miRNA expression profiles in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and adjacent normal tissue.

Background: The expression of miRNA in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) that had been classified as high risk by surgical pathologic features and validated by trial outcome for disease recurrence was determined and compared with matched adjacent normal tissues.

Methods: miRNA and corresponding gene expression were determined using miRNA bioarrays and gene expression arrays.

Results: Twenty miRNAs were determined to be differentially regulated in the HNSCC samples when compared with their normal tissue counterparts.

Regulation of Cdc25C by ERK-MAP kinases during the G2/M transition.

Induction of G(2)/M phase transition in mitotic and meiotic cell cycles requires activation by phosphorylation of the protein phosphatase Cdc25. Although Cdc2/cyclin B and polo-like kinase (PLK) can phosphorylate and activate Cdc25 in vitro, phosphorylation by these two kinases is insufficient to account for Cdc25 activation during M phase induction. Here we demonstrate that p42 MAP kinase (MAPK), the Xenopus ortholog of ERK2, is a major Cdc25 phosphorylating kinase in extracts of M phase-arrested Xenopus eggs.

Molecular signatures associated with clinical outcome in patients with high-risk head-and-neck squamous cell carcinoma treated by surgery and radiation.

Purpose: The local-regional control rate for advanced head-and-neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) remains poor and is unpredictable for a given individual. This study examined whether gene expression patterns developed from tumors from surgicopathologic, criteria-defined, high-risk HNSCC patients could be correlated with clinical outcomes, namely, metastasis or nonrecurrent disease.

Methods And Materials: Fifteen primary tumors from patients treated with a consistent protocol of surgery followed by radiotherapy were examined.

A Ser49Cys variant in the ataxia telangiectasia, mutated, gene that is more common in patients with breast carcinoma compared with population controls.

Background: Mothers of children who have ataxia telangiectasia have been reported to be at increased risk for development of breast carcinoma. To test whether sequence variants in the ataxia telangiectasia, mutated, gene (ATM) are associated with breast carcinoma, the authors compared the frequency of ATM cDNA sequence changes in patients with breast carcinoma with the corresponding frequency in control patients.

Methods: The authors sequenced ATM cDNA from 91 patients with breast carcinoma and compared the frequencies of sequence changes in these patients with the corresponding frequencies in a control sample of 940 individuals with no history of malignant disease.

Haplotypes at ATM identify coding-sequence variation and indicate a region of extensive linkage disequilibrium.

Genetic variation in the human population may lead to functional variants of genes that contribute to risk for common chronic diseases such as cancer. In an effort to detect such possible predisposing variants, we constructed haplotypes for a candidate gene and tested their efficacy in association studies. We developed haplotypes consisting of 14 biallelic neutral-sequence variants that span 142 kb of the ATM locus.