Breast cancer remains the most common malignant cancer in women, with a staggering incidence of two million cases annually worldwide; therefore, it is crucial to explore novel biomarkers to assess the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer patients. NIMA-related kinase (NEK) protein kinase contains 11 family members named NEK1-NEK11, which were discovered from Aspergillus Nidulans; however, the role of NEK family genes for tumor development remains unclear and requires additional study. In the present study, we investigate the prognosis relationships of NEK family genes for breast cancer development, as well as the gene expression signature via the bioinformatics approach. The results of several integrative analyses revealed that most of the NEK family genes are overexpressed in breast cancer. Among these family genes, NEK2/6/8 overexpression had poor prognostic significance in distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) in breast cancer patients. Meanwhile, NEK2/6 had the highest level of DNA methylation, and the functional enrichment analysis from MetaCore and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) suggested that NEK2 was associated with the cell cycle, G2M checkpoint, DNA repair, E2F, MYC, MTORC1, and interferon-related signaling. Moreover, Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) results showed that the transcriptional levels of NEK2 were positively correlated with immune infiltration of B cells and CD4⁺ T Cell. Collectively, the current study indicated that NEK family genes, especially NEK2 which is involved in immune infiltration, and may serve as prognosis biomarkers for breast cancer progression.

The complexity of breast cancer includes many interacting biological processes, and proteasome alpha (PSMA) subunits are reported to be involved in many cancerous diseases, although the transcriptomic expression of this gene family in breast cancer still needs to be more thoroughly investigated. Consequently, we used a holistic bioinformatics approach to study the PSMA genes involved in breast cancer by integrating several well-established high-throughput databases and tools, such as cBioPortal, Oncomine, and the Kaplan–Meier plotter. Additionally, correlations of breast cancer patient survival and PSMA messenger RNA expressions were also studied. The results demonstrated that breast cancer tissues had higher expression levels of PSMA genes compared to normal breast tissues. Furthermore, PSMA2, PSMA3, PSMA4, PSMA6, and PSMA7 showed high expression levels, which were correlated with poor survival of breast cancer patients. In contrast, PSMA5 and PSMA8 had high expression levels, which were associated with good prognoses. We also found that PSMA family genes were positively correlated with the cell cycle, ubiquinone metabolism, oxidative stress, and immune response signaling, including antigen presentation by major histocompatibility class, interferon-gamma, and the cluster of differentiation signaling. Collectively, these findings suggest that PSMA genes have the potential to serve as novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets for breast cancer. Nevertheless, the bioinformatic results from the present study would be strengthened with experimental validation in the future by prospective studies on the underlying biological mechanisms of PSMA genes and breast cancer.

In recent decades, breast cancer (BRCA) has become one of the most common diseases worldwide. Understanding crucial genes and their signaling pathways remain an enormous challenge in evaluating the prognosis and possible therapeutics. The “Like-Smith” (LSM) family is known as protein-coding genes, and its member play pivotal roles in the progression of several malignancies, although their roles in BRCA are less clear. To discover biological processes associated with LSM family genes in BRCA development, high-throughput techniques were applied to clarify expression levels of LSMs in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)-BRCA dataset, which was integrated with the cBioPortal database. Furthermore, we investigated prognostic values of LSM family genes in BCRA patients using the Kaplan–Meier database. Among genes of this family, LSM4 expression levels were highly associated with poor prognostic outcomes with a hazard ratio of 1.35 (95% confidence interval 1.21–1.51, p for trend = 3.4 × 10⁻⁷). MetaCore and GlueGo analyses were also conducted to examine transcript expression signatures of LSM family members and their coexpressed genes, together with their associated signaling pathways, such as “Cell cycle role of APC in cell cycle regulation” and “Immune response IL-15 signaling via MAPK and PI3K cascade” in BRCA. Results showed that LSM family members, specifically LSM4, were significantly correlated with oncogenesis in BRCA patients. In summary, our results suggested that LSM4 could be a prospective prognosticator of BRCA.

Pomelo peel-derived essential oils have been gaining popularity due to greater demand for stress relief therapy or hair care therapy. In this study, we first performed optimization of parameters in the pomelo essential oil extraction process on a pilot scale to gain better insights for application in larger scale production. Then extraction kinetics, activation energy, thermodynamics, and essential oil quality during the extraction process were investigated during the steam distillation process. Three experimental conditions including material mass, steam flow rate, and extraction time were taken into consideration in response surface methodology (RSM) optimization. The optimal conditions were found as follows: sample weight of 422 g for one distillation batch, steam flow rate of 2.16 mL/min and extraction time of 106 min with the coefficient of determination R² of 0.9812. The nonlinear kinetics demonstrated the compatibility of the kinetic model with simultaneous washing and unhindered diffusion with a washing rate constant of 0.1515 min⁻¹ and a diffusion rate constant of 0.0236 min⁻¹. The activation energy of the washing and diffusion process was 167.43 kJ.mol⁻¹ and 96.25 kJ.mol⁻¹, respectively. The thermodynamic value obtained at the ΔG° value was −35.02 kJ.mol⁻¹. The quality of pomelo peel essential oil obtained by steam distillation was characterized by its high limonene content (96.996%), determined by GC-MS.

Nem chua là sản phẩm lên men từ thịt nhờ vào hoạt động của vi khuẩn lactic. Nghiên cứu được thực hiện nhằm xác định các đặc điểm hóa lý và vi sinh cơ bản của sản phẩm nem chua Đồng Tháp đồng thời phân lập và xác định đặc điểm của vi khuẩn lactic có khả năng sinh acid γ-aminobutyric (GABA). Các mẫu nem chua được thu thập tại 3 cơ sở (ký hiệu HH, HK, CH) để xác định các đặc điểm hóa lý và làm nguồn phân lập vi khuẩn lactic. Kết quả cho thấy các mẫu nem có hàm lượng acid tổng dao động trong khoảng 15,75 - 27,00 g/kg, hàm lượng nitơ formol 0,63 - 1,34 g/kg và hàm lượng GABA ở mức 1,49 - 2,82 mg/g. Tổng số vi sinh vật hiếu khí được xác định trong khoảng 2,0x105 - 5,9x105 CFU/g và vi khuẩn lactic là 2,1x106 - 5,7x106 CFU/g. Trong đó, 22 chủng vi khuẩn có khả năng phát triển trên môi trường MRS với đặc điểm điển hình của vi khuẩn lactic đã được sơ tuyển. Dựa vào khả năng sinh GABA, 6 chủng vi khuẩn lactic tiềm năng với hàm lượng GABA ở mức 2,93 - 3,26 mg/g đã được tuyển chọn.