The gut microbiome plays an important role in the immune system and has attracted attention as a biomarker of several diseases, including cancer. In this study, we examined the relationship between the gut microbiome and lung cancer progression.Female never-smokers diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma were consecutively enrolled between May 2018 and August 2019, and fecal samples were collected. Principal coordinate analyses were performed using Bray-Curtis distance matrices to investigate the effects of clinical variables (age, body mass index, Tumor-Node-Metastasis stage, T category, N category, M category, primary tumor size, performance status, and EGFR mutation status) on the gut microbial community.A total of 37 patients were enrolled. T category and primary tumor size were significantly correlated with the gut microbial community (p=0.018 and 0.041, respectively).This study identified the gut microbiome as a promising biomarker of lung cancer progression.
Transformation to small cell lung cancer is one phenomenon of acquired resistance to anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) tyrosine kinase inhibitors in ALK rearrangement‐positive non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Few case reports have focused on other types of histological transformation. We report a case of transformation of ALK rearrangement‐positive adenocarcinoma to NSCLC with neuroendocrine differentiation during alectinib therapy. A 36‐year‐old woman presented with a tumor in the left lower lobe and bone metastases. She was diagnosed with ALK rearrangement‐positive adenocarcinoma by histopathology of the primary tumor. Alectinib had been effective for 8 months before new lesions appeared. Histopathological re‐examination of a recurrent tumor revealed poorly differentiated carcinoma with insulinoma‐associated protein 1 (INSM1) expression, which remained ALK‐positive. Expression of CD133, BCL‐2, and SOX2 was positive in comparison to the initial tumor. Expression of SOX2 became more strongly positive than it was before treatment. The immunohistochemical findings of these markers associated with cancer stem‐like cells and/or neuroendocrine differentiation suggest that cancer stem cells play a role in the mechanisms of histological transformation and acquired resistance of ALK rearrangement‐positive cancer. To our knowledge, this is the first report to suggest an association between cancer stem‐like cells and histological transformation in ALK rearrangement‐positive lung cancer.
predictive factor for the risk of future exacerbation is merely a history of exacerbation, and there are no good predictive biomarkers for exacerbation so far.Extracellular vesicles (EVs), in which contains a variety of functional molecules including microRNAs, work as intercellular messengers and are also involved in pathogenesis of various diseases.Because the contents of EVs are changed according to pathogenic conditions, many researchers try to utilize EVs as biomarkers.Aims: We investigated serum EV microRNAs in the frequent exacerbators of COPD to explore the pathogenesis of exacerbation as well as the possibilities of EV microRNAs as predictive biomarkers for a risk of exacerbation.Methods: We recruited the COPD patients who had 2 or more exacerbations in the past year as the frequent exacerbators.We also recruited the COPD patients who had no exacerbations as controls.Gender, age, and treatment of controls were matched with those of the exacerbators.Their serum samples were used for isolation of EVs.Total RNA in EVs was isolated for comprehensive expression analyses of microRNAs using microarrays.Results: 7 microRNAs including hsa-miR-524-3p were decreased in frequent exacerbators, whereas 31 microRNAs including hsa-miR-100-5p were increased.Conclusions: The expression profile of serum EV micro-RNAs in frequent exacerbators of COPD was different from that in the COPD patients without frequent exacerbations, which may suggest the involvement of microRNAs in the pathogenesis of COPD exacerbation.
Background/Aim: Amrubicin (AMR) has shown promising activity for lung cancer. However, little is known about the mechanism underlying resistance to this agent. The aim of this study was to elucidate the mechanism underlying resistance to AMR. Materials and Methods: We first developed amrubicinol (AMR-OH)-resistant cell lines (H520/R and DMS53/R) by exposing lung cancer cell lines (H520 and DMS53) to increasing concentrations of AMR-OH and performed functional analysis by using these cell lines. Results: Transcriptome analyses showed that amphiregulin (AREG) was the most highly up-regulated gene in both AMR-OH-resistant cell lines compared to parent cells. Conditioned medium from DMS53/R cells reduced the sensitivity to AMR-OH in DMS53 cells. In contrast, DMS53/R cells transfected with siRNA directed against AREG recovered their sensitivity to AMR-OH. An additional administration of cetuximab with amrubicinol also restored the sensitivity to AMR-OH. Conclusion: Amphiregulin plays an important role in resistance to AMR-OH.
Objectives : Several studies have reported that oropharyngeal myofunctional therapy (OMT) reduces the severity of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). However, because OMT protocols are often complicated, they take time and effort to implement. The aim of this study was to determine the therapeutic effect of 8 weeks of simple tongue strength training with a training device.
Abstract The SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron is now under investigation. We evaluated cross-neutralizing activity against Omicron in COVID-19 convalescent patients (n=23) who had received two doses of an mRNA vaccination (BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273). Surprisingly and interestingly, after the second vaccination, the subjects’ neutralizing antibody titers including that against Omicron all became seropositive, and significant fold-increases (21.1–52.0) were seen regardless of the subjects’ disease severity. Our findings thus demonstrate that at least two doses of mRNA vaccination to SARS-CoV-2 convalescent patients can induce cross-neutralizing activity against Omicron.
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