with T cell activation, suppression of CD8+ T cell enrichment, and the cytokine signal pathway. Future multicenter studies are needed to confirm our findings and their potential application in the treatment of PDAC patients.

Identification and Validation of TRIM25 as a Glucose Metabolism Regulator in Prostate Cancer.

Prostate cancer (PCa) malignant progression is accompanied with the reprogramming of glucose metabolism. However, the genes involved in the regulation of glucose metabolism in PCa are not fully understood. Here, we propose a new method, DMRG, which constructs a weighted differential network (W-K-DN) to define the important metabolism-related genes. Based on biological knowledge and prostate cancer transcriptome data, a tripartite motif-containing 25 (TRIM25) was defined using DMRG; TRIM25 was involved in the regulation of glucose metabolism, which was verified by overexpressing or knocking down TRIM25 in PCa cell lines. Differential expression analysis of TCA cycle enzymes revealed that TRIM25 regulated isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) and fumarate hydratase (FH) expression. Moreover, a protein-RNA interaction network of TRIM25 revealed that TRIM25 interacted with RNA-binding proteins, including DExH-box helicase 9 and DEAD-box helicase 5, to play a role in regulating the RNA processing of metabolic enzymes, including IDH1 and FH. Furthermore, TRIM25 expression level was found to be positively correlated with Gleason scores in PCa patient tissues. In conclusion, this study provides a new method to define genes influencing tumor progression, and sheds light on the role of the defined TRIM25 in regulating glucose metabolism and promoting PCa malignancy.

Neoadjuvant Therapy for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: Where Do We Go?

The incidence of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has been on the rise in recent years; however, its clinical diagnosis and treatment remain challenging. Although surgical resection remains the only chance for long-term patient survival, the likelihood of initial resectability is no higher than 20%. Neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) in PDAC aims to transform the proportion of inoperable PDACs into operable cases and reduce the likelihood of recurrence to improve overall survival. Ongoing phase 3 clinical trial aims to validate the role of NAT in PDAC therapy, including prolongation of survival, increased R0 resection, and a higher proportion of negative lymph nodes. Controversies surrounding the role of NAT in PDAC treatment include applicability to different stages of PDAC, chemotherapy regimens, radiation, duration of treatment, and assessment of effect. This review aims to summarize the current progress and controversies of NAT in PDAC.

USP22 regulates lipidome accumulation by stabilizing PPARγ in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Elevated de novo lipogenesis is considered to be a crucial factor in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development. Herein, we identify ubiquitin-specific protease 22 (USP22) as a key regulator for de novo fatty acid synthesis, which directly interacts with deubiquitinates and stabilizes peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) through K48-linked deubiquitination, and in turn, this stabilization increases acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) and ATP citrate lyase (ACLY) expressions. In addition, we find that USP22 promotes de novo fatty acid synthesis and contributes to HCC tumorigenesis, however, this tumorigenicity is suppressed by inhibiting the expression of PPARγ, ACLY, or ACC in in vivo tumorigenesis experiments. In HCC, high expression of USP22 positively correlates with PPARγ, ACLY or ACC expression, and associates with a poor prognosis. Taken together, we identify a USP22-regulated lipogenesis mechanism that involves the PPARγ-ACLY/ACC axis in HCC tumorigenesis and provide a rationale for therapeutic targeting of lipogenesis via USP22 inhibition.

Metabolic Reprogramming and Risk Stratification of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Studied by Using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry-Based Metabolomics.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) displays a high degree of metabolic and phenotypic heterogeneity and has dismal prognosis in most patients. Here, a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)-based nontargeted metabolomics method was applied to analyze the metabolic profiling of 130 pairs of hepatocellular tumor tissues and matched adjacent noncancerous tissues from HCC patients. A total of 81 differential metabolites were identified by paired nonparametric test with false discovery rate correction to compare tumor tissues with adjacent noncancerous tissues. Results demonstrated that the metabolic reprogramming of HCC was mainly characterized by highly active glycolysis, enhanced fatty acid metabolism and inhibited tricarboxylic acid cycle, which satisfied the energy and biomass demands for tumor initiation and progression, meanwhile reducing apoptosis by counteracting oxidative stress. Risk stratification was performed based on the differential metabolites between tumor and adjacent noncancerous tissues by using nonnegative matrix factorization clustering. Three metabolic clusters displaying different characteristics were identified, and the cluster with higher levels of free fatty acids (FFAs) in tumors showed a worse prognosis. Finally, a metabolite classifier composed of six FFAs was further verified in a dependent sample set to have potential to define the patients with poor prognosis. Together, our results offered insights into the molecular pathological characteristics of HCC.

The Feasibility of Differentiating Lewy Body Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease by Deep Learning Using ECD SPECT Images.

The correct differential diagnosis of dementia has an important impact on patient treatment and follow-up care strategies. Tc-99m-ECD SPECT imaging, which is low cost and accessible in general clinics, is used to identify the two common types of dementia, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Lewy body dementia (LBD). Two-stage transfer learning technology and reducing model complexity based on the ResNet-50 model were performed using the ImageNet data set and ADNI database. To improve training accuracy, the three-dimensional image was reorganized into three sets of two-dimensional images for data augmentation and ensemble learning, then the performance of various deep learning models for Tc-99m-ECD SPECT images to distinguish AD/normal cognition (NC), LBD/NC, and AD/LBD were investigated. In the AD/NC, LBD/NC, and AD/LBD tasks, the AUC values were around 0.94, 0.95, and 0.74, regardless of training models, with an accuracy of 90%, 87%, and 71%, and F1 scores of 89%, 86%, and 76% in the best cases. The use of transfer learning and a modified model resulted in better prediction results, increasing the accuracy by 32% for AD/NC. The proposed method is practical and could rapidly utilize a deep learning model to automatically extract image features based on a small number of SPECT brain perfusion images in general clinics to objectively distinguish AD and LBD.

Administration of a Probiotic Mixture Ameliorates Cisplatin-Induced Mucositis and Pica by Regulating 5-HT in Rats.

Probiotic-based therapies have been shown to be beneficial for chemotherapy-induced mucositis. Previous research has demonstrated that a probiotic mixture (Bifidobacterium brevis, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus casei, and Streptococcus thermophilus) can ameliorate chemotherapy-induced mucositis and dysbiosis in rats, but the underlying mechanism has not been completely elucidated. We aimed to determine the inhibitory effects of the probiotic mixture on cisplatin-induced mucositis and pica and the underlying mechanism, focusing on the levels of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT, serotonin) regulated by the gut microbiota. A rat model of mucositis and pica was established by daily intraperitoneal injection of cisplatin (6 mg/kg) for 3 days. In the probiotic+cisplatin group, predaily intragastric injection of the probiotic mixture (1 × 109 CFU/kg BW) was administrated for 1 week before cisplatin injection. This was then followed by further daily probiotic injections for 6 days. Histopathology, pro-/anti-inflammatory cytokines, oxidative status, and 5-HT levels were assessed on days 3 and 6. The structure of the gut microbiota was analyzed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and quantitative PCR. Additionally, 5-HT levels in enterochromaffin (EC) cells (RIN-14B cell line) treated with cisplatin and/or various probiotic bacteria were also determined. The probiotic mixture significantly attenuated kaolin consumption, inflammation, oxidative stress, and the increase in 5-HT concentrations in rats with cisplatin-induced intestinal mucositis and pica. Cisplatin markedly increased the relative abundances of Enterobacteriaceae_other, Blautia, Clostridiaceae_other, and members of Clostridium clusters IV and XIVa. These levels were significantly restored by the probiotic mixture. Importantly, most of the genera increased by cisplatin were significantly positively correlated with colonic 5-HT. Furthermore, in vitro, the probiotic mixture had direct inhibitory effects on the 5-HT secretion by EC cells. The probiotic mixture protects against cisplatin-induced intestine injury, exhibiting both anti-inflammatory and antiemetic properties. These results were closely related to the reestablishment of intestinal microbiota ecology and normalization of the dysbiosis-driven 5-HT overproduction.

Safety and efficacy of S1 monotherapy or combined with nab-paclitaxel in advanced elderly pancreatic cancer patients: A meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the therapeutic efficacy and safety of S1 monotherapy or combination with nab-paclitaxel for the treatment of elderly patients with metastatic or locally advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma. METHOD: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Library, China Biology Medicine, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases were searched without time limits according to the inclusion criteria. RevMan (Version 5.3) software was used for data extraction and meta-analysis. Objective response rate (ORR) and disease control rate (DCR) were used to evaluate therapeutic effects while side effects including leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, neurotoxicity, vomit, and alopecia were extracted for evaluation. There was no need for ethical review in this study because no ethical experiments were conducted and all data used were public data. All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. RESULTS: Four retrospective studies comprising 308 elderly patients with metastatic or locally advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma were included in the analysis. One hundred fifty-one patients underwent S1 monotherapy and 157 received S1 combined nab-paclitaxel. Meta-analysis indicated that compared with S1 monotherapy, S1 combined with nab-paclitaxel had higher ORR (OR 2.25, 95% CI: 1.42-3.55; P = .0005) and DCR (OR 2.94, 95% CI: 1.55-5.58; P = .0009). The adverse reaction of leukopenia was higher in the combined therapy group (OR 1.85, 95% CI: 1.09-3.13, P = .02), but no significant difference was found in thrombocytopenia, neurotoxicity, vomiting, and alopecia between the 2 groups (P > .05). CONCLUSION: Nab-paclitaxel plus S1 was more efficient in terms of ORR and DCR than S1 monotherapy in elderly pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma patients while the side effect was controllable with a higher probability of leukopenia. Thus, combined nab-paclitaxel and S1 could be safely used in elderly patients.

Detection of Alzheimer's disease using ECD SPECT images by transfer learning from FDG PET.

OBJECTIVE: To develop a practical method to rapidly utilize a deep learning model to automatically extract image features based on a small number of SPECT brain perfusion images in general clinics to objectively evaluate Alzheimer's disease (AD). METHODS: For the properties of low cost and convenient access in general clinics, Tc-99-ECD SPECT imaging data in brain perfusion detection was used in this study for AD detection. Two-stage transfer learning based on the Inception v3 network model was performed using the ImageNet dataset and ADNI database. To improve training accuracy, the three-dimensional image was reorganized into three sets of two-dimensional images for data augmentation and ensemble learning. The effect of pre-training parameters for Tc-99m-ECD SPECT image to distinguish AD from normal cognition (NC) was investigated, as well as the effect of the sample size of F-18-FDG PET images used in pre-training. The same model was also fine-tuned for the prediction of the MMSE score from the Tc-99m-ECD SPECT image. RESULTS: The AUC values of w/wo pre-training parameters for Tc-99m-ECD SPECT image to distinguish AD from NC were 0.86 and 0.90. The sensitivity, specificity, precision, accuracy, and F1 score were 100%, 75%, 76%, 86%, and 86%, respectively for the training model with 1000 cases of F-18-FDG PET image for pre-training. The AUC values for various sample sizes of the training dataset (100, 200, 400, 800, 1000 cases) for pre-training were 0.86, 0.91, 0.95, 0.97, and 0.97. Regardless of the pre-training condition ECD dataset used, the AUC value was greater than 0.85. Finally, predicting cognitive scores and MMSE scores correlated (R2 = 0.7072). CONCLUSIONS: With the ADNI pre-trained model, the sensitivity and accuracy of the proposed deep learning model using SPECT ECD perfusion images to differentiate AD from NC were increased by approximately 30% and 10%, respectively. Our study indicated that the model trained on PET FDG metabolic imaging for the same disease could be transferred to a small sample of SPECT cerebral perfusion images. This model will contribute to the practicality of SPECT cerebral perfusion images using deep learning technology to objectively recognize AD.

Establishment and Investigation of a Multiple Gene Expression Signature to Predict Long-Term Survival in Pancreatic Cancer.

Pancreatic cancer remains a lethal type of cancer with poor prognosis. Molecular classification enables in-depth, precise prognostic assessment. This study is aimed at identifying a robust and simple mRNA signature to predict the overall survival (OS) of pancreatic cancer (PC) patients. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between 45 paired pancreatic tumor samples and adjacent healthy tissues were selected. For risk determination, a LASSO Cox regression model with DEGs was used to generate the OS-associated risk score formula for the training cohort containing 177 PC patients. Another five independent datasets were used as the testing cohort to determine the predictive efficiency for further validation. In total, 441 DEGs were selected after considering the enrichment of classical pathways, such as EMT, cell cycle, cell adhesion, and PI3K-AKT. A five-gene signature for risk discrimination was established with high efficacy using LASSO Cox regression in the training group. External validation showed that patients identified by the gene expression signature to be in the high-risk group had poorer prognosis compared with the low-risk patients. Further investigation identified the differential epigenetic modification patterns of the five genes, which indicated their roles in tumor progression and their effect on therapy. In conclusion, we constructed a robust five-gene expression signature that could predict the OS of PC patients, offering a new insight for risk discrimination in daily clinical practice.

Integrin-ß5, a miR-185-targeted gene, promotes hepatocellular carcinoma tumorigenesis by regulating ß-catenin stability.

BACKGROUND: The tumour microenvironment is essential for cancer progress and metastasis. Integrin-ß5 (ITGB5), a member of the integrin family, has been implicated to mediate the interactions of cells with the extracellular matrix (ECM) and promote tumorigenesis in several malignancies. However, the role of ITGB5 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is still unknown. METHODS: The biological function of ITGB5 in HCC was investigated using migration, colony formation assays. The potential molecular mechanism of ITGB5 in regulating HCC tumorigenesis and ß-catenin stabilization was investigated by western blotting, co-immunoprecipitation and ubiquitination assays. The expression level of ITGB5 mediated by miR-185 was confirmed by bioinformatic analysis, luciferase assay. The clinical significance of ITGB5 was based on human tissue microarray (TMA) analysis. RESULTS: Here, we found that the expression of ITGB5 is increased in HCC tissues. Elevated ITGB5 markedly facilitates HCC cell migration and tumorigenesis in vitro and in vivo. Further mechanistic studies revealed that ITGB5, as a partner of ß-catenin, directly interacts with ß-catenin and inhibits its degradation, thus leading to WNT/ß-catenin activity. Subsequently, we also found that ITGB5 is a direct targeted gene of miR-185. The downregulation of miR-185 in HCC cells promotes an increase in ITGB5. An additional increase of ITGB5 is associated with ß-catenin upregulation and a miR-185 decrease in HCC tissues. CONCLUSIONS: Our data reveal that the miR-185-ITGB5-ß-catenin pathway plays an important role in HCC tumorigenesis, and ITGB5 may be a promising specific target for HCC therapy.

Osthole inhibits the tumorigenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma cells.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) accounts for approximately 90% of all cases of primary liver cancer, and the majority of patients with HCC are deprived of effective curative methods. Osthole is a Chinese herbal medicine which has been reported to possess various pharmacological functions, including hepatocellular protection. In the present study, we investigated the anticancer activity of osthole using HCC cell lines. We found that osthole inhibited HCC cell proliferation, induced cell cycle arrest, triggered DNA damage and suppressed migration in HCC cell lines. Furthermore, we demonstrated that osthole not only contributed to cell cycle G2/M phase arrest via downregulation of Cdc2 and cyclin B1 levels, but also induced DNA damage via an increase in ERCC1 expression. In addition, osthole inhibited the migration of HCC cell lines by significantly downregulating MMP-2 and MMP-9 levels. Finally, we demonstrated that osthole inhibited epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) via increasing the expression of epithelial biomarkers E-cadherin and ß-catenin, and significantly decreasing mesenchymal N-cadherin and vimentin protein expression. These results suggest that osthole may have potential chemotherapeutic activity against HCC.