RES can protect salivary glands against the negative effects of irradiation and has great potential as a treatment for successful radiotherapy in clinical practice.

In this study, the expression of neural precursor cell expressed developmentally downregulated 9 (NEDD9) in benign and malignant gastric tissues was investigated, and the significance of NEDD9 in gastric cancer prognosis was explored. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect NEDD9 expression in gastric cancer, nontumor gastric, and normal gastric tissues. The relationship between NEDD9 expression in gastric cancer tissues and the clinicopathologic factors was examined using the Mann-Whitney U test. The two factors between NEDD9 expression and tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage in gastric cancer patients were analyzed by Spearman rank correlation analysis. The Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test were used to compare the overall survival of NEDD9 negative, weak positive expression, and strong positive expression group. NEDD9 expression rates were significantly higher (P < 0.001) in gastric cancer tissues (162 out of 187, 86.6 %) compared with normal (2 out of 11, 18.2 %) and nontumor (11 out of 58, 19.0 %) gastric tissues. The upregulated NEDD9 expression in gastric cancer tissue was significantly correlated with high preoperative CEA level (P = 0.044), poor differentiation (P = 0.007), tissue invasion (P = 0.015), present lymph node metastasis (P < 0.001), and high TNM stage (P < 0.001). NEDD9 expression was positively correlated with clinical TNM stage. Advancing clinical TNM stage corresponded with higher NEDD9 expression (r s = 0.289, P < 0.001). The overall 5-year survival of gastric cancer patients with strong positive NEDD9 expression was significantly shorter compared with the survival of NEDD9 negative and weakly positive expression group. NEDD9 may be used as a biomarker in the clinical setting to predict the prognosis of gastric cancer patients.

To explore the radiosensitivity of andrographolide on esophageal cancer cell line ECA109. The inhibition effects of andrographolide were measured using 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium (MTT) assay. Clonogenic survival assay was used to evaluate the effects of andrographolide on the radiosensitivity of esophageal cancer cells. Immunofluorescence was employed to examine Bax expression. The changes in cell cycle distribution and apoptosis were assayed using flow cytometry. The expression of NF-κb/Cleaved-Caspase3/Bax/Bcl-2 was measured using Western blot analysis. DNA damage was detected via γ-H2AX foci counting. With a clear dose and time effects, andrographolide was found to inhibit the proliferation of esophageal cell line ECA109. The results of the clonogenic survival assay show that andrographolide could markedly enhance radiosensitivity (P< 0.05) with a sensitizing enhancement ratio of 1.28. Andrographolide caused a dose-dependent increase in Cleaved-Caspase3/Bax protein expression and a decrease in Bcl-2/NF-κb expression. Apoptosis in andrographolide-treated ECA-109 increased significantly compared with the apoptosis in the simple drug and radiation combined with drug groups (P < 0.001; P < 0.05). Moreover, compared with the independent radiation group, the andrographolide combined with radiation group increased the number of DNA double chain breaks. Andrographolide can increase the radiosensitivity of esophageal cell line ECA109. This result may be associated with the decrease in the NF-κb level and the induced apoptosis of esophageal cancer cells.