Publications by authors named "Cai Shirong"

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) that fails to respond to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) can be lethal. Developing effective strategies to eradicate chemoresistant disease requires experimental models that recapitulate the heterogeneity characteristic of TNBC. To that end, we established a biobank of 92 orthotopic patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of TNBC from the tumors of 75 patients enrolled in the ARTEMIS clinical trial ( NCT02276443 ) at MD Anderson Cancer Center, including 12 longitudinal sets generated from serial patient biopsies collected throughout NACT and from metastatic disease.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Phenotypic age (PhenoAge), a widely used marker of biological aging, has been shown to be a robust predictor of all-cause mortality and morbidity in different populations. Existing studies on biological aging have primarily focused on individual domains, resulting in a lack of a comprehensive understanding of the multi-systemic dysregulation that occurs in aging.

Methods: PhenoAge was evaluated based on a linear combination of chronological age (CA) and 9 clinical biomarkers in 952 multi-ethnic Asian women of reproductive age.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most lethal malignancies worldwide. Despite extensive efforts to develop novel therapeutic targets, effective drugs for GC remain limited. Recent studies have indicated that Lipocalin (LCN)2 abnormalities significantly impact GC progression; however, its regulatory network remains unclear.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates the link between evening-chronotype children, sleep issues, and socioemotional problems during preschool and later school age, emphasizing that evening-chronotype children experience more socioemotional challenges and sleep difficulties.
  • - Using data from 399 preschoolers, researchers looked at how sleep problems and duration influenced the relationship between chronotype and socioemotional issues, revealing that sleep problems, not duration, played a key mediating role as the children grew older.
  • - The findings suggest that addressing sleep problems early on can potentially mitigate socioemotional issues in school-aged children, particularly those with an evening chronotype.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Early childhood is a critical period for growth and development. Adopting healthy lifestyle behaviours during this period forms the foundation for future well-being and offers the best protection against non-communicable diseases. Singapore studies have shown that many young children are not achieving the recommendations on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) accounts for 15-20% of breast cancer cases in the United States. Systemic neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT), with or without immunotherapy, is the current standard of care for patients with early-stage TNBC. However, up to 70% of TNBC patients have significant residual disease once NACT is completed, which is associated with a high risk of developing recurrence within two to three years of surgical resection.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in patients with advanced gastric cancer (GC) varies greatly. Thus, we aimed to verify the predictive value of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) on the treatment response to NACT and the prognosis of patients with advanced GC, and to explore the impact of NACT on the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME). Paired tumor tissues (pre- and post-NACT) from patients with advanced GC were collected for this study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Resistance to poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPi) limits the therapeutic efficacy of PARP inhibition in treating breast cancer susceptibility gene 1 (BRCA1)-deficient cancers. Here we reveal that BRCA1 has a dual role in regulating ferroptosis. BRCA1 promotes the transcription of voltage-dependent anion channel 3 (VDAC3) and glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4); consequently, BRCA1 deficiency promotes cellular resistance to erastin-induced ferroptosis but sensitizes cancer cells to ferroptosis induced by GPX4 inhibitors (GPX4i).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Sleep is dynamic in childhood and studies have shown the relationship between sleep and cognition in children. As the human brain is the most plastic during childhood, the study of longitudinal sleep patterns and neurocognition is an important research area. We aimed to systematically review studies that investigated sleep duration trajectories and cognition in typically-developing children.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: To assess the Ages & Stages Questionnaire: Social-Emotional (ASQ-SE)'s concurrent validity in a low-risk Singapore cohort and study its association with maternal mental health status.

Methods: Concurrent validity of the parent-filled ASQ-SE with Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL1.5-5) was evaluated in 341 children at age 24 months.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Tracking combinations of lifestyle behaviours during childhood ("lifestyle pattern trajectories") can identify subgroups of children that might benefit from lifestyle interventions aiming to improve health outcomes later in life. However, studies on the critical transition period from early to middle childhood are limited. We aimed to describe lifestyle patterns trajectories in children from 2 to 8 years of age and evaluated their associations with cardiometabolic risk markers at age 8 years in a multi-ethnic Asian cohort.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The efficacy of the selective KIT/PDGFRA inhibitor avapritinib (300 mg once daily) was explored in patients with non-PDGFRA-mutant gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) from the phase I NAVIGATOR and phase I/II CS3007-001 trials.

Patients And Methods: Adults with unresectable/metastatic, KIT-only-mutant GISTs and progression following ≥1 tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) were included in this post hoc analysis. Baseline mutational status was identified in tumor and plasma.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The m6a demethyltransferase ALKBH5 dynamically modulates gene expression and intracellular metabolic molecules by modifying RNA m6a in cancer cells. However, ALKBH5's function in gastric cancer (GC) has remained controversial. This study demonstrates that ALKBH5 is highly expressed in GC.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Tumor mutation burden (TMB) has emerged as an essential biomarker for assessing the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy. However, due to the inherent complexity of tumors, TMB is not always correlated with the responsiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). Thus, refining the interpretation and contextualization of TMB is a requisite for enhancing clinical outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Accurate and convenient serological markers for prognosis after traumatic brain injury (TBI) are still lacking. We aimed to explore the predictive value of serum calcium for prognosing outcomes within 6 months after TBI.

Methods: In this multicenter retrospective study, 1255 and 719 patients were included in development and validation cohorts, respectively, and their 6-month prognoses were recorded.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Adversity exposures in the prenatal and postnatal period are associated with an increased risk for psychopathology, which can be perpetuated across generations. Nonhuman animal research highlights the gut microbiome as a putative biological mechanism underlying such generational risks. In a sample of 450 mother-child dyads living in Singapore, we examined associations between three distinct adversity exposures experienced across two generations-maternal childhood maltreatment, maternal prenatal anxiety, and second-generation children's exposure to stressful life events-and the gut microbiome composition of second-generation children at 2 y of age.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Considering the rarity and aggressive nature of retroperitoneal leiomyosarcoma (RLMS), several prognostic factors might contribute to the cancer-specific mortality of these patients. This study aimed to construct a competing risk-based nomogram to predict cancer-specific survival (CSS) for patients with RLMS. In total, 788 cases from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database (2000-2015) were included.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: MicroRNA-188-5p (miR-188) enhances oncologic progression in various human malignancies. This study aimed to explore its role in colorectal cancer (CRC).

Materials And Methods: Human CRC tissues paired with normal tissues, and several CRC cell lines were utilized.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Poor sleep quality may elevate cortisol levels and affect prenatal mental health through altered HPA axis functioning. This study aims to examine whether subjective sleep quality during preconception moderates the association between preconception hair cortisol levels and mental health from preconception to pregnancy trimesters.

Methods: Women from a prospective cohort study completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) questionnaires during preconception (T0) and at each pregnancy trimesters (T1, T2, and T3).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigated how individual chronotypes (morning, intermediate, evening) and time-of-day might affect spatial working memory (SWM) in preschool children aged 4.5 years.
  • - Using a sample of 359 children, researchers employed a computerized test to assess SWM and found that evening-type children performed better than morning-types in late afternoon sessions, although no significant effects of chronotype or time-of-day were observed overall.
  • - The results suggest that evening-type preschoolers may benefit from later learning sessions, indicating important implications for scheduling in early childhood education.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: To examine the associations between infants' dietary nutrient trajectories and subsequent neurodevelopment during childhood in the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes study.

Methods: One-day food records were collected at ages 6, 9 and 12 months, whilst Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-III and Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test-2 were conducted at ages 24 and 54 months respectively. Nutrient trajectories were constructed using multi-level mixed modelling and associations with neurodevelopment (24 months: n = 484; 54 months: n = 444) were examined using adjusted multivariable linear regression.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: This study explores the association between the duration and variation of infant sleep trajectories and subsequent cognitive school readiness at 48-50 months.

Methods: Participants were 288 multi-ethnic children, within the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) cohort. Caregiver-reported total, night and day sleep durations were obtained at 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, 24 using the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire and 54 months using the Child Sleep Habits Questionnaire.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • A study compared the effectiveness of increasing imatinib dosage versus switching to sunitinib for patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) who did not respond to the standard 400 mg/day imatinib treatment.
  • The results showed that patients who switched directly to sunitinib had a significantly longer progression-free survival (12 months) compared to those who escalated their imatinib dosage (5 months).
  • However, when patients who switched to sunitinib were evaluated for time to sunitinib failure and overall survival, there were no significant differences between the two groups, suggesting the need for further research on which patients benefit most from increasing imatinib dosage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

PBX1 is a transcription factor that regulates a variety of genes, involved in intracellular lipid metabolism, cell proliferation, and other pathways. The promoting and inhibiting function of PBX1 in various cancer types was extensively discussed, however, there have been no studies on PBX1 proteins in colorectal cancer (CRC). This study aimed to reveal the anti-tumor function of PBX1 in CRC and the underlying molecular mechanism.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF