Metagentiana striata is an alpine annual herbaceous plant endemic to the east of the Qinghai-Tibet (Q-T) Plateau and adjacent areas. The phylogeography of M. striata was studied by sequencing the chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) trnS-trnG intergenic spacer. Ten haplotypes were identified from an investigation of 232 individuals of M. striata from 14 populations covering the entire geographical range of this species. The level of differentiation amongst populations was very high (GST = 0.746; NST = 0.774) and a significant phylogeographical structure was observed (P < 0.05). An analysis of molecular variance found a high variation amongst populations (76%), with FST = 0.762 (highly significant, P < 0.001), indicating that little gene flow occurred amongst the different regions; this was explained by the isolation of populations by high mountains along the Q-T Plateau and adjacent areas (Nm = 0.156). Only one ancestral haplotype (A) was common and widespread throughout the distributional range of M. striata. The populations of the Hengduan Mountains region of the south-eastern Q-T Plateau showed high diversity and uniqueness of haplotypes. It is suggested that this region was the potential refugium of M. striata during the Quaternary glaciation, and that interglacial and postglacial range expansion occurred from this refugium. This scenario was in good agreement with the results of nested clade analysis, which inferred that the current spatial distribution of cpDNA haplotypes and populations resulted from range expansion, together with past allopatric fragmentation events.

Colorectal cancer is one of the major causes of death from cancer. Metastasis is the leading cause of treatment failure, in which cancer stem cells and circulating tumor cells play crucial roles. Identifying the involved metastatic biomarkers and clarifying the regulation mechanisms are of great importance for targeting tumor metastasis. In the current research, we discovered that KIAA1199, a cell-migration inducing protein, showed higher expression in CD44+ cancer cells from metastatic compared with the paired primary tissues, and was upregulated in colorectal cancer and positively correlated with numbers and mesenchymal phenotype of circulating tumor cells, and predicted shorter progress-free survival. Moreover, we indicated that down-regulation of KIAA1199 suppressed migration and invasion of colorectal cancer cells in vitro, and inhibited metastasis in vivo. Furthermore, we demonstrated that KIAA1199 was one of the direct and functional targets of miR-216a, and miR-216a overexpression led to decreased migration and invasion of colorectal cancer cells in vitro, and inhibited metastasis in vivo. Collectively, KIAA1199 plays a critical role in maintaining an aggressive phenotype of tumor cells, and suppression of KIAA1199-related motilities of tumor cells contributes to reduced tumor metastasis in colorectal cancer.

BackgroundCirculating tumor cells (CTCs) detected in peripheral blood (PB) of cancer patients can be identified as isolated CTCs and circulating tumor microemboli (CTM). This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of CTM detection and CTC phenotype in advanced colorectal cancer (CRC) patients during chemotherapy.MethodsA size-based platform for CTC isolation was applied. PB samples (5 ml) from 98 advanced CRC patients during 2–6 cycles chemotherapy were collected for CTC detection, and CTC count was correlated to patient’s clinicopathological characteristics and clinical outcome. And CTC phenotype was measured by immunofluorescent staining and evaluate the predictive significance on survival in 32 CTCs-positive patients with advanced CRC.ResultsForty-eight of 98 patients were CTCs-positive, including 18 CTM-positive patients, and CTC detection was positively correlated with lymphatic invasion (P = 0.049), TNM stage (P = 0.023), and serum CEA level (P = 0.014). Moreover, Kaplan–Meier survival and Cox regression analyses revealed that the presence of CTCs was an independent factor for poor PFS and OS (P < 0.05) in advanced CRC patients during chemotherapy, and CTM-positive patients had shooter survival than isolated CTCs-positive patients (P < 0.05). Furthermore, patients with vimentin+ isolated CTCs/CTM had shorter PFS and OS compared with CK+ CTCs (P < 0.05).ConclusionsThis study provided evidence that the presence of CTCs was positively correlated with poor prognosis, and furthermore, CTM and vimentin+ CTCs predicted poorer survival, which indicated that CTM and vimentin+ CTCs detected by a sensitive platform could be used to improve prognostic value of CTCs in advanced CRC patients under treatment.