Extracellular vesicles-based vaccines: Emerging immunotherapies against cancer.

Cancer vaccines are promising therapeutic approaches to enhance specific T-cell immunity against most solid tumors. By stimulating anti-tumor immunity, clearing minimal residual disease, and minimizing adverse effects, these vaccines target tumor cells and are effective when combined with immune checkpoint blockade or other immunotherapies. However, the development of tumor cell-based vaccines faces quality issues due to poor immunogenicity, tumor heterogeneity, a suppressive tumor immune microenvironment, and ineffective delivery methods.

PTPRO suppresses lymph node metastasis of esophageal carcinoma by dephosphorylating MET.

Protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor-type O (PTPRO) is a membrane-bound tyrosine phosphatase. Notably, epigenetically silenced PTPRO due to promoter hypermethylation is frequently linked to malignancies. In this study, we used cellular and animal models, and patient samples to demonstrate that PTPRO can suppress the metastasis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).

Targeting PELP1 Attenuates Angiogenesis and Enhances Chemotherapy Efficiency in Colorectal Cancer.

Abnormal angiogenesis is one of the important hallmarks of colorectal cancer as well as other solid tumors. Optimally, anti-angiogenesis therapy could restrain malignant angiogenesis to control tumor expansion. PELP1 is as a scaffolding oncogenic protein in a variety of cancer types, but its involvement in angiogenesis is unknown.

Repurposing dextromethorphan and metformin for treating nicotine-induced cancer by directly targeting CHRNA7 to inhibit JAK2/STAT3/SOX2 signaling.

Smoking is one of the most impactful lifestyle-related risk factors in many cancer types including esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). As the major component of tobacco and e-cigarettes, nicotine is not only responsible for addiction to smoking but also a carcinogen. Here we report that nicotine enhances ESCC cancer malignancy and tumor-initiating capacity by interacting with cholinergic receptor nicotinic alpha 7 subunit (CHRNA7) and subsequently activating the JAK2/STAT3 signaling pathway.

Chimeric RNA ASTN2-PAPPA aggravates tumor progression and metastasis in human esophageal cancer.

Transcription-induced chimeric RNAs are an emerging area of research into molecular signatures for disease biomarker and therapeutic target development. Despite their importance, little is known for chimeric RNAs-relevant roles and the underlying mechanisms for cancer pathogenesis and progression. Here we describe a unique ASTN2-PAPPA chimeric RNA (A-PchiRNA) that could be the first reported chimeric RNA derived from the splicing of exons and intron antisense of two neighboring genes, respectively.

Splice variant of growth hormone-releasing hormone receptor drives esophageal squamous cell carcinoma conferring a therapeutic target.

The extrahypothalamic growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) and its cognate receptors (GHRH-Rs) and splice variants are expressed in a variety of cancers. It has been shown that the pituitary type of GHRH-R (pGHRH-R) mediates the inhibition of tumor growth induced by GHRH-R antagonists. However, GHRH-R antagonists can also suppress some cancers that do not express pGHRH-R, yet the underlying mechanisms have not been determined.

Targeted and Intrinsic Activity of HA-Functionalized PEI-Nanoceria as a Nano Reactor in Potential Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Treatment.

Although there has been considerable achievement in the field of breast cancer therapeutics, tackling the disturbing issue of highly potent triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) still remains a hurdle in cancer therapeutics. Here, for the first time we propose a poly(ethylenimine) (PEI)-mediated approach for the synthesis of hyaluronic acid (HA) tagged cerium oxide nanoparticles (CePEI-NPs) as a therapeutic agent in TNBC. Primarily, the formulated HA-CePEI-NPs upon treatment displayed superior anticancer effect by exhibiting the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP).

MTA3 Represses Cancer Stemness by Targeting the SOX2OT/SOX2 Axis.

Cancer cell stemness (CCS) plays critical roles in both malignancy maintenance and metastasis, yet the underlying molecular mechanisms are far from complete. Although the importance of SOX2 in cancer development and CCS are well recognized, the role of MTA3 in these processes is unknown. In this study, we used esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) as a model system to demonstrate that MTA3 can repress both CCS and metastasis in vitro and in vivo.

Exosomal lncRNA ZFAS1 regulates esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cell proliferation, invasion, migration and apoptosis via microRNA-124/STAT3 axis.

Background: In recent years, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are of great importance in development of different types of tumors, while the function of lncRNA ZFAS1 is rarely discussed in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Therefore, we performed this study to explore the expression of exosomal lncRNA ZFAS1 and its molecular mechanism on ESCC progression.

Methods: Expression of ZFAS1 and miR-124 in ESCC tissues was detected.

MTA3-SOX2 Module Regulates Cancer Stemness and Contributes to Clinical Outcomes of Tongue Carcinoma.

Cancer cell plasticity plays critical roles in both tumorigenesis and tumor progression. Metastasis-associated protein 3 (MTA3), a component of the nucleosome remodeling and histone deacetylase (NuRD) complex and multi-effect coregulator, can serve as a tumor suppressor in many cancer types. However, the role of MTA3 in tongue squamous cell cancer (TSCC) remains unclear although it is the most prevalent head and neck cancer and often with poor prognosis.

Detection of Exosomal PD-L1 RNA in Saliva of Patients With Periodontitis.

Periodontitis is the most prevalent inflammatory disease of the periodontium, and is related to oral and systemic health. Exosomes are emerging as non-invasive biomarker for liquid biopsy. We here evaluated the levels of programmed death-ligand 1 () mRNA in salivary exosomes from patients with periodontitis and non-periodontitis controls.

Metformin induces human esophageal carcinoma cell pyroptosis by targeting the miR-497/PELP1 axis.

Evasion of apoptosis is a major contributing factor to the development of chemo- and radiotherapy resistance. Therefore, activation of non-apoptotic programmed cell death (PCD) could be an effective alternative against apoptosis-resistant cancers. In this study, we demonstrated in vitro and in vivo that metformin can induce pyroptosis, a non-apoptotic PCD, in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), a commonly known chemo-refractory cancer, especially at its advanced stages.

The oncogenic roles of nuclear receptor coactivator 1 in human esophageal carcinoma.

Nuclear receptor coactivator 1 (NCOA1) plays crucial roles in the regulation of gene expression mediated by a wide spectrum of steroid receptors such as androgen receptor (AR), estrogen receptor α (ER α), and estrogen receptor β (ER β). Therefore, dysregulations of NCOA1 have been found in a variety of cancer types. However, the clinical relevance and the functional roles of NCOA1 in human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) are less known.

Growth hormone-releasing hormone receptor antagonists inhibit human gastric cancer through downregulation of PAK1-STAT3/NF-κB signaling.

Gastric cancer (GC) ranks as the fourth most frequent in incidence and second in mortality among all cancers worldwide. The development of effective treatment approaches is an urgent requirement. Growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) and GHRH receptor (GHRH-R) have been found to be present in a variety of tumoral tissues and cell lines.

The Many Faces of MTA3 Protein in Normal Development and Cancers.

As a family of chromatin remodeling proteins, metastasis-associated proteins (MTAs) have shown to be the master regulators in both physiological and pathological contexts. Although MTA3 is the latest being identified in MTA family, it has started to draw as much attention as the other family members. MTA3 is expressed in various tissues and is associated with different physiological functions.