This report describes an integrated study on identification of potential markers for gastric cancer in patients’ cancer tissues and sera based on: (i) genome-scale transcriptomic analyses of 80 paired gastric cancer/reference tissues and (ii) computational prediction of blood-secretory proteins supported by experimental validation. Our findings show that: (i) 715 and 150 genes exhibit significantly differential expressions in all cancers and early-stage cancers versus reference tissues, respectively; and a substantial percentage of the alteration is found to be influenced by age and/or by gender; (ii) 21 co-expressed gene clusters have been identified, some of which are specific to certain subtypes or stages of the cancer; (iii) the top-ranked gene signatures give better than 94% classification accuracy between cancer and the reference tissues, some of which are gender-specific; and (iv) 136 of the differentially expressed genes were predicted to have their proteins secreted into blood, 81 of which were detected experimentally in the sera of 13 validation samples and 29 found to have differential abundances in the sera of cancer patients versus controls. Overall, the novel information obtained in this study has led to identification of promising diagnostic markers for gastric cancer and can benefit further analyses of the key (early) abnormalities during its development.

Background: Although spiritual care is a basic element of holistic nursing, nurses’ spiritual care knowledge and abilities are often unable to satisfy patients’ spiritual care needs. Therefore, nurses are in urgent need of relevant training to enhance their abilities to provide patients with spiritual care. Design: A nonrandomized controlled trial. Objective: To establish a spiritual care training protocol and verify its effectiveness. Methods: This study recruited 92 nurses at a cancer treatment hospital in a single province via voluntary sign-up. The nurses were divided into two groups—the study group (45 people) and the control (wait-listed) group (47 people)—using a coin-toss method. The study group received one spiritual care group training session every six months based on their routine nursing education; this training chiefly consisted of lectures by experts, group interventions, clinical practice, and case sharing. The control group participated in monthly nursing education sessions organized by the hospital for 12 continuous months. Results: After 12 months of intervention, the nurses in the study group had significantly higher overall spiritual health and spiritual care competency scores as well as significantly higher scores on all individual dimensions compared with those in the control group (P < 0.01). Conclusions: A spiritual care training protocol for nurses based on the concept of mutual growth with patients enhances nurses’ spiritual well-being and spiritual care competencies.

Gene expression is regulated at the transcription and translation levels; thus, both transcription factors (TFs) and microRNAs (miRNA) play roles in regulation of gene expression. This study profiled differentially expressed mRNAs and miRNAs in gastric cancer tissues to construct a TF and miRNA co-regulatory network in order to identify altered genes in gastric cancer progression. A total of 70 cases gastric cancer and paired adjacent normal tissues were subjected to cDNA and miRNA microarray analyses. We obtained 887 up-regulated and 93 down-regulated genes and 41 down-regulated and 4 up-regulated miRNAs in gastric cancer tissues. Using the Transcriptional Regulatory Element Database, we obtained 105 genes that are regulated by the E2F family of genes and using Targetscan, miRanda, miRDB and miRWalk tools, we predicted potential targeting genes of these 45 miRNAs. We then built up the E2F-related TF and miRNA co-regulatory gene network and identified 9 hub-genes. Furthermore, we found that levels of E2F1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 mRNAs associated with gastric cancer cell invasion capacity, and has associated with tumor differentiation. These data showed Overexpression of E2F mRNAs associated with gastric cancer progression.

Acinetobacter baumannii is a Gram-negative pathogen that has emerged as one of the most troublesome pathogens for healthcare institutions globally. Bacterial quorum sensing (QS) is a process of cell-to-cell communication that relies on the production, secretion, and detection of autoinducer (AI) signals to share information about cell density and regulate gene expression accordingly. The molecular and genetic bases of A. baumannii virulence remains poorly understood. Therefore, the contribution of the abaI/abaR QS system to growth characteristics, morphology, biofilm formation, resistance, motility, and virulence of A. baumannii was studied in detail. RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis indicated that genes involved in various aspects of energy production and conversion; valine, leucine, and isoleucine degradation; and lipid transport and metabolism are associated with bacterial pathogenicity. Our work provides a new insight into the abaI/abaR QS system effects on pathogenicity in A. baumannii. We propose that targeting the acyl homoserine lactone (AHL) synthase enzyme abaI could provide an effective strategy for attenuating virulence. On the contrary, interdicting the AI synthase receptor abaR elicits unpredictable consequences, which may lead to enhanced bacterial virulence.

Tissue hypoxia induces reprogramming of cell metabolism and may result in normal cell transformation and cancer progression. Hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha (HIF-1α), the key transcription factor, plays an important role in gastric cancer development and progression. This study aimed to investigate the underlying regulatory signaling pathway in gastric cancer using gastric cancer tissue specimens. The integration of gene expression profile and transcriptional regulatory element database (TRED) was pursued to identify HIF-1α ↔ NFκB1 → BRCA1 → STAT3 ← STAT1 gene pathways and their regulated genes. The data showed that there were 82 differentially expressed genes that could be regulated by these five transcription factors in gastric cancer tissues and these genes formed 95 regulation modes, among which seven genes (MMP1, TIMP1, TLR2, FCGR3A, IRF1, FAS, and TFF3) were hub molecules that are regulated at least by two of these five transcription factors simultaneously and were associated with hypoxia, inflammation, and immune disorder. Real-Time PCR and western blot showed increasing of HIF-1α in mRNA and protein levels as well as TIMP1, TFF3 in mRNA levels in gastric cancer tissues. The data are the first study to demonstrate HIF-1α-regulated transcription factors and their corresponding network genes in gastric cancer. Further study with a larger sample size and more functional experiments is needed to confirm these data and then translate into clinical biomarker discovery and treatment strategy for gastric cancer.