Gliomas are the most common primary neuroepithelial tumors of the central nervous system in adults, of which glioblastoma is the deadliest subtype. Apart from the intrinsically indestructible characteristics of glioma (stem) cells, accumulating evidence suggests that the tumor microenvironment also plays a vital role in the refractoriness of glioblastoma. The primary functions of platelets are to stop bleeding and regulate thrombosis under physiological conditions. Furthermore, platelets are also active elements that participate in a variety of processes of tumor development, including tumor growth, invasion, and chemoresistance. Glioma cells recruit and activate resting platelets to become tumor-educated platelets (TEPs), which in turn can promote the proliferation, invasion, stemness, and chemoresistance of glioma cells. TEPs can be used to obtain genetic information about gliomas, which is helpful for early diagnosis and monitoring of therapeutic effects. Platelet membranes are intriguing biomimetic materials for developing efficacious drug carriers to enhance antiglioma activity. Herein, we review the recent research referring to the contribution of platelets to the malignant characteristics of gliomas and focusing on the molecular mechanisms mediating the interaction between TEPs and glioma (stem) cells, as well as present the challenges and opportunities in targeting platelets for glioma therapy.
Humans ; Glioma/metabolism* ; Blood Platelets/physiology* ; Brain Neoplasms/pathology* ; Tumor Microenvironment

Hypoxemia is a common pathological state characterized by low oxygen saturation in the blood. This condition compromises mucosal barrier integrity particularly in the gut and oral cavity. However, the mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear. This study used periodontitis as a model to investigate the role of platelet activation in oral mucosal immunopathology under hypoxic conditions. Hypoxia upregulated methyltransferase-like protein 4 (METTL4) expression in platelets, resulting in N⁶-methyladenine modification of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). This modification impaired mitochondrial transcriptional factor A-dependent cytosolic mtDNA degradation, leading to cytosolic mtDNA accumulation. Excess cytosolic mt-DNA aberrantly activated the cGAS-STING pathway in platelets. This resulted in excessive platelet activation and neutrophil extracellular trap formation that ultimately exacerbated periodontitis. Targeting platelet METTL4 and its downstream pathways offers a potential strategy for managing oral mucosa immunopathology. Further research is needed to examine its broader implications for mucosal inflammation under hypoxic conditions.
DNA, Mitochondrial/metabolism* ; Mouth Mucosa/pathology* ; Hypoxia/immunology* ; Methyltransferases/metabolism* ; Blood Platelets/metabolism* ; Animals ; Periodontitis/immunology* ; Humans ; Platelet Activation ; Mice

Platelets are reprogrammed by cancer via a process called education, which favors cancer development. The transcriptional profile of tumor-educated platelets (TEPs) is skewed and therefore practicable for cancer detection. This intercontinental, hospital-based, diagnostic study included 761 treatment-naïve inpatients with histologically confirmed adnexal masses and 167 healthy controls from nine medical centers (China, n = 3; Netherlands, n = 5; Poland, n = 1) between September 2016 and May 2019. The main outcomes were the performance of TEPs and their combination with CA125 in two Chinese (VC1 and VC2) and the European (VC3) validation cohorts collectively and independently. Exploratory outcome was the value of TEPs in public pan-cancer platelet transcriptome datasets. The AUCs for TEPs in the combined validation cohort, VC1, VC2, and VC3 were 0.918 (95% CI 0.889-0.948), 0.923 (0.855-0.990), 0.918 (0.872-0.963), and 0.887 (0.813-0.960), respectively. Combination of TEPs and CA125 demonstrated an AUC of 0.922 (0.889-0.955) in the combined validation cohort; 0.955 (0.912-0.997) in VC1; 0.939 (0.901-0.977) in VC2; 0.917 (0.824-1.000) in VC3. For subgroup analysis, TEPs exhibited an AUC of 0.858, 0.859, and 0.920 to detect early-stage, borderline, non-epithelial diseases and 0.899 to discriminate ovarian cancer from endometriosis. TEPs had robustness, compatibility, and universality for preoperative diagnosis of ovarian cancer since it withstood validations in populations of different ethnicities, heterogeneous histological subtypes, and early-stage ovarian cancer. However, these observations warrant prospective validations in a larger population before clinical utilities.
Humans ; Female ; Blood Platelets/pathology* ; Biomarkers, Tumor/genetics* ; Ovarian Neoplasms/pathology* ; China

Objective: To explore the influence factors of poor prognosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and the predictive value of inflammatory reaction indexes including neutrophils and lymphocytes ratio (NLR), platelet and lymphocyte ratio (PLR), monocyte and lymphocyte ratio (MLR) provision and differentiation degree, infiltration depth, lymph node metastasis number on the postoperative recurrence of ESCC. Methods: A total of 130 patients with ESCC who underwent radical resection from February 2017 to February 2019 in Nanyang Central Hospital were selected and divided into good prognosis group (66 cases) and poor prognosis group (64 cases) according to the prognostic effect. The clinical data and follow-up data were collected. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the independent influencing factors of poor prognosis. Spearman correlation analysis was used to determine the correlation between preoperative NLR, PLR and MLR with the degree of differentiation, depth of invasion and number of lymph node metastases. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to evaluate the efficacy of NLR, PLR and MLR in predicting poor prognosis of ESCC. Results: Univariate analysis showed that the degree of differentiation, the degree of invasion and the number of lymph node metastasis were related to the prognoses of patients with ESCC (P<0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the degree of differentiation, depth of invasion and number of lymph node metastases were independent influencing factors for poor prognosis of patients with ESCC, moderate differentiation (OR=2.603, 95% CI: 1.009-6.715) or low differentiation (OR=9.909, 95% CI: 3.097-31.706), infiltrating into fibrous membrane (OR=14.331, 95% CI: 1.333-154.104) or surrounding tissue (OR=23.368, 95% CI: 1.466-372.578), the number of lymph node metastases ≥ 3 (OR=9.225, 95% CI: 1.693-50.263) indicated poor prognosis. Spearman correlation analysis showed that NLR was negatively correlated with the degree of differentiation and the number of lymph node metastases (r=-0.281, P=0.001; r=-0.257, P=0.003), PLR was negatively correlated with the degree of differentiation, depth of invasion and number of lymph node metastasis (r=-0.250, P=0.004; r=0.197, P=0.025; r=-0.194, P=0.027), MLR was positively correlated with the degree of differentiation and the number of lymph node metastasis (r=0.248, P=0.004; r=0.196, P=0.025). ROC curve analysis showed that the areas under the curve of NLR, PLR and MLR in predicting poor prognosis of ESCC were 0.971, 0.925 and 0.834, respectively. The best cut-off value of NLR was 2.87. The sensitivity and specificity of NLR in predicting poor prognosis of ESCC were 90.6% and 87.9%, respectively. The optimal cut-off value of PLR was 141.75. The sensitivity and specificity for predicting poor prognosis of ESCC were 92.2% and 87.9%, respectively. The best cut-off value of MLR was 0.40. The sensitivity and specificity of MLR in predicting poor prognosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma were 54.7% and 100.0%, respectively. Conclusions: The degree of differentiation, the degree of invasion and the number of lymph node metastases are closely related to the poor prognosis of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. NLR, PLR and MLR can provide important information for predicting the poor prognosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.
Humans ; Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma/pathology* ; Prognosis ; Lymphatic Metastasis/pathology* ; Esophageal Neoplasms/pathology* ; Neutrophils ; Lymphocytes ; Blood Platelets/pathology* ; Inflammation ; Retrospective Studies

Actinin/genetics* ; Anemia ; Blood Platelets/pathology* ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Megakaryocytes ; Mutation, Missense ; Pedigree ; Thrombocytopenia/genetics*

Exosomes are subtypes of extracellur vesicles containing a variety of cell-specific proteins, lipids and nucleic acids released during cell activation or apoptosis, and play the role of intercellur communication mediators in different physiological and pathological processes. With the development of research in recent years, the role of platelet-derived exosomes in cardiovascular diseases has attracted extensive attention. This paper reviews the role of platelet-derived exosomes in atherosclerotic thrombosis and the potential role of platelet-derived exosomes as biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of atherosclerotic thrombotic disease and the problems to be solved.
Apoptosis ; Atherosclerosis/pathology* ; Blood Platelets/pathology* ; Exosomes/pathology* ; Humans ; Thrombosis

As more intracranial aneurysms and other cerebrovascular pathologies are treated with neurointervention procedure, thromboembolic events that frequently lead to serious neurological deficit or fatal outcomes are increasing. In order to prevent the thromboembolic events, antiplatelet therapy is used in most procedures including coil embolization, stenting, and flow diversion. However, because of variable individual pharmacodynamics responses to antiplatelet drugs, especially clopidogrel, it is difficult for clinicians to select the adequate antiplatelet regimen and its optimal dose. This article reviews the neurointervention literature related to antiplatelet therapy and suggests a strategy for tailoring antiplatelet therapy in individual patients undergoing neurointervention based on the results of platelet function testing.
Aspirin ; Blood Platelets ; Embolization, Therapeutic ; Fatal Outcome ; Humans ; Intracranial Aneurysm ; Pathology ; Platelet Aggregation Inhibitors ; Platelet Function Tests ; Stents

Aged ; Blood Platelets ; pathology ; Female ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms ; complications ; Male ; Middle Aged

BACKGROUND: Current research shows that platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) has important prognostic value in renal cell carcinoma, esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer and colon cancer. The aim of the study is to evaluate the prognostic value of PLR in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) through meta-analysis. METHODS: Literature search for PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Medline, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Internet (CNKI), China Biomedical Medicine disc (CBMdisc), VIP, Wanfang Database using computer electronic system to study the association between PLR and overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). Each eligible study data is extracted and a meta-analysis is performed using the hazard risk (HR) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) to assess the prognostic value of PLR, the time limit for the search is to build the library until November 2018. RESULTS: We include a total of 15 research literatures involving 5,524 patients for meta-analysis. According to the results of the meta-analysis: The OS of the higher PLR group is significantly lower than that of the lower PLR group (HR=1.69, 95%CI: 1.45-1.97, P<0.000,01, I²=46.2%, Pheterogeneity=0.026); the DFS of the higher PLR group is significantly lower than that of the lower PLR group (HR=1.41, 95%CI: 1.14-1.74, P=0.001, I²=46.2%, Pheterogeneity=0.026). Subgroup analysis show that the OS of the higher PLR group is still significantly lower than the lower PLR group (P<0.05) after grouping by ethnicity, sample size, PLR cutoff value and treatment. CONCLUSIONS Increased PLR is associated with poor prognosis in NSCLC, so PLR may be an important biological predictive marker for NSCLC patients, however, its clinical application still needs to be verified through more research in the future.
Blood Platelets ; cytology ; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung ; blood ; diagnosis ; pathology ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms ; blood ; diagnosis ; pathology ; Lymphocytes ; cytology ; Platelet Count ; Prognosis

OBJECTIVE: Intravenous leiomyomatosis (IVL) and benign metastasizing leiomyoma (BML) are uncommon variants of benign uterine leiomyomas with extrauterine manifestations. Categorizing the extent of disease allows clinicians to delineate the clinical spectrum and the level of sophistication for complete surgical resection. METHODS: Twelve patients with IVL and BML were reviewed. They were divided into early versus late stage disease groups, and initial manifestation, clinical characteristics, laboratory values, surgical pathology, and follow up data were summarized. RESULTS: Patients were mostly pre- or peri-menopausal and parous. Patients with late stage disease were more likely to present with cardiac symptoms or abnormal findings on chest X-ray, whereas those with early stage disease presented with classical leiomyoma symptoms including heavy menstrual bleeding, increased myoma size, or lower abdominal discomfort. Tumor marker levels were within normal ranges. A trend of higher neutrophil to leukocyte ratio was observed in the late versus the early stage group (10.4 vs. 1.51, P=0.07); the platelet leukocyte ratio was statistically higher in patients with late stage IVL (0.23 vs. 0.13, P=0.04). The overall recurrence rate was 25%. No recurrence was observed in stage I or stage III IVL groups, while 50% of the stage II IVL group showed recurrence in the pelvic cavity. CONCLUSION: IVL and BML are benign myoma variants with paradoxically metastatic clinical presentation. Careful inquiry of systemic symptoms, the presence of underlying systemic inflammation, and a high index of suspicion are required for preoperative diagnosis. Furthermore, a multidisciplinary approach is necessary to improve outcomes of surgical resection.
Blood Platelets ; Diagnosis ; Follow-Up Studies ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Leiomyoma* ; Leiomyomatosis* ; Leukocytes ; Myoma ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Neutrophils ; Pathology, Surgical ; Recurrence ; Reference Values ; Smooth Muscle Tumor ; Thorax