Circular RNA circ_0006168 accelerates the development of hepatocellular carcinoma through sponging microRNA-125b.

This study explored the role of circular RNA circ_0006168 in the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its interaction with microRNA-125b. The expression of circ_0006168 was examined in 42 pairs of HCC tumor and adjacent tissue specimens using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Elevated circ_0006168 expression in HCC tissues was significantly associated with advanced pathological staging and lower overall survival rates. Lentivirus-mediated circ_0006168 knockdown in HCC cell lines (Hep3B and Huh7) demonstrated a notable reduction in cell proliferation and an increase in apoptosis. MicroRNA-125b expression exhibited a marked reduction in HCC tissues, negatively correlating with circ_0006168 levels. Luciferase reporting assays indicated that circ_0006168 was a direct target of microRNA-125b. Additionally, cell recovery experiments suggested a reciprocal regulation between circ_0006168 and microRNA-125b, contributing to the accelerated malignant progression of HCC. The study underscored the significantly increased expression of circ_0006168 in both HCC tissues and cell lines, highlighting its association with advanced pathological stages and poor prognosis in HCC patients. Furthermore, circ_0006168 appeared to play a pivotal role in elevating the proliferation rate of HCC cells through its modulation of microRNA-125b. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying HCC development and may offer potential therapeutic targets for intervention.

Risk and prognostic factors in patients with colon cancer with liver metastasis.

OBJECTIVE: The most common site of metastasis in patients with colon cancer is the liver. This study aimed to identify patients with colon cancer at high risk of developing liver metastasis and to explore their prognosis. METHODS: The clinical characteristics, treatment methods and survival outcomes of patients diagnosed with colon cancer from 2010 to 2015 were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. Patients were divided into two groups according to the presence of liver metastasis, and multivariate logistic and Cox regression models were used to identify risk and prognostic factors. RESULTS: A total of 60,018 patients with colon cancer were selected from the SEER database. The incidence of liver metastasis was 9.2%. African American ethnicity, poor differentiation, higher tumor stage, higher lymph node ratio, and lung metastases were common factors associated with both liver metastasis risk and prognosis. CONCLUSIONS: Metastasectomy might improve survival among patients with colon cancer with resectable liver metastasis lesions and no other organ involvement.

LPS-pretreatment adipose-derived mesenchymal stromal cells promote wound healing in diabetic rats by improving angiogenesis.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) play a key role in wound healing, and the advantages of pretreated MSCs in wound healing have previously been reported. In the present study, we investigated the impact of LPS pretreated human adipose-derived MSCs on skin wound healing in diabetic rats. We found that some improvements occurred through improving angiogenesis. Then, we scrutinized the impact of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treatment on human adipose-derived MSCs in a high-glucose (HG) medium, as an in vitro diabetic model. In vivo findings revealed significant improvements in epithelialization and angiogenesis of diabetic wounds which received LPS pre-MSCs. Particularly, LPS pre-MSCs-treated diabetic wounds reached considerably higher percentages of wound closure. Also, the granulation tissue of these wounds had higher pronounced epithelialization and more vascularization compared with PBS-treated and MSCs-treated diabetic ones by CD31, VEGF, CD90, collagen 1, and collagen 3 immunostaining. Western-blots analyses indicated that LPS pre-MSCs led to the upregulation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and DNMT1. In addition, significantly higher cell viability (proliferation/colonie), and elevated VEGF and DNMT1 protein expression were observed when MSCs were treated with LPS (10 ng/ml, 6 h) in HG culture media. Based on these findings, it is suggested that LPS pre-MSCs could promote wound repair and skin regeneration, in some major processes, via the improvement of cellular behaviors of MSCs in the diabetic microenvironment. The beneficial advantages of LPS treated with mesenchymal stem cells on wound healing may lead to establishing a novel approach as an alternative therapeutic procedure to cure chronic wounds in diabetic conditions.

Rumen Microbial Metabolic Responses of Dairy Cows to the Honeycomb Flavonoids Supplement Under Heat-Stress Conditions.

Flavonoids played critical roles in stabilizing microbial homoeostasis when animals suffered exoteric stresses. However, whether flavonoids attenuated heat stress of dairy cows is still not clear. Therefore, in the present article, flavonoids extracted from honeycomb were supplemented to investigate the production, digestibility, and rumen microbial metabolism responses of cows under heat stress conditions. A total of 600 multiparous dairy herds were randomly allotted into the control treatment (CON), the heat stress (HS) treatment, and the honeycomb flavonoids supplement under heat stress conditions (HF) treatment for a 30-day-long trial. Each treatment contains 4 replicates, with 50 cows in each replicate. Production performances including dry matter intake (DMI), milk production, and milk quality were measured on the basis of replicate. Furthermore, two cows of each replicate were selected for the measurement of the nutrient digestibility, the ruminal fermentable parameters including ruminal pH, volatile fatty acids, and ammonia-N, and the rumen microbial communities and metabolism. Results showed that HF effectively increased DMI, milk yield, milk fat, and ruminal acetate content (p < 0.05) compared with HS. Likewise, digestibility of NDF was promoted after HF supplement compared with HS. Furthermore, relative abundances of rumen microbial diversities especially Succiniclasticum, Pseudobutyrivibrio, Acetitomaculum, Streptococcus, and Succinivibrio, which mainly participated in energy metabolism, significantly improved after HF supplement. Metabolomic investigation showed that HF supplement significantly upregulated relative content of lipometabolic-related metabolites such as phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylserine, and phosphatidylethanolamine, while it downregulated biogenic amines. In summary, HF supplement helps proliferate microbial abundances, which further promoted fiber digestibility and energy provision, and ultimately enhances the production performances of dairy cows under heat stress conditions.

Gastrointestinal Development and Microbiota Responses of Geese to Honeycomb Flavonoids Supplementation.

Background: Geese are conventionally considered to be herbivorous, which could also be raised with concentrate feeding diets without green grass because of the similar gastrointestinal tract with other poultry. However, the geese gut microbiota profiles and their interactions with epithelial cells are still of limited study. Flavonoids were well-documented to shape gut microbiota and promote epithelial barrier functions individually or cooperatively with other metabolites. Therefore, in the present study, honeycomb flavonoids (HF) were supplemented to investigate the effects on growth performances, intestinal development, and gut microbiome of geese. Material and Methods: A total of 400 1-day-old male lion-head geese with similar birth weight (82.6 ± 1.4 g) were randomly divided into five treatments: the control treatment (CON) and the HF supplementation treatments, HF was supplemented arithmetically to increase from 0.25 to 1%. Growth performance, carcass performances, and intestines' development parameters were measured to determine the optimum supplement. Junction proteins including ZO-1 and ZO-2 and cecal microbiota were investigated to demonstrate the regulatory effects of HF on both microbiota and intestinal epithelium. Results: Results showed that 0.5% of HF supplement had superior growth performance, carcass performance, and the total parameters of gastrointestinal development to other treatments. Further research showed that tight junction proteins including ZO-1 and ZO-2 significantly up-regulated, while Firmicutes and some probiotics including Clostridiales, Streptococcus, Lachnoclostridium, and Bifidobacterium, remarkably proliferated after HF supplement. In conclusion, HF supplement in concentrate-diet feeding geese effectively increased the growth performances by regulating the gut microbiota to increase the probiotic abundance to promote the nutrient digestibility and fortify the epithelial development and barrier functions to facilitate the nutrient absorption and utilization.