An expanded biomarker panel for the detection of prostate cancer from urine DNA.

Background: Prostate cancer diagnosis using the PSA test remains controversial because of overdiagnosis and overtreatment of potentially indolent cancers. There remains a need to increase the diagnostic lead time and to target treatment to patients with significant disease. One possible approach to overcome the limitations of PSA is to screen men for the molecular signature of early PCA, monitor the rate of disease progression and target treatment to patients who are likely to benefit from it.

A panel of DNA methylation markers for the detection of prostate cancer from FV and DRE urine DNA.

Background: Early screening for prostate cancer (PCA) remains controversial because of overdiagnosis and overtreatment of clinically insignificant cancers. Even though a number of diagnostic tests have been developed to improve on PSA testing, there remains a need for a more informative non-invasive test for PCA. The objective of this study is to identify a panel of DNA methylation markers suitable for a non-invasive diagnostic test from urine DNA collected following a digital rectal exam (DRE) and/or from first morning void (FV).

A panel of DNA methylation markers reveals extensive methylation in histologically benign prostate biopsy cores from cancer patients.

Background: Men with a negative first prostate biopsy will undergo one or more additional biopsies if they remain at high suspicion of prostate cancer. To date, there are no diagnostic tests capable of identifying patients at risk for a positive diagnosis with the predictive power needed to eliminate unnecessary repeat biopsies. Efforts to develop clinical tests using the epigenetic signature of cores recovered from first biopsies have been limited to a few markers and lack the sensitivity and specificity needed for widespread clinical adoption.

Knockout of the erythromycin biosynthetic cluster gene, eryBI, blocks isoflavone glucoside bioconversion during erythromycin fermentations in Aeromicrobium erythreum but not in Saccharopolyspora erythraea.

Isoflavone glucosides are valuable nutraceutical compounds and are present in commercial fermentations, such as the erythromycin fermentation, as constituents of the soy flour in the growth medium. The purpose of this study was to develop a method for recovery of the isoflavone glucosides as value-added coproducts at the end of either Saccharopolyspora erythraea or Aeromicrobium erythreum fermentation. Because the first step in isoflavone metabolism was known to be the conversion of isoflavone glucosides to aglycones by a beta-glucosidase, we chose to knock out the only beta-glucosidase gene known at the start of the study, eryBI, to see what effect this had on metabolism of isoflavone glucosides in each organism.

Engineering of the methylmalonyl-CoA metabolite node of Saccharopolyspora erythraea for increased erythromycin production.

Engineering of the methylmalonyl-CoA (mmCoA) metabolite node of the Saccharopolyspora erythraea wild-type strain through duplication of the mmCoA mutase (MCM) operon led to a 50% increase in erythromycin production in a high-performance oil-based fermentation medium. The MCM operon was carried on a 6.8kb DNA fragment in a plasmid which was inserted by homologous recombination into the S.