Publications by authors named "Kuan Cheok Lei"

Article Synopsis
  • Mycosis fungoides (MF) is a common type of skin cancer that makes it hard to tell harmful T cells from normal ones.
  • Researchers used single-cell RNA and T-cell receptor sequencing on skin samples from 12 MF patients, analyzing 18,630 T cells from 9 of them to distinguish between malignant and reactive cells.
  • The study found unique gene signatures in malignant T cells that could help differentiate them from reactive T cells, revealing significant variations in cell characteristics among patients.
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  • The study investigates 16 primary cutaneous carcinomas with mutations in genes that activate the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, noting that these tumors lack matrical differentiation, which is typically associated with such mutations.
  • The tumors predominantly affected elderly patients, with a median age of 80, and were mainly located on the head, neck, and upper limbs, leading to metastatic cases in some patients.
  • Key findings include poor differentiation in tumor structure, distinct immunohistochemical profiles, and recurrent mutations in APC and CTNNB1, indicating that these tumors represent a unique group apart from other established skin tumor types.
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Article Synopsis
  • - Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is an aggressive skin cancer often linked to the Merkel cell polyomavirus, with a rare subtype presenting as combined MCCs featuring an additional tumor component, typically squamous cell carcinoma.
  • - This study reports two new cases of combined MCCs with neuroblastic differentiation, characterized by a unique tumor structure involving both a poorly differentiated carcinoma and a neuroblastic component, observed in elderly men with symptoms of isolated inguinal adenopathy.
  • - The research utilized various analyses, revealing shared mutations between the tumor components and suggesting that neuroblastic differentiation might occur due to loss of viral protein expression in certain MCC cells, indicating a potential link in their cellular origins.
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Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a highly aggressive skin cancer associated with integration of Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV). MCPyV-encoded T-antigens (TAs) are pivotal for sustaining MCC's oncogenic phenotype, i.e.

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Background: Class I selective histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) have been previously demonstrated to not only increase major histocompatibility complex class I surface expression in Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) cells by restoring the antigen processing and presentation machinery, but also exert anti-tumoral effect by inducing apoptosis. Both phenomena could be due to induction of type I interferons (IFN), as has been described for HDACi. However, the mechanism of IFN induction under HDACi is not fully understood because the expression of IFNs is regulated by both activating and inhibitory signaling pathways.

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Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is an interstitial lung disease characterized by chronic progressive pulmonary fibrosis and a poor prognosis. Genetic studies, including transcriptomic and proteomics, have provided new insight into revealing mechanisms of IPF. Herein we provided a novel strategy to identify biomarkers by integrative analysis of transcriptomic and proteomic profiles of IPF patients.

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BRCA1 plays critical roles in mammary gland development and mammary tumorigenesis. And loss of BRCA1 induces mammary tumors in a stochastic manner. These tumors present great heterogeneity at both intertumor and intratumor levels.

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Background: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a rare form of immune-mediated interstitial lung disease characterized by progressive pulmonary fibrosis and scarring. The pathogenesis of IPF is still unclear. Gene fusion events exist universally during transcription and show alternated patterns in a variety of lung diseases.

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Background: The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2, has become the most devastating public health emergency in the 21st century and one of the most influential plagues in history. Studies on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 have generally agreed that the virus probably comes from bat, closely related to a bat CoV named BCoV-RaTG13 taken from horseshoe bat (), with Malayan pangolin () being a plausible intermediate host. However, due to the relatively low number of SARS-CoV-2-related strains available in public domain, the evolutionary history remains unclear.

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Liver is one of the most vital organs to maintain homeostasis because of its peculiar detoxification functionalities to detoxify chemicals and metabolize drugs and toxins. Due to its crucial functions, the liver is also prone to various diseases, i.e.

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DNA is prone to damages, which would result in genetic disorders and enhance risk of tumorigenesis. Hence, understanding the molecular mechanisms of DNA damage and repair will provide deep insights into tumorigenesis, carcinogenesis as well as the corresponding treatments. Aiming at investigating potential long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) response against DNA damage, we performed a comprehensive transcriptomic analysis based on RNA sequencing data of the liver tissue from Rattus norvegicus, in which DNA damage was induced using aflatoxin B1, ifosfamide and N-nitrosodimethylamine.

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