A multilingual assessment of melanoma information quality on the Internet.

This study aims to assess and compare melanoma information quality in Hungarian, Czech, and German languages on the Internet. We used country-specific Google search engines to retrieve the first 25 uniform resource locators (URLs) by searching the word "melanoma" in the given language. Using the automated toolbar of Health On the Net Foundation (HON), we assessed each Web site for HON certification based on the Health On the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode). Information quality was determined using a 35-point checklist created by Bichakjian et al. (J Clin Oncol 20:134-141, 2002), with the NCCN melanoma guideline as control. After excluding duplicate and link-only pages, a total of 24 Hungarian, 18 Czech, and 21 German melanoma Web sites were evaluated and rated. The amount of HON certified Web sites was the highest among the German Web pages (19%). One of the retrieved Hungarian and none of the Czech Web sites were HON certified. We found the highest number of Web sites containing comprehensive, correct melanoma information in German language, followed by Czech and Hungarian pages. Although the majority of the Web sites lacked data about incidence, risk factors, prevention, treatment, work-up, and follow-up, at least one comprehensive, high-quality Web site was found in each language. Several Web sites contained incorrect information in each language. While a small amount of comprehensive, quality melanoma-related Web sites was found, most of the retrieved Web content lacked basic disease information, such as risk factors, prevention, and treatment. A significant number of Web sites contained malinformation. In case of melanoma, primary and secondary preventions are of especially high importance; therefore, the improvement of disease information quality available on the Internet is necessary.

Comparison of stress-induced PRINS gene expression in normal human keratinocytes and HaCaT cells.

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that affects approximately 2-4% of the population. We recently described a novel non-coding RNA, psoriasis susceptibility related RNA gene induced by stress (PRINS), that was overexpressed in non-lesional psoriatic epidermis, and its expression was induced by various stress factors such as serum starvation, contact inhibition, ultraviolet (UV)-B irradiation, viral infection and translational inhibition in HaCaT cells. In the present work we set out to compare the stress and microbial agent-induced PRINS expression in normal human keratinocytes (NHKs) and HaCaT cells. Since nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) is involved in the cellular stress response, we sought to explore whether there is a connection between the NF-κB and PRINS-mediated signal transduction pathways in NHKs and HaCaT cells. We found that the PRINS expression responded differentially to various stress signals and microbial agents in HaCaT cells and in NHKs: after translational inhibition and UV-B treatment, similar induction of PRINS expression occurred with different time courses while after microbial agent treatment, the PRINS expression was significantly induced in HaCaT cells, whereas we could not detect similar changes in NHKs. To explore whether the known NF-κB abnormalities in HaCaT cells could be related to this differential PRINS expression, we silenced the PRINS gene expression with small interfering RNA (siRNA) in both HaCaT cells and in NHKs and monitored NF-κB signal transduction after lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treatment. Silencing of PRINS had no effect on LPS-induced NF-κB activity either in HaCaT cells or in NHKs. Our results indicate that PRINS probably affects keratinocytes functions independently of NF-κB signalling.

Identification and characterization of a novel, psoriasis susceptibility-related noncoding RNA gene, PRINS.

To identify genetic factors contributing to psoriasis susceptibility, gene expression profiles of uninvolved epidermis from psoriatic patients and epidermis from healthy individuals were compared. Besides already characterized genes, we identified a cDNA with yet unknown functions, which we further characterized and named PRINS (Psoriasis susceptibility-related RNA Gene Induced by Stress). In silico structural and homology studies suggested that PRINS may function as a noncoding RNA. PRINS harbors two Alu elements, it is transcribed by RNA polymerase II, and it is expressed at different levels in various human tissues. Real time reverse transcription-PCR analysis showed that PRINS was expressed higher in the uninvolved epidermis of psoriatic patients compared with both psoriatic lesional and healthy epidermis, suggesting a role for PRINS in psoriasis susceptibility. PRINS is regulated by the proliferation and differentiation state of keratinocytes. Treatment with T-lymphokines, known to precipitate psoriatic symptoms, decreased PRINS expression in the uninvolved psoriatic but not in healthy epidermis. Real time reverse transcription-PCR analysis showed that stress signals such as ultraviolet-B irradiation, viral infection (herpes simplex virus), and translational inhibition increased the RNA level of PRINS. Gene-specific silencing of PRINS by RNA interference revealed that down-regulation of PRINS impairs cell viability after serum starvation but not under normal serum conditions. Our findings suggest that PRINS functions as a noncoding regulatory RNA, playing a protective role in cells exposed to stress. Furthermore, elevated PRINS expression in the epidermis may contribute to psoriasis susceptibility.