Association Between the Asp312Asn, Lys751Gln, and Arg156Arg Polymorphisms in XPD and the Risk of Prostate Cancer

A Drosophila platform identifies a novel, personalized therapy for a patient with adenoid cystic carcinoma

Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is a rare cancer type that originates in the salivary glands. Tumors commonly invade along nerve tracks in the head and neck, making surgery challenging. Follow-up treatments for recurrence or metastasis including chemotherapy and targeted therapies have shown limited efficacy, emphasizing the need for new therapies. Here, we report a Drosophila-based therapeutic approach for a patient with advanced ACC disease. A patient-specific Drosophila transgenic line was developed to model the five major variants associated with the patient's disease. Robotics-based screening identified a three-drug cocktail—vorinostat, pindolol, tofacitinib—that rescued transgene-mediated lethality in the Drosophila patient-specific line. Patient treatment led to a sustained stabilization and a partial metabolic response of 12 months. Subsequent resistance was associated with new genomic amplifications and deletions. Given the lack of options for patients with ACC, our data suggest that this approach may prove useful for identifying novel therapeutic candidates.

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Personalized therapy was developed for patient with Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma

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Genomics analysis was leveraged to establish a Drosophila ‘personalized patient avatar’

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A robotics-based screen identified a novel three drug therapeutic cocktail

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12 months response was followed by relapse and significant tumor genomic re-wiring

Assessment on the influence of TLR4 and DNA repair genes in laryngeal cancer susceptibility: a selective examination in a Romanian case control study

Background: Tumor characterization through the study of molecular biology has become an invaluable tool in understanding cancer development and evolution due to its relationship with chromosomal mutations, alterations or aberrations. The purpose of this study was to investigate the involvement of genes such as TLR-4 and DNA repair pathways (XRCC1 and XPD) in laryngeal cancer susceptibility in a Romanian population. Method: We performed a case-control study on 157 laryngeal cancer patients and 101 healthy controls. Genetic testing was carried out using Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism. Results: We identified the Gln allele of the XPDLys751Gln polymorphism as an individual risk factor in laryngeal cancer development (Gln vs Lys, adjusted OR=1.65, 95%CI=1.13–2.40, P=0.008). Subjects with the mutant homozygote variant (Gln/Gln) had a two fold increase in cancer risk (adjusted OR=2.18, 95%CI=1.06–4.47, p=0.028) when compared to the reference wild type genotype (Lys/Lys). Stratification by sex and age, identified males under 62 years as the most susceptible group with an almost three fold risk (adjusted OR=2.94, 95%CI=1.31–6.59, p=0.007) for the dominant model (Lys/Gln+Gln/Gln). No associations were found for TLR-4Thr399Ile, XRCC1Arg194Trp and XRCC1Arg399Gln. Conclusion: The results of the study show that the XPDLys751Gln polymorphism may be among other independent risk factors for developing laryngeal cancer where as TLR-4Thr399Ile, XRCC1Arg194Trp and XRCC1 Arg399Gln show no such association. However, we consider the relative small number of the subjects selected for this analyses a possible limitation towards the real influence the obtain results may pertain in laryngeal cancer evolution.

The prognostic and diagnostic values of MicroRNA-10b in gastric cancer: A comprehensive study based on meta-analysis and TCGA database

We conducted a study to evaluate the prognostic and diagnostic values of microRNA-10b (miR-10b) in gastric cancer (GC) based on meta-analysis and TCGA database. Relevant studies were searched in English and Chinese database and meta-analysis was conducted on Stata 12.0. The expression value of miR-10b and clinical parameters of GC patients were downloaded from TCGA database, and relevant analyses were conducted on SPSS. High expression of miR-10b was linked with unfavorable overall survival (OS) in GC (HR = 1.572, 95% CI: 1.240-1.992, P < .001). However, the meta-analysis was significant for patients in early stage, but not for patients in advanced stage. The expression of miR-10b-3p was significantly lower in cancer tissue compared with adjacent tissue (P < .001). Meanwhile, the area under the ROC curve (AUC) value was 0.652 (0.562-0.742), P = .001. Disease-free survival analysis showed increasing miR-10b-5p was correlated with worse survival outcome (HR = 2.366, 95% CI: 1.414-3.959, P = .001). In conclusion, miR-10b acts as a tumor suppressor with prognostic and diagnostic values for GC.

Methadone versus morphine treatment outcomes in neonatal abstinence syndrome: A meta-analysis

AIM

To determine whether morphine has better outcomes for neonatal abstinence syndrome treatment than methadone.

METHODS

Studies published before 1 January 2019 were identified using the PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Cochrane Library and ClinicalTrials.gov databases. The Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias Tool was used to assess the risk of bias for randomised clinical trials. In addition, the risk of bias for non-randomised studies was evaluated by a non-randomised studies of interventions tool.

RESULTS

We identified 1020 published studies, and 5 were included in the final analysis. Results showed no significant difference in opioid treatment days (standardised mean difference (SMD) = 0.32, 95% confidence interval (CI) = -0.16, 0.80), length of hospital stay (SMD = -0.33, 95% CI = -1.21, 0.56) and duration of treatment (SMD = -0.83 95% CI = -2.09, 0.43) between morphine or methadone treatment.

CONCLUSIONS

Our meta-analysis of current evidence demonstrated that neonatal abstinence syndrome treatment with morphine was not associated with better outcomes in infants compared with methadone treatment.

Association of ERCC2 Gene Polymorphisms with Susceptibility to Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to detect the association between ERCC excision repair 2, TFIIH core complex helicase subunit (ERCC2) gene polymorphisms and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) susceptibility. MATERIAL AND METHODS This study used a case-control design. ERCC2 gene rs1799793 (Asp312Asn) and rs13181 (Lys751Gln) polymorphisms were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) both in DLBCL patients and healthy controls. The association between ERCC2 gene polymorphisms and DLBCL risk was assessed by χ² test. Odds ratios (ORs) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were used to address the association strength. Subgroup analyses were also performed to investigate the genetic effects of ERCC2 polymorphisms on clinical characteristics of DLBCL patients. RESULTS A significant association was discovered between the rs1799793 A allele and increased DLBCL risk (P=0.031, OR=1.928, 95% CI=1.052-3.534). The C allele of rs13181 was obviously associated with elevated DLBCL susceptibility (P=0.047, OR=1.820, 95% CI=1.002-3.305). The subgroup analysis demonstrated that rs1799793 and rs13181 polymorphisms had no relationship with serum lactate dehydrogenase level, nidus number, B-symptoms, Ann Arbor stages, or immunological types in DLBCL cases (P>0.05 for all). CONCLUSIONS Minor allele carriers of ERCC2 gene rs1799793 (Asp312Asn) and rs13181 (Lys751Gln) polymorphisms had higher susceptibility to DLBCL.