Epithelial Cells Of Nasopharynx Research Articles

The role of synbiotics in improving inflammatory status in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a malignant tumor that grows from the epithelial cells of nasopharynx. NPC has the ability to modify its metabolism and leads thepatient to suffer from malnutrition and cachexia, therefore aggravates the occurrence of impaired inflammatory response. Currently, available treatments for NPC are chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or chemoradiotherapy. Despite of its efficacy, these regimens have been known to elicit various inflammation-related side effects including infection, diarrhea, and mucositis. It has long been established that increased activity of inflammatory response is associated to low survival rate in both early and advanced stage of cancer. Furthermore, uncontrolled and dysregulated inflammatory response are significantly correlated with malignant progression of cancer. Considering how pivotal inflammation to malignancy progression, there is a need for effective strategies to modulate inflammatory response. Various strategies have been proposed to improve immune response in NPC patients including dietary supplementation of synbiotics. Synbiotics refers to the manipulation of both probiotics and prebiotics to provide a synergistic benefit to the host by promoting the growth of beneficial bacteria while inhibiting the growth of pathogenic bacteria. There is a growing number of evidences related to the potential of synbiotics in modulating the pro-inflammatory response and improve immune systems in a variety of conditions, including cancer. In this study, we will discuss the immunomodulatory effects of synbiotics in the nasopharyngeal carcinoma occurrences.

CircTMTC1 contributes to nasopharyngeal carcinoma progression through targeting miR-495-MET-eIF4G1 translational regulation axis

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is the most common primary malignancy arising from the epithelial cells of nasopharynx. CircTMTC1 is upregulated in NPC patients, but its role and molecular mechanism in NPC are unknown. Normal nasopharyngeal epithelium and tumor tissues were collected. The expression of circTMTC1, miR-495, MET/eIF4G1 pathway-related molecules were examined. Colony formation and transwell assays were used to assess cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. Cell apoptosis was analyzed by annexin V and propidium iodide (PI) staining. Gene interaction was examined by RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) and luciferase activity assays. Subcutaneous and intravenous xenograft mouse models were established to analyze NPC growth and metastasis in vivo. CircTMTC1 was highly expressed and miR-495 was downregulated in NPC, which were associated with poor prognosis of NPC. Both circTMTC1 knockdown and miR-495 overexpression inhibited NPC cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) and promoted cell apoptosis. CircTMTC1 directly targeted miR-495 to promote the expression of its downstream target gene MET. miR-495 knockdown enhanced the expression of c-Myc, Cyclin D1, and survivin and accelerated NPC cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and EMT through targeting MET and activating the MET-eIF4G1 axis. CircTMTC1 silence inhibited NPC growth and lung metastasis by targeting the miR-495-MET-eIF4G1 translational regulation axis in vivo. CircTMTC1 accelerates NPC progression through targeting miR-495 and consequently activating the MET-eIF4G1 translational regulation axis, suggesting potential therapeutic targets for NPC treatment.

Systematic comparison of plasma EBV DNA, anti-EBV antibodies and miRNA levels for early detection and prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is originated from the epithelial cells of nasopharynx, Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)‐associated and has the highest incidence and mortality rates in Southeast Asia. Late presentation is a common issue and early detection could be the key to reduce the disease burden. Sensitivity of plasma EBV DNA, an established NPC biomarker, for Stage I NPC is controversial. Most newly reported NPC biomarkers have neither been externally validated nor compared to the established ones. This causes difficulty in planning for cost‐effective early detection strategies. Our study systematically evaluated six established and four new biomarkers in NPC cases, population controls and hospital controls. We showed that BamHI‐W 76 bp remains the most sensitive plasma biomarker, with 96.7% (29/30), 96.7% (58/60) and 97.4% (226/232) sensitivity to detect Stage I, early stage and all NPC, respectively. Its specificity was 94.2% (113/120) against population controls and 90.4% (113/125) against hospital controls. Diagnostic accuracy of BamHI‐W 121 bp and ebv‐miR‐BART7‐3p were validated. Hsa‐miR‐29a‐3p and hsa‐miR‐103a‐3p were not, possibly due to lower number of advanced stage NPC cases included in this subset. Decision tree modeling suggested that combination of BamHI‐W 76 bp and VCA IgA or EA IgG may increase the specificity or sensitivity to detect NPC. EBNA1 99 bp could identify NPC patients with poor prognosis in early and advanced stage NPC. Our findings provided evidence for improvement in NPC screening strategies, covering considerations of opportunistic screening, combining biomarkers to increase sensitivity or specificity and testing biomarkers from single sampled specimen to avoid logistic problems of resampling.

Abstract 1594: Transcriptome-wide association study analysis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract Arising from the epithelial cells in nasopharynx, nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is highly prevalent in Southeastern China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan. Genetic and environmental factors play important role in NPC susceptibility. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located in major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region with strong evidence for association with NPC. Recently, combination of GWAS and expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) datasets, transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS) was used to identify novel associations in transcriptome level. In this study, we conducted TWAS in NPC using two in house GWAS datasets and GTEx eQTL datasets from public domain. Most of the significant results were located in chromosome six MHC region. Our analysis identified significant TWAS genes that explain the most of the GWAS signals : HLA-A, GABBR1 and HLA-F genes with P values of 5.08E-13, 5.78E-09 and 2.30E-08, respectively. One of the novel genes, ZNRD1 (P = 8.22 E-08), was known to be involved in the tumorigenesis of esophageal cancer and liver cancer. Further analysis should be needed to understand the mechanisms between ZNRD1 association in NPC. Citation Format: Wen-Hui Su, Fu-Chun Chan. Transcriptome-wide association study analysis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1594.

Leukemoid reaction associated with pediatric nasopharyngeal carcinoma: An unusual presentation

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is a tumor originating from the surface epithelial cells of nasopharynx. It is rare in children and adolescents. Most common physical finding is a neck mass. Most children with nasopharyngeal carcinoma present with advanced stage disease. The presentation with hematological abnormalities in patients without systemic metastasis is extremely rare. We reported a 14-year-old boy presenting with a mass at the right side of the pharynx and leukemoid reaction. To our knowledge, this is the first report of leukemoid reaction associated with pediatric nasopharyngeal carcinoma in English literature.