The receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) AXL has been intrinsically linked to epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and promoting cell survival, anoikis resistance, invasion, and metastasis in several ...cancers. AXL signaling has been shown to directly affect the mesenchymal state and confer it with aggressive phenotype and drug resistance. Recently, the EMT gradient has also been shown to rewire the kinase signaling nodes that facilitate AXL-RTK cross-talk, protracted signaling, converging on ERK, and PI3K axes. The molecular mechanisms underplaying the regulation between the kinome and EMT require further elucidation to define targetable conduits. Therapeutically, as AXL inhibition has shown EMT reversal and resensitization to other tyrosine kinase inhibitors, mitotic inhibitors, and platinum-based therapy, there is a need to stratify patients based on AXL dependence. This review elucidates the role of AXL in EMT-mediated oncogenesis and highlights the reciprocal control between AXL signaling and the EMT state. In addition, we review the potential in inhibiting AXL for the development of different therapeutic strategies and inhibitors.
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Autophagy is a cellular process that targets proteins, lipids and organelles to lysosomes for degradation, but it has also been shown to combat infection with various pathogenic bacteria. In turn, ...bacteria have developed diverse strategies to avoid autophagy by interfering with autophagy signalling or the autophagy machinery and, in some cases, they even exploit autophagy for their growth. In this Review, we discuss canonical and non-canonical autophagy pathways and our current knowledge of antibacterial autophagy, with a focus on the interplay between bacterial factors and autophagy components.
Ovarian clear cell carcinoma (OCCC) is a distinct histotype of ovarian cancer, which usually presages a worse prognosis upon recurrence. Identifying patients at risk for relapse is an unmet need to ...improve outcomes. A retrospective cohort analysis of 195 early‐stage OCCC patients diagnosed between January 2011 and December 2019 at National Taiwan University Hospital was conducted to identify prognostic factors for recurrence, progression‐free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Molecular profiling of tumors was performed in a case‐controlled cohort matched for adjuvant therapy for biomarker discovery. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard model revealed that paclitaxel‐based chemotherapy was associated with better PFS than nonpaclitaxel chemotherapy (HR = 0.19, P = .006). The addition of bevacizumab was associated with better PFS, compared to no bevacizumab (HR = 0.09, P = .02). Neither showed significant improvement in OS. Recurrence is associated with an Immune‐Hot tumor feature (P = .03), the CTLA‐4‐high subtype (P = .01) and increased infiltration of immune cells in general. The Immune‐Hot feature (HR = 3.39, P = .005) and the CTLA‐4‐high subtype (HR = 2.13, P = .059) were associated with worse PFS. Immune‐Hot tumor features could prognosticate recurrence in early‐stage OCCC.
What's new?
While adjuvant irradiation can improve progression‐free survival (PFS) in ovarian clear cell carcinoma (OCCC), control of metastatic disease remains a challenge. Especially problematic is the lack of optimal treatment for recurrent OCCC. In the present retrospective analysis, the addition of bevacizumab to paclitaxel‐based chemotherapy was associated with improved PFS in early‐stage OCCC patients. Moreover, molecular profiling revealed correlations between OCCC recurrence and immune‐hot tumor feature, CTLA‐4‐high subtype and increased immune cell infiltration. The findings suggest that immune profiling can help identify OCCC patients who are at risk for relapse and who may benefit from combined paclitaxel‐based chemotherapy and bevacizumab therapy.
The Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) is a novel class of Internet of Things (IoT), and is defined as the network of smart interconnected underwater objects. IoUT is expected to enable various ...practical applications, such as environmental monitoring, underwater exploration, and disaster prevention. With these applications, IoUT is regarded as one of the potential technologies toward developing smart cities. To support the concept of IoUT, Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) have emerged as a promising network system. UWSNs are different from the traditional Territorial Wireless Sensor Networks (TWSNs), and have several unique properties, such as long propagation delay, narrow bandwidth, and low reliability. These unique properties would be great challenges for IoUT. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive study of IoUT, and the main contributions of this paper are threefold: (1) we introduce and classify the practical underwater applications that can highlight the importance of IoUT; (2) we point out the differences between UWSNs and traditional TWSNs, and these differences are the main challenges for IoUT; and (3) we investigate and evaluate the channel models, which are the technical core for designing reliable communication protocols on IoUT.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) contain specific proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids that can be passed to other cells as signal molecules to alter their function. However, there are many problems and ...challenges in the conversion and clinical application of EVs. Storage and protection of EVs is one of the issues that need further research. To adapt to potential clinical applications, this type of problem must be solved. This review summarizes the storage practices of EVs in recent years, and explains the impact of temperature on the quality and stability of EVs during storage based on current research, and explains the potential mechanisms involved in this effect as much as possible.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) contain specific proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids that can be passed to other cells as signal molecules to alter their function. However, there are many problems and challenges in the conversion and clinical application of EVs. Storage and protection of EVs is one of the issues that need further research. To adapt to potential clinical applications, this type of problem must be solved. Here, we briefly review EVs' biogenesis, contents, subtypes and effect of storage temperature on its quality and stability, as well as application of cryoprotectants in EVs cryopreservation, and specifically focus on the mechanism by which storage temperature affects the quality and stability of EVs.
Intuitionistic fuzzy information aggregation plays an important part in the intuitionistic fuzzy set theory, which has emerged to be a new research direction receiving more and more attention in ...recent years. In this paper, we first introduce some operations on the intuitionistic fuzzy sets, such as Hamacher sum, Hamacher product, Hamacher exponentiation, etc., and further develop some new Hamacher aggregation operators, such as the intuitionistic fuzzy Hamacher weighted averaging (IFHWA) operator, the intuitionistic fuzzy Hamacher ordered weighted averaging (IFHOWA) operator and the intuitionistic fuzzy Hamacher hybrid averaging (IFHHA) operator. We also establish some desirable properties of these operators, such as commutativity, idempotency and monotonicity, and give some numerical examples to illustrate the developed aggregation operators. Then, we apply the intuitionistic fuzzy Hamacher hybrid averaging (IFHHA) operator to deal with multiple attribute decision making with Intuitionistic fuzzy information. Finally, an illustrative example for evaluating the enterprise financial performance is given to verify the developed approach and to demonstrate its practicality and effectiveness.
Epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a reversible and dynamic process hypothesized to be co‐opted by carcinoma during invasion and metastasis. Yet, there is still no quantitative measure to ...assess the interplay between EMT and cancer progression. Here, we derived a method for universal EMT scoring from cancer‐specific transcriptomic EMT signatures of ovarian, breast, bladder, lung, colorectal and gastric cancers. We show that EMT scoring exhibits good correlation with previously published, cancer‐specific EMT signatures. This universal and quantitative EMT scoring was used to establish an EMT spectrum across various cancers, with good correlation noted between cell lines and tumours. We show correlations between EMT and poorer disease‐free survival in ovarian and colorectal, but not breast, carcinomas, despite previous notions. Importantly, we found distinct responses between epithelial‐ and mesenchymal‐like ovarian cancers to therapeutic regimes administered with or without paclitaxel in vivo and demonstrated that mesenchymal‐like tumours do not always show resistance to chemotherapy. EMT scoring is thus a promising, versatile tool for the objective and systematic investigation of EMT roles and dynamics in cancer progression, treatment response and survival.
Synopsis
A novel EMT scoring method reveals that EMT status does not unanimously correlate with poorer overall and disease‐free survival. Different EMTed tumours show distinct responses to certain chemotherapeutics, with the potential to stratify patients by EMT status.
A novel scoring method was developed based on transcriptomics to universally estimate and compare the Epithelial‐Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) phenotype across cancer types.
A spectrum of EMT was established across more than 15 cancers using this EMT scoring method.
Correlations of EMT status with poorer overall‐ and disease‐free survival were not unanimously observed in all cancers.
Differential and preferential responses of EMTed tumours to certain chemotherapeutics were observed, suggesting the potential to stratify patients by EMT status.
A novel EMT scoring method reveals that EMT status does not unanimously correlate with poorer overall and disease‐free survival. Different EMTed tumours show distinct responses to certain chemotherapeutics, with the potential to stratify patients by EMT status.
White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is the causative agent of white spot syndrome (WSS), a disease that has led to severe mortality rates in cultured shrimp all over the world. The WSSV is a large, ...ellipsoid, enveloped double-stranded DNA virus with a wide host range among crustaceans. Currently, the main antiviral method is to block the receptor of the host cell membrane using recombinant viral proteins or virus antiserum. In addition to interference with the ligand-receptor binding, disrupting the structure of the virus envelope may also be a means to combat the viral infection. Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are carbonaceous nanoparticles that have many advantageous characteristics, including small size, low cytotoxicity, cheap, and ease of production and modification. Polyamine-modified CQDs (polyamine CQDs) with strong antibacterial ability have been identified, previously. In this study, polyamine CQDs are shown to attach to the WSSV envelope and inhibit the virus infection, with a dose-dependent effect. The results also show that polyamine CQDs can upregulate several immune genes in shrimp and reduce the mortality upon WSSV infection. This is first study to identify that polyamine CQDs could against the virus. These results, indeed, provide a direction to develop effective antiviral strategies or therapeutic methods using polyamine CQDs in aquaculture.
The ability to actively cope with cancer has been extensively associated with better patient‐reported outcomes (PROs). This systematic review aims to synthesise the available literature assessing the ...experience of cancer patients from racial‐ethnic minoritised groups. Given the role of sociocontextual factors, greater emphasis was placed on the relationship between family communication and cancer patients’ coping within the three largest racial‐ethnic minority groups in the United States. Five databases (CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PubMed, Web of Science) were used to search for peer‐reviewed empirical studies published between 2008 and 2021, investigating family communication patterns, coping, and well‐being among Black/African American, Asian, and Hispanic/Latinx cancer survivors. Short reports, chapters, s/summaries, systematic reviews, and conference proceedings were excluded. This review was guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses Statement (PRISMA). The Criteria for Critically Appraising Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses were used to assess the quality and risk of bias in the included studies. The synthesis process focused on study aims, methods, measures of interests, sample characteristics, data analysis, and study findings. A total of 117 articles were identified, of which 9 met the inclusion criteria. The selected articles were cross‐sectional, implementing both quantitative and qualitative designs. Studies included breast, prostate, and mixed cancer types. Sample sizes of quantitative studies ranged from 64 to 338 respondents, while qualitative studies’ samples ranged between 9 and 43 participants. Family communication and coping styles varied across minoritised groups, with open family communication contributing to effective individual and family coping. However, empirical evidence about the nature and contribution of family communication to the coping process is sparse. Future research is needed to increase knowledge and psychosocial assessment techniques and interventions targeting family communication and coping among minority communities.
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