(Press-News.org) Oncotarget published "Caspase-11 and AIM2 inflammasome are involved in smoking-induced COPD and lung adenocarcinoma" which reported that cigarette smoking is the leading risk factor for COPD and lung cancer establishment.
Epidemiologically, COPD patients are 6.35 times more likely to develop lung cancer.
To mimic COPD, the authors exposed mice to nose-only cigarette smoke and used human samples of lung adenocarcinoma patients according to the smoking and COPD status.
Interestingly, higher expression of AIM2 in non-cancerous tissue of smoking COPD adenocarcinoma patients was correlated to a higher hazard ratio of poor survival rate than in patients who presented lower levels of AIM2.
The Oncotarget authors found that AIM2 inflammasome is at the crossroad between COPD and lung cancer in that its higher presence is correlated to lower survival rate of smoking COPD adenocarcinoma patients.
The Oncotarget authors found that AIM2 inflammasome is at the crossroad between COPD and lung cancer in that its higher presence is correlated to lower survival rate of smoking COPD adenocarcinoma patients.
Dr. Rosalinda Sorrentino from The University of Salerno said, "Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is characterized by chronic lung and systemic inflammation, associated with decline of lung function, airway remodelling and alveolar dysfunction."
Inhalation of cigarette smoke is the main risk factor for the development of COPD, but it is also the main risk factor for the development of lung cancer.
Epidemiological studies reveal that almost 40% of COPD patients develop lung cancer, whereas cigarette smoke is at the basis of almost 90% of lung cancer establishment.
Therefore, in the attempt to understand the crosstalk between smoking, COPD and lung cancer, which have been demonstrated as associated with inflammation, they focused our attention on an inflammatory pathway, the inflammasome.
Therefore, in the attempt to understand the role of the AIM2 inflammasome in smoking-induced COPD and COPD-induced lung cancer, they took advantage of a cigarette smoking model that could mimic COPD in mice, as already demonstrated by Beckett et al.,.
The authors found that AIM2 inflammasome and caspase-11 underlie lung inflammation typical of smoking COPD patients who have a higher hazard ratio in terms of AIM2-related expression, implying lower survival rate than non-smoker, non-COPD adenocarcinoma patients.
The Sorrentino Research Team concluded in their Oncotarget Research Output, "we demonstrated that the exposure to first-hand smoking leads to emphysematous changes typical of human COPD and an inflammatory lung microenvironment which is associated to the non-canonical, caspase-11-dependent inflammasome pathway. Although a direct correlation between AIM2 and caspase-11 was not proved in this manuscript, we found that according to the role of caspase-11 (caspase-4 in humans) [11, 16, 17, 27], AIM2 inflammasome and IL-1α are at the crossroad between COPD and lung cancer in that their expression are increased in our experimental model of COPD and human lung cancer samples [11]. Therefore, although some questions are still open on the role of AIM2 and caspase-11/IL-1α in COPD, the data obtained so far pave the way for a novel scientific approach for COPD patients that develop lung cancer, focusing on the biology of the AIM2 inflammasome as a potential pharmacological target."
INFORMATION:
DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.27964
Full text - https://www.oncotarget.com/article/27964/text/
Correspondence to - Rosalinda Sorrentino - rsorrentino@unisa.it
Keywords -
smoke,
COPD,
lung cancer,
lung inflammation,
inflammasome
About Oncotarget
Oncotarget is a bi-weekly, peer-reviewed, open access biomedical journal covering research on all aspects of oncology.
To learn more about Oncotarget, please visit https://www.oncotarget.com or connect with:
SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/oncotarget
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Oncotarget/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/oncotarget
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/oncotarget
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/oncotarget/
Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/Oncotarget/
Oncotarget is published by Impact Journals, LLC please visit https://www.ImpactJournals.com or connect with @ImpactJrnls
Media Contact
MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM
18009220957x105
Copyright © 2021 Impact Journals, LLC
Impact Journals is a registered trademark of Impact Journals, LLC
Oncotarget published "Dynamic cellular biomechanics in responses to chemotherapeutic drug in hypoxia probed by atomic force spectroscopy" which reported that by exploiting single-cell, force spectroscopy methods, the authors probed biophysical and biomechanical kinetics of brain, breast, prostate, and pancreatic cancer cells with standard chemotherapeutic drugs in normoxia and hypoxia over 12-24 hours.
After exposure to the drugs, they found that brain, breast, and pancreatic cancer cells became approximately 55-75% less stiff, while prostate cancer cells became more stiff, due to either drug-induced ...
Butterflies and moths (order Lepidoptera) are one of the most diverse animal groups. To date, scientists have found as many as 5,000 species from the Alps alone. Having been a place of intensive research interest for 250 years, it is considered quite a sensation if a previously unknown species is discovered from the mountain range these days. This was the case when a Swiss-Austrian team of researchers described a new species of alpine moth in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal Alpine Entomology, solving a 180-year-old mystery.
Decades of research work
Initially, the team - Jürg Schmid, a full-time dentist, author and passionate butterfly and moth researcher from Switzerland, and Peter Huemer, head of the natural science collections ...
Researchers are using computer models to simulate COVID-19 infections on a cellular level - the basic structural level of the human body.
The models allow for virtual trials of drugs and vaccines, opening the possibility of pre-assessment for drug and vaccine efficacy against the virus.
The research team at the University of Waterloo includes Anita Layton, professor of applied mathematics and Canada 150 Research Chair in mathematical biology and medicine, and Mehrshad Sadria, an applied mathematics PhD student.
The team uses "in silico" experiments to replicate how the human immune system deals with the COVID-19 virus. In silico refers to trials situated in the silicon of computer chips, as opposed to "in ...
PULLMAN, Wash. --Students who identify as LGBTQ+ in Washington state school districts with conservative voting records reported experiencing more bullying than their peers in more politically liberal areas, according to a new study.
For the study in the journal Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, researchers explored the relationships among school district voting records in the 2016 presidential election, bullying experiences in schools and mental health outcomes of LGBTQ+ youth in the state.
The study shows LGBTQ+ students are at a higher risk for psychological distress and suicidality as a result of bullying, particularly in school districts that voted for former ...
WHAT:
In a perspective published in Neuropsychopharmacology, leaders from the National Institutes of Health address how using appropriate language to describe mental illness and addiction can help to reduce stigma and improve how people with these conditions are treated in health care settings and throughout society. The authors define stigma as negative attitudes toward people that are based on certain distinguishing characteristics. More than a decade of research has shown that stigma contributes significantly to negative health outcomes and can pose a barrier to seeking treatment for mental ...
New models of neutron stars show that their tallest mountains may be only fractions of millimetres high, due to the huge gravity on the ultra-dense objects. The research is presented today at the National Astronomy Meeting 2021.
Neutron stars are some of the densest objects in the Universe: they weigh about as much as the Sun, yet measure only around 10km across, similar in size to a large city.
Because of their compactness, neutron stars have an enormous gravitational pull around a billion times stronger than the Earth. This squashes every feature on the ...
Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have analyzed long-term precipitation radar data from satellites and found significantly enhanced rainfall over the most recent decade during the annual Meiyu-Baiu rainy season in East Asia. The data spans 23 years and gives unprecedented insight into how rainfall patterns have changed. They showed that the increased rainfall was driven by the decadal increased transport of moisture from the tropics and frequent occurrence of the upper tropospheric trough over the front.
From the second ...
Highlights
The results of a new study support the validity of a score that considers various patient-reported outcome measures and preferences for assessing health-related quality of life in individuals with kidney failure.
The score is calculated from assessments of cognitive function, depression, fatigue, pain interference, physical functioning, sleep disturbance, and ability to participate in social roles.
Washington, DC (July 16, 2021) -- Results from a new study support the validity of a score that considers various patient-reported measures and preferences for assessing health-related quality of life and promoting patient-centered care in individuals with kidney failure. The study appears in an upcoming issue of CJASN.
The ...
Highlights
The sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitor dapagliflozin reduced kidney, cardiovascular, and mortality risks in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease, similar to benefits seen in individuals with normal or moderately impaired kidney function.
Rates of serious side effects were similar in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease who received dapagliflozin or placebo.
Washington, DC (July 16, 2021) -- Studies have shown that diabetes drugs called sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors can provide kidney- and cardiovascular-related ...
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine have produced a stem cell model that demonstrates a potential route of entry of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, into the human brain.
The findings are published in the July 9, 2021 online issue of Nature Medicine.
"Clinical and epidemiological observations suggest that the brain can become involved in SARS-CoV-2 infection," said senior author Joseph Gleeson, MD, Rady Professor of Neuroscience at UC San Diego School of Medicine and ...
