Background: The association of murine asthma with adiposity may be mediated by adiponectin, an antiinflammatory adipokine with reduced serum concentrations in obese subjects. A study was undertaken to examine whether the serum adiponectin concentration is associated with human asthma and whether it explains the association between adiposity and asthma, particularly in women and in premenopausal women. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis was performed of 2890 eligible subjects at year 15 of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) cohort and its YALTA ancillary study who had either current asthma or never asthma at that evaluation. Obesity was defined as body mass index (BMI) >30 kg/m 2 . Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed with current asthma status as the dependent variable. Results: Women, but not men, with current asthma had a lower mean unadjusted serum adiponectin concentration than those with never asthma (p,0.001; p for sex interaction ,0.001). Similarly, current asthma was related to obesity only in women (OR 3.31, 95% CI 2.00 to 5.46, p for sex interaction = 0.004); this association was little affected by adjusting for serum adiponectin. The prevalence of current asthma in premenopausal women was reduced in the highest compared with the lowest tertile of serum adiponectin concentration (OR 0.46, 95% CI 0.26 to 0.84, p = 0.03), after adjusting for BMI. However, the interaction between serum adiponectin concentration and BMI category on current asthma status was not significant in premenopausal women or women overall. Conclusions: A high serum adiponectin concentration may protect against current asthma in premenopausal women but does not explain the association between asthma and adiposity.

Objectives N6‐methyladenosine (m6A) is a ubiquitous epigenetic RNA modification that plays a pivotal role in tumour development and metastasis. In this study, we aimed to investigate the expression profiling, clinical significance, biological function and the regulation of m6A‐related genes in hepatoblastoma (HB). Materials and Methods The mRNA and protein expression levels of m6A‐related genes were analysed using Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and tissue microarray (TMA) cohort. Kaplan‐Meier analysis was performed to evaluate the prognostic value of m6A‐related genes in HB. Knockdown of m6A‐related genes was conducted to analyse its function on cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Furthermore, bioinformatics analysis and experimental verification were used to explore the potential molecular mechanism and signalling pathway. Results We found that most m6A‐related genes were significantly upregulated in HB tumour tissues. High levels of methyltransferase‐like 3 (METTL3, P = .013), YTHDF2 (P = .037) and FTO (P = .032) indicated poor clinical outcomes, and the upregulation of METTL3 was an independent prognostic factor in HB patients. Functional assays showed that knockdown of METTL3 could dramatically suppress the proliferation, migration and invasion of HB cells. In addition, METTL3 was identified to be a direct target of microRNA‐186 (miR‐186). Consistently, miR‐186 was low expressed in HB tumour tissues. Moreover, overexpression of miR‐186 significantly inhibited cell aggressive phenotype both in vitro and in vivo, while the inhibitory effect could be reversed by METTL3 overexpression. Mechanism study indicated that miR‐186/METTL3 axis contributed to the progression of HB via the Wnt/β‐catenin signalling pathway. Conclusions M6A‐related genes were frequently dysregulated in HB. miR‐186/METTL3/Wnt/β‐catenin axis might serve as novel therapeutic targets and prognostic biomarkers in HB.

Exosomes secreted by bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) promote osteosarcoma cell proliferation and migration, while the underlying mechanism remains unknown. Since the long non-coding RNA PVT1 has been reported to be upregulated in osteosarcoma cells and contributes to its growth and metastasis, we aim to investigate whether BMSC-derived exosomes promote osteosarcoma growth and metastasis via transporting PVT1 into osteosarcoma cells. The PVT1 expression in BMSC-derived exosomes was markedly higher than that in osteosarcoma cell-derived exosomes. The co-culturing of BMSC-derived exosomes and osteosarcoma cells (Saos-2, MG-63, and MNNG/HOS cell lines) significantly raised PVT1 expression of osteosarcoma cells. The direct binding between PVT1 and the oncogenic protein ERG was confirmed using RNA immunoprecipitation and RNA pull-down assays, and the transported PVT1 promotes osteosarcoma cell proliferation and migration via inhibiting degradation and ubiquitination of ERG. PVT1 also increased ERG expression through sponging miR-183-5p. In summary, our findings indicated that BMSC-derived exosomes encapsulate PVTl and transport it into osteosarcoma cells, and the transported PVT1 promotes tumor growth and metastasis by inhibiting ubiquitination and promoting expression of ERG in osteosarcoma cells. These data provide a novel insight into the mechanism of BMSC-derived exosomes in affecting osteosarcoma progression.

Background: Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common primary bone tumor. The disease has a poor prognosis due to the delay in the diagnosis and the development of metastasis. N6-Methyladenosine (m6A)-related regulators play an essential role in various tumors. In this study, a comprehensive analysis was conducted to elucidate the relationship between the expression profiles of m6A-related molecules and the clinical outcome of OS patients. Materials and Methods: Public genome datasets and a tissue microarray (TMA) cohort were used to analyze the mRNA and protein expression levels of m6A regulators. Next, immunofluorescence (IF) analysis was used to determine the subcellular localization of m6A-related molecules. Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were performed to confirm the prognostic value of m6A-related molecules in OS. A comprehensive bioinformatic analysis was conducted to identify the potential molecular mechanisms mediated by m6A modification in OS. Results: We found that m6A-related regulator expression was dysregulated in OS tissues, especially in metastatic tumor tissues. Low expression of METTL3, METTL14, and YTHDF2 and high expression of KIAA1429 and HNRNPA2B1 were significantly associated with poor prognosis in the TMA cohort. Simultaneously, the genome metacohort analysis revealed that low expression of FTO and METTL14 and high expression of METTL3, HNRNPA2B1, and YTHDF3 were associated with poor prognosis in OS. Cox regression analysis showed that HNRNPA2B1 might be an independent risk factor for OS. Bioinformatic analysis indicated that m6A regulators might be involved in OS progression through humoral immune response and cell cycle pathways. Conclusion: M6A-related regulators are frequently dysregulated and correlate with metastasis and prognosis in OS. M6A-related regulators may serve as novel therapeutic targets and prognostic biomarkers for OS.

Purpose: Gastric cancer (GC) is a primary cause of cancer-associated mortality worldwide. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is one of the most common RNA modifications that involves in the progression of numerous cancers. However, the expression status and function of m6A-related genes in gastric cancer is still not well understood. The current study is aimed to investigate the expression status and determinate prognostic value of m6A-related genes in gastric cancer. Methods: m6A-asssociated gene expression was evaluated via analyzing the expression data of GC patients from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The protein expression levels of m6A-associated molecules were further validated by immunohistochemical (IHC) staining data from GC tissue microarray (TMA) cohort and Human Protein Atlas (HPA) database. Kaplan-Meier analysis was performed to assess the prognostic value of m6A-associated genes in gastric cancer. Risk score model was established by lasso COX regression analysis and its prognostic predicted efficiency was assessed by the receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve. Cox regression analyses were used for exploring risk factors related to GC patient prognosis. Results: Most of m6A-related genes were upregulated at both mRNA and protein levels in gastric cancer tissues compared with that in normal gastric tissues. The expression levels of m6A-related genes were associated with clinicopathological features including race, age and TNM stage. High expression of WTAP and FTO predicted poor prognosis of GC patients. Survival analysis demonstrated that patients with high-risk scores had worse overall survival (OS) and ROC curves suggested the prediction performance for gastric patients. Moreover, Cox regression analyses indicated that m6A risk model score was a prognostic factor for OS and FTO upregulation might be a potential independent prognostic factor for recurrence-free survival (RFS) in gastric cancer patients. Conclusion: m6A-related genes were dysregulated in GC and were closely associated with prognosis of GC patients. FTO might serve as a novel prognostic biomarker for gastric cancer, while the m6A-related risk score might be informative for risk assessment and prognostic stratification.