Circulating MicroRNAs in blood of patients with prostate cancer.

Introduction: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small regulatory RNAs that do not code for proteins. Detection of circulating tumor cells (CTC) would provide diagnostic and prognostic information in prostate tumors (PT). Thus, miRNAs could constitute a promising new class of biomarkers for CTC detection.

Circulating miR-200c as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for gastric cancer.

Background: MicroRNAs are aberrantly expressed and correlate with tumourigenesis and the progression of solid tumours. The miR-200 family determines the epithelial phenotype of cancer cells and regulates invasiveness and migration. Thus, we hypothesised that the quantitative detection of the miR-200 family as epithelial-specific microRNAs in the blood could be a useful clinical biomarker for gastric cancer (GC).

Searching for Hif1-α interacting proteins in renal cell carcinoma.

Introduction: Kidney tumours are frequently characterised by hypoxic conditions due to a local imbalance between oxygen (O2) supply and consumption. Hif1-α regulates angiogenesis, tumour growth, tumour progression, metastatic spread, and glucose metabolism by acting as a transcription factor for relevant genes. Here, we describe an immunohistochemical study of Hif1-α, a comprehensive computational study of Hif1-α interacting proteins (HIPs), an analysis correlating expression levels of Hif1-α with upstream and downstream proteins, and an analysis of the utility of Hif1-α for prognosis in a cohort of patients with renal cell carcinoma.

Tissue array analysis for the differentiation of gliosis from gliomas.

The aim of this study was to provide a methodology to make a clear distinction between malignant tumors and morphologically similar benign processes, by examining the expression of EGFR, VEGF, HIF1-α, survivin, Bcl-2 and p53 proteins. Four groups of patient samples were studied: group 1, low-grade astrocytomas (WHO grades I-II) (n=6); group 2, peripheral area of high-grade astrocytomas (WHO grades III-IV) (n=5); group 3, gliomatosis cerebri (n=11); and group 4, reactive gliosis (n=6). Tissue arrays (TAs) were designed to study apoptosis, angiogenesis and invasion-related proteins by immunohistochemistry (IHC).

Fructose transporter GLUT5 expression in clear renal cell carcinoma.

Renal cell carcinomas (RCC) can be subclassified for general purposes into clear cell, papillary cell, chromophobe cell carcinomas and oncocytomas. Other tumours such as collecting duct, medullary, mucinous tubular and spindle cell and associated with Xp 11.2 translocations/TFE 3 gene fusion, are much less common.