Background/objectivesThe assessment of nutritional status and the quality of life in patients with gastric cancer has become one of the important goals of current clinical treatment. The purpose of this study was to assess the nutritional status in hospitalized gastric cancer patients by using patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) and to analyze the influence of nutritional status on the patients’ quality of life (QOL).MethodsWe reviewed the pathological diagnosis of gastric cancer for 2322 hospitalized patients using PG-SGA to assess their nutritional status and collected data on clinical symptoms, the anthropometric parameters (height, weight, body mass index (BMI), mid-arm circumference (MAC), triceps skin-fold thickness (TSF), and hand-grip strength (HGS). We also collected laboratory data (prealbumin, albumin, hemoglobin) within 48 h after the patient was admitted to the hospital. The 30-item European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Core Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) was used for QOL assessment in all patients.ResultsBy using PG-SGA, we found 80.4% of the patients were malnourished (score ≥ 4) and 45.1% of the patients required urgent nutritional support (score ≥ 9). In univariate analysis, old age (> 65 years, p < 0.001), female (p = 0.007), residence in a village (p = 0.004), a lower level of education (p < 0.001), and self-paying (p < 0.001) were indicated as risk factors of patients with gastric cancer to be suffering from severe malnutrition. There was a negative correlation between PG-SGA and various nutritional parameters (p < 0.05). The quality of life was significantly different in gastric cancer patients with different nutritional status (p < 0.01).ConclusionMalnutrition of hospitalized patients with gastric cancer in China is common and seriously affects the patients’ quality of life. The nutritional status should be evaluated in a timely manner and reasonable nutritional intervention should be provided as soon as possible. The PG-SGA was fit for using as a clinical nutrition assessment method, being worthy of clinical application.

BackgroundPoly C Binding Protein 1 (PCBP1) is an RNA-binding protein that binds and regulates translational activity of subsets of cellular mRNAs. Depletion of PCBP1 is implicated in various carcinomas, but the underlying mechanism in tumorigenesis remains elusive.MethodsWe performed a transcriptome-wide screen to identify novel bounding mRNA of PCBP1. The bind regions between PCBP1 with target mRNA were investigated by using point mutation and luciferase assay. Cell proliferation, cell cycle, tumorigenesis and cell apoptosis were also evaluated in ovary and colon cancer cell lines. The mechanism that PCBP1 affects p27 was analyzed by mRNA stability and ribosome profiling assays. We analyzed PCBP1 and p27 expression in ovary, colon and renal tumor samples and adjacent non-tumor tissues using RT-PCR, Western Blotting and immunohistochemistry. The prognostic significance of PCBP1 and p27 also analyzed using online databases.ResultsWe identified cell cycle inhibitor p27Kip1 (p27) as a novel PCBP1-bound transcript. We then demonstrated that binding of PCBP1 to p27 3’UTR via its KH1 domain mainly stabilizes p27 mRNA, while enhances its translation to fuel p27 expression, prior to p27 protein degradation. The upregulated p27 consequently inhibits cell proliferation, cell cycle progression and tumorigenesis, whereas promotes cell apoptosis under paclitaxel treatment. Conversely, knockdown of PCBP1 in turn compromises p27 mRNA stability, leading to lower p27 level and tumorigenesis in vivo. Moreover, forced depletion of p27 counteracts the tumor suppressive ability of PCBP1 in the same PCBP1 over-expressing cells. Physiologically, we showed that decreases of both p27 mRNA and its protein expressions are well correlated to PCBP1 depletion in ovary, colon and renal tumor samples, independent of the p27 ubiquitin ligase Skp2 level. Correlation of PCBP1 with p27 is also found in the tamoxifen, doxorubincin and lapatinib resistant breast cancer cells of GEO database.ConclusionOur results thereby indicate that loss of PCBP1 expression firstly attenuates p27 expression at post-transcriptional level, and subsequently promotes carcinogenesis. PCBP1 could be used as a diagnostic marker to cancer patients.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13046-018-0840-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

How to induce immune tolerance without long-term need for immunosuppressive drugs has always been a central problem in solid organ transplantation. Modulating immunoregulatory cells represents a potential target to resolve this problem. Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are novel key immunoregulatory cells in the context of tumor development or transplantation, and can be generated in vitro. However, none of current systems for in vitro differentiation of MDSCs have successfully achieved long-term immune tolerance. Herein, we combined dexamethasone (Dex), which is a classic immune regulatory drug in the clinic, with common MDSCs inducing cytokine granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) to generate MDSCs in vitro. Addition of Dex into GM-CSF system specifically increased the number of CD11b+ Gr-1int/low MDSCs with an enhanced immunosuppressive function in vitro. Adoptive transfer of these MDSCs significantly prolonged heart allograft survival and also favored the expansion of regulatory T cells in vivo. Mechanistic studies showed that inducible nitric oxide sythase (iNOS) signaling was required for MDSCs in the control of T-cell response and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) signaling played a critical role in the recruitment of transferred MDSCs into allograft through upregulating CXCR2 expression on MDSCs. Blockade of GR signaling with its specific inhibitor or genetic deletion of iNOS reversed the protective effect of Dex-induced MDSCs on allograft rejection. Together, our results indicated that co-application of Dex and GM-CSF may be a new and important strategy for the induction of potent MDSCs to achieve immune tolerance in organ transplantation.

Many open access transcriptomic data of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were generated, they have great heterogeneity and are difficult to analyze. To utilize these invaluable data for better understanding of COVID-19, additional software should be developed. Especially for researchers without bioinformatic skills, a user-friendly platform is mandatory. We developed the COVID19db platform (http://hpcc.siat.ac.cn/covid19db & http://www.biomedical-web.com/covid19db) that provides 39 930 drug–target–pathway interactions and 95 COVID-19 related datasets, which include transcriptomes of 4127 human samples across 13 body sites associated with the exposure of 33 microbes and 33 drugs/agents. To facilitate data application, each dataset was standardized and annotated with rich clinical information. The platform further provides 14 different analytical applications to analyze various mechanisms underlying COVID-19. Moreover, the 14 applications enable researchers to customize grouping and setting for different analyses and allow them to perform analyses using their own data. Furthermore, a Drug Discovery tool is designed to identify potential drugs and targets at whole transcriptomic scale. For proof of concept, we used COVID19db and identified multiple potential drugs and targets for COVID-19. In summary, COVID19db provides user-friendly web interfaces to freely analyze, download data, and submit new data for further integration, it can accelerate the identification of effective strategies against COVID-19.