Objective To analyze the related factors of prognosis in patients with primary Sjogren’s syndrome (SS) complicated with renal damage, and to provide reference for clinical development of personalized prevention and treatment measures. Methods A total of 508 patients with primary SS complicated with renal damage in the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University from February 2020 to February 2022 were enrolled as study subjects. According to the prognosis status within 3 years, the enrolled patients were divided into good prognosis group (n=426) and poor prognosis group (n=82). Univariate and logistic multivariate regression analyses were adopted to analyze the influencing factors of poor prognosis. Results There were significant differences in hypertension, anemia, renal interstitial chronicity grading, and levels of globulin (GLO), immunoglobulin G (IgG) and hemoglobin between the two groups (P<0.05). Logistic multivariate analysis showed that concurrent hypertension, anemia, increased grade of renal interstitial chronicity, and elevated GLO and IgG levels were risk factors of poor prognosis in patients with primary SS complicated with renal damage, while hemoglobin level was a protective factor (OR: 1.962, 95%CI: 1.056-3.645; OR: 2.467, 95%CI: 1.153-5.278; OR: 17.796, 95%CI: 5.157-61.419; OR: 3.655, 95%CI: 1.812-7.372; OR: 5.732, 95%CI: 2.632-12.480; OR: 0.325, 95%CI: 0.165-0.640, P<0.05). Conclusion Patients with primary SS complicated with renal damage have a higher risk of poor prognosis, which is affected by factors such as hypertension, anemia, and GLO, IgG and hemoglobin levels. Clinically, it is necessary to take active prevention and treatment measures to improve the prognosis of patients.

Developing new therapeutic agents for cancer immunotherapy is highly demanding due to the low response ratio of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade in cancer patients. Here, we discovered that the novel immune checkpoint VISTA is highly expressed on a variety of tumor-infiltrating immune cells, especially myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and CD8⁺ T cells. Then, peptide C1 with binding affinity to VISTA was developed by phage displayed bio-panning technique, and its mutant peptide VS3 was obtained by molecular docking based mutation. Peptide VS3 could bind VISTA with high affinity and block its interaction with ligand PSGL-1 under acidic condition, and elicit anti-tumor activity in vivo. The peptide DVS3-Pal was further designed by d-amino acid substitution and fatty acid modification, which exhibited strong proteolytic stability and significant anti-tumor activity through enhancing CD8⁺ T cell function and decreasing MDSCs infiltration. This is the first study to develop peptides to block VISTA/PSGL-1 interaction, which could act as promising candidates for cancer immunotherapy.

Tryptophan 2,3-dioxygnease 2 (TDO2) is specific for metabolizing tryptophan to kynurenine (KYN), which plays a critical role in mediating immune escape of cancer. Although accumulating evidence demonstrates that TDO2 overexpression is implicated in the development and progression of multiple cancers, its tumor-promoting role in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remains unclear. Here, we observed that TDO2 was overexpressed in ESCC tissues and correlated significantly with lymph node metastasis, advanced clinical stage, and unfavorable prognosis. Functional experiments showed that TDO2 promoted tumor cell proliferation, migration, and colony formation, which could be prevented by inhibition of TDO2 and aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR). Further experimentation demonstrated that TDO2 could promote the tumor growth of KYSE150 tumor-bearing model, tumor burden of C57BL/6 mice with ESCC induced by 4-NQO, enhance the expression of phosphorylated AKT, with subsequent phosphorylation of GSK3