The role of preoperative immune cell metrics in renal cell carcinoma with a tumor thrombus.

Introduction: The objective of this study was to stratify preoperative immune cell counts by cancer specific outcomes in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and a tumor thrombus after radical nephrectomy with tumor thrombectomy.

Methods: Patients with a diagnosis of RCC with tumor thrombus that underwent radical nephrectomy with thrombectomy across an international consortium of seven institutions were included. Patients who were metastatic at diagnosis and those who received preoperative medical treatment were also included.

Geospatial Cellular Distribution of Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts Significantly Impacts Clinical Outcomes in Metastatic Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma.

Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF) are highly prevalent cells in the tumor microenvironment in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). CAFs exhibit a pro-tumor effect in vitro and have been implicated in tumor cell proliferation, metastasis, and treatment resistance. Our objective is to analyze the geospatial distribution of CAFs with proliferating and apoptotic tumor cells in the ccRCC tumor microenvironment and determine associations with survival and systemic treatment.

Prognostic Factors in De Novo Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Report From the Latin American Renal Cancer Group.

Purpose: To assess the effect of clinical and pathological variables on cancer-specific and overall survival (OS) in de novo metastatic patients from a collaborative of primarily Latin American countries.

Patients And Methods: Of 4,060 patients with renal cell carcinoma diagnosed between 1990 and 2015, a total of 530 (14.5%) had metastasis at clinical presentation.

Amyloid-like aggregation of provasopressin.

The antidiuretic hormone vasopressin is synthesized as a longer precursor protein. After folding in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), provasopressin is transported through the secretory pathway, forms secretory granules in the trans-Golgi network (TGN), is processed, and finally secreted into the circulation. Mutations in provasopressin cause autosomal dominant diabetes insipidus.

Evolution of the SH3 Domain Specificity Landscape in Yeasts.

To explore the conservation of Src homology 3 (SH3) domain-mediated networks in evolution, we compared the specificity landscape of these domains among four yeast species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Ashbya gossypii, Candida albicans, and Schizosaccharomyces pombe, encompassing 400 million years of evolution. We first aligned and catalogued the families of SH3-containing proteins in these four species to determine the relationships between homologous domains. Then, we tagged and purified all soluble SH3 domains (82 in total) to perform a quantitative peptide assay (SPOT) for each SH3 domain.

Fast and slow dynamics in a discotic liquid crystal with regions of columnar order and disorder.

Aromatic disk-shaped molecules tend to self-organize into a herringbone packing where the disks are inclined at angles ±θ with respect to the axis of the column. In discotic liquid crystals this can introduce defects between stacks of limited length. In a C(3)-symmetric hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene, solid-state NMR, x-ray scattering, and rheology identifies such a packing with θ=43° and stacks of about seven disks.

In vitro binding of clathrin adaptors to sorting signals correlates with endocytosis and basolateral sorting.

To analyze the interaction of sorting signals with clathrin-associated adaptor complexes, we developed an in vitro assay based on surface plasmon resonance analysis. This method monitors the binding of purified adaptors to immobilized oligopeptides in real time and determines binding kinetics and affinities. A peptide corresponding to the cytoplasmic domain of wild-type influenza hemagglutinin, an apical membrane protein that is not endocytosed, did not significantly bind adaptor complexes.

Post-translational processing of anglerfish islet somatostatin precursors.

Two distinct somatostatin precursors are synthesized in anglerfish (AF) islets. In addition to a precursor which has somatostatin 14 (SS-14) as a C-terminal cleavage product, a precursor which contains at its C-terminus [Tyr7, Gly10] SS-14 as a potential cleavage product is also synthesized. However, even though an Arg-Lys pair is located immediately N-terminal to Ala1 of the C-terminal tetradecapeptide, [Tyr7, Gly10]SS-14 was not found in significant amounts in extracts of AF islets.

NH2-terminal amino acid sequence and peptide mapping of purified human beta-lipotropin: comparison with previously proposed sequences.

Beta-Lipotropin was purified from human pituitary glands to a purity of greater than 90%. The amino acid compositions of beta-lipotropin and its three cyanogen bromide cleavage peptide fragments were in agreement with the structure proposed by Li and Chung [Li, C.H.