Modulatory activity of N-palmitoyl-D-glucosamine in bridging gut dysbiosis and pain mechanisms.

Gut dysbiosis, characterized by an imbalance in the composition and function of microbiota, has emerged as a critical factor in the regulation of pain transmission and behavior through the gut-brain axis. When dysbiosis occurs, these regulatory functions are disrupted, leading to systemic inflammation and altered signaling at central nervous system. In this study, we examined the therapeutic potential of palmitoyl glucosamine (PGA), a fatty acid amide with sharp anti-inflammatory properties, in a gut dysbiosis condition induced by antibiotic exposure in male mice.

Fibroblasts activated by miRs-185-5p, miR-652-5p, and miR-1246 shape the tumor microenvironment in triple-negative breast cancer via PATZ1 downregulation.

The intricate interplay between epithelial and fibroblast cells within the tumor microenvironment plays a crucial role in driving triple-negative breast cancer progression. This crosstalk involves the exchange of various signaling molecules, including growth factors, cytokines, extracellular matrix components, and extracellular vesicles. Recently, we demonstrated that triple-negative breast cancer extracellular vesicles carry and release a specific combination of miRs, including miR-185-5p, miR-652-5p, and miR-1246 (from here on, referred as combo-miRs), into normal fibroblasts, effectively reprogramming them into cancer-associated fibroblasts.

Feature Selection and Network-Driven Analyses to Unveil Common RNA Signatures in Colon and Pancreatic KRAS-Mutant Cancers.

Background: Colon cancer and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma are among the most aggressive tumors for which therapeutic options are limited. Both cancers share common features, such as some KRAS pathogenic variants and common epidemiology. The integration of multidimensional datasets by combining machine learning and bioinformatics approaches could provide deeper insights into the intricate KRAS-related networks underlying cancer progression and unveil novel biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets.

Health improvements by understanding residual risk in coronary artery disease and new targets for prevention/treatment: rationale and research protocol of the HURRICANE project.

Optimal medical treatment in patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) reduced morbidity and mortality but left a substantial residual risk (RR) of disease progression and events. According to recent evidence, insulin resistance or pre-diabetes together with elevated levels of triglycerides, low levels, and functionality of HDL-cholesterol, often associated with a chronic inflammatory state, are deemed to be relevant components of cardiometabolic and vascular RR. In the present project, we aim at discovering specific individual genetic/molecular profiles subtending emerging cardiometabolic and vascular risk patterns and associated with more severe stable CAD phenotypes.

miR-331-5p Affects Motility of Thyroid Cancer Cell Lines and Regulates BID Expression.

During tumorigenesis, miRNAs with unbalanced expression profiles can increase the threat of disease progression. Here, we focus on the role of miR-331-5p in the pathogenesis of thyroid cancer (TC). In vitro studies were conducted using TC cell lines after the forced expression and silencing of miR-331-5p.

The Oncosuppressive Properties of KCTD1: Its Role in Cell Growth and Mobility.

The KCTD protein family is traditionally regarded as proteins that play key roles in neurological physiopathology. However, new studies are increasingly demonstrating their involvement in many other biological processes, including cancers. This is particularly evident for KCTD proteins not involved in protein ubiquitination and degradation, such as KCTD1.

Novel Antimicrobial Strategies to Prevent Biofilm Infections in Catheters after Radical Cystectomy: A Pilot Study.

Catheter-associated infections in bladder cancer patients, following radical cystectomy or ureterocutaneostomy, are very frequent, and the development of antibiotic resistance poses great challenges for treating biofilm-based infections. Here, we characterized bacterial communities from catheters of patients who had undergone radical cystectomy for muscle-invasive bladder cancer. We evaluated the efficacy of conventional antibiotics, alone or combined with the human ApoB-derived antimicrobial peptide r(P)ApoB, to treat ureteral catheter-colonizing bacterial communities on clinically isolated bacteria.

Discovering Common miRNA Signatures Underlying Female-Specific Cancers via a Machine Learning Approach Driven by the Cancer Hallmark ERBB.

Big data processing, using omics data integration and machine learning (ML) methods, drive efforts to discover diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for clinical decision making. Previously, we used the TCGA database for gene expression profiling of breast, ovary, and endometrial cancers, and identified a top-scoring network centered on the gene, which plays a crucial role in carcinogenesis in the three estrogen-dependent tumors. Here, we focused on microRNA expression signature similarity, asking whether they could target the family.

Role of gut microbiota in neuropathy and neuropathic pain states: A systematic preclinical review.

Gut microbiota has implications in Central Nervous System (CNS) disorders. Our study systematically identified preclinical studies aimed to investigate the possible gut microbiota contribution in neuropathy and neuropathic pain. The systematic review is reported in accordance with PRISMA checklist and guidelines outlined updated to 2020.

Comparative Proteomic Profiling of Secreted Extracellular Vesicles from Breast Fibroadenoma and Malignant Lesions: A Pilot Study.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) shuttle proteins, RNA, DNA, and lipids crucial for cell-to-cell communication. Recent findings have highlighted that EVs, by virtue of their cargo, may also contribute to breast cancer (BC) growth and metastatic dissemination. Indeed, EVs are gaining great interest as non-invasive cancer biomarkers.

KCTD15 deregulation is associated with alterations of the NF-κB signaling in both pathological and physiological model systems.

Like other KCTD proteins, KCTD15 is involved in important albeit distinct biological processes as cancer, neural crest formation, and obesity. Here, we characterized the role of KCTD15 in different physiological/pathological states to gain insights into its diversified function(s). The silencing of KCTD15 in MLL-rearranged leukemia models induced attenuation of the NF-κB pathway associated with a downregulation of pIKK-β and pIKB-α.

and DNA methylation as potential epigenetic-sensitive targets in acute coronary syndrome network analysis.

Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is the most severe clinical manifestation of coronary heart disease.We performed an epigenome-wide analysis of circulating CD4 and CD8 T cells isolated from ACS patients and healthy subjects (HS), enrolled in the DIANA clinical trial, by reduced-representation bisulphite sequencing (RRBS). In CD4 T cells, we identified 61 differentially methylated regions (DMRs) associated with 57 annotated genes (53% hyper- and 47% hypo-methylated) by comparing ACS patients HS.

The impact of different preanalytical methods related to CA 15-3 determination in frozen human blood samples: a systematic review.

Background: The determination of CA 15-3 is useful for monitoring breast cancer patients. Several retrospective studies determined CA 15-3 levels in frozen samples to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of novel biomarkers in relation to breast cancer; however, freeze-thaw cycles, as well as preanalytical variables before sample storage, are not always reported. Here, we analyzed the current scientific literature to identify possible critical aspects related to CA 15-3 determination in frozen-stored human serum/plasma samples.

MuSA: a graphical user interface for multi-OMICs data integration in radiogenomic studies.

Analysis of large-scale omics data along with biomedical images has gaining a huge interest in predicting phenotypic conditions towards personalized medicine. Multiple layers of investigations such as genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics, have led to high dimensionality and heterogeneity of data. Multi-omics data integration can provide meaningful contribution to early diagnosis and an accurate estimate of prognosis and treatment in cancer.

An Integrative Computational Approach Based on Expression Similarity Signatures to Identify Protein-Protein Interaction Networks in Female-Specific Cancers.

Breast, ovarian, and endometrial cancers have a major impact on mortality in women. These tumors share hormone-dependent mechanisms involved in female-specific cancers which support tumor growth in a different manner. Integrated computational approaches may allow us to better detect genomic similarities between these different female-specific cancers, helping us to deliver more sophisticated diagnosis and precise treatments.

The New Paradigm of Network Medicine to Analyze Breast Cancer Phenotypes.

Breast cancer (BC) is a heterogeneous and complex disease as witnessed by the existence of different subtypes and clinical characteristics that poses significant challenges in disease management. The complexity of this tumor may rely on the highly interconnected nature of the various biological processes as stated by the new paradigm of Network Medicine. We explored The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)-BRCA data set, by applying the network-based algorithm named SWItch Miner, and mapping the findings on the human interactome to capture the molecular interconnections associated with the disease modules.

lncRNAs-mRNAs Co-Expression Network Underlying Childhood B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia: A Pilot Study.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as key gene regulators in the pathogenesis and development of various cancers including B lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL). In this pilot study, we used RNA-Seq transcriptomic data for identifying novel lncRNA-mRNA cooperative pairs involved in childhood B-ALL pathogenesis. We conceived a bioinformatic pipeline based on unsupervised PCA feature extraction approach and stringent statistical criteria to extract potential childhood B-ALL lncRNA signatures.

New Roadmaps for Non-muscle-invasive Bladder Cancer With Unfavorable Prognosis.

About 70% of bladder cancers (BCs) are diagnosed as non-muscle-invasive BCs (NMIBCs), while the remaining are muscle-invasive BCs (MIBCs). The European Association of Urology (EAU) guidelines stratify NMIBCs into low, intermediate, and high risk for treatment options. Low-risk NMIBCs undergo only the transurethral resection of the bladder (TURB), whereas for intermediate-risk and high-risk NMIBCs, the transurethral resection of the bladder (TURB) with or without (BCG) immune or chemotherapy is the standard treatment.

Epigenetic-sensitive pathways in personalized therapy of major cardiovascular diseases.

The complex pathobiology underlying cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) has yet to be explained. Aberrant epigenetic changes may result from alterations in enzymatic activities, which are responsible for putting in and/or out the covalent groups, altering the epigenome and then modulating gene expression. The identification of novel individual epigenetic-sensitive trajectories at single cell level might provide additional opportunities to establish predictive, diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers as well as drug targets in CVDs.

The Impact of Normalization Approaches to Automatically Detect Radiogenomic Phenotypes Characterizing Breast Cancer Receptors Status.

In breast cancer studies, combining quantitative radiomic with genomic signatures can help identifying and characterizing radiogenomic phenotypes, in function of molecular receptor status. Biomedical imaging processing lacks standards in radiomic feature normalization methods and neglecting feature normalization can highly bias the overall analysis. This study evaluates the effect of several normalization techniques to predict four clinical phenotypes such as estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), and triple negative (TN) status, by quantitative features.

KCTD15 is overexpressed in human childhood B-cell acute lymphoid leukemia.

Leukemic cells originate from the malignant transformation of undifferentiated myeloid/lymphoid hematopoietic progenitors normally residing in bone marrow. As the precise molecular mechanisms underlying this heterogeneous disease are yet to be disclosed, the identification and the validation of novel actors in leukemia is of extreme importance. Here, we show that KCTD15, a member of the emerging class of KCTD ((K)potassium Channel Tetramerization Domain containing) proteins, is strongly upregulated in patients affected by B-cell type acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) and in continuous cell lines (RS4;11, REH, TOM-1, SEM) derived from this form of childhood leukemia.

TCGA-TCIA Impact on Radiogenomics Cancer Research: A Systematic Review.

In the last decade, the development of radiogenomics research has produced a significant amount of papers describing relations between imaging features and several molecular 'omic signatures arising from next-generation sequencing technology and their potential role in the integrated diagnostic field. The most vulnerable point of many of these studies lies in the poor number of involved patients. In this scenario, a leading role is played by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA), which make available, respectively, molecular 'omic data and linked imaging data.

Bringing radiomics into a multi-omics framework for a comprehensive genotype-phenotype characterization of oncological diseases.

Genomic and radiomic data integration, namely radiogenomics, can provide meaningful knowledge in cancer diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. Despite several data structures based on multi-layer architecture proposed to combine multi-omic biological information, none of these has been designed and assessed to include radiomic data as well. To meet this need, we propose to use the MultiAssayExperiment (MAE), an R package that provides data structures and methods for manipulating and integrating multi-assay experiments, as a suitable tool to manage radiogenomic experiment data.

Hybrid F-FDG-PET/MRI Measurement of Standardized Uptake Value Coupled with Yin Yang 1 Signature in Metastatic Breast Cancer. A Preliminary Study.

Purpose: Detection of breast cancer (BC) metastasis at the early stage is important for the assessment of BC progression status. Image analysis represents a valuable tool for the management of oncological patients. Our preliminary study combined imaging parameters from hybrid F-FDG-PET/MRI and the expression level of the transcriptional factor Yin Yang 1 (YY1) for the detection of early metastases.