Survival analysis of 198 patients with pancreatic cancer in Hainan, China: A multi-institution prospective study

Objective: To explore the survival status and prognostic factors of patients with pancreatic cancer in Hainan. Methods: Clinical data of patients who were diagnosed as pancreatic cancer and visited the First and Second Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University and Haikou People's Hospital from 2013 to 2017 were collected based on electronic medical records. Basic information was collected by a self-designed questionnaire. Data about admission examinations including blood routine examination, blood biochemistry tests, tumour markers tests, imaging examination and other clinical tests were also collected. The date of follow-up via telephone was 30 June 2018. The survival rate was analyzed by the Kaplan-Meier method and the logrank test. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed with COX regression model. Results: A total of 198 patients were included in the study. Kaplan-Meier results showed that the overall survival (OS) in 6 months and 1, 2, 3 and 5 years was 47.4%, 26.8%, 16.4%, 13.2%, and 8.7%, respectively. The median OS was 5.8 months. Log-rank test analysis found that there were significant differences in OS among patients with different age, surgery status, distant metastasis or absolute number of neutrophils, percentage of neutrophils, absolute number of lymphocytes, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), CA199 and carcino-embryonic antigen (P<0.1). COX multivariate analysis showed that age, surgical presence, presence or absence of distant metastasis and NLR were significantly associated OS (P<0.05). Conclusions: Older age, higher NLR and liver or lung metastasis are independent risk factors, while surgical treatment is an independent protective factor for patients with pancreatic cancer.

Effect of BYDV-MP nuclear localization signal on the movement of PVX / 病毒学报

Abstract:By using PVX derived vector pGR107, the effect of BYDV-MP nuclear localization signal on the movement of PVX was studied. BYDV-MP was cloned into pGR107 using GFP as an indicator. BYDV-MP was then shown to induce the systemic infection and exacerbate the symptom of PVX through infecting Nicotiana benthamiana. When the PVX gene encoding 25kD protein, which functioned as a systematic movemnet protein,was deleted and the above experiment was repeated, the result showed that BYDV-MP could compensate the systemic movement of PVX. A serial mutants with substitutions on the fifth, sixth and seventh amino acids of BYDV-MP nuclear localization signal was further constructed. It was found that the mutants at the fifth, sixth amino acids in BYDV-MP nuclear localization signal could only delay or weaken systemic movement of PVX whereas the mutant at seventh amino acid could entirely inhibit systemic movement of PVX.

Adenovirus-mediated and tumor-specific transgene expression of the sodium-iodide symporter from the human telomerase reverse transcriptase promoter enhances killing of lung cancer cell line in vitro / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>The sodium-iodide symporter (NIS) protein can mediate the active radioiodine uptake. The human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) promoter is known to be selectively reactivated in majority of tumors and hence could be used for tumor targeting. We constructed a recombinant adenovirus containing the human sodium iodide symporter (hNIS) gene directed by the hTERT promoter, characterized the ability of infected cells in uptaking iodide, and explored the therapeutic efficacy of (131)I in a lung cancer cell line in vitro.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The hTERT promoter was amplified by PCR from DNA isolated from log-phase HepG2 cells, subcloned into lineralized FL*-hNIS/pcDNA3, and then the hTERT-hNIS sequence was subcloned into the shuttle plasmid pAdTrack. The recombinant adenovirus Ad-hTERT-hNIS was constructed by AdEasy system. A positive control adenovirus Ad-CMV-hNIS and a negative control adenovirus Ad-CMV were created similarly. A549 cells were transduced with recombinant adenoviruses. (125)I uptake studies and sodium perchlorate suppression studies were used to confirm hNIS expression and function. Toxic effects of (131)I on tumor cells were studied by in vitro clonogenic assay.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>We first successfully constructed an adenovirus mediated transgene expression system of the hNIS under the control of hTERT promoter. When infected with recombinant adenovirus constructs expressing hNIS directed by hTERT- and CMV-promoters (Ad-hTERT-hNIS and Ad-CMV-hNIS, respectively), the lung cancer cell line A549 had increased ability to uptake radioiodide up to 23- and 30-fold compared to the control parental cells, respectively. The radioiodide uptake ability of both the Ad-CMV-hNIS and Ad-hTERT-hNIS transduced cell lines were repressed 11-fold by sodium perchlorate (NaClO4). The subsequent in vitro clonogenic assay of the infected A549 cell line was further repressed to 23% (Ad-CMV-hNIS) and 30% (Ad-hTERT-hNIS) of the control group after receiving radioiodide for 7 hours (P < 0.001).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Our preliminary study indicates that an adenovirus mediated transgene expression system of the hNIS under the control of hTERT promoter has the potential to become an effective wide-spectrum yet highly specific anti-cancer strategy.</p>

Detection of 20q(-) chromosome abnormality in myelodysplastic syndrome by interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization / 中国实验血液学杂志

In order to explore the value of interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in the detection of partial deletion of the long arm of chromosome 20 (20q(-)) in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), spectrum Green fluorescein directly labeled yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) clone 912C3 which spans the breakpoint cluster region in band 20q12 was used as probes to perform interphase FISH on the marrow cells from 52 cases of MDS and 5 normal controls. 200 to 300 cells were scored for each case and cases which had cells with a green hybridization signal>7.16% were defined as 20q(-) positive. The results of FISH were compared with those of conventional cytogenetics (CC) assay. The results showed that among 52 cases of MDS, 7 (13.5%) cases were positive by FISH, however, of which, 4 cases were positive and the other 3 cases were negative by CC assay. It is concluded that YAC912C3 and interphase FISH providing a powerful technique in the detection of 20q(-) in MDS is an important complement to CC assay.