Vaginal dysbiosis often occurs in patients with cervical cancer. The fucosylation of mucosal epithelial cells is closely related to microbial colonization, and play an important role in protecting the vaginal mucosal epithelial cells. However, no reports on the relationship between vaginal dysbiosis and abnormal mucosal epithelial cell fucosylation, and their roles in the occurrence and development of cervical cancer are unavailable. Here we report that core fucosylation levels were significantly lower in the serum, exfoliated cervical cells and tumor tissue of cervical cancer patients. Core fucosyltransferase gene (Fut8) knockout promoted the proliferation and migration of cervical cancer cells. In patients with cervical cancer, the vaginal dysbiosis, and the abundance of Lactobacillus, especially L. iners, was significantly reduced. Meanwhile, the abundance of L.iners was positively correlated with core fucosylation levels. The L. iners metabolite lactate can activate the Wnt pathway through the lactate-Gpr81 complex, which increases the level of core fucosylation in epidermal cells, inhibiting the proliferation and migration of cervical cancer cells, and have application prospects in regulating the vaginal microecology and preventing cervical cancer.

Nitric oxide (NO) plays an important role in cardiovascular and immune systems. Quantification of blood nitrite and nitrate, two relatively stable metabolites of NO (generally as NO x ), has been acknowledged representing NO bioactivity partially. Dysregulation of NO x had been reported in SARS-CoV-2 infected populations, but whether patients recovered from COVID-19 disease present with restored NO x is unknown. In this study, serum NO 2 − and NO 3 − were quantified and analyzed among 109 recovered adults in comparison to a control group of 166 uninfected adults. Nitrite or nitrate levels were not significantly different among mild-, common-, severe- and critical-type patients. However, these recovered patients had dramatically lower NO 2 − and NO 2 − /NO 3 − than the uninfected group (p < 0.0001), with significantly higher NO 3 − levels (p = 0.0023) than the uninfected group. Nitrate and nitrite/nitrate were positively and negatively correlated with patient age, respectively, with age 65 being a turning point among recovered patients. These results indicate that low NO 2 − , low NO 2 − /NO 3 − and high NO 3 − may be a potential biomarker of long-term poor or irreversible outcomes after SARS-CoV-2 infection. It suggests that NO metabolites might serve as a predictor to track the health status of recovered COVID-19 patients, highlighting the need to elucidate the role of NO after SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Long noncoding RNA colon cancer-associated transcript 1 (lncRNA CCAT1) is highly expressed in gastric cancer (GC) tissues compared with normal counterparts and CCAT1 upregulation can promote proliferation and migration of GC cells in vitro. B-cell specific moloney leukemia virus insertion site 1 (Bmi-1) expression is positively correlated with tumor progression. The present study aimed to investigate the biological functions of CCAT1 and the relationships between CCAT1 and Bmi-1 in GC progression. In the present study, CCAT1 was knocked down by specific shRNA transfection in two human GC cell lines (MGC-803 and SGC-7901). The effects of CCAT1 knockdown on GC cell proliferation, cell cycle, migration and invasion were investigated in vitro. The effect of CCAT1 knockdown on peritoneal metastasis was assessed in nude mice. Bmi-1 expression levels were examined both in vitro and in vivo. The results showed that CCAT1 knockdown markedly inhibited cell proliferation, migration and invasion, arrested the cell cycle at G0/G1 phase in vitro, and inhibited peritoneal metastasis in nude mice, along with the downregulation of Bmi-1. Taken together, CCAT1 is functionally involved in growth and metastasis of GC cells and it may be a potential target for GC therapy.

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Objectives Nitric oxide (NO) plays a vital role in neurological development. As an easily accessible and non-invasive fluid, saliva hasn't been evaluated for nitrite among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study aims to quantify saliva nitrite and explore its relation with serum NO. Methods Saliva sampling and pretreatment methods were optimized, followed by NO measurement via chemiluminescence for 126 ASD children and 129 normally developing children (ND). Results In the ASD group, saliva nitrite was significantly higher than that in the ND, with concentrations of 4.97 ± 3.77 μM and 2.66 ± 2.07 μM ( p < 0.0001), respectively. Positive correlation was observed between saliva NO 2 − and serum NO 3 − in ASD children, which didn't exist in the ND group. Male children in the ASD group had significantly higher NO than that in boys of the ND group, without significant difference between girls in both groups. Correlation was not found between saliva or serum NO and severity of these ASD children. Discussion It is reported for the first time that saliva nitrite was positively correlated with serum nitrate in ASD children, with significantly higher NO only in autistic boys. Non-invasive saliva might serve as a predictor of health status of ASD children.

Parents raising children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) usually carry on their daily life under tremendous stress, but limited empirical research has been devoted to this population. It is known that parents' health status directly impacts therapeutic outcome of ASD children. As an important regulator in cardiovascular, nervous and immune systems, nitric oxide (NO) levels haven't been reported in parents of ASD children yet. In this study, we measured urine nitrite and nitrate from 43 ASD parents (ASD-P), and 43 healthy adults in the same range of age (Control) who didn't have any ASD descendants. Comparison between the ASD-P and Control groups showed that NO2-, NO3-, and NO2-/NO3- were all significantly lower in the ASD-P group. Analysis on the interaction effect of sex and group indicated that urine NO3- of mothers in ASD-P was lower than that in females of the Control group, but no significant difference was observed between males in both groups. It is for the first time that urine nitric oxide metabolites (nitrite, nitrate) levels were precisely reported to differentiate parents of autistic children from other adults without ASD descendants. This phenomenon suggests that parents (especially mothers) of autistic children might have experienced more mental and physical stressors, which led to decreased NO levels during metabolism. Further investigations are necessary to uncover the etiology of low urine NO among parents of autistic children.