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From the invasive front to organotropic pre-metastatic niches: spatial immune regulatory networks governing cholangiocarcinoma dissemination and metastasis-intercepting immunotherapy
Front Immunol. 2026 Aug 20;17:1919864. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2026.1919864. eCollection 2026.
ABSTRACT
Cholangiocarcinoma is an aggressive biliary tract malignancy in which metastatic relapse and primary or acquired resistance to immunotherapy remain major causes of mortality. Although immune checkpoint inhibitors have improved first-line treatment for advanced biliary tract cancer, most patients do not achieve durable benefit, indicating that immune failure is not explained by a single checkpoint pathway. In this Review, we propose a spatial immune-regulatory continuum for cholangiocarcinoma dissemination. Most direct single-cell and spatial evidence currently derives from intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, and its applicability to perihilar and distal disease remains to be established. This continuum begins in the tumor core and invasive front, where malignant cells, cancer-associated fibroblasts, tumor-associated macrophages, endothelial and lymphatic cells, regulatory T cells, immature neutrophils and excluded or dysfunctional cytotoxic T cells form a pro-invasive ecosystem. It then extends through extracellular vesicles, soluble mediators and lymphovascular routes that may educate organotropic pre-metastatic niches. Finally, lymph node, lung, liver, peritoneal and bone microenvironments provide organ-specific extracellular matrix, myeloid and stromal programs that enable immune evasion and metastatic colonization. By integrating clinical evidence, multi-omics studies, single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, extracellular vesicle biology, pre-metastatic niche concepts and emerging therapeutic strategies, we argue that cholangiocarcinoma metastasis should be targeted before overt dissemination whenever possible. In this Review, "metastasis-intercepting immunotherapy" is used as an author-defined conceptual framework for strategies intended to prevent or disrupt the immune-stromal conditions that enable dissemination and colonization, rather than merely shrink established metastatic lesions. Metastasis-intercepting immunotherapy will likely require rational combinations that reprogram the invasive front, restore dendritic-cell-mediated antigen presentation, block tumor-stroma-myeloid circuits, disrupt EV-mediated communication that may contribute to niche formation and select patients using spatial biomarkers rather than bulk immune markers alone.
PMID:42694469 | PMC:PMC13539491 | DOI:10.3389/fimmu.2026.1919864
Gastrointestinal motility in microgravity: a critical review of multi-level mechanisms and model-dependent effects
Front Physiol. 2026 Aug 20;17:1930628. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2026.1930628. eCollection 2026.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Gastrointestinal motility disturbances rank among the most frequently reported medical complications of spaceflight. Astronauts experience delayed gastric emptying, erratic small intestinal transit and reduced colonic propulsion. The underlying mechanisms are multifactorial. Microgravity alters intra-abdominal physical mechanics, disrupts autonomic and enteric neural circuits, shifts gastrointestinal hormone secretion profiles, inflicts oxidative stress upon effector cells, and perturbs gut microbial communities. Cross-model comparisons reveal substantial disagreement, suggesting that no single ground-based analog fully captures the pathophysiology of orbital flight.
AIM: To critically review how weightlessness affects gastric emptying, small intestinal transit and colonic motility; to critically evaluate contradictory findings across simulation platforms; and to delineate the neural, humoral, cellular and microbiological mechanisms involved.
METHODS: We searched PubMed, Web of Science and the NASA Technical Reports Server for articles published between January 1990 and June 2026 (last search 30 June 2026). Search terms included: "microgravity", "weightlessness", "spaceflight", "gastrointestinal motility", "gastric emptying", "intestinal transit", "gut microbiome", "interstitial cells of Cajal" and "oxidative stress". Studies using head-down bed rest, hindlimb unloading, clinorotation, parabolic flight and actual spaceflight were included. The review follows a critical narrative design; the full search strategy and the framework used to appraise the evidence are described in Section 1.1.
RESULTS: Altered-gravity studies suggest that gastrointestinal dysmotility may involve neurohumoral dysregulation, oxidative injury to interstitial cells of Cajal and smooth muscle, barrier dysfunction and altered enteric signaling; however, most mechanistic evidence derives from simulated models and has not been directly validated during human spaceflight. Direct human motility measurements remain sparse, and the evidence comprises a mixture of direct observations, model-dependent inferences and testable hypotheses. Cross-study agreement is poor: some head-down bed rest trials report accelerated small-bowel transit, whereas tail-suspension models and limited flight observations suggest motor suppression. These divergences may reflect model-specific confounding rather than a uniform effect of microgravity.
CONCLUSION: Current ground-based models each capture only partial aspects of orbital GI pathophysiology. Future work should combine multi-omics profiling with next-generation simulation platforms to develop evidence-based countermeasures for long-duration missions.
PMID:42694486 | PMC:PMC13539599 | DOI:10.3389/fphys.2026.1930628
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A framework for building a synthetic cell from the SynCell Asia Initiative
Nature Biotechnology, Published online: 26 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41587-026-03153-w
Building a living cell from scratch requires overcoming a bottleneck that has remained unresolved despite decades of progress: orchestrating the spatiotemporal integration of core functional modules. To tackle this barrier, the SynCell Asia Initiative outlines a strategy for developing core functional modules followed by their systems-level integration through the establishment of a centralized, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven biofoundry.Beyond Retrieval: Modeling Confidence Decay and Deterministic Agentic Platforms in Generative Engine Optimization
BAAI Cardiac Agent: An intelligent multimodal agent for automated reasoning and diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases from cardiac magnetic resonance imaging
Autonomous Agents for Scientific Discovery: Orchestrating Scientists, Language, Code, and Physics
SelfGrader: Stable Jailbreak Detection for Large Language Models using Token-Level Logits
Editing strigolactone hormone receptor for robust antiviral silencing in rice
Learning to Generate Formally Verifiable Step-by-Step Logic Reasoning via Structured Formal Intermediaries
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In vivo generation of anti-BCMA CAR-T cells in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma: a phase 1 study
Nature Medicine, Published online: 25 March 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04244-6
In a phase 1 trial, the in vivo generation of anti-BCMA CAR-T cells by lentiviral delivery was feasible and did not lead to dose-limiting toxicities in five patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.Research on the compatibility mechanism of the Tingli Dazao Xiefei Decoction by multi-organ metabolomics strategy
J Ethnopharmacol. 2026 Mar 21:121548. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2026.121548. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: The Tingli Dazao Xiefei Decoction (TD) is a traditional phlegm-eliminating prescription composed of Descurainia sophia (L.) Webb. ex Prantl (TLZ) and Ziziphus jujuba Mill. (DZ), which can relieve lung, heart and kidney injury in asthma. TLZ acts as the monarch drug in the TD. Based on the research mode of "material basis of traditional Chinese medicinal properties can be divided and combined", we have confirmed that the flavonoid glycosides components /the oligosaccharide components/the fatty oil component (FG/Oli/FO) are effective components of TLZ. However, the compatibility mechanism of the TD, and the contribution of the effective components of TLZ to the efficacy were still unclear.
AIM OF THE STUDY: To clarify the compatibility mechanism of TD, and the contribution of the effective components of TLZ to the efficacy from a comprehensive perspective of lung, heart, and kidney.
METHODS: First, we chose the asthma model corresponding to the efficacy of TD in purging the lungs and relieving asthma, and the rats were divided into the normal (NC) group, model (M) group, dexamethasone (DEX) group, and treatment groups of TD/TLZ/DZ/FO+DZ/Oli+DZ/FG+DZ. Second, metabolomics and network pharmacology were applied to elucidate the comprehensive protective effect of TD/FG+DZ/Oli+DZ/FO+DZ. Third, the multi-omics results were validated using Western blotting, RT-qPCR, flow cytometry, and immunofluorescence.
RESULTS: FO+DZ/Oli+DZ/FG+DZ had different degrees of protective effects against lung/heart/kidney injury in asthma. In metabolomics research, the principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis results showed that the TLZ group was closer to TD group than DZ group, the FO+DZ and Oli+DZ group clustered with TD/NC groups in the lung and kidney, and the FO+DZ and FG+DZ group clustered with TD/NC groups in the heart. Pathway enrichment analysis suggested that the comprehensive protective effect of TLZ and its effective components combined with DZ on lung/heart/kidney may be achieved by regulating the arginine and proline metabolism, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, and unsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis. Multi-organ metabolomics and network pharmacology revealed consistent biological functions in KEGG pathways. Validation experiment showed that TLZ and its effective components combined with DZ could reverse the abnormal expression of proteins and RNA related to inflammation, airway remodeling, excitotoxicity, and energy-supply, apoptosis at different levels. Furthermore, FO+DZ may reduce asthma damage by inhibiting the FABP4/PPAR-γ/NF-κB signaling pathway.
CONCLUSION: TLZ played the key role in TD, and FO had the best therapeutic effect on each organ; the efficacy of Oli was mainly reflected in reducing lung and kidney damage, and FG was mainly involved in enhancing energy metabolism in the heart. These findings proved that traditional Chinese medicine could exert comprehensive efficacy in a 'multi-components trigger multi-channel' way.
PMID:41871629 | DOI:10.1016/j.jep.2026.121548
Research on the compatibility mechanism of the Tingli Dazao Xiefei Decoction by multi-organ metabolomics strategy
J Ethnopharmacol. 2026 Mar 21:121548. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2026.121548. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: The Tingli Dazao Xiefei Decoction (TD) is a traditional phlegm-eliminating prescription composed of Descurainia sophia (L.) Webb. ex Prantl (TLZ) and Ziziphus jujuba Mill. (DZ), which can relieve lung, heart and kidney injury in asthma. TLZ acts as the monarch drug in the TD. Based on the research mode of "material basis of traditional Chinese medicinal properties can be divided and combined", we have confirmed that the flavonoid glycosides components /the oligosaccharide components/the fatty oil component (FG/Oli/FO) are effective components of TLZ. However, the compatibility mechanism of the TD, and the contribution of the effective components of TLZ to the efficacy were still unclear.
AIM OF THE STUDY: To clarify the compatibility mechanism of TD, and the contribution of the effective components of TLZ to the efficacy from a comprehensive perspective of lung, heart, and kidney.
METHODS: First, we chose the asthma model corresponding to the efficacy of TD in purging the lungs and relieving asthma, and the rats were divided into the normal (NC) group, model (M) group, dexamethasone (DEX) group, and treatment groups of TD/TLZ/DZ/FO+DZ/Oli+DZ/FG+DZ. Second, metabolomics and network pharmacology were applied to elucidate the comprehensive protective effect of TD/FG+DZ/Oli+DZ/FO+DZ. Third, the multi-omics results were validated using Western blotting, RT-qPCR, flow cytometry, and immunofluorescence.
RESULTS: FO+DZ/Oli+DZ/FG+DZ had different degrees of protective effects against lung/heart/kidney injury in asthma. In metabolomics research, the principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis results showed that the TLZ group was closer to TD group than DZ group, the FO+DZ and Oli+DZ group clustered with TD/NC groups in the lung and kidney, and the FO+DZ and FG+DZ group clustered with TD/NC groups in the heart. Pathway enrichment analysis suggested that the comprehensive protective effect of TLZ and its effective components combined with DZ on lung/heart/kidney may be achieved by regulating the arginine and proline metabolism, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, and unsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis. Multi-organ metabolomics and network pharmacology revealed consistent biological functions in KEGG pathways. Validation experiment showed that TLZ and its effective components combined with DZ could reverse the abnormal expression of proteins and RNA related to inflammation, airway remodeling, excitotoxicity, and energy-supply, apoptosis at different levels. Furthermore, FO+DZ may reduce asthma damage by inhibiting the FABP4/PPAR-γ/NF-κB signaling pathway.
CONCLUSION: TLZ played the key role in TD, and FO had the best therapeutic effect on each organ; the efficacy of Oli was mainly reflected in reducing lung and kidney damage, and FG was mainly involved in enhancing energy metabolism in the heart. These findings proved that traditional Chinese medicine could exert comprehensive efficacy in a 'multi-components trigger multi-channel' way.
PMID:41871629 | DOI:10.1016/j.jep.2026.121548