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BackgroundGastric cancer (GC) ranks the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. We aimed to clarify the relevance of genetic variants of IL-11, a hub of various carcinogenic pathways, as well as their interactions with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection in the development of GC.MethodsA case–control study with 880 GC cases and 900 healthy controls was conducted in a Chinese population. Six tagSNPs were detected by Taqman Allelic Discrimination assay, while H. pylori status was detected by Typing Detection Kit for Antibody to H. pylori and serum IL-11 level was measured using ELISA method.ResultsWe found that rs1126760 (C vs T: OR=1.39, 95% CIs=1.13–1.70, P=0.002) and rs1126757 (C vs T: OR=0.82, 95% CIs=0.72–0.93, P=0.002) were significantly associated with susceptibility of GC. Even adjusted for Bonferroni correction, the results were still significant (P=0.002×6=0.012). IL-11 rs1126760 was significantly associated with higher serum and expression level of IL-11, while rs1126757 was significantly associated with lower serum IL-11 level (P<0.001). Significant interaction with H. pylori infection was identified for rs1126760 (P for interaction =0.005). Higher expression of the IL-11 gene was significant with development and poor prognosis of GC.ConclusionOur study provides strong evidence that genetic variants of the IL-11 gene may interact with H. pylori infection and contribute to the development of GC. Further studies with larger sample size and functional experiments are needed to validate our findings.

Purpose Gastric cancer (GC) has high morbidity and mortality and is a serious threat to public health. The flavonoid compound vitexin is known to exhibit anti-tumor activity. In this study, we explored the therapeutic potential of vitexin in GC and its underlying mechanism. Materials and Methods The viability, migration, and invasion of GC cells were determined using MTT, scratch wound healing, and transwell assays, respectively. Target molecule expression was determined by western blotting. Tumor growth and liver metastasis were evaluated in vivo using nude mice. Protein expression in the tumor tissues was examined by immunohistochemistry. Results Vitexin inhibited GC cell viability, migration, invasion, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in a dose-dependent manner. Vitexin treatment led to the inactivation of phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT/hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) pathway by repressing HMGB1 expression. Vitexin-mediated inhibition in proliferation, migration, invasion and EMT of GC cells were counteracted by hyper-activation of PI3K/AKT/HIF-1α pathway or HMGB1 overexpression. Finally, vitexin inhibited the xenograft tumor growth and liver metastasis in vivo by suppressing HMGB1 expression. Conclusions Vitexin inhibited the malignant progression of GC in vitro and in vivo by suppressing HMGB1-mediated activation of PI3K/Akt/HIF-1α signaling pathway. Thus, vitexin may serve as a promising therapeutic agent for the treatment of GC.

Computer tomography texture analysis (CTTA) based on the V-Net convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm was used to analyze the recurrence of advanced gastric cancer after radical treatment. Meanwhile, the clinical characteristics of patients were analyzed to explore the recurrence factors. 86 patients who underwent the advanced radical gastrectomy for gastric cancer were retrospectively selected as the research objects. Patients were divided into the no-recurrence group (30 cases) and the recurrence group (56 cases) according to whether there was recurrence after radical treatment. CTTA was performed before and after surgery in both groups to analyze the risk factors for recurrence. The results showed that the dice coefficient (0.9209) and the intersection over union (IOU) value (0.8392) of the V–CNN segmentation effect were signally higher than those of CNN, V-Net, and context encoder network (CE-Net) ( P  < 0.05). The mean value of arterial phase and portal phase (65.29 ± 9.23)/(79.89 ± 10.83), kurtosis (3.22)/(3.13), entropy (9.99 ± 0.53)/(9.97 ± 0.83), and correlation (4.12 × 10−5/4.21 × 10−5) of the recurrence group was higher than the no-recurrence group, while the skewness (0.01)/(−0.06) of the recurrence group was lower than that of the no-recurrence group ( P  < 0.05). Patients aged 60 years old and above, with a tumor diameter of 6 cm and above, and in the stage III/IV in the recurrence group were higher than those in the no-recurrence group, and patients with chemotherapy were lower ( P  < 0.05). To sum up, age, tumor diameter, whether chemotherapy should be performed, and tumor staging were all the risk factors of postoperative recurrence among patients with gastric cancer. Besides, CT texture parameter could be used to predict and analyze the postoperative recurrence of gastric cancer with good clinical application values.

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