Global research trends and prospects of cellular metabolism in colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND An increasing number of studies have focused on the role of cellular metabolism in the development of colorectal cancer(CRC).However,no work is currently available to synthesize the field through bibliometrics.AIM To analyze the development in the field of“glucose metabolism”(GM),“amino acid metabolism”(AM),“lipid metabolism”(LM),and“nucleotide metabolism”(NM)in CRC by visualization.METHODS Articles within the abovementioned areas of GM,AM,LM and NM in CRC,which were published from January 1,1991,to December 31,2022,are retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection and analyzed by CiteSpace 6.2.R4 and VOSviewer 1.6.19.RESULTS The field of LM in CRC presented the largest number of annual publications and the fastest increase in the last decade compared with the other three fields.Meanwhile,China and the United States were two of the most prominent contri-butors in these four areas.In addition,Gang Wang,Wei Jia,Maria Notar-nicola,and Cornelia Ulrich ranked first in publication numbers,while Jing-Yuan Fang,Senji Hirasawa,Wei Jia,and Charles Fuchs were the most cited authors on average in these four fields,respectively.“Gut microbiota”and“epithelial-mesenchymal transition”emerged as the newest burst words in GM,“gut microbiota”was the latest outburst word in AM,“metastasis”,“tumor microenvironment”,“fatty acid metabolism”,and“metabolic reprogramming”were the up-to-date outbreaking words in LM,while“epithelial-mesenchymal transition”and“apoptosis”were the most recently occurring words in NM.CONCLUSION Research in“cellular metabolism in CRC”is all the rage at the moment,and researchers are particularly interested in exploring the mechanism to explain the metabolic alterations in CRC.Targeting metabolic vulnerability appears to be a promising direction in CRC therapy.

Clinical value of preoperative methylated septin 9 in Chinese colorectal cancer patients

BACKGROUND The methylated septin 9(mSEPT9) assay was the first blood-based test approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration as a colorectal screening test.However, the diagnostic and prognostic role of preoperative mSEPT9 for colorectal cancer(CRC) in Chinese patients is still unknown.AIM To improve the understanding of diagnostic and prognostic factors, serum m SEPT9 was detected in Chinese CRC patients.METHODS A retrospective analysis of 354 cases, of which 300 had CRC and 54 were normal,was performed in China. Patients' characteristics, treatments, and laboratory data, including age, the date of surgery, Union for International Cancer Control(UICC) stages, distant metastasis(M), and so on, were collected. Methylation levels of SEPT9 were quantified by quantitative, methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction before surgery. In addition, the effects of mSEPT9 on the occurrence and prognosis of 330 CRC cases from The Cancer Genome Atlas(TCGA) database were evaluated using bioinformatics analyses. Potential prognostic factors for overall survival(OS) and progression-free survival(PFS)were evaluated by Kaplan-Meier univariate analysis.RESULTSIn Chinese CRC patients, positive mSEPT9 was strongly associated with advanced UICC stages, deeper invasion by the primary tumor, and more distant metastasis. Methylation levels of SEPT9 were stage-dependent and showed a stepwise increase in UICC stages(I–IV), primary tumor categories(T1–T4),regional node categories(N0–N2), and distant metastasis categories(M0–M1).The patients with positive mSEPT9 showed a tendency toward lower PFS. After analyzing TCGA clinical data, the high mSEPT9 group was found to be obviously correlated only with more distant metastasis. The patients with high mSEPT9 levels showed a tendency toward lower OS. Besides, nine meaningful mSEPT9 sites were found to provide guidance for the follow-up studies.CONCLUSION MSEPT9 analysis may add valuable information to current tumor staging. Serum m SEPT9 in Chinese CRC patients appears to offer promising novel prognostic markers and might be considered for monitoring CRC recurrence.

COVID-19 in gastroenterology and hepatology:Lessons learned and questions to be answered

BACKGROUND Although coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)presents primarily as a lower respiratory tract infection,increasing data suggests multiorgan,including the gastrointestinal(GI)tract and liver,involvement in patients who are infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2).AIM To provide a comprehensive overview of COVID-19 in gastroenterology and hepatology.METHODS Relevant studies on COVID-19 related to the study aim were undertaken through a literature search to synthesize the extracted data.RESULTS We found that digestive symptoms and liver injury are not uncommon in patients with COVID-19 and varies in different individuals.The most common GI symptoms reported are diarrhea,nausea,vomiting,and abdominal discomfort.Other atypical GI symptoms,such as loss of smell and taste and GI bleeding,have also been reported along with the evolvement of COVID-19.Liver chemistry abnormalities mainly include elevation of aspartate transferase,alanine transferase,and total bilirubin.It is postulated to be related to the binding of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2)virus to the angiotensin converting enzyme-2 receptor located on several different human cells.CONCLUSION Standardized criteria should be established for diagnosis and grading of the severity of GI symptoms in COVID-19 patients.Gastroenterology and hepatology in special populations,such as children and elderly,should be the focus of further research.Future long-term data regarding GI symptoms should not be overlooked.

Optimal squeezed cooling of a mechanical oscillator using measurement-based vector feedback

Measurement-based feedback has been adopted as an efficient cooling scheme capable of suppressing the thermal fluctuation of a mechanical resonator to a level limited by measurement imprecision.We present a scheme of squeezed cooling in which the limit of feedback cooling imposed by the measurement imprecision is surpassed by parametrically squeezing the mechanical resonator in a periodically oscillating optical trap.To stabilize the parametrically amplified quadrature and simultaneously optimize the cooling for the squeezed quadrature,a measurement-based vector feedback capable of independently controlling the orthogonal motional quadrature is implemented.Our experiment demonstrates that the optimal condition for the squeezed cooling closely depends on the strength of squeezing.With the ability to keep the orthogonal quadrature well decoupled,optimal squeezed cooling of the mechanical resonator under strong squeezing is achieved with the squeezed variance becoming 8.1 dB below the limit of feedback cooling and the creation of a 31.7 dB thermomechanical squeezed cooling.Although this research is conducted in the classical regime,the scheme of squeezed cooling can be naturally extended to quantum systems with the prospects of creating quantum squeezing of a room-temperature mechanical resonator and enabling displacement measurement beyond the standard quantum limit.