Cell-free tumor DNA analysis in advanced or metastatic breast cancer patients: mutation frequencies, testing intention, and clinical impact.

Background: Circulating cell-free tumor DNA (ctDNA) provides a non-invasive approach for assessing somatic alterations. The German PRAEGNANT registry study aims to explore molecular biomarkers and investigate their integration into clinical practice. In this context, ctDNA testing was included to understand the motivations of clinicians to initiate testing, to identify somatic alterations, and to assess the clinical impact of the results obtained.

Anti-ceramide antibody and sphingosine-1-phosphate as potential biomarkers of unresectable non-small cell lung cancer.

Objectives: Spingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) and ceramides are bioactive sphingolipids that influence cancer cell fate. Anti-ceramide antibodies might inhibit the effects of ceramide. The aim of this study was to assess the potential role of circulating S1P and anti-ceramide antibody as biomarkers in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Purification and characterization of a thermophilic NAD-dependent lactate dehydrogenase from Moorella thermoacetica.

Oxidation of lactate under anaerobic dark fermentative conditions poses an energetic problem. The redox potential of the lactate/pyruvate couple is too electropositive to reduce the physiological electron carriers NAD(P) or ferredoxin. However, the thermophilic, anaerobic, and acetogenic model organism Moorella thermoacetica can grow on lactate but was suggested to have a NAD-dependent lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), based on enzyme assays in cell-free extract.

Acetogenesis to ethanologenesis: facilitating NADH oxidation via reductive acetate uptake.

(Homo)acetogens, including Clostridium spp., represent an enigma in metabolic flexibility and diversity. Eubacterium callanderi KIST612 is an acetogen that produces n-butyrate with carbon monoxide (CO) as the carbon and energy source; however, the production route is unknown.

Immunogenicity of a recombinant chimera composed of CROP domain segments from the hemorrhagic and lethal toxins of Paeniclostridium sordellii.

Paeniclostridium sordellii is responsible for severe infections in horses, cattle, and sheep, however, conventional vaccines exhibit limitations in production and immunogenicity. This study assessed the immunogenicity of a recombinant bacterin composed of a chimera (rQTcsHL) that combines segments from the lethal (TcsL) and hemorrhagic (TcsH) toxins in mice and sheep. Both immunized animal groups exhibited elevated levels of IgG, with the mice demonstrating moderate protection (<50 %) against lethal challenges, comparable to that of the conventional vaccine.