Heat shock transcription factor 2 predicts mucosal healing and promotes mucosal repair of ulcerative colitis.

Background: Mucosal healing(MH) is a treatment goal in ulcerative colitis (UC). Our previous studies showed heat shock transcription factor 2 (HSF2) was positively correlated with the activity of UC and had anti-inflammatory potential in DSS-induced colitis, but the role of HSF2 in MH remains unknown. This study aimed to reveal the predictive value and mechanisms of HSF2 in the MH of UC.Methods: Fecal samples were collected from 51 UC patients and 10 healthy controls. Correlation analyses among HSF2, fecal calprotectin(FC) and Mayo endoscopic subscore(MES) were conducted by Pearson correlation coefficient. Diagnostic accuracy and cutoffs to predict MH were analyzed by ROC curves. 231 UC patients were enrolled to verify the diagnostic validity of the cutoffs. HSF2 siRNA and HSF2-FLAG recombinant plasmids were transfected into HT-29 cells. IL-1ß, TNF-α and TGF-ß levels in supernatants were determined by ELISA. The expression and phosphorylation levels of MAPKs and Smad2/3 were detected by Western blotting.Results: Positive correlations existed between HSF2 and MES (r = 0.81), FC and MES (r = 0.85), and HSF2 and FC (r = 0.91). Optimal cutoffs of HSF2 was 1.97 ng/ml (AUC 0.919) and that of FC was 678 µg/g (AUC 0.958). HSF2 and FC achieved high sensitivity (73.7% vs 84.2%) and negative predictive value (89.1% vs 93.9%). HSF2 decreased IL-1ß and TNF-α secretion via suppression of MAPK signaling pathway activation. HSF2 promoted the expression of TGF-ß via increasing phosphorylation of Smad2/3.Conclusions: HSF2 may be a predictor of MH in UC patients. HSF2 inhibited inflammation and promoted mucosal repair.

Testing the neutral theory of biodiversity with the microbiome dataset from cystic fibrosis patients.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a hereditary disease that is characterized by defective mucociliary clearance, airway obstruction, chronic infection, and persistent inflammation. Cystic fibrosis pulmonary exacerbation (CFPE) majorly causes the morbidity of CF patients. Although CF has been demonstrated to change the composition of lung microbial community, previous studies have not made efforts to study the differences in the mechanism of assembly and diversity maintenance of lung microbial community in CF patients. In this study, we applied the neutral theory of biodiversity to comparatively investigate the assembly and diversity maintenance of the lung microbial community before and after the antibiotic treatment by reanalyzing the dataset from Fodor et al's study. We found that no one sample in the lung microbial communities of the sputum samples of Exacerbation group, nor those of End-of-treatment group satisfied the predictions of neutral model, suggesting that the neutral-process does not dominate in CF patients before and after antibiotic treatments. By comparing the biodiversity parameter between Exacerbation and End-of-treatment group, we found that the former had the significantly higher biodiversity, but the change in diversity parameter is slight and the P value is close to.05 (P value = .41). Therefore, our second finding is that although CFPE may increase the biodiversity of lung microbial community, the change is not essential.

Withaferin A induces apoptosis by ROS-dependent mitochondrial dysfunction in human colorectal cancer cells.

Withaferin A (WA) is an active steroidal lactone derived from the herbal plant Withania somnifera, which exhibits antitumor activity with reactive oxygen species (ROS) modulating in a variety of cancer models, such as breast cancer, lung cancer and pancreatic cancer. However, to the best of our knowledge, the direct effect and mechanism of WA on CRC cells has not been previously determined. The present study investigated the anti-tumor effects of WA on CRC cells in vitro, and explored the mechanisms of action. The flow cytometry was applied for detecting the accumulation of ROS with the treatment of withaferin A. We performed the flow cytometry and western blot to evaluate the withaferin A induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in human colon cancer cells. And to verify the ROS accumulation induced mitochondrial dysfunction after the treatment of withaferin A, fluorescence microscope and western blot were applied. WA exerted a dose-dependent cytotoxic effect on HCT-116 and RKO cells. The effect was associated with ROS-mediated cell cycle arrest and the expression of apoptotic proteins. In addition, WA promoted ROS production and decreased mitochondrial membrane potential accompanying with mitochondrial dysfunction. Taken together, these results strongly indicated that WA directly inhibits cell growth and induces apoptosis in CRC cells through ROS-mediated mitochondrial dysfunction and JNKs pathway, and WA may be a promising potential candidate for therapeutic application of CRC.

Identification of Environmental Factors Associated with Inflammatory Bowel Disease in a Southwestern Highland Region of China: A Nested Case-Control Study.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to examine environmental factors associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Yunnan Province, a southwestern highland region of China. METHODS: In this nested case-control study, newly diagnosed ulcerative colitis (UC) cases in 2 cities in Yunnan Province and Crohn's disease (CD) cases in 16 cities in Yunnan Province were recruited between 2008 and 2013. Controls were matched by geography, sex and age at a ratio of 1:4. Data were collected using the designed questionnaire. Conditional logistic regression models were used to estimate adjusted odds ratios (ORs). RESULTS: A total of 678 UC and 102 CD cases were recruited. For UC, various factors were associated with an increased risk of developing UC: dietary habits, including frequent irregular meal times; consumption of fried foods, salty foods and frozen dinners; childhood factors, including intestinal infectious diseases and frequent use of antibiotics; and other factors, such as mental labor, high work stress, use of non-aspirin non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and allergies (OR > 1, p < 0.05). Other factors showed a protective effect: such as consumption of fruits, current smoking, physical activity, and drinking tea (OR < 1, p < 0.05). For CD, appendectomy and irregular meal times increased the disease risk (OR >1, p < 0.05), whereas physical activity may have reduced this risk (OR < 1, p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first nested case-control study to analyze the association between environmental factors and IBD onset in a southwestern highland region of China. Certain dietary habits, lifestyles, allergies and childhood factors may play important roles in IBD, particularly UC.