Extracranial metastasis of pediatric glioblastoma: case report and literature review.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a rare primary brain tumor in children, and extracranial metastases of pediatric GBM are particularly uncommon. We present the case of a 10-year-old girl with pediatric GBM who developed multiple extracranial metastases, including cervical lymph nodes, spine, and lung. We discuss the rarity of extracranial metastases in GBM and explore possible mechanisms of dissemination. The patient underwent surgical resections, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, but the metastatic disease progressed despite treatment. We emphasize the need to consider extracranial metastases in pediatric GBM patients and adopt multimodal treatment approaches for managing this rare clinical entity. As the survival rates of pediatric GBM patients are improving, awareness of extracranial metastases is crucial for optimizing treatment outcomes.

Oxidative Status Determines the Cytotoxicity of Ascorbic Acid in Human Oral Normal and Cancer Cells.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) can arise anywhere in the oral cavity. OSCC's molecular pathogenesis is complex, resulting from a wide range of events that involve the interplay between genetic mutations and altered levels of transcripts, proteins, and metabolites. Platinum-based drugs are the first-line treatment for OSCC; however, severe side-effects and resistance are challenging issues. Thus, there is an urgent clinical need to develop novel and/or combinatory therapeutics. In this study, we investigated the cytotoxic effects of pharmacological concentrations of ascorbate on two human oral cell lines, the oral epidermoid carcinoma meng-1 (OECM-1) cell and the Smulow-Glickman (SG) human normal gingival epithelial cell. Our study examined the potential functional impact of pharmacological concentrations of ascorbates on the cell-cycle profiles, mitochondrial-membrane potential, oxidative response, the synergistic effect of cisplatin, and the differential responsiveness between OECM-1 and SG cells. Two forms of ascorbate, free and sodium forms, were applied to examine the cytotoxic effect and it was found that both forms had a similar higher sensitivity to OECM-1 cells than to SG cells. In addition, our study data suggest that the determinant factor of cell density is important for ascorbate-induced cytotoxicity in OECM-1 and SG cells. Our findings further revealed that the cytotoxic effect might be mediated through the induction of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and the reduction in cytosolic ROS generation. The combination index supported the agonistic effect between sodium ascorbate and cisplatin in OECM-1 cells, but not in SG cells. In summary, our current findings provide supporting evidence for ascorbate to serve as a sensitizer for platinum-based treatment of OSCC. Hence, our work provides not only repurposing of the drug, ascorbate, but also an opportunity to decrease the side-effects of, and risk of resistance to, platinum-based treatment for OSCC.

Mechanobiological tissue instability induced by stress-modulated growth.

The growth of biological tissues, which is regulated by a variety of factors, can induce stresses that may, in turn, destabilize the tissues into diverse patterns. In most previous studies, however, tissue growth was usually assumed as a prescribed parameter independent of stresses, limiting our understanding of the mechanobiological morphogenesis of real tissues. In this paper, we propose a theoretical model to investigate the mechanobiological response of soft tissues undergoing stress-modulated growth. Linear stability analysis is first performed to elucidate the surface instability mechanism induced by stress-modulated volumetric growth. We further conduct finite element simulations to validate the theoretical prediction and, particularly, to capture the post-buckling pattern evolution. Our results show that the non-uniform stresses, which evolve with the tissue growth and morphogenesis, exert mechanical feedback on the growth itself, producing up-down asymmetric surface morphologies as observed in, for example, the gyrification of human brains and brain organoids. It is also revealed that large residual stresses are unnecessary to cause mechanobiological instability and subsequent asymmetric patterning, which has long been believed to be driven by sufficiently high stresses. The present work could help us to understand the morphological changes of biological tissues under physiological and pathological conditions.

Evaluation of the Specific Energy Consumption of Sea Water Reverse Osmosis Integrated with Membrane Distillation and Pressure-Retarded Osmosis Processes with Theoretical Models.

In this study, theoretical models for specific energy consumption (SEC) were established for water recovery in different integrated processes, such as RO-PRO, RO-MD and RO-MD-PRO. Our models can evaluate SEC under different water recovery conditions and for various proportions of supplied waste heat. Simulation results showed that SEC in RO increases with the water recovery rate when the rate is greater than 30%. For the RO-PRO process, the SEC also increases with the water recovery rate when the rate is higher than 38%, but an opposite trend can be observed at lower water recovery rates. If sufficient waste heat is available as the heat source for MD, the integration of MD with the RO or RO-PRO process can significantly reduce SEC. If the total water recovery rate is 50% and MD accounts for 10% of the recovery when sufficient waste heat is available, the SEC values of RO, RO-PRO, RO-MD and RO-MD-PRO are found to be 2.28, 1.47, 1.75 and 0.67 kWh/m3, respectively. These critical analyses provide a road map for the future development of process integration for desalination.

Proteomic analysis of stachyose contribution to the growth of Lactobacillus acidophilus CICC22162.

Stachyose is a functional oligosaccharide, acting as a potential prebiotic for colonic fermentation. To understand the mechanism of how stachyose promotes the growth of probiotic bacterium, we analyzed the differences of the proteome of Lactobacillus acidophilus grown on stachyose or glucose. By a combination of two-dimensional electrophoresis and mass spectrometry analysis, we observed 16 proteins differentially abundant under these two conditions and identified 9 protein spots. Six of these proteins were highly abundant when stachyose was used as the sole carbon source. They included the phosphotransferase system, the energy coupling factor (ECF) transporter and the mannose-6-phosphate isomerase, involved in the uptake and catabolism of stachyose in Lactobacillus acidophilus CICC22162. Supportively, these observations were validated by quantitative RT-PCR analysis and enzymatic activity determination. Positive correlation was found between the content of the proteins and their mRNA levels. Additionally, we explored the recognition mechanism for stachyose binding to the newly identified ECF transporter by MD simulations and free energy analysis. Taken together, these results provide new insights into the mechanism of stachyose in promoting the growth of probiotic bacterium.

[Construction of recombinant plasmid expressing S1 gene of new type of reovirus].

OBJECTIVE: To construct the recombinant plasmid containing S1 gene of new type of reovirus, and to study the expression of protein sigma1 in Vero cells. METHODS: The recombinant plasmid, named pC-S, was constructed by cloning S1 gene into vector pCAGGS/MCS. Then Vero cells were transfected with pC-S and collected at 24, 48, 72 h post transfection followed by SDS-PAGE and Western-Blot assay. RESULTS: Results both SDS-PAGE and Western-Blot assay indicated that sigma1 protein could be expressed well and the highest expression level was 72 h post transfection. CONCLUSIONS: Sigma1 protein could be expressed well in Vero cells by transfected with recombinant plasmid containing S1 gene, and could give some implications for subsequent research on virus-host interactions.