Publications by authors named "Zhao Chengjian"

Dysfunctional tumor vasculature, hypoxia, and an immunosuppressive microenvironment are significant barriers to effective cancer therapy. Autophagy, which is critical for maintaining cellular homeostasis and apoptosis resistance, is primarily triggered by hypoxia and nutrient deprivation, conditions prevalent in dysfunctional tumor vessels due to poor circulation. However, the role of autophagy in dysfunctional tumor endothelial cells and its impact on treatment and the tumor microenvironment (TME) remain poorly understood.

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Article Synopsis
  • Advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a poor prognosis, and this study tested whether combining the immunotherapy toripalimab with chemotherapy (gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel) could improve treatment outcomes for patients with advanced PDAC.
  • The results showed median overall survival of 8.9 months and a good safety profile, with no serious side effects reported among the 72 participants.
  • Biomarkers like PD-L1 expression and immune cell interactions were explored, revealing that specific immune cell spatial interactions were significant predictors of treatment response, suggesting potential for tailored therapies in this context.
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(1) Background: SMARCA4-deficient undifferentiated uterine sarcoma (SDUS) is a rare and aggressive cancer that urgently requires novel therapeutic strategies. Despite the proven efficacy of immunotherapy in various cancer types, its application in SDUS remains largely unexplored. This study aims to investigate the immune microenvironment of SDUS to evaluate the feasibility of utilizing immunotherapy.

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Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is notorious for its resistance to various treatment modalities. The genetic heterogeneity of PDAC, coupled with the presence of a desmoplastic stroma within the tumor microenvironment (TME), contributes to an unfavorable prognosis. The mechanisms and consequences of interactions among different cell types, along with spatial variations influencing cellular function, potentially play a role in the pathogenesis of PDAC.

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The immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI), anti-programmed cell death receptor-1 (PD-1) antibody, has gained widespread approval for treating various malignancies. Among the immune-related adverse reactions (irAEs) during ICI treatment, the lichenoid reaction is noteworthy. Sintilimab, a new PD-1 inhibitor, has secured approval in China for treating refractory non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and phase I/II clinical trials for other solid tumors are ongoing both domestically and abroad.

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Tumor vasculature often exhibits disorder and inefficiency. Vascular normalization offers potential for alleviating hypoxia and optimizing drug delivery in tumors. However, identifying effective agents is hindered by a lack of robust screening.

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Leukemogenesis is proposed to be a multistep process by which normal hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells are transformed into full-blown leukemic cells, the details of which are not fully understood. Here, we performed serial single-cell transcriptome analyses of preleukemic and leukemic cells (PLCs) and constructed the cellular and molecular transformation trajectory in a Myc-driven acute myeloid leukemia (AML) model in mice, which represented the transformation course in patients. We found that the Myc targets were gradually up-regulated along the trajectory.

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Purpose: We constructed a zebrafish xenograft tumor model to compare and quantify the antiangiogenic efficacy and safety of nine vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (VEGFR-TKIs), axitinib, lenvatinib, pazopanib, apatinib, cabozantinib, sunitinib, semaxanib, sorafenib, and regorafenib, in parallel.

Methods: CT26 and GL261 tumor cells were implanted into the perivitelline space of Tg (flk1: eGFP) zebrafish to construct a xenograft tumor model. VEGFR-TKIs' antiangiogenic efficacy was quantified using AngioTool software, and the median effective dose (ED50) was calculated.

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Despite the robust healing capacity of the liver, regenerative failure underlies numerous hepatic diseases, including the haploinsufficient disorder, Alagille syndrome (ALGS). Cholestasis due to intrahepatic duct (IHD) paucity resolves in certain ALGS cases but fails in most with no clear mechanisms or therapeutic interventions. We find that modulating and allele dosage is sufficient to stratify these distinct outcomes, which can be either exacerbated or rescued with genetic manipulation of Notch signaling, demonstrating that perturbations of Jag/Notch signaling may be causal for the spectrum of ALGS liver severities.

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Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most frequent and lethal malignancies in the world. However, our understanding of the mechanisms underlying its initiation and progression is limited. Here, we generate a series of primary GC models in mice with genome-edited gastric organoids, which elucidate the genetic drivers for sequential transformation from dysplasia to well-differentiated and poorly differentiated GC.

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Cisplatin-based chemotherapy remains the primary treatment for unresectable and metastatic muscle-invasive bladder cancers (MIBCs). However, tumors frequently develop chemoresistance. Here, we established a primary and orthotopic MIBC mouse model with gene-edited organoids to recapitulate the full course of chemotherapy in patients.

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Maoji Jiu (MJ), a medicinal wine, has been used commonly by the Chinese to enrich and nourish the blood. In this study, the aim is to examine the hematopoietic function of MJ and investigate its hematopoietic regulation mechanism. Thirty-six female Sprague-Dawley rats (200 ± 20 g) were randomly divided into six groups with six rats in each group.

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The 'angiogenic switch' is critical for tumor progression. However, the pathological details and molecular mechanisms remain incompletely characterized. In this study, we established mammal xenografts in zebrafish to visually investigate the first vessel growth (angiogenic switch) in real-time, by inoculating tumor cells into the perivitelline space of live optically transparent Transgenic (flk1:EGFP) zebrafish larvae.

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Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is notorious for its early and frequent metastases, which contribute to it as a recalcitrant malignancy. To understand the molecular mechanisms underlying SCLC metastasis, we generated SCLC mouse models with orthotopically transplanted genome-edited lung organoids and performed multiomics analyses. We found that a deficiency of KMT2C, a histone H3 lysine 4 methyltransferase frequently mutated in extensive-stage SCLC, promoted multiple-organ metastases in mice.

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In this study, we aimed to reveal the resistance mechanism of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells to sorafenib by exploring the effect of FNDC5 on sorafenib-induced ferroptosis in HCC cells. We compared the expression level of FNDC5 between sorafenib-resistant and sorafenib-sensitive HCC cell lines and the level of ferroptosis between the groups after treatment with sorafenib. We knocked down FNDC5 in drug-resistant cell lines and overexpressed it in sorafenib-sensitive HCC cell lines to further demonstrate the role of FNDC5 in sorafenib-induced ferroptosis.

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Tokay Gecko (Gekko gecko) is a rare and endangered medicinal animal in China. Its dry body has been used as an anti-asthmatic agent for two thousand years. To date, the genome and transcriptome of this species remain poorly understood.

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An accurate prediction of the intracranial infiltration tendency and drug response of individual glioblastoma (GBM) cells is essential for personalized prognosis and treatment for this disease. However, the clinical utility of mouse patient-derived orthotopic xenograft (PDOX) models remains limited given current technical constraints, including difficulty in generating sufficient sample numbers from small tissue samples and a long latency period for results. To overcome these issues, we established zebrafish GBM xenografts of diverse origin, which can tolerate intracranial engraftment and maintain their unique histological features.

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Background And Aims: Alagille Syndrome (ALGS) is a congenital disorder caused by mutations in the Notch ligand gene JAGGED1, leading to neonatal loss of intrahepatic duct (IHD) cells and cholestasis. Cholestasis can resolve in certain patients with ALGS, suggesting regeneration of IHD cells. However, the mechanisms driving IHD cell regeneration following Jagged loss remains unclear.

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Epileptic seizure detection is of great significance in the diagnosis of epilepsy and relieving the heavy workload of visual inspection of electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings. This paper presents a novel method for seizure detection using the Stein kernel-based sparse representation (SR) for EEG recordings. Different from the traditional SR scheme that works with vector data in Euclidean space, the Stein kernel-based SR framework is constructed for seizure detection in the space of the symmetric positive definite (SPD) matrices, which form a Riemannian manifold.

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Regenerative capacity is frequently impaired in aged organs. Stress to aged organs often causes scar formation (fibrosis) at the expense of regeneration. It remains to be defined how hematopoietic and vascular cells contribute to aging-induced regeneration to fibrotic transition.

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Chromosome copy-number variations are a hallmark of cancer. Among them, the prevalent chromosome 17p deletions are associated with poor prognosis and can promote tumorigenesis more than loss. Here, we use multiple functional genetic strategies and identify a new 17p tumor suppressor gene (TSG), plant homeodomain finger protein 23 ().

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Angiokinases, such as vascular endothelial-, fibroblast- and platelet-derived growth factor receptors (VEGFRs, FGFRs and PDGFRs) play crucial roles in tumor angiogenesis. Anti-angiogenesis therapy using multi-angiokinase inhibitor has achieved great success in recent years. In this study, we presented the design, synthesis, target identification, molecular mechanism, pharmacodynamics (PD) and pharmacokinetics (PK) research of a novel triple-angiokinase inhibitor WXFL-152.

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Toxicity to central nervous system tissues is the common side effects for radiotherapy of brain tumor. The radiation toxicity has been thought to be related to the damage of cerebral endothelium. However, because of lacking a suitable high-resolution vivo model, cellular response of cerebral capillaries to radiation remained unclear.

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