Therapy-Induced Changes in CXCR4 Expression in Tumor Xenografts Can Be Monitored Noninvasively with N-[11C]Methyl-AMD3465 PET

FOXA1-Driven pathways exacerbate Radiotherapy-Induced kidney injury in colorectal cancer

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to investigate the role of FOXA1 in acute kidney injury (AKI) induced by radiotherapy in colorectal cancer. Although FOXA1 is known to be aberrantly expressed in malignant tumors, its contribution to AKI remains unclear. This study aimed to explore the involvement of FOXA1 in AKI induced by radiotherapy in colorectal cancer and its influence on the regulation of downstream target genes.

METHODS

Firstly, a transcriptome analysis was performed on mice to establish a radiation-induced AKI model, and qPCR was used to determine the expression of FOXA1 in renal cell injury models induced by X-ray irradiation. Additionally, FOXA1 was silenced using lentiviral vectors to investigate its effects on the apoptosis of mice with radiation-induced AKI and HK-2 cells. Next, bioinformatics analysis and various experimental validation methods such as ChIP assays, co-immunoprecipitation, and dual-luciferase reporter assays were employed to explore the relationship between FOXA1 and the downstream regulatory factors ITCH promoter and the ubiquitin ligase-degradable TXNIP. Finally, lentiviral overexpression or knockout techniques were used to investigate the impact of the FOXA1/ITCH/TXNIP axis on oxidative stress and the activation of inflammatory body NLRP3.

RESULTS

This study revealed that FOXA1 was significantly upregulated in the renal tissues of mice with radiation-induced AKI and in the injured HK-2 cells. Furthermore, in vitro cell experiments and animal experiments demonstrated that FOXA1 suppressed the transcription of the E3 ubiquitin ligase ITCH, thereby promoting apoptosis of renal tubular cells and causing renal tissue damage. Further in vivo animal experiments confirmed that TXNIP, a protein degraded by ITCH ubiquitination, could inhibit oxidative stress and the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome in the AKI mouse model.

CONCLUSION

FOXA1 enhances oxidative stress, cell apoptosis, and NLRP3 inflammasome activation by regulating the ITCH/TXNIP axis, thereby exacerbating radiotherapy-induced AKI.

Role of chemokines in HPV-induced cancers

Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) cause cancers of the uterine cervix, oropharynx, anus, and vulvovaginal tract. Low-risk HPVs, such as HPV6 and 11, can also cause benign mucosal lesions including genital warts, and in patients with recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, lesions in the larynx, and on occasion, in the lungs. However, both high and less tumorigenic HPVs share a striking commonality in manipulating both innate and adaptive immune responses in HPV- infected keratinocytes, the natural host for HPV infection. In addition, immune/inflammatory cell infiltration into the tumor microenvironment influences cancer growth and prognosis, and this process is tightly regulated by different chemokines. Chemokines are small proteins and exert their biological effects by binding with G protein-coupled chemokine receptors (GPCRs) that are found on the surfaces of select target cells. Chemokines are not only involved in the establishment of a pro-tumorigenic microenvironment and organ-directed metastases but also involved in disease progression through enhancing tumor cell growth and proliferation. Therefore, having a solid grasp on chemokines and immune checkpoint modulators can help in the treatment of these cancers. In this review, we discuss the recent advances on the expression patterns and regulation of the main chemokines found in HPV-induced cancers, and their effects on both immune and non-immune cells in these lesions. Importantly, we also present the current knowledge of therapeutic interventions on the expression of specific chemokine and their receptors that have been shown to influence the development and progression of HPV-induced cancers.

In Vivo Targeting of CXCR4-New Horizons

Given its pre-eminent role in the context of tumor cell growth as well as metastasis, the C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) has attracted a lot of interest in the field of nuclear oncology, and clinical evidence on the high potential of CXCR4-targeted theranostics is constantly accumulating. Additionally, since CXCR4 also represents a key player in the orchestration of inflammatory responses to inflammatory stimuli, based on its expression on a variety of pro- and anti-inflammatory immune cells (e.g., macrophages and T-cells), CXCR4-targeted inflammation imaging has recently gained considerable attention. Therefore, after briefly summarizing the current clinical status quo of CXCR4-targeted theranostics in cancer, this review primarily focuses on imaging of a broad spectrum of inflammatory diseases via the quantification of tissue infiltration with CXCR4-expressing immune cells. An up-to-date overview of the ongoing preclinical and clinical efforts to visualize inflammation and its resolution over time is provided, and the predictive value of the CXCR4-associated imaging signal for disease outcome is discussed. Since the sensitivity and specificity of CXCR4-targeted immune cell imaging greatly relies on the availability of suitable, tailored imaging probes, recent developments in the field of CXCR4-targeted imaging agents for various applications are also addressed.

The Role of Chemokines in Cervical Cancers

Both clinical-pathological and experimental studies have shown that chemokines play a key role in activating the immune checkpoint modulator in cervical cancer progression and are associated with prognosis in tumor cell proliferation, invasion, angiogenesis, chemoresistance, and immunosuppression. Therefore, a clear understanding of chemokines and immune checkpoint modulators is essential for the treatment of this disease. This review discusses the origins and categories of chemokines and the mechanisms that are responsible for activating immune checkpoints in cervical dysplasia and cancer, chemokines as biomarkers, and therapy development that targets immune checkpoints in cervical cancer research.