The ideal or strong information security culture can aid in minimising the threat of humans to information protection and thereby aid in reducing data breaches or incidents in organisations. This research sets out to understand how information security culture is defined from an academic and industry perspective using a mixed-method approach. The definition, factors necessary to instil the ideal information security culture and the potential impact of the ideal information security culture were investigated from both perspectives. A survey approach was implemented to obtain the views from industry and 512 respondents from organisations, many of which operate at an international level, participated in the survey. The research presents a description of information security culture, integrating the existing literature and expanding on it with the views of industry, thereby giving clarity to the concept. The ideal information security culture was identified with the top traits relating to aspects such as an aware and knowledgeable workforce implementing conscientious, caring behaviour to comply with policies as guided by management. The factors that could positively influence an information security culture were identified, consolidated and expanded to five external factors and twenty internal factors. Organisations that have a strong information security culture were identified as achieving mutual trust and integrity through the protection of their information. The description of an information security culture can be used as a baseline to define and understand the concept, identify a single, comprehensive set of factors to be implemented, comprehend the traits of such a culture, as well as what an organisation can achieve by having a strong information security culture. The analysis showed that scientific interpretations of the definitions and factors of information security culture are much wider than their understanding of the industry. Both the results from the scoping review of papers and the feedback from the industry experts are synthesised visually to provide an organisational information security culture model (OISCM). The definition, factors, and model that influence the organisational culture of information security, have prognostic value for industry. For scientists, this is an important topic of research on methods and forms of increasing the level of this knowledge.

Spinel ferrite magnetic nanoparticles have attracted considerable attention because of their high and flexible magnetic properties and biocompatibility. In this work, a set of magnetic nanoparticles of cobalt ferrite doped with zinc was synthesized via the eco-friendly sol-gel auto-combustion method. Obtained particles displayed a room-temperature ferromagnetic behavior with tuned by chemical composition values of saturation magnetization and coercivity. The maximal values of saturation magnetization ~74 Am2/kg were found in cobalt ferrite nanoparticles with a 15–35% molar fraction of cobalt replaced by zinc ions. At the same time, the coercivity exhibited a gradually diminishing trend from ~140 to ~5 mT whereas the concentration of zinc was increased from 0 to 100%. Consequently, nanoparticles produced by the proposed method possess highly adjustable magnetic properties to satisfy the requirement of a wide range of possible applications. Further prepared nanoparticles were tested with bacterial culture to display the influence of chemical composition and magnetic structure on nanoparticles-bacterial cell interaction.

The effect of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) on gene expression in human, malignant cell lines was investigated, with a focus on signaling pathways. The commensal microbial flora produce high levels of SCFAs with established physiologic effects in humans. The most abundant SCFA metabolite in the human microflora is n-butyric acid. It is well known to activate endogenous latent Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), that was used as a reference read out system and extended to EBV+ epithelial cancer cell lines. N-butyric acid and its salt induced inflammatory and apoptotic responses in tumor cells of epithelial and lymphoid origin. Epithelial cell migration was inhibited. The n-butyric gene activation was reduced by knock-down of the cell membrane transporters MCT-1 and -4 by siRNA. N-butyric acid show biologically significant effects on several important cellular functions, also with relevance for tumor cell phenotype.

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Breast cancer (BC) is the leading cause of death from malignant neoplasms among women worldwide, and metastatic BC presents the biggest problems for treatment. Previously, it was shown that lower expression of ELOVL5 and IGFBP6 genes is associated with a higher risk of the formation of distant metastases in BC. In this work, we studied the change in phenotypical traits, as well as in the transcriptomic and proteomic profiles of BC cells as a result of the stable knockdown of ELOVL5 and IGFBP6 genes. The knockdown of ELOVL5 and IGFBP6 genes was found to lead to a strong increase in the expression of the matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) MMP1. These results were in good agreement with the correlation analysis of gene expression in tumor samples from patients and were additionally confirmed by zymography. The knockdown of ELOVL5 and IGFBP6 genes was also discovered to change the expression of a group of genes involved in the formation of intercellular contacts. In particular, the expression of the CDH11 gene was markedly reduced, which also complies with the correlation analysis. The spheroid formation assay showed that intercellular adhesion decreased as a result of the knockdown of the ELOVL5 and IGFBP6 genes. Thus, the obtained data indicate that malignant breast tumors with reduced expression of the ELOVL5 and IGFBP6 genes can metastasize with a higher probability due to a more efficient invasion of tumor cells.

The involvement of proteoglycans (PGs) in EBV-host interactions and lymphomagenesis remains poorly investigated. In this study, expression of major proteoglycans (syndecan-1, glypican-1, perlecan, versican, brevican, aggrecan, NG2, serglycin, decorin, biglycan, lumican, CD44), heparan sulphate (HS) metabolic system (EXT1/2, NDST1/2, GLCE, HS2ST1, HS3ST1/2, HS6ST1/2, SULF1/2, HPSE) and extracellular matrix (ECM) components (collagen 1A1, fibronectin, elastin) in primary B cells and EBV carrying cell lines with different phenotypes, patterns of EBV-host cell interaction and viral latency stages (type I-III) was investigated. Primary B cells expressed a wide repertoire of PGs (dominated by serglycin and CD44) and ECM components. Lymphoblastoid EBV+ B cell lines (LCLs) showed specific PG expression with down-regulation of CD44 and ECM components and up-regulation of serglycin and perlecan/HSPG2. For Burkitt's lymphoma cells (BL), serglycin was down-regulated in BL type III cells and perlecan in type I BL cells. The biosynthetic machinery for HS was active in all cell lines, with some tendency to be down-regulated in BL cells. 5′-aza-dC and/or Trichostatin A resulted in transcriptional upregulation of the genes, suggesting that low expression of ECM components, proteoglycan core proteins and HS biosynthetic system is due to epigenetic suppression in type I cells. Taken together, our data show that proteoglycans are expressed in primary B lymphocytes whereas they are not or only partly expressed in EBV-carrying cell lines, depending on their latency type program.

Expression of cofilin is directly associated with metastatic activity in many tumors. Here, we studied the role of Latent Membrane Protein 2 A (LMP2A) of Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) in the accumulation of cofilin observed in nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) tumor cells. We used LMP2A transformed NPC cell lines to analyze cofilin expression. We used mutation analysis, ectopic expression and down-regulation of Cbl, AIP4 and Syk in these cell lines to determine the effect of the LMP2A viral protein on cofilin degradation and its role in the assembly of a cofilin degrading protein complex. The LMP2A of EBV was found to interfer with cofilin degradation in NPC cells by accelerating the proteasomal degradation of Cbl and Syk. In line with this, we found significantly higher cofilin expression in NPC tumor samples as compared to the surrounding epithelial tissues. Cofilin, as an actin severing protein, influences cellular plasticity, and facilitates cellular movement in response to oncogenic stimuli. Thus, under relaxed cellular control, cofilin facilitates tumor cell movement and dissemination. Interference with its degradation may enhance the metastatic potential of NPC cells.

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