In vivo antitumor efficacy combined with the specificity of CMP5 underscores the importance of developing it for translation.

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDA) is one of the most lethal human malignancies, and unresponsive to current chemotherapies. Here we investigate the therapeutic potential of phycocyanin as an anti-PDA agent in vivo and in vitro. Phycocyanin, a natural product purified from Spirulina, effectively inhibits the pancreatic cancer cell proliferation in vitro and xenograft tumor growth in vivo. Phycocyanin induces G2/M cell cycle arrest, apoptotic and autophagic cell death in PANC-1 cells. Inhibition of autophagy by targeting Beclin 1 using siRNA significantly suppresses cell growth inhibition and death induced by phycocyanin, whereas inhibition of both autophagy and apoptosis rescues phycocyanin-mediated cell death. Mechanistically, cell death induced by phycocyanin is the result of cross-talk among the MAPK, Akt/mTOR/p70S6K and NF-κB pathways. Phycocyanin is able to induce apoptosis of PANC-1 cell by activating p38 and JNK signaling pathways while inhibiting Erk pathway. On the other hand, phycocyanin promotes autophagic cell death by inhibiting PI3/Akt/mTOR signaling pathways. Furthermore, phycocyanin promotes the activation and nuclear translocation of NF-κB, which plays an important role in balancing phycocyanin-mediated apoptosis and autosis. In conclusion, our studies demonstrate that phycocyanin exerts anti-pancreatic cancer activity by inducing apoptotic and autophagic cell death, thereby identifying phycocyanin as a promising anti-pancreatic cancer agent.

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Experiments are increasingly moving online (especially during the COVID epidemic). This poses a major challenge for researchers who rely on in-lab process-tracing techniques such as eye-tracking. Researchers in computer science have developed a web-based eye-tracking application (WebGazer) (Papoutsaki et al., 2016) but it has yet to see use in behavioral research. This is likely due to the extensive calibration and validation procedure (~50% of the study time) and low/inconsistent temporal resolution (Semmelmann & Weigelt, 2018), as well as the challenge of integrating it into standard experimental software. Here, we incorporate WebGazer with the most widely used JavaScript library among behavioral researchers (jsPsych) and adjust the procedure and code to reduce calibration/validation and dramatically improve the temporal resolution (from 100-1000 ms to 20-30 ms or better). We test our WebGazer/jsPsych combination with a decision-making study on Amazon MTurk. We find little degradation in spatial or temporal resolution over the course of the ~30-minute experiment. We replicate previous in-lab findings on the relationship between gaze dwell time and value-based choice. In summary, we provide an open-source, accessible, software template and tutorial for web-based eye-tracking in behavioral research that is sufficient to replicate in-lab studies with just a modest number of participants (N=38), and that is orders of magnitude faster than in-lab data collection. Moreover, we highlight that web-based eye-tracking is a useful tool for all behavioral researchers, as it can be used to ensure that study participants are humans and not machines.

Context: Phycocyanin (PC) has been proven to have many therapeutic properties, but its effects on diabetes have not been investigated.