[Bellerophon Therapeutics, Inc.] Bellerophon Therapeutics, Inc. announced that the FDA has accepted the company’s proposal to reduce the study size for its ongoing registrational REBUILD Phase III trial of INOpulse® for the treatment of fibrotic interstitial lung disease.

[Nature Communications] Researchers determined transcriptional changes of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis-airway basal cells and their potential profibrotic properties using a 3D culture system and novel mouse xenograft models.

[JCI Insight] Investigators found that growth factor–β1-mediated upregulation of UHRF1 repressed Beclin1 via promoter methylation induction which resulted in fibroblast activation and lung fibrosis both in vitro and in vivo.

[American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology] Scientists studied neuropeptide Y, a small peptide normally synthesized in the central and peripheral nervous system and implicated in inflammatory airway diseases including asthma and COPD.

[Cancer Medicine] Investigators demonstrated that RNA-binding protein Quaking-5 suppressed NSCLC cell proliferation both in vitro and in vivo by inhibiting cell cycle progression by regulating cell cycle G1 phase-related proteins.

[Cell Death & Disease] Researchers discovered that T-LAK cell-oriented protein kinase (TOPK) was highly expressed in anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive NSCLC. Phosphorylation of TOPK by ALK was found to inhibit enhanced apoptosis of ALK-positive NSCLC cells, providing novel treatment strategies.

[Peerj Life & Environment] Scientists explored the functions of DDX17 as an oncogene by regulating both the expression and alternative splicing of proliferation- and apoptosis-associated genes in lung adenocarcinoma cells.

[Journal of Clinical Laboratory Analysis] While identifying the relationship and functions of CircRNAs in NSCLC, researchers discovered that Hsa_circ_0018189 drove NSCLC growth by interacting with miR-656-3p and upregulating xCT.

[International Journal of Inflammation] The authors review the roles of CXC ligands and their cognate receptors in the pathogenesis of several lung diseases such as allergic rhinitis, COPD, lung fibrosis, lung cancer, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.

[American Journal of Human Genetics] Researchers performed transcriptome profiling of 350 libraries from six tissues in mouse models harboring copy-number variants (CNVs) of the syntenic 7qF3 region, as well as cellular, transcriptional, and single-cell analyses in 54 isogenic neural stem cell, induced neuron, and cerebral organoid models of CRISPR-engineered 16p11.2 CNVs.

[Cell Death & Disease] Transcriptome analysis using a large glioma cohort indicated that the ratio of ITSN1-S/ITSN1-L was positively correlated with glioma grading and poor prognosis.

[Experimental & Molecular Medicine] Researchers introduced a novel animal model for systemic sclerosis (SSc) using immunodeficient mice injected with peripheral blood mononuclear cells from SSc patients.