Tumor target amplification: Implications for nano drug delivery systems.

Tumor cells overexpress surface markers which are absent from normal cells. These tumor-restricted antigenic signatures are a fundamental basis for distinguishing on-target from off-target cells for ligand-directed targeting of cancer cells. Unfortunately, tumor heterogeneity impedes the establishment of a solid expression pattern for a given target marker, leading to drastic changes in quality (availability) and quantity (number) of the target.

Identification, differentiation and antibiotic susceptibility of isolates from diseased poultry.

Background: is an opportunistic pathogen of intensively reared poultry causing oophoritis, salpingitis, peritonitis and enteritis. infection often remains undiagnosed. Recently multi-drug resistant isolates have been described.

Membrane-initiated effects of Serelys on proliferation and apoptosis of human breast cancer cells.

Herbal extracts used for the alleviation of postmenopausal symptoms might have a lower risk of breast cancer development than hormone therapy. Serelys is a product composed of purified pollen cytoplasm extracts. Recent experimental data revealed that estrogens might trigger a further proliferative effect on breast cancer cells via the progesterone receptor membrane component-1 (PGRMC1) in addition to the proliferative effect via intracellularly located receptors.

Emerging therapeutic targets in myeloproliferative neoplasms and peripheral T-cell leukemia and lymphomas.

Hematopoietic neoplasms are often driven by gain-of-function mutations of the JAK-STAT pathway together with mutations in chromatin remodeling and DNA damage control pathways. The interconnection between the JAK-STAT pathway, epigenetic regulation or DNA damage control is still poorly understood in cancer cell biology. Areas covered: Here, we focus on a broader description of mutational insights into myeloproliferative neoplasms and peripheral T-cell leukemia and lymphomas, since sequencing efforts have identified similar combinations of driver mutations in these diseases covering different lineages.

Navigation through inter- and intratumoral heterogeneity of endocrine resistance mechanisms in breast cancer: A potential role for Liquid Biopsies?

The majority of breast cancers are hormone receptor positive due to the expression of the estrogen and/or progesterone receptors. Endocrine therapy is a major treatment option for all disease stages of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer and improves overall survival. However, endocrine therapy is limited by de novo and acquired resistance.

Quantifying HER-2 expression on circulating tumor cells by ACCEPT.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) isolated from blood can be probed for the expression of treatment targets. Immunofluorescence is often used for both the enumeration of CTC and the determination of protein expression levels related to treatment targets. Accurate and reproducible assessment of such treatment target expression levels is essential for their use in the clinic.

Occurrence of and in raw chicken and beef meat in northern Egypt and dissemination of their antibiotic resistance markers.

Background: The global incidence of foodborne infections and antibiotic resistance is recently increased and considered of public health concern. Currently, scarcely information is available on foodborne infections and ESBL associated with poultry and beef meat in Egypt.

Methods: In total, 180 chicken and beef meat samples as well as internal organs were collected from different districts in northern Egypt.

Progesterone receptor membrane component 1 is phosphorylated upon progestin treatment in breast cancer cells.

Menopausal hormone therapy, using estrogen and synthetic progestins, is associated with an increased risk of developing breast cancer. The effect of progestins on breast cells is complex and not yet fully understood. In previous and studies, we found different progestins to increase the proliferation of Progesterone Receptor Membrane Component-1 (PGRMC1)-overexpressing MCF7 cells (MCF7/PGRMC1), suggesting a possible role of PGRMC1 in transducing membrane-initiated progestin signals.

Readout-segmented multi-shot diffusion-weighted MRI of the knee joint in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Background: Diffusion-weighted MRI has been proposed as a new technique for imaging synovitis without intravenous contrast application. We investigated diagnostic utility of multi-shot readout-segmented diffusion-weighted MRI (multi-shot DWI) for synovial imaging of the knee joint in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).

Methods: Thirty-two consecutive patients with confirmed or suspected JIA (21 girls, median age 13 years) underwent routine 1.

A Novel Workflow to Enrich and Isolate Patient-Matched EpCAM and EpCAM CTCs Enables the Comparative Characterization of the PIK3CA Status in Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), potential precursors of most epithelial solid tumors, are mainly enriched by epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM)-dependent technologies. Hence, these approaches may overlook mesenchymal CTCs, considered highly malignant. Our aim was to establish a workflow to enrich and isolate patient-matched EpCAM and EpCAM CTCs within the same blood samples, and to investigate the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase catalytic subunit alpha (PIK3CA) mutational status within single CTCs.

Coxiella burnetii immunogenic proteins as a basis for new Q fever diagnostic and vaccine development.

Coxiella burnetii is the etiological agent of the zoonosis Q fever, which can cause an acute or a chronic, life-threatening disease in humans. It presents a highly stable cell form, which persists in the environment and is transmitted via contaminated aerosols. Ruminants are considered as the main reservoir for human infections but are usually asymptomatic.

CIB2 Negatively Regulates Oncogenic Signaling in Ovarian Cancer via Sphingosine Kinase 1.

Sphingosine kinase 1 (SK1) is a key regulator of the cellular balance between proapoptotic and prosurvival sphingolipids. Oncogenic signaling by SK1 relies on its localization to the plasma membrane, which is mediated by the calcium and integrin binding protein CIB1 via its Ca-myristoyl switch function. Here we show that another member of the CIB family, CIB2, plays a surprisingly opposite role to CIB1 in the regulation of SK1 signaling.

Serological evidence of in febrile patients seeking treatment at remote hospitals, northeastern Kenya, 2014-2015.

Tularaemia is a highly contagious infectious zoonosis caused by the bacterial agent . The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of antibodies to in febrile patients in northeastern Kenya. During 2014-2015, 730 patients were screened for anti- antibodies using a combination of ELISA and Western blot.

First report of two complete Clostridium chauvoei genome sequences and detailed in silico genome analysis.

Clostridium (C.) chauvoei is a Gram-positive, spore forming, anaerobic bacterium. It causes black leg in ruminants, a typically fatal histotoxic myonecrosis.

A probabilistic Poisson-based model accounts for an extensive set of absolute auditory threshold measurements.

Thresholds for detecting sounds in quiet decrease with increasing sound duration in every species studied. The neural mechanisms underlying this trade-off, often referred to as temporal integration, are not fully understood. Here, we probe the human auditory system with a large set of tone stimuli differing in duration, shape of the temporal amplitude envelope, duration of silent gaps between bursts, and frequency.

High Level of Progesteron Receptor Membrane Component 1 (PGRMC 1) in Tissue of Breast Cancer Patients is Associated with Worse Response to Anthracycline-Based Neoadjuvant Therapy.

PGRMC1 is known to be highly expressed in breast cancer tissue and is associated with chemoresistance in breast cancer cells. However, its role in breast cancer signaling is not fully understood yet. In the present study, the expression status of PGRMC1 and its phosphorylated version (pPGRMC1) in breast cancer tissue and surrounding stroma before and after neoadjuvant therapy was examined to find a possible association to therapy response.

In Brucella: Selective pressure may turn some genes on instead of default off position.

Brucellosis is a major zoonosis with worldwide prevalence; more than half a million new human cases are expected every year. The genus Brucella (B) encompasses 12 accepted nomo-species and brucellae were described as Gram negative, aerobic, non-motile and non-haemolytic facultative intracellular bacteria. The Brucella genome contains flagella-specific genes and various hemolysins, but no flagella are formed and nor hemolysis is seen.

Enrichment, Isolation and Molecular Characterization of EpCAM-Negative Circulating Tumor Cells.

The presence of EpCAM-positive circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the peripheral blood is associated with poor clinical outcomes in breast, colorectal and prostate cancer, as well as the prognosis of other tumor types. In addition, recent studies have suggested that the presence of CTCs undergoing epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and, as such, may exhibit reduced or no expression of epithelial proteins e.g.

Diagnostic Value of Diffusion-Weighted MRI for Tumor Characterization, Differentiation and Monitoring in Pediatric Patients with Neuroblastic Tumors.

 We explored the diagnostic value of diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) for tumor characterization, differentiation and therapy monitoring in pediatric patients with extracranial neuroblastic tumors.  All 29 patients (14 girls, median age: 3 years) with neuroblastoma (NB, n = 19), ganglioneuroblastoma (GNB, n = 4) and ganglioneuroma (GN, n = 6) who had had at least one in-house DWI examination since 2005 were identified and retrospectively analyzed. Two independent blinded readers measured ADC values (unit: 10-3 mm/s) and signal intensity ratios (SIRs) of the primary tumor and, if applicable, of the tumor after chemotherapy, metastases and tumor relapse.

Are brucellosis, Q fever and melioidosis potential causes of febrile illness in Madagascar?

Brucellosis, Q fever and melioidosis are zoonoses, which can lead to pyrexia. These diseases are often under-ascertained and underreported because of their unspecific clinical signs and symptoms, insufficient awareness by physicians and public health officers and limited diagnostic capabilities, especially in low-resource countries. Therefore, the presence of Brucella spp.

Improvement of a tissue maceration technique for the determination of placental involvement in schistosomiasis.

Schistosomiasis in pregnancy may cause low birth weight, prematurity and stillbirth of the offspring. The placenta of pregnant women might be involved when schistosome ova are trapped in placental tissue. Standard histopathological methods only allow the examination of a limited amount of placental tissue and are therefore not sufficiently sensitive.

Comparison of Turbo Spin Echo and Echo Planar Imaging for intravoxel incoherent motion and diffusion tensor imaging of the kidney at 3Tesla.

Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) is most commonly applied to acquire diffusion-weighted MR-images. EPI is able to capture an entire image in very short time, but is prone to distortions and artifacts. In diffusion-weighted EPI of the kidney severe distortions may occur due to intestinal gas.

Validation of commercially available sphingosine kinase 2 antibodies for use in immunoblotting, immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence.

Sphingosine kinase 2 (SK2) is a ubiquitously expressed lipid kinase that has important, albeit complex and poorly understood, roles in regulating cell survival and cell death. In addition to being able to promote cell cycle arrest and apoptosis under certain conditions, it has recently been shown that SK2 can promote neoplastic transformation and tumorigenesis . Therefore, well validated and reliable tools are required to study and better understand the true functions of SK2.

Comparison of Mast , Ashdown + Gentamicin, and Selective Agar for the Selective Growth of Spp.

Reliable identification of pathogenic spp. like and in clinical samples is desirable. Three different selective media were assessed for reliability and selectivity with various spp.

Intravoxel incoherent motion magnetic resonance imaging of the knee joint in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Background: MRI of synovitis relies on use of a gadolinium-based contrast agent. Diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) visualises thickened synovium but is of limited use in the presence of joint effusion.

Objective: To investigate the feasibility and diagnostic accuracy of diffusion-weighted MRI with intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) for diagnosing synovitis in the knee joint of children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis.