Xianjuan Shen

BACKGROUND: To verify whether the concentrations and integrity index of circulating cell-free DNA (ccf-DNA) in serum may be clinically useful for the diagnosis and progression monitoring of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. METHODS: Serum samples were collected from 104 with primary CRC, 85 with operated CRC, 16 with recurrent/metastatic CRC, 63 patients with intestinal polyps and 110 normal controls. Long (247 bp) and short (115 bp) DNA fragments in serum were detected by real-time quantitative PCR by amplifying the ALU repeats (ALU-qPCR). Serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) level was detected by ARCHITECT assay. RESULTS: The median absolute serum ALU115 and ALU247/115 in primary CRC group was significantly higher than those in intestinal polyp and normal control groups (both P<0.0001), in recurrent/metastatic CRC was significantly higher compared with primary CRC (P=0.0021, P=0.0018) or operated CRC (P<0.0001, respectively) and during follow-up, ALU115 and ALU247/115 were increased before surgery and decreased significantly after surgery. CONCLUSIONS: Combined detection of ALU115, ALU247/115 and CEA could improve the diagnostic efficiency for CRC. Serum DNA concentrations and integrity index may be valuable in early complementary diagnosis and monitoring of progression and prognosis of CRC.

// Chunjing Jin 1, * , Wei Shi 2, * , Feng Wang 3, * , Xianjuan Shen 2 , Jing Qi 2 , Hui Cong 3 , Jie Yuan 1 , Linying Shi 1 , Bingying Zhu 1 , Xi Luo 1 , Yan Zhang 1 , Shaoqing Ju 2, 3 1 Medical School of Medicine, Nantong University, Nantong 226000, Jiangsu Province, China 2 Surgical Comprehensive Laboratory, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong 226000, Jiangsu Province, China 3 Laboratory Medicine Center, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong 226000, Jiangsu Province, China * These authors have contributed equally to the work Correspondence to: Shaoqing Ju, email: jsq814@hotmail.com Keywords: gastric cancer, long non-coding RNA, biomarker, HULC Received: January 25, 2016&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp; Accepted: May 02, 2016&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp; Published: June 16, 2016 ABSTRACT Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have recently emerged as vital players in tumor biology with potential value in cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics. The lncRNA HULC (highly up-regulated in liver cancer) is increased in many malignancies, yet its serum expression profile and clinical value in gastric cancer (GC) patients remain unclear. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) for large-scale analysis of the serum expression of HULC in GC patients reliably detected circulating HULC and revealed that it is upregulated in GC patients. A high serum HULC level correlated with tumor size, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, tumor-node-metastasis stage, and H. pylori infection. The area under the ROC curve for HULC was up to 0.888, which was higher than that for CEA (0.694) and CA72-4 (0.514). Follow-up detection and Kaplan-Meier curve analysis revealed HULC is a good predictor of GC prognosis. Our present study indicates that circulating HULC may represent a novel serum tumor marker for early diagnosis and monitoring progression and prognosis of GC.

Abstract Radiotherapy, chemotherapy, autologous/allogeneic stem cell transplantation, and targeted drug therapy are currently available therapeutic options for multiple myeloma (MM), but the clinical outcome remains unsatisfactory owing to frequent occurrence of drug resistance. Anti apoptosis is one of the main mechanisms to mediate drug resistance. Studies have shown that MCL-1 plays a key role in the growth of cancer cells “escaping” drug attacks, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Our previous study demonstrated that lncRNA H19 was highly expressed in the serum of MM patients. Bioinformatics predicts that miR-29b-3p is the downstream target gene, and MCL-1 is the downstream target protein of miR-29b-3p. Therefore, we speculated that MCL-1 may be involved in the occurrence of drug resistance through epigenetics. On the basis of these previous findings, the present study was intended to explore the biological function of H19, interactions between the downstream target genes, and the effect of H19 on BTZ resistance of myeloma cells. In addition, in vivo experiments we have also confirmed that H19 promoted tumor growth and may develop resistance to bortezomib partly. It was found that H19 reduced cell sensitivity to the chemotherapeutic drug BTZ by working as a miRNA sponge to inhibit the expression of miR-29b-3p, enhance MCL-1 transcriptional translation and inhibit apoptosis. These findings may help gain insights into the molecular mechanism of acquired BTZ resistance and develop new drug targets for the clinical treatment of MM.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to explore serum PCAT-1 expression in multiple myeloma (MM) and examine the potential usefulness of this molecule as a biomarker for diagnosis in MM. METHODS: Serum samples were collected from 60 newly diagnosed untreated MM patients, and 48 healthy controls. Serum PCAT-1 expression levels were detected by RT-qPCR. In addition, correlations between the relative expression of serum PCAT-1 and the concentrations of lactic acid dehydrogenase (LDH), β2M, λ light chain and κ light chain were assessed. RESULTS: It was found that the relative expression of serum PCAT-1 in MM patients (81.02 ± 136.9) was higher than that in healthy controls (3.17 ± 5.75) (U= 307.0, P< 0.0001) and was significantly correlated with β2M concentration (r= 0.461, P= 0.0002), but not with LDH, κ light and λ light chain concentration (r= 0.061, P= 0.641; r= 0.007, P= 0.956; r=-0.090, P= 0.499 respectively). Additionally, it was significantly correlated with different isotype of MM (H= 7.464, P= 0.024). The AUC of the ROC curve of serum PCAT-1 was 0.892 (95% CI 0.833-0.950), which was higher than other markers. Combining PCAT-1 and β2M together, the sensitivity was highest compared with other markers alone, or combined. CONCLUSION: The expression levels of serum PCAT-1 in MM patients were significantly higher than that in healthy controls, suggesting that it may be useful in the auxiliary diagnosis of MM.