Aldo‐keto reductase family 1 member B10 (AKR1B10) is a secretory protein overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We aimed to evaluate AKR1B10 as a serum marker for detection of HCC. Herein, we conducted a cohort study that consecutively enrolled 1,244 participants from three independent hospitals, including HCC, healthy controls (HCs), benign liver tumors (BLTs), chronic hepatitis B (CHB), and liver cirrhosis (LC). Serum AKR1B10 was tested by time‐resolved fluorescent assays. Data were plotted for receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses. Alpha‐fetoprotein (AFP) was analyzed for comparison. An exploratory discovery cohort demonstrated that serum AKR1B10 increased in patients with HCC (1,567.3 ± 292.6 pg/mL; n = 69) compared with HCs (85.7 ± 10.9 pg/mL; n = 66; P < 0.0001). A training cohort of 519 participants yielded an optimal diagnostic cutoff of serum AKR1B10 at 267.9 pg/mL. When ROC curve was plotted for HCC versus all controls (HC + BLT + CHB + LC), serum AKR1B10 had diagnostic parameters of the area under the curve (AUC) 0.896, sensitivity 72.7%, and specificity 95.7%, which were better than AFP with AUC 0.816, sensitivity 65.1%, and specificity 88.9%. Impressively, AKR1B10 showed promising diagnostic potential in early‐stage HCC and AFP‐negative HCC. Combination of AKR1B10 with AFP increased diagnostic accuracy for HCC compared with AKR1B10 or AFP alone. A validation cohort of 522 participants confirmed these findings. An independent cohort of 68 patients with HCC who were followed up showed that serum AKR1B10 dramatically decreased 1 day after operation and was nearly back to normal 3 days after operation. Conclusion : AKR1B10 is a potent serum marker for detection of HCC and early‐stage HCC, with better diagnostic performance than AFP.

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BackgroundInflammation is a common feature of both peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and periodontitis. Some studies have evaluated the association between PAD and periodontitis. However, there is still no specialized meta-analysis that has quantitatively assessed the strength of the association. Thus, we conducted this meta-analysis to critically assess the strength of the association between PAD and periodontitis.MethodsPubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library were searched for observational studies of the association between periodontitis and PAD in February 2018. Risk ratios (RRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) from included studies were pooled to evaluate the strength of the association between periodontitis and PAD. Weighted mean differences (WMDs) and their 95% CIs were pooled to compare the difference in periodontal-related parameters between PAD and non-PAD patients.ResultsSeven studies including a total of 4307 participants were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled analysis showed that there was a significant difference in the risk of periodontitis between PAD patients and non-PAD participants (RR = 1.70, 95% CI = 1.25–2.29, P = 0.01). There was also a significant difference in number of missing teeth between PAD patients and non-PAD participants (WMD = 3.75, 95% CI = 1.31–6.19, P = 0.003). No significant difference was found in clinical attachment loss between PAD patients and non-PAD participants (WMD = − 0.05, 95% CI = − 0.03–0.19, P = 0.686).ConclusionIn conclusion, the results of this meta-analysis revealed a significant relationship between periodontitis and PAD. Moreover, our study indicated that PAD patients had more missing teeth than control subjects did. Further high-quality and well-designed studies with specific inclusion and exclusion criteria are required to strengthen the conclusions of this study.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12872-018-0879-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Curcumin is an anticancer agent, but adverse effects and low bioavailability are its main drawbacks, which drives efforts in chemical modifications of curcumin. This study evaluated antiproliferative activity and cancer cell selectivity of a curcumin derivative, curcumin nicotinate (CN), in which two niacin molecules were introduced. Our data showed that CN effectively inhibited proliferation and clonogenic growth of colon (HCT116), breast (MCF-7) and nasopharyngeal (CNE2, 5-8F and 6-10B) cancer cells with IC50 at 27.7 μM, 73.4 μM, 64.7 μM, 46.3 μM, and 31.2 μM, respectively. In cancer cells, CN induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase through a p53-mediated mechanism, where p53 was activated, p21 and pro-apoptotic proteins Bid and Bak were upregulated, and PARP was cleaved. In non-transformed human mammary epithelial cells MCF10A, CN at 50 µM had no cytotoxicity and p53 was not activated, but curcumin at 12.5 µM activated p53 and p21 and inhibited MCF10A cell growth. These data suggest that CN inhibits cell growth and proliferation through p53-mediated apoptosis and cell cycle arrest with cancer cell selectivity.

A hot issue in current research regarding stem cells for regenerative medicine is the retainment of the stemness and multipotency of stem cell. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are characterized by an angiogenic switch that induces angiogenesis and further ameliorates the local microenvironment in ischemic organs. This study investigated whether EPCs could modulate the multipotent and differential abilities of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in vitro and in vivo. We established an EPC/MSC indirect Transwell coculture system and then examined the effects of EPCs on the regulation of MSC biological properties in vitro and bone formation in vivo. The in vitro studies showed that cocultured MSCs (coMSCs) display no overt changes in cell morphology but an enhanced MSC phenotype compared with monocultured MSCs (monoMSCs). Our studies regarding the cellular, molecular, and protein characteristics of coMSCs and monoMSCs demonstrated that EPCs greatly promote the proliferation and differentiation potentials of coMSCs under indirect coculture condition. The expression of the pluripotency factors OCT4, SOX2, Nanog, and Klf4 was also upregulated in coMSCs. Furthermore, coMSCs combined with fibrin glue showed improved bone regeneration when used to repair rat alveolar bone defects compared with monoMSC grafts in vivo. This study is the first to demonstrate that EPCs have dynamic roles in maintaining MSC stemness and regulating MSC differentiation potential.

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