MiR-7 alleviates secondary inflammatory response of microglia caused by cerebral hemorrhage through inhibiting TLR4 expression

OBJECTIVE

This study was conducted to analyze the effect of miR-7 on the inflammatory response of microglia in vitro and in vivo by constructing an intracerebral hemorrhage model.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

In this study, we first established a model of cerebral hemorrhage in rat for in vivo experiments, and used lipoprotein (LPS) to induce an inflammatory response development in microglial cells, and constructed microglial inflammation models for in vitro experiments. Quantitative Real-time-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expression of miR-7 in the rat model of cerebral hemorrhage and microglia with inflammation. The effect of miR-7 on the inflammation caused by intracerebral hemorrhage was evaluated through measuring the expression of IL-1β, IL-8 and TNF-α by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Dual luciferase reporter assay was used to detect the binding site of miR-7 to TLR4. Western blot was used to evaluate the level of TLR4 after overexpression and knockdown of miR-7 and to evaluate whether miR-7 alleviated the secondary inflammatory response of microglia after cerebral hemorrhage by inhibiting the expression of TLR4.

RESULTS

The expression of miR-7 in the rat cerebral hemorrhage model and microglial inflammation model tissue was significantly lower than that in the normal control group. Expression of inflammatory cytokines including IL-1β, IL-8 and TNF-α was significantly increased in rats with intracerebral hemorrhage and microglial inflammation in rats, and the expression of these inflammatory cytokines was partially reversed after overexpression of miR-7. Double luciferase reporter gene and ELISA results showed that miR-7 could inhibit the expression of TLR4 and relieve the secondary inflammatory response of microglia after cerebral hemorrhage.

CONCLUSIONS

We demonstrated that, in in vivo and in vitro experiments, miR-7 could reduce the LPS-induced inflammatory response produced by microglial cells, and alleviate the inflammation in the brain of rats with cerebral hemorrhage.

Microbial diversity in the tick Argas japonicus (Acari: Argasidae) with a focus on Rickettsia pathogens

The soft tick Argas japonicus mainly infests birds and can cause human dermatitis; however, no pathogen has been identified from this tick species in China. In the present study, the microbiota in A. japonicus collected from an epidemic community was explored, and some putative Rickettsia pathogens were further characterized. The results obtained indicated that bacteria in A. japonicus were mainly ascribed to the phyla Proteobacteria, Firmicutes and Actinobacteria. At the genus level, the male A. japonicus harboured more diverse bacteria than the females and nymphs. The bacteria Alcaligenes, Pseudomonas, Rickettsia and Staphylococcus were common in nymphs and adults. The abundance of bacteria belonging to the Rickettsia genus in females and males was 7.27% and 10.42%, respectively. Furthermore, the 16S rRNA gene of Rickettsia was amplified and sequenced, and phylogenetic analysis revealed that 13 sequences were clustered with the spotted fever group rickettsiae (Rickettsia heilongjiangensis and Rickettsia japonica) and three were clustered with Rickettsia limoniae, which suggested that the characterized Rickettsia in A. japonicus were novel putative pathogens and also that the residents were at considerable risk for infection by tick-borne pathogens.

Abstract 477: Targeted deep sequencing contributes to guiding personalized targeted therapy in advanced biliary tract cancer

Purpose: Biliary tract cancer (BTC) is a devastating disease of the digestive system with poor prognosis. Targeted therapy based on specific genetic alterations has been proven to be an effective treatment for some cancer subtypes. However, the effect of this targeted therapy is unclear in BTC. In this study, we aimed to explore the clinical efficacy and safety of personalized targeted therapy guided by targeted deep sequencing for advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC) patients.

Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study, targeted deep sequencing was employed for 49 patients with BTC and the recommendation of biologic agent was offered. Among 32 patients with stage IV and R2 resection, 21 patients underwent conventional chemotherapy (mGEMOX) (chemotherapy group), while the remaining 11 patients received a personalized targeted agent (targeted therapy group). The progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), disease control rate (DCR) were used to assess the efficacy of treatments, while the grade of treatment-related toxicities was evaluated for safety.

Results: The genomic landscape of 49 patients with BTC was depicted by targeted deep sequencing. Further analysis of all alterations demonstrated that these altered genes were highly enriched in the ERBB family or cell cycle pathway. After a median follow-up of 12 months, the targeted therapy group had a significant prolonged PFS (4.5 months vs. 1.5 months, P = 0.014) and a trend of prolonged OS (12.9 months vs. 4.1 months, P = 0.104) in comparison to the chemotherapy group. The DCR in the targeted therapy group was marginally higher but without statistical significance (63.6% vs. 33.3%, P = 0.142). In addition, there was no statistically significant difference in the percentage of patients that experienced Grade >2 treatment-related toxicities in either treatment group (36.4% vs 19.0%, P = 0.397).

Conclusions: This real-world clinical study suggests that targeted deep sequencing contributes to guiding personalized targeted therapy based on individual actionable mutations, which may benefit advanced BTC patients. Large umbrella trials of personalized precision therapy are needed to further confirm the clinical efficacy and safety of this therapeutic strategy in BTC.

Note: This abstract was not presented at the meeting.

Citation Format: Feiling Feng, Qingbao Cheng, Dadong Zhang, Bin Li, Hao Qin, Chang Xu, Miao Han, Yong Yu, Zhizhen Li, Jing-Yu Li, Zhiquan Qiu, Lei Xiong, Chen Liu, Fugen Li, Bin Yi, Xiaoqing Jiang. Targeted deep sequencing contributes to guiding personalized targeted therapy in advanced biliary tract cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 477.

Abstract 3401: Genomic and transcriptome profile of 66 Chinese biliary tract cancer patient derived cell lines

Background: Biliary tract cancer (BTC) is an aggressive cancer with very poor prognosis. Currently there is no effective target therapy for BTC. To understand the genetic basis and look for potential drug targets of BTC, we sequenced the whole exome and transcriptome of 66 patient-derived primary cancer cells (PDC) from 23 unique patient samples.

Methods: We cultured 66 patient derived cell lines (PDC) passage range from P10 to P15, from 23 BTC patients, with 1-9 PDC each patient. Both genomic DNA and total RNA were extracted from these cell lines, followed by WES and RNA sequencing on NovaSeq and HiSeq, respectively. Average sequencing coverage for WES is 139X and average data amount for RNA is 8.4Gbp. Variant calling was done by union set of Mutect and Pindel, with VAF cut-off 0.1 and filtered with a white variant list from COSMIC database. CNV was called from WES data by CNVKit with log2ratio cut-off 1.2. RNASeq data was mapped by STAR and fusion was calling by STAR-Fusion with at least 3 split reads.

Results: A median of 57 non-silent mutations were identified in Chinese BTC which was about 2 folds (57 vs. 30) of that in TCGA cholangiocarcinoma. Ethnic differences were found between Chinese and western population. The top four genes with frequency in Chinese BTC higher than TCGA cholangiocarcinoma were TP53 (56.5% vs. 14.3%), EPPK1 (26.1% vs. 2.9%), FRAS1 (13.0% vs. 2.9%), and ZFHX3 (13.0% vs. 2.9%), while ANKRD36C (4.4% vs. 20.0%), PBRM1 (8.7% vs. 22.9%), and TCHH (4.4% vs. 17.1%) were the top three genes with frequency lower than TCGA cholangiocarcinoma. We also found two previously reported cholangiocarcinoma related genes, PEG3 and GNAS, both harbored mutations in 3 of 23 patients (8.7%) in our data. However, they were not reported in TCGA cholangiocarcinoma. A median of 158 CNVs (range: 5-299) in gene level were identified, and the top three frequently mutated CNVs genes were LILRA3, SIRPB1, and GSTT1. Copy number loss of CDKN2A were found in 7 of 23 patients. Totally, 234 unique fusions were identified with 2-17 fusions per patient (median: 8). Among these fusions 5 of them (C15orf57-CBX3, SCARB1-UBC, SAMD5-SASH1, NCOR2-UBC, and FTH1-EIF5A) were reported to be associated with cancers. There were also 19 fusions found in TCGA pan-cancer datasets.

Conclusions: We built a comprehensive mutation landscape for Chinese BTC patients. Our results demonstrated ethnic differences between Chinese and TCGA Western cholangiocarcinoma patients. These PDC samples with profiled genetic information are good in vitro models for drug target discovery and validation for BTC patients.

Citation Format: Feiling Feng, Qingbao Cheng, Bin Li, Liang Yang, Hua Dong, Bin Li, Dadong Zhang, Chang Xu, Xiaoya Xu, Yong Yu, Zishuo Chen, Zhizhen Li, Fugen Li, Zhiquan Qiu, Chen Liu, Xiaoqing Jiang. Genomic and transcriptome profile of 66 Chinese biliary tract cancer patient derived cell lines [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3401.

Use of DNA methylation to distinguish gallbladder carcinoma

e15605

Background: Gallbladder cancer (GBC), an uncommon malignancy with a high mortality rate, is often diagnosed late due to lack of early symptoms and the relative hidden nature of the gallbladder. Despite the advancements in imaging technologies, there is no reliable screening test for GBC. The role of aberrant DNA methylation in the process of tumorigenesis both at individual genes and a genome-wide scale has been well elucidated. It occurs very early in cancer development, thus capable of serving as a screening marker. Methods: Panel Design: Methylation data of tumor samples (12 types, n = 4,772), adjacent normal (8 types, n = 411), and normal white blood cells (n = 656) from TCGA and GSE were compared. Differentially methylated sites were derived using a Bayesian hierarchical model-DSS with an adjusted p-value < 0.05. Our panel covers 80,672 CpG sites, spanning 1.05Mb of human genome. This panel contains 12,196 GBC relevant CpG sites. We performed targeted bisulfite sequencing on 23 GBC patients (6 stage II-III, 17 stage IV) and 13 patients with non-malignant gallbladder diseases (cholecystitis and gallstones). Of the 23 GBC patients, we obtained adjacent normal tissue from 7 of them. Basic clinical features such as age, gender, of patients with GBC and patients with non-malignant gallbladder diseases were comparable. Results: Among the 12,196 GBC relevant CpG sites, 10,216 sites were statistically significantly hypermethylated and 275 sites were statistically significantly hypomethylated comparing to patients with non-malignant gallbladder disease as well as adjacent normal gallbladder tissues. Subsequently, we used the derived differentially methylated CpG sites to construct a linear regression model, achieving an area under curve of 99%. Collectively, the methylation levels were comparable between tissues with non-malignant disease and adjacent normal. Interestingly, when considering the 275 hypomethylated markers alone, we observed that the methylation level of adjacent normal tissues is significantly higher than tissues with non-malignant disease. Conclusions: Collectively, our panel can effectively distinguish GBC samples from non-cancerous samples, demonstrating the potential of DNA methylation in GBC screening. Furthermore, hypomethylation markers can be used to distinguish non-malignant disease from the healthy.

NP30 stimulates Th17 differentiation through DC in Schistosomiasis Japonicum

The murine monoclonal anti‐idiotypic antibody, NP30, is a potential vaccine candidate against Schistosoma japonicum. Previous studies have revealed that NP30 has an immunoregulatory effect, but the underlying mechanism for this effect remains unknown. This study shows that NP30 induces dendritic cell (DC) maturation and increases the production of pro‐inflammatory cytokines. The expression of CD86 and MHC II was upregulated in DCs following stimulation with NP30 in vitro. Moreover, NP30 induced Th17 polarization by increasing the production of IL‐6 and TGF‐β. In vivo, Th17 differentiation was induced by the production of key pro‐inflammatory cytokines, including IL‐6and TGF‐β, from DCs of NP30‐immunized mice. These results indicate that NP30 promotes Th17 polarization through DC activation, preventing serious schistosomiasis.

Managing Response Time Tails by Sharding

Matrix analytic methods are developed to compute the probability distribution of response times (i.e., data access times) in distributed storage systems protected by erasure coding, which is implemented by sharding a data object into N fragments, only K <; N of which are required to reconstruct the object. This leads to a partial-fork-join model with a choice of canceling policies for the redundant N − K tasks. The accuracy of the analytical model is supported by tests against simulation in a broad range of setups. At increasing workload intensities, numerical results show the extent to which increasing the redundancy level reduces the mean response time of storage reads and significantly flattens the tail of their distribution; this is demonstrated at medium-high quantiles, up to the 99th. The quantitative reduction in response time achieved by two policies for canceling redundant tasks is also shown: for cancel-at-finish and cancel-at-start, which limits the additional load introduced whilst losing the benefit of selectivity amongst fragment service times.

CCL20 is overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma with bile duct tumor thrombus and correlates negatively with surgical outcome

There is not yet a consensus regarding prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with bile duct tumor thrombus (BDTT) versus without bile duct tumor thrombus. Chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 20 (CCL20) plays critical roles in the progress of many types of tumor. But the clinicopathological and prognostic value of this marker in HCC with BDTT is unceratin. In this study, we reported that the overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in HCC with BDTT were significantly shorter than in those without BDTT (P<0.05). CCL20 was expressed at a significantly higher level in bile duct tumor thrombus by real-time PCR, western blot, and immunohistochemistry. Patients with high CCL20 expression levels had a poor prognosis. Multivariate survival analysis indicated that CCL20 was an independent prognostic factor for OS. The presence of bile duct tumor thrombus indicateda poor prognosis in HCC patients, but was not a surgical contraindication. CCL20 was associated with tumor progression and high CCL20 expression was correlated with worse surgical outcomes in HCC with BDTT. Inhibition of CCL20 expression might offer novel promising molecular targets for treatment.

Prognostic importance of bile duct invasion in surgical resection with curative intent for hepatocellular carcinoma using PSM analysis

There is not yet a consensus regarding a difference in prognosis for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with and without bile duct invasion (BDI). The present study aimed to clarify the prognostic importance of BDI on the short and long-term outcome of patients with HCC who underwent surgical resection. The present study evaluated HCC with BDI, including peripheral microscopic biliary invasion and revealed that the prognosis of patients with BDI was poorer compared with those without BDI. It should be noted that peripheral BDI also had a negative impact on the prognosis of patients with HCC. The clinical prognosis assessment revealed that BDI should be considered when assigning a disease stage. BDI, either macroscopic or microscopic, indicated a poor prognosis in patients with HCC who underwent curative resection, however it was not a surgical contraindication. Macroscopic BDI and hyperbilirubinemia were significantly associated with a dismal prognosis, which should alert surgeons.

Nonlinear Decay and Plasma Heating by a Toroidal Alfvén Eigenmode

We demonstrate theoretically that a toroidal Alfvén eigenmode (TAE) can parametrically decay into a geodesic acoustic mode and kinetic TAE in a toroidal plasma. The corresponding threshold condition for the TAE amplitude is estimated to be |δB_{⊥}/B_{0}|∼O(10^{-4}). Here, δB_{⊥} and B_{0} are, respectively, the perturbed magnetic field of the pump TAE and the equilibrium magnetic field. This novel decay process, in addition to contributing to the nonlinear saturation of energetic-particle or α-particle driven TAE instability, could also contribute to the heating as well as regulating the transports of thermal plasmas.

A novel large fragment deletion in PLS3 causes rare X-linked early-onset osteoporosis and response to zoledronic acid

We identified a novel large fragment deletion from intron 9 to 3'UTR in PLS3 (E10-E16del) in one Chinese boy with X-linked early-onset osteoporosis and vertebral fractures, which expanded the pathogenic spectrum of X-linked early-onset osteoporosis. Treatment with zoledronic acid was beneficial for increasing BMD and reshaping the vertebral bodies of this patient.

INTRODUCTION

X-linked early-onset osteoporosis is a rare disease, which is characterized by low bone mineral density (BMD), vertebral compression fractures (VCFs), and/or long bone fractures. We aimed to detect the phenotype and the underlying pathogenic mutation of X-linked early-onset osteoporosis in a boy from a nonconsanguineous Chinese family.

METHODS

We investigated the pathogenic mutation of the patient with X-linked early-onset osteoporosis by targeted next-generation sequencing and confirmed it by Sanger sequencing. We also observed the effects of zoledronic acid on fracture frequency and BMD of the patient.

RESULTS

Low BMD and multiple VCFs were the main phenotypes of X-linked early-onset osteoporosis. We identified a total of 12,229 bp deletion in PLS3, involving intron 9 to the 3'UTR (E10-E16 del). This large fragment deletion might be mediated by Alu repeats and microhomology of 26 bp at each breakpoint junction. Zoledronic acid treatment could significantly increase the Z-score of BMD and reshape the compressed vertebral bodies.

CONCLUSION

We identified a large fragment deletion mutation in PLS3 for the first time and elucidated the possible mechanism of the deletion, which led to X-linked early-onset osteoporosis and multiple vertebral fractures. Our findings would enrich the etiology spectrum of this rare disease.