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Chromobox protein homolog 7 suppresses the stem-like phenotype of glioblastoma cells by regulating the myosin heavy chain 9-NF-κB signaling pathway

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are significant factors in the treatment resistance and recurrence of glioblastoma. Chromobox protein homolog 7 (CBX7) can inhibit the progression of various tumors, but its impact on the stem cell-like properties of glioblastoma cells remains unclear. Clinically, low levels of CBX7 are associated with poor prognosis and increased distant metastasis in glioblastoma patients, and this low expression is caused by methylation of the CBX7 promoter. Our current research indicates that CBX7 plays a key role in suppressing the stem-like phenotype of glioblastoma. In this study, through bioinformatics analysis, we found that CBX7 is the most significantly downregulated member of the CBX family in glioblastoma and is closely associated with the stem-like phenotype of glioblastoma cells. We show that CBX7 promotes the degradation of myosin heavy chain 9 (MYH9) protein through the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway via the polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1) and suppresses the stem-like phenotype of glioblastoma cells by inhibiting the nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) signaling pathway. Furthermore, overexpression of MYH9 in glioblastoma cells reverses the inhibitory effects of CBX7 on migration, proliferation, invasion, and stemness of glioblastoma cells. In summary, CBX7 acts as a tumor suppressor by inhibiting the stem cell-like characteristics of glioblastoma. The CBX7-MYH9-NF-κB signaling axis may serve as a potential therapeutic target for glioblastoma.

Targeting of TAMs: can we be more clever than cancer cells?

With increasing incidence and geography, cancer is one of the leading causes of death, reduced quality of life and disability worldwide. Principal progress in the development of new anticancer therapies, in improving the efficiency of immunotherapeutic tools, and in the personification of conventional therapies needs to consider cancer-specific and patient-specific programming of innate immunity. Intratumoral TAMs and their precursors, resident macrophages and monocytes, are principal regulators of tumor progression and therapy resistance. Our review summarizes the accumulated evidence for the subpopulations of TAMs and their increasing number of biomarkers, indicating their predictive value for the clinical parameters of carcinogenesis and therapy resistance, with a focus on solid cancers of non-infectious etiology. We present the state-of-the-art knowledge about the tumor-supporting functions of TAMs at all stages of tumor progression and highlight biomarkers, recently identified by single-cell and spatial analytical methods, that discriminate between tumor-promoting and tumor-inhibiting TAMs, where both subtypes express a combination of prototype M1 and M2 genes. Our review focuses on novel mechanisms involved in the crosstalk among epigenetic, signaling, transcriptional and metabolic pathways in TAMs. Particular attention has been given to the recently identified link between cancer cell metabolism and the epigenetic programming of TAMs by histone lactylation, which can be responsible for the unlimited protumoral programming of TAMs. Finally, we explain how TAMs interfere with currently used anticancer therapeutics and summarize the most advanced data from clinical trials, which we divide into four categories: inhibition of TAM survival and differentiation, inhibition of monocyte/TAM recruitment into tumors, functional reprogramming of TAMs, and genetic enhancement of macrophages.

Exploring effects of platelet contractility on the kinetics, thermodynamics, and mechanisms of fibrin clot contraction

Mechanisms of blood clot contraction – platelet-driven fibrin network remodeling, are not fully understood. We developed a detailed computational ClotDynaMo model of fibrin network with activated platelets, whose clot contraction rate for normal 450,000/µl human platelets depends on serum viscosity η, platelet filopodia length l, and weakly depends on filopodia traction force f and filopodia extension-retraction speed v. Final clot volume is independent of η, but depends on v, f and l. Analysis of ClotDynaMo output revealed a 2.24 TJ/mol clot contraction free energy change, with ~67% entropy and ~33% internal energy changes. The results illuminate the “optimal contraction principle” that maximizes volume change while minimizing energy cost. An 8-chain continuum model of polymer elasticity containing platelet forces, captures clot contractility as a function of platelet count, η and l. The ClotDynaMo and continuum models can be extended to include red blood cells, variable platelet properties, and mechanics of fibrin network.

Biological comparisons between pre-eclampsia and placenta accreta spectrum

Placenta Accreta Spectrum (PAS) and pre-eclampsia are obstetric disorders associated with significant maternal morbidity and mortality. As pre-eclampsia is characterised by shallow placental invasion and PAS by abnormally deep invasion, we sought to compare the biological processes dysregulated in PAS to those reported in pre-eclampsia. We demonstrate that many of the processes contributing to unregulated placental invasion in PAS are the mirror findings of those previously reported in pre-eclampsia. These comparisons of PAS to a more common obstetric condition allow a greater understanding of the biological processes contributing to PAS, which remains a very rare obstetric complication.

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