Publications by authors named "Mengzhu Yang"

Introduction: Several risk scores have been proposed to predict venous thromboembolism (VTE) in hospitalized patients. However, their predictive performances in lung cancer patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) is unclear. We aimed to validate and compare their performances of the Caprini, Padua and Khorana risk scores in lung cancer patients receiving ICIs.

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Introduction And Hypothesis: We hypothesized that some metabolic factors, lifestyle factors, and socioeconomic factors may have a causal effect on pelvic organ prolapse (POP).

Methods: We selected instruments from corresponding genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which identified independent single nucleotide polymorphisms strongly associated with 12 potential risk factors. Summary statistics for POP were derived from two GWAS datasets, serving for discovery and replication stage.

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Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common chronic degenerative joint disease in middle-aged and elderly people, characterized by joint pain and dysfunction. Macrophages are key players in OA pathology, and their activation state has been studied extensively. Various studies have suggested that macrophages might respond to stimuli in their microenvironment by changing their phenotypes to pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory phenotypes, which is called macrophage polarization.

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is significantly elevated in various malignancies. However, the clinical significance of in hormone receptor (HR)-positive (HR+) breast cancer remains unclear. We evaluated expression in different databases and validated assay by RT-PCR and western blot among HR+ breast cancer.

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Objective: To explored the prognostic value of pretreatment serum fibrinogen level in young patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC).

Methods: The concentrations of serum fibrinogen of 183 young (<50 years old) SCLC patients were measured. The association of baseline serum fibrinogen level and clinical outcome was analyzed by survival analysis.

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Megakaryocytic leukemia 1 (MKL1) acts as a transcription factor in the regulation of the immune system and is associated with cancer biology. However, its function in the infiltrating immune cells in breast cancer has not been explored. Our study aimed to analyze the expression of MKL1 in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) breast cancer dataset.

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Background: With life span extending, breast cancer (BC) survivors may face the possibility of developing second primary cancer (SPC) and considerably shorten survivorship. However, little is known about multiple primary cancer (MPC) patients with nonmetastatic breast cancer as a first primary malignancy (BCFPM).

Methods: Here, we retrospectively analyzed data on cancer survivors with BCFPM diagnosed between 2010 and 2015 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database.

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Background: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality. The alteration of DNA methylation plays a major role in the development of lung cancer. Methylation biomarkers become a possible method for lung cancer diagnosis.

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Background: Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors, which are among the most important breakthroughs in precision medicine, have played a crucial role in cancer treatment. Understanding the toxicity profiles of the different PARP inhibitors will improve strategic treatment in clinical practice.

Methods: PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science were systematically searched to include related studies published in English between January 2009 and February 2020.

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Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are key components in tumor microenvironment (TME). The secreted products of CAFs play important roles in regulating tumor cells and further impacting clinical prognosis. This study aims to reveal the relationship between CAF-secreted cytokines and breast cancer (BC) by constructing the risk signature.

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Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease with a complex microenvironment consisting of tumor cells, immune cells, fibroblasts and vascular cells. These cancer-associated cells shape the tumor microenvironment (TME) and influence the progression of breast cancer and the therapeutic responses in patients. The exact composition of the intra-tumoral cells is mixed as the highly heterogeneous and dynamic nature of the TME.

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Lapatinib, targeting the human epidermal growth factor receptor family members HER1 and HER2, has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use in metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. However, resistance to lapatinib remains a common challenge to HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. Until now, the molecular mechanisms of acquired resistance to lapatinib (ALR) have remained unclear.

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Differential regulation of gene transcription contributes to cancer metastasis. We investigated the involvement of a Rho GTPase (RhoJ) in breast cancer metastasis focusing on the mechanism underlying RhoJ -activation by pro-metastatic cues. We report that expression of RhoJ was up-regulated in malignant breast cancer cells compared to more benign ones.

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Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide. Long non-coding RNA small nucleolar RNA host gene 1 () has been reported to be involved in human diseases, including cancer. Here, we found that expression was significantly upregulated in human breast cancer tissues and cell lines.

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tRNA-derived fragments, a class of small noncoding RNAs (sncRNAs), have been identified in numerous studies in recent years. tRNA-derived fragments are classified into two main groups, including tRNA halves (tiRNAs) and tRNA-derived small RNA fragments (tRFs), according to different cleavage positions of the precursor or mature tRNAs. Instead of random tRNA degradation debris, a growing body of evidence has shown that tRNA-derived fragments are precise products of specific tRNA modifications and play important roles in biological activities, such as regulating protein translation, affecting gene expression, and altering immune signaling.

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Background: The efficacy and safety of lapatinib plus capecitabine (LC or LX) versus trastuzumab plus chemotherapy in patients with HER-positive metastatic breast cancer who are resistant to trastuzumab is unknown.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data from breast cancer patients who began treatment with regimens of lapatinib plus capecitabine (LC or LX) or trastuzumab beyond progression (TBP) at eight hospitals between May 2010 and October 2017.

Results: Among 554 patients who had developed resistance to trastuzumab, the median PFS (progression free survival) was 6.

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Restraint water-immersion stress (RWIS) consists of psychological and physical stimulation, and it has been utilized in the research of gastric mucosal damage. It has been shown by previous studies that the nucleus raphe magnus (NRM) is closely involved in the gastrointestinal function, but its functions on the stress-induced gastric mucosal injury (SGMI) have not been thoroughly elucidated to date. Consequently, in this research, we aim to measure the expression of astrocytic glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), neuronal c-Fos, and phosphorylation extracellular signal regulated kinase 1/2 (p-ERK1/2) in the process of RWIS with immunohistochemistry and western blot methods.

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Background: Although an immense effort has been made to develop a novel biomarker for response to trastuzumab, no reliable biomarkers are available to guide management, expect for HER2. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between microRNA (miRNA) expression and resistance to trastuzumab.

Methods: Differentially expressed miRNAs between trastuzumab-resistant and trastuzumab-sensitive cell lines were analyzed using microarrays.

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Trastuzumab is a successful, rationally designed therapy that provides significant clinical benefit for human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer patients. However, about half of individuals with HER2-positive breast cancer do not respond to trastuzumab treatment because of various resistance mechanisms, including but not limited to: 1) shedding of the HER2 extracellular domain, 2) steric hindrance ( e.g.

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Placenta-specific protein 1 (Plac1) is a cancer/testis antigen that plays a critical role in promoting cancer initiation and progression. However, the clinical significance and mechanism of Plac1 in cancer progression remain elusive. Here, we report that Plac1 is an important oncogenic and prognostic factor, which physically interacts with Furin to drive breast cancer invasion and metastasis.

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Restraint water-immersion stress (RWIS) is considered to be a compound stress model that includes psychological and physical stimulation and may cause gastric mucosal damage. Studies have shown that locus coeruleus (LC) is involved in the gastrointestinal function, but whether it is involved in RWIS-induced gastric mucosal damage has not yet been reported. Here, we investigated the expression of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), c-Fos, and phosphorylation extracellular signal regulated kinase 1/2 (p-ERK1/2) in the LC after RWIS using immunocytochemical staining and western blotting in order to explore whether the ERK1/2 signaling pathway interacts with the neuron-astrocyte network in the LC during RWIS and whether it is involved in causing RWIS-induced gastric mucosal damage.

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