Shen Hu

University of California, Los Angeles | UCLA · Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center

Background A grim prognosis of pancreatic cancer (PCa) was attributed to the difficulty in early diagnosis of the disease. Aims Identifying novel biomarkers for early detection of PCa is thus urgent to improve the overall survival rates of patients. Methods The study was performed firstly by identification of candidate microRNAs (miRNAs) in forma...

Background A grim prognosis of pancreatic cancer (PCa) was attributed to the difficulty in early diagnosis of the disease. Identifying novel biomarkers for early detection of PCa is thus urgent to improve the overall survival rates of patients. Methods The study was performed firstly by identification of candidate microRNAs (miRNAs) in formalin-fi...

With the rapid development of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) in biomedical applications, their biocompatibility and cytotoxicity need to be evaluated properly. Recently, it has been demonstrated that inflammasome activation may be a vital contributing factor for the development of biological responses induced by ENMs. Among the inflammasome family...

The human oral microbiome correlates with numerous diseases, including lung cancer. Identifying the functional changes by metaproteomics helps understand the disease-related dysbiosis, yet characterizing low-abundant bacteria is challenging. Here, we developed a free-flow isoelectric focusing electrophoresis-mass spectrometry- (FFIEF-MS-) based met...

CeO2 nanoparticles (NPs) have been shown to cause lung fibrosis, however, the underlying molecular mechanisms are not well understood. In this study, we have conducted a mass spectrometry-based global metabolomic analysis of human bronchial epithelial BEAS-2B cells treated by CeO2 NPs with different aspect ratios and assessed their toxicity on the...

Metabolic remodeling is now widely recognized as a hallmark of cancer, yet its role in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) remains largely unknown. In this study, metabolomic analysis of melatonin‐treated HNSCC cell lines revealed that exogenous melatonin inhibited many important metabolic pathways including folate cycle in HNSCC cells. M...

Although normal cells depend on exogenous lipids to function and survive, excessive amount of body fat has been associated with increased risk for certain human cancers. Cancer cells can redirect metabolic pathways to meet energy demands through the regulation of fatty acid metabolism. The importance of de novo fatty acid synthesis and fatty acid o...

Ion chromatography (IC) represents an important technique for separation of charged and polar compounds. Traditionally, IC is often used for the analysis of small inorganic ions. Due to the development of eluent suppression technology that allows continuous online desalting and conversion of high-salt eluents into pure water, IC has been coupled wi...

Background: The human Obg-like ATPase 1 (OLA1) protein has been reported to play an important role in cancer cell proliferation. The molecular mechanism underlying OLA1 regulated oral metastasis is still unknown. We investigated in this study the regulatory role of OLA1 playing in oral squamous cell metastasis. Results: A series of in vitro assa...

Caffeine is a common xanthine alkaloid found in tea leaves, coffee beans, and other natural plants, and is the most widely used psychotropic substance in the world. Accumulating evidence suggests that low plasma levels of caffeine and its metabolites may serve as reliable diagnostic markers for early Parkinson's disease patients. In this study, we...

Background: SOX11 is a transcription factor that plays an important role in mantle cell lymphoma development. However, its functional role in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) remains unknown. Methods: Protein expression was measured with Western blotting, immunohistochemistry or quantitative proteomics, and gene expression was measured...

The development of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a complex pathological process and many cellular and molecular events may occur. The ubiquitin conjugating enzyme E2 (UBE2C) was found to play an oncogenic role in several human cancers. However, its functional role in HNSCC tumorigenesis remains unknown. In this study, UBE2C gene...

Objective: Since the introduction in 2004, global usage of e-cigarettes (ECs) has risen exponentially. However, the risks of ECs on oral health are uncertain. The purpose of this study is to understand if EC aerosol exposure impacts the gene pathways of normal human oral keratinocytes (NHOKs), particularly the unfolded protein response (UPR) pathwa...

The widespread use of metal oxide nanoparticles (MOx NPs) poses a risk of exposure that may lead to adverse health effects on humans. Even though a number of toxicological methodologies are available for assessing nanotoxicity, the effect of MOx NPs on cell metabolism in vitro and in vivo remains largely unknown, especially under the exposure to lo...

Adipose stem cells (ASCs) are an attractive cell source for treating many human diseases including osteoporosis. However, the molecular mechanisms accounting for ASC osteogenesis are poorly known. In this study, ASCs were first isolated from the fat tissues from the patients with osteoporosis. The global transcriptome profile between osteogenic dif...

Primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS) is a systemic autoimmune disease marked by dry mouth/dry eye symptoms as a result of the destruction of the salivary and lacrimal glands. Patients with pSS may be at risk for the development of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma. Testing of autoantibodies in the oral fluid of patients with pSS or MALT...

Background/aims: Microbes reside in a number of body sites, including the oral cavity, and are associated with the progression of many systemic diseases. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of gout and hyperuricemia (HUA) on the composition of oral microbiomes. Methods: Analysis of the oral microbiota from 12 gout patients, 11 HUA...

Background: Oral squamous cell carcinomas (OC) are life-threatening diseases emerging as major international health concerns. Objective: Development of an efficient clinical strategy for early diagnosis of the disease is a key for reducing the death rate. Biomarkers are proven to be an effective approach for clinical diagnosis of cancer. Althoug...

Gout is a common form of inflammatory arthritis and the detailed pathogenic mechanisms for this metabolic disorder remain largely unknown. In this study, we first profiled the salivary metabolites in 8 patients with gout, 15 patients with hyperuricaemia (HUA), and 15 healthy individuals using capillary ion chromatography (CIC) with tandem mass spec...

Deregulated expression of SOX11 has been shown to involve in the progression of various types of cancer. However, the role of SOX11 in head and neck cancer remains largely unknown. In this study, co-immunoprecipitation (Co-IP) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) were performed to identify the proteins that binds to SOX11 a...

Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is a chronic autoimmune disease which might progress to mucosal-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma (pSS/MALT). Diagnosis of pSS requires an invasive tissue biopsy and a delay in diagnosis of pSS has been frequently reported. In this study, four proteins including cofilin-1, alpha-enolase, annexin A2 and Rho GDP-dis...

Mesenchymal stromal/stem cell (MSC) therapy with the goal of restoring salivary function following irradiation injury or in Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) has made significant advances within the past 5 years. The majority of studies used MSCs obtained from the bone marrow or adipose tissue, but MSCs isolated from the salivary gland, dental pulp, and umbi...

The purpose of this study was to use liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) with XCMS for a quantitative metabolomic analysis of UM1 and UM2 oral cancer cells after knockdown of metabolic enzyme adenylate kinase 2 (AK2) or phosphorylate glycerol kinase 1 (PGK1). UM1 and UM2 cells were initially transfected with AK2 siRNA, PGK1 siRNA or scr...

Supplementary tables.

Burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is a chronic pain disorder characterized by severe burning sensation in normal looking oral mucosa. Diagnosis of BMS remains to be a challenge to oral healthcare professionals because the method for definite diagnosis is still uncertain. In this study, a quantitative saliva proteomic analysis was performed in order to i...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0154447.].

Metastasis represents a key factor associated with poor prognosis of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC). However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. In this study, our liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry analysis revealed a number of significantly differentially expressed membrane/membrane-associat...

The focus of this book chapter is to discuss the role of human papillomavirus (HPV) in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and Epstein?Barr virus (EBV) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). We have summarized the main events of HPV and EBV life cycle, potential mechanisms of HPV- or EBV-mediated carcinogenesis, and the implications of HPV an...

Background: The development of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a multistep process that involves in both genetic alterations and epigenetic modifications. Previous studies suggest SOX4 might function as an oncogene or a tumor suppressor in different types of cancers. However, whether SOX4 involves in promoting the progression of oral precan...

XRCC4-like factor (XLF), also known as Cernunnos, is a protein encoded by the human NHEJ1 gene and an important repair factor for DNA double-strand breaks. In this study, we have found that XLF is over-expressed in HPV(+) versus HPV(-) head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and significantly down-regulated in the HNSCC cell lines expressing...

In this study, we have generated and characterized Electronic Cigarette (EC) aerosols using a combination of advanced technologies. In the gas phase, the particle number concentration (PNC) of EC aerosols was found to be positively correlated with puff duration whereas the PNC and size distribution may vary with different flavors and nicotine stren...

Microbes are residents in a number of body sites, including the oral and nasal cavities, which are connected to the lung via the pharynx. The associations between oral diseases and increased risk of lung cancer have been reported in previous prospective studies. In this study, we measured variations of salivary microbiota and evaluated their potent...

In separate studies, an extract of soluble intracellular contents from whole bone marrow cells, named Bone Marrow (BM) Soup, was reported to either improve cardiac or salivary functions post-myocardial infarction or irradiation (IR), respectively. However, the active components in BM Soup are unknown. To demonstrate that proteins were the active in...

In this paper, we report a high-throughput biological method to prepare spore-based monodisperse microparticles (SMMs) and then form the nanocomposites of CdTe quantum dot (QD)-loaded SMMs by utilizing the endogenous functional groups from Bacillus spores. The SMMs and QD-incorporated spore microspheres (QDSMs) were characterized by using transmiss...

In this study, we have demonstrated a targeted metabolomics method for analysis of cancer cells, based on high-performance ion chromatography (IC) separation, Q Exactive HF MS for high-resolution and accurate-mass (HR/AM) measurement and the use of stable isotope-labeled internal standards for absolute quantitation. Our method offers great technica...

The BioMart Community Portal (www.biomart.org) is a community-driven effort to provide a unified interface to biomedical databases that are distributed worldwide. The portal provides access to numerous database projects supported by 30 scientific organizations. It includes over 800 different biological datasets spanning genomics, proteomics, model...

Recent studies showed that cyclophilin A (CypA) promotes NF-κB/p65 nuclear translocation resulting in enhanced NF-κB activity and altered expression of its target genes such as Sox9 transcriptional factor, which plays a critical role for chondrogenic differentiation and endochondral ossification. In this report we unveiled the role of CypA in signa...

Background: The purpose of our study was to identify serum protein biomarkers for node-positive oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Biomarkers indicating lymph node metastasis provides a valuable classification methodology to optimize treatment plans for patients with OSCC. Methods: Quantitative serum proteomic analysis of OSCCs with either nod...

A prominent histopathological feature of Sjögren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease, is the presence of lymphocytic infiltrates in the salivary and lachrymal glands. Such infiltrates are comprised of activated lymphocytes and macrophages, and known to produce multiple cytokines including interferon-gamma (IFN-γ). In this study, we have demonstrated...

Serum proteomic analysis can be a valuable approach for the discovery of protein biomarkers for early detection or monitoring of a disease. In this study, two analytical methods were compared for quantification of serum proteins in patients with oral cancer. In the first approach, we quantified serum proteins between oral squamous cell carcinoma (O...

A highly sensitive platform coupling capillary ion chromatography (CapIC) with Q Exactive mass spectrometer has been developed for metabolic profiling of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cells. The CapIC has demonstrated outstanding separation and peak shape for anionic polar metabolites and the sensitivities increased by up to 100-fol...

Cancer cells may undergo metabolic adaptations that support their growth as well as drug resistance properties. The purpose of this study is to test if oral cancer cells can overcome the metabolic defects introduced by using small interfering RNA (siRNA) to knock down their expression of important metabolic enzymes. UM1 and UM2 oral cancer cells we...

Bone marrow cell extract (termed as BM Soup) has been demonstrated to repair irradiated salivary glands (SGs) and restore saliva secretion in our previous study. In the present study, we aim to investigate if the function of damaged SGs in non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice can be restored by BM Soup treatment and the molecular alterations associated wi...

The purpose of this study is to identify target proteins that may play important functional roles in oral cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) using mass spectrometry-based quantitative proteomics. Sphere-formation assays were performed on highly invasive UM1 and lowly invasive UM2 oral cancer cell lines, which were derived from the same tongue squamous c...

There are reports that bone marrow cell (BM) transplants repaired irradiated salivary glands (SGs) and re-established saliva secretion. However, the mechanisms of action behind these reports have not been elucidated. To test if a paracrine mechanism was the main effect behind this reported improvement in salivary organ function, whole BM cells were...

Proteomics refers to comprehensive analysis and study of all the proteins present in a biological sample. It is a powerful approach that can be used to discover diagnostic/prognostic biomarkers, elucidate molecular determinants of diseases, and identify novel protein targets for therapeutic intervention. Sample preparation and processing plays a la...

Hemagglutinin (HA) of influenza A has been reported as the key protein in viral infection. Therefore, the density and the dynamic pattern of this protein in viral envelope will affect the virus to infect target cells. We used a lentiviral system to study the influenza A H1N1 viral infection. Herein we demonstrate that the influenza non-structural p...

The secretion from cells plays a significant role in life activites and in the fields of neurobiology, cell biology, clinic, pathology, pharmacology etc. Thus to investigate the secretion at the single cell level with the developing methods is a frontier cross-discipline research activity. The contents, methods and new progress of this research hav...

Sjögren's syndrome (SS) is a systemic autoimmune disorder characterized by lymphocytic infiltration of the exocrine glands, in particular the salivary and lachrymal glands. The etiology and pathogenic mechanisms of SS remain largely unknown. Accordingly there are no treatments that completely reverse the disease in patients. The purpose of this inv...

Oral cancer is the sixth most common cancer with a 5-year survival rate of approximately 60%. Presently, there are no scientifically credible early detection techniques beyond conventional clinical oral examination. The goal of this study is to validate whether the seven mRNAs and three proteins previously reported as biomarkers are capable of disc...

Sjogren's syndrome (SS) is a chronic autoimmune disorder clinically characterized by dry mouth and eyes. The pathogenic mechanism of SS is inadequately understood and a long delay from the start of the symptoms to final diagnosis has been frequently observed. In this paper, we aim to provide an overview about using omics technologies to discover bi...

Sjögren's syndrome (SS) is an autoimmune inflammatory disorder of exocrine glands. SS particularly affects the lacrimal and salivary glands. Dry mouth and dry eyes are frequently proffered as presenting symptoms, but nonspecific symptoms such as malaise and fatigue, and extraglandular manifestations like purpura, polyneuropathy and arthritis are al...

This article was originally published in Proteomics 2011, 11 , 1499–1507, DOI 10.1002/pmic.201000206

BioMart Central Portal is a first of its kind, community-driven effort to provide unified access to dozens of biological databases spanning genomics, proteomics, model organisms, cancer data, ontology information and more. Anybody can contribute an independently maintained resource to the Central Portal, allowing it to be exposed to and shared with...

The focus of this book chapter is to discuss the role of human papillomavirus (HPV) in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). We have summarized the main events of HPV & EBV life cycle, potential mechanisms of HPV- or EBV-mediated carcinogenesis, and the implications of HPV and...

Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) is a chronic, progressive autoimmune disease primarily affecting women. Diagnosis of SS requires an invasive salivary gland tissue biopsy and a long delay from the start of the symptoms to final diagnosis has been frequently observed. In this study,we aim to identify salivary autoantibody biomarkers for primary SS (pSS) usin...

Objective: To determine whether interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) induces/activates immunoproteasome in human salivary gland (HSG) cells and to determine if activated immunoproteasome induces the presentation of peptides on HSG cells. Methods: Western blotting was used to measure the expression of immunoproteasome and proteasome beta subunits in HSG c...

Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a chronic inflammatory disease, which has been defined by the World Health Organization as a potential precancerous condition, representing a generalized state associated with a significantly increased risk of oral cancer. We would like to put forward a hypothesis that inflammatory mediators such as cytokines and chemoki...

Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) is a systemic autoimmune disease with a variety of presenting symptoms that may delay its diagnosis. We previously discovered a number of candidate salivary biomarkers for primary SS using both mass spectrometry and expression microarray analysis. In the current study, we aimed to verify these candidate biomarkers in indepen...

Dental caries and periodontitis are common oral bacterial infectious diseases. Their prevention and treatment requires control of the causative pathogens, such as Streptococcus mutans and Porphyromonas gingivalis, that exist within dental plaque. As one of the attractive future substitutes for conventional antibiotics, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs)...

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive human tumors due to its high potential of local invasion and metastasis. The aim of this study was to characterize the membrane proteomes of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells of primary and metastatic origins, and to identify potential target proteins related to metastasis of pancreatic ca...

Membrane and membrane-associated proteins identified in AsPC-1 cells (Table S1) and BxPC-3 cells (Table S2). Highlighted proteins were only found in AsPC-1 cells (Table S1) and BxPC-3 cells (Table S2).

Lymph node involvement is the most important predictor of survival rates in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). A biomarker that can indicate lymph node metastasis would be valuable to classify patients with OSCC for optimal treatment. In this study, we have performed a serum proteomic analysis of OSCC using 2-D gel electrophoresis a...