To assess the value of endoscopic grading of gastric intestinal metaplasia (EGGIM), operative link on gastritis assessment (OLGA) and operative link on gastric intestinal metaplasia (OLGIM) on risk stratification for early gastric neoplasia (EGN) and to investigate other factors possibly associated with its development.

Fusobacteria are not common nor relatively abundant in non-colorectal cancer (CRC) populations, however, we identified multiple Fusobacterium taxa nearly absent in western and rural populations to be comparatively more prevalent and relatively abundant in southern Chinese populations. We investigated whether these represented known or novel lineages in the Fusobacterium genus, and assessed their genomes for features implicated in development of cancer.

Faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has proved to be an extremely effective treatment for recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection, and there is interest in its potential application in other gastrointestinal and systemic diseases. However, the recent death and episode of septicaemia following FMT highlights the need for further appraisal and guidelines on donor evaluation, production standards, treatment facilities and acceptable clinical indications.

The gut microbiota has been proposed as an interesting therapeutic target for metabolic disorders. Inulin as a prebiotic has been shown to lessen obesity and related diseases. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether preintervention gut microbiota characteristics determine the physiological response to inulin.

One of the most unexpected discoveries in molecular oncology, in the last decades, was the identification of a new layer of protein coding gene regulation by transcripts that do not codify for proteins, the non-coding RNAs. These represent a heterogeneous category of transcripts that interact with many types of genetic elements, including regulatory DNAs, coding and other non-coding transcripts and directly to proteins. The final outcome, in the malignant context, is the regulation of any of the cancer hallmarks. Non-coding RNAs represent the most abundant type of hormones that contribute significantly to cell-to cell communication, revealing a complex interplay between tumour cells, tumour microenvironment cells and immune cells. Consequently, profiling their abundance in bodily fluids became a mainstream of biomarker identification. Therapeutic targeting of non-coding RNAs represents a new option for clinicians that is currently under development. This review will present the biology and translational value of three of the most studied categories on non-coding RNAs, the microRNAs, the long non-coding RNAs and the circular RNAs. We will also focus on some aspirational concepts that can help in the development of clinical applications related to non-coding RNAs, including using pyknons to discover new non-coding RNAs, targeting human-specific transcripts which are expressed specifically in the tumour cell and using non-coding RNAs to increase the efficiency of immunotherapy.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) still carries a dismal prognosis with an overall 5-year survival rate of 9%. Conventional combination chemotherapies are a clear advance in the treatment of PDAC; however, subtypes of the disease exist, which exhibit extensive resistance to such therapies. Genomic MYC amplifications represent a distinct subset of PDAC with an aggressive tumour biology. It is clear that hyperactivation of MYC generates dependencies that can be exploited therapeutically. The aim of the study was to find and to target MYC-associated dependencies.

Efforts to manage non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are limited by the incomplete understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms and the absence of accurate non-invasive biomarkers. The aim of this study was to identify novel NAFLD therapeutic targets andbiomarkers by conducting liver transcriptomic analysis in patients stratified by the presence of the PNPLA3 I148M genetic risk variant.

The incidence of gastric cancer continues to decrease globally, approaching levels that in some populations could define it as a rare disease. To explore this on a wider scale, we predict its future burden in 34 countries with long-standing population-based data.

We examined the impact of maternal low-dose aspartame and stevia consumption on adiposity, glucose tolerance, gut microbiota and mesolimbic pathway in obese dams and their offspring.

TGF-β2 (TGF-β, transforming growth factor beta), the less-investigated sibling of TGF-β1, is deregulated in rodent and human liver diseases. Former data from bile duct ligated and MDR2 knockout (KO) mouse models for human cholestatic liver disease suggested an involvement of TGF-β2 in biliary-derived liver diseases.

To investigate the function of a novel primate-specific long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), named FLANC, based on its genomic location (co-localised with a pyknon motif), and to characterise its potential as a biomarker and therapeutic target.

In patients with IBD experiencing an immune-mediated loss of response (LOR) to antitumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF), algorithms recommend a switch of anti-TNF without immunosuppressive drug. The aim of our study was to compare in these patients two strategies: either switch to a second anti-TNF alone or with addition of azathioprine (AZA). After randomisation outcomes (time to clinical and pharmacokinetic failure) were compared between the two groups during a 2-year follow-up period.

The prevalence of IBD is rising in the Western world. Despite an increasing repertoire of therapeutic targets, a significant proportion of patients suffer chronic morbidity. Studies in mice and humans have highlighted the critical role of regulatory T cells in immune homeostasis, with defects in number and suppressive function of regulatory T cells seen in patients with Crohn's disease. We review the function of regulatory T cells and the pathways by which they exert immune tolerance in the intestinal mucosa. We explore the principles and challenges of manufacturing a cell therapy, and discuss clinical trial evidence to date for their safety and efficacy in human disease, with particular focus on the development of a regulatory T-cell therapy for Crohn's disease.

The myeloid differentiation factor Schlafen4 (Slfn4) marks a subset of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) in the stomach during Helicobacter-induced spasmolytic polypeptide-expressing metaplasia (SPEM).