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Gastric cancer is a common malignancy worldwide and is associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. However, very little is known about the underlying mechanism in human gastric cancer cells. Baicalein (BAI), a widely used Chinese herbal medicine, has shown anticancer effects on many types of human cancer cell lines. Here, we investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying BAI action on gastric cancer cell proliferation and migration. The results showed that BAI can expressively inhibit cell proliferation, colony-forming ability and migration ability in a dose-dependent manner, while in the meantime inducing cell apoptosis. Additionally, we found that BAI can suppress FAK and the phosphorylation of PI3K, AKT and mTOR in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, BAI significantly inhibited tumor growth in a xenograft model. Also, BAI can inhibit the proliferation and migration of gastric cancer cells and the expression of the pathway by downregulating the expression of FAK. In short, we demonstrated that BAI inhibited gastric cancer cell proliferation and migration through FAK interaction via downregulation in AKT/mTOR signaling, which signifies that BAI may be a latent therapeutic factor for the treatment of gastric cancer patients and that FAK might be a hopeful therapy target for the disease.

This study aimed to explore the application of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) in the rapid diagnosis of gastric cancer. The SERS spectra of 68 serum samples from gastric cancer patients and healthy volunteers were acquired. The characteristic ratio method (CRM) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to differentiate gastric cancer serum from normal serum. Compared with healthy volunteers, the serum SERS intensity of gastric cancer patients was relatively high at 722cm${}^{-1}$, while it was relatively low at 588, 644, 861, 1008, 1235, 1397, 1445 and 1586cm${}^{-1}$. These results indicated that the relative content of nucleic acids in the serum of gastric cancer patients rises while the relative content of amino acids and carbohydrates decreases. In PCA, the sensitivity and specificity of discriminating gastric cancer were 94.1% and 94.1%, respectively, with the accuracy of 94.1%. Based on the intensity ratios of four characteristic peaks at 722, 861, 1008 and 1397cm${}^{-1}$, CRM presented the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of 100% and 97.4%, respectively, and the accuracy of 98.5%. Therefore, the three peak intensity ratios of I${}_{722}$/I${}_{861}$, I${}_{722}$/I${}_{1008}$ and I${}_{722}$/I${}_{1397}$ can be considered as biological fingerprint information for gastric cancer diagnosis and can rapidly and directly reflect the physiological and pathological changes associated with gastric cancer development. This study provides an important basis and standards for the early diagnosis of gastric cancer.

We have previously shown that pachymic acid (PA) inhibited tumorigenesis of gastric cancer (GC) cells. However, the exact mechanism underlying the radiation response of GC was still elusive. To evaluate the effects of PA treatment on radiation response of GC cell lines both in vitro and in vivo, a colony formation assay and xenograft mouse model were employed. Changes in Bax and HIF1$\alpha$ expressions were assessed in GC cells following PA treatment. Luciferase reporter and chromatin immune-precipitation assays were carried out to investigate the regulation of Bax through HIF1$\alpha$. Stable HIF1$\alpha$ knockdown was introduced into GC cells to further study the mechanism underlying PA-enhanced response to radiation both in vitro and in vivo. PA greatly enhanced the sensitivity of GC cells to radiation in vitro and in vivo, upregulated Bax expression and inhibited hypoxia. Bax expression was under hypoxia inhibition, and PA increased Bax expression through repressing HIF1$\alpha$. Stable HIF1$\alpha$ overexpression in GC cells abolished the sensitizing effect of PA on GC cells to radiation both in vitro and in vivo. PA functions as a radiation sensitizing compound in GC. PA treatment induces the expression of pro-apoptotic factor Bax by inhibiting hypoxia/HIF1$\alpha$, supporting the therapeutic potential of PA in radiation therapy against GC.

In this paper, we present evidence that the red ginseng powder from Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer inhibits the recurrence of AJCC stage III gastric cancer and shows immunomodulatory activities during postoperative chemotherapy, after a curative resection with D2 lymph node dissection. Flow cytometric analyses for peripheral T-lymphocyte subsets showed that the red ginseng powder restored CD4 levels to the initial preoperative values during postoperative chemotherapy. Depression of CD3 during postoperative chemotherapy was also inhibited by the red ginseng powder ingestion. This study demonstrated a five-year disease free survival and overall survival rate that was significantly higher in patients taking the red ginseng powder during postoperative chemotherapy versus control (68.2% versus 33.3%, 76.4% versus 38.5%, respectively, p < 0.05). In spite of the limitation of a small number of patients (n = 42), these findings suggest that red ginseng powder may help to improve postoperative survival in these patients. Additionally, red ginseng powder may have some immunomodulatory properties associated with CD3 and CD4 activity in patients with advanced gastric cancer during postoperative chemotherapy.

Background: RNA adenosine modifications are crucial for regulating RNA levels. N6-methyladenosine (m6A), N1-methyladenosine (m1A), adenosine-to-inosine RNA editing, and alternative polyadenylation (APA) are four major RNA modification types. Methods: We evaluated the altered mRNA expression profiles of 27 RNA modification enzymes and compared the differences in tumor microenvironment (TME) and clinical prognosis between two RNA modification patterns using unsupervised clustering. Then, we constructed a scoring system, WM_score, and quantified the RNA modifications in patients of gastric cancer (GC), associating WM_score with TME, clinical outcomes, and effectiveness of targeted therapies. Results: RNA adenosine modifications strongly correlated with TME and could predict the degree of TME cell infiltration, genetic variation, and clinical prognosis. Two modification patterns were identified according to high and low WM_scores. Tumors in the WM_score-high subgroup were closely linked with survival advantage, CD4− T-cell infiltration, high tumor mutation burden, and cell cycle signaling pathways, whereas those in the WM_score-low subgroup showed strong infiltration of inflammatory cells and poor survival. Regarding the immunotherapy response, a high WM_score showed a significant correlation with PD-L1 expression, predicting the effect of PD-L1 blockade therapy. Conclusion: The WM_scoring system could facilitate scoring and prediction of GC prognosis.

Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) screening is a genome-wide genotyping strategy that has been widely used in plants and bacteria, but little has been reported concerning its use in humans. We investigated if the AFLP procedure could be coupled with high-throughput capillary electrophoresis (CE) for use in tumor diagnosis and classification. Using CE-AFLP, a series of molecular 'fingerprints' were generated for a set of gastric tumor and normal genomic DNA samples. The CE-AFLP procedure was qualitatively and quantitatively robust, and a variety of clustering tools were used to identify a specific DNA marker 'pattern' of 20 features that classified the tumor and normal samples to reasonable degrees of accuracy (Sensitivity 95%, Specificity 80%). The CE-AFLP-based approach also correctly classified 16 tumor samples, which in a previous study had exhibited no detectable genomic aberrations by comparative genome hybridization (CGH). This is the first reported application of CE-AFLP screening in tumor diagnosis. As the procedure is relatively inexpensive and requires minimal prior sequence knowledge and biological material, we suggest that CE-AFLP-based protocols may represent a promising new approach for DNA-based cancer screening and diagnosis.

Since miR-185 has been identified as a prognostic biomarker to forecast the course of survival and relapse in gastric cancer (GC), quantitative detection of miR-185 features in developing personalized strategies for GC treatment. In this study, a highly sensitive method for miR-185 detection was rationally designed with the characteristic of fluorescent signal amplification and it was based on constructing graphene oxide sensor and utilizing duplex specific nuclease (DSN). In detail, the cleavage of many DNA signal probes was successfully triggered by the miR-185 target which contributed to the target-recycling mechanism. The protocol exhibited a prominent ability to analyze miR-185 in solution, and it can detect miR-185 at different concentrations as low as 476 pM with a linear range of 0–50 nM. Moreover, this method has gained its prominence in distinguishing the target miRNA from various sequences with one to three base mismatches or other miRNAs. Taken together, it presented the prominent potential to be a candidate tool in the field of clinical diagnosis considering its precise and efficient ability to detect miR-185.

Gastric cancer is a heterogeneous disease which requires a multimodal approach of management. The Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery at Changhai Hospital, a tertiary hospital in Shanghai, established the gastric cancer multidisciplinary team (MDT) clinic based on the guidance of MDT culture in the year of 2017. Our MDT discussion followed a weekly consultation model, with the full-board discussion held once a month, and mini-board communication and discussion made once a week. The stages of MDT management are: pre-operative treatment plan and preparation, post-operative treatment plan, and follow-up treatment and evaluation. As of March 2021, a total of 296 patients visited the MDT clinic. Majority of the patients were gastric carcinoma patients (273/296, 92.2%). Here, we shared our gastric cancer MDT experiences and summarized our strengths and proposed directions for improvement.

The evolving field of computational image analysis has its applications in the industry, manufacturing and biological sciences, especially in the field of medical imaging. Medical imaging and computational physics have evolved together during the past decades with the advancement in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Deep learning is the sub-domain of AI that mostly deals with imaging data for classification, segmentation and reconstruction. The time series of medical images of different patients, with different staging are categorized based on the physical and biological consequences. The hypothesis of the current research is that the deep learning tool, if trained on several patients, can identify the stage of cancer swiftly for fresh data sets. During this research, an advance Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) strategy is adopted to classify the cancer stage for a group of patients of gastric cancer. The CNN model makes use of skipping connections for better prediction. CNNs have been quite popular in medical imaging for their ability of feature detection. CNNs are used in the recent literature for the analysis of images. During this research, we have used the state-of-the-art Matlab ResNet CNN toolbox for the analysis of the images obtained from esophageal and gastric cancer patients. It was concluded that RESNET50 is a reliable algorithm for the determination of tumor mass on CT Scans. Moreover, the performance of the model can be improved by giving a comparatively larger data set as an input to the model. Inspired from Caltech101, a logic related to RESNET50 was adopted. The data was processed and an algorithm was designed to develop a mapping, based on the mass of tumor. The algorithm designed successfully identified the images, randomly picked from different patients, based on the image features.