Oncolyic Virotherapy for Prostate Cancer: Lighting a Fire in Winter.

As the most common cancer of the genitourinary system, prostate cancer (PCa) is a global men's health problem whose treatments are an urgent research issue. Treatment options for PCa include active surveillance (AS), surgery, endocrine therapy, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, etc. However, as the cancer progresses, the effectiveness of treatment options gradually decreases, especially in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), for which there are fewer therapeutic options and which have a shorter survival period and worse prognosis. For this reason, oncolytic viral therapy (PV), with its exceptional properties of selective tumor killing, relatively good safety in humans, and potential for transgenic delivery, has attracted increasing attention as a new form of anti-tumor strategy for PCa. There is growing evidence that OV not only kills tumor cells directly by lysis but can also activate anticancer immunity by acting on the tumor microenvironment (TME), thereby preventing tumor growth. In fact, evidence of the efficacy of this strategy has been observed since the late 19th century. However, subsequently, interest waned. The renewed interest in this therapy was due to advances in biotechnological methods and innovations at the end of the 20th century, which was also the beginning of PCa therapy with OV. Moreover, in combination with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, gene therapy or immunotherapy, OV viruses can have a wide range of applications and can provide an effective therapeutic result in the treatment of PCa.

[Phytoplankton Community Structure and Water Quality Assessment in Jialing River After the Impoundment of Caojie Reservoir].

The variation of phytoplankton community and the water quality in Jialing River after the impoundment of Caojie Reservoir was studied in this paper. There were 145 species of phytoplankton under the membership of 8 divisions and 74 genera. Bacillariophyta was the first dominant division, with a total of 57 species of 23 genera, accounted for 39. 3% of total phytoplankton species, followed by Chlorophyta, with 53 species of 28 genera and accounted for 36. 6%. Only 35 species of 23 genera belonged to Euglenphyta, Cryptophyta, Pyrrophyta, Chrysophyta, and Cyanophyta. The average phytoplankton abundance was 1. 82 x 10(5)cell . L-1, and the top three taxon of most abundant were Bacillariophyta, Cryptophyta and Pyrrophyta, accounted for 39. 2%, 29. 9%, and 24. 5% of total abundance, respectively. The cell abundance in spring was significantly higher than those in other seasons. The dominant species included Aulacoseria granulata, Melosira varians, Peridiniopsis niei, Komma caudata, Cryptomonas erosa etc., indicated by the dominant index. Excluded by cluster analysis, the influence on phytoplankton had initially emerged after the impoundment of Caojie Reservoir. The reservoir area could be divided into different ecological regions longitudinally after Caojie Reservoir impoundment, which had an important impact on the phytoplankton. Meanwhile, the phytoplankton and flow velocity between upstream and downstream of the dam significantly varied. Shannon-Wiener species diversity index, Margalef species richness index and Pielous evenness index ranged 2. 06 - 3. 55, 0. 76 - 1. 90 and 0. 50 - 0. 78, respectively. The evaluation results of phytoplankton community structure showed that the eutrophic state was at medium eutrophication level, while diversity analysis results indicated light to moderate pollution.

[Choice of macroinvertebrate metrics for constructing a benthic-index of biotic integrity based on the disturbance gradients in the Qinjiang River Basin].

The selection of proper macroinvertebrate metrics was a key step in the successful construction of benthic-index of biotic integrity (B-IBI). In the context of lack of sufficient reference sites, the responses of biotic metrics to the stress gradients have been proved crucially important in metrics selection. We explored this using a data set (twenty-two sampling sites), where water environmental parameters, habitat quality index (HQI) and zoobenthos were measured and sampled using standardized methodology in the winter dry season (January, 2010) within the Qinjiang Rvier basin, Guangxi. Water quality stress gradients were synthesized using principle component analysis. Twelve out of the 38 candidate metrics were excluded because of high co-linearity ( [ r ] > 0.80, P < 0.05) with others. Multiple regression analysis of the rest twenty-six metrics, environmental gradients (PC I and PC II ) and habitat quality index showed that thirteen metrics significantly correlated (P < 0.05) with the environmental stressors (PCs and HQI). Eight of these metrics, family richness, Ephemeroptera richness, Coleoptera richness; Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera (EPT) abundance, proportion of dominant species; proportion of predators; Shannon-Weaver diversity index for genus; and Biotic index (BI), satisfied the selection criteria (e. g., operational simplicity) and were thus candidates for developing a multimetric system to assess river health in our study region. We suggest that the response of metrics to environmental gradient is an ideal alternative for the construction of benthic-index of biotic integrity in the context of insufficient reference sites.

[Responses of functional diversity of aquatic insect community to land use change in middle reach of Qiantang River, East China].

Based on the biological traits such as life history, resistance ability against environmental disturbance, and physiological characteristics of aquatic insects, and by using the fourth-corner statistical method, this paper studied the responses of the functional diversity of aquatic insect community to land use change in the middle reach of Qiantang River, Zhejiang Province of East China. For the test aquatic insect community, some of its biological traits were sensitive to land use change, and altered along human disturbance gradients as expected. With the increasing intensity of human disturbance, the maximal insect body length decreased gradually, the dominant respiration pattern evolved from gill respiration to tegument respiration, and the abundance of burrowers increased significantly. At the same time, the functional diversity measured as Rao's quadratic entropy was significantly higher in reference sites than in disturbed sites (P < 0.001), demonstrating that the changes in the functional diversity of the aquatic community were mainly induced by the land use change caused by human activities, which resulted in the decline of stream water quality and habitat quality and the variations of aquatic insect community composition and biological traits. The aquatic insect biological traits and functional diversity could be the potentially effective indicators in the stream health assessment in the future.

[Impacts of urbanization on the water quality and macrobenthos community structure of the tributaries in middle reach of Qiantang River, East China].

The 59 1st-3rd order tributaries in the middle reach of Qiantang River are negatively affected by different intensities of urbanization. In April 2010, an investigation was conducted on the water bodies' physical and chemical properties and macrobenthos communities of the tributaries, with the relationships between the tributaries' water quality and biological communities and the percentage of ground surface impervious area (PIA), an indicator of urbanization intensity. The Spearman correlation analysis showed that the water bodies' NH(4+)-N, PO4(3-)-P, TP, COD(Mn), conductivity, width, depth, and fine sand/silt ratio were positively correlated with PIA, and negatively correlated with forest land area. The fitted nonlinear regression equations revealed that all the test macro-benthic invertebrate's parameters had significant relationships with PIA, of which, the total number of taxa, Shannon diversity index, richness index, EPT (%), predators (%), shredders (%), filterers (%) and scrapers (%) were negatively correlated to PIA but positively correlated to forest land area, and the BI, collectors (%), tolerance taxa (%) and oligochaeta (%) were positively correlated to the PIA. Our study indicated that under the impact of urbanization, these tributaries presented the common features of degradation, i. e., high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus, degradation of physical habitat, disappearance of pollution-sensitive macro-benthic invertebrate species, and dramatic increase of pollution-tolerant species individuals.