Ferroptosis is a non-apoptotic, iron-dependent oxidative form of cell death that is specifically induced by erastin in RAS mutant cancer cells. Ferroptotic cell death is the result of membrane lipid peroxide damage caused by the accumulation of hydroxyl radicals derived from H2O2 by the Fenton reaction. Peroxidases are key cellular antioxidant enzymes that block such damaging processes. Few studies have examined the roles of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the regulation of cellular oxidative stress, especially in ferroptosis. Here, we demonstrated that erastin upregulated the lncRNA GABPB1-AS1, which downregulated GABPB1 protein levels by blocking GABPB1 translation, leading to the downregulation of the gene encoding Peroxiredoxin-5 (PRDX5) peroxidase and the eventual suppression of the cellular antioxidant capacity. Such effects critically inhibited the cellular antioxidant capacity and cell viability. Additionally, high expression levels of GABPB1 were correlated with poor prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) Patients, while high GABPB1-AS1 levels in HCC patients correlated with improved overall survival. Collectively, these data demonstrate a mechanistic link between GABPB1 and its antisense lncRNA GABPB1-AS1 in erastin-induced ferroptosis and establish GABPB1 and GABPB1-AS1 as attractive therapeutic targets for HCC.

Varied cluster analysis were applied to facial surface measurements from 62 prepubertal boys with essential autism to determine whether facial morphology constitutes viable biomarker for delineation of discrete Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) subgroups. Earlier study indicated utility of facial morphology for autism subgrouping (Aldridge et al. in Mol Autism 2(1):15, 2011). Geodesic distances between standardized facial landmarks were measured from three-dimensional stereo-photogrammetric images. Subjects were evaluated for autism-related symptoms, neurologic, cognitive, familial, and phenotypic variants. The most compact cluster is clinically characterized by severe ASD, significant cognitive impairment and language regression. This verifies utility of facially-based ASD subtypes and validates Aldridge et al.'s severe ASD subgroup, notwithstanding different techniques. It suggests that language regression may define a unique ASD subgroup with potential etiologic differences.

Traditionally, musk has been used as an analgesic to treat pain associated with cancer. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is an aggressive tumor; however, patients with liver cancer that received musk were reported to live longer and have a higher quality of life. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate whether muscone, a macrocyclic compound of musk, demonstrated potential as an anti-liver cancer drug for the non-surgical treatment of advanced liver cancer. Briefly, liver cancer cells were treated with muscone and the rates of cellular apoptosis and autophagy were investigated using staining techniques and western blotting. The underlying molecular mechanisms of muscone were evaluated using high-throughput sequencing and the in vitro effects of muscone were subsequently validated in vivo using a nude mouse model. Muscone increased the rates of apoptosis and autophagy in liver cancer cells; the increase in cellular apoptosis was observed to occur through endoplasmic reticulum stress responses, whereas muscone-induced autophagy was closely associated with the AMP kinase/mTOR complex 1 signaling pathway. These findings were verified in vivo. Notably, sestrin-2 expression levels were also significantly decreased in liver cancer tissues compared with paracancerous tissues. In conclusion, the present study suggests that muscone demonstrates potential as an anticancer drug, and the findings of the present study provide the basis for the development of effective anticancer drugs derived from natural compounds.

Background. Ferroptosis is a type of cell death with major topic of debate under current research and plays an important role in disease regulation. Objective. In this study, the literature management software Bibexcel and knowledge graph tool VOSviewer were used to summarize and analyze the international research trends and hotspots about ferroptosis in recent years, which highlight the disease mechanism, diagnosis, and treatment related to ferroptosis. Material/Methods. The core collection database of Web of Science was used for retrieving ferroptosis research literature. The information such as the amount of text, the country, the period, the institution, the fund, and the keywords was extracted by the bibliometric tool Bibexcel. The cooccurrence and clustering function of VOSviewer were used to analyze the high-frequency keywords and the cooperative network of the author, institution, and country. Results. The research of ferroptosis started late and was formally proposed in 2012. It has developed rapidly and presented an “exponential” growth trend. China, the United States, Germany, Japan, and France are the main national forces of ferroptosis research development. The United States and China have a relatively high degree of support and attention to ferroptosis. Exploring oxidative stress, inducers/inhibitors, synergistic antitumor effect, relationships with other cell death types, GSH/GPX4 and iron metabolism imbalance related mechanisms of ferroptosis, and ferroptosis in the nervous system disease, ischemia-reperfusion injury, tumor, inflammation, and age-related diseases are the hot research directions. Conclusion. Ferroptosis has been a research hotspot in the field of biomedicine in recent years and has attracted the attention of scholars all over the world. The occurrence mechanism of ferroptosis and its application in neurological diseases, ischemia and reperfusion injury, tumors, inflammation, and aging are the hot directions of current research. In the future, ferroptosis can be appropriately considered for strengthening new approaches, new diseases, new inductors, new inhibitors, clinical transformation, and traditional medicine research.

Objectives: To explore the possible concurrent brain functional and structural alterations in patients with migraine without aura (MwoA) patients compared to healthy subjects (HS). Methods: Seventy-two MwoA patients and forty-six HS were recruited. 3D-T1 and resting state fMRI data were collected during the interictal period for MwoA and HS. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) for structure analysis and regional homogeneity (Reho) for fMRI analysis were applied. The VBM and Reho maps were overlapped to determine a possible brain region with concurrent functional and structural alteration in MwoA patients. Further analysis of resting state functional connectivity (FC) alteration was applied with this brain region as the seed.Results: Compared with HS, MwoA patients showed decreased volume in the bilateral superior and inferior colliculus, periaqueductal gray matter (PAG), locus ceruleus, median raphe nuclei (MRN) and dorsal pons medulla junction. MwoA patients showed decreased Reho values in the middle occipital gyrus and inferior occipital gyrus, and increased Reho values in the MRN. Only a region in the MRN showed both structural and functional alteration in MwoA patients. Pearson correlation analysis showed that there was no association between volume or Reho values of the MRN and headache frequency, headache intensity, disease duration, self-rating anxiety scale or self-rating depression scale in MwoA patients. Resting state functional connectivity (FC) with the MRN as the seed showed that MwoA patients had increased FC between the MRN and PAG.Conclusions: MRN are involved in the pathophysiology of migraine during the interictal period. This study may help to better understand the migraine symptoms.Trial registration: NCT01152632. Registered 27 June 2010.

Background. In recent years, there have been many clinical reports on acupuncture treatment of cough-variant asthma, but no researcher has objectively analysed and evaluated the efficacy and safety of acupuncture treatment of cough-variant asthma from the perspective of evidence-based medicine. Objective. To systematically evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of acupuncture in treating cough-variant asthma and to provide reference values for clinical decision-making. Methods. The comprehensive computer retrieval Chinese journal full-text database (CNKI), Chinese science and technology periodical database (VIP), ten thousand data knowledge service platform (WanFang Data), PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library were used to collect literature for relevant randomized controlled trials (RCT) of acupuncture treatment of cough-variant asthma, as well as to retrieve papers and add reference retrieval after literature review, in accordance with the standard of literature filtering, data extraction, and quality evaluation. The data were meta-analysed using ReviewManager5.3 software recommended by Cochrane. Results. A total of 11 randomized controlled clinical studies were screened and included, comprising 929 patients. The results of the meta-analysis showed that, compared with the control group, acupuncture intervention on CVA could enhance the total clinical effectiveness rate, reduce the relapse rate of drug withdrawal, relieve symptoms of cough, phlegm, and diaphragmatic congestion, and improve lung function-related indicators and immune inflammation indicators. There were statistically significant differences in all efficacy evaluation criteria. Conclusion. The clinical curative effect of acupuncture treatment for cough-variant asthma is precise and has certain advantages in relieving symptoms and reducing the recurrence rate. However, the low quality of the evaluation in the RCT research literature is a problem, and more high-quality clinical randomized controlled trials are needed to further verify the comprehensive clinical efficacy and safety of this treatment. Registration number: PROSPERO (no. CRD42020155244) (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/).

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It is clear that RNA is more than just a messenger between gene and protein. The mammalian genome is pervasively transcribed, giving rise to tens of thousands of non-coding transcripts. Whether all of these transcripts are functional remains to be elucidated, but it is evident that there are many functional long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). Recent studies have set out to decode the regulatory role and functional diversity of lncRNAs. Here we organize these studies to highlight the significant involvements of lncRNAs in regulation of gene expression and human physiological and pathological processes, which are achieved by their interaction with DNA, RNA or protein. lncRNAs, gene expression, physiological and pathological processes, interactionCitation: