Yu-Cheng Lin

National Yang Ming University | NYMU · Department of Dentistry

Metabolic reprogramming sustains malignant head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) to overcome stressful microenvironments, and increased glutamine uptake is a common metabolic hallmark in cancers. Since metabolic reprogramming has been recognized as a new therapeutic target for tumor cells, understanding the regulatory axis of glutamine upta...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that thrives in environments associated with human activity, including soil and water altered by agriculture or pollution. Because L-lactate is a significant product of plant and animal metabolism, it can serve as a carbon source for P. aeruginosa in the diverse settings that it inhabits. In this...

Objective To outline the epidemiology of puerperal mastitis caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and evaluate the effect of an infection control bundle on its incidence. Methods A surge in MRSA puerperal mastitis was noted in a community hospital in September 2009. MRSA samples from mastitis cases and the environment underw...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that thrives in environments associated with human activity, including soil and water altered by agriculture or pollution. Because L-lactate is a significant product of plant and animal metabolism, it is available to serve as a carbon source for P. aeruginosa in the diverse settings it inhabits. H...

Cisplatin resistance poses a major challenge in the treatment of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Deeper investigations into the mechanisms underlying this drug resistance is of great importance. Here, we used cellular assays and clinical immunohistochemistry to examine molecular pathways involved in both innate and acquired cisplatin resistanc...

Background/purpose Healthy states of human microbiota depend on a stable community of symbiotic microbes irrespective of external challenges from the environment. Thus, long-term stability of the oral microbiota is of importance, particularly for older patient populations. Materials and methods We used next-generation sequencing (NGS) to examine t...

During glycolysis, the muscle isoform of pyruvate kinase PKM2 produces ATP in exchange for dephosphorylation of phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) into pyruvate. PKM2 has been considered as a tumor-promoting factor in most cancers, whereas the regulatory role of PKM2 during head and neck carcinogenesis remained to be delineated. PKM2 mRNA and protein expres...

The entry of SARS-CoV-2 into host cells involves the interaction between the viral spike protein and the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor. Given that the spike protein evolves rapidly to evade host immunity, therapeutics that block ACE2 accessibility, such as spike decoys, could serve as an alternative strategy for attenuating...

Background Dysbiosis of oral microbiome causes chronic diseases including dental caries and periodontitis, which frequently affect older patient populations. Severely disabled individuals with impaired swallowing functions may require nutritional supply via nasogastric (NG) tubes, further impacting their oral condition and possibly microbial compos...

Head and neck squamous carcinoma (HNSCC) including oral SCC (OSCC) is a worldwide malignancy that requires vigorous efforts for interception. The metabolic reprogramming sustains malignant tumor cells to overcome stressful microenvironments. As the glutamine is the one of the essential components which helps cells to erase reactive oxygen species a...

Immune modulation is a critical factor in determining the survival of patients with malignancies, including those with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and head and neck SCC (HNSCC). Immune escape or stimulation may be driven by the B7/CD28 family and other checkpoint molecules, forming ligand–receptor complexes with immune cells in the tumor mi...

Nucleic acids in living organisms are more complex than the simple combinations of the four canonical nucleotides. Recent advances in biomedical research have led to the discovery of numerous naturally occurring nucleotide modifications and enzymes responsible for the synthesis of such modifications. In turn, these enzymes can be leveraged towards...

Dysbiosis of oral microbiome causes chronic diseases including dental caries and periodontitis, which frequently affects elderly, frail patients receiving long-term care. Severely disabled patients may require nutritional supply via nasogastric (NG) tube, which impacts patients’ oral condition and possibly microbial composition. However, little is...

Background Dysbiosis of oral microbiota is the cause of many diseases related to oral and general health. However, few Asia-based studies have evaluated the role of oral microbiota in patients receiving long-term care. Thus, new indications are needed for early prevention and risk management based on information derived from the oral microbiota. M...

Shotgun metagenomic sequencing is a powerful approach to study microbiomes in an unbiased manner and of increasing relevance for identifying novel enzymatic functions. However, the potential of metagenomics to relate from microbiome composition to function has thus far been underutilized. Here, we introduce the Metagenomics Genome-Phenome Associati...

The DNAs of bacterial viruses are known to contain diverse, chemically complex modifications to thymidine that protect them from the endonuclease-based defenses of their cellular hosts, but whose biosynthetic origins are enigmatic. Up to half of thymidines in the Pseudomonas phage M6, the Salmonella phage ViI, and others, contain exotic chemical mo...

DNA methylation is widespread amongst eukaryotes and prokaryotes to modulate gene expression and confer viral resistance. 5-Methylcytosine (m5C) methylation has been described in genomes of a large fraction of bacterial species as part of restriction-modification systems, each composed of a methyltransferase and cognate restriction enzyme. Methylas...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14, an opportunistic pathogen of diverse hosts, contains genes with the potential to confer production of R-bodies (i.e., a “reb cluster”). R-bodies are large, extendable protein polymers best known for their role in killing of paramecia by the bacterium Caedibacter taeniospiralis, and genes in the reb cluster have been imp...

Shotgun metagenomic sequencing is a powerful approach to study microbiomes in an unbiased manner and of increasing relevance for identifying novel enzymatic functions. However, the potential of metagenomics to relate from microbiome composition to function has thus far been underutilized. Here, we introduce the Metagenomics Genome-Phenome Associati...

DNA methylation is widespread amongst eukaryotes and prokaryotes to modulate gene expression and confer viral resistance. 5-methylcytosine (m5C) methylation has been described in genomes of a large fraction of bacterial species as part of restriction-modification systems, each composed of a methyltransferase and cognate restriction enzyme. Methylas...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes biofilm-based infections in diverse hosts. A majority of sequenced P. aeruginosa genomes, including that of the popular model strain UCBPP-PA14 (“PA14”), contain a gene cluster with the potential to confer production of large, extendable protein polymers called R-bodies. R-bodies are best known for their role in killin...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the most common cause of chronic, biofilm-based lung infections in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Sputum from patients with CF has been shown to contain oxic and hypoxic subzones as well as millimolar concentrations of lactate. Here, we describe the physiological roles and expression patterns of P. aeruginosa lactate...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the most common cause of chronic, biofilm-based lung infections in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Sputum from patients with CF has been shown to contain oxic and hypoxic subzones as well as millimolar concentrations of lactate. Here, we describe the physiological roles and expression patterns of P. aeruginosa lactate...

Microbes in biofilms face the challenge of substrate limitation. In particular, oxygen often becomes limited for cells in Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms growing in the laboratory or during host colonization. Previously we found that phenazines, antibiotics produced by P. aeruginosa, balance the intracellular redox state of cells in biofilms. Here,...

Biofilm formation is critical for the infection cycle of Vibrio cholerae. Vibrio exopolysaccharides (VPS) and the matrix proteins RbmA, Bap1 and RbmC are required for the development of biofilm architecture. We demonstrate that RbmA binds VPS directly and uses a binary structural switch within its first fibronectin type III (FnIII-1) domain to cont...

List of primers used in this study for generating various strains and plasmids.

Pyruvate carboxylase (PC) has important roles in metabolism and is crucial for virulence for some pathogenic bacteria. PC contains biotin carboxylase (BC), carboxyltransferase (CT) and biotin carboxyl carrier protein (BCCP) components. It is a single-chain enzyme in eukaryotes and most bacteria, and functions as a 500 kD homo-tetramer. In contrast,...

Supplementary Figures 1-9 and Supplementary Table 1

As biofilms grow, resident cells inevitably face the challenge of resource limitation. In the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14, electron acceptor availability affects matrix production and therefore biofilm morphogenesis. The secreted matrix polysaccharide Pel is required for pellicle formation and for colony wrinkling, two activi...

Biofilm formation is a complex process involving various signaling pathways and changes in gene expression. Many of the sensory mechanisms and regulatory cascades involved have been defined for biofilms formed by diverse organisms attached to solid surfaces. By comparison, our knowledge of the basic mechanisms underlying the formation of biofilms a...