No abstract

At present, the therapeutic treatment strategies for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain unsatisfactory, and novel methods are urgently required to treat this disease. Members of the B cell lymphoma (Bcl)-2 family are anti-apoptotic proteins, which are commonly expressed at high levels in certain HCC tissues and positively correlate with the treatment resistance of patients with HCC. ABT-737, an inhibitor of Bcl-2 anti-apoptotic proteins, has been demonstrated to exhibit potent antitumor effects in several types of tumor, including HCC. However, treatment with ABT-737 alone also activates certain pro-survival signaling pathways, which attenuate the antitumor validity of ABT-737. Curcumin, which is obtained from Curcuma longa, is also an antitumor potentiator in multiple types of cancer. In the present study, the synergistic effect of curcumin and ABT-737 on HCC cells was investigated for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. It was found that curcumin markedly enhanced the antitumor effects of ABT-737 on HepG2 cells, which was partially dependent on the induction of apoptosis, according to western blot analysis and flow cytometric apoptosis analysis. In addition, the sustained activation of the ROS-ASK1-c-Jun N-terminal kinase pathway may be an important mediator of the synergistic effect of curcumin and ABT-737. Collectively, these results indicated that the combination of curcumin and ABT-737 can efficaciously induce the death of HCC cells, and may offer a potential treatment strategy for patients with HCC.

In the present study, we found that Ginsenoside Rg3 attenuated the stemness of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells, evident by decreasing spheroid formation ability, ALDH1 activity and stemness marker expression. Furthermore, osimertinibresistant NSCLC cells displayed a stronger stemness than the parental cells.Ginsenoside Rg3 reduced the stemness and osimertinib resistance of osimertinibresistant cells. RNA-sequencing revealed that Hippo signaling was shown on the top of the most upregulated pathways regulated by Ginsenoside Rg3 in NSCLC cells, and YAP/TAZ expression was suppressed by Ginsenoside Rg3. Notably, the inhibitor of Hippo signaling attenuated the effects of Ginsenoside Rg3 on the stemness of NSCLC cells. Therefore, Ginsenoside Rg3 attenuates the osimertinib resistance of NSCLC cells via suppressing the stemness, which is dependent on Hippo pathway. K E Y W O R D SGinsenoside Rg3, osimertinib, non-small cell lung cancer, Hippo

The clinical benefits provided by using combined taxanes and anthracyclines in first-line chemotherapy for metastatic breast carcinoma (MBC) remain uncertain. This meta-analysis compares the benefits of using a combination of anthracyclines along with taxanes versus using single-agent-based chemotherapeutic regimens in the treatment of MBC.Relevant clinical trials as well as abstracts from articles presented at major cancer conferences were searched in various databases including PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library. The relevant studies had a primary endpoint of overall survival (OS) and secondary endpoints that included progression-free survival (PFS), time-to-treatment failure (TTF), time to progression (TTP), objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), and safety. The hazard ratios of OS, PFS, TTF, and TTP, the odds ratios of ORR and DCR, and the risk ratios (RRs) for grades 1–2 and 3–4 toxicities were extracted from the retrieved studies and analyzed using various statistical methods. Meta-analytic estimates were derived from a random-effect model.Fifteen trials were included in the final meta-analysis, and the results suggest that chemotherapy with combined anthracyclines and taxanes does not significantly improve the OS of MBC patients when compared with the OS achieved using separate taxane or anthracycline-based regimens. Compared with taxane-based regimens, combined taxane along with anthracycline regimens failed to significantly improve TTP, ORR, or DCR, but did significantly improve TTP and ORR when compared with anthracycline-based regimens. Furthermore, both individual taxane-based and anthracycline-based regimens produced fewer toxic reactions compared to combined taxane along with anthracycline regimens. Taxane-based regimens had lower RRs for side effects of neutropenia, infection/febrile neutropenia, nausea, and vomiting, whereas patients receiving anthracycline-based regimens had lower RRs for neutropenia, infection/febrile neutropenia, anorexia, stomatitis/mucosal inflammation, diarrhea, and sensory neuropathy. In contrast, patients receiving taxane-based regimens were at higher RRs for hand–foot syndrome and diarrhea, whereas patients receiving anthracycline-based regimens had higher RRs for nausea and vomiting.A taxane-based treatment regimen may be a better option than a combined taxane/anthracycline regimen for managing patients with advanced breast cancer, as it produces equivalent clinical outcomes and has less toxicity compared to other similar regimens.