Objective To construct and appraise a new model for predicting the prognosis of rectal cancer patients using the Lasso-Cox strategy.Methods The clinical pathological data of 599 rectal cancer patients who underwent radical resection were analyzed.Comparison between groups,Lasso and Cox regression were used to select varia-bles and construct a model,and its discrimination,consistency,and clinical benefits were appraised by the receiv-er operating characteristic(ROC),calibration curve,and decision curve analysis.Results Comparison between groups showed that age,body mass index(BMI),preoperational nutrition status,carbohydrate antigen199(CA199),preoperative chemotherapy,intraoperative blood transfusion,vascular or nerve invasion,cancer nod-ules,pathologic T,N,and TNM stages,tumor recurrence or metastasis,radiotherapy and postoperative survival time were associated with grouping of death or survival in rectal cancer patients.Among them,8 variables were se-lected by lasso and contained into the Cox regression model.Age(HR=1.04,P＜0.05),BMI(HR=0.89,P＜0.05),blood transfusion(HR=2.29,P＜0.05),postoperative chemotherapy(HR=0.16,P＜0.01),recur-rence(HR=43.67,P＜0.01),and metastasis(HR=2.75,P＜0.05)were identified as independent prognostic factors,which were used to construct a nomogram model.The area under the curve(AUC)and the 95％confi-dence interval of the receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve of the predictive model was 0.95(0.91-0.99),P＜0.01.The predicted probability of 1-year and 3-year survival was close to the actual probability.The DCA curve of the model was far away from a decision line parallel to the X-axis and another line with a negative slope.Conclusion The newly established nomogram has good discrimination,consistency and clinical benefits,which help predict the prognosis of rectal cancer after surgery.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.apsb.2022.09.003.].

Radiation protection drugs are often accompanied by toxicity, even amifostine, which has been the dominant radio-protecting drug for nearly 30 years. Furthermore, there is no therapeutic drug for radiation-induced intestinal injury (RIII). This paper intends to find a safe and effective radio-protecting ingredient from natural sources. The radio-protecting effect of Ecliptae Herba (EHE) was discovered preliminarily by antioxidant experiments and the mouse survival rate after ¹³⁷Cs irradiation. EHE components and blood substances in vivo were identified through UPLC‒Q-TOF. The correlation network of "natural components in EHE-constituents migrating to blood-targets-pathways" was established to predict the active components and pathways. The binding force between potential active components and targets was studied by molecular docking, and the mechanism was further analyzed by Western blotting, cellular thermal shift assay (CETSA), and ChIP. Additionally, the expression levels of Lgr5, Axin2, Ki67, lysozyme, caspase-3, caspase-8,8-OHdG, and p53 in the small intestine of mice were detected. It was found for the first time that EHE is active in radiation protection and that luteolin is the material basis of this protection. Luteolin is a promising candidate for RⅢ. Luteolin can inhibit the p53 signaling pathway and regulate the BAX/BCL2 ratio in the process of apoptosis. Luteolin could also regulate the expression of multitarget proteins related to the same cell cycle.

Pyroptosis is a pattern of cell death to eliminate endogenous and exogenous harmful stimuli. GSDMD and GSDME, members of the Gasdermin protein family, are the main executors of pyroptosis, and after being cut by activated caspases, they can induce pyroptosis by perforating the cell membrane, and causing the release of intracellular inflammatory factors such as IL-18 and IL-1β. Recent studies have found that pyroptosis is involved and plays a "double-edged sword" role in the development and progression of liver diseases. This article elaborates on the molecular mechanism of pyroptosis and the research advances in the role of pyroptosis in the development and progression of liver diseases, so as to provide new targets and ideas for the prevention and treatment of liver diseases.

Objective:To study the effect of fasting on 137Cs γ-ray radiation-induced intestinal injury in mice, and to explore the effect of fasting on fecal metabolites of mice through non-targeted metabolomics. Methods:C57BL/6 mice were divided into healthy control group, 9 Gy γ-ray whole body irradiation (WBI)/ 15 Gy γ-ray whole abdominal irradiation (WAI) group, fasting (24 h, 48 h, 72 h)+ 9 Gy WBI/ 15 Gy WAI group. After irradiation, the survival rate, spleen index and thymus index were calculated. C57BL/6 mice in non-target metabolism experiment were randomly divided into four groups: control group, fasting 24 h group, 15 Gy γ-ray WAI group, fasting 24 h + 15 Gy γ-ray WAI group, 6 mice in each group. After 15 Gy WAI, the feces of mice in each group were collected at 3.5 days for non-targeted metabolomics detection.Results:The median survival time of mice with 48 h and 24 h fasting before 9 Gy γ-ray irradiation was increased by 1 day and 4 days, and the survival rates of mice treated with 48 h and 24 h fasting before 15 Gy WAI were 16.67% and 25%, respectively. 15 Gy γ-ray WAI on mice with fasting for 24 h before irradiation could increase the body weight ( t=2.338, P=0.042) and spleen index ( t=2.289, P=0.045) at 3.5 days after irradiation. Through non-targeted metabonomic analysis, it was found that there were 30 differentially expressed metabolites in fecal samples of fasting and non-fasting mice subjected to WAI, and metabolic pathway enrichment analysis showed that there was an imbalance in the metabolic pathway of steroid biosynthesis. Conclusions:Fasting before irradiation can improve the survival rate of mice with intestinal radiation injury and change their intestinal metabolites, suggesting that pre-irradiation fasting or short-term dietary nutrition changes are involved in the regulation of intestinal radiation damage.

Long-chain non-coding RNA (LncRNA) has more than 200 nucleotides in length and cannot encode proteins. It has a variety of biological functions. A large number of studies have shown that LncRNA is closely related to the occurrence and development of cancer. Researches at the level of molecular biology have found that LncRNA acts as an important regulatory molecule involved in the whole process of life activities and plays a regulatory role in various diseases and tumors. LincRNA-p21 is a novel LncRNA that acts as a translational inhibitor by targeting mRNA or by directing the chromatin site of a protein-binding partner. LincRNA-p21 is closely related to a variety of tumors and exerts its biological functions of carcinogenesis or tumor suppression through different pathways. In this paper, the research progress of the tumor-associated gene LincRNA-p21 was reviews

Immunotherapy has become a new treatment for malignant tumors following surgery,radiotherapy,and chemotherapy.Tumor immunotherapy is a hot topic in basic medical research and clinical research,in which the study on checkpoint protein inhibitors has attracted more attention.The previous studies confirmed that blocking certain checkpoints,such as cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) and programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1),can exert immunomodulatory effects in solid tumor treatments.Immune checkpoint inhibitors have demonstrated good efficacy in recent years.The PD-1/programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) signaling pathway is one of the important pathways for tumor immune escape.PD-1/PD-L 1-targeted drugs can reactivate anti-tumor immunity and achieve good therapeutic effects in the treatment of various tumors.However,anti-PD-1/PD-L1 treatment has a certain adverse reaction rate,and the response rate of treatment needs to be improved.In this paper,the research progress of PD-1/PD-L1 signaling pathway and anti-PD-1/PD-L1 drugs in the treatment of solid tumors was summarized,such as malignant melanoma,lung cancer,renal cell carcinoma,gastrointestinal cancer,bladder cancer,etc.

Objective To observe the different radiosensitivity induced by different doses of 137Csγ-ray irradiation between hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. Methods Seventy-two C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into control group and irradiated groups (2, 4 and 6 Csγ-ray irradiation, n=18 for each group). Mice of control group received sham irradiation, and the rest accepted 2, 4 and 6 Gy137Csγtotal body irradiation, respectively. After 14-day, 35-day and 56-day irradiation, the peripheral blood samples were collected by balls enucleation. The number of bone marrow nuclear cells, hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells were counted. Results The peripheral blood of irradiated mice showed significant changes in the number of white blood cells (WBC), red blood cells (RBC), platelets (PLT) and hemoglobin (HGB) in a dose-response relationship. Compared with the control group, the numbers of BMNCs and hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs) were significantly lower in irradiated group. At 35 d and 56 d after 6 Gy irradiation the numbers of BMNCs and HPCs were significantly lower than those of control group (P<0.05). There were no significant differences in numbers of BMNCs and HPCs between irradiated groups (2 and 4 Gy) and control group. The number of bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) was significantly lower in irradiated group than that in control group after 14-d and 56-d irradiation (P<0.05). Conclusion 137Csγ-ray irradiation has some damage in mouse hematopoietic system. The damage caused by radiation is persistent to hematopoietic stem cells.

Objective To observe the injury effect of ionizing radiation on bone marrow derived c-kit+ cells.Methods Via-bility of c-kit+ cells was measured by bioluminescence;the level of c-kit+ cells reactive oxygen species was measured by DCFH-DA, the ability of colony-forming units was reflected by CFU-GM;proliferation and apoptosis of c-kit+ cells were measured by flow cy-tometry;the variation of pathway was detected by arrays of gene chip.Results Compared to control group(0 Gy).It had a decrease of c-kit+ cells′cell viability and the ability of colony-forming units after the cells receipt irradiation with the dose of 1 Gy and 4 Gy;and the level of cell reactive oxygen species,ratio of apoptosis cells increased.After 1 Gy irradiation exposure,the ratio of prolifera-tion(S/G2/M phase)cells increased compared to control group.However,when the c-kit+ cells were receipt 4 Gy irradiation expo-sure,the ratio of proliferation(S/G2/M phase)cells decreased.After 4 Gy irradiation exposure,the up-regulate genes contained Srxn1,Psmb5,Cdkn1a,Smc1b,Bcl2l1,Lrdd and so on;the down-regulate genes contained Mpo,Mtf1,Chek1,Rcc1 Ebag9,Ciapin1 and so on.Conclusion There was injury effect of ionizing radiation on c-kit+ cells,and it could induce variation of many pathways.

OBJECTIVETo explore effects of iron overload on hematopoiesis in mice with bone marrow injury and its possible mechanism (s).

METHODSC57BL/6 mice were divided into control, iron, irradiation, irradiation+iron groups. The iron-overloaded model of bone marrow injury was set up after mice were exposed to the dose of 4 Gy total body irradiation and (or) were injected iron dextran intraperitoneally. Iron overload was confirmed by observing iron deposits in mice and bone marrow labile iron pool. Additionally, the number of peripheral blood and bone marrow mononuclear cells and the frequency of erythroid cells and myeloid cells were counted and hematopoietic function was assessed.

RESULTS(1)Iron overload occurred by bone marrow biopsy and flow cytometry analysis. (2)Compared with control group, the number of platelets [(801.9±81.2)×10⁹/L vs (926.0±28.2)×10⁹/L] and BMMNC and the frequency of erythroid cells and myeloid cells decreased. Moreover, hematopoietic colony forming units and single-cell cloning counts decreased significantly in irradiation group (P<0.05). (3)Compared with irradiation group, the number of platelets [(619.0±60.9)×10⁹/L vs (801.9±81.2)×10⁹/L] and the frequency of erythroid cells and myeloid cells decreased; moreover, hematopoietic colony forming units and single-cell cloning counts decreased significantly in irradiation+iron group (P<0.05). (4)Compared with irradiation group, ROS level increased by 1.94 fold in BMMNC, 1.93 fold in erythroid cells and 2.70 fold in myeloid cells, respectively (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONThe dose of 4 Gy total body irradiation caused bone marrow damage and iron overload based on this injury model, which could damage bone marrow hematopoietic function aggravatingly. And further study found that iron overload was closely related to increased ROS level in BMMNC. The findings would be helpful to further study the injury mechanism of iron overload on the hematopoiesis of bone marrow.