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Background: There are a growing number of studies on the effect of acupuncture on glial cells in the central nervous system; however, there are few related bibliometric analyses in this area. Therefore, the purpose of this bibliometric study was to visualize the literature on acupuncture-regulated glial cells., Methods: On November 23, 2022, regular and review articles on acupuncture and glial cell-related research were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database. The R package "bibliometrix" was used to summarize the main findings, count the occurrences of the top keywords, visualize the international collaboration network, and generate a 3-field plot. The VOSviewer software was used to conduct both co-authorship and co-occurrence analyses. CiteSpace was used to identify the best references and keywords with the highest citation rates., Results: Overall, 348 publications on acupuncture and glial cells were included. The publications were primarily from China, Korea, and the United States of America. The majority of publications were found in relevant journals. Apart from "acupuncture" and "glial cells," the most frequently used keywords were "neuroinflammation," "hyperalgesia," and "pain.", Conclusion: This bibliometric study mapped a fundamental knowledge structure comprising countries, institutions, authors, journals, and articles in the research fields of acupuncture and glial cells over the last 3 decades. These results provide a comprehensive perspective on the wider landscape of this research area., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) on improving the cognitive function in minor depression (MiD) and major depression (MaD). The study will constitute a placebo-controlled single-blind parallel-group randomized controlled trial. The selected participants will be randomly allocated into one of two parallel groups with a 1:1 ratio: the CBT-based group and the general health education group. CBT significantly alleviated depressive symptoms of MiD and MaD at 12 weeks (p < 0.001), and the treatment effect was maintained for at least 12 months (p < 0.001). Interestingly, CBT significantly promotes more cognitive function of MiD and partial cognitive function of MaD at 12 weeks in the intervention group than in the control group (p < 0.01). CBT can alleviate depressive symptoms of both minor and MaDs. The effectiveness of CBT is different on improving the cognitive function in MiD and MaD.

As a new type of anticancer drug, the effect of histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs) in cancer clinical therapy is disappointing owing to drug resistance. P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is clearly recognized as a multidrug resistance protein. However, the relationship between P-gp and sodium butyrate (SB), a kind of HDACIs, has not been investigated. In this study, we found that SB increased mRNA and protein expression of P-gp in lung cancer cells and the underlying mechanisms were elucidated. We found that SB treatment enhanced the mRNA and protein expression of STAT3 rather than that of β-catenin, Foxo3a, PXR, or CAR, which were reported to directly regulate the transcription of ABCB1, a P-gp-encoding gene. Interestingly, inhibition of STAT3 expression obviously attenuated SB-increased P-gp expression in lung cancer cells, indicating that STAT3 played an important role in SB-mediated P-gp upregulation. Furthermore, we found that SB increased the mRNA stability of ABCB1. In summary, this study showed that SB increased P-gp expression by facilitating transcriptional activation and improving ABCB1 mRNA stability. This study indicated that we should pay more attention to HDACIs during cancer clinical therapy.

Identification of cancer-associated genes by genomic profiling contributes to the elucidation of tumor development and progression. The methylthioadenosine phosphorylase (MTAP) gene, located at chromosome 9p21, plays a critical role in tumorigenicity and disease progression in a wide variety of cancers. However, the prognostic impact of MTAP in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) remains obscured. Through data mining from published transcriptomic database, MTAP was first identified as a differentially downregulated gene in NPC. In this study, our aim was to evaluate the expression of MTAP in NPC and to clarify its prognostic significance.MTAP immunohistochemistry was retrospectively performed and analyzed in biopsy specimens from 124 NPC patients who received standard treatment without distant metastasis at initial diagnosis. The immunoexpression status was correlated with the clinicopathological variables, disease-specific survival (DSS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), and local recurrence-free survival (LRFS). Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to measure MTAP gene dosage. In some cases, we also performed methylation-specific PCR and pyrosequencing to assess the status of promoter methylation.MTAP deficiency was significantly associated with advanced tumor stages (P = 0.023) and univariately predictive of adverse outcomes for DSS, DMFS, and LRFS. In the multivariate comparison, MTAP deficiency still remained prognostically independent to portend worse DSS (P = 0.021, hazard ratio = 1.870) and DMFS (P = 0.009, hazard ratio = 2.154), together with advanced AJCC stages III to IV. Homozygous deletion or promoter methylation of MTAP gene were identified to be significantly associated with MTAP protein deficiency (P < 0.001).MTAP deficiency was correlated with an aggressive phenotype and independently predictive of worse DSS and DMFS, suggesting its role in disease progression and as an independent prognostic biomarker of NPC, which potentially offers new strategy of targeted treatment for patients lacking MTAP expression., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.