ADEIP: an integrated platform of age-dependent expression and immune profiles across human tissues.

Gene expression and immune status in human tissues are changed with aging. There is a need to develop a comprehensive platform to explore the dynamics of age-related gene expression and immune profiles across tissues in genome-wide studies. Here, we collected RNA-Seq datasets from GTEx project, containing 16 704 samples from 30 major tissues in six age groups ranging from 20 to 79 years old. Dynamic gene expression along with aging were depicted and gene set enrichment analysis was performed among those age groups. Genes from 34 known immune function categories and immune cell compositions were investigated and compared among different age groups. Finally, we integrated all the results and developed a platform named ADEIP (http://gb.whu.edu.cn/ADEIP or http://geneyun.net/ADEIP), integrating the age-dependent gene expression and immune profiles across tissues. To demonstrate the usage of ADEIP, we applied two datasets: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and human mesenchymal stem cells-assoicated genes. We also included the expression and immune dynamics of these genes in the platform. Collectively, ADEIP is a powerful platform for studying age-related immune regulation in organogenesis and other infectious or genetic diseases.

Circular RNA circYPEL2: A Novel Biomarker in Cervical Cancer.

Cervical cancer (CC) is one of the most threatening diseases in women. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been reported to be cancer hallmarks, but typical circRNAs in CC were rarely indicated. Through high-throughput sequencing in CC and normal cervix tissues, circYPEL2 (hsa_circ_0005600) was proposed as a candidate circRNA. CircYPEL2 exhibited significantly high expression in CC tissue and strong stability in CC cell lines. Furthermore, knockdown and overexpression of circYPEL2 indicated the potential involvement in CC proliferation, migration and invasion. Finally, the downstream regulatory genes of circYPEL2 were investigated by knockdown experiment in CC cell lines with high-throughput sequencing. In summary, our work identified circYPEL2 as a potential biomarker for clinical research of cervical cancer.

Prognostic and clinicopathologic significance of MicroRNA-125a-5p in cancers: A meta-analysis.

The aim of the study was to estimate the prognostic and clinicopathologic significance of miR-125a-5p in human cancers. Eligible studies were obtained from PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library. Combined hazard ratios (HRs) and odds ratios (ORs) were used to evaluate the prognostic and clinicopathologic value of miR-125a-5p. In pan-cancer, high miR-125a-5p expression was associated with better overall survival (OS) (HR = 0.459, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.369-0.57, P < .001), and disease-free survival (HR = 0.343, 95% CI: 0.237-0.496, P < .001). Furthermore, favorable OS was also found in lung cancer (HR = 0.343, 95% CI: 0.228-0.517, P < .001) and gastric cancer (HR = 0.341, 95% CI: 0.160-0.725, P = .005) patients with high miR-125a-5p expression. Besides, high miR-125a-5p expression was correlated with early stage (OR = 0.413, 95% CI: 0.228-0.749, P = .004) and negative lymph node metastasis (OR = 0.262, 95% CI: 0.073-0.941, P = .04) in gastric cancer, and was linked with better tumor differentiation in pan-cancer (OR = 1.623, 95% CI: 1.064-2.476, P = .025) and lung cancer (OR = 2.371, 95% CI: 1.358-4.141, P = .002). In conclusion, miR-125a-5p is a tumor suppressor with prognostic and clinicopathologic values for human cancer, and miR-125a-5p overexpression predicted favorable prognosis, early stage, negative lymph node metastasis, and better tumor differentiation. More research should be conducted to test these results.

Study on interaction between curcumin and pepsin by spectroscopic and docking methods.

The interaction between curcumin and pepsin was investigated by fluorescence, synchronous fluorescence, UV-vis absorption, circular dichroism (CD), and molecular docking. Under physiological pH value in stomach, the fluorescence of pepsin can be quenched effectively by curcumin via a combined quenching process. Binding constant (Ka) and binding site number (n) of curcumin to pepsin were obtained. According to the theory of Förster's non-radiation energy transfer, the distance r between pepsin and curcumin was found to be 2.45 nm within the curcumin-pepsin complex, which implies that the energy transfer occurs between curcumin and pepsin, leading to the quenching of pepsin fluorescence. Fluorescence experiments also suggest that curcumin is located more closely to tryptophan residues than tyrosine residues. CD spectra together with UV-vis absorbance studies show that binding of curcumin to pepsin results in the extension of peptide strands of pepsin with loss of some ß-sheet structures. Thermodynamic parameters calculated from the binding constants at different temperatures reveal that hydrophobic force plays a major role in stabilizing the curcumin-pepsin complex. In addition, docking results support the above experimental findings and suggest the possible hydrogen bonds of curcumin with Thr-77, Thr-218, and Glu-287 of pepsin, which help further stabilize the curcumin-pepsin complex.