Epithelial–Mesenchymal Transition Associated with Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas: A Review

Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) are aggressive, recurrent, and metastatic neoplasms with a high occurrence around the world and can lead to death when not treated appropriately. Several molecules and signaling pathways are involved in the malignant conversion process. Epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) has been described in HNSCCs, a major type of aggressive carcinoma. EMT describes the development of epithelial cells into mesenchymal cells, which depends on several molecular interactions and signaling pathways that facilitate mesenchymal conversion. This is related to interactions with the microenvironment of the tumor, hypoxia, growth factors, matrix metalloproteinases, and the presence of viral infections. In this review, we focus on the main molecules related to EMT, their interactions with the tumor microenvironment, plasticity phenomena, epigenetic regulation, hypoxia, inflammation, their relationship with immune cells, and the inhibition of EMT in the context of HNSCC

Potencial productivo y dinamica de tallos de dos brachiarias a edades de rebrote en otoño: Productive potential and stem dynamics of two brachiarias species at regrowth ages in autumn

La estacionalidad y la frecuencia de cosecha tienen un efecto en la tasa de rebrote en los pastos y pueden disminuir el porcentaje de senescencia y descomposición del forraje, por lo tanto, influyen en el rendimiento, en la calidad y la persistencia de la pradera. El objetivo fue evaluar el potencial productivo y dinámica de tallos de los ecotipos Insurgente (Brachiaria brizantha Hochst. Stapf Cv. Insurgente) y Mulato (Brachiaria hibrido Cv. Mulato II) en tres periodos de corte (21, 42, y 63 días) en Otoño. En el Campus Tuxpan de la Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias y Ambientales, de Iguala, Gro. Las variables evaluadas fueron: rendimiento de forraje (kg MS ha-1), producción de componentes morfológicos (HOJA Y TALLO), relación hoja tallo (H:T), densidad poblacional (DPT), tasa de aparición de tallos (TAT), tasa de muerte de tallos (TMT), tasa de sobrevivencia de tallos (TST) e índice de estabilidad de tallos (IET), Se utilizó un diseño de bloques completamente al azar con arreglo bifactorial (Factor 1: Brachiarias, Factor 2: periodos de corte). Los datos se analizaron con el procedimiento ANOVA del paquete estadístico SAS® versión 9.2 para Windows®. La comparación de medias se realizó con la prueba de “t” de “Student” (P<0.05). La producción total de materia seca (4392.7 Kg MS ha-1), la de hoja (3084.8 Kg MS ha-1), la tasa de crecimiento (209.17 Kg MS ha-1) y la relación hoja tallo (4.2943 Kg MS kg-1) fueron afectados por los periodos de corte (P <0001) y por los ecotipos, el Mulato presentó los valores más altos. La mayor producción de hoja, tallo y total de materia seca se presentó en el tercer periodo de corte y de igual forma la tasa de crecimiento. En la dinámica de tallos los ecotipos no presentaron diferencias, los periodos de corte si afectaron a la TAT (81.87 tallos m2) y al IET (1.79), en los que el periodo de corte 1 presento los valores más altos. &nbsp

Aquacultural Homoeopathy: A Focus on Marine Species

Homoeopathy is an alternative medical system proposed by Samuel Hahnemann in the eighteenth century. It uses highly diluted and agitated substances that derived from plants, minerals or animals, which have shown to be effective in human medicine, agronomy, veterinary, and as a novelty, in marine aquaculture. Aquacultural homoeopathy has developed rapidly in recent years, partially motivated by the misuse of powerful drugs (hormones, antibiotics, disinfectants) that when solving a problem generate undesirable side effects. In the last 10 years, scientific articles have been published on its application in freshwater fish native to Brazil, obtaining beneficial effects on growth, survival, hepatosomatic index, development of muscle fibres and lipid content in muscle. At Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste (CIBNOR, Mexico: www.cibnor.mx), we have studied the effects of homoeopathy to improve the culture of economically important marine species of molluscs, fish and shrimp. In this chapter, we show a selection of different research with preliminary or advanced results, related to the use of homoeopathy and its impact on zootechnic, biochemical, genomic and transcriptomic parameters in marine molluscs, fish and crustaceans. The results obtained suggest that homoeopathy is an eco-friendly alternative applicable in aquaculture industry to improve various productive and health aspects

Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children

Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection are often non-specific, and there is no definitive test for the accurate diagnosis of infection. The 'omics' approaches to identifying biomarkers from the host-response to bacterial infection are promising. In this study, lipidomic analysis was carried out with plasma samples obtained from febrile children with confirmed bacterial infection (n = 20) and confirmed viral infection (n = 20). We show for the first time that bacterial and viral infection produces distinct profile in the host lipidome. Some species of glycerophosphoinositol, sphingomyelin, lysophosphatidylcholine and cholesterol sulfate were higher in the confirmed virus infected group, while some species of fatty acids, glycerophosphocholine, glycerophosphoserine, lactosylceramide and bilirubin were lower in the confirmed virus infected group when compared with confirmed bacterial infected group. A combination of three lipids achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.911 (95% CI 0.81 to 0.98). This pilot study demonstrates the potential of metabolic biomarkers to assist clinicians in distinguishing bacterial from viral infection in febrile children, to facilitate effective clinical management and to the limit inappropriate use of antibiotics

Identification of regulatory variants associated with genetic susceptibility to meningococcal disease.

Non-coding genetic variants play an important role in driving susceptibility to complex diseases but their characterization remains challenging. Here, we employed a novel approach to interrogate the genetic risk of such polymorphisms in a more systematic way by targeting specific regulatory regions relevant for the phenotype studied. We applied this method to meningococcal disease susceptibility, using the DNA binding pattern of RELA - a NF-kB subunit, master regulator of the response to infection - under bacterial stimuli in nasopharyngeal epithelial cells. We designed a custom panel to cover these RELA binding sites and used it for targeted sequencing in cases and controls. Variant calling and association analysis were performed followed by validation of candidate polymorphisms by genotyping in three independent cohorts. We identified two new polymorphisms, rs4823231 and rs11913168, showing signs of association with meningococcal disease susceptibility. In addition, using our genomic data as well as publicly available resources, we found evidences for these SNPs to have potential regulatory effects on ATXN10 and LIF genes respectively. The variants and related candidate genes are relevant for infectious diseases and may have important contribution for meningococcal disease pathology. Finally, we described a novel genetic association approach that could be applied to other phenotypes

Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children

Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection ar

Transient hypothyroidism during lactation alters the development of the corpus callosum in rats. An in vivo magnetic resonance image and electron microscopy study

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of children with late diagnosed congenital hypothyroidism and cognitive alterations such as abnormal verbal memory processing suggest altered telencephalic commissural connections. The corpus callosum (CC) is the major inter-hemispheric commissure that contra-laterally connects neocortical areas. However, in late diagnosed neonates with congenital hypothyroidism, the possible effect of early transient and chronic postnatal hypothyroidism still remains unknown. We have studied the development of the anterior, middle and posterior CC, using in vivo MRI and electron microscopy in hypothyroid and control male rats. Four groups of methimazole (MMI) treated rats were studied. One group, as a model for early transient hypothyroidism, was MMI-treated from postnatal day (P) 0 to P21; some of these rats were also treated with L-thyroxine (T4) from P15 to 21. Another group modeling chronic hypothyroid, were treated with MMI from P0 to 150 and from embryonic day 10 to P170. The results obtained from these groups were compared with same age control rats. The normalized T2 signal obtained using MRI was higher in MMI-treated rats and correlated with a low number and percentage of myelinated axons. The number and density of myelinated axons decreased in transient and chronic hypothyroid rats at P150. The g-ratio (inner to outer diameter ratio) and the estimated conduction velocity of myelinated axons were similar between MMI-treated and controls, but the conduction delay decreased in the posterior CC of MMI-treated rats compared to controls. These data show that early postnatal transient and chronic hypothyroidism alters CC maturation in a way that may affect the callosal transfer of information. These alterations cannot be reversed after delayed T4-treatment. Our data support the findings of neurocognitive delay in late T4-treated children with congenital hypothyroidism.This work was funded by grants of the Fundación Alicia Koplowitz (Spain) and of the Spanish “Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad” MINECO-SAF2014-58256-R to PB and of the Spanish “Generalitat Valènciana” GV-PROMETEO/2019/075 to JG-V.Peer reviewe

Relación heterófilo/linfocito, frecuencia espontánea de eritrocitos micronucleados y prolongaciones nucleares en el ganso nevado (Chen caerulescens): Una propuesta como posible biomonitor de estrés y genotóxicos ambientales

Existen organismos silvestres que son altamente vulnerables ante estresores antropogénicos y naturales, estos organismos pueden ser de utilidad para evaluar la salud ambiental mediante diferentes indicadores confiables, sencillos, rápidos, económicos para determinar y si es posible reducir estos efectos negativos. En este estudio proponemos al ganso nevado (Chen caerulescens) como posible biomonitor de estrés y genotóxicos ambientales mediante la relación heterófilo/linfocito (H/L), la prueba de micronúcleos (EMN), prolongaciones nucleares en eritrocitos (EPN) y eritrocitos policromáticos (EPC). Durante la temporada de caza (2012-2013) en el humedal de Málaga, Durango, México, colectamos 18 organismos. Los eritrocitos fueron las células más abundantes, de núcleo y morfología elípticos, de tamaño 12.68 ± 0.89 µm. Observamos heterófilos (11.07±1.32 µm), eosinófilos (9.67±1.26 µm), basófilos (5.75 ± 0.78 µm), monocitos (10.49±1.36 µm) y linfocitos (6.53±1.0 µm). No identificamos alteración en las proporciones ni en la morfología de leucocitos, sin embargo, es necesario un mayor número de organismos para establecer los parámetros sanguíneos de base normal para esta especie. La relación h/l fue de 0.41 ± 0.11 este valor es similar a lo reportado para esta y otras especies de aves consideradas como sanas. Establecimos la frecuencia basal de EMN (2.6±1.45), epn (249.2 ± 89.74) y EPC (156.5 ± 50). El ganso nevado es un organismo que se perfila como buen candidato a biomonitor ambiental debido a la frecuencia basal de su relación H/L, EMN, EPN y EPC, pero debe probarse en condiciones estandarizadas y a través de estudios en zonas con y sin contaminación