The gut mycobiome significantly affects host health and immunity. However, most studies have focused on symbiotic bacteria in the gut microbiome, whereas less attention has been given to symbiotic fungi. Although fungi constitute only 0.01%-0.1% of the gut microbiome, their larger size and unique immunoregulatory functions make them significant. Factors like diet, antimicrobials use, and age can disrupt the fungal community, leading to dysbiosis. Fungal-bacterial-host immune interactions are critical in maintaining gut homeostasis, with fungi playing a role in mediating immune responses such as Th17 cell activation. This review highlights methods for studying gut fungi, the composition and influencing factors of the gut mycobiome, and its potential in therapeutic interventions for intestinal and hepatic diseases. We aim to provide new insights into the underexplored role of gut fungi in human health.

Leptin plays an important role in reproductive function, and the mechanism of this phenomenon primarily focuses on the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis. However, until now, the direct effects of leptin on the testes during development from infancy to adulthood remained unclear. The aim of the present study was to explore the effects and molecular mechanisms that underlie leptin’s action in the testes during sexual maturation.

The human gut harbors a complex and diverse microbiota essential for maintaining health. Diet is the most significant modifiable factor influencing gut microbiota composition and function, particularly through bioactive compounds like polyphenols, dietary fibers, and carotenoids found in vegetables, fruits, seafood, coffee, and green tea. These compounds regulate the gut microbiota by promoting beneficial bacteria and suppressing harmful ones, leading to the production of key microbiota-derived metabolites such as short-chain fatty acids, bile acid derivatives, and tryptophan metabolites. These metabolites are crucial for gut homeostasis, influencing gut barrier function, immune responses, energy metabolism, anti-inflammatory processes, lipid digestion, and modulation of gut inflammation. This review outlines the regulatory impact of typical bioactive compounds on the gut microbiota and explores the connection between specific microbiota-derived metabolites and overall health. We discuss how dietary interventions can affect disease development and progression through mechanisms involving these metabolites. We examine the roles of bioactive compounds and their metabolites in the prevention and treatment of diseases including inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. This study provides new insights into disease prevention and underscores the potential of dietary modulation of the gut microbiota as a strategy for improving health.

Gastric cancer (GC) is the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and reducing its mortality has become an urgent public health issue. Gastric microecological dysbiosis (including bacteria, fungi, viruses, acid suppressants, antibiotics, and surgery) can lead to gastric immune dysfunction or result in a decrease in dominant bacteria and an increase in the number and virulence of pathogenic microorganisms, which in turn promotes development of GC. This review analyzes the relationship between gastric microecological dysbiosis and GC, elucidates dynamic alterations of the microbiota in Correa’s cascade, and identifies certain specific microorganisms as potential biomarkers of GC to aid in early screening and diagnosis. In addition, this paper presents the potential of gastric microbiota transplantation as a therapeutic target for gastric cancer, providing a new direction for future research in this field.

Primary liver cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors with high mortality and increasing incidence worldwide. Currently, chemotherapy is an important comprehensive treatment for moderate or advanced liver cancer. Despite the effective therapeutic effects initially achieved by chemotherapy, the high phenotypic and molecular heterogeneity of liver cancer cells facilitates resistance to conventional chemotherapy or targeted therapy and even leads to multidrug resistance (MDR), which is one of the major obstacles for clinical chemotherapy. Drug resistance exhibits multiple and complex molecular mechanisms to antagonize therapy under pharmacological pressure, including overexpression of drug efflux transporters, downstream adaptive response (such as apoptosis, autophagy, and endoplasmic reticulum stress), dysfunction of DNA damage repair (DDR), epigenetic modification, tumor microenvironment (TME) as well as extracellular matrix (ECM). In this paper, we summarize the recent research progress and intervention strategies for drug resistance in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which will provide a promising therapeutic strategy for overcoming MDR in liver cancer.

In recent years, increasing evidence has confirmed that exosomal circular RNAs (circRNAs) serve a crucial role in the prognostic prediction and diagnosis of liver cancer (LC). The present study compared the expression patterns of exosomal circRNAs during transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). CircRNA sequencing analysis identified 390 differentially expressed circRNAs between the prior TACE and following the first TACE operation groups and 489 differentially expressed circRNAs between the prior to TACE and following the second TACE operation groups. Gene Ontology analysis of the differentially expressed circRNAs demonstrated that they were associated with fatty acid metabolism, receptor binding and membrane protein complexes. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analysis predicted that protein digestion and absorption pathways were activated following TACE. A novel gene was screened out; hsa‑circRNA‑G004213 (circ‑G004213) was significantly upregulated following TACE (fold change >10, P<0.01). Further analysis found circ‑G004213 significantly increased the cisplatin sensitivity of HepG2 cells and positively associated with the prognosis of tumor‑bearing mice. Based on the potential downstream miRNAs and mRNAs, the circRNA‑miRNA‑mRNA network was constructed. It was demonstrated that circ‑G004213 regulated cisplatin resistance via the miR‑513b‑5p/PRPF39 axis. Finally, the present study confirmed that circ‑G004213 was positively associated with the prognosis of patients with LC following TACE. Therefore, circ‑G004213 may be used as an indicator for predicting the efficacy of TACE.