The Effectiveness of Pulsed Radiofrequency on Joint Pain: A Narrative Review.

Background: Pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) stimulation has been safely and effectively applied for controlling various types of pain.

Purpose: We reviewed the literature on the efficacy of PRF for controlling pain in joint disorders.

Methods: We searched PubMed for papers published prior to September 7, 2019, that used PRF to treat pain due to joint disorders.

Mutation Yield of a Custom 212-Gene Next-Generation Sequencing Panel for Solid Tumors: Clinical Experience of the First 260 Cases Tested Using the JAX ActionSeq™ Assay.

Objective: The study aimed to retrospectively evaluate the positive yield rate of a custom 212-gene next-generation sequencing (NGS) panel, the JAX ActionSeq™ assay, used in molecular profiling of solid tumors for precision medicine.

Methods: We evaluated 261 cases tested over a 24-month period including cancers across 24 primary tissue types and report on the mutation yield in these cases.

Results: Thirty-three of the 261 cases (13%) had no detectable clinically significant variants.

Follistatin-like Protein 1 Inhibits Lung Cancer Metastasis by Preventing Proteolytic Activation of Osteopontin.

Follistatin-like protein 1 (FSTL1) plays a critical role in lung organogenesis, but is downregulated during lung cancer development and progression. The prognostic significance and functional consequences of FSTL1 downregulation in lung cancer are unclear. Here, reduced levels of FSTL1 were detected in various tumors compared with normal tissues and were associated with poor clinical outcome in patients with non-small cell lung cancer, particularly those with lung adenocarcinoma.

High-CLDN4 ESCC cells harbor stem-like properties and indicate for poor concurrent chemoradiation therapy response in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Background: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the major type of esophageal cancer in Asia and demonstrates poor survival rates following a therapeutic regimen.

Methods: Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are responsible for tumor initiation, progression, and treatment failure in cancers. Therefore, identification and characterization of CSCs may help to improve clinical outcomes for ESCC patients.

Overexpression of BZW1 is an independent poor prognosis marker and its down-regulation suppresses lung adenocarcinoma metastasis.

The basic leucine zipper and the W2 domain-containing protein 1 (BZW1) plays a key role in the cell cycle and transcriptionally control the histone H4 gene during G1/S phase. Since cellular proliferation rates are frequently dysregulated in human cancers, we identified the characteristics of BZW1 in cancer cells and analyzed its prognostic value in lung cancer patients. By searching public databases, we found that high BZW1 expression was significantly correlated with poor survival rate in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), especially in lung adenocarcinoma.

A Novel Multi-Target Small Molecule, LCC-09, Inhibits Stemness and Therapy-Resistant Phenotypes of Glioblastoma Cells by Increasing miR-34a and Deregulating the DRD4/Akt/mTOR Signaling Axis.

The management of glioblastomas (GBMs) is challenged by the development of therapeutic resistance and early disease recurrence, despite multi-modal therapy. This may be attributed to the presence of glioma stem cells (GSCs) which are known to survive radio- and chemotherapy, by circumventing death signals and inducing cell re-population. Recent findings suggest GSCs may be enriched by certain treatment modality.

The Development and Applications of a Dual Optical Imaging System for Studying Glioma Stem Cells.

Glioblastoma multiforme represents one of the deadliest brain tumor types, manifested by a high rate of recurrence and poor prognosis. The presence of glioma stem cells (GSCs) can repopulate the tumor posttreatment and resist therapeutics. A better understanding of GSC biology is essential for developing more effective interventions.

Enrichment of Aldolase C Correlates with Low Non-Mutated IDH1 Expression and Predicts a Favorable Prognosis in Glioblastomas.

The aldolases family is one of the main enzymes involved in the process of glycolysis. Aldolase C (ALDOC), which belongs to the aldolase family, is found in normal brain tissue and is responsible for the repair of injured tissue. However, the role of ALDOC in glioblastoma remains unclear.

A co-expressed gene status of adenylate kinase 1/4 reveals prognostic gene signature associated with prognosis and sensitivity to EGFR targeted therapy in lung adenocarcinoma.

Cancer cells utilize altered bioenergetics to fuel uncontrolled proliferation and progression. At the core of bioenergetics, adenine nucleotides are the building blocks for nucleotide synthesis, energy transfer and diverse metabolic processes. Adenylate kinases (AK) are ubiquitous phosphotransferases that catalyze the conversion of adenine nucleotides and regulate the homeostasis of nucleotide ratios within cellular compartments.

Graphitic carbon nitride-based nanocomposites and their biological applications: a review.

Quantum dots (QDs) have extensive application prospects in the fields of optics, magnetism, catalysis, and biomedicine. New carbon-doped QDs are currently being used in these research fields. Graphitic carbon nitride QDs (g-CNs) composed of only carbon and nitrogen have attracted attention because of their unique optical and catalytic properties.

Therapeutic Targeting of Aldolase A Interactions Inhibits Lung Cancer Metastasis and Prolongs Survival.

Cancer metabolic reprogramming promotes tumorigenesis and metastasis; however, the underlying molecular mechanisms are still being uncovered. In this study, we show that the glycolytic enzyme aldolase A (ALDOA) is a key enzyme involved in lung cancer metabolic reprogramming and metastasis. Overexpression of ALDOA increased migration and invasion of lung cancer cell lines and formation of metastatic lung cancer foci .

The Effect of the Repression of Oxidative Stress on Tenocyte Differentiation: A Preliminary Study of a Rat Cell Model Using a Novel Differential Tensile Strain Bioreactor.

Because of limitations in the current understanding of the exact pathogenesis of tendinopathy, and the lack of an optimal experimental model, effective therapy for the disease is currently unavailable. This study aims to prove that repression of oxidative stress modulates the differentiation of tendon-derived cells (TDCs) sustaining excessive tensile strains, and proposes a novel bioreactor capable of applying differential tensile strains to cultured cells simultaneously. TDCs, including tendon-derived stem cells, tenoblasts, tenocytes, and fibroblasts, were isolated from the patellar tendons of Sprague‒Dawley rats.

ATP Synthase Subunit Epsilon Overexpression Promotes Metastasis by Modulating AMPK Signaling to Induce Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition and Is a Poor Prognostic Marker in Colorectal Cancer Patients.

Metastasis remains the major cause of death from colon cancer. We intend to identify differentially expressed genes that are associated with the metastatic process and prognosis in colon cancer. ATP synthase epsilon subunit () gene was found to encode the mitochondrial FF ATP synthase subunit epsilon that was overexpressed in tumor cells compared to their normal counterparts, while other genes encoding the ATP synthase subunit were repressed in public microarray datasets.

Autophagosome accumulation-mediated ATP energy deprivation induced by penfluridol triggers nonapoptotic cell death of lung cancer via activating unfolded protein response.

Anticancer chemotherapeutic drugs mainly trigger apoptosis induction to eliminate malignant cells. However, many cancer cells are chemoresistant because of defective apoptosis induction. Targeting the autophagic pathway is currently regarded as an alternative strategy for cancer drug discovery.

Development of upconversion nanoparticle-conjugated indium phosphide quantum dot for matrix metalloproteinase-2 cancer transformation sensing.

Matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP2) plays an important role in extracellular matrix remodeling, that is, it increases significantly during cancer progression. In this regard, MMP2 monitoring is important. A well-designed MMP2-sensitive polypeptide chain was used to link indium phosphide quantum dots (InP QDs) with upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) to form a nanocomposite that was utilized as biosensor.

Ambient particulate matter attenuates Sirtuin1 and augments SREBP1-PIR axis to induce human pulmonary fibroblast inflammation: molecular mechanism of microenvironment associated with COPD.

Evidences have shown a strong link between particulate matter (PM) and increased risk in human mortality and morbidity, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), respiratory infection, and lung cancer. However, the underlying toxicologic mechanisms remain largely unknown. Utilizing PM-treated human pulmonary fibroblasts (HPF) models, we analyzed gene expression microarray data and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) to identify that the transcription factor was the main downstream regulator of () Quantitative PCR and western blot results showed that SIRT1 inhibited SREBP1 and further downregulated Pirin (PIR) and Nod-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome after PM exposure.

Down-regulation of ATF1 leads to early neuroectoderm differentiation of human embryonic stem cells by increasing the expression level of SOX2.

We reveal by high-throughput screening that activating transcription factor 1 (ATF1) is a novel pluripotent regulator in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). The knockdown of ATF1 expression significantly up-regulated neuroectoderm (NE) genes but not mesoderm, endoderm, and trophectoderm genes. Of note, down-regulation or knockout of ATF1 with short hairpin RNA (shRNA), small interfering RNA (siRNA), or clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) was sufficient to up-regulate sex-determining region Y-box (SOX)2 and paired box 6 (PAX6) expression under the undifferentiated or differentiated conditions, whereas overexpression of ATF1 suppressed NE differentiation.

Comparison of cofilin‑1 and Twist‑1 protein expression in human non‑small cell lung cancer tissues.

Metastasis is the primary cause of mortality in patients with non‑small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Actin cytoskeletal reorganization is usually accompanied by the epithelial‑mesenchymal transition (EMT)‑induced invasion and metastasis of cancer cells. In the present study, expression levels of the actin‑associated protein cofilin‑1 and of the pivotal EMT molecule Twist‑1 were determined in NSCLC tissues.

Increased risk of 100-day and 1-year infection-related mortality and complications in haploidentical stem cell transplantation.

While haploidentical transplantation has led to the near-universal availability of donors, several challenges for this form of transplant still exist. This study sought to investigate the rates of infection-related mortality and other complications following haploidentical vs nonhaploidentical transplant. We conducted a retrospective cohort study in adults with various malignant and benign hematological conditions who underwent allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from 2011 to 2018.

HIV Infection: Its Impact on Patients with Appendicitis in Botswana.

Background: To compare the presentation, management, and outcome of HIV-positive patients with appendicitis to those of HIV-negative patients with appendicitis.

Summary Background Data: The literature is limited regarding the impact of HIV infection on patients with appendicitis.

Methods: A retrospective review of patients with appendicitis and known HIV status admitted to Princess Marina Hospital, Gaborone, Botswana, aged 13 years and greater was performed from January 2013 to December 2015.

AKR1C1 controls cisplatin-resistance in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma through cross-talk with the STAT1/3 signaling pathway.

Background: Cisplatin is the first-line chemotherapy used against most upper aerodigestive tract carcinomas. In head and neck cancer, sensitivity to cisplatin remains the key issue in treatment response and outcome. Genetic heterogeneity and aberrant gene expression may be the intrinsic factors that cause primary cisplatin-resistance.