Multi-targeted approach in the treatment of thyroid cancer

Thyroid cancer is the most common malignancy of the endocrine system. There are several variants, ranging from well-differentiated cancers, such as papillary carcinomas, to poorly differentiated types, which carry a worse prognosis. Many patients with well-differentiated thyroid cancers are cured by surgical intervention alone, while others require adjuvant therapy. For those patients with more aggressive tumors, such as metastatic and anaplastic thyroid cancers, surgery rarely offers a definitive cure and alternative treatment methods such as chemotherapy do not improve survival. Due to the difficulty in treating aggressive thyroid cancers, other novel therapies are needed. In this paper, we will review current strategies for managing the various types of thyroid carcinomas. We will also address many of the studied genetic pathways and new therapeutic drug targets for treating individual thyroid malignancies.

α8-integrins are required for hippocampal long-term potentiation but not for hippocampal-dependent learning

Integrins are heterodimeric transmembrane cell adhesion receptors that are essential for a wide range of biological functions via cell-matrix and cell-cell interactions. Recent studies have provided evidence that some of the subunits in the integrin family are involved in synaptic and behavioral plasticity. To further understand the role of integrins in the mammalian central nervous system, we generated a postnatal forebrain and excitatory neuron-specific knockout of alpha8-integrin in the mouse. Behavioral studies showed that the mutant mice are normal in multiple hippocampal-dependent learning tasks, including a T-maze, non-match-to-place working memory task for which other integrin subunits like alpha3- and beta1-integrin are required. In contrast, mice mutant for alpha8-integrin exhibited a specific impairment of long-term potentiation (LTP) at Schaffer collateral-CA1 synapses, whereas basal synaptic transmission, paired-pulse facilitation and long-term depression (LTD) remained unaffected. Because LTP is also impaired in the absence of alpha3-integrin, our results indicate that multiple integrin molecules are required for the normal expression of LTP, and different integrins display distinct roles in behavioral and neurophysiological processes like synaptic plasticity.

HLA-mismatched hematopoietic SCT without in vitro T-cell depletion for myelodysplastic syndrome

Allogeneic hematopoietic SCT (HSCT) is currently the only curative treatment for myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). However, many patients cannot find an HLA-matched donor. We have developed a new protocol for HLA-mismatched (including haploidentical) HSCT using G-CSF-primed BM plus G-CSF-mobilized PBSCs without in vitro T-cell depletion. A total of 36 patients diagnosed with high-risk MDS (RAEB (refractory anemia with excess blasts) or RAEBt (RAEB in transformation)) underwent transplantation from HLA-mismatched family donors. All patients achieved sustained myeloid engraftment. The cumulative incidence of grades II-IV acute GVHD (aGVHD) was 60% and that of grades III and IV aGVHD was 15%. The 2-year cumulative incidence of chronic GVHD was 56%. After a median follow-up of 17 months, 4 patients had relapsed and died and 25 patients were still alive. The 2-year probability of leukemia-free survival (LFS) was 65%. Patients transplanted within 7 months of diagnosis had better LFS (89 vs 43% ). Severe aGVHD decreased the LFS significantly by increasing non-relapse mortality (NRM). This study confirms that HLA-mismatched HSCT is a treatment option for MDS. Patients with high-risk MDS benefit from receiving HSCT early in the course of the disease.

Magnetic screening of the potential targeted protein of salvianolic acid B using T7 phage display library

Salvianolic acid B is one of the effective components from the Chinese traditional drug Salvia miltiorrhiza (Danshen), which is widely used as a usual clinic drug for atherosclerosis-related disorder patients in China. But the targeting protein of salvianolic acid B is still not known. The possible targeting proteins of salvianolic acid B were explored by high throughput screening in this paper. Attached to the magnetic nanoparticles, salvianolic acid B was used for screening the high-affinity protein from the displaying cDNA peptide library phage. After biopanning, the selected protein or peptide sequences were used to explore the whole proteins containing the selected sequences in the National Center for Biotechnology Information website using blast. One of the selected phages was carried out by affinity analysis with salvianolic acid B using capillary electrophoresis (CE). The CE results indicated that the protein or peptide on the surface of the selected phages could bind the drug salvianolic acid B. The results are helpful to preliminarily explain the pharmacology of salvianolic acid B.

Automated measurement of bone-mineral-density (BMD) values of vertebral bones based on X-ray torso CT images

Bone is one of the most important anatomical structures in humans and osteoporosis is one of the major public health concerns in the world. Osteoporosis is a main target disease of bone, which can be detected by medical image techniques. The purpose of this study is to develop a fully automated computer scheme to measure bone-mineral-density (BMD) values for vertebral trabecular bones. This scheme will aid osteoporosis diagnosis performed using computer tomography (CT) images. This scheme includes the following processing steps: segmentation of the bone region, recognition of the skeletal structures and measurement of the BMD value in vertebral trabecular bone of each vertebral body. The proposed scheme was applied to 20 X-ray torso CT cases to measure the BMD values for vertebral trabecular bones. The experimental results show that the mean and standard deviation of the difference between the BMD values measured by using the proposed method and those measured using a manual segmentation method were 6.93 mg/cm(3) and 6.82 mg/cm(3) respectively. The accuracy of the proposed scheme satisfied the requirement for a computer-aided system used in osteoporosis diagnosis.

Stereotactic radiosurgery for lung cancer

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in both men and women in the United States. Anatomic lobectomy is the standard treatment and offers the best results for curative treatment of early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). With an aging population, a significant proportion of patients are not surgical candidates at the time of diagnosis. In medically inoperable patients, standard external beam radiation has been offered as treatment, with suboptimal results. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), a term coined by Leksell describes an approach using multiple convergent beams, precise localization with a stereotactic coordinate system, and rigid immobilization. It provides precise delivery of beams from multiple collimated paths which maximizes radiation delivery to the tumor, and minimizes the exposure of normal tissue. Early results with SRS are very encouraging, and prospective trials are underway in our institution and others to evaluate its role in early stage NSCLC. In article we review the role of stereotactic radiosurgery for the treatment of lung cancer.

Quantitative spectroscopic imaging with in situ measurements of tissue water T1, T2, and density

The use of tissue water as a concentration standard in proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS) of the brain requires that the water proton signal be adjusted for relaxation and partial volume effects. While single voxel (1)H-MRS studies have often included measurements of water proton T(1), T(2), and density based on additional (1)H-MRS acquisitions (e.g., at multiple echo or repetition times), this approach is not practical for (1)H-MRS imaging ((1)H-MRSI). In this report we demonstrate a method for using in situ measurements of water T(1), T(2), and density to calculate metabolite concentrations from (1)H-MRSI data. The relaxation and density data are coregistered with the (1)H-MRSI data and provide detailed information on the water signal appropriate to the individual subject and tissue region. We present data from both healthy subjects and a subject with brain lesions, underscoring the importance of water parameter measurements on a subject-by-subject and voxel-by-voxel basis.

5-HT 3 receptors mediate the time-dependent vagal afferent modulation of nociception during chronic food allergen-sensitized visceral hyperalgesia in rats

Converging lines of evidence demonstrate a vagally mediated antinociceptive pathway in animals undergoing acute visceral insults, the contribution of this system to visceral pain following chronic noxious stimuli is unknown. 5-HT(3) receptor (5-HT(3)Rs) on spinal afferents are crucially involved in nociceptive processing, the role of 5-HT(3)Rs on vagal afferents is unclear. The aim of the present study was to determine the contribution of vagal afferents to visceral nociception in rats undergoing chronic luminal allergen stimulation and whether it involves vagal 5-HT(3)Rs. Sensitized rats received chicken egg albumin (EA, 1 mg mL(-1)) in drinking water for 2 weeks (day 1-14). Visceromotor response (VMR) to colorectal distension [colorectal distension (CRD), 60 mmHg] and the levels of mRNA encoding 5-HT(3)R (including 3A and 3B subunits) in the nodose ganglia (NG) were evaluated on day 2, 4, 8 and 15. Chronic EA challenge induced gradually increased visceral nociception, with a peak on day 15. Subdiaphragmatic vagotomy or functional deafferentation with capsaicin abolished this time-dependent manner, inducing hyperalgesia from day 2, lasting to day 15. Intraluminal infusion of a 5-HT(3)R antagonist (granisetron), whether alone or infused after local mucosa anaesthetic with 1% lidocaine, mimicked the effects of vagotomy. The mRNA levels for 5-HT(3B) or 5-HT(3A) subunit in the NG showed an opposite time-course to that of visceral pain, which increased from day 2, then decreased gradually to levels lower than those of controls. Our results demonstrate a time-dependent vagal afferent modulation of chronic allergen-sensitized visceral hyperalgesia, which may involve a 5-HT(3)R pathway.

Content Modeling Using Latent Permutations

We present a novel Bayesian topic model for learning discourse-level document structure. Our model leverages insights from discourse theory to constrain latent topic assignments in a way that reflects the underlying organization of document topics. We propose a global model in which both topic selection and ordering are biased to be similar across a collection of related documents. We show that this space of orderings can be effectively represented using a distribution over permutations called the Generalized Mallows Model. We apply our method to three complementary discourse-level tasks: cross-document alignment, document segmentation, and information ordering. Our experiments show that incorporating our permutation-based model in these applications yields substantial improvements in performance over previously proposed methods.