The Potential Role of Dysregulated miRNAs in Alzheimer's Disease Pathogenesis and Progression.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disease that affects the cognitive faculties of millions of people worldwide. There is still no known cure for AD, nor a clear understanding of AD etiology. Nevertheless, researchers have made significant strides in understanding various key aspects of AD neuropathology at the cellular and molecular levels.

AKAP4 is a circulating biomarker for non-small cell lung cancer.

Cancer testis antigens (CTAs) are widely expressed in tumor tissues, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and in cancer derived exosomes that are frequently engulfed by lymphoid cells. To determine whether tumor derived CTA mRNAs could be detected in RNA from purified peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, we assayed for the expression of 116 CTAs in PBMC RNA in a discovery set and identified AKAP4 as a potential NSCLC biomarker. We validated AKAP4 as a highly accurate biomarker in a cohort of 264 NSCLCs and 135 controls from 2 different sites including a subset of controls with high risk lung nodules.

Gene expression profiling of primary and metastatic colon cancers identifies a reduced proliferative rate in metastatic tumors.

The objective of this study was to gain insights into the biological basis of the metastatic process by characterizing the gene expression differences between primary and metastatic colon cancers. Recent studies have demonstrated that few new mutational changes are acquired during the metastatic progression of colon tumors [Jones et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105 (11): 4283-4288, 2008].