ABSTRACT
Background: Although epidermal growth factor (EGF) controls many crucial processes in the human body, it can increase the risk of developing cancer when overexpresses. Objectives: This study focused on detecting cancer-associated genes that are dysregulated by EGF overexpression. Materials and Methods: To identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs), two independent meta-analyses with normal and cancer RNA-Seq samples treated by EGF were conducted. The new DEGs detected only via two meta-analyses were used in all downstream analyses. To reach count data, the tools of FastQC, Trimmomatic, HISAT2, SAMtools, and HTSeq-count were employed. DEGs in each individual RNA-Seq study and the meta-analysis of RNA-Seq studies were identified using DESeq2 and metaSeq R package, respectively. MCODE detected densely interconnected top clusters in the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of DEGs obtained from normal and cancer datasets. The DEGs were then introduced to Enrichr and ClueGO/CluePedia, and terms, pathways, and hub genes enriched in Gene Ontology (GO) and KEGG and Reactome were detected. Results: The meta-analysis of normal and cancer datasets revealed 990 and 541 new DEGs, all upregulated. A number of DEGs were enriched in protein K48-linked deubiquitination, ncRNA processing, ribosomal large subunit binding, and protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum. Hub genes overexpression (DHX33, INTS8, NMD3, OTUD4, P4HB, RPS3A, SEC13, SKP1, USP34, USP9X, and YOD1) in tumor samples were validated by TCGA and GTEx databases. Overall survival and disease-free survival analysis also confirmed worse survival in patients with hub genes overexpression. Conclusions: The detected hub genes could be used as cancer biomarkers when EGF overexpresses.
ABSTRACT
Different core-shell nanoparticles with Au as core and stimuli-responsive polymers such as poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), poly(methacrylic acid) (PMAA), poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm), poly(N,N'-methylenebis(acrylamide)) (PMBA), poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) and poly((2-dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate) (PDMAEMA) as shells were fabricated via inverse emulsion polymerization. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) was used to investigate particles sizes and particle size distributions and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was applied to observe the core-shell structure of Au-polymer nanoparticles. Also, surface charge of all samples was studied by measurement of zeta potentials. Synthesized core-shell nanoparticles were utilized as nanocarriers of DOX as anti-cancer drug and drug release behaviors were investigated in dark room and under irradiation of near-infrared (NIR) light. Results showed that all core-shell samples have particle sizes less than 100â¯nm with narrow particle size distributions. Moreover, amount of drug loading decreased by increasing zeta potential. In dark room, lower pH resulted in higher cumulative drug release due to better solubility of DOX in acidic media. Also, NIR lighting on DOX-loaded samples led to increasing cumulative drug release significantly. However, DOX-loaded Au-PAA and Au-PMAA showed higher drug release at pHâ¯=â¯7.4 compared to 5.3 under NIR lighting.
