Seasonal abundance and activity of the tick Dermacentor silvarum in northern China

Studies on the seasonal abundance and activity of larvae, nymphs and adults of Dermacentor silvarum (Ixodida: Ixodidae), both on and off the host, were carried out over a 2-year period from February 2008 to January 2010 in northern China. During the study period, feeding ticks were removed weekly from domestic sheep and free-living ticks were collected weekly by flag-dragging in four different habitat types. Rodents were captured and inspected for immature ticks from June to September 2008. The results of this study suggest that the ticks mainly reside in shrubs and complete only one generation per year with sequential seasonal distribution and little overlap between the activity of the larvae and nymphs. Adults were most prevalent from late February to late May and peaked in number in mid-April. Larvae were found from early June to early September and peaked in number in mid-July. Nymphs were mainly distributed from late June to late September and peaked in mid-August. Adult and nymphal D. silvarum were found primarily on the ears of sheep, but no larvae were found on sheep. Additionally, an overwintering male adult population was detected on sheep after October, but no free-living adults were found by dragging.

Measurement of the isolated prompt photon production cross section in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

The differential cross section for the inclusive production of isolated prompt photons has been measured as a function of the photon transverse energy E(T)(γ) in pp collisions at √s=7  TeV using data recorded by the CMS detector at the LHC. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.9  pb(-1). Photons are required to have a pseudorapidity |η(γ)|<1.45 and E(T)(γ)>21  GeV, covering the kinematic region 0.006<x(T)<0.086. The measured cross section is found to be in agreement with next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations.

Infliximab for the treatment of acute exacerbations of ulcerative colitis

This paper presents a summary of the evidence review group (ERG) report into the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of infliximab for the treatment of acute exacerbations of ulcerative colitis, in accordance with the licensed indication, based upon the manufacturer's submission to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) as part of the single technology appraisal process. The submitted clinical evidence included four randomised controlled trials (RCTs), two comparing infliximab with placebo in patients not responsive to initial treatment with intravenous corticosteroids and one comparing ciclosporin with placebo. A fourth RCT compared ciclosporin with intravenous corticosteroids as the initial treatment after hospitalisation. The manufacturer's submission concluded that infliximab provides clinical benefit to patients with acute severe, steroid-refractory ulcerative colitis and is well tolerated; it also provides additional clinical benefits over ciclosporin, particularly avoidance of colectomy. A decision tree model was built to compare infliximab with strategies involving ciclosporin, standard care and surgery. After correcting a small number of errors in the model, the revised base-case incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) for infliximab compared with standard care was 20,000 pounds. However, sensitivity analyses revealed considerable uncertainty emanating from the weight of the patient, the timeframe considered and, most importantly, the colectomy rates used. When a more appropriate mix of trials were included in the estimation of colectomy rates, the ICER for infliximab rose to 48,000 pounds. The guidance issued by NICE on 31 October 2008 states that infliximab is recommended as an option for the treatment of acute exacerbations of severely active ulcerative colitis only in patients in whom ciclosporin is contraindicated or clinically inappropriate, based on a careful assessment of the risks and benefits of treatment in the individual patient; for people who do not meet this criterion, infliximab should only be used for the treatment of acute exacerbations of severely active ulcerative colitis in clinical trials.

Reduction of nodal micrometastases in patients with histological node-negative esophageal cancer after neoadjuvant treatment

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Background: Neoadjuvant chemoradiation (CRT) is important in the treatment ofesophageal cancer. Rationales are tumor-downstaging and elimination of micrometastases improving resectability and curability rate. In this study we evaluated the effect of neo-adjuvant CRT on nodal micrometastases (NMM) in pN0 esophageal cancer patients.

Methods: From a prospective database, we selected a matched group of patients on cT-stage, histological type and treatment without (group 1) or with neo-adjuvant CRT (group 2). Patients were staged by EUS, PET-scan, CT-scan and EUS guided cytology. CRT was given in a randomized clinical trial and consisted of paclitaxel 50 mg/m2 and carboplatin AUC = 2 for 5 weeks and concurrent radiotherapy (41.4 Gy/23 frs). All patients (n = 19) underwent a curative intended transthoracic esophagectomy with extended 2-field nodal dissection. After reviewing routine pathological examination all tumors were confirmed as stage pN0. Four sections of every examined lymph node (n = 261) were made at different levels according to a sentinel node protocol and further analyzed immunohistochemically with anti-CK8/18 (CAM 5.2) to detect NMM.

Results: Patients characteristics were equally distributed. All patients had a microscopically radical (R0) resection. In group 2 (n = 9) the response rate was 55% which was complete (CR) in 33%. The median number of resected nodes was comparable: 15 ± 6.5 and 15 ± 5.6 in both groups. Thirtheen of the 261 (5%) pN0 nodes in these 19 pts contained NMM. In group 1 (n = 10); 12 of the 136 (9%) examined pN0 lymph nodes were positive and in group 2 only one of the 125 (0.8%) examined pN0 nodes was positive (p = 0.003). NMM were found in 7 pts (70%) in group 1 and in only one patient (11%) in group 2 (p = 0.02). Interestingly, this last patient had responded well to CRT.

Conclusions: Neo-adjuvant CRT seems to have a significant impact on the numbers of NMMs in esophageal cancer. Based on the presence of NMM even in patients with good responses, we still advocate a curatively intended nodal dissection.

No significant financial relationships to disclose.

Centrality dependence of the charged-particle multiplicity density at midrapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[s(NN)] = 2.76 TeV

The centrality dependence of the charged-particle multiplicity density at midrapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=2.76  TeV is presented. The charged-particle density normalized per participating nucleon pair increases by about a factor of 2 from peripheral (70%-80%) to central (0%-5%) collisions. The centrality dependence is found to be similar to that observed at lower collision energies. The data are compared with models based on different mechanisms for particle production in nuclear collisions.

Search for stopped Gluinos in pp collisions at square root s=7 TeV

The results of the first search for long-lived gluinos produced in 7 TeV pp collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider are presented. The search looks for evidence of long-lived particles that stop in the CMS detector and decay in the quiescent periods between beam crossings. In a dataset with a peak instantaneous luminosity of 1×10(32) cm-2 s-1, an integrated luminosity of 10 pb-1, and a search interval corresponding to 62 hours of LHC operation, no significant excess above background was observed. Limits at the 95% confidence level on gluino pair production over 13 orders of magnitude of gluino lifetime are set. For a mass difference mg - mχ1(0) >100 GeV/c2, and assuming BR(g→gχ1(0))=100%, mg < 370 GeV/c2 are excluded for lifetimes from 10 μs to 1000 s.

The role of p27(Kip1) phosphorylation at serine 10 in the migration of malignant glioma cells in vitro

Until recently, Cip/Kip members were almost solely viewed as nuclear proteins with a principal function of inhibiting cyclin/cyclin dependent kinase (CDK) activity and hence, inhibiting cell cycle progression. P27(Kip1) (hereafter p27) belongs to the Cip/Kip family that binds and inhibits all the cyclin/CDK complexes, thus often referred as a universal CDK inhibitor. However, emerging studies now suggest that Cip/Kip proteins play additional roles outside of the nucleus. Indeed, previous reports have linked p27 to the regulation of actin dynamics and cell migration. In this study, we constructed a model of migration-activated glioma cells by using the migration-stimulating substrate, a kind of ECM, laminin in vitro. Our results present evidence that laminin drives glioma cell migration without altering cell proliferation. Further, actively migrating cells which expressioned high phosphorylation of p27 at Ser10, and induced its cytoplasmic localization. In this process, Jab1 and CRM1 were also involved. Thus phosphorylation of p27 at Ser10 is necessary for both cytoplasmic localization and induction of cell migration. These observations solidified a genetic role of p27 in cell migration and this was independent of cyclin/CDK inhibition. Eventually, we transiently transfected p27S10A into T98G glioma cells, found that overexpression of p27S10A inhibited cell migration but not cell proliferation. These data linked phosphorylation of p27 at Ser10 and cell motility. Therefore, the major phosphorylation site at Ser10 of p27 played a pivotal role in the migration of malignant glioma cells.

Impaired amyloid β-degrading enzymes in brain of streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats

Enzymes that degrade the amyloid β-peptide (Aβ) are important regulators of cerebral Aβ levels. High level of Aβ was found in the brain of diabetic patients and diabetic animals. Aim of the study was to investigate whether activities of Aβ-degrading enzymes neprilysin (NEP), endothelin-converting enzyme 1 (ECE-1) and insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) were impaired in the brain of diabetic rats. Diabetes was induced in rats by ip administration of 65 mg/kg streptozotocin. The temporal cortex and hippocampus were obtained for activity and mRNA level assays of the three enzymes on the 35th day after induction. ECE-1 activity was significantly decreased both in the hippocampus and cortex of diabetic rats, while for IDE significantly lower activity occurred only in the cortex. NEP activity was slightly decreased in both brain regions. The hippocampus of diabetic rats showed significant decrease in mRNA levels of NEP and ECE-1 and moderate increase in IDE mRNA level. The cortex of diabetic rats showed slight decrease in mRNA levels of the three enzymes. The results indicated that the three Aβ-degrading enzymes were damaged to different extents in the brain of diabetic rats, and impairment of ECE-1 and IDE partly contributed to the elevated Aβ(1-40) levels in brain of diabetic rats.

Search for quark compositeness with the dijet centrality ratio in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

A search for quark compositeness in the form of quark contact interactions, based on hadronic jet pairs (dijets) produced in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV, is described. The data sample of the study corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.9 pb(-1) collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. The dijet centrality ratio, which quantifies the angular distribution of the dijets, is measured as a function of the invariant mass of the dijet system and is found to agree with the predictions of the standard model. A statistical analysis of the data provides a lower limit on the energy scale of quark contact interactions. The sensitivity of the analysis is such that the expected limit is 2.9 TeV; because the observed value of the centrality ratio at high invariant mass is below the expectation, the observed limit is 4.0 TeV at the 95% confidence level.

Elliptic flow of charged particles in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[S(NN)] = 2.76 TeV

We report the first measurement of charged particle elliptic flow in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[S(NN)] =2.76 TeV with the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is performed in the central pseudorapidity region (|η|<0.8) and transverse momentum range 0.2<p t<5.0 GeV/c. The elliptic flow signal v₂, measured using the 4-particle correlation method, averaged over transverse momentum and pseudorapidity is 0.087 ± 0.002(stat) ± 0.003(syst) in the 40%-50% centrality class. The differential elliptic flow v₂ p t reaches a maximum of 0.2 near p t =3 GeV/c. Compared to RHIC Au-Au collisions at sqrt[S(NN)] 200 GeV, the elliptic flow increases by about 30%. Some hydrodynamic model predictions which include viscous corrections are in agreement with the observed increase.

Charged-particle multiplicity density at midrapidity in central Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[S(NN)] = 2.76 TeV

The first measurement of the charged-particle multiplicity density at midrapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair √ S NN = 2.76 TeV is presented. For an event sample corresponding to the most central 5% of the hadronic cross section, the pseudorapidity density of primary charged particles at midrapidity is 1584 ± 4(stat) ± 76(syst), which corresponds to 8.3 ± 0.4(syst) per participating nucleon pair. This represents an increase of about a factor 1.9 relative to pp collisions at similar collision energies, and about a factor 2.2 to central Au-Au collisions at √ S NN = 2.76 TeV. This measurement provides the first experimental constraint for models of nucleus-nucleus collisions at LHC energies.

Abstract P3-08-02: Pharmacogenomic Predictors of Patient Response to Chemotherapy Derived from Breast Cancer Cell Lines Combining Knowledge-Based and Data-Driven Methods

Background: Responses of breast cancer patients to chemotherapy treatments vary considerably, and population treatment response rates remain low. To improve patient outcomes, genomic profiles have been used to identify patients who would benefit from specific treatments. Several studies have used cancer cell lines to develop pharmacogenomic predictors by identifying genes associated with drug response. However, pharmacogenomic predictors derived by this data-driven approach may not readily elucidate the underlying mechanisms associated with drug responses, because the identified predictors by computational methods may not directly associate with drug responses considering the complex genetic regulatory network. To overcome this issue, we proposed a strategy to integrate data-driven methods with biological knowledge-based approaches to identify genomic predictors. We then applied this approach to breast cancer cell lines to identify genomic predictors of paclitaxel-5-fluorouracil-doxorubicin-cyclophosphamide (TFAC), the identified predictors are then evaluated by their ability to predict the clinical outcome of the breast cancer patients who are treated by TFAC. Material: Thirty immortalized breast cancer cell lines were exposed to various concentrations of TFAC using a chemosensitivity assay. Area under the dose-response curves was calculated to measure chemoresponses. Gene expression profiles of the 30 cell lines, the expression profiles as well as the pathologic complete response (pCR) information of 133 breast cancer patients treated by TFAC were publicly available. Methods: We performed pathway enrichment analysis in breast cancer cell lines to assess the association between drug response and curated gene sets predefined by molecular signature database. Pathways with p-value less than 0.01 were considered enriched. The genes from the enriched pathways whose expression values were highly correlated with drug sensitivity were selected as the pharmacogenomic predictors. To validate these predictors, the performances of their prediction for patients’ pCR were evaluated using principle component regression method.

Results: Using pathway enrichment analysis, 17 pathways were identified to be related to TFAC drug response. These pathways are related to different biological functions, including breast cancer ER status and BRCA type, immune response, differentiation, and drug response. Using supervised principal component regression, 59 genes involved in at least one of these 17 pathways were selected as genomic predictors. The prediction accuracy of patient pCR was 0.70, sensitivity was 0.71, and specificity was 0.70. Conclusion: By combining knowledge-based and data-driven methods, we have identified 59 genes from breast cancer cell lines as pharmacogenomic predictors of drug response to TFAC. These results support the viability of using breast cancer cell lines to predict breast cancer patient response to chemotherapy. Further functional study of these pharmacogenomic predictors will extend our understanding of individual drug response and facilitate personalized treatment.

Citation Information: Cancer Res 2010;70(24 Suppl):Abstract nr P3-08-02.

Abstract P2-09-10: Feasibility Assessment of Pharmacogenomic Predictors Developed from Breast Cancer Cell Lines To Predict Breast Cancer Patient Pathological Response in Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy

Background: Studies of developing pharmacogenomic predictors from cancer cell lines to predict cancer patient clinical response and outcome to chemotherapy have yielded both positive and negative results. The variability in these results may arise from the noise inherent of microarray technology as well as the small sample size of in cell line studies. Therefore, it is greatly needed to evaluate the feasibility of using cell lines to develop pharmacogenomic predictors of patient pathological response. Material and Methods: Thirty breast cancer cell lines were exposed to 10 concentrations of paclitaxel-5-fluorouracil-doxorubicin-cyclophosphamide (TFAC) to measure in vitro chemosensitivity. Two independent and publicly available microarray datasets (Hoeflich and Neve) on these breast cancer cell lines together with the chemosensitivity results were used to identify pharmacogenomic predictors from each dataset. Two independent clinical trials (Hess and Popovici) with publically available data, having 130 and 100 patients respectively, were used as test sets to validate the accuracy of the pharmacogenomic predictors. All patients received TFAC as neoadjuvant therapy and the gene expression profiles of patients were assessed before receiving chemotherapy treatment. The patient's pathological complete response (pCR) was determined after treatment to evaluate the chemotherapy efficacy.

The pharmacogenomic predictors developed from each of the cell line studies were evaluated for their ability to predict patient pCR in each of the clinical trials using the supervised principle component regression method.

Results: The pharmacogenomic predictors identified from the Hoeflich and Neve cell line data (training sets) predicted pCR of the patients in the two clinical trials (test sets) with 64%-68% accuracy, 70%-87% sensitivity, and 60%-67% specificity when 100 genes were selected as pharmacogenomic predictors (Table 1).

Conclusions: The four independent prediction results generated in this study demonstrate the feasibility of using breast cancer cell lines to identify pharmacogenomic predictors of response to chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer patients. Future studies will examine the use of drug responses from primary cultures of patient tumors to develop pharmacogenomic predictors of breast cancer patient responses to chemotherapy treatment.

Table 1. Prediction of breast cancer patients’ pCR by pharmacogenomic predictors derived from breast cancer cell lines.

Therapeutic effects of TACI-Ig on rat with adjuvant arthritis

Transmembrane activator and calcium modulator and cyclophilin ligand interactor-immunoglobulin (TACI-Ig) is a human fusion protein that binds and neutralizes both B lymphocyte stimulator (BLyS), a cytokine shown to be a key regulator of B cell maturation, proliferation and survival, and a proliferation-inducing ligand (APRIL). Rat adjuvant arthritis (AA) is an experimental animal model of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which is mainly dependent on T cells and neutrophil-mediated cytokine production. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of TACI-Ig on rat AA. Rat AA was induced by intradermal injection of 0·1 ml complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA). TACI-Ig (0·7, 2·1 and 6·3 mg/kg), recombinant human tumour necrosis factor-α receptor (rhTNFR) : Fc (2·8 mg/kg) and IgG-Fc (6·3 mg/kg) were administered subcutaneously every other day from days 16 to 34 after immunization. Arthritis was evaluated by arthritis global assessment and swollen joint count (SJC). The ankle joint and spleen were harvested for histopathological examination. Spleen index and thymus index were calculated. The levels of BLyS, interleukin (IL)-17, interferon (IFN)-γ, IgG1, IgG2a and IgM in AA rat spleen were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Administration of TACI-Ig significantly reduced the arthritis global assessment and SJC, decreased spleen index and ameliorated histopathological manifestations of rat AA. Suppressing the levels of BLyS, IL-17, IFN-γ and Ig in AA rat spleen were observed after administration of TACI-Ig. These results showed that TACI-Ig significantly inhibited the degree of rat AA, and the inhibitory effects might be associated with its ability to reduce BLyS, proinflammatory cytokines and Ig levels in spleen.

Porphyromonas gingivalis promotes murine abdominal aortic aneurysms via matrix metalloproteinase-2 induction

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a common and lethal disorder, and MMPs are highly expressed in AAA lesions. Large numbers of periodontopathic bacteria have been reported to be present in specimens obtained from the aortic walls of patients with an AAA. The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of periodontopathic bacteria on AAA dilatation.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

AAAs were produced in mice by the periaortic application of 0.25 M CaCl(2), and NaCl was used as a control. The mice were inoculated once weekly with live Porphyromonas gingivalis, live Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans or vehicle.

RESULTS

Four weeks after the periaortic application of either CaCl(2) or NaCl, a significant increase was observed in the aortic diameter of P. gingivalis-challenged mice compared with the vehicle control mice (p < 0.05), whereas there was no statistically significant increase in the aortic diameter of the A. actinomycetemcomitans-challenged mice. Immunohistochemical analysis found significantly higher numbers of CD8-positive and MOMA2-positive cells and significantly higher levels of MMP-2 in the aneurysmal samples of P. gingivalis-challenged mice compared with control mice. Live P. gingivalis promoted a significant proliferation of splenocytes in comparison with P. gingivalis-lipopolysaccharide and live A. actinomycetemcomitans (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

These findings demonstrate that challenge with P. gingivalis, but not with A. actinomycetemcomitans, can accelerate, or even initiate, the progression of experimental AAA through the increased expression of MMPs.

Search for dijet resonances in 7 TeV pp collisions at CMS

A search for narrow resonances in the dijet mass spectrum is performed using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.9 pb⁻¹ collected by the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Upper limits at the 95% confidence level are presented on the product of the resonance cross section, branching fraction into dijets, and acceptance, separately for decays into quark-quark, quark-gluon, or gluon-gluon pairs. The data exclude new particles predicted in the following models at the 95% confidence level: string resonances, with mass less than 2.50 TeV, excited quarks, with mass less than 1.58 TeV, and axigluons, colorons, and E6 diquarks, in specific mass intervals. This extends previously published limits on these models.

Detection of cervical metastatic lymph nodes in papillary thyroid carcinoma by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

Background

A previous study demonstrated that Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy can distinguish thyroid cancer from benign thyroid lesions. The aim of this study was to explore the use of FTIR for identifying metastatic lymph nodes of papillary thyroid cancer in vitro, and distinguishing between metastatic and non-metastatic tissue.

Methods

Some 184 freshly removed cervical lymph nodes were obtained from 22 patients with papillary thyroid cancer undergoing thyroid surgery with lymph node dissection. Samples were measured by FTIR spectroscopy before being processed for histopathological diagnosis. The FTIR spectrum of each sample identified 13 bands from 1000 to 4000 cm−1. The peak position, intensity and full width at half maximum of each absorbent band were measured, and the relative intensity ratios were calculated. The FTIR spectra of metastatic lymph nodes were compared with those of non-metastatic nodes, and a linear discriminant analysis was performed based on these data.

Results

Histopathological examination confirmed 61 metastatic and 123 non-metastatic lymph nodes. The FTIR parameters of metastatic and non-metastatic lymph nodes differed owing to the content or configuration alterations of nucleic acids, proteins, lipids and carbohydrates. The sensitivity for FTIR in diagnosing metastatic lymph nodes was 80·3 per cent, the specificity was 91·9 per cent and the accuracy was 88·0 per cent.

Conclusion

FTIR spectroscopy is a novel technique for detection of metastatic lymph nodes and may prove useful in surgery for papillary thyroid cancer.

Obesity predicts persistence of pain in children with functional gastrointestinal disorders

OBJECTIVE

The possible effect of obesity in the outcome of treated children with abdominal pain-related functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) has not yet been studied. We hypothesized that obesity is associated with a poor long-term prognosis in children with FGIDs.

STUDY DESIGN

Prospective cohort study in an outpatient clinic-based sample of patients diagnosed with abdominal pain-related FGIDs. Principal outcome measured was persistence of pain at long-term follow-up (12-15 months). Frequency of pain, intensity of pain, school absenteeism and disruption of daily activities were compared between obese and non-obese subjects.

RESULTS

The group mean age was 13.27±3.84 years, distribution of diagnosis was 32% (functional abdominal pain), 42.5% (irritable bowel syndrome) and 25.5% (functional dyspepsia). Overall, 20.2% of patients were obese. A total of 116 patients (61.7%) reported abdominal pain and 72 (38.3%) were asymptomatic at long-term follow-up. Obese patients were more likely to have abdominal pain (P<0.0001), higher intensity of pain (P=0.0002), higher frequency of pain (P=0.0032), school absenteeism (P<0.0001) and disruption of daily activities (P<0.0001) at follow-up than non-obese patients.

CONCLUSION

Obesity is associated with poor outcome and disability at long-term follow-up in children with abdominal pain-related FGIDs. Our novel findings could have important implications in the prognosis and management of FGIDs.