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Based on our initial genome-wide association study (GWAS) on esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) in Han Chinese, we conducted a follow-up study to examine the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with family history (FH) of upper gastrointestinal cancer (UGI) cancer in cases with ESCC. We evaluated the association between SNPs and FH of UGI cancer among ESCC cases in a stage-1 case-only analysis of the National Cancer Institute (NCI, 541 cases with FH and 1399 without FH) and Henan GWAS (493 cases with FH and 869 without FH) data (discovery phase). The top SNPs (or their surrogates) from discovery were advanced to a stage-2 evaluation in additional Henan subjects (2801 cases with FH and 3136 without FH, replication phase). A total of 19 SNPs were associated with FH of UGI cancer in ESCC cases with P −5 in the stage-1 meta-analysis of NCI and Henan GWAS data. In stage-2, the association for rs79747906 (located at 18p11.31, P = 5.79 × 10−6 in discovery) was replicated (P = 0.006), with a pooled-OR of 1.59 (95%CI: 1.11-2.28). We identified potential genetic variants associated with FH of UGI cancer. Our findings may provide important insights into new low-penetrance susceptibility regions involved in the susceptibility of families with multiple UGI cancer cases.

Zwitterions and polyoxometalates (POMs) are two kinds of functional moieties with very different properties for applications in different fields. We have developed an effective strategy to successfully immobilize these two different moieties into the frameworks of porous hybrid materials, in which the POM units act as templates and photoactive moieties. These hybrid materials demonstrate remarkable efficiency for selective scavenging and photolysis of cationic dyes from polluted water, and up to 10% dye uptake and quantitative photolysis of dyes have been realized.

Two flexible zwitterionic ligands of HL11 and HL22 derived from N-heteroaromatic molecules were used to construct five coordination polymers of [CdL11(H2O)2]·NO3·5H2O (1), [Zn(L11)2(H2O)4]·5H2O (2), [CdL11Cl] (3), [Zn(L22)2]·2H2O (4) and [Cd(L22)2] (5) by reaction with corresponding metal salts. In these compounds, L11 and L22 link up metal nodes to form distinct lamellar or linear coordination networks. Compounds 1 and 4 crystallize in chiral space groups, which are second-order non-linear optical (NLO) active induced by the asymmetric zwitterionic ligands and non-centrosymmetric metal coordination spheres. The distinct photoluminescent intensities of these coordination networks suggest that the framework structures play important roles on the electron transitions. This work illustrates that the utility of the zwitterionic ligands as connecting struts can generate some interesting solids as potential NLO and luminescent materials.

Glycan from green tea was extracted with boiling water. The extraction temperature, extraction time and ratio of liquid to solid were optimized by using response surface methodology (RSM). The maximum yield of tea glycan extracts (2.93%) was obtained when glycans in green tea were extracted. The optimal extraction conditions for the glycans from green teas were: extracting temperature 98 °C, extracting time 50 min and rate of liquid to solid 6:1. Tea glycan, with an average molecular weight of 8.3 × 10 5 Da, contained rhamnose (Rha), arabian (Ara), xylose (Xyl), mannose (Man), galactose (Gal), and glucose (Glc) in molar ratios of 1.06:2.31:5.17:0.91:3.06:4.24. Ethanol extract of tea showed significantly higher antitumor activity against the SKOV-3 cells than tea glycan. These results indicate that the higher antitumor activity of ethanol extracts from tea may be related to their polyphenol contents.

A new flexible bowl-shaped zwitterionic complex, 1,1′,1′′-(2,4,6-trimethylbenzene-1,3,5-triyl)tris(methylene)tris(4-carboxypyridinium) tribromide (H3LBr3) was designed and synthesized, which was subsequently used as an efficient ligand to construct four interesting coordination polymers of [Cu2Cl2L2(H2O)2]·Cl·Br·4H2O (1), [ZnLBr]·NO3·H2O (2), [Cd2L2Br2]·2NO3·4H2O (3), and [Cd2L2(Inic)(H2O)4(MeOH)2]·Br·2NO3·3H2O (Inic = isonicotinlate, 4) by reaction of L ligand with corresponding metal salts or in the presence of isonicotinic acid. In these coordination polymers, L ligands link up metal nodes to form distinct linear networks. Two bowl mouths of two L ligands surround each other to form a ball-shaped building synthon in compounds 1 and 4, while the linear networks in 2 and 3 are in cylinder-shaped configurations. The luminescent spectra of L and compounds 1, 2, 3, and 4 suggested that the potential field around L ligand should be an important factor on the fluorescent emissions. The successful construction...

Li Dong Wang and colleagues report a genome wide association study for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma in the Chinese population. They identify two risk loci at PLCE1 and C20orf54.

A 1,8-naphthalenecarboxylic anhydride-4,5-dicarboxylate (L) bridged copper(II) dimeric molecular module [Cu2L2(DMF)2(H2O)2] (1) can self-organize into a solid-state supramolecular architecture. The combination of the multitopic contact sites of hydrogen bonds coupled with two bulky aromatic cores promoted the molecule to self-link into a solid-state supramolecular architecture, which was almost insoluble in water and common organic solvents. Solid 1 can heterogeneously catalyze the cross-coupling of arylboronic acids with imidazole in the absence of a base or additive to generate the corresponding coupling products in excellent yields in methanol at 50 °C, which can be recovered and recycled by a simple filtration and was used for six consecutive cycles with consistent activity.

In contrast to western population with majority of adenocarcinoma at lower third segment, esophageal cancer in China occurs predominantly in the middle third segment of the esophagus and squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remains the major histopathological type. The mechanism for the dramatic difference in terms of tumor location and histological type is not clear. Obviously, the different tumor locations will have impact on optimal choice of treatment, and may have different lymph drainage which will then influence the lymph node metastasis. The present study was thus undertaken to characterize the impact of different tumor locations (cervical, the upper, middle, lower thoracic portion) on survival of the ESCC patients from Henan in Northern China. All the patients in this study were from the ESCC database in Henan Key Laboratory for Esophageal Cancer Research of the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University. Of the 62,311 ESCC patients enrolled in this study, there were 37,263 males (59.8%) with a mean age of 59.61±9.62 and 25070 females (40.23%) with a mean age of 60.45±9.68. The ratio of male to female was 1.49:1 (P < 0.01). These patients were classified into four groups with different periods based on diagnosed time, group I (1975 to 1984, 6.51%), group II (1985 to 1994, 21.91%), group III (1995 to 2004, 30.98%) and group IV (2005 to 2016, 40.59%). Based on the 6th version of UICC criteria, the tumor locations were recorded as cervical, upon, middle and lower third segments. The followed–up was undertaken until 2016. The SPSS21.0 software and Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and Log Rank test were used to evaluate the survival of different locations. The results demonstrated that the most common location for ESCC was in the middle third segment (64.5%), followed by upon third segment (19.00%), lower third segment (15.10%) and cervical segment (1.40%) (P ldwang2007@126.com]. Note: This abstract was not presented at the meeting. Citation Format: Yan Jin, Yan Jin, Fu You Zhou, Ran Wang, Zhi Qiang Li, Zhi Cai Liu, Dao Cun Wang, Yin Li, Ping Lu, Peng Yuan Zheng, Chang Wei Feng, Guo Qiang Kong, Shao Hua Han, Li Dong Wang. The impact of tumor locations on survival of the patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3275. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-3275

In traditional therapy with Chinese medicine, vitexin has several pharmacological properties, including antinociceptive, antispasmodic, antioxidant, antimyeloperoxidase, and α-glucosidase inhibitory activities. Recently, vitexin was shown to protect the heart against ischemia/reperfusion injury in an in vitro model by inhibiting apoptosis. The purpose of this study was to find out whether vitexin influences the effect on rat cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes (CYP1A2, CYP2C11, and CYP3A1) by using cocktail probe drugs in vivo; the influence on the levels of CYP mRNA was also studied. A cocktail solution at a dose of 5 mL/kg, which contained phenacetin (10 mg/kg), tolbutamide (1 mg/kg), and midazolam (5 mg/kg), was given as oral administration to rats treated with short or long period of intravenous vitexin via the caudal vein. Blood samples were collected at a series of time points, and the concentrations of probe drugs in plasma were determined by HPLC-mass spectrometry (MS)/MS. The corresponding pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated by the software of DAS 2.0. In addition, real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction was performed to determine the effects of vitexin on the mRNA expression of CYP1A2, CYP2C11, and CYP3A1 in rat liver. Treatment with short or long period of vitexin had no effects on rat CYP1A2. However, CYP3A1 enzyme activity was inhibited by vitexin in a concentration-dependent and time-dependent manner. Furthermore, CYP2C11 enzyme activity was induced after short period treatment but inhibited after long period of vitexin treatment. The mRNA expression results were in accordance with the pharmacokinetic results. In conclusion, vitexin can either inhibit or induce activities of CYP2C11 and CYP3A1. Therefore, caution is needed when vitexin is co-administered with some CYP2C11 or CYP3A1 substrates in clinic, which may result in treatment failure and herb-drug interactions.

The reaction of 1,4,5,8-naphthalene-tetracarboxylic dianhydride and NiCl2·6H2O in a mixed solvent of pyridine and water afforded green crystals of [Ni2L(Py)4(H2O)6]·Py·10H2O (L = 1,4,5,8-naphthalene-tetracarboxylate; Py = pyridine; 1), which consists of centrosymmetric related nickel(II) binuclear units, pyridine and lattice water molecules. The lattice water molecules hydrogen bond into a water tape network comprising of tetrameric water clusters and pentameric water clusters as subunits. The water tapes are further linked by hexameric water clusters to form a water sheet, which is further staked into a 3D supramolecular network comprising metal–organic residues as guests within the columned channels.

Two new organic building units that contain dicarboxylate sites for their self-assembly with paddle- wheel (Cu2A2)4) units have been suc- cessfully developed to construct two isoreticular porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), ZJU-35 and ZJU-36, which have the same tbo top- ologies (Reticular Chemistry Structure Resource (RCSR) symbol) as HKUST- 1. Because the organic linkers in ZJU- 35 and ZJU-36 are systematically en- larged, the pores in these two new porous MOFs vary from 10.8 � in HKUST-1 to 14.4 � in ZJU-35 and 16.5 � in ZJU-36, thus leading to their higher porosities with Brunauer- Emmett-Teller (BET) surface areas of 2899 and 4014 m 2 g 1 for ZJU-35 and ZJU-36, respectively. High-pressure gas-sorption isotherms indicate that both ZJU-35 and ZJU-36 can take up large amounts of CH4 and CO2, and are among the few porous MOFs with the highest volumetric storage of CH4 under 60 bar and CO2 under 30 bar at room temperature. Their potential for high-pressure swing adsorption (PSA) hydrogen purification was also prelimi- narily examined and compared with several reported MOFs, thus indicating the potential of ZJU-35 and ZJU-36 for this important application. Studies show that most of the highly porous MOFs that can volumetrically take up the greatest amount of CH4 under 60 bar and CO2 under 30 bar at room temperature are those self-assembled from organic tetra- and hexacarboxy- lates that contain m-benzenedicarboxy- late units with the (Cu2A2)4) units, because this series of MOFs can have balanced porosities, suitable pores, and framework densities to optimize their volumetric gas storage. The realization of the two new organic building units for their construction of highly porous MOFs through their self-assembly with (Cu2A2)4) units has provided great promise for the exploration of a large number of new tetra- and hexacarboxy- late organic linkers based on these new organic building units in which differ- ent aromatic backbones can be readily incorporated into the frameworks to tune their porosities, pore structures, and framework densities, thus targeting some even better performing MOFs for very high gas storage and efficient gas separation under high pressure and at room temperature in the near future.

Four porous metalloporphyrinic framework materials, [(CH3)2NH2][Zn2(HCOO)2(Mn(III)-TCPP)]·5DMF·2H2O (1; H6TCPP = tetrakis(4-carboxyphenyl)porphyrin), [(CH3)2NH2][Cd2(HCOO)2(Mn(III)-TCPP)]·5DMF·3H2O (2), [Zn2(HCOO)(Fe(III)(H2O)-TCPP)]·3DMF·H2O (3), and [Cd3(H2O)6(μ2-O)(Fe(III)-HTCPP)2]·5DMF (4) were synthesized by heating a mixture of M(III)Cl-H4TCPP (M = Mn and Fe) and M' (M' = Zn or Cd) nitrate in a mixed solvent of DMF and acetic acid. Compounds 1-3 are built up from M'2(COO)4 paddle-wheel subunits bridged by M(III)-TCPP and formate ligands to form their 3D connections. The formate pillar heterogeneously connects with M and M' cations in 1 and 2 and homogeneously joins M' cations in 3. The μ2-O bridged Fe(III)-HTCPP dimer performs as a decadentate ligand to link 10 cadmium cations for the formation of an interesting 3D coordination network of 4. The four porphyrinic frameworks present interesting catalytic properties in the selective epoxidation of olefins, oxidation of cyclohexane, and intermolecular aldol reaction of aldehydes and ketones.

A new bifunctional aromatic azolium derivative is designed and synthesized, which is used to construct two MOF′s containing imidazolium moieties.

A new bifunctional N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) precursor was used to construct two metal–organic frameworks, which can anchor palladium(II) sites by post-modification, presenting remarkable framework dependent catalytic activities.

This study evaluated the relationship between altered cytoplasmic expression of TGF-β1 in tissues of the vaginal incisional margin and vaginal cancer recurrence in patients with stage Ib-IIa cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC). This paper also discusses the prognostic value of TGF-β1 expression at these locations. We found that TGF-β1 expression in the vaginal margin had a close association with vaginal recurrence of stage Ib-IIa CSCC and was an independent prognostic marker of this disease.

We performed a genome-wide association study of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) by genotyping 1,077 individuals with ESCC and 1,733 control subjects of Chinese Han descent. We selected 18 promising SNPs for replication in an additional 7,673 cases of ESCC and 11,013 control subjects of Chinese Han descent and 303 cases of ESCC and 537 control subjects of Chinese Uygur-Kazakh descent. We identified two previously unknown susceptibility loci for ESCC: PLCE1 at 10q23 (P(Han combined for ESCC) = 7.46 x 10(-56), odds ratio (OR) = 1.43; P(Uygur-Kazakh for ESCC) = 5.70 x 10(-4), OR = 1.53) and C20orf54 at 20p13 (P(Han combined for ESCC) = 1.21 x 10(-11), OR = 0.86; P(Uygur-Kazakh for ESCC) = 7.88 x 10(-3), OR = 0.66). We also confirmed association in 2,766 cases of gastric cardia adenocarcinoma cases and the same 11,013 control subjects (PLCE1, P(Han for GCA) = 1.74 x 10(-39), OR = 1.55 and C20orf54, P(Han for GCA) = 3.02 x 10(-3), OR = 0.91). PLCE1 and C20orf54 have important biological implications for both ESCC and GCA. PLCE1 might regulate cell growth, differentiation, apoptosis and angiogenesis. C20orf54 is responsible for transporting riboflavin, and deficiency of riboflavin has been documented as a risk factor for ESCC and GCA.

Nat. Genet. 42, 759–763 (2010); published online 22 August 2010; corrected after print 27 August 2014 In contrast to the version of this article initially published, the authors now find no evidence to support association with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma susceptibility for rs13042395[T] at 20p13 in their original data, in two independent sets of cases and controls collected in other Chinese populations or in the joint analysis of these three studies.

The reaction of 5,10,15,20-tetra(carboxyphenyl)porphyrin (H6TCPP) or metalated M-H4TCPP (M = CoII, NiII, CuII and VIVO) with lead nitrate afforded five metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), [Pb2(H2TCPP)]·4DMF·H2O (1), Pb2(Co–TCPP)(H2O)(DMF)]·1.5DMF (2), [Pb2(Ni–TCPP)(DMF)(H2O)]·1.5DMF·2H2O (3), [Pb2(Cu–TCPP)(DMF)(H2O)]·1.5DMF·2H2O (4) and [Pb2(VO–TCPP)(H2O)2]·4DMF (5). Single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that the five MOFs based on the TCPP scaffolds differ in framework topologies and porphyrin configurations that are varied from flat to wavy to bowl-shaped. The porphyrin cores play a pivotal role in the formation of the distinct coordination frameworks by controlling the stacking fashion of the porphyrins, the coordination modes of TCPP and the coordination spheres of the Pb2+ cations. Solid-state photoluminescent experiments suggest that the emissions of these compounds are dependent on the framework structures, and are insensitive to the porphyrin cores.