Cancer is a huge challenge for people worldwide. High reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels are a recognized hallmark of cancer and an important aspect of cancer treatment research. Abnormally elevated ROS levels are often attributable to alterations in cellular metabolic activities and increased oxidative stress, which affects both the development and maintenance of cancer. Moderately high levels of ROS are beneficial to maintain tumor cell genesis and development, while toxic levels of ROS have been shown to be an important force in destroying cancer cells. ROS has become an important anticancer target based on the proapoptotic effect of toxic levels of ROS. Therefore, this review summarizes the role of increased ROS in DNA damage and the apoptosis of cancer cells caused by changes in cancer cell metabolism, as well as various anticancer therapies targeting ROS generation, in order to provide references for cancer therapies based on ROS generation.

Over the last two decades, the world experienced three outbreaks of coronaviruses with elevated morbidity rates. Currently, the global community is facing emerging virus SARS-CoV-2 belonging to Betacoronavirus, which appears to be more transmissible but less deadly than SARS-CoV. The current study aimed to track the evolutionary ancestors and different evolutionary strategies that were genetically adapted by SARS-CoV-2. Our whole-genome analysis revealed that SARS-CoV-2 was the descendant of Bat SARS/SARS-like CoVs and bats served as a natural reservoir. SARS-CoV-2 used mutations and recombination as crucial strategies in different genomic regions including the envelop, membrane, nucleocapsid, and spike glycoproteins to become a novel infectious agent. We confirmed that mutations in different genomic regions of SARS-CoV-2 have specific influence on virus reproductive adaptability, allowing for genotype adjustment and adaptations in rapidly changing environments. Moreover, for the first time we identified nine putative recombination patterns in SARS-CoV-2, which encompass spike glycoprotein, RdRp, helicase and ORF3a. Six recombination regions were spotted in the S gene and are undoubtedly important for evolutionary survival, meanwhile this permitted the virus to modify superficial antigenicity to find a way from immune reconnaissance in animals and adapt to a human host. With these combined natural selected strategies, SARS-CoV-2 emerged as a novel virus in human society.

Deoxynivalenol (DON) and T-2 toxin commonly affect cells of the immune system and cause inflammation and apoptosis. Janus kinase/signal transducers and activators of transcription (JAK/STAT) pathway is highly associated with inflammatory process and apoptosis and is worth investigating its role when cells were exposed to trichothecenes. The results showed that DON and T-2 upregulated the messenger RNA (mRNA) expressions of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1β, tumor necrosis factor-α, JAK1–2, STAT1–3, and suppressors of cytokine signaling members and activated the tyrosine phosphorylation of STAT1 and STAT3 with a dose-dependent manner in RAW264.7 cells. AG490 and Stattic, the specific inhibitors of JAK/STAT pathway, blocked the STAT1 and STAT3 tyrosine phosphorylation and decreased the gene expressions of proinflammatory cytokines induced by trichothecenes. Interestingly, the time when the mRNA levels of STAT1 and STAT3 were significantly upregulated was at 12 h, which was much later than the time when mitogen-activated protein kinase was activated, indicating that STATs might be the downstream targets of the trichothecenes. With the intervention of AG490 and Stattic, DON and T-2 toxin induced apoptosis in a strengthened way, with the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential and the decrease ratios of the B-cell leukemia/lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2)/bcl-2-associated X (Bax) and B-cell lymphoma-extra large (Bcl-xL)/Bax. After exposing to DON and T-2 toxin, cells exhibited G2/M and G0/G1 phase arrest, respectively. The increased mRNA expressions of STAT target genes p21 and cyclin D1 for DON and the increases in p21 mRNA and the decreases in cyclin D1 for T-2 toxin were observed. These results demonstrated for the first time that the activation of JAK/STAT might be a critical mediator to induce the inflammatory response and apoptosis in macrophage in response to trichothecenes.

RepeatsDB (http://repeatsdb.bio.unipd.it/) is a database of annotated tandem repeat protein structures. Tandem repeats pose a difficult problem for the analysis of protein structures, as the underlying sequence can be highly degenerate. Several repeat types haven been studied over the years, but their annotation was done in a case-by-case basis, thus making large-scale analysis difficult. We developed RepeatsDB to fill this gap. Using state-of-the-art repeat detection methods and manual curation, we systematically annotated the Protein Data Bank, predicting 10 745 repeat structures. In all, 2797 structures were classified according to a recently proposed classification schema, which was expanded to accommodate new findings. In addition, detailed annotations were performed in a subset of 321 proteins. These annotations feature information on start and end positions for the repeat regions and units. RepeatsDB is an ongoing effort to systematically classify and annotate structural protein repeats in a consistent way. It provides users with the possibility to access and download high-quality datasets either interactively or programmatically through web services.