The incidence and mortality rate of colorectal cancer (CRC) have been significantly increasing. However, mechanisms involved in CRC progression are still unclear. LncRNA ZFAS1 has been verified as oncogenic molecular in a series of tumors, including CRC. However, the underlying mechanism of ZFAS1 in CRC carcinogenesis remains unclear. In the present study, our data showed that ZFAS1 expression was significantly upregulated in CRC tissues and cell lines. Correlation analysis showed that high ZFAS1 expression was significantly associated with Helicobacter pylori infection, lymph nodes metastasis, advanced TNM stage and poor overall survival of CRC patients. Loss-of-function experiments revealed that ZFAS1 inhibition could markedly suppress CRC cells proliferation and invasion both in vitro and in vivo. Bioinformatics analysis and luciferase reporter assay revealed that ZFAS1 directly interacted with miR-484. Rescue experiments showed that miR-484 inhibitor reversed the tumor suppressing roles of ZFAS1 knockdown on CRC cells. Therefore, our study suggested that ZFAS1 could act as an oncogene in CRC tumorigenesis, and discovered the functional regulatory pathway of ZFAS1 sponging miR-484.

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Amphibians are a natural source of abundant antimicrobial peptides and thus have been widely investigated for isolation of such biomolecules. Many new antimicrobial peptide families have been discovered from amphibians. In this study, a novel antimicrobial peptide named Limnonectes fujianensis Brevinvin (LFB) has been identified in the skin secretion from the Fujian large headed frog, Limnonectes fujianensis. The cDNA sequence was cloned from a skin secretion library and the predicted mature peptide was identified through MS/MS fragmentation sequencing of reverse phase HPLC fractions on the same sample. LFB was predicted to be an amphipathic, hydrophobic, alpha helical, and beta turn peptide that inserts into a lipid bilayer in order to kill the cells. In antimicrobial assays, a synthetic replicate of this novel antimicrobial peptide demonstrated significant activity against the Gram-positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, the Gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli and the yeast, Candida albicans. This novel peptide was highly potent (MIC 4.88 uM) against Gram-negative bacterium, and also has the ability to inhibit the growth of human cancer cell lines with IC50 values ranging from 18.9 μM down to 2.0 μM. These findings help to enrich our understanding of Brevinin-like peptides. Moreover, the data presented here validate frog secretion as a source of potential novel antimicrobial peptides, that also exhibit anti-tumor properties, that could be useful for the treatment of cancer.

A simple and feasible pH meter–based immunoassay is reported for detection of C-reactive protein (CRP) using glucose oxidase (GOD)–conjugated dendrimer loaded with platinum nanozyme. Initially, platinum nanozymes were loaded into the dendrimers through an in situ synthetic method. Then, GOD and monoclonal anti-CRP antibody with a high molar ratio were covalently conjugated onto carboxylated dendrimers via typical carbodiimide coupling. The immunoreaction was carried out with a competitive mode in a CRP-coated microplate. Along with formation of immunocomplex, the added glucose was oxidized into gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide by GOD, and the latter was further decomposed by platinum nanozyme, thus accelerating chemical reaction in the positive direction. The produced gluconic acid changed the pH of detection solution, which was determined using a handheld pH meter. Under optimum conditions, the pH meter–based immunoassay gave a good signal toward target CRP from 0.01 to 100 ng mL−1. The limit of detection was 5.9 pg mL−1. An intermediate precision ≤ 11.2% was acquired with batch-to-batch identification. No nonspecific adsorption was observed during a series of procedures to detect target CRP, and the cross-reaction against other biomarkers was very low. Importantly, our system gave well-matched results for analysis of human serum samples relative to a referenced ELISA kit.Graphical abstract