Gliomas are the most common type of malignant brain tumors, and the related prognosis is poor. Though many genes have been identified as factors in the development and progression of gliomas, underlying mechanisms remained unclear. It was clear that abnormal lipid metabolism was one of the major hallmarks of cancers. However, few factors associated with lipid metabolism have been reported to be involved in cancer pathogenesis. Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-like 2 (HSDL2) is a protein containing sterol carrier protein 2 (SCP2) domain localized in peroxisomes, which indicated that HSDL2 might be a fatty acid regulatory factor. Here, we revealed that HSDL2 was significantly upregulated in gliomas and its expression was positively correlated with glioma grades. Furthermore, lentiviral-mediated HSDL2 knockdown showed that HSDL2 downregulation inhibited the proliferation in two human glioblastoma cell lines U-251 cells and U87 MG cells, induced cell cycle arrest, and promoted cell apoptosis. Our study provided multiple lines of evidence for the causal relationship between HSDL2 overexpression and glioma progression and provided possible mechanisms underlying HSDL2-mediated glioma growth. Taken together, these results indicated that HSDL2 might serve as a potential target for glioma treatment in the future.

A multifunctional drug delivery system with polypyrrole confined in dendrimer-like silica nanoparticles and DOX loading for chemo-photothermal synergistic therapy of cancer.

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to establish and validate a radiomics nomogram for predicting meningiomas consistency, which could facilitate individualized operation schemes-making.MethodsA total of 172 patients was enrolled in the study (train cohort: 120 cases, test cohort: 52 cases). Tumor consistency was classified as soft or firm according to Zada’s consistency grading system. Radiomics features were extracted from multiparametric MRI. Variance selection and LASSO regression were used for feature selection. Then, radiomics models were constructed by five classifiers, and the area under curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the performance of each classifiers. A radiomics nomogram was developed using the best classifier. The performance of this nomogram was assessed by AUC, calibration and discrimination.ResultsA total of 3840 radiomics features were extracted from each patient, of which 3719 radiomics features were stable features. 28 features were selected to construct the radiomics nomogram. Logistic regression classifier had the highest prediction efficacy. Radiomics nomogram was constructed using logistic regression in the train cohort. The nomogram showed a good sensitivity and specificity with AUCs of 0.861 and 0.960 in train and test cohorts, respectively. Moreover, the calibration graph of the nomogram showed a favorable calibration in both train and test cohorts.ConclusionsThe presented radiomics nomogram, as a non-invasive prediction tool, could predict meningiomas consistency preoperatively with favorable accuracy, and facilitated the determination of individualized operation schemes.

RIZ1 displays strong tumor-suppressive activities, which has a potential histone methyltransferase activity. The objective of the study was to evaluate the level and the methylation status of RIZ1 and analyze its association with clinicopathological features and the histone in the pituitary adenomas. We found that RIZ1-positive cases were 11/50 and H-Scores 22.75 ± 11.83 in invasive pituitary adenomas and 26/53 and 66.3 ± 21.7 in non-invasive pituitary adenomas (χ = 8.182, p = 0.004). RIZ1 and C-myc showed the opposite trend in these cases. The methylation levels of RIZ1 were more than 50% in 30.4% (7/23) CpG sites through MALDI-TOF Mass array. There was significant difference (p < 0.01) in 4 CpG sites between invasive pituitary adenoma group and non-invasive pituitary adenoma group; furthermore, the relieved methylation levels of H3K4/H3K9 and enhanced methylation levels of H3K27 in the patients' serum were found. Furthermore, there was statistic difference of H3K4 and H3K27 methylation between invasive pituitary adenoma and non-invasive pituitary adenoma group (p < 0.01). The average progression-free survival in high RIZ1 group was 52.63 ± 7.62 months and 26.06 ± 4.23 months in low RIZ1 group (p < 0.05). Promoter region methylation of RIZ1 may play an important role in the epigenetic silencing of RIZ1 expression in pituitary adenomas, which may translate into important diagnostic and therapeutic applications.

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