Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the leading causes of mortality globally. Although it is most prevalent in the elderly, it may occur in young adults (men ≤ 55 years or women ≤ 65 years) as premature MI (PMI). As awareness of genetic risks may lead to effective prevention of PMI, we aim to investigate the association of two susceptible single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the LPA gene with PMI in the Iranian population, rs1801693 and rs7765781, identified in previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS).A total number of 85 patients with PMI and 85 healthy controls were recruited from December 2015 to March 2016 from Isfahan, Iran. Peripheral blood samples were collected from all individuals. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was extracted and genotyped at rs1181693 and rs7765781 polymorphisms, using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Results were statistically analyzed to find any possible association of the two polymorphisms with PMI by SPSS software and P-values less than 0.05 were considered to be statistically significant.Statistical analysis displayed no significant difference between rs1801693 (P = 0.815)/rs7765781 (P = 0.746) alleles in patients with PMI and healthy control subjects.There is no meaningful association between rs1801693/rs7765781 and PMI incidence in the Iranian population.
Introduction: Malignant breast cancer (BC) frequently contains a rare population of cells called cancer stem cells which underlie tumor relapse and metastasis, and targeting these cells may improve treatment options and outcomes for patients with BC. The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of silibinin on the self-renewal capacity, tumorgenicity, and metastatic potential of mammospheres. Methods: The effect of silibinin on viability and proliferation of MCF-7, MDA-MB-231 mammospheres, and MDA-MB-468 cell aggregation was determined after 72-120 hours of treatment. Colony and sphere formation ability, and the expression of stemness, differentiation, and epithelial-mesenchymal-transition (EMT)-associated genes were assessed by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) in mammospheres treated with an IC50 dose of silibinin. Additionally, the antitumor capacity of silibinin was assessed in vivo, in mice. Results: The results of the present study showed that silibinin decreased the viability of all mammospheres derived from MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, and MDA-MB-468 cell aggregation in a dose-dependent manner. Colony and sphere-forming ability, as well as the expression of genes associated with EMT were reduced in mammospheres treated with silibinin. Additionally, the expression of genes associated with stemness and metastasis was also decreased and the expression of genes associated with differentiation were increased. Intra-tumoral injection of 2 mg/kg silibinin decreased tumor volumes in mice by 2.8 fold. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that silibinin may have exerted its anti-tumor effects in BC by targeting the BC stem cells, reducing the tumorgenicity and metastasis. Therefore, silibinin may be a potential adjuvant for treatment of BC.
microRNAs (miRNAs) play important role in progression of tumorigenesis. They can target self-renewal and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) abilities in tumor cells, especially in cancer stem cells (CSCs). The objective of this study was to implement data mining to identify important miRNAs for targeting both self-renewal and EMT. We also aimed to evaluate these factors in mammospheres as model of breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) and metastatic tumor tissues.In this experimental study, mammospheres were derived from MCF-7 cells and characterized for the CSCs properties. Then expression pattern of the selected miRNAs in spheroids were evaluated, using the breast tumor cells obtained from seven patients. Correlation of miRNAs with self-renewal and EMT candidate genes were assessed in mammospheres and metastatic tumors.The results showed that mammospheres represented more colonogenic and spheroid formation potential than MCF-7 cells (P<0.05). Additionally, they had enhanced migration and invasive capabilities. Our computational analyses determined that miR-200c and miR-30c could be candidates for targeting both stemness and EMT pathways. Expression level of miR-200c was reduced, while miR-30c expression level was enhanced in mammospheres, similar to the breast tumor tissues isolated from three patients with grade II/III who received neo-adjuvant treatment. Expression level of putative stem cell markers (OCT4, SOX2, c-MYC) and EMT-related genes (SNAIL1, CDH2, TWIST1/2) were also significantly increased in mammospheres and three indicated patients (P<0.05).Simultaneous down-regulation and up-regulation of respectively miR-200c and miR-30c might be signature of BCSC enrichment in patients post neo-adjuvant therapy. Therefore, targeting both miR-200c and miR-30c could be useful for developing new therapeutic approaches, against BCSCs.
Additional file 1 A set of 840 significant genes which is resulted by “Extracting significant genes embedded in empirically significant random signatures” subsection.
Abstract Background and Aim Cancer stem cells (CSCs), a subpopulation of tumor cells, assess the capacity of self‐renewal, metastasis, and therapeutic resistance. Regulation of CSCs and their epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) potential is one of the promising strategies to eliminate cancer or to inhibit metastasis. Micro‐RNAs (miRNAs) as regulators of several cell properties, such as self‐renewal, metastasis, and resistance to the drug, could be proper targets in cancer diagnosis and therapy. The aim of the present study is to select common miRNAs targeting both self‐renewal and metastasis in gastric cancer. Methods Stemness‐related and EMT‐related genes were selected by literature mining. The common miRNAs targeting genes were chosen using different databases and r programming language. The expression pattern of selected miRNAs and genes was evaluated in gastrospheres—as a gastric CSC model—and gastric tumor biopsies. Results Based on the integrated analysis, six miRNAs common to both stemness and metastasis were identified. miR‐200c‐3p and miR‐520c‐3p overexpressed in MKN‐45 gastrospheres and grade III tumors. In AGS spheres, however, miR‐520c‐3p and miR‐200c‐3p upregulation and miR‐34a‐5p downregulation were similar to grade II tumors. Interestingly, miR‐200c‐3p and miR‐520c‐3p indicated a positive correlation with OCT4 and NOTCH1 expression in grade III tumors and MKN‐45 spheres. Protein–protein network revealed that the EMT acquisition can be induced by stemness activation through intermediated core‐regulatory genes, including CTNNB1 , CTNND1 , MAML1 , KAT2A , and MAML3 . Conclusion The upregulation of mir‐200c‐3p and mir‐520c‐3p could effect on stemness and metastasis in gastric cancer as well as gastric CSCs. Therefore, they can be used as diagnosis and prognostic factors.
Abstract Considering high concentrations of multidrug-resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in wastewater, agricultural reuse of treated wastewater may be a public health threat due to ARG dissemination in different environmental compartments, including soil and edible parts of crops. We investigated the presence of antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli as an indicator bacterium from secondary treated wastewater (STWW), water- or wastewater-irrigated soil and crop samples. ARGs including blaCTX-m-32, blaOXA-23, tet-W, sul1, cml-A, erm-B, along with intI1 gene in E. coli isolates were detected via molecular methods. The most prevalent ARGs in 78 E. coli isolates were sul1 (42%), followed by blaCTX-m-32 (19%), and erm-B (17%). IntI1 as a class 1 integrons gene was detected in 46% of the isolates. Cml-A was detected in STWW isolates but no E. coli isolate from wastewater-irrigated soil and crop samples contained this gene. The results also showed no detection of E. coli in water-irrigated soil and crop samples. Statistical analysis showed a correlation between sul1 and cml-A with intI1. The results suggest that agricultural reuse of wastewater may contribute to the transmission of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to soil and crop. Further research is needed to determine the potential risk of ARB associated with the consumption of wastewater-irrigated crops.
The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effects of dietary fish oil and pioglitazone as peroxisome proliferators-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) activating ligands on the reduction of cold-induced ascites in broiler chickens. A total of 480 one-day-old (Ross 308) male chicks were randomly allocated to four treatment groups with eight replicates of 15 birds each. The following treatments were used: 1) ambient temperature (negative control), with basal diet; 2) cold-induced ascites (positive control), with basal diet; 3) cold-induced ascites, with basal diet +10 mg/kg/day pioglitazone and 4) cold-induced ascites, with basal diet +1% of fish oil. When compared with the positive control, body weight gain was higher (P ≤ 0.05) for broilers fed diets containing fish oil and pioglitazone at 28, 42, and 0–42 d. Broilers under cold-induced ascites had the highest blood pressure at 21 and 42 d, while fish oil and pioglitazone treatment reduced the blood pressure (P ≤ 0.05). Red blood cells, white blood cells, hematocrit, erythrocyte osmotic fragility, bursa of Fabricius and spleen weights were improved (P ≤ 0.05) for chickens fed fish oil diets and pioglitazone compared to the cold-induced ascites (positive control). Exposure to cold temperature resulted in an increase in plasma T3 and T3/T4 ratio and decline in plasma T4 (P ≤ 0.05). In conclusion, PPARγ agonist pioglitazone and fish oil as source of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid could be used as a strategy to reduce the negative effects of pulmonary arterial hypertension and ascites in broiler chickens.
Abstract Background In 2012, Venet et al. proposed that at least in the case of breast cancer, most published signatures are not significantly more associated with outcome than randomly generated signatures. They suggested that nominal p -value is not a good estimator to show the significance of a signature. Therefore, one can reasonably postulate that some information might be present in such significant random signatures. Methods In this research, first we show that, using an empirical p -value, these published signatures are more significant than their nominal p -values. In other words, the proposed empirical p -value can be considered as a complimentary criterion for nominal p -value to distinguish random signatures from significant ones. Secondly, we develop a novel computational method to extract information that are embedded within significant random signatures. In our method, a score is assigned to each gene based on the number of times it appears in significant random signatures. Then, these scores are diffused through a protein-protein interaction network and a permutation procedure is used to determine the genes with significant scores. The genes with significant scores are considered as the set of significant genes. Results First, we applied our method on the breast cancer dataset NKI to achieve a set of significant genes in breast cancer considering significant random signatures. Secondly, prognostic performance of the computed set of significant genes is evaluated using DMFS and RFS datasets. We have observed that the top ranked genes from this set can successfully separate patients with poor prognosis from those with good prognosis. Finally, we investigated the expression pattern of TAT, the first gene reported in our set, in malignant breast cancer vs. adjacent normal tissue and mammospheres. Conclusion Applying the method, we found a set of significant genes in breast cancer, including TAT, a gene that has never been reported as an important gene in breast cancer. Our results show that the expression of TAT is repressed in tumors suggesting that this gene could act as a tumor suppressor in breast cancer and could be used as a new biomarker.
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