Ovarian cancer remains the most fatal gynecologic malignancy worldwide due to delayed diagnosis as well as recurrence and drug resistance. Thus, the development of new tumor-related molecules with high sensitivity and specificity to replace or supplement existing tools is urgently needed. Cancer-testis antigens (CTAs) are exclusively expressed in normal testis tissues but abundantly found in several types of cancers, including ovarian cancer. Numerous novel CTAs have been identified by high-throughput sequencing techniques, and some aberrantly expressed CTAs are associated with ovarian cancer initiation, clinical outcomes and chemotherapy resistance. More importantly, CTAs are immunogenic and may be novel targets for antigen-specific immunotherapy in ovarian cancer. In this review, we attempt to characterize the expression of candidate CTAs in ovarian cancer and their clinical significance as biomarkers, activation mechanisms, function in malignant phenotypes and applications in immunotherapy.

The aim of this article was to evaluate whether genetic variants in autophagy‐related genes affect the overall survival (OS) of non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. We analyzed 14 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in core autophagy‐related genes for OS in 1,001 NSCLC patients. Three promising SNPs in ATG10 were subsequently annotated by the expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) and methylation quantitative trait loci (meQTL) analyses based on Genotype‐Tissue Expression (GTEx) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) datasets. We observed that the variants of rs10514231, rs1864182 and rs1864183 were associated with poor lung cancer survival (HR = 1.33, 95% CI = 1.07–1.65; HR = 1.43, 95% CI = 1.13–1.81; HR = 1.38, 95% CI = 1.14–1.68, respectively) and positively correlated with ATG10 expression (all p < 0.05) from GTEx and TCGA datasets. The elevated expression of ATG10 may predict shorter survival time in lung cancer patients in TCGA dataset (HR = 2.10, 95% CI = 1.33–3.29). Moreover, the variants of rs10514231 and rs1864182 were associated with the increased methylation levels of cg17942617 (meQTL), which in turn contributed to the elevated ATG10 expression and decreased survival time. Further functional assays revealed that ATG10 facilitated lung cancer cell proliferation and migration. Our findings suggest that eQTL/meQTL variations of ATG10 could influence lung cancer survival through regulating ATG10 expression.

We recruited 1296 mothers in their first trimester from the Affiliated Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Nanjing Medical University between May 2014 and September 2015 to investigate the associations of maternal, perinatal and postnatal factors with the eruption timing of the first primary tooth (ETFPT) in a Chinese population. We collected maternal demographic information and clinical data during the perinatal and postnatal period, and oral examinations of the infants were performed by a doctor at 6, 9 and 12 months of age. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify significant explanatory variables for ETFPT. The mean age at eruption of the first primary tooth for all the infants was 6.82 ± 1.90 months. After adjustment for confounders, higher maternal childbearing age (β = 0.57; 95%CI = 0.13–1.02), female sex (β = 0.26; 95%CI = 0.07–0.52), and low birth weight (β = 0.98; 95%CI = 0.20–1.76) were significantly associated with delayed eruption of the first primary tooth, while macrosomia (β = −0.79; 95%CI = −1.30–−0.28) was significantly associated with earlier eruption of the first primary tooth. Maternal childbearing age, infant sex and infant birth weight were significant determinants of ETFPT.

Several studies assessed the association of maternal folate intake with infant asthma risk, but the findings are controversial. We performed a meta-analysis to clarify the association between maternal folate intake and infant asthma risk. PubMed and SCOPUS databases were searched for related studies published until August 2018. Fixed-effects models were applied to pool relative risks (RRs) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) due to the low heterogeneity. We also adopted generalized least-squares trend (GLST) estimation for the dose-response analysis. In our study, a total of 10 studies with maternal folate intake and 5 studies with blood folate concentration were included. We found that maternal folate intake during pregnancy was significantly related to the risk of infant asthma (RR = 1.11; 95% CI = 1.06–1.17). Similar results were found for geographic region from Europe (RR = 1.08; 95% CI = 1.01–1.16) and North America (RR = 1.20; 95% CI = 1.11–1.30) in subgroup analyses. Meanwhile, the dose-response analysis showed a linear relationship between maternal folic acid intake during pregnancy and infant asthma risk. This meta-analysis indicates that maternal folate intake during pregnancy could increase infant asthma risk. Therefore, the adverse effect of folic acid on infant asthma should not be ignored when it is supplemented during pregnancy to prevent birth defects.