Role of Betel Nut in Liver Toxicity in Oral Submucous Fibrosis and Oral Cancer Patients: A Case-Control Study.

BACKGROUND: In 2004, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) revised its conclusion that betel quid, both with and without tobacco, as well as areca nut alone, was carcinogenic to humans. Areca nut may enhance chemical hepatocarcinogenesis. Researchers have studied the role of areca nut components in the etiology of oral submucous fibrosis (OSF) for the past two decades. OBJECTIVES: In this, we will study the role of betel nut chewing on the liver and its correlation with the occurrence of OSF and oral cancer. METHODOLOGY: It is a type of case-control study for a duration of three months. A total of 60 subjects were selected based on the selected groups and exclusion criteria. A detailed case history was taken, and after that blood samples were collected for conducting liver function tests. After the collection of reports from the labs, the results were assessed, analyzed, and correlated with the case history of each subject. RESULTS: This research aids in the identification of a link between the occurrence of OSF, oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) liver damage, and the practice of eating betel nuts. Chewing betel quid on a regular basis appears to be a separate risk factor for liver damage, OSCC, and OSF. CONCLUSION: This assessment of liver function with case history in each subject aids in providing an improvised and prioritized method for the early diagnosis of liver misfunctioning in the patient with OSF or Oral Cancer due to a common etiological factor, that is betel nut.

Challenges and Prospects of Plant-Protein-Based 3D Printing.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing is a rapidly developing additive manufacturing technique consisting of the deposition of materials layer-by-layer to produce physical 3D structures. The technique offers unique opportunities to design and produce new products that cater to consumer experience and nutritional requirements. In the past two decades, a wide range of materials, especially plant-protein-based materials, have been documented for the development of personalized food owing to their nutritional and environmental benefits. Despite these benefits, 3D printing with plant-protein-based materials present significant challenges because there is a lack of a comprehensive study that takes into account the most relevant aspects of the processes involved in producing plant-protein-based printable items. This review takes into account the multi-dimensional aspects of processes that lead to the formulation of successful printable products which includes an understanding of rheological characteristics of plant proteins and 3D-printing parameters, as well as elucidating the appropriate concentration and structural hierarchy that are required to maintain stability of the substrate after printing. This review also highlighted the significant and most recent research on 3D food printing with a wide range of plant proteins. This review also suggests a future research direction of 3D printing with plant proteins.

Rheumatoid arthritis: advances in treatment strategies.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is characterised by severe joint and bone damage due to heightened autoimmune response at the articular sites. Worldwide annual incidence and prevalence rate of RA is 3 cases per 10,000 population and 1%, respectively. Several genetic and environmental (microbiota, smoking, infectious agents) factors contribute to its pathogenesis. Although convention treatment strategies, predominantly Disease Modifying Anti Rheumatic Drugs (DMARDs) and Glucocorticoids (GC), are unchanged as the primary line of treatment; novel strategies consisting of biological DMARDs, are being developed and explored. Personalized approaches using biologicals targetspecific pathways associated with disease progression. However, considering the economic burden and side-effects associated with these, there is an unmet need on strategies for early stratification of the inadequate responders with cDMARDs. As RA is a complex disease with a variable remission rate, it is important not only to evaluate the current status of drugs in clinical practice but also those with the potential of personalised therapeutics. Here, we provide comprehensive data on the treatment strategies in RA, including studies exploring various combination strategies in clinical trials. Our systematic analysis of current literature found that conventional DMARDs along with glucocorticoid may be best suited for early RA cases and a combination of conventional and targeted DMARDs could be effective for treating seronegative patients with moderate to high RA activity. Clinical trials with insufficient responders to Methotrexate suggest that adding biologicals may help in such cases. However, certain adverse events associated with the current therapy advocate exploring novel therapeutic approaches such as gene therapy, mesenchymal stem cell therapy in future.

Vitamin D deficiency: concern for rheumatoid arthritis and COVID-19?

Vitamin D is an immunomodulatory hormone with an established role in calcium and phosphate metabolism and skeletal mineralization. Evidence showing its immunological benefits by regulating essential components of the innate and adaptive immune system is prevalent. Vitamin D deficiency is reported worldwide and is thereby found to be associated with various immune-related diseases. Rheumatoid Arthritis and COVID-19 are two such diseases, sharing a similar hyperinflammatory response. Various studies have found an association of lower Vitamin D levels to be associated with both these diseases. However, contrasting data is also reported. We review here the available scientific data on risk factor association and supplementation benefits of Vitamin D in Rheumatoid Arthritis and COVID-19, intending to critically evaluate the literature.

Hypoxia-Mediated Epigenetic Regulation of Stemness in Brain Tumor Cells.

Activation of pluripotency regulatory circuit is an important event in solid tumor progression and the hypoxic microenvironment is known to enhance the stemness feature of some cells. The distinct population of cancer stem cells (CSCs)/tumor initiating cells exist in a niche and augment invasion, metastasis, and drug resistance. Previously, studies have reported global hypomethylation and site-specific aberrant methylation in gliomas along with other epigenetic modifications as important contributors to genomic instability during glioma progression. Here, we have demonstrated the role of hypoxia-mediated epigenetic modifications in regulating expression of core pluripotency factors, OCT4 and NANOG, in glioma cells. We observe hypoxia-mediated induction of demethylases, ten-eleven-translocation (TET) 1 and 3, but not TET2 in our cell-line model. Immunoprecipitation studies reveal active demethylation and direct binding of TET1 and 3 at the Oct4 and Nanog regulatory regions. Tet1 and 3 silencing assays further confirmed induction of the pluripotency pathway involving Oct4, Nanog, and Stat3, by these paralogues, although with varying degrees. Knockdown of Tet1 and Tet3 inhibited the formation of neurospheres in hypoxic conditions. We observed independent roles of TET1 and TET3 in differentially regulating pluripotency and differentiation associated genes in hypoxia. Overall, this study demonstrates an active demethylation in hypoxia by TET1 and 3 as a mechanism of Oct4 and Nanog overexpression thus contributing to the formation of CSCs in gliomas. Stem Cells 2017;35:1468-1478.

A novel Plasmodium falciparum rhoptry associated adhesin mediates erythrocyte invasion through the sialic-acid dependent pathway.

Erythrocyte invasion by Plasmodium falciparum merozoites is central to blood-stage infection and malaria pathogenesis. This intricate process is coordinated by multiple parasite adhesins that bind erythrocyte receptors and mediate invasion through several alternate pathways. P. falciparum expresses 2700 genes during the blood-stages, of which the identity and function of many remains unknown. Here, we have identified and characterized a novel P. falciparum rhoptry associated adhesin (PfRA) that mediates erythrocyte invasion through the sialic-acid dependent pathway. PfRA appears to play a significant functional role as it is conserved across different Plasmodium species. It is localized in the rhoptries and further translocated to the merozoite surface. Both native and recombinant PfRA specifically bound erythrocytes in a sialic-acid dependent, chymotrypsin and trypsin resistant manner, which was abrogated by PfRA antibodies confirming a role in erythrocyte invasion. PfRA antibodies inhibited erythrocyte invasion and in combination with antibodies against other parasite ligands produced an additive inhibitory effect, thus validating its important role in erythrocyte invasion. We have thus identified a novel P. falciparum adhesin that binds with a sialic acid containing erythrocyte receptor. Our observations substantiate the strategy to block P. falciparum erythrocyte invasion by simultaneously targeting multiple conserved merozoite antigens involved in alternate invasion pathways.

Recent advances in targeted therapy for glioblastoma.

Glioblastomas are the most common form of brain tumor with a very dismal prognosis. While a standard treatment regimen of surgery followed by chemo/radiotherapy is currently used, this has only marginally improved the survival time of patients with little benefit on tumor recurrence. Although many molecular targets have already been identified and tested in clinical trials, very few are approved for use in clinics. Efforts are ongoing to target newer molecules that could be used for drug development. This review provides up-to-date information on the drugs and their molecular targets, which are currently in different stages of clinical trials. Since multiple signaling pathways are deregulated, it appears that the use of combination drugs along with personalized targeting approach would provide better therapy in the future.

Post-transcriptional regulation of human cathepsin L expression.

The expression of cathepsin L, a lysosomal protease, is known to be elevated in cancer and other pathologies. Multiple splice variants of human cathepsin L with variable 5'UTRs exist, which encode for the same protein. Previously we have observed that variant hCATL A (bearing the longest 5'UTR) was translated in vitro with significantly lower efficiency than variant hCATL AIII (bearing the shortest 5'UTR). Contrary to these findings, results of the present study reveal that in cancer cells, hCATL A mRNA exhibits higher translatability in spite of having lower stability than AIII. This is the first report demonstrating a highly contrasting trend in translation efficiencies of hCATL variants in rabbit reticulocytes and live cells. Expression from chimeric mRNAs containing 5'UTRs of A or AIII upstream to luciferase reporter cDNA established the A UTR to be the sole determinant for this effect. Transient transfections of bicistronic plasmids and mRNAs confirmed the presence of a functional Internal Ribosome Entry Site in this UTR. Our data suggest that differential stability and translation initiation modes mediated by the 5'UTRs of human cathepsin L variants are involved in regulating its expression.