[The influence of Thymidine Phosphorylase genetic variation on clinical outcomes and safety of colorectal cancer patients received adjuvant chemotherapy after R0 resection]

Objective: To study the association between Thymidine Phosphorylase (TYMP) genetic variation and clinical outcomes and safety of postoperative colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Methods: A total of 235 patients with colorectal cancer underwent surgical treatment were included in this retrospective analysis. Peripheral blood and the postoperative tissue specimen of the CRC patients were collected for the genotyping of polymorphism and TYMP mRNA expression, respectively. The correlation between polymorphism and clinical outcomes and safety of postoperative CRC patients were analysed. Results: Located in the upstream, 5633C>T was of clinical significance. The prevalence of 5633C>T in TYMP among the CRC patients were as follows: CC genotype 149 cases (63.40%), CT genotype 73 cases (31.06%), TT genotype 13 cases (5.54%), minor allele frequency of 5633C>T is 0.21. The distribution of three genotypes was in accordance with Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (P=0.313). CT genotype and TT genotype patients were merged in the comparison of prognosis. The survival analysis of patients with different genotypes found that the median Overall Survival (OS) of CT/TT genotype and CC genotype were 5.8 and 4.5 year, which was statistically significant (P=0.009). Adjusted in multivariate Cox regression analysis, CT/TT genotype was an independent favorable factor for OS (HR=0.67, P=0.015). Additionally, of the 87 postoperative tissue specimens, the results showed that the expression of TYMP in cancer tissues of the patients with CT or TT genotypes were significantly higher than those of the wild type CC genotype patients (P=0.019). And the safety analysis showed that the incidence of grade 3 hand-foot syndrome among CT/TT genotype patients were higher than that of CC genotype patients (33.72% vs 20.13%, OR=1.68, P=0.021). Conclusion: The polymorphism 5633C>T of TYMP may impact the prognosis of CRC patients received adjuvant chemotherapy by influencing the mRNA expression of TYMP.

Toxic Effects in Siganus oramin by dietary exposure to 4-tert-octylphenol

The integrated toxicities of 4-tert-octylphenol (t-OP) on Siganus oramin were investigated by dietary administration at doses of 5, 25 and 125 mg/kg body weight over 28 days. Significant increase was observed in the activity of hepatic glutathione S-transferase at 125 mg/kg on both day 14 and 28 in males, and at all doses on day 28 in females, and in hepatosomatic index at 25 mg/kg on day 14 in both sexes. Plasma levels of testosterone and cortisol decreased significantly at all doses on day 28. Histopathologic changes in liver, spleen, intestine and testis deteriorated with increasing doses and duration. The results suggest that S. oramin is sensitive to t-OP, and the above endpoints may be potential biomarkers for evaluating toxicities of environmental pollutants such as t-OP.

Temperature fluctuations in a convection cell with rough upper and lower surfaces

A turbulent convection experiment is conducted in a cell with rough upper and lower surfaces. Temperature statistics, frequency power spectrum, and thermal dissipation are measured over varying Rayleigh numbers in the central region of the cell. The temperature histogram in the rough cell is found to have the same exponential shape as that in the smooth cell, but the width of the distribution is increased by approximately 25%. The measured power spectrum shows that temperature fluctuations in the rough cell are increased uniformly across the whole frequency range. The cutoff frequency f(c) of the power spectrum and the time averaged square temperature time derivative <( partial differentialT/ partial differentialt)(2)> are used to characterize the thermal dissipation in turbulent convection. It is found that the normalized f(c) as well as <( partial differentialT/ partial differentialt)(2)> in the smooth and rough cells with different aspect ratios can all be superposed onto a single curve, indicating that the thermal dissipation in these cells is determined by the same mechanism. The experiment suggests that the enhanced heat transport observed in the rough cell is determined primarily by the local dynamics near the upper and lower boundaries.