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When oil spill occurs, it poses serious toxic hazards to all forms of life. Mixed culture of Burkholderia cepacia and Corynebacterium sp isolated from refinery sludge using selective enrichment technique was used for bioremediation of refinery wastewater in a laboratoryscale bioreactor. Physicochemical parameters of both raw and treated water were as determined and compared with Federal Environ - mental Protection Agency (FEPA-limit, Abuja, Nigeria) to asses the efficiency of the bioremediation process. Each of the bacterium was screened for the presence of plasmid DNA and for the involvement or otherwise of plasmid in the bioremediation of wastewater. The immobilised cells showed percentage decrease in chemical oxygen demand (97%), biochemical oxygen demand (94%), phenol (98%), total petroleum hydrocarbon (79%), oil and grease (90%) of the refinery waste water after 20 days of treatment while their transconjugants showed the multiplicative effect by achieving the same percentage after 10 days of treatment. Therefore, the findings revealed that bioaugmentation of wastewater using transmissible catabolic plasmid will enhance efficiency of the bioremediation by spreading the plasmid among indigenous microbial community either through horizontal gene transfer or transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) allows for the detection of driver alterations at high resolution, but the limited number of approved targeted therapies and their high costs have contributed to its limited clinical utilization. We retrospectively compared data of 946 women with ovarian cancer (11.4% were referred to CGP, and 88.6% served as control) to examine whether CGP provides a prognosis benefit. Patient baseline parameters were similar between the groups. Cox regression analysis adjusted for age, disease stage at diagnosis, and recurrence status showed statistically significantly longer median overall survival (mOS) in the CGP group versus the control (73.4 versus 54.5 months, p < 0.001). Fifty-four patients (52.9%) had actionable mutations with potential treatments; twenty-six (48.2%) were treated with matched targeted therapy, showing a trend for longer mOS than the eighty-six women in the CGP group who were not given a suggested treatment (105.5 versus 63.6 months, p = 0.066). None of the genomic alterations predicted metastasis location. CCNE1 amplification and KRAS mutations were associated with shorter mOS. Patients with tumor mutation burden ≥4 mutations/megabase had longer mOS. High loss of heterozygosity was associated with longer mOS (99.0 versus 48.2 months, p = 0.004). CGP testing may provide both prognostic and predictive insights for treatment of patients with ovarian cancer. Prospective studies of larger cohorts are warranted.

Introduction: Our previous studies showed elevated levels of Semaphorin3a (Sema3A) in the urine of patients with urothelial cancer compared to healthy patients. The aim of this study was to analyze the extent of Sema3A expression in normal and malignant urothelial tissue using immune-staining microscopic and morphometric analysis., Materials and Methods: Fifty-seven paraffin-embedded bladder samples were retrieved from our pathology archive and analyzed: 14 samples of normal urothelium, 21 samples containing low-grade urothelial carcinoma, 13 samples of patients with high-grade urothelial carcinoma, 7 samples containing muscle invasive urothelial carcinoma, and 2 samples with pure urothelial carcinoma in situ. All samples were immunostained with anti Sema3A antibodies. The area of tissue stained with Sema3A and its intensity were analyzed using computerized morphometry and compared between the samples' groups., Results: In normal bladder tissue, very light Sema3A staining was demonstrated on the mucosal basal layer and completely disappeared on the apical layer. In low-grade tumor samples, cells in the basal layer of the mucosa were also lightly stained with Sema3A, but Seama3A expression intensified upon moving apically, reaching its highest level on apical cells exfoliating to the urine. In high grade urothelial tumors, Seama3A staining was intense in the entire thickness of the mucosa. In samples containing carcinoma in situ, staining intensity was high and homogenous in all the neoplastic cells., Conclusions: Sema3A may be serve as a potential non-invasive marker of urothelial cancer.