Publications by authors named "Pei-Ling Hsu"

Introduction: Insulin, the key hormone for glucose regulation, has garnered attention for its role as an immune modulator. Impaired insulin signaling in the central nervous system is linked to neuroinflammation and neurodegenerative diseases. Microglia, the resident macrophage-like immune cells in the brain, are key regulators of neuroinflammation.

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Objective: To study the effects of losartan, an angiotensin II receptor blocker, in the SCC4 and SCC25 human tongue squamous cell carcinoma cell lines.

Methods: Cell proliferation was measured by MTS/PMS activity and trypan blue exclusion assays. The levels of the cell proliferation marker, cyclin D1, were analyzed by western blotting.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how glucocorticoids (GCs), produced from a long-term high-fat diet (HFD), contribute to fat tissue growth and obesity.* -
  • Using a special mouse model that doesn't produce corticosterone (CORT) after prolonged HFD, researchers found these mice gained less weight and showed less fat expansion compared to normal mice.* -
  • The results indicate that CORT plays a significant role in promoting fat growth by downregulating a key factor in fat cell development (Pref-1), linking GCs to obesity caused by high-fat diets.*
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Half of NSCLC patients harbor epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations, and their therapeutic responses are remarkably different from patients with wild-type EGFR (EGFR-WT) NSCLC. We previously demonstrated that the hedgehog inhibitor vismodegib (Vis) potentiates paclitaxel (PTX)-induced cytotoxicity via suppression of Bax phosphorylation, which promotes accumulation of mitochondrial damage and apoptosis in EGFR-WT NSCLC cells. In this study, we further delineated the anticancer activity and underlying mechanisms of this combination treatment in EGFR-mutant NSCLC cells.

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Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a common cancer with several accepted treatments, such as chemotherapy, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors, and immune checkpoint inhibitors. Nevertheless, NSCLC cells often become insensitive to these treatments, and therapeutic resistance is a major reason NSCLC still has a high mortality rate. The induction of therapeutic resistance in NSCLC often involves hedgehog, and suppression of hedgehog can increase NSCLC cell sensitivity to several conventional therapies.

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  • Osteosarcoma is a type of bone cancer that mostly affects kids and teens, and researchers are testing a drug called benzamil to see if it can help treat it.
  • In the study, two types of osteosarcoma cells were treated with benzamil and several tests were done to measure cell growth and death.
  • The results showed that benzamil made the cancer cells die by reducing certain proteins that help the cells survive and affecting their energy production.
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Gastric cancer with peritoneal metastasis is considered to be final stage gastric cancer. One current treatment approach for this condition is combined cytoreductive surgery with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). However, the therapeutic mechanisms of HIPEC remain largely undescribed.

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Although the relationships of cerebrovascular hemodynamic dysfunction with neurodegenerative diseases remain unclear, many studies have indicated that poor cerebral perfusion accelerates the progression of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). Small animal models are widely used in AD research. However, providing an imaging modality with a high spatiotemporal resolution and sufficiently large field of view to assess cerebrovascular hemodynamics in vivo remains a challenge.

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Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is among the deadliest cancers worldwide. Despite the recent introduction of several new therapeutic approaches for the disease, improvements in overall survival and progression-free survival have been minimal. Conventional treatments for NSCLC include surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

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  • Metastasis, the spread of cancer to other parts of the body, is a key factor in the high mortality rates of colorectal cancer, with nuclear TYRO3 receptor identified as a major predictor of poor patient outcomes.
  • The study reveals that the kinase activity of nuclear TYRO3 and its effect on matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) are crucial for promoting metastasis, while emphasizing that this process does not require a ligand to function.
  • Researchers found that the interaction between TYRO3, MMP-2, and bromodomain-containing protein 3 (BRD3) can lead to drug resistance and enhanced metastasis, suggesting that targeting this pathway could help improve treatment outcomes for colorectal cancer
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Monocytes are a major population of circulating immune cells that play a crucial role in producing pro-inflammatory cytokines in the body. The actions of monocytes are known to be influenced by the combinations and concentrations of certain fatty acids (FAs) in blood and dietary fats. However, systemic comparisons of the effects of FAs on cytokine secretion by monocytes have not be performed.

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Comorbidity exists between metabolic disorders and depressive syndrome with unclear mechanisms. To characterize the causal relationship, we adopted a 12-week high-fat diet (HFD) to induce metabolic disorder and depressive phenotypes in mice. Initially, we identified an enhanced glutamatergic input in the nucleus accumbens of HFD mice.

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Constitutive androstane receptor (CAR) activation has found to ameliorate diabetes in animal models. However, no CAR agonists are available clinically. Therefore, a safe and effective CAR activator would be an alternative option.

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Endometriosis is a highly prevalent gynecological disease with severe negative impacts on life quality and financial burden. Unfortunately, there is no cure for this disease, which highlights the need for further investigation about the pathophysiology of this disease to provide clues for developing novel therapeutic regimens. Herein, we identified that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-C, a potent lymphangiogenic factor, is up-regulated in endometriotic cells and contributes to increased lymphangiogenesis.

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Oxidative therapy, a strategy that specifically increases reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels in tumor cells by disrupting the redox homeostasis has gained increasing interest. The antitumor effects of the natural product piperlongumine (PL) appear to result from its ability to increase intracellular ROS levels via inhibition of antioxidative thioredoxin reductase (TrxR). Twenty-seven benzylidenecyclohexenone-based PL analogues (2a-v and 15a-e) were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their pharmacological properties.

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Oxygen is essentially required by most eukaryotic organisms as a scavenger to remove harmful electron and hydrogen ions or as a critical substrate to ensure the proper execution of enzymatic reactions. All nucleated cells can sense oxygen concentration and respond to reduced oxygen availability (hypoxia). When oxygen delivery is disrupted or reduced, the organisms will develop numerous adaptive mechanisms to facilitate cells survived in the hypoxic condition.

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Early dissemination is a unique characteristic and a detrimental process of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC); however, the underlying mechanism remains largely unknown. Here, we investigate the role of dual-specificity phosphatase-2 (DUSP2)-vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) axis in mediating PDAC lymphangiogenesis and lymphovascular invasion. Expression of DUSP2 is greatly suppressed in PDAC, which results in increased aberrant expression of extracellular vesicle (EV)-associated VEGF-C secretion.

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Scaffold hopping-driven lead optimizations were performed based on our prior lead 7-methoxy-4-(2-methylquinazolin-4-yl)-3,4-dihydroquinoxalin-2(1)-one () by C-ring expansion and isometric replacement of the A/B-ring, successively, aimed at finding new potential alternative drug candidates with different scaffold(s), high antitumor activity, and other improved properties to replace prior, once promising drug candidates that failed in further studies. Two series of new compounds () and () were synthesized and evaluated for antitumor activity, leading to the discovery of three highly potent compounds , , and with different scaffolds. They exhibited similar high antitumor activity with single digital low nanomolar GI values (4.

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Autophagy occurs at basal levels for cellular homeostasis under normal conditions and is increased in response to nutrient starvation or stress to ensure cell survival. However, excessive autophagy can be deleterious to cardiomyocytes. CCN1/Cyr61, a matricellular protein, is expressed in the stressed heart to induce cardiomyopathy.

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Betulinic acid (BA), a pentacyclic triterpenoid, exhibits broad spectrum antiproliferative activity, but generally with only modest potency. To improve BA's pharmacological properties, fluorine was introduced as a single atom at C-2, creating two diastereomers, or in a trifluoromethyl group at C-3. We evaluated the impact of these groups on antiproliferative activity against five human tumor cell lines.

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Monoterpenoid indole alkaloids are structurally diverse natural products found in plants of the family Apocynaceae. Among them, vincristine and its derivatives are well known for their anticancer activity. , a species in this family, contains various monoterpenoid indole alkaloids.

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Background: Atherosclerosis occurs preferentially at the blood vessels encountering blood flow turbulence. The matricellular protein CCN1 is induced in endothelial cells by disturbed flow, and is expressed in advanced atherosclerotic lesions in patients and in the Apoe mouse model. The role of CCN1 in atherosclerosis remains undefined.

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Endometriosis is a highly prevalent gynecological disease in women of reproductive age that markedly reduces life quality and fertility. Unfortunately, there is no cure for this disease, which highlights that more efforts are needed to investigate the underlying mechanism for designing novel therapeutic regimens. This study aims to investigate druggable membrane receptors distinctively expressed in endometriotic cells.

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Cancer is among the leading causes of death worldwide. In 2016, 8.9 million people are estimated to have died from various forms of cancer.

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