INTRODUCTION: Cephalic index (CI), the ratio of head breadth to head length, is widely used to categorise human populations. The aim of this study was to access the impact of anthropometric measurements on the CI of male Japanese university students.
METHODS: This study included 1,215 male university students from Tokyo and Kyoto, selected using convenient sampling. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the effect of anthropometric measurements on CI.
RESULTS: The variance inflation factor (VIF) showed no evidence of a multicollinearity problem among independent variables. The coefficients of the regression line demonstrated a significant positive relationship between CI and minimum frontal breadth (p < 0.01), bizygomatic breadth (p < 0.01) and head height (p < 0.05), and a negative relationship between CI and morphological facial height (p < 0.01) and head circumference (p < 0.01). Moreover, the coefficient and odds ratio of logistic regression analysis showed a greater likelihood for minimum frontal breadth (p < 0.01) and bizygomatic breadth (p < 0.01) to predict round-headedness, and morphological facial height (p < 0.05) and head circumference (p < 0.01) to predict long-headedness. Stepwise regression analysis revealed bizygomatic breadth, head circumference, minimum frontal breadth, head height and morphological facial height to be the best predictor craniofacial measurements with respect to CI.
CONCLUSION: The results suggest that most of the variables considered in this study appear to influence the CI of adult male Japanese students.
Glypican-3 (GPC3), a membrane-bound heparan sulfate proteoglycan, has long been found to be dysregulated in human lung adenocarcinomas (LUADs). Nevertheless, the function, mutational profile, epigenetic regulation, co-expression profile, and clinicopathological significance of the GPC3 gene in LUAD progression are not well understood. In this study, we analyzed cancer microarray datasets from publicly available databases using bioinformatics tools to elucidate the above parameters. We observed significant downregulation of GPC3 in LUAD tissues compared to their normal counterparts, and this downregulation was associated with shorter overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS). Nevertheless, no significant differences in the methylation pattern of GPC3 were observed between LUAD and normal tissues, although lower promoter methylation was observed in male patients. GPC3 expression was also found to correlate significantly with infiltration of B cells, CD8+, CD4+, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells in LUAD. In addition, a total of 11 missense mutations were identified in LUAD patients, and ~1.4% to 2.2% of LUAD patients had copy number amplifications in GPC3. Seventeen genes, mainly involved in dopamine receptor-mediated signaling pathways, were frequently co-expressed with GPC3. We also found 11 TFs and 7 miRNAs interacting with GPC3 and contributing to disease progression. Finally, we identified 3 potential inhibitors of GPC3 in human LUAD, namely heparitin, gemcitabine and arbutin. In conclusion, GPC3 may play an important role in the development of LUAD and could serve as a promising biomarker in LUAD.