MicroRNA (miRNA) actively participates in a broad range of cellular processes such as proliferation, differentiation, cell survival and apoptosis. Deregulated expression of miRNA may affect cell growth and eventually lead to cancer. In this study, we found that hsa-miR491-5p (miR491-5p) displays a significantly high level of expression in normal human pancreas tissue versus pancreatic cancer cells. Targeted site prediction indicated that both Bcl-XL and TP53 contain miR-491-5p recognizing sites in their 3' UTRs. Overexpression of miR-491-5p in the pancreatic cancer cell line SW1990 effectively inhibited both endogenous Bcl-XL and TP53 gene expressions. Mutagenesis at the seed match region of both targeted genes further confirmed the specificity of miR491-5p recognition. Cell proliferation rate was inversely related to the increased doses of miR-491-5p. Flow cytometric analysis showed that the proportions of total apoptotic and early apoptotic cells were significantly induced as the dose of miR491-5p increased. Moreover, a mechanistic study indicated that miR-R491-5p-mediated cell apoptosis was associated with the activation of intrinsic mitochondria mediated pathways. miR491-5p also markedly inhibited mitogenic signaling pathways such as STAT3 and PI-3K/Akt, but not Ras/MAPK. Thus, our results demonstrated that miR491-5p could effectively target both Bcl-xL and TP53 and induce cell apoptosis independent of TP53.

The interferon α (IFN-α) has been often used as a sensitizing agent for the treatment of various malignancies such as hepatocellular carcinoma, malignant melanoma, and renal cell cancer by promoting the apoptosis of thesetumor cell types. However, the effect of IFN-α on cervical cancer remains unknown. In this study, HeLa cells were used as a testing model for the treatment of IFN-α on cervical cancer. The results indicate that IFN-α markedly inhibits the proliferation and induces the apoptosis of HeLa cells. The activation of caspase 3, the up-regulation of both Bim and cleaved poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) 1, the down-regulation of Bcl-xL, as well as the release of cytochrome c from mitochondria were significantly induced upon IFN-α treatment, indicating that the intrinsic apoptotic pathway could be activated by IFN-α treatment. In addition, caspase 4—which is involved in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-induced apoptosis—was activated in response to IFN-α treatment. Knocking down caspase 4 by small interfering RNA (siRNA) markedly reduced the IFN-α-mediated cell apoptosis. However, no significant changes in the expressions of caspases 8 and 10 were observed upon IFN-α treatment, indicating that the apoptosis caused by IFN-α might be independent of the extrinsic apoptotic pathway. These findings suggest that IFN-α may possess anti-cervical cancer capacity by activating cell apoptosis via the intrinsic mitochondrial pathway and caspase-4-related ER stress-induced pathway.

Sulforaphane (SFN) is a natural isothiocyanate compound widely abundant in cruciferous vegetables with multiple bioactive functions. However, traditional analytical methods for the extraction and determination of SFN are cumbersome, time-consuming, and low sensitivity with large amounts of organic solvents. Herein, novel magnetic COF-on-COFs (MB-COFs) were fabricated using Fe₃O₄ as a magnetic core and COFs-1 grown with COFs-2 as a shell, and they were used as efficient adsorbents of magnetic dispersive solid-phase extraction for rapid quantification of SFN in cruciferous vegetables by combining with HPLC-MS/MS. At the optimal ratio of COFs-1 to COFs-2, MB-COFs had a spherical cluster-like structure and a rough surface, with a sufficient magnetic response for rapid magnetic separation (1 min). Due to the introduction of Fe₃O₄ and COFs-2, MB-COFs exhibited outstanding extraction efficiencies for SFN (92.5–97.3%), which was about 18–72% higher than that of the bare COFs. Moreover, MB-COFs showed good adsorption capacity (Q_m of 18.0 mg/g), rapid adsorption (5 min) and desorption (30 s) to SFN, and favorable reusability (≥7 cycles) by virtue of their unique hierarchical porous structure. The adsorption kinetic data were well fitted by the pseudo-second-order, Ritchie-second-order, intra-particle diffusion, and Elovich models, while the adsorption isotherm data were highly consistent with the Langmuir, Temkin, and Redlich–Peterson models. Finally, under the optimized conditions, the developed method showed a wide linear range (0.001–0.5 mg/L), high sensitivity (limits of quantification of 0.18–0.31 μg/L), satisfactory recoveries (82.2–96.2%) and precisions (1.8–7.9%), and a negligible matrix effect (0.82–0.97). Compared to previous methods, the proposed method is faster and more sensitive and significantly reduces the use of organic solvents, which can achieve the efficient detection of large-scale samples in practical scenarios. This work reveals the high practical potential of MB-COFs as adsorbents for efficient extraction and sensitive analysis of SFN in cruciferous vegetables.

The composition of IL-23R complex is similar to that of the IL-12 receptor (IL-12R) complex with a shared IL-12R-β1 chain. The IL-12R-β1 heterodimerizes with IL-23R and IL-12R-β2 to form IL-23R and IL-12R complexes, respectively. The IL-12R-β2 has been shown to function as a tumor suppressor gene and apoptotic inducer. However, whether IL-23R also functions in cell apoptosis is currently unknown. In this study, we demonstrate for the first time that overexpression of IL-23R markedly induces cell apoptosis in both 293ET and HeLa cells. The activations of caspase 3 and caspase 9 are induced by IL-23R. Mechanistic study reveals that IL-23R markedly inhibits RAS/MAPK and STAT3 but not STAT1 and PI-3K/Akt signaling pathways in both 293ET and HeLa cells. Overexpression of IL-23R significantly up-regulates IL-12Rβ1 expression but not IL-23α and IL-12β expressions in both cell lines. Therefore, our data strongly indicates that IL-23R is able to induce cell apoptosis by activating the intrinsic mitochondrial pathways associated with the inhibition in RAS/MAPK and STAT3 activations in mammalian cells.

Serine/arginine-rich splicing factor 3 (SRSF3), the smallest member of the SR protein family, serves multiple roles in RNA processing, including splicing, translation, and stability. Recent studies have shown that SRSF3 is implicated in several inflammatory diseases. However, its impact on macrophage inflammation remains unclear. Herein, we determined the expression of SRSF3 in inflammatory macrophages and found that the level of SRSF3 was increased in macrophages within atherosclerotic plaques, as well as in RAW-264.7 macrophages stimulated by lipopolysaccharides. Moreover, the downregulation of SRSF3 suppressed the levels of inflammatory cytokines by deactivating the nuclear factor κB (NFκB) pathway. Furthermore, the alternative splicing of myeloid differentiation protein 2 (MD2), a co-receptor of toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), is regulated by SRSF3. The depletion of SRSF3 increased the level of the shorter MD2B splicing variants, which contributed to inflammatory inhibition in macrophages. In conclusion, our findings imply that SRSF3 regulates lipopolysaccharide-stimulated inflammation, in part by controlling the alternative splicing of MD2 mRNA in macrophages.