Advancements and current trends in tumor treating fields: a scientometric analysis.

Tumor treating fields (TTFields) therapy is a novel and effective noninvasive cancer therapy, and it has been approved by FDA in the treatment of recurrent and newly diagnosed glioblastoma, and malignant pleural mesothelioma. Moreover, TTFields therapy has been widely studied in both clinical trials and preclinical studies in recent years. Based on its high efficacy, research on TTFields therapy has been a hot topic. Thus, the authors made this scientometric analysis of TTfields to reveal the scientometric distributions such as annual publications and citations, countries and institutions, authors, journals, references, and more importantly, research status and hot topics of the field. In recent years, publication numbers have been stable at high values, and citation numbers have been increasing greatly. The United States and Israel were the top two countries with the highest publication numbers, followed by Germany and Switzerland. Scientometric analyses of keywords indicated that clinical applications and antitumor mechanisms are probably the two main parts of current research on TTfields. Most clinical trials of TTfields focus on the treatment of glioblastoma. And a variety of other cancers such as lung cancer especially nonsmall cell lung cancer, hepatic cancer, other brain tumors, etc. have also been studied in both clinical trials and preclinical studies.

SLC38A6 expression in macrophages exacerbates pulmonary inflammation.

Pulmonary inflammation involves complex changes of the immune cells, in which macrophages play important roles and their function might be influenced by metabolism. Slc38a6 acts as a carrier of nutrient for macrophages (Mφ) to exert the function. In this study, pneumonia patient blood was found up-regulated SLC38A6 expression, which correlated with monocytes number and white blood cell number. The similar result was also shown in LPS induced sepsis mice. To reveal the key role of Slc38a6, we used systemic and conditional knock-out mice. Either systemic or LyzCRE specific knock-out could alleviate the severity of sepsis mice, reduce the proinflammatory cytokine TNF-α and IL-1ß expression in serum and decrease the monocytes number in bronchial alveolar lavage and peritoneal lavage via flow cytometry. In order to reveal the signal of up-regulated Slc38a6, the Tlr4 signal inhibitor TAK242 and TLR4 knock-out mice were used. By blocking Tlr4 signal in macrophages via TAK242, the expression of Slc38a6 was down-regulated synchronously, and the same results were also found in Tlr4 knock-out macrophages. However, in the overexpressed Slc38a6 macrophages, blocking Tlr4 signal via TAK242, 20% of the mRNA expression of IL-1ß still could be expressed, indicating that up-regulated Slc38a6 participates in IL-1ß expression process. Collectively, it is the first time showed that an amino acid transporter SLC38A6 up-regulated in monocytes/macrophages promotes activation in pulmonary inflammation. SLC38A6 might be a promising target molecule for pulmonary inflammation treatment.

Dependence of SARS-CoV-2 infection on cholesterol-rich lipid raft and endosomal acidification.

Coronavirus disease 2019 is a kind of viral pneumonia caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, the mechanism whereby SARS-CoV-2 invades host cells remains poorly understood. Here we used SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses to infect human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) expressing HEK293T cells and evaluated virus infection. We confirmed that SARS-CoV-2 entry was dependent on ACE2 and sensitive to pH of endosome/lysosome in HEK293T cells. The infection of SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses is independent of dynamin, clathrin, caveolin and endophilin A2, as well as macropinocytosis. Instead, we found that the infection of SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses was cholesterol-rich lipid raft dependent. Cholesterol depletion of cell membranes with methyl-ß-cyclodextrin resulted in reduction of pseudovirus infection. The infection of SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses resumed with cholesterol supplementation. Together, cholesterol-rich lipid rafts, and endosomal acidification, are key steps of SARS-CoV-2 required for infection of host cells. Therefore, our finding expands the understanding of SARS-CoV-2 entry mechanism and provides a new anti-SARS-CoV-2 strategy.

Up-regulated DERL3 in fibroblast-like synoviocytes exacerbates inflammation of rheumatoid arthritis.

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress associated proteins contribute to the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) through affecting synoviocyte proliferation and proinflammatory cytokine production. The role of DERL3, an ER-associated degradation component, in joint inflammation of RA was explored. Synovial tissues from RA and osteoarthritis (OA) patients were collected, and in RA synovial tissue, DERL3 showed up-regulation and significantly positive correlation with the expression of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-6 and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1. Immunofluorescence result suggested DERL3 was located in fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS). Among different inflammatory stimuli, DERL3 could be up-regulated by TNF-α stimulation in FLS. Under TNF-α stimulation, knocking down DERL3, the expression of IL-6, IL-8, MMP-1, MMP-13 was reduced and the activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) signaling pathway was inhibited. In pristane-induced arthritis (PIA) rat model, Derl3 was up-regulated in synovial tissue and disease was attenuated after intraarticular injection of siDerl3. Overall, we conclude that TNF-α inducing DERL3 expression promotes the inflammation of FLS through activation of NF-κB signaling pathway, suggesting DERL3 plays important roles in the pathogenesis of RA and is a promising therapeutic target.

Upregulated PKM2 in Macrophages Exacerbates Experimental Arthritis via STAT1 Signaling.

Recent studies indicate that glucose metabolism is altered in rheumatoid arthritis. We hypothesize that Pkm2, as a key regulatory enzyme of glycolysis pathway, triggers the activation of macrophages (Mφ), which results in proinflammatory cytokine production during the arthritis progress. In this study, Pkm2 was found to be overexpressed in ED1-positive Mφ in spleens and synovial tissues from arthritic rats via immunofluorescence, Western blotting, and quantitative RT-PCR. To reveal the role of Pkm2, Dark Agouti rats were treated with either Pkm2 enzyme inhibitor shikonin or the RNA interference plasmids of Pkm2 and negative control plasmids, respectively, via i.p. injection. Pkm2 intervention could alleviate the severity of pristane-induced arthritis in aspects of the macroscopic arthritis score, perimeter changes of midpaw, and the synovitis and destruction of the bone and cartilage as well as reduce the ED1 and p-Stat1-positive cell population in rat synovial tissues. Silencing Pkm2 by RNA interference in classical activated rat and mouse Mφ resulted in less Tnf-α, Il-1ß production via Stat1 signaling. Collectively, Pkm2 is highly expressed in ED1-positive Mφ of spleens and synovial tissues from arthritic rats and promotes Mφ activation via Stat1 signaling. Pkm2 might be a promising selective metabolic target molecule for rheumatoid arthritis treatment.

Molecular immune pathogenesis and diagnosis of COVID-19.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a kind of viral pneumonia which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 has been marked as the third introduction of a highly pathogenic coronavirus into the human population after the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in the twenty-first century. In this minireview, we provide a brief introduction of the general features of SARS-CoV-2 and discuss current knowledge of molecular immune pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 on the base of the present understanding of SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV infections, which may be helpful in offering novel insights and potential therapeutic targets for combating the SARS-CoV-2 infection.