Investigating the crowding effect of FDI on domestic investments: Evidence from Bangladesh.

This study empirically investigates the crowding effect of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on domestic investments in Bangladesh, utilizing annual time series data from 1972 to 2022. Initially, unit root tests are conducted with and without considering structural breaks in the dataset. This study employs the Johansen test of cointegration to investigate the enduring association between the variables and utilizes the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) to accommodate this relationship over the long term. Following the estimation of the VECM, formulas about the magnitude of the crowding effect (CE) are applied to examine the impact of FDI on domestic investment in Bangladesh. Results indicate that FDI positively influences domestic investments in both the short and long run.

Proteome Analyses Reveal S100A11, S100P, and RBM25 Are Tumor Biomarkers in Colorectal Cancer.

PURPOSE: The prognosis for colorectal cancer (CRC) patients is drastically impacted by the presence of lymph node or liver metastases at diagnosis or resection. On this basis it is sought to identify novel proteins as biomarkers and determinants of CRC metastasis. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Proteomic analyses are undertaken using primary tissues from ten Chinese CRC patients presenting with or without liver metastases and immunohistochemistry used to validate selected proteins in an independent patient cohort. RESULTS: Comparing CRC against paired normal adjacent tissues identifies 1559 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) with 974 upregulated and 585 downregulated proteins, respectively. The highest number of DEPs is selectively associated with metastatic tumors (519 upregulated and 267 downregulated proteins, respectively) with a smaller number of unique DEPs identified only in non-metastatic CRC cases (116 upregulated and 29 downregulated proteins, respectively). The remaining DEPs are commonly expressed in both non-metastatic and metastatic tumors. The upregulation of three representative DEPs (S100A11, S100P, and RBM25) is confirmed using immunohistochemistry against 154 CRC tissues embedded in a tissue microarray. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The data reveal both previously identified CRC biomarkers along with novel candidates which provide a ready resource of DEPs in CRC for further investigation.

Overexpression of NUAK1 is associated with disease-free survival and overall survival in patients with gastric cancer.

Novel (nua) kinase family 1 (NUAK1) is a member of the human adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinases family, which is overexpressed in multiple human malignancies and thought to be involved in tumor invasion and metastasis ability. Our study is to investigate the association of NUAK1 expression with clinicopathological parameters and prognostic significance of patients with gastric cancer. The expression patterns of the NUAK1 protein in 117 primary archival gastric cancer specimens and 46 adjacent normal epithelial tissues from patients were detected by immunohistochemistry assay. Staining evaluation results were analyzed statistically in relation to various clinicopathological characters, recurrence-free survival and overall survival. High level of NUAK1 expression was detected in gastric cancer, significantly more than in adjacent normal epithelial cells. In gastric cancer, NUAK1 was positively correlated with depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis, pathological stage, surgical resection and histological differentiation. However, no correlations between NUAK1 expression and patients' age, sex, tumor size, location, CA19-9 or CEA were detected. The recurrence-free survival and overall survival were significantly shorter for patients with NUAK1 higher scores than those with NUAK1 lower scores. Multivariate analysis identified NUAK1 was an independent prognostic factor for both recurrence-free survival and overall survival. Our findings provided convincing evidence for NUAK1 overexpression, which was tightly associated with more aggressive tumor behavior and a poor prognosis, indicating that NUAK1 is a valuable molecular biomarker for gastric cancer progression. It might also act as a promising target for both prognostic prediction and therapeutics.

Changes in intracellular redox status influence multidrug resistance in gastric adenocarcinoma cells.

Multidrug resistance (MDR) to chemotherapeutic agents is a major obstacle for the treatment of various types of cancers. The exact mechanism of MDR has not yet been fully clarified, although it has been frequently associated with the variation of intracellular redox status. The levels of intracellular glutathione (GSH) are considered to play a vital role in the regulation of the intracellular redox status. In our study, we investigated the effects of buthionine sulfoximine (BSO), an inhibitor of GSH biosynthesis, and NAC, a cysteine source for GSH synthesis, on sensitive gastric adenocarcinoma cells (SGC7901) and cisplatin-resistant SGC7901/DDP cells using the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The two cell lines were pretreated with various non-toxic concentrations of BSO for 24 h and combined with fluorouracil (5-FU) or mitomycin (MMC) in the presence or absence of NAC before culturing further. After various treatments, the IC(50) values of MMC and 5-FU were calculated and intracellular GSH levels were measured using the glutathione reductase/5,5'-dithiobis-(2-nitrobenzoic acid) (DTNB) recycling assay without anticancer drug stimulation under the same microenvironments. The study demonstrated that BSO increased the sensitivity of the cells to chemotherapeutics while NAC exhibited the reverse effect, particularly in drug-resistant cells. It is, therefore, possible that changes in intracellular GSH levels affect the chemosensitivity of the resistant cells to a greater extent than that of their parent cells. This study indicates that variation in the intracellular redox status may be closely correlated with MDR and may provide a valuable basic strategy for anticancer therapy.