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Background: Long-term non-progressors (LTNPs) with HIV infection can naturally control viral replication for up to a decade without antiretroviral therapy (ART), but the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon remain elusive., Methods: To investigate the relevant immune and inflammatory factors associated with this natural control mechanism, we collected plasma samples from 16 LTNPs, 14 untreated viral progressors (VPs), 17 successfully ART-treated patients (TPs), and 16 healthy controls (HCs). The OLINK immune response panel and inflammation panel were employed to detect critical proteins, and the plasma neutralizing activity against a global panel of pseudoviruses was assessed using TZM-bl cells., Results: The combination of IL17C, IL18, DDX58, and NF2 contributed to discriminating LTNPs and VPs. IL18 and CCL25 were positively associated with CD4 + T cell counts but negatively correlated with viral load. Furthermore, CXCL9 and CXCL10 emerged as potential supplementary diagnostic markers for assessing the efficacy of antiretroviral therapy (ART). Finally, TNFRSF9 displayed positive correlations with neutralization breadth and Geometry Median Titer (GMT) despite the lack of significant differences between LTNPs and VPs., Conclusion: In summary, this study identified a set of biomarkers in HIV-infected individuals at different disease stages. These markers constitute a potential network for immune balance regulation in HIV infection, which is related to the long-term control of HIV by LTNPs. It provides important clues for further exploring the immune regulatory mechanism of HIV., Competing Interests: Author ZL was employed by the company BioRay Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Ni, Ren, Liao, Li, Luo, Zhu, Liu, Xing, Wang and Shao.)

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors of the digestive system and has high morbidity and mortality rates. It is essential to search new biomarkers to improve the accuracy of early HCC diagnosis. Therefore, we evaluated the diagnostic value of prothrombin induced by vitamin K deficiency or antagonist- II (PIVKA-II) as a potential biomarker that complements α-fetoprotein (AFP) in HCC by detecting the serum PIVKA-II levels., Methods: Serum PIVKA-II levels were compared in 168 HCC patients, 150 benign liver disease patients and 153 healthy controls to investigate the PIVKA-II potential to be a HCC biomarker. Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate the value of PIVKA-II in the diagnosis of HCC and its complementary role of AFP. The correlation between serum PIVKA-II levels and clinicopathological characteristics was analyzed to study the value of PIVKA-II in assessing HCC progression and prognosis. Finally, the ability of PIVKA-II in assessing the surgical treatment effects of HCC was studied by comparing the pre- and post-operative serum PIVKA-II levels in 89 HCC patients., Results: Serum PIVKA-II levels in HCC patients were significantly higher than that in patients with benign liver disease and healthy controls. The PIVKA-II performance in the diagnosing HCC as an individual biomarker was remarkable. The combined detection of PIVKA-II and AFP improved the diagnostic efficiency of HCC. PIVKA-II retained significant diagnosis capabilities for AFP-negative HCC patients. Significant correlations were found between PIVKA-II expression levels and some clinicopathological characteristics, including tumor size, tumor stage, tumor metastasis, differentiation degree and complications. PIVKA-II expression obviously decreased after surgical resection., Conclusions: PIVKA-II is a promising serum biomarker for the HCC diagnosis that can be used as a supplement for AFP. The combined diagnosis of the two markers greatly improved the diagnostic efficiency of HCC. The PIVKA-II levels in HCC patients were widely associated with clinicopathological characteristics representing tumor cell dissemination and/or poor prognosis. PIVKA-II can be used to evaluate the curative effects of HCC resection.

Purpose: For stage II colon cancer, the efficacy of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy remains controversial. It is well known that tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are important in tumor progression. In this study, TAMs were investigated as prognostic and predictive biomarkers for the efficacy of adjuvant chemotherapy for stage II colon cancer after radical resection., Experimental Design: This study enrolled two independent cohorts of consecutive patients from one medical center with pathologic stage II colon cancer after radical resections. Macrophages were detected using IHC staining of CD68 and CD206. Infiltration densities of CD68 + TAMs, CD206 + TAMs, and ratio of CD206 + TAMs/CD68 + TAMs (CD206/CD68 ratio) were calculated as prognostic and predictive biomarkers., Results: The primary and validation cohorts consisted of 521 and 314 patients, respectively. In both cohorts, high CD206/CD68 ratio was significantly associated with poor disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). As an independent risk factor, CD206/CD68 ratio also had significantly better prognostic efficacy than CD68 + TAM density, CD206 + TAM density, and traditional clinicopathologic high-risk factors. Moreover, adjuvant chemotherapy significantly improved DFS and OS for patients with high CD206/CD68 ratio but not for those with low CD206/CD68 ratio. The interaction analyses were also significant for DFS. In subgroup analysis, CD206/CD68 ratio was still a significant predictor for adjuvant chemotherapy for patients in traditional high-risk group of recurrence (significant interaction for DFS)., Conclusions: For stage II colon cancer, CD206/CD68 ratio is a better prognostic and predictive biomarker for postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy. Together with clinicopathologic high-risk factors, it will aid in precision treatment., (©2019 American Association for Cancer Research.)

Purpose: Due to unsatisfying prognosis of AFP for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), we aim to evaluate the prognostic value of combination of exosomes and miRNAs in detecting HCC., Methods: HCC was induced with diethylnitrosamine in rats and using a scoring system based on histological examination six different stages (normal liver, degeneration, fibrosis, cirrhosis, early HCC and late HCC) were identified in the development of HCC. The expression levels of AFP, exosomes and miRNAs (miRNA-10b, miRNA-21, miRNA-122 and miRNA-200a) were detected in both tissue and blood samples from those six stages. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted to evaluate the power of each parameter and their different combinations in diagnosing HCC or cirrhosis., Results: A change in the expression of both exosomes and miRNAs was observed during cirrhosis, which in contrast with AFP starts showing up until the early HCC stage. Interestingly, the expressions of exosomes and the selected four miRNAs at early HCC stage obtained more remarkably alterations than the level of AFP (P < 0.05). On correlation analysis, four selected miRNAs had a significant closer relationship with exosomes when compared with AFP. The different combinations of AFP, exosomes, serous miRNAs and exosomal miRNAs had stronger power in predicting HCC than AFP (area under the curve of ROC, 0.943 vs 0.826)., Conclusion: To conclude, the combination of circulating miRNAs and exosomes might serve as promising biomarkers for non-virus infected HCC screening and cirrhosis discrimination.

Acute rejection (AR) is a strong risk factor for chronic rejection in renal transplant recipients. Accurate and timely diagnosis of AR episodes is very important for disease control and prognosis. Therefore, objectively evaluated the immune status of patients is essential in the field of post-transplantation treatment. This longitudinal study investigated the usefulness of five biomarkers, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-G5 and sCD30 level in sera, intracellular adenosine triphosphate (iATP) release level of CD4(+) T cells, and granzyme B/perforin expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and biopsies, to detect AR and the resolution of biomarkers in a total of 84 cases of renal transplantation. The data demonstrated that recipients with clinical or biopsy proven rejection significantly increased iATP release level of CD4(+) T cells, and elevated sCD30 but lowered HLA-G5 level in sera compared with individuals with stable graft function. Expression levels of granzyme B and perforin were also elevated in PBMCs and graft biopsies of AR patients. Taken together, we identified that upregulation of sCD30, iATP, granzyme B, perforin, and downregulation of HLA-G5 could provide valuable diagnostic standards to identify those recipients in the risk of AR. And iATP may be a better biomarker than others for predicting the graft rejection episode.

On the basis of the host-guest interactions between azobenzenes and cyclodextrins, a new strategy for the preparation of a dually functionalized poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) surface was investigated using surface-initiated atom-transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) and click chemistry. The PDMS substrates were first oxidized in a H(2)SO(4)/H(2)O(2) solution to transform the surface Si-CH(3) groups into Si-OH groups. Then, the SI-ATRP initiator 3-(2-bromoisobutyramido)propyl(trime-thoxy)silane was grafted onto the substrates through a silanization reaction. Sequentially, the poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) units were introduced onto the PDMS-Br surfaces via SI-ATRP reaction using oligo(ethylene glycol) methacrylate. Afterward, the bromide groups on the surface were converted to azido groups via nucleophilic substitution reaction with NaN(3). Finally, the azido-grafted PDMS surfaces were subjected to a click reaction with alkynyl and PEG-modified β-cyclodextrins, resulting in the grafting of cyclodextrins onto the PDMS surfaces. The composition and chemical state of the modified surfaces were characterized via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and the stability and dynamic characteristics of the cyclodextrin-modified PDMS substrates were investigated via attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and temporal contact angle experiments. The surface morphology of the modified PDMS surfaces was characterized through imaging using a multimode atomic force microscope. A protein adsorption assay using Alexa Fluor594-labeled bovine serum albumin, Alexa Fluor594-labeled chicken egg albumin, and FITC-labeled lysozyme shows that the prepared PDMS surfaces possess good protein-repelling properties. On-surface studies on the interactions between azobenzenes and the cyclodextrin-modified surfaces reveal that the reversible binding of azobenzene to the cyclodextrin-modified PDMS surfaces and its subsequent release can be reversibly controlled using UV irradiation. Sandwich fluoroimmunoassay of the cardiac markers myoglobin and fatty acid-binding protein demonstrates that the cyclodextrin-modified PDMS surfaces can be repeatedly utilized in disease biomarker analysis.

This study demonstrates an improved magnetic protein microsphere-aided sandwich fluoroimmunoassay for the analysis of myoglobin and heart-type fatty acid binding protein (H-FABP), early protein markers associated with acute myocardial infarction. In preparation for the assay we constructed superparamagnetic human serum albumin (HSA)/gamma-Fe(2)O(3) microspheres, and grafted capture antibodies (monoclonal antimyoglobin 7C3 and anti-H-FABP 10E1) onto the protein microspheres using the avidin-biotin system. Then the antibody-carrying microspheres were used in a sequential sandwich fluoroimmunoassay along with detection antibodies (Alexa fluor594-labeled antimyoglobin 4E2 and FITC-labeled anti-H-FABP 9F3). The magnetic HSA/gamma-Fe(2)O(3) microspheres were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry, atomic absorption spectrophotometry, and vibrating sample magnetometry. Fluorescence images of the post-immunoassay microspheres recorded using an inverted fluorescence microscope showed that the average fluorescence intensity was correlated with the concentration of cardiac markers, in agreement with the results obtained by an F-4500 FL spectrophotometer; this indicated that the fluoroimmunoassay could be used to semiquantitatively detect both myoglobin and H-FABP. The detection limit was 10 ng/mL for myoglobin and 1 ng/mL for H-FABP.

Introduction: The study aimed to clarify the changes in the concentration of inflammatory mediators, proteases, and cartilage degradation biomarkers in the synovial fluid of joints in an equine osteoarthritis model.

Healthcare technology has allowed individuals to monitor and track various physiological and biological parameters. With the growing trend of the use of the internet of things and big data, wearable biosensors have shown great potential in gaining access to the human body, and providing additional functionality to analyze physiological and biochemical information, which has led to a better personalized and more efficient healthcare. In this review, we summarize the biomarkers in interstitial fluid, introduce and explain the extraction methods for interstitial fluid, and discuss the application of epidermal wearable biosensors for the continuous monitoring of markers in clinical biology. In addition, the current needs, development prospects and challenges are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biological information detection technology is mainly used for the detection of physiological and biochemical parameters closely related to human tissues and organ lesions, such as biomarkers. This technology has important value in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases in their early stages. Wearable biosensors can be integrated with the Internet of Things and Big Data to realize the detection, transmission, storage, and comprehensive analysis of human physiological and biochemical information. This technology has extremely wide applications and considerable market prospects in frontier fields including personal health monitoring, chronic disease diagnosis and management, and home medical care. In this review, we systematically summarized the sweat biomarkers, introduced the sweat extraction and collection methods, and discussed the application and development of epidermal wearable biosensors for monitoring biomarkers in sweat in preclinical research in recent years. In addition, the current challenges and development prospects in this field were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CESC) is the most common histological type of cervical cancer which is the major cause of death in women worldwide. Although squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-Ag) is widely used to detect CESC, it is not sensitive and specific enough to predict the disease.Methods: We investigated serum CXC motif chemokine 10 (CXCL10) as potential diagnostic biomarker in detecting CESC in this study. Serum levels of CXCL10 and SCC-Ag were measured by ELISA or automated immunoassay in 345 participants, including 189 patients with different stages of CESC, 75 patients with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, and 81 healthy individuals. Performances of CXCL10 and SCC-Ag as single biomarkers were analyzed by the ROC curves. The changes of serum levels of CXCL10 and SCC-Ag in 10 longitudinal followed-up CESC patients with partial response (PR) during chemoradiotherapy or chemotherapy were evaluated.Results: The two markers showed similar diagnostic capacity in distinguishing both CESC early stage from healthy controls (AUCCXCL10 = 0.740, AUCSCC-Ag = 0.710) and all CESC from healthy controls (AUCCXCL10 = 0.775, AUCSCC-Ag =0.793). Moreover, CXCL10 showed ability in distinguishing cervical intraepithelial neoplasia from healthy control (AUCCXCL10 = 0.727) and cervical cancer SCC-Ag-negative from healthy control. (AUCCXCL10 = 0.739). The combination of CXCL10 and SCC-Ag displayed significant improvement of AUCs than individual SCC-Ag or CXCL10 in the analysis groups (healthy vs all cervical cancer, healthy vs cervical cancer early stage). The AUCs were improved to 0.877 (AUCSCC-Ag = 0.793, P < 0.05) to distinguish healthy controls from all CESC and 0.828(AUCSCC-Ag = 0.710, P < 0.05) to distinguish healthy controls from CESC early stage by the combination of the two markers, respectively. Significant differences of serum CXCL10 levels were found between CESC patients at late tumor stage and CESC patients at early tumor stage (P < 0.01). Serum CXCL10 levels of the CESC patients who had partial response after treatment significantly decreased during treatment (P = 0.013), whose consistent and inconsistent frequency with the response were the same as serum SCC-Ag levels.Conclusions: The results indicated that CXCL10 is a potential serum biomarker complementing SCC-Ag in prediction of CESC. CXCL10 showed ability in the diagnosis of SCC-Ag negative CESC and the combination of CXCL10 and SCC-Ag inhibited improved performance compared with SCC-Ag alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purposes: The purposes of this study were to assess the correlation between the plasma level of Hsp90α and the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with liver cancer and compare the diagnostic efficacy of Hsp90α, AFP, CEA, and CA199 in HCC. Experimental design: A total of 200 individuals, including 140 patients with liver cancer or benign liver diseases and 60 healthy people, were enrolled for quantitative measurement of plasma Hsp90α by ELISA. Results: The plasma level of Hsp90α was significantly different between patients with liver cancer or benign liver diseases and healthy controls (P < 0.001). The sensitivity, specificity, and AUC (95% CI) of Hsp90α were 93.2%, 85.4%, and 0.931% (0.891–0.972%), respectively, when Hsp90α was applied to differentiate liver cancer patients and healthy controls. Significant positive correlations between the plasma Hsp90α level and clinicopathological characteristics such as the history of basic liver disease (P = 0.038), active stage of hepatitis (P = 0.039), Child-Pugh score (P < 0.001), size of focal liver lesions (P = 0.004), and extrahepatic metastasis (P < 0.001) were observed. AFP + Hsp90α was the best combination strategy for the auxiliary diagnosis of HCC, with a sensitivity of 95.7%, a specificity of 97.5%, and an AUC of 0.990 (0.976–1.000). The level of plasma Hsp90α decreased significantly (P < 0.001) after resection of tumor tissue. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that plasma Hsp90α levels are useful as a diagnostic biomarker in liver cancer and may predict the responses of patients with liver cancer to surgery. Some clinicopathological characteristics could affect the plasma Hsp90α levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pancreatic cancer has a low survival rate, and most patients have lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis at the time of diagnosis. Despite efforts to improve overall survival (OS) and recurrence free survival (RFS), the prognosis of pancreatic cancer remains poor, underscoring the importance of identifying new biomarkers to predict metastasis in patients with pancreatic cancer. Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) is overexpressed in many types of cancer and is involved in the development of various malignancies including pancreatic cancer. However, the role of LIF as a biomarker to predict metastasis in pancreatic cancer remains unclear. In this study, univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses identified LIF expression in pancreatic tumor tissues as an independent risk factor related to worse OS and RFS. LIF overexpression was related to poor clinicopathological features such as lymph node metastasis and Pathological stage (pTNM) stage. Serum LIF levels were higher in pancreatic cancer patients than in healthy controls. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve indicated that serum LIF is more effective than other biomarkers (CA199 and CEA) for predicting lymph node and distant metastasis. What's new? Although the association between LIF level of pancreatic cancer and overall survival has been investigated, very few studies have examined the predictor role of LIF expression level on metastasis. It's the first time to explore the predictor role of LIF expression on metastasis in serum level. In our paper, we found LIF was more effective than CA199 or CEA for predicting tumor metastasis. LIF maybe a novel biomarker for pancreatic cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colorectal cancer is a major cause of death worldwide, and the identification of new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers is crucial to develop new strategies to avoid colorectal cancer-related deaths. Small nuclear ribonucleoprotein polypeptide N (SNRPN) is an imprinted gene that plays an important role in various neurodevelopmental disabilities. In this study, SNRPN was highly expressed in colorectal cancer tissues and involved in the progression of this disease. Immunohistochemistry analysis of 1,310 colorectal cancer tissue samples showed that SNRPN highly expressed in cancer tissues than in adjacent tissues and was mainly localized in the nucleus. Clinical pathological factor analysis demonstrated that higher expression of SNRPN was significantly associated with larger tumor size, location of the tumor on the left-sided colon, neural invasion, and distant metastasis. Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that SNRPN expression was an independent risk factor for survival, with high expression levels indicating worse overall survival. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments confirmed that high expression of SNRPN was associated with tumor proliferation, cell cycle, and metastasis. Knocking down SNRPN blocked the cell cycle at the G2/M phase transition and promoted tumor cell apoptosis, inhibiting the progression of colorectal cancer. To explore the up-steam of SNRPN, we found by luciferase reporter assay and chromosomal immunoprecipitation assay that E2F8 was a transcriptional regulator up-steam of SNRPN in colorectal cancer. Systematic studies of SNRPN will help us discover new regulatory molecules and provide a theoretical basis for finding new molecular targets for this disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We established both an acute and chronic cardiac toxicity rat model, which showed pretreatment with rutin attenuated pirarubicin-induced myocardial histopathological injury, electrocardiogram abnormalities, and cardiac dysfunction. Rutin also significantly reduced serum levels of MDA, BNP, CK-MB, CTnT, and LDH and increased serum SOD levels. Treatment with rutin and dexrazoxane resulted in an increase in Bcl-2/Bax ratio (p < 0.05) and reduction in JNK and Caspase-3 protein levels, compared to the pirarubicin group (all p < 0.05). Furthermore, rutin at a dose of 50 mg/kg significantly attenuated the above-mentioned alterations. Our study suggests the antioxidant and anti-apoptotic properties of rutin may be responsible for the cardioprotective effects observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The study aimed to clarify the changes in the concentration of inflammatory mediators, proteases, and cartilage degradation biomarkers in the synovial fluid of joints in an equine osteoarthritis model. Material and Methods: Osteoarthritis was induced in eight Mongolian horses by a sterile intra-articular injection of amphotericin B, which was injected into the left carpal joint in a dose of 2 mL (25 mg/mL). The control group comprised five horses which were injected with an equal dose of sterile physiological saline into the left carpal joint. Synovial fluid was obtained at baseline and every week after injection. Test methods were based on ELISA. Results: In the course of the osteoarthritis, the concentration of biomarkers in joint synovial fluid showed an increasing trend. IL-1, IL-6, MMP-9, MMP-13, ADAMTS-5, CS846, GAG, HA, CTX-II, and COMP concentrations sharply increased before the onset of significant symptoms of lameness, whereas TNF-α, MMP-2, and MMP-3 concentrations rose sharply after the occurrence of such symptoms. Conclusion: The results obtained confirm that the concentrations of IL-1, IL-6, MMP-9, MMP-13, ADAMTS-5, CS846, GAG, HA, CTX-II and COMP increase substantially in equine osteoarthritis, which provides a theoretical basis for the rapid diagnosis of the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the development of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the detection of a furaltadone marker residue, 3-Amino-5-morpholinomethyl-2-oxazolidinone in cultural fish samples. It mentions the common nutrofurans and the health risk of their residues, and discusses the methods used in the study and the performance characteristics of the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

Abstract: The present study presents a new microfluidic device integrated with pneumatic microvalves and a membrane mixer for enzyme-based immunoassay of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) biomarkers, namely, myoglobin, and heart-type fatty acid binding protein (H-FABP). Superparamagnetic microspheres with carboxyl groups on their surfaces were used as antibody solid carriers. A membrane mixer consisting of four ψ-type membrane valves was assembled under the reaction chamber for on-chip performing microsphere trapping and reagent mixing. The entire immunoassay process, including microsphere capture, reagent input, mixing, and subsequent reaction, was accomplished on the device either automatically or manually. The post-reaction substrate resultant was analyzed using a microplate reader. The results show that the average absorbance value is correlated with the concentration of cardiac markers, in agreement with the results obtained using a conventional microsphere-based immunoassay; this indicated that the proposed on-chip immunoassay protocol could be used to detect both myoglobin and H-FABP. The minimum detectable concentration is 5ng/mL for myoglobin and 1ng/mL for H-FABP. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Conclusion. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have the ability to differentiate into hair cells, and this method of culturing MSCs provides a useful tool for studies on mammalian cochlear hair cell regeneration. Objective: To investigate a method to induce bone marrow MSCs to differentiate into inner ear hair cells. Methods: Rat bone marrow MSCs were isolated from healthy rats and cultured in vitro. To make sure that the cultured cells were bone marrow MSCs, the expression of MSC markers such as SH2, CD31, CD34, and CD44 genes on the cultured cells was assessed by RT-PCR. Adipogenic cells and osteogenic cells were induced by the differentiation of the cultured cells, respectively, suggesting that the cultured cells have the characteristic of pluripotent differentiation. Then they were induced to differentiate into neural stem cells and hair cell progenitor cells. Immunohistochemistry experiments were carried out to detect the expression of molecular markers. Scanning electron microscope samples were prepared for observation of the morphology of the cells. Results: Rat bone marrow MSCs were successfully isolated, purified, cultured, and identified in vitro. They were also successfully induced to differentiate into neural progenitor cells and then hair cell-like cells that expressed myosin VIIa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the stem cells are commonly isolated by FACS or MACS, they are very expensive and these is no specific marker for liver stem/progentior cells (LSPCs). This paper applied a convenient and efficient method to enrich LSPCs. The fetal liver cells (FLCs) were firstly enriched by Percoll discontinuous gradient centrifugation (PDGC) from the rat fetal liver. Then the FLCs in culture were purified to be homogeneous in size by differential trypsinization and differential adherence (DTDA). Flow cytometric analysis revealed more than half of the purified FLCs expressed alternative markers of LSPCs (CD117, c-Met, Sca-1, CD90, CD49f and CD133). In other words, the purified FLCs were heterogeneous. Therefore, they were sequentially layered into six fractions by Percoll continuous gradient centrifugation (PCGC). Both CD133 and CD49f expressed decreasingly from fraction 1 to 6. In fraction 1 and 2, about 85% FLCs expressed CD133, which were revealed to be LSPCs by high expressions of AFP and CK-19, low expressions of G-6-P and ALB. To conclude, the purity of CD133+ LSPCs enriched by combination of PDGC, DTDA and PCGC is close to that obtained by MACS. This study will greatly contribute to two important biological aspects: liver stem cells isolation and liver cell therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) lines with similar traits are often found in the National Winter Wheat Regional Trials. Molecular markers have been regarded potential tools to efficiently and accurately identify wheat lines with genetic similarity. In this study, 681 wheat cultivars and lines were assessed using 63 genome-SSR, 21 EST-SSR, and 21 AFLP-SCAR markers. These markers were classified into core primer (21 pairs), first-grade standby primer (29 pairs), and second-grade standby primer (55 pairs). The cultivars and lines tested consisted of 134 released cultivars and 547 lines evaluated in the National Winter Wheat Regional Trials from 2005 to 2009. Cultivars and lines were primarily screened with the core primers, and those with similar fingerprint on 19–21 loci were further tested with the first-grade standby primers, and only the cultivars with genetic similarity (GS) larger than 0.90 were subjected to the detection by the second-grade standby primers. The molecular evaluation was based on at least 100 loci, and cultivars (lines) with total GS larger than 0.90 were suspected to be similar genotypes. These cultivars (lines) were continuously evaluated based on main morphological characteristics and agronomic traits before final decision. The GS of most cultivars and lines tested was larger than 0.90 according to molecular data. The molecular markers used in this study are effective in bulk screening similar cultivars and lines in wheat regional trials. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

To find serum tumor markers for predicting the presence of lymphatic metastasis in patients with lung adenocarcinoma, and to explore the diagnostic value of IGFBP7 in predicting if lymphatic metastasis occurs in lung adenocarcinoma. The concentration of IGFBP7 in the peripheral blood of 90 serum samples, including 30 patients with lung adenocarcinoma in situ, 30 patients with lung adenocarcinoma metastasis, and 30 normal controls were detected by ELISA. The data were analyzed statistically. The concentration of IGFBP7 and D-dimer in the metastatic lung adenocarcinoma group was significantly higher than that in the lung adenocarcinoma in situ group (P < 0.05). The expression level of IGFBP7 in serum of patients with lung adenocarcinoma was associated with the clinical stage (P < 0.05) and lymphatic metastasis (P < 0.05). Using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, the area under the ROC curve of IGFBP7 was 0.901 (95% Confidence Interval was 0.806 to 0.996), and 0.5 was outside the 95% confidence interval (P < 0.05). The difference was statistically significant. IGFBP7 can predict if the lung adenocarcinoma has lymphatic metastasis, which is helpful to improve the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma, and can be used as a new tumor marker to predict whether the lung adenocarcinoma has lymphatic metastasis or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A carboxylated superparamagnetic microbead-assisted sandwich fluoroimmunoassay was successfully demonstrated for the analysis of the early protein markers, myoglobin and human heart-type fatty acid-binding protein (H-FABP), associated with acute myocardial infarction. This assay approach consisted of the preparation of superparamagnetic polymer microbeads using a dispersion polymerization, followed by grafting of capture antibodies (monoclonal anti-H-FABP 10E1 and anti-myoglobin 7C3) onto the polymer microbeads using EDC-NHS protocol, and then a sequential sandwich fluoroimmunoassay using detection antibodies (FITC-labeled anti-H-FABP 9F3 and FITC-labeled anti-myoglobin 4E2). The Fe3O4 nanoparticles and carboxylated Fe3O4-polymer microbeads were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry, vibrating sample magnetometry, and X-ray diffraction. The fluoroimmunoassay images were recorded using a confocal laser-scanning microscope, and the average fluorescence intensity of the microbeads was found to correspond to the concentration of each cardiac marker, in agreement with the results obtained by a spectrofluorophotometer. The carboxylated magnetic microbead-assisted protocol could be utilized to semi-quantitatively detect both myoglobin and H-FABP. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Objectives: This study aimed to determine the serum levels of angiopoietin-like 4 (ANGPTL4) in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and explore its potential as a biomarker.Materials and Methods: Blood samples were taken from 110 patients with RCC, 66 healthy controls, and patients with other solid tumors. Serum ANGPTL4 levels were measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and their correlation with clinical characteristics was further analyzed. Received operating characteristic (ROC) curves, Kaplan-Meier curves, and log-rank analyses were used to evaluate diagnostic and prognostic significance.Results: Serum ANGPTL4 levels were significantly higher in patients with RCC compared with healthy controls and patients with other types of cancers (P<0.0001) and associated with sex, Fuhrman grades, metastasis states, and tumor node metastasis stages (P<0.05), but not with age, tumor size, and histological types (P>0.05). The ROCs/area under the ROC curve analysis indicated an area under the ROC curve of 0.844 (sensitivity = 0.691; specificity = 0.939) and 0.725 (sensitivity = 0.909; specificity = 0.568), respectively, to distinguish patients with RCC from healthy controls and those with metastasis from those without metastasis. The survival analysis revealed that patients with low serum ANGPTL4 had longer progression-free survival compared with those with high serum ANGPTL4 (P = 0.033).Conclusion: The present study suggested that the elevated serum ANGPTL4 level might be a novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for patients with RCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: There are currently no accurate predictive markers of metachronous liver metastasis (MLM) from colorectal cancer. Methods: Magnetic bead–based fractionation coupled with mass spectrometry analysis was used to compare serum samples from 64 patients with MLM and 64 without recurrence or metastasis for at least 3 y after radical colorectal surgery (NM). A total of 40 MLM and 40 NM serum samples were randomly selected to build a decision tree, and the remainder were tested as blinded samples. Selected peptides were identified. Results: The patients in the two groups were matched for gender, age, tumor location, TNM staging, and histologic differentiation grade. Preoperative serum carcinoembryonic antigen retained no independent power to predict MLM. The decision tree model with eight proteomic features (m/z 3315, 6637, 1207, 1466, 4167, 4210, 2660, and 4186) correctly classified 33 of 40 NM sera (82.5%) and 32 of 40 MLM sera (80%) in the training set and 19 of 24 NM sera (79.2%) and 17 of 24 MLM sera (70.8%) in the test set. The peptides were identified as fragments of alpha-fetoprotein, complement C4-A, fibrinogen alpha, eukaryotic peptide chain release factor GTP-binding subunit ERF3B, and angiotensinogen. Conclusions: In patients matched for gender, age, tumor location, TNM staging, and histologic differentiation grade, preoperative carcinoembryonic antigen retained no independent power to predict MLM. The decision tree model of eight proteomic features demonstrated promising value for predicting MLM in patients who underwent radical resection of colorectal cancer. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]