Objective To detect the expressions of RhoA and Snail in gastric cancer tissues， and explore the relati-onship of these expressions to the biological behavior of the gastric cancer. Methods The expressions of RhoA and Snail protein in the paraffin-embedded specimens of 189 gastric cancer patients were detected by immunohistochemical method. The relationships of their expressions to clinicopathologic features of gastric cancer or survival， and the relevance of RhoA expression and Snail expression were analyzed. Results ① The expressions of RhoA and Snail protein in the gastric cancer tissues were significantly higher than those in the paraneoplastic tissue （RhoA：P=0.008；Snail：P=0.000） and the normal gastric mucosa tissue （RhoA：P=0.010；Snail：P=0.000）；The expression of RhoA had no significant difference between the paraneoplastic tissue and the normal gastric mucosa tissue （P=0.782）， however， the expression of Snail in the paraneoplastic tissue was significantly higher than that in the normal gastric mucosa tissue （P=0.001）. ② The expression of RhoA in the gastric cancer tissue was associated with TNM staging and Lauren type （P＜0.05）， but it was not associated with tumor diameter， lymph node metastasis， or differentiation degree （P＞0.05）. The expression of Snail in the gastric cancer tissue was associated with tumor diameter， lymph node metastasis， differentiation degree， TNM staging， or Lauren type （P＜0.05）. The expressions of RhoA and Snail in the gastric cancer tissue were not associated with patients’ gender and age （P＞0.05）. ③ The expression of RhoA protein was significantly positi-vely correlated with Snail protein in the gastric cancer（rs=0.203， P=0.005）. ④ The TNM staging of tumor， RhoA and Snail expressions， and lymph node metastasis were all the independent prognostic factors of postoperative gastric cancer patients （P＜0.05）. Conclusions RhoA and Snail proteins express in gastric cancer tissues， and involves in gastric carcinogenesis and the development process， and RhoA/Snail signaling pathway may play an important role in invasion and metastasis of gastric cancer.
ObjectiveTo investigate the relationship between neuroticism and functional gastrointestinal disorders using Mendelian randomized (MR). MethodsBased on the genome-wide association study data of neuroticism and 2 functional gastrointestinal disorders, i.e., functional dyspepsia (FD), and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), appropriate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) were extracted as instrumental variables, and inverse variance weighted (IVW) was applied as the main analysis method, and sensitivity analyses were performed by Cochran’s Q test, MR-PRESSO test, MR-Egger intercept, and leave one out analysis. Further two-step MR analyses were performed to examine the mediating effects of coffee intake, alcohol consumption, smoking, depression. ResultsThe univariable MR analysis showed that genetically determined neuroticism was positively causally associated with the risk of developing FD and IBS (FD: OR=1.448, 95%CI 1.057 to 1.983, P=0.021; IBS: OR=1.705, 95%CI 1.210 to 2.403, P=0.002). Cochran's Q-test, MR-Egger intercept, MR-PRESSO did not observe significant heterogeneity or horizontal pleiotropy. Leave-one-out analyses also did not find a large effect of individual SNPs on the overall results. Multivariable MR analyses showed that the association between neurotic personality and elevated risk of FD and IBS prevalence persisted even after adjusting for other confounders. Further two-step MR mediation analyses revealed that depression partially mediated this effect, with mediation proportions of 59.41% (95%CI 5.69% to 113.12%) and 67.53% (95%CI 31.55% to 103.51%), respectively. ConclusionThere is a degree of causal association between neuroticism and FD and IBS, and depression may play an important mediating role in this association.
ObjectiveTo systematicly evaluate expression of epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) in colorectal cancer (CRC) and its correlation with clinicopathologic characteristics of patient with CRC.MethodsPubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, and other databases were searched comprehensively. The retrieved literatures were imported into Endnote X9. The data about the expression of EpCAM in the CRC and the relationship between EpCAM expression and clinicopathologic characteristics of patients with CRC were screened and extracted. RevMan 5.3 software was used for meta-analysis.ResultsA total of 5 396 patients with CRC were included. The meta-analysis results showed that the expression rate of EpCAM in the CRC tissues or blood was significantly higher than that in the benign colorectal tumor and normal tissue or blood (P<0.05). The high expression rates of EpCAM in the Dukes C+D stage, tumor diameter >3 cm, infiltration state of tumor margin, with lymph node and distant metastasis of the CRC were significantly higher than those in the A+B stage, tumor diameter ≤3 cm, dilated state of tumor margin, without lymph node and distant metastasis (P<0.05).ConclusionResults of this meta-analysis suggest that expression of EpCAM might be related to some clinicopathologic characteristics (carcinogenesis, Dukes stage, tumor size, tumor margin morphology, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis) of patients with CRC.