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To explore patients' knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) toward varicocele in China and the relationship between treatment selection and KAP. Methods: This cross-sectional study enrolled varicocele patients at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University (September to October 2023). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to explore the relationship between clinical factors and KAP. A score >mean score for each dimension was defined as adequate knowledge, positive attitude, and proactive practice. The patients were grouped according to varicocelectomy vs no surgery. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to identify the factors independently associated with KAP. A structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was performed to examine how the KAP dimensions influenced each other. Results: Among 502 patients, 44.02%, 35.86%, and 20.12% were ≤ 30, 31– 40, and > 40 years old, respectively. Those who underwent varicocelectomy (n=407) had significantly higher knowledge (20 (15– 22) vs 0 (0– 6), P< 0.001), attitude (26 (24– 26) vs 14 (10– 18), P< 0.001), and practice (20 (17– 24) vs 8 (6– 16), P< 0.001) than those who did not. A higher proportion of patients with varicocelectomy were < 40 years old, more educated, had higher income, and were unmarried compared with those without surgery (all P< 0.001). High school or higher education level and varicocelectomy (irrespective of type) were independently associated with adequate knowledge (all P< 0.001). Knowledge, college/bachelor's degree education, and varicocelectomy type (irrespective of type) were associated with positive attitudes (all P< 0.05). In the SEM, knowledge directly influenced attitude, knowledge directly influenced practice, and attitude directly influenced practice (all P< 0.001). Having knowledge of the subject may direct varicocele patients to varicocelectomy. Conclusion: Chinese patients who underwent varicocelectomy exhibit appropriate KAP regarding varicocele, while non-surgery patients have poorer KAP. These results suggest that patients who did not undergo surgery should nevertheless be properly informed about their disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This meta-analysis evaluated the clinicopathologic and prognostic significance of RASSF1A promoter methylation in renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Materials and methods: The ORs or HRs and their 95% CIs were calculated. Trial sequential analysis was conducted. Results: Twenty-two articles that included 1,421 patients with RCC and 724 controls were identified. RASSF1A promoter methylation correlated with RCC in tissue, blood, and urine samples. On multivariate analysis, RASSF1A promoter methylation was associated with tumor grade (grade 3–4 vs 1–2: OR=3.59), clinical stage (stage 3–4 vs 1–2: OR=2.15), T classification (pT2–4 vs pT1: OR=2.66), histologic subtypes (papillary vs clear cell: OR=2.91), and cancer-specific survival (HR=1.78), but it was not linked to age, gender, lymph node status, distant metastasis, or overall survival. The Cancer Genome Atlas data also showed that RASSF1A methylation was significantly more likely to be seen in papillary vs clear-cell RCC (OR=23.19). Conclusion: RASSF1A promoter methylation may be associated with the development and progression of RCC, as well as poor cancer-specific survival. Methylation was more frequent in papillary vs clear-cell RCC. More studies are needed to confirm these findings in blood or urine samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a prevalent condition with significant psychological and physiological impacts. Recently, a new concept called movement-based behaviors (MBB) has been proposed, which includes four types of PA: vigorous PA (VPA), moderate-intensity PA (MPA), walking/cycling, and muscle-strengthening activities (MSA), and uses an MBB index (range 0-4) to estimate the combined effects of these activities on health outcomes., Aim: This study aims to evaluate the relationship between different types of physical activities (PA) and ED using the MBB index in a nationally representative sample of U.S. men., Methods: We analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2001-2004, including 3435 male participants. Multivariate logistic regressions were performed to explore the associations, supplemented with subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis., Outcomes: The assessment of PA in this study is based on four self-reported questions from the NHANES Mobile Examination Center interview, including VPA, MPA, walking/cycling, and MSA. The MBB index, ranging from 0 to 4, was used to assess combined PA types. ED was evaluated using a single-question self-assessment., Results: Higher MBB index values were associated with lower ED risk. Participants with an MBB index of 2 had a significantly lower risk of ED in Model 3 (OR = 0.65, 95% CI: 0.43-0.97, P = 0.04). Those with an MBB index of 3 or 4 had the lowest risk of ED across all models, with OR&#95;Model1 = 0.29 (95% CI: 0.21-0.40, P < 0.0001), OR&#95;Model2 = 0.52 (95% CI: 0.37-0.73, P < 0.001), and OR&#95;Model3 = 0.61 (95% CI: 0.41-0.90, P = 0.02). However, this relationship was not significant in subgroups with severe ED or comorbid conditions., Clinical Implications: Our findings can provide clinicians with guidance to help patients personalize their selection of different exercise combinations., Strengths and Limitations: We explored the impact of different exercise combinations on reducing ED risk and innovatively proposed the MBB index for a comprehensive assessment of exercise benefits, supported by a large sample size and multivariable adjustments. However, the limitations of cross-sectional design and recall bias cannot be overlooked., Conclusion: The MBB index effectively demonstrates that combined PA can reduce ED risk, supporting tailored exercise recommendations for patients., Competing Interests: The authors reported no potential conflicts of interest., (© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The International Society for Sexual Medicine.)

Background: Bladder cancer carries a large societal burden, with over 570,000 newly diagnosed cases and 210,000 deaths globally each year. Platelets play vital functions in tumor progression and therapy benefits. We aimed to construct a platelet-related signature (PRS) for the clinical outcome of bladder cancer cases., Methods: Ten machine learning techniques were used in the integrative operations to build PRS using the datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), gene series expression (GSE)13507, GSE31684, GSE32894 and GSE48276. A number of immunotherapy datasets and prediction scores, including GSE91061, GSE78220, and IMvigor210, were utilized to assess how well the PRS predicted the benefit of immunotherapy. Vitro experiment was performed to verify the role of α1C-tubulin (TUBA1C) in bladder cancer., Results: Enet (alpha =0.4) algorithm-based PRS had the highest average C-index of 0.73 and it was suggested as the optimal PRS. PRS acted as an independent risk factor for bladder cancer and patients with high PRS score portended a worse overall survival rate, with the area under the curve of 1-, 3- and 5-year operating characteristic curve being 0.754, 0.779 and 0.806 in TCGA dataset. A higher level of immune-activated cells, cytolytic function and T cell co-stimulation was found in the low PRS score group. Low PRS score demonstrated a higher tumor mutation burden score and programmed cell death protein 1 & cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated protein 4 immunophenoscore, lower tumor immune dysfunction and exclusion score, intratumor heterogeneity score and immune escape score in bladder cancer, suggesting the PRS as an indicator for predicting immunotherapy benefits. Vitro experiment showed that TUBA1C was upregulated in bladder cancer and knockdown of TUBA1C obviously suppressed tumor cell proliferation., Conclusions: The present study developed an ideal PRS for bladder cancer, which may be used as a predictor of prognosis, a risk classification system, and a therapy guide., Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://tau.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/tau-24-80/coif). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare., (2024 Translational Andrology and Urology. All rights reserved.)

Background: Bladder cancer is a common malignancy with high invasion and poor clinical outcome. Intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) is linked to cancer progression and metastasis and high ITH can accelerate tumor evolution. Our objective is to develop an ITH-related signature (IRS) for predicting clinical outcome and immunotherapy benefit in bladder cancer., Methods: Integrative procedure containing ten machine learning methods was applied to develop an IRS with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), gene series expression (GSE)13507, GSE31684, GSE32984 and GSE48276 datasets. To evaluate the performance of IRS in predicting the immunotherapy benefit, we also used several predicting scores and three immunotherapy datasets, including GSE91061, GSE78220 and IMvigor210., Results: The predicting model constructed with Enet (alpha =0.2) algorithm had a highest average C-index of 0.69, which was suggested as the optimal IRS. As an independent risk factor for bladder cancer, IRS had a powerful performance in predicting the overall survival (OS) rate of patients, with an area under curve of 1-, 3- and 5-year receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve being 0.744, 0.791 and 0.816 in TCGA dataset. Bladder cancer patients with low IRS score presented with a higher level of immune-activated cells, cytolytic function and T cell co-stimulation. We also found a lower tumor immune dysfunction and exclusion (TIDE) score, lower immune escape score, higher programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) & cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated protein 4 immunophenoscore, higher tumor mutation burden (TMB) score, higher response rate and better prognosis in bladder cancer with low IRS score. Bladder cancer cases with high IRS score had a higher half maximal inhibitory concentration value of common chemotherapy and targeted therapy regimens., Conclusions: The current study developed an optimal IRS for bladder cancer patients, which acted as an indicator for predicting prognosis, stratifying risk and guiding treatment for bladder cancer patients. Further analysis should be focused on the exploration the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and related underlying mechanism mediating the development of bladder cancer in different IRS score group., Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://tau.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/tau-24-5/coif). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare., (2024 Translational Andrology and Urology. All rights reserved.)

Calpain small subunit 1 (Capn4) has been shown to correlate with the metastasis/invasion of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). This study aimed to further elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying Capn4-mediated ccRCC progression. The mRNA expression levels in ccRCC cells were measured by quantitative real-time PCR. The effects of Capn4 on cell adhesion, invasion, and migration were examined by cell adhesion assay, cell invasion assay, and wound-healing assay, respectively. The protein levels were detected by western blot analysis. The effect of Capn4 on cancer metastasis in vivo was assessed in a nude mice xenograft model. It was found that Capn4 was up-regulated in the ccRCC cells, and Capn4 overexpression suppressed cell adhesion activity and increased cell invasion and migration in 786-O cells, while Capn4 silencing increased cell adhesion activity and impaired the invasion and migration ability of Caki-1 cells. Capn4 overexpression also increased the protein level of cleaved talin in 786-O cells, while Capn4 silencing decreased the protein level of cleaved talin in Caki-1 cells. The focal adhesion kinase (FAK)/AKT/MAPK signaling was activated by Capn4 overexpression in 786-O cells, and was inhibited by Capn4 down-regulation in Caki-1 cells. Capn4 overexpression increased the protein levels of matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP-2), vimentin, N-cadherin, and down-regulated E-cadherin in 786-O cells, while Capn4 silencing decreased the protein levels of MMP-2, vimentin, N-cadherin, and up-regulated E-cadherin in Caki-1 cells. Capn4 also promoted cancer metastasis in the in vivo nude mice xenograft model. Our results implicate the functional role of Capn4 in ccRCC invasion and migration, which may contribute to cancer metastasis in ccRCC.

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are a family of proteolytic enzymes, which involved in the degradation of extracellular matrix (ECM) and basement membrane (BM), and associated with tumor invasion and metastasis. Membrane type-2 MMP (MT2-MMP) is a member of MT-MMPs subgroup, and is supposed to be an important step for cancer invasion and metastasis. However, the roles of MT2-MMP in human renal cell carcinoma (RCC) remain unknown. In present study, we identified the roles of MT2-MMP in renal cancer progression by MT2-MMP suppression and overexpression in ACHN cells, which expressed highest level of MT2-MMP and lowest level of MT1-MMP in three kinds of renal cancer cells (786-0, ACHN, OS-RC-2). We found that the expression of MMP-2 could be regulated by MT2-MMP suppression or overexpression in ACHN cells, and both adhesion and invasive activities of ACHN cells were suppressed with MT2-MMP siRNA transfection. In addition, we found that MT2-MMP could increase ACHN cell proliferation, and inhibit cell apoptosis. In vitro tumor growth experiment showed that MT2-MMP could increase clone formation of ACHN cells. The results indicated that MT2-MMP could promoter renal cancer cell invasion and adhesion by activating the expression of MMP2, and stimulate tumor growth of renal cancer., Competing Interests: None., (IJCEP Copyright © 2017.)

Previous study found that higher Capn4 mRNA level is observed in patients with more advanced pathological stage of ccRCC and is also associated with decreased overall survival of patients with ccRCC. However, the mechanism by which Capn4 promotes progression of RCC is not understood. In the present study, we found that over-expression of Capn4 in RCC cells enhances tumor cell growth and down-regulation of Capn4 in RCC cells decreases tumor cell growth in vitro. Interestingly, Capn4 was found to increase phosphorylation of specific tyrosine residues of FAK and subsequent activate NF-κB p65 phosphorylation. Furthermore, Capn4-mediated cell proliferation of RCC cells required up-regulation of NF-κB p65 phosphorylation through activation of FAK signaling pathway. Taken together, our data showed that Capn4 can contribute to RCC growth via activation of the FAK and the downstream signaling pathways leading to the activation of NF-κB., Competing Interests: None., (IJCEP Copyright © 2017.)

We undertook a retrospective analysis to evaluate the C-reactive protein/albumin (CRP/Alb) ratio for its prognostic value in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (CCRCC). The study comprised 406 CCRCC patients undergoing nephrectomy between 2003 and 2012 in our hospital. The correlations among the pretreatment CRP/Alb ratio, clinicopathological parameters, and overall survival (OS) were evaluated. An elevated CRP/Alb ratio was associated with older age at surgery (P=0.007), more advanced TNM stage (P<0.001), more presence of tumor necrosis (P<0.001) and lymphovascular invasion (P<0.001), lower concentration of hemoglobin (P<0.001) and calcium (P=0.005), and shorter OS (P<0.001). The multivariate analysis confirmed that the CRP/Alb ratio independently predicted the OS of patients with CCRCC (P<0.001), the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS) (P=0.001) and modified GPS (mGPS) (P=0.019) were independent prognostic factors also. At last, we evaluated the prognostic value of the CRP/Alb ratio compared with the similar inflammation-based prognostic scores GPS and mGPS using the area under the curve (AUC). Although the differences were not statistically significant, the AUC value of the CRP/Alb ratio (continuous, categorical) was higher compared with the GPS and mGPS, except that the AUC value for the CRP/Alb ratio (categorical) at 3 years was lower than that for the GPS. The CRP/Alb ratio could take the place of the GPS and mGPS in terms of predicting prognosis in CCRCC.

In this study, we report an active targeting liposomal formulation directed by a novel peptide (RGD) that specifically binds to the integrins receptors overexpressed on prostatic cancer cells. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the in vitro and in vivo tumor drug targeting delivery of RGD modified liposomes on PC-3 cells and DU145 cells. The uptake efficiency of RGD-LP was 5.2 times higher than that of LP on PC-3 cells. The uptake efficiency of RGD-LP was 3.2 times higher than that of LP on DU145 cells. The anti-proliferative activity of RGD-LP-PTX against PC-3 cells and DU145 cells were much stronger compared to that of LP-PTX and free PTX, respectively. The tumor spheroids experiment revealed that RGD-LP-PTX was more efficaciously internalized into tumor spheroids than LP in both PC-3 cells and DU145 cells. Compared to LP-PTX and free PTX, RGD-LP-PTX showed the greatest tumor growth inhibitory effect in vivo. In brief, the RGD-LP may be an efficient targeting drug delivery system for prostatic cancer.

Objective: To investigate the mRNA and protein levels of B7-H4, a B7 family molecule, in human urothelial cell carcinoma (UCC), to analyze the relationship between B7-H4 protein expression level and pathological stage of UCC, and to examine the potential of B7-H4 as a prognostic factor in UCC., Methods: mRNA and protein levels of B7-H4 were measured in pairs of tumor tissues and matched adjacent nontumor tissue obtained from patients with UCC by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemical staining, respectively. Association of the protein level of B7-H4 with pathological tumor stage and the overall survival of UCC patients were also analyzed., Results: B7-H4 mRNA and protein level were significantly higher in UCC tumor tissues compared with adjacent nontumor tissues as assessed by qRT-PCR and immunohistochemical staining, respectively. Higher B7-H4 protein levels were observed in patients with more advanced pathological stage of UCC and were also associated with decreased overall survival of patients with UCC., Conclusions: The findings from this study indicate that B7-H4 has the potential to be an independent prognostic indicator for UCC.

High-throughput sequencing technologies, also known as next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, have revolutionized the way that genomic research is advancing. In addition to the static genome, these state-of-art technologies have been recently exploited to analyze the dynamic transcriptome, and the resulting technology is termed RNA sequencing (RNA-seq). RNA-seq is free from many limitations of other transcriptomic approaches, such as microarray and tag-based sequencing method. Although RNA-seq has only been available for a short time, studies using this method have completely changed our perspective of the breadth and depth of eukaryotic transcriptomes. In terms of the transcriptomics of teleost fishes, both model and non-model species have benefited from the RNA-seq approach and have undergone tremendous advances in the past several years. RNA-seq has helped not only in mapping and annotating fish transcriptome but also in our understanding of many biological processes in fish, such as development, adaptive evolution, host immune response, and stress response. In this review, we first provide an overview of each step of RNA-seq from library construction to the bioinformatic analysis of the data. We then summarize and discuss the recent biological insights obtained from the RNA-seq studies in a variety of fish species.