Zebrafish patient-derived xenograft models predict lymph node involvement and treatment outcome in non-small cell lung cancer.

Background: Accurate predictions of tumor dissemination risks and medical treatment outcomes are critical to personalize therapy. Patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models in mice have demonstrated high accuracy in predicting therapeutic outcomes, but methods for predicting tumor invasiveness and early stages of vascular/lymphatic dissemination are still lacking. Here we show that a zebrafish tumor xenograft (ZTX) platform based on implantation of PDX tissue fragments recapitulate both treatment outcome and tumor invasiveness/dissemination in patients, within an assay time of only 3 days.

Human antibody responses to bovine (Newbury-2) norovirus (GIII.2) and association to histo-blood group antigens.

Serum antibodies to bovine norovirus have been found recently in about 22% of humans. Whether this prevalence reflects limited virulence properties of the virus or that inherited host factors provide protection against bovine norovirus infection in humans remains to be established. To investigate whether histo-blood group antigens correlate with the presence of bovine norovirus (GIII.

Genetic susceptibility to symptomatic norovirus infection in Nicaragua.

Host genetic resistance to Norovirus (NoV) has been observed in challenge and outbreak studies in populations from Europe, Asia, and USA. In this study, we have investigated if histo-blood group antigens can predict susceptibility to diarrhea caused by NoV in Nicaragua, Central America, and if this can be reflected in antibody-prevalence and titer to NoV among individuals with different histo-blood group antigen phenotypes. Investigation of 28 individuals infected with NoV and 131 population controls revealed 6% of non-secretors in the population and nil non-secretors among patients infected with NoV, suggesting that non-secretors may be protected against NoV disease in Nicaragua.