Oncostatin M treatment increases the responsiveness toward cisplatin-based chemoradiotherapy in cervical cancer cells in a STAT3-dependent manner

Proteomic Analysis of Pleural Effusions from COVID-19 Deceased Patients: Enhanced Inflammatory Markers

Critically ill COVID-19 patients with pleural effusion experience longer hospitalization, multisystem inflammatory syndrome, and higher rates of mortality. Generally, pleural effusion can serve as a diagnostic value to differentiate cytokine levels. This study aimed to evaluate the pleural effusions of COVID-19 deceased patients for 182 protein markers. Olink^® Inflammation and Organ Damage panels were used to determine the level of 184 protein markers, e.g., ADA, BTC, CA12, CAPG, CD40, CDCP1, CXCL9, ENTPD2, Flt3L, IL-6, IL-8, LRP1, OSM, PD-L1, PTN, STX8, and VEGFA, which were raised significantly in COVID-19 deceased patients, showing over-stimulation of the immune system and ravaging cytokine storm. The rises of DPP6 and EDIL3 also indicate damage caused to arterial and cardiovascular organs. Overall, this study confirms the elevated levels of CA12, CD40, IL-6, IL-8, PD-L1, and VEGFA, proposing their potential either as biomarkers for the severity and prognosis of the disease or as targets for therapy. Particularly, this study reports upregulated ADA, BTC, DPP6, EDIL3, LIF, ENTPD2, Flt3L, and LRP1 in severe COVID-19 patients for the first time. Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis indicates the involvement of JAK/STAT pathways as a core regulator of hyperinflammation in deceased COVID-19 patients, suggesting the application of JAK inhibitors as a potential efficient treatment.

Single-cell analyses of renal cell cancers reveal insights into tumor microenvironment, cell of origin, and therapy response

Renal cell carcinomas (RCCs) are heterogeneous malignancies thought to arise from kidney tubular epithelial cells, and clear cell RCC is the most common entity. This study demonstrates that cell atlases generated from benign kidney and two common RCCs using single-cell RNA sequencing can predict putative cells of origin for more than 10 RCC subtypes. A focused analysis of distinct cell-type compartments reveals the potential role of tumor epithelia in promoting immune infiltration and other molecular attributes of the tumor microenvironment. Finally, an observed association between the lack of immunotherapy response and endothelial cell fraction has important clinical implications. The current study, therefore, significantly contributes toward understanding disease ontogenies and the molecular dynamics of tumor epithelia and the microenvironment.

Diverse subtypes of renal cell carcinomas (RCCs) display a wide spectrum of histomorphologies, proteogenomic alterations, immune cell infiltration patterns, and clinical behavior. Delineating the cells of origin for different RCC subtypes will provide mechanistic insights into their diverse pathobiology. Here, we employed single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to develop benign and malignant renal cell atlases. Using a random forest model trained on this cell atlas, we predicted the putative cell of origin for more than 10 RCC subtypes. scRNA-seq also revealed several attributes of the tumor microenvironment in the most common subtype of kidney cancer, clear cell RCC (ccRCC). We elucidated an active role for tumor epithelia in promoting immune cell infiltration, potentially explaining why ccRCC responds to immune checkpoint inhibitors, despite having a low neoantigen burden. In addition, we characterized an association between high endothelial cell types and lack of response to immunotherapy in ccRCC. Taken together, these single-cell analyses of benign kidney and RCC provide insight into the putative cell of origin for RCC subtypes and highlight the important role of the tumor microenvironment in influencing ccRCC biology and response to therapy.

Effect of BRCA1 on the Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy Resistance of Cervical Squamous Cell Carcinoma Based on Transcriptome Sequencing Analysis

Background

Cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) is the main pathological type of cervical cancer, accounting for 80%–85% of cervical cancer. Owing to concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) resistance in a subset of CSCC patients, the treatment response is often unsatisfactory. Identifying predictors and therapeutic targets related to cisplatin-based CCRT resistance in CSCC is critical.

Methods

We reanalyzed GSE56363, an mRNA dataset from the GEO database with 21 patients with locally advanced CSCC, to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) related to CCRT resistance. The hub genes were screened from the protein-protein interaction network of DEGs using cytoHubba plug-in of Cytoscape software. Transcriptome sequencing technology was used to compare differential expression between SiHa cells overexpressing BRCA1 compared with control SiHa cells. Functional annotation for DEGs and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed to identify DEG-enriched relative signaling pathways to examine the molecular mechanisms of BRCA1 in CCRT resistance of CSCC. qPCR was used to verify the expression of key genes in SiHa/DDP cells.

Results

A total of 609 DEGs including 223 upregulated DEGs and 386 downregulated DEGs were identified between the complete response to CCRT (CR) and noncomplete response to CCRT (NCR) CSCC patients based on the GSE56363 dataset. Ten hub genes with the highest degrees were identified via the plug-in CytoHubba in Cytoscape: BRCA1, CDCA8, ASPM, CDC45, RAD51, HMMR, CENPF, EXO1, DTL, and ZWINT genes, and BRCA1 ranked first. Through transcriptome sequencing analysis based on GSE141558, 1344 DEGs were identified in BRCA1-overexpressing SiHa cells, including 824 upregulated DEGs and 520 downregulated DEGs. GSEA results showed that CCRT-resistance related signaling pathways, such as the JAK/STAT signaling pathway and the WNT signaling pathway, were differentially enriched in BRCA1-expressing SiHa cells. STAT1, STAT2, and CCND1 were screened as the differentially expressed target genes of BRCA1 and may correlate with resistance of CSCC. qPCR results showed that only STAT1 was significantly increased in SiHa cells with GV230-BRCA1 plasmid transfection.

Conclusion

BRCA1 overexpression in SiHa cells may upregulate STAT1 to activate the JAK/STAT signaling pathway, suggesting a mechanism for enhanced CCRT resistance.