Introduction: The detection of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) could provide a potential diagnostic modality for the early detection and surveillance of colorectal cancers. However, the overall diagnostic accuracy of the proposed tests remains uncertain.Objective: This systematic review is to ascertain the diagnostic accuracy of using VOC analysis techniques and electronic noses (e-noses) as noninvasive diagnostic methods for colorectal cancer within the realm of clinical practice.Methods: A systematic search was undertaken on PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library to scrutinize pertinent studies published from their inception to September 1, 2023. Only studies conducted on human subjects were included. Meta-analysis was performed using a bivariate model to obtain summary estimates of sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative likelihood ratios. The Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2 tool was deployed for quality assessment. The protocol for this systematic review was registered in PROSPERO, and PRISMA guidelines were used for the identification, screening, eligibility, and selection process.Results: This review encompassed 32 studies, 22 studies for VOC analysis and 9 studies for e-nose, one for both, with a total of 4688 subjects in the analysis. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of VOC analysis for CRC detection were 0.88 (95% CI, 0.83-0.92) and 0.85 (95% CI, 0.78-0.90), respectively. In the case of e-nose, the pooled sensitivity was 0.87 (95% CI, 0.83-0.90), and the pooled specificity was 0.78 (95% CI, 0.62-0.88). The area under the receiver operating characteristic analysis (ROC) curve for VOC analysis and e-noses were 0.93 (95% CI, 0.90-0.95) and 0.90 (95% CI, 0.87-0.92), respectively.Conclusion: The outcomes of this review substantiate the commendable accuracy of VOC analysis and e-nose technology in detecting CRC. VOC analysis has a higher specificity than e-nose for the diagnosis of CRC and a sensitivity comparable to that of e-nose. However, numerous limitations, including a modest sample size, absence of standardized collection methods, lack of external validation, and a notable risk of bias, were identified. Consequently, there exists an imperative need for expansive, multi-center clinical studies to elucidate the applicability and reproducibility of VOC analysis or e-nose in the noninvasive diagnosis of colorectal cancer.Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/#recordDetails, identifier CRD42023398465.

Prostate cancer, the second most common cancer in men, often progresses to castration-resistant prostate cancer despite androgen deprivation therapy. Immunotherapy, revolutionary in cancer treatment, has limited efficacy in prostate cancer due to its “cold tumor” nature. Peptides, with unique advantages, offer new hope. This review explores how peptide-based tumor immunotherapy can transform prostate cancer from a “cold” to a “hot” state. It modulates the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment by regulating non-immune cells (such as cancer-associated fibroblasts, endothelial cells, and adipose stromal cells), repolarizing tumor-associated macrophages, activating NK cells, and tuning cytokines. Additionally, peptides can induce immunogenic cell death (ICD) in prostate cancer cells through ferroptosis, pyroptosis, and autophagy modulation. The review also revisits existing prostate cancer immunotherapies, including immune checkpoint blockade, CAR T cell therapy, and dendritic cell vaccines, highlighting how peptides can enhance their effectiveness and safety. Finally, two peptide-based immunotherapy strategies in the development stage, peptide-integrated Proteolysis-Targeting Chimera therapy and peptide-involved epigenomic therapy, are introduced, showing great potential for future prostate cancer treatment.

Drought is one of the consequences of climate change that severely affects plant growth and development. Ophiopogon japonicus (L. f.) Ker-Gawl. (Chinese name: Chuanmaidong, abbreviated as CMD) is a commonly used herbaceous plant whose growth and development are strongly affected by drought. Here, we comprehensively analyzed the transcriptomic and metabolic responses of two CMD varieties (EP and CP) to drought stress. CP utilized a small number of differentially expressed genes to regulate a greater number of differential metabolites compared to EP, suggesting that it may be more drought tolerant. In addition, integrated transcriptome and metabolome analyses revealed that transcription factors such as WRKY, TIFY, and C2H2 regulate flavonoid synthesis in CMD. These findings provide ideas for in-depth analysis of the mechanism of CMD against drought stress, and provide a theoretical basis for breeding high-quality drought-tolerant varieties.

INTRODUCTION: Although colorectal cancer (CRC) screening has been incorporated into organized programs in many countries, a universally accepted noninvasive and efficient screening method remains unavailable. This study aimed to assess the diagnostic potential of volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath through electronic nose (eNose) for noninvasive CRC detection. METHODS: The Cyranose320 sensor device was used to collect and analyze breath samples. Supervised machine learning was applied to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the eNose in CRC detection, using a randomly assigned training and validation set. Two-thirds of the breath samples were used to train models, which were then validated on the remaining patients (external validation). Three machine learning methods were applied for classification: random forest, extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), and quadratic discriminant analysis. RESULTS: A total of 105 patients with CRC and 101 healthy controls were included. After adjusting for baseline covariates (age, sex, smoking, and comorbidities), machine learning models based on volatile organic compound profiles could differentiate patients with CRC from healthy controls, achieving areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of at least 0.72 in both the training and validation sets. The final CRC classification models yielded AUCs of 0.93 for random forest, 0.88 for XGBoost, and 0.89 for quadratic discriminant analysis. Furthermore, eNose classified CRC by stage, with an AUC exceeding 0.70 for early and advanced disease. DISCUSSION: Exhaled breath analysis using an eNose may serve as a promising noninvasive method for CRC detection. Further studies with larger populations are needed to confirm its clinical impact.

Backgroud: Previous observational studies have shown that vitiligo usually co‐manifests with a variety of dysglycemic diseases, such as Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was performed to further evaluate the causal association between fasting plasma glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), T1DM, T2DM and vitiligo. Materials and methods: We used aggregated genome‐wide association data from the Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU) online database of European adults vitiligo; HbA1c data were from IEU. Fasting blood glucose data were obtained from the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI). T1DM and T2DM data were from FinnGen. We used bidirectional two‐sample and multivariate MR analyses to test whether dysglycemic measures (fasting blood glucose, HbA1c), diabetes‐related measures (T1DM, T2DM) are causatively associated with vitiligo. Inverse variance weighting (IVW) method was used as the main test method, MR‐Egger, Weighted mode and Weighted median were used as supplementary methods. Results: We found no statistically significant evidence to support a causal association between dysglycemic traits and vitiligo, but in the correlation analysis of diabetic traits, our data supported a positive causal association between T1DM and vitiligo ( p = 0.018). In the follow‐up multivariate MR analysis, our results still supported this conclusion ( p = 0.016), and suggested that HbA1c was not a mediator of T1DM affecting the pathogenesis of vitiligo. No reverse causality was found in any of the reverse MR Analyses of dysglycemic traits and diabetic traits. Conclusions: Our findings support that T1DM is a risk factor for the development of vitiligo, and this conclusion may explain why the co‐presentation of T1DM and vitiligo is often seen in observational studies. Clinical use of measures related to T1DM may be a new idea for the prevention or treatment of vitiligo.

The development and progression of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are influenced by variety of factors, which pose significant health threats globally. RCC has