Abstract. Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common and deadly forms of cancer. Despite improved treatment modalities, post-operative recurrence and metastasis remain the major problems for extending patient survival after surgery. This highlights the need to search for biomarkers for prognostication and treatment stratification of colorectal cancer patients. In this study, we applied the SYBR-green quantitative PCR-based array approach to screen for differentially expressed miRNAs between patients with short (<50 months, range 10-33 months) and long survival (≥50 months, range 50-152 months). The selected candidate prognostic miRNAs were validated in a cohort of 50 CRC patients by TaqMan quantitative PCR. We found that high expression of miR-185 and low expression of miR-133b were correlated with poor survival (p=0.001 and 0.028, respectively) and metastasis (p=0.007 and 0.036, respectively) in colorectal cancer. Our findings suggest the potential prognostic values of these miRNAs for predicting clinical outcome after surgery. IntroductionColorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most common cancer in women and the third in men worldwide (1). It ranks the second most common cause of cancer death in the Western world (2). Currently, there are several treatment modalities for CRC, including surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy (e.g., cetuximab). However, the long-term survival remains low in metastatic disease (3).Given that CRC usually follows a stepwise progression from benign to malignant lesion and distant metastasis, there is a possibility for early diagnosis in order to reduce morbidity and mortality. The commonly used method to characterize CRC tumor in clinic is T1-T3 staging system. However, the staging system reflects only morphological characteristics of the tumor and does not consider tumor molecular biology, thus, it is inaccurate in predicting the future outcome for each particular case. Therefore, the development of screening tools and new biomarkers to facilitate early diagnosis is particularly warranted. Further investigations in the search for new prognostic biomarkers may help to improve post-operative treatment approaches for CRC patients.Several studies have documented a link between the aberrant expression of a class of small non-coding RNAs, termed microRNAs (miRNAs), and the pathogenesis/prognosis of several cancer types, including colorectal cancer (4,5). These molecules provide a potentially valuable diagnostic/prognostic tool for CRC pathology, because mature miRNA species are relatively more stable than mRNAs and well preserved in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded samples which are commonly used in clinical routine (6). Furthermore, only a small number of miRNAs are required to distinguish cancerous tissues from non-cancerous tissues compared with mRNA profiles (7), which makes them more feasible candidate biomarkers.miRNAs are endogenous single-stranded non-coding RNAs of ~22-nucleotides in length, which are generated by an RNase III enzyme Dicer from endogenou...

Human innate lymphoid cells have been described to exist in different organs, with functional deregulation of these cells contributing to several disease states. Here, we performed the first detailed characterization of the phenotype, tissue-residency properties, and functionality of ILC1s, ILC2s, and ILC3s in the human adult and fetal liver. In addition, we investigated changes in the ILC compartment in liver fibrosis. A unique composition of tissue-resident ILCs was observed in nonfibrotic livers as compared with that in mucosal tissues, with NKp44 ILC3s accounting for the majority of total intrahepatic ILCs. The frequency of ILC2s, representing a small fraction of ILCs in nonfibrotic livers, increased in liver fibrosis and correlated directly with the severity of the disease. Notably, intrahepatic ILC2s secreted the profibrotic cytokine IL-13 when exposed to IL-33 and thymic stromal lymphopoetin (TSLP); these cytokines were produced by hepatocytes, hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), and Kupffer cells in response to TLR-3 stimulation. In summary, the present results provide the first detailed characterization of intrahepatic ILCs in human adult and fetal liver. The results indicate a role for ILC2s in human liver fibrosis, implying that targeting ILC2s might be a novel therapeutic strategy for its treatment.

This study provides the first evidence of CXCR1(+)CXCR2(+)IL-23-producing neutrophils that infiltrate and accumulate in inflamed colon tissue of patients with IBD. Thus, this novel source of IL-23 may play a key role in disease progression and will be important to take into consideration in the development of future strategies to monitor, treat and prevent IBD.