Recent advances in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have enabled us to identify thousands of genetic variants (GVs) that are associated with human diseases. As next-generation sequencing technologies become less expensive, more GVs will be discovered in the near future. Existing databases, such as NHGRI GWAS Catalog, collect GVs with only genome-wide level significance. However, many true disease susceptibility loci have relatively moderate P values and are not included in these databases. We have developed GWASdb that contains 20 times more data than the GWAS Catalog and includes less significant GVs (P < 1.0 × 10⁻³) manually curated from the literature. In addition, GWASdb provides comprehensive functional annotations for each GV, including genomic mapping information, regulatory effects (transcription factor binding sites, microRNA target sites and splicing sites), amino acid substitutions, evolution, gene expression and disease associations. Furthermore, GWASdb classifies these GVs according to diseases using Disease-Ontology Lite and Human Phenotype Ontology. It can conduct pathway enrichment and PPI network association analysis for these diseases. GWASdb provides an intuitive, multifunctional database for biologists and clinicians to explore GVs and their functional inferences. It is freely available at http://jjwanglab.org/gwasdb and will be updated frequently.

Although inhibitors targeting tumor angiogenic pathway have provided improvement for clinical treatment in patients with various solid tumors, the still very limited anti‐cancer efficacy and acquired drug resistance demand new agents that may offer better clinical benefits. In the effort to find a small molecule potentially targeting several key pathways for tumor development, we designed, discovered and evaluated a novel multi‐kinase inhibitor, CS2164. CS2164 inhibited the angiogenesis‐related kinases (VEGFR2, VEGFR1, VEGFR3, PDGFRα and c‐Kit), mitosis‐related kinase Aurora B and chronic inflammation‐related kinase CSF‐1R in a high potency manner with the IC₅₀ at a single‐digit nanomolar range. Consequently, CS2164 displayed anti‐angiogenic activities through suppression of VEGFR/PDGFR phosphorylation, inhibition of ligand‐dependent cell proliferation and capillary tube formation, and prevention of vasculature formation in tumor tissues. CS2164 also showed induction of G2/M cell cycle arrest and suppression of cell proliferation in tumor tissues through the inhibition of Aurora B‐mediated H3 phosphorylation. Furthermore, CS2164 demonstrated the inhibitory effect on CSF‐1R phosphorylation that led to the suppression of ligand‐stimulated monocyte‐to‐macrophage differentiation and reduced CSF‐1R⁺ cells in tumor tissues. The in vivo animal efficacy studies revealed that CS2164 induced remarkable regression or complete inhibition of tumor growth at well‐tolerated oral doses in several human tumor xenograft models. Collectively, these results indicate that CS2164 is a highly selective multi‐kinase inhibitor with potent anti‐tumor activities against tumor angiogenesis, mitosis and chronic inflammation, which may provide the rationale for further clinical assessment of CS2164 as a therapeutic agent in the treatment of cancer.

The miR-491-3p/mTORC2/FOXO1 regulatory loop modulates chemo-sensitivity in human tongue cancer The miR-491-3p/mTORC2/FOXO1 regulatory loop modulates chemo-sensitivity in human tongue cancer

Background: The ZFHX3 gene plays vital roles in embryonic development, cell proliferation, neuronal differentiation and neuronal death. This study aims to explore the relationship between ZFHX3 variants and epilepsy. Methods: Whole-exome sequencing was performed in a cohort of 378 patients with partial (focal) epilepsy. A Drosophila Zfh2 knockdown model was used to validate the association between ZFHX3 and epilepsy. Results: Compound heterozygous ZFHX3 variants were identified in eight unrelated cases. The burden of ZFHX3 variants was significantly higher in the case cohort, shown by multiple/specific statistical analyses. In Zfh2 knockdown flies, the incidence and duration of seizure-like behaviour were significantly greater than those in the controls. The Zfh2 knockdown flies exhibited more firing in excitatory neurons. All patients presented partial seizures. The five patients with variants in the C-terminus/N-terminus presented mild partial epilepsy. The other three patients included one who experienced frequent non-convulsive status epilepticus and two who had early spasms. These three patients had also neurodevelopmental abnormalities and were diagnosed as developmental epileptic encephalopathy (DEE), but achieved seizure-free after antiepileptic-drug treatment without adrenocorticotropic-hormone/steroids. The analyses of temporal expression (genetic dependent stages) indicated that ZFHX3 orthologous were highly expressed in the embryonic stage and decreased dramatically after birth. Conclusion: ZFHX3 is a novel causative gene of childhood partial epilepsy and DEE. The patients of infantile spasms achieved seizure-free after treatment without adrenocorticotropic-hormone/steroids implies a significance of genetic diagnosis in precise treatment. The genetic dependent stage provided an insight into the underlying mechanism of the evolutional course of illness.

Chemoresistance is a major obstacle in successfully treating cancers, and the mechanisms responsible for drug resistance are still far from understood. Carbonic anhydrase 9 (CA9) has been shown to be upregulated in the drug-resistant tongue cancer cell line Tca8113/PYM and to be associated with drug resistance. However, the mechanisms regulating CA9 expression and its role in drug resistance remain unclear. Bioinformatic and experimental analysis involving ChIP and luciferase reporter assays were used to validate Zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 1 (ZEB1) as a transcriptional regulator of CA9. Gene expression and protein levels were evaluated by quantitative RT-PCR and western blotting, respectively. Sensitivity to chemotherapy was examined using the MTS assay and Hoechst staining and analysis caspase-3 activity to evaluate changes in apoptosis. Intracellular pH (pHi) was measured using fluorescent pH-indicator BCECF-AM. Protein expression in patient tissue samples was examined by immunohistochemistry and survival of tongue cancer patients from which these samples were derived was also analyzed. ZEB1 bound to the promoter of CA9 to positively regulate CA9 expression in tongue cancer cells. Knockdown of CA9 using short interfering RNA (siRNA) abolished the chemoresistance resulting from ZEB1 overexpression in Tca8113 and SCC-25 cells, and CA9 overexpression attenuated chemosensitivity induced by ZEB1 knockdown in Tca8113/PYM cells. CA9 knockdown also prevented maintenance of pHi mediated by overexpression of ZEB1 in Tca8113 and SCC-25 cells following chemotherapy, associated with increased apoptosis and caspase-3 activation. Conversely, ectopic expression of CA9 suppressed decrease in pHi mediated by ZEB1 knockdown in Tca8113/PYM cells following chemotherapy, accompanied by decreased apoptosis and caspase-3 activation. Importantly, a positive correlation was observed between ZEB1 and CA9 protein expression in tongue cancer tissues, and expression of these proteins associated with a poor prognosis for patients. Our finding that tumor cells regulate pHi in response to chemotherapy provides new insights into mechanisms of drug resistance during cancer treatment. Identification of the ZEB1–CA9 signaling axis as a biomarker of poor prognosis in tongue cancer will be valuable in future development of therapeutic strategies aimed at improving treatment efficacy, especially in terms of drug resistance associated with this disease.