Can bladder adenocarcinomas be distinguished from schistosomiasis-associated bladder cancers by using array comparative genomic hybridization analysis?

The Functional Haplotypes of CHRM3 Modulate mRNA Expression and Associate with Bladder Cancer among a Chinese Han Population in Kaohsiung City

Bladder cancer is one of the major cancer types and both environmental factors and genetic background play important roles in its pathology. Kaohsiung is a high industrialized city in Taiwan, and here we focused on this region to evaluate the genetic effects on bladder cancer. Muscarinic acetylcholine receptor M3 (CHRM3) was reported as a key receptor in different cancer types. CHRM3 is located at 1q42-43 which was reported to associate with bladder cancer. Our study attempted to delineate whether genetic variants of CHRM3 contribute to bladder cancer in Chinese Han population in south Taiwan. Five selected SNPs (rs2165870, rs10802789, rs685550, rs7520974, and rs3738435) were genotyped for 30 bladder cancer patients and 60 control individuals and genetic association studies were performed. Five haplotypes (GTTAT, ATTGT, GCTAC, ACTAC, and ACCAC) were found significantly associated with low CHRM3 mRNA level and contributed to increased susceptibility of bladder cancer in Kaohsiung city after rigid 10000 consecutive permutation tests. To our knowledge, this is the first genetic association study that reveals the genetic contribution of CHRM3 gene in bladder cancer etiology.

Potential Use of Turkish Medicinal Plants in the Treatment of Various Diseases

Medicinal plants are sources of health-promoting substances, including phytochemicals and phytoalexins that comprise polyphenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, vitamins A, C, E and several other constituents. Many studies have indicated that medicinal plants have been used to treat human diseases for thousands of years owing to their antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. Medicinal plants reduce the oxidative stress in cells and prevent cancer, cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases, neurodegenerative and digestive system disorders. These potential beneficial effects have been attributed to the presence of bioactive compounds that show antioxidant properties by acting as free radical scavengers or metal chelators, reducing the reactions that produce reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS/RNS). Considering the importance of medicinal plants in terms of their beneficial health effects, some of the medicinally important plants grown in Turkey are covered in this review with respect to their antioxidant potential and phytochemical profile.

Anticancer activity of essential oils: a review

Natural essential oil constituents play an important role in cancer prevention and treatment. Essential oil constituents from aromatic herbs and dietary plants include monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, oxygenated monoterpenes, oxygenated sesquiterpenes and phenolics among others. Various mechanisms such antioxidant, antimutagenic and antiproliferative, enhancement of immune function and surveillance, enzyme induction and enhancing detoxification, modulation of multidrug resistance and synergistic mechanism of volatile constituents are responsible for their chemopreventive properties. This review covers the most recent literature to summarize structural categories and molecular anticancer mechanisms of constituents from aromatic herbs and dietary plants.

Identification of prefoldin amplification (1q23.3-q24.1) in bladder cancer using comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) arrays of urinary DNA

BACKGROUND

Array-CGH represents a comprehensive tool to discover genomic disease alterations that could potentially be applied to body fluids. In this report, we aimed at applying array-CGH to urinary samples to characterize bladder cancer.

METHODS

Urinary DNA from bladder cancer patients and controls were hybridized on 44K oligonucleotide arrays. Validation analyses of identified regions and candidates included fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and immunohistochemistry in an independent set of bladder tumors spotted on custom-made tissue arrays (n = 181).

RESULTS

Quality control of array-CGH provided high reproducibility in dilution experiments and when comparing reference pools. The most frequent genomic alterations (minimal recurrent regions) among bladder cancer urinary specimens included gains at 1q and 5p, and losses at 10p and 11p. Supervised hierarchical clustering identified the gain at 1q23.3-q24.1 significantly correlated to stage (p = 0.011), and grade (p = 0.002). The amplification and overexpression of Prefoldin (PFND2), a selected candidate mapping to 1q23.3-q24.1, correlated to increasing stage and tumor grade by means of custom-designed and optimized FISH (p = 0.013 and p = 0.023, respectively), and immunohistochemistry (p ≤0.0005 and p = 0.011, respectively), in an independent set of bladder tumors included in tissue arrays. Moreover, PFND2 overexpression was significantly associated with poor disease-specific survival (p ≤0.0005). PFND2 was amplified and overexpressed in bladder tumors belonging to patients providing urinary specimens where 1q23.3q24.1 amplification was detected by array-CGH.

CONCLUSIONS

Genomic profiles of urinary DNA mirrowed bladder tumors. Molecular profiling of urinary DNA using array-CGH contributed to further characterize genomic alterations involved in bladder cancer progression. PFND2 was identified as a tumor stratification and clinical outcome prognostic biomarker for bladder cancer patients.

Bladder cancer and schistosomiasis

Schistosoma-associated bladder cancer was believed, for several decades, to be a completely unique entity of disease, different from urothelial cancer. This was probably due to its distinct clinicopathologic and demographic features that varied from those of urothelial entity. The carcinogenesis is an extremely complex process resulting from the accumulation of many genetic and epigenetic changes leading to alterations in the cell proliferation regulation process. In bladder cancer, many of these carcinogenic cascades were not fully documented or somewhat conflicting. Inspite of the efforts performed, much is still needed to explore the presence or absence of the carcinogenic difference with a different etiology. The control of schistosomiasis in certain countries and the subsequent decrease in the intensity of infestation showed changing of features approaching that of urothelial tumors. However the schistosoma-associated bladder cancer presented in more advanced stages than schistosoma-non associated urothelial cancer. More recently, data are gathered that, upon applying the same treatment protocol and management care, stage by stage comparison of the treatment end-results were found to be similar in bladder cancer patients with a different etiology. All treatment options; including radical cystectomy with or without adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemo- or radiotherapy or trimodality bladder preserving treatment seem to lead to similar end-results regardless of etiologic factor(s) implicated in bladder cancer development.

Natural phenolic compounds from medicinal herbs and dietary plants: potential use for cancer prevention

Natural phenolic compounds play an important role in cancer prevention and treatment. Phenolic compounds from medicinal herbs and dietary plants include phenolic acids, flavonoids, tannins, stilbenes, curcuminoids, coumarins, lignans, quinones, and others. Various bioactivities of phenolic compounds are responsible for their chemopreventive properties (e.g., antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, or antimutagenic and anti-inflammatory effects) and also contribute to their inducing apoptosis by arresting cell cycle, regulating carcinogen metabolism and ontogenesis expression, inhibiting DNA binding and cell adhesion, migration, proliferation or differentiation, and blocking signaling pathways. This review covers the most recent literature to summarize structural categories and molecular anticancer mechanisms of phenolic compounds from medicinal herbs and dietary plants.

High quality copy number and genotype data from FFPE samples using Molecular Inversion Probe (MIP) microarrays

BACKGROUND

A major challenge facing DNA copy number (CN) studies of tumors is that most banked samples with extensive clinical follow-up information are Formalin-Fixed Paraffin Embedded (FFPE). DNA from FFPE samples generally underperforms or suffers high failure rates compared to fresh frozen samples because of DNA degradation and cross-linking during FFPE fixation and processing. As FFPE protocols may vary widely between labs and samples may be stored for decades at room temperature, an ideal FFPE CN technology should work on diverse sample sets. Molecular Inversion Probe (MIP) technology has been applied successfully to obtain high quality CN and genotype data from cell line and frozen tumor DNA. Since the MIP probes require only a small (approximately 40 bp) target binding site, we reasoned they may be well suited to assess degraded FFPE DNA. We assessed CN with a MIP panel of 50,000 markers in 93 FFPE tumor samples from 7 diverse collections. For 38 FFPE samples from three collections we were also able to asses CN in matched fresh frozen tumor tissue.

RESULTS

Using an input of 37 ng genomic DNA, we generated high quality CN data with MIP technology in 88% of FFPE samples from seven diverse collections. When matched fresh frozen tissue was available, the performance of FFPE DNA was comparable to that of DNA obtained from matched frozen tumor (genotype concordance averaged 99.9%), with only a modest loss in performance in FFPE.

CONCLUSION

MIP technology can be used to generate high quality CN and genotype data in FFPE as well as fresh frozen samples.