Role of ACLY in the development of gastric cancer under hyperglycemic conditions

To investigate the impact of hyperglycemia on the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer and identify key molecules associated with high glucose levels in gastric cancer development,RNA sequencing data and clinical features of gastric cancer patients were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas(TCGA)database.High glucose-related genes strongly associated with gastric cancer were identified using weighted gene co-expression network and differential analyses.A gastric cancer prognosis signature was constructed based on these genes and patients were categorized into high-and low-risk groups.The immune statuses of the two patient groups were compared.ATP citrate lyase(ACLY),a gene significantly related to the prognosis,was found to be upregulated upon high-glucose stimulation.Immunohistochemistry and molecular analyses confirmed high ACLY expression in gastric cancer tissues and cells.Gene Set Enrichment Analysis(GSEA)revealed the involvement of ACLY in cell cycle and DNA replication processes.Inhibition of ACLY affected the proliferation and migration of gastric cancer cells induced by high glucose levels.These findings suggest that ACLY,as a high glucose-related gene,plays a critical role in gastric cancer progression.

Identification of an ideal adjuvant for receptor-binding domain-based subunit vaccines against Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus

Middle East respiratory syndrome （MERS）, an emerging infectious disease caused by MERS coronavirus （MERS-CoV）, has garnered worldwide attention as a consequence of its continuous spread and pandemic potential, making the development of effective vaccines a high priority. We previously demonstrated that residues 377-588 of MERS-CoV spike （S） protein receptor-binding domain （RBD） is a very promising MERS subunit vaccine candidate, capable of inducing potent neutralization antibody responses. In this study, we sought to identify an adjuvant that optimally enhanced the immunogenicity of S377-588 protein fused with Fc of human IgG （S377-588-Fc）. Specifically, we compared several commercially available adjuvants, including Freund＇s adjuvant, aluminum, Monophosphoryl lipid A, Montanide ISA51 and MF59 with regard to their capacity to enhance the immunogenicity of this subunit vaccine. In the absence of adjuvant, S377-588-Fc alone induced readily detectable neutralizing antibody and T-cell responses in immunized mice. However, incorporating an adjuvant improved its immunogenicity. Particularly, among the aforementioned adjuvants evaluated, MF59 is the most potent as judged by its superior ability to induce the highest titers of IgG, IgG1 and IgG2a subtypes, and neutralizing antibodies. The addition of MF59 significantly augmented the immunogenicity of S377-588-Fcto induce strong IgG and neutralizing antibody responses as well as protection against MERS-CoV infection in mice, suggesting that MF59 is an optimal adjuvant for MERS-CoV RBD-based subunit vaccines.

A MyD88-JAK1-STAT1 complex directly induces SOCS-1 expression in macrophages infected with Group A Streptococcus

Some pathogens can use host suppressor of cytokine signaling I （SOCS-1）, an important negative-feedback molecule, as the main mode of immune evasion. Here we found that group A Streptococcus （GAS） is capable of inducing SOCS-1 expression in RAW264.7 and BMDM macrophages. IFN-p plays a role in GAS-induced SOCS-1 expression in macrophages following the induction of cytokine expression by GAS, representing the classical pathway of SOCS-1 expression. However, GAS also induced STAT1 activation and SOCS-1 expression when GAS-infected cells were incubated with anti-IFN-p monoclonal antibody in this study. Moreover, upon comparing TLR4-/- BMDM macrophages with wild-type （WT） cells, we found that TLR4 also plays an essential role in the induction of SOCS-1. MyD88, which is an adaptor protein for TLR4, contributes to STAT1 activation and phosphorylation by forming a complex with Janus kinase 1 （JAK1） and signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 （STAT1） in macrophages. GAS-stimulated expression of STAT1 was severely impaired in MyD88-/- macrophages, whereas expression of JAK1 was unaffected, suggesting that MyD88 was involved in STAT1 expression and phosphorylation. Together, these data demonstrated that in addition to IFN-p signaling and MyD88 complex formation, JAK1 and STAT1 act in a novel pathway to directly induce SOCS-1 expression in GAS-infected macrophages, which may be more conducive to rapid bacterial infection.