Development and evaluation of a fluorogenic real-time RT-PCR for the detection of dengue 3 virus

Recent Advances in DNA Nanotechnology-Enabled Biosensors for Virus Detection

Virus-related infectious diseases are serious threats to humans, which makes virus detection of great importance. Traditional virus-detection methods usually suffer from low sensitivity and specificity, are time-consuming, have a high cost, etc. Recently, DNA biosensors based on DNA nanotechnology have shown great potential in virus detection. DNA nanotechnology, specifically DNA tiles and DNA aptamers, has achieved atomic precision in nanostructure construction. Exploiting the programmable nature of DNA nanostructures, researchers have developed DNA nanobiosensors that outperform traditional virus-detection methods. This paper reviews the history of DNA tiles and DNA aptamers, and it briefly describes the Baltimore classification of virology. Moreover, the advance of virus detection by using DNA nanobiosensors is discussed in detail and compared with traditional virus-detection methods. Finally, challenges faced by DNA nanobiosensors in virus detection are summarized, and a perspective on the future development of DNA nanobiosensors in virus detection is also provided.

FAM115C could be a novel tumor suppressor associated with prolonged survival in pancreatic cancer patients

Hypoxia is a characteristic feature of the tumor microenvironment in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). We have recently explored new targeting molecules and pathways in PDAC cells under hypoxic conditions. In this study, we performed a microarray experiment to analyze the genes up-regulated in PDAC cell lines under hypoxia compared to normoxia, and identified human family with sequence similarity 115, member C (FAM115C) as a candidate gene for further study. Our data showed that FAM115C was overexpressed in PDAC cell lines under hypoxia, and FAM115C inhibition promoted PDAC cell migration and invasion in vitro. FAM115C inhibition did not affect tumor cell proliferation in PDAC. Immunohistochemically, FAM115C expression was observed ubiquitously in normal pancreas, pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) and PDAC tissue, and it was located mainly in the nucleus but also in the cytoplasm of cells. In qPCR analysis, high expression of FAM115C was correlated with better prognosis in patients with PDAC. Our findings suggest that FAM115C could be a novel tumor suppressor associated with prolonged survival in patients with PDAC.

Trends in dengue research in the Philippines: A systematic review

Dengue is an important public health problem in the Philippines. We sought to describe the trends in dengue research in the country. We searched four databases and identified published studies on dengue research in the Philippines during the past 60 years. We reviewed 135 eligible studies, of which 33% were descriptive epidemiologic studies or case series, 16% were entomologic or vector control studies, 12% were studies on dengue virology and serologic response, 10% were socio-behavioral and economics studies, 8% were clinical trials, 7% were on burden of disease, 7% were investigations on markers of disease severity, 5% were on dengue diagnostics, and 2% were modeling studies. During the last decade, dengue research in the Philippines has increased and evolved from simple descriptive studies to those with more complex and diverse designs. We identified several key topics where more research would be useful.

FAM198B Is Associated with Prolonged Survival and Inhibits Metastasis in Lung Adenocarcinoma via Blockage of ERK-Mediated MMP-1 Expression

Purpose: The comprehensive understanding of mechanisms involved in the tumor metastasis is urgently needed for discovering novel metastasis-related genes for developing effective diagnoses and treatments for lung cancer.Experimental Design: FAM198B was identified from an isogenic lung cancer metastasis cell model by microarray analysis. To investigate the clinical relevance of FAM198B, the FAM198B expression of 95 Taiwan lung adenocarcinoma patients was analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR and correlated to patients' survivals. The impact of FAM198B on cell invasion, metastasis, and tumor growth was examined by in vitro cellular assays and in vivo mouse models. In addition, the N-glycosylation-defective FAM198B mutants generated by site-directed mutagenesis were used to study protein stability and subcellular localization of FAM198B. Finally, the microarray and pathway analyses were used to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of FAM198B-mediated tumor suppression.Results: We found that the high expression of FAM198B was associated with favorable survival in Taiwan lung adenocarcinoma patients and in a lung cancer public database. Enforced expression of FAM198B inhibited cell invasion, migration, mobility, proliferation, and anchorage-independent growth, and FAM198B silencing exhibited opposite activities in vitro FAM198B also attenuated tumor growth and metastasis in vivo We further identified MMP-1 as a critical downstream target of FAM198B. The FAM198B-mediated MMP-1 downregulation was via inhibition of the phosphorylation of ERK. Interestingly deglycosylation nearly eliminated the metastasis suppression activity of FAM198B due to a decrease of protein stability.Conclusions: Our results implicate FAM198B as a potential tumor suppressor and to be a prognostic marker in lung adenocarcinoma. Clin Cancer Res; 24(4); 916-26. ©2017 AACR.