Mesenchymal stem cells improve depressive disorder via inhibiting the inflammatory polarization of microglia.

Depressive disorder (DD) ranks among the most prevalent, burdensome, and costly psychiatric conditions globally. It manifests through a range of emotional, cognitive, somatic, and behavioral symptoms. Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) have garnered significant attention due to their therapeutic potential via immunomodulation in neurological disorders.

Rabies virus glycoprotein 29 (RVG29) promotes CAR-T immunotherapy for glioma.

Chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy has limited efficacy for treating glioma because of the infiltrative nature of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and T cell exhaustion. Conjugation with rabies virus glycoprotein (RVG) 29 enhances the brain-related efficacy of various agents. Here we assess whether RVG enhances the ability of CAR-T cells to cross the BBB and improves their immunotherapy.

Trastuzumab treatment of invasive breast ductal carcinoma induces severe edema: a case report.

Background: Trastuzumab, a monoclonal antibody which binds to the extracellular domain of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), is the first biological drug approved for the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer. However, trastuzumab exhibits a series of clinical adverse effects, including cardiac toxicity, nerve damage, abnormal liver function, thrombocytopenia, etc.

Case Description: We report a case of a 46-year-old female patient with invasive breast ductal carcinoma (classified as Stage 2B) who developed a rare severe edema in neck, face, chest, abdomen and both upper limbs after a single dose trastuzumab treatment.

Anti-mesothelin CAR-T immunotherapy in patients with ovarian cancer.

Recently, chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy has received increasing attention as an adoptive cellular immunotherapy that targets tumors. However, numerous challenges remain for the effective use of CAR-T to treat solid tumors, including ovarian cancer, which is an aggressive and metastatic cancer with a poor therapeutic response. We screened for an effective anti-MSLN single-chain Fv antibody with comparable binding activity and non-off-target properties using human phage display library.

Improving antibody affinity through mutagenesis in complementarity determining regions.

High-affinity antibodies are widely used in diagnostics and for the treatment of human diseases. However, most antibodies are isolated from semi-synthetic libraries by phage display and do not possess affinity maturation, which is triggered by antigen immunization. It is therefore necessary to engineer the affinity of these antibodies by way of assaying.

Protective effect of γ-glutamylcysteine against UVB radiation in NIH-3T3 cells.

Background: Ultraviolet (UV) radiation-induced oxidative stress is the main cause of photodamage to the skin. Glutathione (GSH) serves important physiological functions, including scavenging oxygen-free radicals and maintaining intracellular redox balance. γ-glutamylcysteine (γ-GC), as an immediate precursor of GSH and harboring antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, represents an unexplored option for skin photodamage treatment.

Targeting the DNA damage response enhances CD70 CAR-T cell therapy for renal carcinoma by activating the cGAS-STING pathway.

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy has shown tremendous success in eradicating hematologic malignancies. However, this success has not yet been extrapolated to solid tumors due to the limited infiltration and persistence of CAR-T cells in the tumor microenvironment (TME). In this study, we screened a novel anti-CD70 scFv and generated CD70 CAR-T cells that showed effective antitumor functions against CD70 renal carcinoma cells (RCCs) both in vitro and in vivo.

Shed antigen-induced blocking effect on CAR-T cells targeting Glypican-3 in Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Background: Glypican-3 (GPC3), a cell surface glycoprotein that is pathologically highly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), is an attractive target for immunotherapies, including chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. The serum GPC3 is frequently elevated in HCC patients due to the shedding effect of cell surface GPC3. The shed GPC3 (sGPC3) is reported to block the function of cell-surface GPC3 as a negative regulator.

FEN1 inhibitor synergizes with low-dose camptothecin to induce increased cell killing via the mitochondria mediated apoptotic pathway.

Camptothecin has been used in tumor therapy for a long time but its antitumor effect is rather limited due to the side effect and the drug resistance. FEN1, a major component of DNA repair systems, plays important roles in maintaining genomic stability via DNA replication and repair. Here we found that FEN1 inhibitor greatly sensitizes cancer cells to low-dose camptothecin.

PRMT1 is critical to FEN1 expression and drug resistance in lung cancer cells.

The up-regulation of PRMT1 is critical to the cell growth and cancer progression of lung cancer cells. In our research, we found that PRMT1 is important to the DNA repair ability and drug resistance of lung cancer cells. To demonstrate the functions of PRMT1, we identified Flap endonuclease 1 (FEN1) as a post-translationally modified downstream target protein of PRMT1.

32A9, a novel human antibody for designing an immunotoxin and CAR-T cells against glypican-3 in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Background: Treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) using antibody-based targeted therapies, such as antibody conjugates and chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy, shows potent antitumor efficacy. Glypican-3 (GPC3) is an emerging HCC therapeutic target; therefore, antibodies against GPC3 would be useful tools for developing immunotherapies for HCC.

Methods: We isolated a novel human monoclonal antibody, 32A9, by phage display technology.

Potential therapeutic applications of exosomes in different autoimmune diseases.

Autoimmune diseases are caused by self-immune responses to autoantigens, which damage body tissues and severely affect the patient's quality of life. Therapeutic drugs are associated with adverse side effects and their beneficial effects are limited to specific populations. Evidence indicates that exosomes which are small vesicles secreted by most cell types and body fluids, and may play roles in both immune stimulation and tolerance since they are involved in many processes such as immune signaling, inflammation and angiogenesis.

Peptide PD29 treats bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis by inhibiting the TGF-β/smad signaling pathway.

Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is an end-stage change in lung disease characterized by fibroblast proliferation, massive extracellular matrix (ECM) aggregation with inflammatory damage, and severe structural deterioration. PD29 is a 29-amino acid peptide which has the potential to alleviate PF pathogenesis via three mechanisms: anti-angiogenesis, inhibition of matrix metalloproteinase activities, and inhibition of integrins. In this study, fibrotic lung injuries were induced in SD rats by a single intratracheal instillation of 5 mg/kg bleomycin (BLM).

Shikonin Inhibits Tumor Growth in Mice by Suppressing Pyruvate Kinase M2-mediated Aerobic Glycolysis.

Shift metabolism profile from mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation to aerobic glycolysis (Warburg effect) is a key for tumor cell growth and metastasis. Therefore, suppressing the tumor aerobic glycolysis shows a great promise in anti-tumor therapy. In the present study, we study the role of shikonin, a naphthoquinone isolated from the traditional Chinese medicine Lithospermum, in inhibiting tumor aerobic glycolysis and thus tumor growth.

Correlation analysis of peripheral DPYD gene polymorphism with 5-fluorouracil susceptibility and side effects in colon cancer patients.

Objective: To investigate the correlation of peripheral DPYD gene polymorphism with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) susceptibility and side effect in patients with colon cancer.

Methods: The total DNA of peripheral mononuclear cells was extracted in 100 cases of colon cancer patients. Quantitative PCR was conducted to measure DPYD gene 14G1A, A1627G, T85C 3 loci polymorphism, and analyze the correlation of 5-FU susceptibility, side effects with DPYD gene polymorphism.

The clinical effects of dendritic cell vaccines combined with cytokine-induced killer cells intraperitoneal injected on patients with malignant ascites.

Malignant ascites (MA) is a pathological condition due to a variety of primary abdominal and extra-abdominal neoplasms. It is a primary cause of morbidity and presents many difficulties in evaluation and treatment. In this study we used dendritic cell vaccines combined with cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells intraperitoneal injected in patients with MA, and evaluated the safety and efficacy of this treatment.