ZCCHC17 Served as a Predictive Biomarker for Prognosis and Immunotherapy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the common malignant tumors. The prognosis and five-year survival rate of HCC are not promising due to tumor recurrence and metastasis. Exploring markers that contribute to the early diagnosis of HCC, markers for prognostic evaluation of HCC patients, and effective targets for treating HCC patients are in the spotlight of HCC therapy. Zinc Finger CCHC-Type Containing 17 (ZCCHC17) encodes the RNA binding protein ZCCHC17, but its role in HCC is still unclear. Here, 90 paraffin-embedded specimens combined with bioinformatics were used to comprehensively clarify the value of ZCCHC17 in the diagnosis and prognosis of HCC and its potential functions. Paraffin-embedded specimens were used to assess ZCCHC17 protein expression and its correlation with prognosis in 90 HCC patients. the public data sets of HCC patients from TCGA, ICG, and GEO databases were also used for further analysis. It was found that protein and mRNA levels of ZCCHC17 in HCC tissues were significantly higher than those in normal tissues. The abnormally high expression may be related to the abnormal DNA methylation of ZCCHC17 in tumor tissues. The high expression of ZCCHC17 is related to AFP, histologic grade, tumor status, vascular invasion, and pathological stage. Multi-data set analysis showed that patients with high ZCCHC17 expression had a worse prognosis, and multivariate cox regression analysis showed an independent prognostic significance of ZCCHC17. The results of functional analysis, including Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA), indicate that ZCCHC17 is mainly involved in immune regulation. Subsequently, further single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) showed that the expression of ZCCHC17 was related to the infiltration of immune cells. Importantly, we also analyzed the relationship between ZCCHC17 and immune checkpoint genes, tumor mutation burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI) and TP53 status in HCC patients and evaluated the role of ZCCHC17 in cancer immunotherapy. In summary, ZCCHC17 is a novel marker for the diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of HCC. Concurrently, it regulates immune cells in the tumor microenvironment (TME) of HCC patients, which has a specific reference value for the immunotherapy of HCC.

Vitreoretinal Surgical Approaches in Intraocular Tumors

Although primary vitreoretinal techniques are rarely used in the primary treatment of intraocular tumors, they are mostly used for differential diagnosis and as an adjuvant treatment for the actual radiotherapy of these tumors. Especially biopsies are taken for masquerading syndromes, biopsies for prognostic evaluation and alternative/adjuvant treatment methods of intraocular tumors have been emphasized in this paper. The principles of vitreoretinal approaches in these cases are evaluated in light of our clinical experience and current literature data.

The Pyroptosis-Related Signature Predicts Prognosis in Uterine Corpus Endometrial Carcinoma

Background: Uterine Corpus Endometrial Carcinoma (UCEC) is difficult to evaluate the prognosis. The prognostic evaluation model based on pyroptosis-related genes (PRGs) has shown good predictive power for prognosis in tumors, but there is no relevant research in UCEC. Methods: Based on the gene expression data and clinical prognosis information of UCEC patients from TCGA database, PRGs related to the prognosis were screened out. Based on PRGs, a prognostic evaluation model related was established. Comprehensive analysis of clinical characteristics and prognosis was performed. The potential molecular mechanisms of the prognostic evaluation model was explored by GSEA. The relationship between the prognostic evaluation model and the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) was delved. Results: 4 key PRGs related to the prognosis (NLRP2, GSDME, NOD2, GPX4) were identified. A prognostic evaluation model based on these 4 key PRGs was established: Riskscore= (0.4323) * GPX4 + (0.2385) * GSDME + (0.0525) * NLRP2 + (-0.3299) * NOD2. A higher risk score was an independent risk factor for the prognosis and closely related to clinical characteristics. The gene expression of the high-risk group was mainly enriched in immune response. The higher risk score was closely related to the degree of immune cell infiltration and the gene expression level of immune checkpoints. Conclusion: The prognostic evaluation model based on 4 key PRGs (NLRP2, GSDME, NOD2 and GPX4) has certain value for the prognosis evaluation and treatment selection of UCEC patients and may affect the prognosis by regulating the TIME.

The Impact of Immune Microenvironment on the Prognosis of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Based on Multi-Omics Analysis

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a malignant tumor characterized by rapid progression, early metastasis, high recurrence, and limited responsiveness to conventional therapies. The 5-year survival rate of PDAC is extremely low (<8%), which lacks effective prognostic evaluation indicators. In this study, we used xCell to analyze infiltrating immune cells in a tumor and through the univariate and multivariate Cox analyses screened out two prognosis-related immune cells, CD4+TN and common lymphoid progenitor (CLP), which were used to construct a Cox model and figure out the risk-score. It was found that the constructed model could greatly improve the sensitivity of prognostic evaluation, that the higher the risk-score, the worse the prognosis. In addition, the risk-score could also identify molecular subtypes with poor prognosis and immunotherapy sensitivity. Through transcriptome and whole-exome sequencing analysis of PDAC dataset from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), it was found that copy number deletion and low expression of CCL19 might be crucial factors to affect the risk-score. Lastly, validation of the above findings was confirmed not only in Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets but also in our PDAC patient samples, Peking2020 cohort.

Ultra-High-Risk Group of Multiple Myeloma: A Real-World Study Based On Two Different Prognostic Evaluation Systems

Recently, two prognostic evaluation systems based on different angles, UK Myeloma Research Alliance proposed UK Myeloma Research Alliance Risk Profile(MRP) and chinese inflammatory prognostic scoring index(IPSI), have shown prognostic differences in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma(MM) patients without transplantation. However, there is no relevant research on whether there is a difference in the evaluation of the two systems. Here, we used these two systems to evaluate the prognosis of 160 patients with MM based on bortezomib without transplantation from January 2007 to June 2018. It was found that the evaluation of patients at medium and low risk was similar, but in the high-risk group of MRP, IPSI could be further stratified, and in the high-risk group of IPSI, MRP could also be further stratified. It is suggested that myeloma patients with high risk factors of MRP and IPSI are ultra high risk patients with poor prognosis.