Gastric cancer is the third most common cause of cancer-related death in worldwide. It is crucial to target the key genes controlling pathogenesis in the early stage of gastric cancer. This study describes an integrated bioinformatics to identify molecular biomarkers for gastric cancer in patients' cancer tissues. We reports differently expression genes in large gastric cancer cohorts from Gene Expression Ominus (GEO). Our findings revealed that 433 genes were significantly different expressed in human gastric cancer. Differently expression gene profile in gastric cancer was further validated by bioinformatic analyses, co-expression network construction. Based on the co-expression network and top-ranked genes, we identified collagen type I alpha 2 (COL1A2) which encodes the pro-alpha2 chain of type I collagen whose triple helix comprises two alpha1 chains and one alpha2 chain, was the key gene in a 37-gene network that modulates cell motility by interacting with the cytoskeleton. Furthermore, the prognostic role of COL1A2 was determined by use of immunohistochemistry on human gastric cancer tissue. COL1A2 was highly expressed in human gastric cancer as compared with normal gastric tissues. Statistical analysis showed COL1A2 expression level was significantly associated with histological type and lymph node status. However, there were no correlations between COL1A2 expression and age, lymph node numbers, tumor size, or clinical stage. In conclusion, the novel bioinformatics used in this study has led to identification of improving diagnostic biomarkers for human gastric cancer and could benefit further analyses of the key alteration during its progression.

Background/Aims: The mitotic kinesin superfamily protein KIF14 is essential for cytokinesis and chromosome segregation, and increased KIF14 expression is related to a variety of human cancers. However, the role of KIF14 in the development and malignant progression of astrocytomas and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. The present study examined the relation between KIF14 and the pathogenesis of malignant astrocytoma. Methods and Results: The role of KIF14 in astrocytoma development and progression was investigated by analyzing KIF14 expression using SYBR Green quantitative real-time RT-PCR, western blotting and immunohistochemistry in human astrocytoma and normal brain tissues. KIF14 expression was higher in astrocytoma samples, and was positively correlated with pathological grade and proliferative activity indicated by Ki-67 staining. SiRNA knockdown of KIF14 inhibited tumor growth in vitro and in vivo, attenuated anchorage-independent growth, and induced G2/M phase arrest, cytokinesis failure and apoptosis in glioblastoma cell lines in association with decreased AKT phosphorylation and activity. Conclusions: The upregulation of KIF14 in astrocytoma is associated with disease severity, and suppression of KIF14 inhibits cell proliferation and induces apoptosis through a mechanism involving the inactivation of AKT signaling, suggesting that KIF14 plays an important role in astrocytoma tumorigenesis and could be a promising molecular target for anticancer therapy.

Side population (SP) cells are a subset of stem cells that have been isolated from several different gastrointestinal cancer cell lines. Using flow cytometry and the DNA-binding dye Hoechst 33342, we isolated SP cells from SGC-7901 human gastric tumor cell lines and found that they comprise 2.3±0.78% of the tumor cells. Using the Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay, we demonstrated that SP cells have a stronger proliferative activity than non-SP cells. Additionally, we observed tumor mass formation following the cultivation of SP cells in serum-free medium, indicating the capability of these cells for self-renewal. SP cells were observed to undergo non-symmetrical division, which is characteristic of stem cells. A drug resistance assay revealed that SP cells have a high survival rate when exposed to the chemotherapy drug 5-fluorouracil; the results of western blot analysis suggest that this stems from the abundant expression of the chemoresistance-associated proteins ABCG2 and Bcl-2. We also used fluorescence quantitative PCR to reveal that SP cells have relatively high expression levels of the stem cell-related genes Musashi-1 and CD44. In vivo experiments in mice revealed that the subcutaneous injection of 2×103 SP cells resulted in the formation of tumors, while the injection of 2×104 non-SP cells did not. Cumulatively, our results suggest that gastric tumorigenesis associated with SGC-7901 may partly be driven by the activity of SP cells, which exhibit certain biological characteristics of stem cells. Our results also show that the SP cell sorting method is an effective means for isolating and identifying gastric cancer stem cells during early screening.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is an EBV-associated malignant tumor of nasopharynx. As extremely rare condition, the second primary cancer of nasopharynx can occur in NPC patients synchronously or subsequently. Extramedullary plasmacytoma (EMP) is a rare tumor and commonly originates in the head and neck region. However, there is no report to describe a collision tumor of NPC and EMP occurring in the same nasopharyngeal mass. We report here an unusual case of synchronous coexistence of NPC and EMP occurring in the nasopharynx of an old male patient. A 63-year-old male patient presented with a 3-month history of right-sided nasal obstruction and recently intermittent epistaxis without enlargement of cervical lymph nodes. The solitary mass of nasopharynx was found by radiological and nasopharyngeal examination. Histologically, the mass contained two separated portions and displayed typically histological features of NPC and EMP, respectively. In EMP portion, the tumor was composed of monomorphic plasmacytoid-appearing cells with immuno-positive to CD79a, CD138, CD38, MUM-1 and CD56, but lack immunoreactivity to pan-CK (AE1/AE3), CD20, CD21 and EBERs. In NPC portion, the tumor cells formed irregular-shaped islands with diffusely immuno-positive to pan-CK (AE1/AE3), EMA and EBERs, but lack expressions of lymphoplasmacytic markers. A diagnosis of simultaneous occurrence of EMP and NPC in nasopharynx was made. There was no evidence of tumor recurrence or metastasis 18-month follow-up after radiotherapy. To our knowledge, it may be the first case of coexistence of EMP and NPC synchronously. In addition, the histological differential diagnosis and relevant potential mechanism of this unusual collision tumor were also discussed.

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