Modulation of brain tumor risk by genetic SNPs in PARP1gene: Hospital based case control study.

PARP-1 gene plays an essential part in base excision repair pathway and its functional variations result in several types of cancer. In this study we have explored the effect of genetic variations in PARP-1 gene in brain tumorigenesis. This case control study comprised of 500 brain tumor cases along with 500 healthy controls. Three polymorphisms of PARP-1 gene, rs1136410 (Val762Ala), rs1805404 (Asp81Asp) and rs1805414 (Ala284Ala) were analyzed using AS-PCR method followed by DNA sequencing. Joint effect model, haplotype analysis and linkage disequilibrium of these polymorphisms was assessed using Haploview 4.2. In rs1136410 (Val762Ala) heterozygous mutant genotype (CT) was observed notably lower (OR: 0.44., 95% CI: 0.33-0.57., p<0.0001) in brain tumor patients compared to controls and ~2 fold increased frequency of homozygous mutant genotype (CC) was observed in brain tumor patients versus controls (OR: 1.51., 95%CI: 1.16-1.96, p = 0.001). In rs1805414 (Ala284Ala), frequency of heterozygous mutant genotype (CT) was observed lower (OR: 0.77., 95% CI: 0.60-0.99., p = 0.05) in patients versus controls. In rs1805404 (Asp81Asp), heterozygous mutant genotyping (CT) was observed lower in brain tumor patients compared with the healthy controls (OR: 0.63., 95% CI: 0.48-0.83., p = 0.001). However, homozygous mutant genotype (TT) was observed increased in patients compared to controls (OR: 1.41., 95% CI:1.07-1.85., p = 0.01). We assessed the fact that in combination the PARP-1 gene SNPs, rs1136410 (Val762Ala), rs1805414 (Ala284Ala) and rs1805404 (Asp81Asp) may increase the brain pathogenesis at least in Pakistani population.

Coalesced thermal and electrotransfer mediated delivery of plasmid DNA to the skin.

Efficient gene delivery and expression in the skin can be a promising minimally invasive technique for therapeutic clinical applications for immunotherapy, vaccinations, wound healing, cancer, and peripheral artery disease. One of the challenges for efficient gene electrotransfer (GET) to skin in vivo is confinement of expression to the epithelium. Another challenge involves tissue damage. Optimizing gene expression profiles, while minimizing tissue damage are necessary for therapeutic applications. Previously, we established that heating pretreatment to 43 °C enhances GET in vitro. We observed a similar trend in vivo, with an IR-pretreatment for skin heating prior to GET. Currently, we tested a range of GET conditions in vivo in guinea pigs with and without preheating the skin to ~43 °C. IR-laser heating and conduction heating were tested in conjunction with GET. In vivo electrotransfer to the skin by moderately elevating tissue temperature can lead to enhanced gene expression, as well as achieve gene transfer in epidermal, dermal, hypodermal and muscle tissue layers.

Scaling of surface-plasma reactors with a significantly increased energy density for NO conversion.

Comparative studies revealed that surface plasmas developing along a solid-gas interface are significantly more effective and energy efficient for remediation of toxic pollutants in air than conventional plasmas propagating in air. Scaling of the surface plasma reactors to large volumes by operating them in parallel suffers from a serious problem of adverse effects of the space charges generated at the dielectric surfaces of the neighboring discharge chambers. This study revealed that a conductive foil on the cathode potential placed between the dielectric plates as a shield not only decoupled the discharges, but also increased the electrical power deposited in the reactor by a factor of about forty over the electrical power level obtained without shielding and without loss of efficiency for NO removal. The shield had no negative effect on efficiency, which is verified by the fact that the energy costs for 50% NO removal were about 60 eV/molecule and the energy constant, k(E), was about 0.02 L/J in both the shielded and unshielded cases.

Comparative study of NO removal in surface-plasma and volume-plasma reactors based on pulsed corona discharges.

Nitric oxide (NO) conversion has been studied for two different types of atmospheric-pressure pulsed-corona discharges, one generates a surface-plasma and the other provides a volume-plasma. For both types of discharges the energy cost for NO removal increases with decreasing oxygen concentration and initial concentration of NO. However, the energy cost for volume plasmas for 50% NO removal, EC(50), from air was found to be 120 eV/molecule, whereas for the surface plasma, it was only 70 eV/molecule. A smaller difference in energy cost, but a higher efficiency for removal of NO was obtained in a pure nitrogen atmosphere, where NO formation is restricted due to the lack of oxygen. For the volume plasma, EC(50) in this case was measured at 50 eV/molecule, and for the surface plasma it was 40 eV/molecule. Besides the higher NO removal efficiency of surface plasmas compared to volume plasmas, the energy efficiency of surface-plasmas was found to be almost independent of the amount of electrical energy deposited in the discharge, whereas the efficiency for volume plasmas decreases considerably with increasing energy. This indicates the possibility of operating surface plasma discharges at high energy densities and in more compact reactors than conventional volume discharges.