Blood DNA methylation markers in potentially identified Chinese patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

To determine whether blood DNA methylation is associated with hepatocellular carcinoma [HCC] for Chinese patients, we used genome-wide DNA methylation detection to access the blood samples of Chinese patients by Illumina Human methylation 450K arrays. Sixty potentially gene locis which had different methylated levels significantly among tumor and adjacent normal tissues would be tested in this study. A previous study was conducted in China communities and followed with 7 years. The DNA from white blood cells [WBC] from 192 patients with HCC and 215 matched controls were assayed in this study. The chi[2] test was used to measure data to categorize variables and t -test was uesd to evaluate the different characteristics among groups. Besides, odds ratios [OR] and 95%CI was calculated for matching factors by conditional logistic regression models. We found that high methylation in WNK2 was related to increased risk of HCC, and high methylation in TPO were related to decreased risk of HCC. In our multivariable conditional logistic regression models, these results all exist. Those findings support the methylated changes of WNK2 and TPO may become a new detection index for HCC patients in clinical laboratory. However, the results should be replicated in additional prospective studies with lager samples

Promotion of apoptosis in leukemia K562 cells by natural plant-derived antimicrobial solution(PAMs) / 中国药科大学学报

@#In this study, the leukemia K562 cell line was used as a model to elucidate the anticancer effects and preliminary mechanisms of PAMs. MTT assay showed that PAMs could cause cytotoxicities in K562 cells in dose- and time-dependent manners. AO-EB, Annexin-FITC/PI staining showed that the killing effects of PAMs in K562 cells were related to apoptosis, which was further confirmed by the following molecular and enzymatic assay. The mRNA levels of pro-apoptotic genes caspase-3, caspase-9 and bax were remarkably increased while the anti-apoptotic gene bcl-2 was significantly decreased determined by fluorescent quantitative PCR. Western blotting disclosed that PAMs could up-regulate caspase-3 and down-regulate anti-apoptotic survivin protein expression. The latter was also consistent with the results that PAMs could increase the enzymatic activities of both caspase-3 and caspase-9. All these results suggested that PAMs could effectively inhibit the proliferation of K562 cells and the mechanisms may be closely related to apoptosis induction. The work provides evidence basis for PAMs to be potentially developed as anti-cancer leukemia Chinese medicine.