Estrogen receptor β (ERβ) plays critical roles in thyroid cancer progression. However, its role in thyroid cancer stem cell maintenance remains elusive. Here, we report that ERβ is overexpressed in papillary thyroid cancer stem cells (PTCSCs), whereas ablation of ERβ decreases stemness-related factors expression, diminishes ALDH+ cell populations, and suppresses sphere formation ability and tumor growth. Screening estrogen-responsive lncRNAs in PTC spheroid cells, we find that lncRNA-H19 is highly expressed in PTCSCs and PTC tissue specimens, which is correlated with poor overall survival. Mechanistically, estradiol (E2) significantly promotes H19 transcription via ERβ and elevates H19 expression. Silencing of H19 inhibits E2-induced sphere formation ability. Furthermore, H19 acting as a competitive endogenous RNA sequesters miRNA-3126-5p to reciprocally release ERβ expression. ERβ depletion reverses H19-induced stem-like properties upon E2 treatment. Appropriately, ERβ is upregulated in PTC tissue specimens. Notably, aspirin attenuates E2-induced cancer stem-like traits through decreasing both H19 and ERβ expression. Collectively, our findings reveal that ERβ-H19 positive feedback loop has a compelling role in PTCSC maintenance under E2 treatment and provides a potential therapeutic targeting strategy for PTC.

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Neuropilin-1 (NRP-1) is a nontyrosine kinase coreceptor for semaphorin 3A and the vascular endothelial growth factor involved in tumor angiogenesis, growth, and metastasis and is regarded as a promising target for cancer therapy. In the present study, we investigated the effects of an anti-NRP-1 monoclonal antibody (mAb) that we generated for MCF7 breast cancer cellular adhesion studies. MTT, colony formation, and adhesion assays showed that our anti-NRP-1 mAb dose-dependently inhibited MCF7 proliferation and fibronectin adhesion, leading to a rounded cellular morphology. Further, rhodamine phalloidin stain revealed that fibronectin-dependent formation of actin stress fibers was inhibited by anti-NRP-1 mAb. Immunoprecipitation and western blot showed that anti-NRP-1 mAb treatment inhibited the formation of NRP-1-α5β1 integrin complexes and suppressed the phosphorylation of focal adhesion kinase and p130cas in MCF7 cells. These findings contribute to further understanding the NRP-1 function in cell adhesion and tumor metastasis. Moreover, our anti-NRP-1 mAb is a prospective drug candidate for tumor treatment.

Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), a ubiquitous contaminant, has been used in various industrial applications. Currently few studies have documented the effects of chronic PFOS exposure on lipid metabolism, especially in aquatic organisms. The present study defined the effects of chronic exposure to low level of PFOS on lipid metabolism in F0 adult zebrafish and F1 offspring. Our findings revealed a severe fatty degeneration in the liver of F0 males treated with 0.5 μM PFOS and significant ultrastructure changes associated with substance transport or metabolism in liver and intestines (abnormal mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum, disordered arrangement of inner microvilli within intracellular canaliculus). To address the potential trans-generational effects of PFOS exposure, the early gene expression related to lipid metabolism was measured by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction in F1 derived from chronically exposed parental fish. The results indicated that lepa (leptin α), kiss1 (kisspeptins), xdh (xanthine dehydrogenases), and insr (insulin receptor) were significantly upregulated in F1 while dgat1b (diacylglycerol O-acyltransferase), hb9 (motor neuron/pancreas homeobox), and Apoa1 (apolipoprotein A-I) were downregulated. These findings provided evidence that PFOS chronic exposure adversely impacts lipid metabolism in both F0 and F1 and demonstrated the validity of using zebrafish as an alternative model for PFOS chronic toxicity screening.