Gene features of tumor-specific T cells relevant to immunotherapy, targeted therapy and chemotherapy in lung cancer

1 Background

In lung cancer, the use of small-molecule inhibitors, chemotherapy and immunotherapy has led to unprecedented survival benefits in selected patients. Considering most patients will experience a relapse within a short period of time due to single drug resistance, combination therapy is also particularly important to improve patient prognosis. Therefore, more robust biomarkers to predict responses to immunotherapy, targeted therapy, chemotherapy and rationally drug combination therapies may be helpful in clinical treatment choices.

2 Methods

We defined tumor-specific T cells (TSTs) and their features (TSTGs) by single-cell RNA sequencing. We applied LASSO regression to filter out the most survival-relevant TSTGs to form the Tumor-specific T cell score (TSTS). Immunological characteristics, enriched pathways, and mutation were evaluated in high- and low TSTS groups.

3 Results

We identified six clusters of T cells as TSTs in lung cancer, and four most robust genes from 9 feature genes expressed only on tumor-specific T cells were screened to construct a tumor-specific T cells score (TSTS). TSTS was positively correlated with immune infiltration and angiogenesis and negatively correlated with malignant cell proliferation. Moreover, potential vascular-immune crosstalk in lung cancer provides the theoretical basis for combined anti-angiogenic and immunotherapy. Noticeable, patients in high TSTS had better response to ICB and targeted therapy and patients in the low TSTS group often benefit from chemotherapy.

4 Conclusion

The proposed TSTS is a promising indicator to predict immunotherapy, targeted therapy and chemotherapy responses in lung cancer patients for helping clinical treatment choices.

[The efficacy of eltrombopag plus cyclosporine A in patients with transfusion-dependent non-severe aplastic anemia: a retrospective study from single center]

The main purpose of our study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of eltrombopag plus cyclosporine A (CsA) in transfusion-dependent non-severe aplastic anemia(TD-NSAA). The clinical characteristics of 13 TD-NSAA patients who received initial treatment of eltrombopag plus CsA from 2019 to 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. The 3-month overall hematological response (OR) rate was 12/13. Until the end of follow-up, 12 patients responded, among whom 2 patients reached complete response (CR) and 9 patients reached partial response (PR) and 1 with HR. Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) developed in one patient at 6 months after treatment. Five of thirteen patients reported mild adverse reactions, which were all manageable. Compared with historical data, the combination of eltrombopag with CsA is an effective regimen in patients with TD-NSAA.

Development and validation of a multivariable predictive model for EGFR gene mutation status in patients with lung adenocarcinoma

Detection of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is one real dilemma owing to the non-sufficient tissue for testing EGFR mutations in lung adenocarcinoma. A model for predicting EGFR mutations would be helpful for clinical decisions in those patients. A retrospective cohort of 1,196 patients diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma was investigated between December 1, 2017, and December 31, 2019, in Renji Hospital, Shanghai, China. All patients were tested for EGFR mutations (amplification refractory mutation system, n = 1,144; next-generation sequence, n = 52). Of 1,196 patients with lung adenocarcinoma, 944 met the inclusion criteria. A nomogram model was developed based on 567 patients and validated in 377 patients. Variables associated with EGFR mutations were age, sex, smoking history, lepidic predominant subtype, solid predominant subtype, mucinous adenocarcinoma, Ki67 expression, lobulation, solid texture in radiology, and pleural retraction. The nomogram based on the model performed well in the development group (c-index 0.789, 95% CI: 0.751-0.827), and the validation group (c-index 0.809, 95% CI: 0.771-0.847). At the probability cut-point of 0.7, the diagnostic efficiency was 82.7% in patients with NGS liquid biopsy. Decision curve analysis (DCA) further confirmed the clinical usefulness of the nomogram, which showed that predicting the EGFR mutations probability applying this nomogram would be better than having all patients or none patients use this nomogram. A high probability group (> 0.7) by nomogram model may suggest a high possibility of EGFR mutation, if tissue is limited, NGS-based ctDNA with liquid biopsy could be implemented effectively.

The predicting roles of carcinoembryonic antigen and its underlying mechanism in the progression of coronavirus disease 2019

BACKGROUND

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has induced a worldwide epidemiological event with a high infectivity and mortality. However, the predicting biomarkers and their potential mechanism in the progression of COVID-19 are not well known.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study is to identify the candidate predictors of COVID-19 and investigate their underlying mechanism.

METHODS

The retrospective study was conducted to identify the potential laboratory indicators with prognostic values of COVID-19 disease. Then, the prognostic nomogram was constructed to predict the overall survival of COVID-19 patients. Additionally, the scRNA-seq data of BALF and PBMCs from COVID-19 patients were downloaded to investigate the underlying mechanism of the most important prognostic indicators in lungs and peripherals, respectively.

RESULTS

In total, 304 hospitalized adult COVID-19 patients in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital were included in the retrospective study. CEA was the only laboratory indicator with significant difference in the univariate (P < 0.001) and multivariate analysis (P = 0.020). The scRNA-seq data of BALF and PBMCs from COVID-19 patients were downloaded to investigate the underlying mechanism of CEA in lungs and peripherals, respectively. The results revealed the potential roles of CEA were significantly distributed in type II pneumocytes of BALF and developing neutrophils of PBMCs, participating in the progression of COVID-19 by regulating the cell-cell communication.

CONCLUSION

This study identifies the prognostic roles of CEA in COVID-19 patients and implies the potential roles of CEACAM8-CEACAM6 in the progression of COVID-19 by regulating the cell-cell communication of developing neutrophils and type II pneumocyte.

A bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer of publications on COVID-19

Background

As a global pandemic, COVID-19 has aroused great concern in the last few months and a growing number of related researches have been published. Therefore, a bibliometric analysis of these publications may provide a direction of hot topics and future research trends.

Methods

The global literatures about COVID-19 published between 2019 and 2020 were scanned in the Web of Science collection database. “COVID-19” “Novel Coronavirus” “2019-nCoV” and “SARS-CoV-2” were used as the keywords to reach the relevant publications. VOSviewer was applied to perform the bibliometric analysis of these articles.

Results

Totally 3,626 publications on the topic of COVID-19 were identified and “COVID-19” with a total link strength of 2,649 appeared as the most frequent keyword, which had a strong link to “pneumonia” and “epidemiology”. The mean citation count of the top 100 most cited articles was 96 (range, 26–883). Most of them were descriptive studies and concentrated on the clinical features. The highest-ranking journal was British medical journal with 211 publications and the most cited journal was Lancet with 2,485 citation counts. Eleven articles written by Christian Drosten from Berlin Institute of Virology have been cited for 389 times and 40 articles from Chinese Academy of Sciences have been cited for 1,597 times which are the most cited author and organization. The number of collaborators with China is 44 and the total link strength is 487. The main partners of China are USA, England and Germany. The published literatures have focused on three topics: disease management, clinical features and pathogenesis.

Conclusions

The current growth trends predict a large increase in the number of global publications on COVID-19. China made the most outstanding contribution within this important field. Disease treatment, spike protein and vaccine may be hotspots in the future.

Size-dependent influence of NOx on the growth rates of organic aerosol particles

Atmospheric new-particle formation (NPF) affects climate by contributing to a large fraction of the cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs) drive the early particle growth and therefore substantially influence the survival of newly formed particles to CCN. Nitrogen oxide (NOx) is known to suppress the NPF driven by HOMs, but the underlying mechanism remains largely unclear. Here, we examine the response of particle growth to the changes of HOM formation caused by NOx. We show that NOx suppresses particle growth in general, but the suppression is rather nonuniform and size dependent, which can be quantitatively explained by the shifted HOM volatility after adding NOx. By illustrating how NOx affects the early growth of new particles, a critical step of CCN formation, our results help provide a refined assessment of the potential climatic effects caused by the diverse changes of NOx level in forest regions around the globe.

GM1 ganglioside regulates the proteolysis of amyloid precursor protein

Plaques containing amyloid beta-peptides (Abeta) are a major feature in Alzheimer's disease (AD), and GM1 ganglioside is an important component of cellular plasma membranes and especially enriched in lipid raft. GM1-bound Abeta (GM1/Abeta), found in brains exhibiting early pathological changes of AD including diffuse plaques, has been suggested to be involved in the initiation of amyloid fibril formation in vivo by acting as a seed. However, the role of GM1 in amyloid beta-protein precursor (APP) processing is not yet defined. In this study, we report that exogenous GM1 ganglioside promotes Abeta biogenesis and decreases sAPPalpha secretion in SH-SY5Y and COS7 cells stably transfected with human APP695 cDNA without affecting full-length APP and the sAPPbeta levels. We also observe that GM1 increases extracellular levels of Abeta in primary cultures of mixed rat cortical neurons transiently transfected with human APP695 cDNA. These findings suggest a regulatory role for GM1 in APP processing pathways.

Analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the particulate phase of cigarette smoke using a gas chromatographic-high-resolution mass spectrometric technique

A new procedure is developed for the extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the particulate phase of cigarette smoke. The procedure applies solid-phase extraction using a Bond Elut CH cartridge as a sample preparation step. The efficiency of the cleanup procedure is verified using a gas chromatographic (GC)-high-resolution mass spectrometric (MS) technique, proving that no interference occurs in the PAHs' determination. The efficient cleanup allows GC detection using either high- or low-resolution MS detection. Enhanced sensitivity is obtained using GC-MS and selected ion monitoring. This new technique has several advantages over other reported techniques. The method is simple and robust and has good repeatability and accuracy. The estimated detection limit is 0.1 ng/cigarette for benzo[a]pyrene. In addition to that, the recovery from the smoke pad in which the smoke is collected is approximately 97% for all PAHs. Results for the PAH analyses for 1R5F, 1R4F, and 1R3 Kentucky reference cigarettes are reported in this study. These results provide useful evidence for clarifying the controversy about previously reported data.