Downregulation of lncRNA SNHG7 inhibits proliferation and invasion of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells through repressing ROCK1

OBJECTIVE

Recent studies have revealed the important role of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the progression of tumorigenesis. This study aimed to identify the biological function of lncRNA small nucleolar RNA host gene 7 (SNHG7) in the progression of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).

PATIENTS AND METHODS

LncRNA SNHG7 expressions in NPC cell lines and 50 paired NPC tissue samples were detected by Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Transwell assay, wound healing assay and proliferation assay were conducted to evaluate the in vitro function of SNHG7 in NPC cells. Xenograft model was established for determining the in vivo effect of SNHG7 on tumor formation and metastasis of NPC. The underlying mechanism of SNHG7 in mediating the progression of NPC was explored by RT-qPCR and Western blot.

RESULTS

SNHG7 expression was remarkably downregulated in NPC tissues compared with that in adjacent normal samples. Knockdown of SNHG7 attenuated proliferation, invasion and migration of NPC cells. Moreover, tumor size and the number of metastatic nodules were reduced in mice administrated with NPC cells transfected with sh-SNHG7. Knockdown of SNHG7 downregulated ROCK1 at mRNA and protein level. Besides, the expression of ROCK1 in tumor tissues was positively correlated to SNHG7 expression.

CONCLUSIONS

Knockdown of SNHG7 inhibits migration, invasion and proliferation of NPC cells through downregulating ROCK1, which may offer a new therapeutic intervention for NPC patients.

Disentangled Adversarial Autoencoder for Subject-Invariant Physiological Feature Extraction

Recent developments in biosignal processing have enabled users to exploit their physiological status for manipulating devices in a reliable and safe manner. One major challenge of physiological sensing lies in the variability of biosignals across different users and tasks. To address this issue, we propose an adversarial feature extractor for transfer learning to exploit disentangled universal representations. We consider the trade-off between task-relevant features and user-discriminative information by introducing additional adversary and nuisance networks in order to manipulate the latent representations such that the learned feature extractor is applicable to unknown users and various tasks. Results on cross-subject transfer evaluations exhibit the benefits of the proposed framework, with up to 8.8% improvement in average accuracy of classification, and demonstrate adaptability to a broader range of subjects.

Deep Learning for Pediatric Posterior Fossa Tumor Detection and Classification: A Multi-Institutional Study

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Posterior fossa tumors are the most common pediatric brain tumors. MR imaging is key to tumor detection, diagnosis, and therapy guidance. We sought to develop an MR imaging-based deep learning model for posterior fossa tumor detection and tumor pathology classification.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The study cohort comprised 617 children (median age, 92 months; 56% males) from 5 pediatric institutions with posterior fossa tumors: diffuse midline glioma of the pons (n = 122), medulloblastoma (n = 272), pilocytic astrocytoma (n = 135), and ependymoma (n = 88). There were 199 controls. Tumor histology served as ground truth except for diffuse midline glioma of the pons, which was primarily diagnosed by MR imaging. A modified ResNeXt-50-32x4d architecture served as the backbone for a multitask classifier model, using T2-weighted MRIs as input to detect the presence of tumor and predict tumor class. Deep learning model performance was compared against that of 4 radiologists.

RESULTS

Model tumor detection accuracy exceeded an AUROC of 0.99 and was similar to that of 4 radiologists. Model tumor classification accuracy was 92% with an F₁ score of 0.80. The model was most accurate at predicting diffuse midline glioma of the pons, followed by pilocytic astrocytoma and medulloblastoma. Ependymoma prediction was the least accurate. Tumor type classification accuracy and F₁ score were higher than those of 2 of the 4 radiologists.

CONCLUSIONS

We present a multi-institutional deep learning model for pediatric posterior fossa tumor detection and classification with the potential to augment and improve the accuracy of radiologic diagnosis.

Downregulation of lncRNA SNHG7 inhibits proliferation and invasion of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells through repressing ROCK1

Since this article has been suspected of research misconduct and the corresponding authors did not respond to our request to prove originality of data and figures, "Downregulation of lncRNA SNHG7 inhibits proliferation and invasion of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells through repressing ROCK1, by L. Wang, T. Xu, X. Cui, M. Han, L.-H. Zhou, Z.-X. Wei, Z.-J. Xu, Y. Jiang, published in Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci 2019; 23 (14): 6186-6193-DOI: 10.26355/eurrev_201907_18432-PMID: 31364118" has been withdrawn. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. https://www.europeanreview.org/article/18432.

Assessment of fecal DNA extraction protocols for metagenomic studies

BACKGROUND

Shotgun metagenomic sequencing has improved our understanding of the human gut microbiota. Various DNA extraction methods have been compared to find protocols that robustly and most accurately reflect the original microbial community structures. However, these recommendations can be further refined by considering the time and cost demands in dealing with samples from very large human cohorts. Additionally, fungal DNA extraction performance has so far been little investigated.

RESULTS

We compared 6 DNA extraction protocols, MagPure Fast Stool DNA KF Kit B, Macherey Nagel™ NucleoSpin™®Soil kit, Zymo Research Quick-DNA™ Fecal/Soil Microbe kit, MOBIO DNeasy PowerSoil kit, the manual non-commercial protocol MetaHIT, and the recently published protocol Q using 1 microbial mock community (MMC) (containing 8 bacterial and 2 fungal strains) and fecal samples. All samples were manually extracted and subjected to shotgun metagenomics sequencing. Extracting DNA revealed high reproducibility within all 6 protocols, but microbial extraction efficiencies varied. The MMC results demonstrated that bead size was a determining factor for fungal and bacterial DNA yields. In human fecal samples, the MagPure bacterial extraction performed as well as the standardized protocol Q but was faster and more cost-effective. Extraction using the PowerSoil protocol resulted in a significantly higher ratio of gram-negative to gram-positive bacteria than other protocols, which might contribute to reported gut microbial differences between healthy adults.

CONCLUSIONS

We emphasize the importance of bead size selection for bacterial and fungal DNA extraction. More importantly, the performance of the novel protocol MP matched that of the recommended standardized protocol Q but consumed less time, was more cost-effective, and is recommended for further large-scale human gut metagenomic studies.

Efficacy of Beef Crust from Dry-Aged Beef Loins as Novel Functional Ingredient

ObjectivesDry-aging is a traditional butchery process, but currently, it has been more practiced in a niche market as a value-adding process. As dry aging involves placing primal/sub-primal sections under a controlled refrigerated condition without packaging materials, the formation of the dried surface (crust) is inevitable due to moisture evaporation. A considerable portion of the crust is to be trimmed off as waste, which is one of the major drawbacks of dry aging. While the beef crust may still exert its functional/technological properties, no information is available regarding the efficacy of utilizing beef crust as a potential food ingredient. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the physicochemical and functional properties of beef crust from dry-aged beef loins processed under various dry-aging conditions.Materials and MethodsPaired bone-in beef shell loins from 13 cull cow carcasses (C-maturity) were obtained at 5d postmortem, divided into 2 sections and assigned to four aging treatments: wet-aging (WA), dry-aging (DA), dry-aging in water-permeable bag (DWA) and dry-aging under UV-light (UDA; 5 J/s/12 h per day). Beef sections were aged for 28d at 2°C, 65% RH and 0.8 m/s air flow. After aging, the crusts were separated and beef samples from WA and initial (aged for 0 d, INI) were collected for comparison. In three independent batches, the crust samples were freeze-dried and powdered. Moisture contents of samples were measured before lyophilization. Emulsification capacity, salt-soluble protein solubility, emulsifying activity index, and surface hydrophobicity were determined. CIE* color attributes, lipid oxidation (TBARS), and protein oxidation (carbonyl and thiol contents) were measured. The PROC MIXED procedure of SAS was used to analyze the data. Significance level of least square means was set at the confidence level of 95%.ResultsBeef crusts from dry-aged loins had lower moisture contents compared with WA and INI (P < 0.05), while no difference between dry-aging methods was found (P > 0.05). The crust samples had lower L* and chroma values than WA and INI (P < 0.05). Emulsification capacity of DA, DWA, and UDA were lower than WA and INI (P < 0.05), with DA being the lowest (P < 0.05). In general, the crust had a significantly higher salt-soluble protein solubility compared to WA, while no difference between crusts and INI was found (P > 0.05). For emulsifying activity index, DA exhibited higher values than DWA, UDA and WA (P < 0.05), and was comparable to INI (P > 0.05). DA and INI had higher surface hydrophobicity values than the other samples, which could possibly explain the results of emulsifying activity index. A trend of higher TBARS values was found in all dry-aged crusts than WA and INI (P = 0.0688). The crust from dry aging had a higher carbonyl content compared to WA (P < 0.05), while thiol contents were not affected by the treatment (P = 0.1092).ConclusionThe results from the current study indicate that beef crusts exert its functional and technological properties, which could be superior or at least equivalent to wet-aged or unaged beef samples. This study provides novel insight into the potential feasibility and utilization of beef crust from dry-aged beef as a value-added product. Further studies determining the practical application of beef crust as a novel food ingredient (e.g., meat emulsion or beef patty) are in progress.

A Traditional Chinese Patent Medicine ZQMT for Neovascular Age- Related Macular Degeneration: A Multicenter Randomized Clinical Trial

BACKGROUND

Anti-VEGF agent ranibizumab has been extensively used as a standard treatment for wet AMD. We investigated whether traditional Chinese medicine could serve as a complementary therapy for this disease.

METHODS

144 patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration received either intravitreal ranibizumab treatment as needed plus placebo or intravitreal ranibizumab treatment as needed plus an FDA approved traditional Chinese patent medicine named ZQMT. Both groups received treatment for 24 weeks. The primary outcome was the mean change of visual acuity at week 24 as compared to the baseline.

RESULTS

We found that intravitreal ranibizumab treatment plus ZQMT was non-inferior to the treatment with intravitreal ranibizumab alone in improving visual acuity scores at week 24 with patients in both groups who gained substantial numbers of letters. In addition, we found that ZQMT treatment resulted in significant improvements in reducing retinal hemorrhage, fluid, and lesion size. Importantly, administration of ZQMT reduced the number of needed ranibizumab injections (P<0.0001, analysis of variance) in wet AMD patients leading to a significant reduction of drug cost.

CONCLUSION

The combinatory therapy of ranibizumab and traditional Chinese patent medicine ZQMT had equivalent effects on visual acuity improvement and safety profiles as the ranibizumab treatment alone. Ranibizumab injections coupled with ZQMT offer therapeutic advantages in terms of reduction of retinal lesions and ease the financial burden of patients undergoing treatment by reducing the frequency of necessary ranibizumab injections.

OS6.2 Loss of CYP46A1 directs altered cholesterol homeostasis and opens therapeutic opportunities for glioblastoma

BACKGROUND

Dysregulated cholesterol metabolism is a hallmark of many cancers, including glioblastoma (GBM), but its role in disease progression is not well understood. Here, we identified cholesterol 24-hydroxylase (CYP46A1), a brain-specific enzyme responsible for elimination of cholesterol through conversion of cholesterol to 24(S)-hydroxycholesterol (24OHC), as one of the most dramatically dysregulated cholesterol metabolism genes in GBM.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Molecular and clinical data was obtained from publicly genomic databases. Immunohistochemistry was applied to assess protein levels of CYP46A1 in primary GBM samples. Lentiviral constructs expressing CYP46A1 were transduced into LN229, LN18 and primary GBM GSCs for functional assays carried out in vitro and in vivo in an orthotopic xenograft model. RNA-seq was performed to identify downstream targets of 24OHC.

RESULTS

CYP46A1 was significantly decreased in GBM samples compared to normal brain tissue. Reduced CYP46A1 expression was associated with increasing tumour grade and poor prognosis in GBM patients. Ectopic expression of CYP46A1 suppressed cell proliferation and in vivo tumour growth by increasing 24OHC levels. Treatment of GBM cells with 24OHC suppressed tumour growth through regulation of LXR and SREBP signalling. Efavirenz (EFV), an activator of CYP46A1 with BBB penetration, inhibited GBM growth in vivo.

CONCLUSION

Our findings demonstrate that CYP46A1 is a critical regulator of cellular cholesterol in GBM and that the CYP46A1/24OHC axis is a potential therapeutic target.

P11.57 A 3D brain organoid coculture system delineates the invasive cell components in glioblastoma

BACKGROUND

Glioblastoma (GBM) cell infiltration into the surrounding normal brain tissue where the blood brain barrier is intact, represents a major problem for clinical management and therapy. There is a vital need to understand the molecular mechanism that drives tumor cell invasion into the surrounding brain. We have previously developed a 3D coculture model where mature brain organoids are confronted with patient-derived glioblastoma stem-like cells (GSCs). In such a coculture system, single cell invasion into the normal brain tissue can be studied in detail. Here, we first describe in detail, by RNA-seq and proteomics, the differentiation of various neural cell lineages into mature brain organoids as well as their cellular organization. By real-time confocal microscopy and imaging analyses we also determine the speed of tumor cell invasion into the brain. Finally, we used this coculture system to delineate in detail the cellular heterogeneity within the invasive compartment and their gene expression.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence were used to determine the expression and distribution of mature neurons, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and microglia within the brain organoids. Proteomics and RNA-seq were used to determine brain development ex-vivo. To assess the clonal composition of the GBM-invasive compartment, we used cellular (RGB) barcoding technology. By advanced imaging, we tracked in real time the invasion of barcoded cells into the brain organoids. Finally, we isolated invasive cells and non-invasive cells from our coculture system and used single cell sequencing to analyze their gene expression profiles and molecular phenotypes.

RESULTS

Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence showed that brain organoids, after 21 days of differentiation, display a highly cellular and structural organization. RNA-seq and proteomics, performed at different time points of organoid differentiation, revealed that the brain organoids develop into mature brain structures after 21 days as verified by a comparative analysis to normal rat brain development in vivo. Imaging analyses showed that multiple clones within the GBMs have the capacity to invade into the brain tissue with an average speed of ~ 20 μm/h. RNA-sec analysis of the invasive compartment revealed a strong up-regulation of genes and pathways associated with anaerobic respiration (glycolysis).

CONCLUSION

We describe a highly standardized brain organoid coculture system that can be used to delineate GBM invasion ex-vivo. We demonstrate that this platform can be used to unravel the mechanisms that drive GBM invasion into the normal brain.

[The correlation studies between ambulatory blood pressure and OSA in non-hypertensive patients]

Objective:To discuss the changes and rules of nighttime blood pressure in obstructive sleep apnea(OSA) patients without hypertension.Method:Eighty-nine non-hypertensive patients whose office blood pressure was lower than 130/85 mmHg and diagnose with OSA by PSG in sleep monitoring room were choose as the research group.Forty non-hypertensive and polyp of vocal cord or vocal nodules patients whose office blood pressure was lower than 130/85 mmHg and diagnose with non-OSA by PSG were choose as matched group.All the patients were in treatment in our hospital from December 2017 to June 2018. All the patients got PSG,and the same time got the ambulatory blood pressure monitoring based on pulse transit time all night.Compared the mean value of systolic blood pressure,the mean value of diastolic blood pressure.Higher than 12 mmHg blood pressure rise index,the mean rise in blood pressure. The highest increase in blood pressure, maximum systolic pressure between the study group and the marched group all night.Result:The difference of all the test index between the study group and the marched group was significant(P<0.05).In OSA patients.The difference of all the test index between the severe OSA group and the mild OSA group or the moderate OSA group was significant(P<0.05).In severe OSA group.The difference between the fluctuation of blood pressure caused by respiratory events and spontaneous blood pressure fluctuation was significant(P=0.004).The difference of the mean value of diastolic blood pressure(P=0.032) blood pressure rise index(P=0.037) the mean rise in blood pressure(P=0.045) between age 55 or older patients and under 55years old patients.Conclusion:Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring synchronizatied in PSG contribute to the early diagnosis and prevention of hypertension in OSA patients.

Assessment of the cPAS-based BGISEQ-500 platform for metagenomic sequencing

Background

More extensive use of metagenomic shotgun sequencing in microbiome research relies on the development of high-throughput, cost-effective sequencing. Here we present a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of the new high-throughput sequencing platform BGISEQ-500 for metagenomic shotgun sequencing and compare its performance with that of 2 Illumina platforms.

Findings

Using fecal samples from 20 healthy individuals, we evaluated the intra-platform reproducibility for metagenomic sequencing on the BGISEQ-500 platform in a setup comprising 8 library replicates and 8 sequencing replicates. Cross-platform consistency was evaluated by comparing 20 pairwise replicates on the BGISEQ-500 platform vs the Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform and the Illumina HiSeq 4000 platform. In addition, we compared the performance of the 2 Illumina platforms against each other. By a newly developed overall accuracy quality control method, an average of 82.45 million high-quality reads (96.06% of raw reads) per sample, with 90.56% of bases scoring Q30 and above, was obtained using the BGISEQ-500 platform. Quantitative analyses revealed extremely high reproducibility between BGISEQ-500 intra-platform replicates. Cross-platform replicates differed slightly more than intra-platform replicates, yet a high consistency was observed. Only a low percentage (2.02%–3.25%) of genes exhibited significant differences in relative abundance comparing the BGISEQ-500 and HiSeq platforms, with a bias toward genes with higher GC content being enriched on the HiSeq platforms.

Conclusions

Our study provides the first set of performance metrics for human gut metagenomic sequencing data using BGISEQ-500. The high accuracy and technical reproducibility confirm the applicability of the new platform for metagenomic studies, though caution is still warranted when combining metagenomic data from different platforms.

CD56bright natural killer cells induce HBsAg reduction via cytolysis and cccDNA decay in long-term entecavir-treated patients switching to peginterferon alfa-2a

HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) reduction is well observed in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients treated with pegylated interferon alpha-2a (PegIFNα). However, the mechanism of HBsAg suppression has not been fully elucidated. Twenty-seven of 55 entecavir-treated CHB e antigen positive patients were switched to PegIFNα treatment (Group A) whereas 28 patients continued entecavir treatment (Group B). The percentage or absolute number of CD56^bright /CD56^dim NK cells, expression of receptors and cytokines were evaluated by flow cytometry for 48 weeks and correlated with treatment efficacy. In vitro, purified NK cells were co-cultured with HepAD38 cells for measurement of HBsAg, apoptosis and covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA). In association with a reduction of HBsAg, the percentage and absolute number of CD56^bright NK cells was significantly elevated in patients in group A, especially in Virologic Responders (VRs, HBsAg decreased). Furthermore, the percentage of NKp30⁺ , NKp46⁺ , TRAIL⁺ , TNF-α⁺ and IFNγ⁺ CD56^bright NK cells were significantly expanded in Group A, which were positively correlated with the decline of HBsAg at week 48. In vitro, peripheral NK cells from Group A induced a decline of HBsAg in comparison with NK cells from Group B which was significantly inhibited by anti-TRAIL, anti-TNF-α and anti-IFNγ antibodies. Furthermore, apoptosis of HepAD38 cells and levels of cccDNA, were significantly reduced by TRAIL⁺ and TNF-α⁺ /IFNγ⁺ NK cells from Group A, respectively. A functional restoration of CD56^bright NK cells in entecavir-treated patients who were switched to PegIFNα contributes to HBsAg and cccDNA clearance through TRAIL-induced cytolysis and TNF-α/IFNγ-mediated noncytolytic pathways.