SNF5, a core component of the SWI/SNF complex, is necessary for p53 expression and cell survival, in part through eIF4E

SNF5, a core component of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex, is expressed as two isoforms, SNF5a and SNF5b. SNF5 is a tumor suppressor as mutation of SNF5 leads to tumor formation and cooperates with p53 deficiency to enhance cancer susceptibility. Interestingly, lack of SNF5 inhibits cell survival and embryonic development potentially via abnormal activation of p53. To further examine this, we generated cell lines in that SNF5a, SNF5b, or both can be inducibly knocked down. We found that SNF5 knockdown leads to cell cycle arrest in G1, and SNF5a and SNF5b are functionally redundant. We also showed that SNF5 knockdown impairs p53-dependent transcription of p21 and MDM2. However, contrary to earlier reports that p53 is activated by SNF5 knockout in murine cells, SNF5 knockdown leads to decreased, but not increased, expression of both basal and stress-induced p53 in multiple human cell lines. In addition, we showed that SNF5 knockdown induces AMPK activation and inhibits eIF4E expression. Finally, we demonstrated that SNF5 knockdown inhibits p53 translation via eIF4E and replacement of eIF4E in SNF5-knockdown cells restores p53 expression and cell survival. Together, our results suggest that the p53 pathway is regulated by, and mediates the activity of, SNF5 in tumor suppression and pro-survival.

Comparison of virtual cystoscopy and ultrasonography for bladder cancer detection: a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Bladder cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy in patients presenting with haematuria. Early detection is crucial for improving patient prognosis. We therefore performed a meta-analysis to evaluate and compare the detection validity (sensitivity and specificity) of virtual cystoscopy (VC) and ultrasonography (US).

METHODS

We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed and the Cochrane Library for studies evaluating diagnosis validity of VC and US between January 1966 and December 2009. Meta-analysis methods were used to pool sensitivity and specificity and to construct a summary receiver-operating characteristic (SROC) curve.

RESULTS

A total of 26 studies that included 3084 patients who fulfilled all of the inclusion criteria were considered for inclusion in the analysis. The pooled sensitivity for bladder cancer detection using CT virtual cystoscopy (CTVC), MR virtual cystoscopy (MRVC) and US was 0.939 (95% CI, 0.919-0.956), 0.908 (95% CI, 0.827-0.959) and 0.779 (95% CI, 0.744-0.812), respectively. The pooled specificity for bladder cancer detection using CTVC, MRVC and US was 0.981 (95% CI, 0.973-0.988), 0.948 (95% CI, 0.884-0.983) and 0.962 (95% CI, 0.953-0.969), respectively. The pooled diagnostic odd ratio (DOR) estimate for CTVC (604.22) were significantly higher than for MRVC (144.35, P<0.001) and US (72.472, P<0.001).

CONCLUSION

Our results showed that both CTVC and MRVC are better imaging methods for diagnosing bladder cancer than US. CTVC has higher diagnostic value (sensitivity, specificity and DOR) for the detection of bladder cancer than either MRCT or US.

Abstract 4588: GLP validiation for quantitative determination of soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor I and II (sTNFRI and sTNFRII) in human serum utilizing a highly sensitive ELISA

Introduction: TNFs are pleiotropic cytokines that play an essential role in host immune resistance to tumor formation and infections. All cell types examined expressed at least one of the two distinct TNF receptors I and II. The soluble receptor forms resulting from shedding of the extracellular domains of the receptors. The elevated sTNFRI and sTNFRII seems to be important biomarkers in association with malignancies and infections. The purpose of this study is to validate high sensitivity ELISA methods adapted from commercial kits (R&D Systems, Minneapolis, MN) for quantification of human sTNFRI or sTNFRII in human serum to support clinical studies of new drug development for inflammatory diseases, organ failures, and cancer therapies.

Methods: Both assays are a two-site sandwich ELISAs using two selected antibodies that bind to different epitopes of human sTNFRI or sTNFRII. The plates are pre-coated with target-specific antibody. Samples at a minimum required dilution of 1:10 are incubated and the immobilized antibody binds any analyte present. After washing away any unbound substances, an enzyme-conjugated antibody specific for sTNFRI or sTNFRII is added to the wells. The immobilized immunocomplex sandwich is detected by incubation with a substrate solution in a timed reaction. The color development is measured in a SpectraMax 384 Plus microplate reader. The enzymatic activity is directly proportional to the amount of sTNFRI or sTNFRII in the sample. The results were analyzed by a 4-parameter regression and sample concentrations are determined directly from a standard curve.

Results: The ELISA methods were validated over a range of 80 to 1500 pg/mL for sTNFRI and 40 to 1000 pg/mL for sTNFRII in human serum. Quality control samples at 5 concentrations were used to determine precision and accuracy. Intra-assay precision ranged from 1.7 to 8.1%, while inter-assay precision ranged from 3.7 to 8.9%. Intra-assay accuracy (defined as % error from nominal) ranged from −0.2 to −4.3% and the inter-assay accuracy ranged from −2.5 to 6.6%. We demonstrate that both analytes are stable in human serum for at least 17 hours at room temperature and after 5 freeze/thaw cycles at −20°C or −70°C. Both analytes are also stable in human serum for at least 60 days at −20°C or −70°C. The endogenous serum concentrations in the healthy subjects ranged from 2,448 to 7,139 pg/mL for sTNFRI and from 2,706 to 5,752 pg/mL for sTNFRII. The dilution reproducibility, matrix effect and recovery will also be presented.

Conclusion: Highly sensitive ELISA methods have been validated for the quantitation of sTNFRI and sTNFRII in human serum. The assays were proved to be sensitive, selective, accurate, reproducible and reliable as a bioanalytical method for assessing sTNFRI and sTNFRII as clinical biomarkers for disease progression and drug PD and efficacy analysis.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4588.

Adhesion molecule polymorphisms and pulse wave velocity in American youth

BACKGROUND

Our research group recently reported that aorto-radial (radial) and aorto-dorsalis-pedis (foot) pulse wave velocity (PWV) as proxies of arterial stiffness are substantially heritable in healthy youth. This article aimed at uncovering the genetic contributions of adhesion molecules, key members in the inflammatory process, to PWV in these young individuals.

METHODS

Radial and foot PWV were noninvasively measured with applanation tonometry in 702 black and white subjects (42% blacks, mean age 17.7 +/- 3.3 years) from the Georgia Cardio vascular Twin Study. Eight functional polymorphisms from genes for E-selectin (SELE), P-selectin (SELP), intercellular adhesion molecules-1 (ICAM1), and vascular cell adhesion molecules-1 (VCAM1) were genotyped.

RESULTS

Youth with Ser290Asn or Asn290Asn genotype (SELP) compared to those with Ser290Ser had an increase in both radial and foot PWV (6.61 +/- 0.07 vs. 6.41 +/- 0.05 m/s, p = .026; 7.22 +/- 0.05 vs. 7.04 +/- 0.04 m/s, p = .007). TT homozygotes of rs2244529 (SELP) had higher foot PWV (7.28 +/- 0.07 vs. 7.06 +/- 0.03 m/s, p = .002) than CT heterozygotes and CC homozygotes. There appeared to be a decrease in foot PWV in youth with the 241Arg allele (ICAM1) as compared to those without (6.96 +/- 0.08 vs. 7.14 +/- 0.03 m/s, p = .005). For the Asp693Asp (C to T) polymorphism (VCAM1), CC genotype had higher foot PWV than CT and TT genotypes (7.18 +/- 0.04 vs. 6.95 +/- 0.06 m/s, p < .0001). There was an epistatic interaction between Ser290Asn, Gly241Arg, and Asp693Asp on foot PWV (p = .017), explaining 3.6% variance of the foot PWV.

CONCLUSION

Genetic variation of adhesion molecules may be implicated in the development of arterial stiffness. Screening for adhesion molecule polymorphisms may help identify high-risk youth.

Lipid Nanoparticles with Accessible Nickel as a Vaccine Delivery System for Single and Multiple His-tagged HIV Antigens

Lipid-based nanoparticles (NPs) with a small amount of surface-chelated nickel (Ni-NPs) were developed to easily formulate the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) his-tagged Tat (his-Tat) protein, as well as to formulate and co-deliver two HIV antigens (his-p24 and his-Nef) on one particle. Female BALB/c mice were immunized by subcutaneous injection with his-Tat/Ni-NP formulation (1.5 μg his-Tat/mouse) and control formulations on day 0 and 14. The day 28 anti-Tat specific immunoglobulin G titer with his-Tat/Ni-NPs was significantly greater than that with Alum/his-Tat. Furthermore, splenocytes from his-Tat/Ni-NP-immunized mice secreted significantly higher IFN-γ than those from mice immunized with Alum/his-Tat. Although Ni-NPs did not show better adjuvant activity than Tat-coated anionic NPs made with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS/NPs), they were less toxic than SDS/NPs. The initial results indicated that co-immunization of mice using his-p24/his-Nef/Ni-NP induced greater antibody response compared to using Alum/his-p24/his-Nef. Co-delivery of two antigens using Ni-NPs also increased the immunogenicity of individual antigens compared to delivery of a single antigen by Ni-NPs. In conclusion, Ni-NPs are an efficient delivery system for HIV vaccines including both single antigen delivery and multiple antigen co-delivery.

Application of Hilbert-Huang transform for the study of motor imagery tasks

A motor based Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) translates the subject's motor intention into a control signal by means of the method which extracts characteristic feature from EEG recorded from the scalp. In this paper, the EEG signal recorded during three motor imagery tasks, which were imagination of left hand, right hand and foot movements, was investigated. A novel method named Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) is introduced to extract the feature from signal. Firstly, raw signal is decomposed using Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD). And then, several Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMF) are gained. For further study, the IMFs whose main frequency is higher than 5 Hz are selected. Secondly, based on the IMFs selected above, Hilbert spectrum is calculated. In each motor imagery task, local instantaneous energies, within specific frequency band of electrode C3 and C4, are selected as the features. A three-layer BP Neural Network classifier is structured for pattern classification. The classification results show that HHT can be used in EEG-based BCI research as a method to analysis non-linear and non-stationary signal.

Urinary prostasin: a possible biomarker for renal pressure natriuresis in black adolescents

Prostasin is a membrane-bound/secretive serine protease interacting with aldosterone and the epithelial sodium channel in the kidney. We and others have previously proposed the concept of stress-induced pressure natriuresis (SIPN) where increased urinary sodium excretion (UNaV) is coupled with elevated blood pressure (BP) in response to behavioral stress in normotensive adolescents. This study thus aimed to test the relationship between prostasin and pressure natriuresis using the SIPN model. A cohort of 102 normotensive black adolescents (mean age: 17.0 +/- 1.2 y; 56% females) were placed on a controlled sodium (4000 +/- 200 mg/d) and potassium (2600 +/- 200 mg/d) diet for three days before testing. The SIPN protocol consisted of a 1-h baseline period, a 1-h stress period (competitive video game), and a 1-h recovery period. During the stress period, BP elevation was coupled with an increase in UNaV. Urinary prostasin concentration had more than a 2-fold reduction from baseline (38.4 +/- 32.7 ng/mL) to stress (17.2 +/- 16.0 ng/mL), and further declined during recovery (12.1 +/- 16.2 ng/mL) (p < 0.001). Urinary prostasin was inversely correlated with UNaV during stress (r = -0.43, p = 0.0001), even after being normalized by urinary creatinine. Our data suggest that urinary prostasin could be a novel biomarker and/or mechanism for renal pressure natriuresis in normotensive black adolescents.

Retinex enhancement of infrared images

With the ability of imaging the temperature distribution of body, infrared imaging is promising in diagnostication and prognostication of diseases. However the poor quality of the raw original infrared images prevented applications and one of the essential problems is the low contrast appearance of the imagined object. In this paper, the image enhancement technique based on the Retinex theory is studied, which is a process that automatically retrieve the visual realism to images. The algorithms, including Frackle-McCann algorithm, McCann99 algorithm, single-scale Retinex algorithm, multi-scale Retinex algorithm and multi-scale Retinex algorithm with color restoration, are experienced to the enhancement of infrared images. The entropy measurements along with the visual inspection were compared and results shown the algorithms based on Retinex theory have the ability in enhancing the infrared image. Out of the algorithms compared, MSRCR demonstrated the best performance.

Efficacy and safety of (32)P-nanocolloid for treatment of distant lymph node metastasis in VX2 tumor-bearing rabbits

BACKGROUND

Eradication of micrometastases present in lymph nodes of cancer patients improves their prognosis significantly. Radionuclide therapy possesses the potential to eliminate such metastases.

OBJECTIVE

This study was performed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of (32)P-nanocolloid therapy in the treatment of distant carcinoma cell metastases in lymph nodes of VX2 tumor-bearing rabbits.

METHODS

To obtain VX2 tumor micrometastases in right armpit lymph nodes of 12 male New Zealand white rabbits, VX2 tumors were implanted by hypodermal inoculation into the right anterior limb. Animals were randomly divided into therapy (n = 6) and control (n = 6) groups. (32)P-nanocolloid (0.5 mCi), 95% of which was >50 nm in diameter, was administered to the therapy group, and saline was administered to the control group. Injections were given once weekly for 4 weeks.

RESULTS

2-Deoxy-2[(18)F]-fluoro-D -glucose positron emission tomography revealed that the number of involved lymph nodes and the maximum standardized uptake value decreased in the (32)P-nanocolloid therapy group as compared with the baseline or saline control group (P < 0.05). The expression of the lymphangiogenesis factors vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF)-C and VEGF-D by VX2 tumor cells present in lymph nodes was significantly lower in the therapy group as compared with the control group. Additionally, apoptotic VX2 tumor cell death was significantly greater in lymph nodes of the therapy as compared with the control group (P < 0.01). With the exception of a decrease in white blood cells of peripheral blood (P < 0.05), standard laboratory values were unaffected throughout the course of therapy with (32)P-nanocolloid.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings support treatment with (32)P-nanocolloid as a safe and effective approach for eradication of lymph node micrometastases.

Smoothness processing of infrared image based on AMSS

The Infrared images have been applied in clinical diagnoses, but the images are noisy and blurred. Therefore the smooth processing that can keep edges is needed. Traditional smoothing methods have the common defect that they smooth not only the noise region but also the edges. AMSS (affine morphological scale space) algorithm can be used to better save the edge information, it has the Partial Differential Equation that is of morphological affine invariability and contrast invariability. The smooth processing method based on AMSS is introduced to handle the infrared image in this paper, and the better performance is obtained.

The effects of salt on the physicochemical properties and immunogenicity of protein based vaccine formulated in cationic liposome

Recently, we have developed a simple and potent therapeutic cancer vaccine consisting of a cationic lipid and a peptide antigen. In this report, we expanded the utility of this formulation to protein based vaccines. First, we formulated the human papillomavirus (HPV) 16 E7 protein (E7) in different doses of DOTAP liposome. The results showed that these formulations failed to regress an established tumor. However, when sodium chloride (30 mM) was added to the DOTAP (100 nmol)/E7 (20 microg) formulation, anti-tumor activity was generated in the immunized mice. Correlatively, 30 mM NaCl in the DOTAP/E7 protein formulation increased the particle size from approximately 350 to 550 nm, decreased the protein loading capacity (from 95 to 90%), and finally increased the zeta potential (from 29 to 38 mV). Next, a model protein antigen ovalbumin (OVA) was formulated in different doses of DOTAP liposomes. Similarly, the results showed that 20 microg OVA formulated in 200 nmol DOTAP with 30 mM NaCl had the best OVA-specific antibody response, including both IgG(1) and IgG(2a), suggesting both Th1 and Th2 immune responses were generated by this formulation. In conclusion, we have expanded the application of cationic DOTAP liposome formulation to protein based vaccines and also identified that small amounts of salt could change the physicochemical properties of the vaccine formulation and enhance the activity of the DOTAP/protein based vaccine. The enhancement of immune responses by salt is possibly due to its interference of the electrostatic interaction between the cationic lipid and the protein antigen to facilitate the antigen release from the carrier and at the same time activate the antigen presenting cells.

The optimal design of magnetic coil in transcranial magnetic stimulation

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a new tool for the study of the human brain and for neurological therapeutics. Magnetic coil design is very important in the TMS technique. Precise spatial localization of stimulation sites is the key of efficient functional magnetic stimulations. This paper develops circular coils, figure-of-8 coils and coil array elements in order to realize a transcranial magnetic stimulator, and analyses the coil properties. The results show that different coils have different focus.

Prostasin: a possible candidate gene for human hypertension

BACKGROUND

Prostasin, a serine protease, is suggested to be a novel mechanism regulating the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) expressed in the distal nephron. This study aimed to evaluate whether the human prostasin gene is a novel candidate gene underlying blood pressure (BP) elevation.

METHODS

In a sample of healthy African-American (AA) and European-American (EA) twin subjects aged 17.6 +/- 3.3 years (n = 920, 45% AAs), race-specific tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms (tSNPs) were identified to tag all the available SNPs +/- 2 kb up- and downstream of the prostasin gene from HapMap at r2 of 0.8-1.0. Selection yielded four tSNPs in AAs and one in EAs, with one tSNP (rs12597511: C to T) present in both AAs and EAs.

RESULTS

For rs12597511, CT and TT genotypes exhibited higher systolic BP (SBP) than CC genotype (115.9 +/- 1.1 mm Hg vs. 113.7 +/- 0.6 mm Hg, P = 0.025 (AAs); and 110.7 +/- 0.5 mm Hg vs. 109.6 +/- 0.6 mm Hg, P = 0.115 (EAs)). CT and TT genotypes compared with CC genotype showed a significant increase in diastolic BP (DBP) in both racial groups (62.5 +/- 0.7 mm Hg vs. 60.4 +/- 0.4 mm Hg, P = 0.003 (AAs); and 58.2 +/- 0.3 mm Hg vs. 56.7 +/- 0.4 mm Hg, P = 0.007 (EAs)). Furthermore, there was an increase in radial pulse wave velocity (PWV) in subjects with CT and TT genotype as compared with those with CC genotype (6.5 +/- 0.1 vs. 6.1 +/- 0.1 m/s, P < 0.0001) (EAs); and 6.7 +/- 0.1 vs. 6.6 +/- 0.1 m/s, P = 0.354 (AAs)). Analyses combining AAs and EAs consistently demonstrated a statistical significance of rs12597511 on all the phenotypes including SBP/DBP and PWV.

CONCLUSION

Genetic variation of the prostasin gene may be implicated in the development of hypertension in youths..