β-Catenin in desmoid-type fibromatosis: deep insights into the role of T41A and S45F mutations on protein structure and gene expression.

Desmoid-type fibromatosis (DF) is a rare mesenchymal lesion with high risk of local recurrence. Specific β-catenin mutations (S45F) appeared to be related to this higher risk compared to T41A-mutated or wild-type (WT). We explored the influence of both mutations and WT on structure stability and affinity of β-catenin for α-catenin and the pattern of gene expression that may influence DF behavior.

Detection of Circulating Tumour Cells in Urothelial Cancers and Clinical Correlations: Comparison of Two Methods.

Circulating tumour cells (CTC) are identified exploiting their protein/gene expression patterns or distinct size compared to blood cells. Data on CTC in bladder cancer (BC) are still scarce. We comparatively analyzed CTC enrichment by AdnaTest ProstateCancerSelect (AT) and ScreenCell®Cyto (SC) kits, combined with identification by and expression and by cytological criteria, respectively, in 19 nonmetastatic () and 47 metastatic () BC patients, at baseline () and during treatment ().

A methodological procedure for evaluating the impact of hemolysis on circulating microRNAs.

Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) are promising non-invasive biomarkers whose expression may be affected by confounding factors, including hemolysis, that should be considered in studies of miRNA discovery. The present study proposes a methodology for evaluating the impact of hemolysis on the expression of miRNAs. An experiment of controlled hemolysis was designed for assessing if changes in the expression of eight miRNAs observed to be circulating in plasma may be associated with hemolysis, and also to estimate the level of red blood cell (RBC) contamination in plasma samples where the expression of these miRNAs will be measured.

Feasibility of Preoperative Chemotherapy With or Without Radiation Therapy in Localized Soft Tissue Sarcomas of Limbs and Superficial Trunk in the Italian Sarcoma Group/Grupo Español de Investigación en Sarcomas Randomized Clinical Trial: Three Versus Five Cycles of Full-Dose Epirubicin Plus Ifosfamide.

Purpose: We report on feasibility of preoperative chemotherapy with or without radiation therapy (RT) in the context of a phase III randomized clinical trial involving localized, high-risk, soft tissue sarcomas.

Patients And Methods: Of 321 eligible patients, 161 were randomly assigned to three preoperative cycles of epirubicin 120 mg/m(2) plus ifosfamide 9 g/m(2), and 160 were randomly assigned to three preoperative plus two postoperative cycles. Among them, 303 patients were included in this analysis; 169 were male and 134 were female, with a median age of 48 years (range, 15 to 79 years).

Moving from discovery to validation in circulating microRNA research.

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs), small noncoding RNAs, are involved in tumorigenesis and in the development of various cancers. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) is the most commonly used tool to investigate miRNA expression, and qPCR low-density arrays are increasingly being used as an experimental technique for both the identification of potentially relevant miRNAs and their subsequent validation. Due to the reduced number of microRNAs to be validated, this phase is generally performed on ad hoc customized cards for which a technical robustness is assumed similar to that of the high-throughput cards used during the identification phase.

NqA: an R-based algorithm for the normalization and analysis of microRNA quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction data.

In this note, we propose an R function named NqA (Normalization qPCR Array, where qPCR is quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction) suitable for the identification of a set of microRNAs (miRNAs) to be used for data normalization in view of subsequent validation studies with qPCR data. NqA is available through the website of the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori of Milan (http://www.istitutotumori.