Escalating progression of mental health disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from a nationwide survey

Since the first nationwide movement control order was implemented on 18 March 2020 in Malaysia to contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, to what extent the uncertainty and continuous containment measures have imposed psychological burdens on the population is unknown. This study aimed to measure the level of mental health of the Malaysian public approximately 2 months after the pandemic's onset. Between 12 May and 5 September 2020, an anonymous online survey was conducted. The target group included all members of the Malaysian population aged 18 years and above. The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) was used to assess mental health. There were increased depressive, anxiety and stress symptoms throughout the study period, with the depression rates showing the greatest increase. During the end of the data collection period (4 August-5 September 2020), there were high percentages of reported depressive (59.2%) and anxiety (55.1%) symptoms compared with stress (30.6%) symptoms. Perceived health status was the strongest significant predictor for depressive and anxiety symptoms. Individuals with a poorer health perception had higher odds of developing depression (odds ratio [OR] = 5.68; 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.81-8.47) and anxiety (OR = 3.50; 95%CI 2.37-5.17) compared with those with a higher health perception. By demographics, young people-particularly students, females and people with poor financial conditions-were more vulnerable to mental health symptoms. These findings provide an urgent call for increased attention to detect and provide intervention strategies to combat the increasing rate of mental health problems in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

High throughput silencing identifies novel genes in endometrioid endometrial cancer

OBJECTIVE

To validate the gene expression profile obtained from the previous microarray analysis and to further study the biological functions of these genes in endometrial cancer. From our previous study, we identified 621 differentially expressed genes in laser-captured microdissected endometrioid endometrial cancer as compared to normal endometrial cells. Among these genes, 146 were significantly up-regulated in endometrial cancer.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total of 20 genes were selected from the list of up-regulated genes for the validation assay. The qPCR confirmed that 19 out of the 20 genes were up-regulated in endometrial cancer compared with normal endometrium. RNA interference (RNAi) was used to knockdown the expression of the upregulated genes in ECC-1 and HEC-1A endometrial cancer cell lines and its effect on proliferation, migration and invasion were examined.

RESULTS

Knockdown of MIF, SOD2, HIF1A and SLC7A5 by RNAi significantly decreased the proliferation of ECC-1 cells (p < 0.05). Our results also showed that the knockdown of MIF, SOD2 and SLC7A5 by RNAi significantly decreased the proliferation and migration abilities of HEC-1A cells (p < 0.05). Moreover, the knockdown of SLC38A1 and HIF1A by RNAi resulted in a significant decrease in the proliferation of HEC1A cells (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

We have identified the biological roles of SLC38A1, MIF, SOD2, HIF1A and SLC7A5 in endometrial cancer, which opens up the possibility of using the RNAi silencing approach to design therapeutic strategies for treatment of endometrial cancer.