In recent years, the reports on using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for cancer prevention and treatment have been on the rise. In 2017, the US Preventive Services Working Group issued primary prevention guidelines on the use of NSAIDs, especially aspirin, for cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer, and formally established the role and status of aspirin in cancer prevention. However, the mechanism of NSAIDs on preventing cancer is still not clear. In this paper, the progress of the application of NSAIDs, especially aspirin, in the prevention and treatment of tumors in recent years is summarized, and new ideas and directions for the follow-up study are also discussed.

Fibrosis exists in almost all organs/tissues of the human body, plays an important role in the occurrence and development of diseases and is also a hallmark of the aging process. However, there is no effective prevention or therapeutic method for fibrogenesis. As a serine/threonine (Ser/Thr)-protein kinase, glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β) is a vital signaling mediator that participates in a variety of biological events and can inhibit extracellular matrix (ECM) accumulation and the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process, thereby exerting its protective role against the fibrosis of various organs/tissues, including the heart, lung, liver, and kidney. Moreover, we further present the upstream regulators and downstream effectors of the GSK-3β pathway during fibrosis and comprehensively summarize the roles of GSK-3β in the regulation of fibrosis and provide several potential targets for research. Collectively, the information reviewed here highlights recent advances vital for experimental research and clinical development, illuminating the possibility of GSK-3β as a novel therapeutic target for the management of tissue fibrosis in the future.

Silk fibroin (SF) is considered biocompatible and biodegradable for osteochondral repair. However, it lacks a bioactive domain for cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation, limiting its therapeutic efficacy. To revamp SF as a biomimicking and bioactive microenvironment to regulate cell behaviours, we engineered an elastin-like polypeptide (ELP, Val-Pro-Gly-Xaa-Gly) to modify SF fibers via simple and green dehydrothermal (DHT) treatment. Our results demonstrated that the ELP successfully bound to SF, and the scaffold was reinforced by the fusion of the silk fiber intersections with ELP (S-ELP-DHT) via the DHT treatment. Both bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) and chondrocytes exhibited improved spreading and proliferation on the S-ELP-DHT scaffolds. The ex vivo and in vivo experiments further demonstrated enhanced mature bone and cartilage tissue formation using the S-ELP-DHT scaffolds compared to the naked SF scaffolds. These results indicated that a recombinant ELP-modified silk scaffold can mimic three-dimensional (3D) cell microenvironment, and improve bone and cartilage regeneration. We envision that our scaffolds have huge clinical potential for osteochondral repair.

Glutathione (GSH) plays an important role in the body's biochemical defense system, and the detection of GSH in a physiological system is an important tool for understanding redox homeostasis. Protection–deprotection strategies have proven to be the most reliable, among existing detection methods. However, the understanding of how various electronic and steric effects influence a probe's ability to recognize a substrate is still lacking. In this study, we have analyzed various substituent effects on a GSH probe template via theoretical calculations and constructed the performance regulation and control strategy for this kind of probe. We then developed a series of guided probes using eighteen different acrylic ester derivatives to mask the fluorescence of fluorescein. The optical performance differences between the guided probes strongly supported the applicability of our proposed guiding strategy. Moreover, the positively guided probes are excellent for imaging GSH distribution in living cells and mice.