Programmed cell death 4 (PDCD4) suppresses metastastic potential of human hepatocellular carcinoma cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a lethal malignancy with high rate of metastasis and poor prognosis. There are no effective managements to block metastasis of HCC. Programmed cell death 4 (PDCD4) is found to be a tumor transformation suppressor. Among investigations on effects of PDCD4, little is about the metastatic potentials of HCC cells. This study was to investigate the role of PDCD4 on metastatic potential of human HCC cells.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We examined the expression of PDCD4 in three HCC cell lines with different metastatic potentials, MHCC-97H (high metastatic potential), MHCC-97L (low metastatic potential) and Hep3B (no metastatic potential). A plasmid encoding PDCD4 gene was constructed and then transfected into HCC cells with the lowest PDCD4 expression level. Effects of PDCD4 on cell proliferation, cell apoptosis, gene expression of metastasis tumor antigen 1 (MTA1) and in vitro migration and invasion capacity were assessed after transfection.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results showed that the expression level of PDCD4 was inversely correlated to the metastatic potential of HCC cells. After transfection with the PDCD4 gene, HCC cell proliferation rate was significantly decreased, cell apoptosis rate was significantly increased, the expression of MTA1 gene, HCC cell migration and Matrigel invasion were also remarkably inhibited.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>PDCD4 expression is inversely correlated to the metastatic potential of HCC cells. PDCD4 can effectively suppress the metastatic potential of HCC cells.</p

Solving the 100 Swiss Francs Problem

Sturmfels offered 100 Swiss Francs in 2005 to a conjecture, which deals with a special case of the maximum likelihood estimation for a latent class model. This paper confirms the conjecture positively

Investigation into the Influence of Physician for Treatment Based on Syndrome Differentiation

Background. The characteristics of treatment based on syndrome differentiation (TBSD) cause great challenges to evaluate the effectiveness of the clinical methods. Objectives. This paper aims to evaluate the influence of physician to personalized medicine in the process of TBSD. Methods. We performed a randomized, triple-blind trial involving patients of primary insomnia treated by 3 physicians individually and independently. The patients (n=30) were randomly assigned to receive treatments by the 3 physicians for every visit. However, they always received the treatment, respectively, prescribed by the physician at the first visit. The primary outcome was evaluated, respectively, by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the TCM symptoms measuring scale. The clinical practices of the physicians were recorded at every visit including diagnostic information, syndrome differentiation, treating principles, and prescriptions. Results. All patients in the 3 groups (30 patients) showed significant improvements (>66%) according to the PSQI and TCM symptoms measuring scale. Conclusion. The results indicate that although with comparable effectiveness, there exist significant differences in syndrome differentiation, the treating principles, and the prescriptions of the approaches used by the 3 physicians. This means that the physician should be considered as an important factor for individualized medicine and the related TCM clinical research

Systematic review of the perioperative immunotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer: evidence mapping and synthesis

ObjectivesThis study aimed to use evidence mapping to provide an overview of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) as perioperative treatments for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and to identify areas of this field where future research is most urgently needed.MethodsMultiple databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science) were searched to identify clinical trials published up to November 2021 that examined the effect of perioperative ICIs for perioperative treatment of NSCLC. Study design, sample size, patient characteristics, therapeutic regimens, clinical stages, short-term and long-term therapeutic outcomes, surgery associated parameters, and therapeutic safety were examined.ResultsWe included 66 trials (3564 patients) and used evidence mapping to characterize the available data. For surgery associated outcomes, sixty-two studies (2480 patients) provided complete information regarding the use of surgery after neoadjuvant immunotherapy and data on R0 resection were available in 42 studies (1680 patients); for short-term clinical outcomes, 57 studies (1842 patients) evaluated pathologic complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant immunotherapy and most of included studies achieved pCR in the range of 30 to 40%; for long-term clinical outcomes, 15 studies (1932 patients) reported DFS, with a median range of 17.9-53.6 months; and only a few studies reported the safety profiles of perioperative immunotherapies.ConclusionOur evidence mapping systematically summarized the results of all clinical trials and studies that examined ICIs as perioperative treatments for NSCLC. The results indicated more studies that evaluate long-term patient outcomes are needed to provide a stronger foundation for the use of these treatments