FGF8 induces epithelial-mesenchymal transition and promotes metastasis in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Oral squamous cell carcinoma(OSCC)is one of the most common cancers worldwide,and with 354864 new cases each year.Cancer metastasis,recurrence,and drug resistance are the main causes to cripples and deaths of OSCC patients.As potent growth factors,fibroblast growth factors(FGFs)are frequently susceptible to being hijacked by cancer cells.In this study,we show that FGF8 is upregulated in OSCC tissues and high FGF8 expression is related with a set of clinicopathologic parameters,including age,drinking,and survival time.FGF8 treatment enhances the invasive capability of OSCC cells.Lentivirus-based FGF8 expression promotes OSCC metastasis in a mouse lung metastasis model.Further,mechanistic study demonstrates that FGF8 induces epithelial–mesenchymal transition(EMT)in OSCC cells.These results highlight a pro-metastatic function of FGF8,and underscore the role of FGF8 in OSCC development.

RIOX1-demethylated cGAS regulates ionizing radiation-elicited DNA repair

Exposure to radiation causes DNA damage;hence, continuous surveillance and timely DNA repair are important for genome stability. Epigenetic modifications alter the chromatin architecture, thereby affecting the efficiency of DNA repair. However, how epigenetic modifiers coordinate with the DNA repair machinery to modulate cellular radiosensitivity is relatively unknown. Here, we report that loss of the demethylase ribosomal oxygenase 1(RIOX1) restores cell proliferation and reduces cell death after exposure to ionizing radiation. Furthermore, RIOX1 depletion enhances homologous recombination(HR) repair but not nonhomologous endjoining(NHEJ) repair in irradiated bone marrow cells and oral mucosal epithelial cells. Mechanistic study demonstrates that RIOX1 removes monomethylation at K491 of cyclic GMP-AMP synthase(c GAS) to release c GAS from its interaction with the methyl-lysine reader protein SAGA complex-associated factor 29(SGF29), which subsequently enables c GAS to interact with poly(ADP-ribosyl)ated poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1(PARP1) at DNA break sites, thereby blocking PARP1-mediated recruitment of Timeless. High expression of RIOX1 maintains c GAS K491 me at a low level, which impedes HR repair and reduces cellular tolerance to ionizing radiation. This study highlights a novel RIOX1-dependent mechanism involved in the non-immune function of c GAS that is essential for the regulation of ionizing radiation-elicited HR repair.

Terahertz metalens of hyper-dispersion

Chromatic optical lenses have promising applications in three-dimensional imaging, which allows fast spectral tomography without mechanical moving parts. The scanning range of current chromatic optical lenses is limited by their dispersion ability. The recent development in metasurfaces provides ideal blocks for optical wavefront manipulation and dispersion engineering of artificial materials at sub-wavelength scales. Hyper-dispersive metalenses can be realized by utilizing dispersive meta-atoms, which have enhanced dispersion compared to regular diffractive lenses. This is critical for increasing the imaging depth of fast spectral tomography. In this work, a hyper-dispersive metalens is realized with a chromatic dispersion 1.76 times greater than that of a regular diffractive metalens in the THz frequency range of 2.40–2.61 THz by simultaneously controlling the frequencydependent phase, group delay(GD), and GD dispersion of the metalens. This approach can also be extended to other optical spectra and improve the performance of spectral tomography.

Host-guest co-assembly triggered turn-on and ratiometric sensing of berberine and its detoxicating

Fluorescent sensing for specific detection of berberine is an important issue in view of its potential jeopardization to food safety and human health,but remains less investigated.To the best of our knowledge,there is no fluorescence turn-on and ratiometric sensors available for specific detection of berberine.In this study,calix[4]carbazole(3)has been synthesized and its property of recognizing berberine ha s been evaluated by UV-vis,fluorescence,NMR,DLS and TEM techniques.The results show that 3 selectively recognizes berberine among the tested drugs and detects it with turn-on and ratiometric fluorescence due to their co-assembly nature.Moreover,3 is not only low toxic and can reduce toxicity of berberine to human normal liver L02 cell,but also can release berberine to tumor HepG2 cells at acid micro-environment.It therefore holds a great potential for further exploration。