Association of prednisone and antinuclear antibodies with pregnancy outcomes in women with unexplained recurrent pregnancy loss.

Objective: To investigate the therapeutic role of prednisone in patients having unexplained recurrent pregnancy loss (URPL) with positivity of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) and the relationship between ANA titers, prednisone, and pregnancy outcomes.

Methods: We included 202 women diagnosed as having URPL with positive ANA at titer of 1:80 or more. Among them, 159 patients receiving prednisone plus aspirin were included as group PA and the remaining 43 patients prescribed aspirin only served as group A.

Decidua-derived granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor induces polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cells from circulating CD15+ neutrophils.

Study Question: Do decidua-derived factors stimulate the conversion of circulating neutrophils to polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cells (PMN-MDSCs) in early human pregnancy?

Summary Answer: Circulating neutrophils can acquire PMN-MDSC-like phenotypes and function via phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription 5/programmed death ligand 2 (pSTAT5/PD-L2) signalling after stimulation with decidua-derived granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF).

What Is Known Already: PMN-MDSCs are an important immunoregulatory cell type in early pregnancy. Neutrophils are of high heterogeneity and plasticity and can polarize to immunosuppressive PMN-MDSCs upon stimulation.

Estrogen-induced FOS-like 1 regulates matrix metalloproteinase expression and the motility of human endometrial and decidual stromal cells.

The regulation mechanisms involved in matrix metalloproteinase () expression and the motility of human endometrial and decidual stromal cells (ESCs and DSCs, respectively) during decidualization remain unclear. DSCs show significant increased cell motility and expression of FOS-like 1 () and , , and compared with ESCs, whereas lack of decidualization inducers leads to a rapid decrease in and and expression in DSCs Therefore, we hypothesized that a link exists between decidualization inducers and FOSL1 in up-regulation of motility during decidualization. Based on the response of ESCs/DSCs to different decidualization systems , we found that progesterone (P4) alone had no significant effect and that 17β-estradiol (E2) significantly increased cell motility and and and expression at the mRNA and protein levels, whereas 8-bromo-cAMP significantly decreased cell motility and and expression in the presence of P4.

Characterization of naturally occurring pentacyclic triterpenes as novel inhibitors of deubiquitinating protease USP7 with anticancer activity in vitro.

Deubiquitinating protease USP7 is a promising therapeutic target for cancer treatment, and interest in developing USP7 inhibitors has greatly increased. In the present study, we reported a series of natural pentacyclic triterpenes with USP7 inhibitory activity in vitro. Among them, both the ursane triterpenes and oleanane triterpenes were more active than the lupine triterpenes, whereas ursolic acid was the most potent with IC of 7.