Network medicine approaches for identification of novel prognostic systems biomarkers and drug candidates for papillary thyroid carcinoma.

Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is one of the most common endocrine carcinomas worldwide and the aetiology of this cancer is still not well understood. Therefore, it remains important to understand the disease mechanism and find prognostic biomarkers and/or drug candidates for PTC. Compared with approaches based on single-gene assessment, network medicine analysis offers great promise to address this need. Accordingly, in the present study, we performed differential co-expressed network analysis using five transcriptome datasets in patients with PTC and healthy controls. Following meta-analysis of the transcriptome datasets, we uncovered common differentially expressed genes (DEGs) for PTC and, using these genes as proxies, found a highly clustered differentially expressed co-expressed module: a 'PTC-module'. Using independent data, we demonstrated the high prognostic capacity of the PTC-module and designated this module as a prognostic systems biomarker. In addition, using the nodes of the PTC-module, we performed drug repurposing and text mining analyzes to identify novel drug candidates for the disease. We performed molecular docking simulations, and identified: 4-demethoxydaunorubicin hydrochloride, AS605240, BRD-A60245366, ER 27319 maleate, sinensetin, and TWS119 as novel drug candidates whose efficacy was also confirmed by in silico analyzes. Consequently, we have highlighted here the need for differential co-expression analysis to gain a systems-level understanding of a complex disease, and we provide candidate prognostic systems biomarker and novel drugs for PTC.

Zero-valent iron-activated persulfate oxidation of a commercial alkyl phenol polyethoxylate.

Aqueous Triton X-45 (TX-45; 20 mg/L; original total organic carbon (TOC) = 14 mg/L), a representative, commercially important alkylphenol polyethoxylate, was subjected to persulfate (PS) oxidation activated with zero-valent iron (ZVI) nanoparticles. After optimization of the ZVI/PS treatment combination (1 g/L ZVI; 2.5 mM PS at pH5) in terms of pH (3-9), ZVI (0.5-5 g/L) and PS (0.5-5.0 mM) concentrations, TX-45 could be efficiently (>90%) degraded within short treatment periods (<60 min) accompanied with significant (>40%) TOC removals. The degree of PS consumption and Fe release was also followed during the experiments and a positive correlation existed between enhanced TX-45 removals and ZVI-activated PS consumption rates accompanied with a parallel Fe release. Acute toxicity tests were conducted using two different bioassays to examine the toxicological safety of the ZVI/PS oxidation system. Acute toxicity profiles significantly decreased from an original value of 66% relative inhibition to 21% and from 16% relative inhibition to non-toxic values according to Vibrio fischeri and Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata bioassays, respectively. The photobacterium V. fischeri appeared to be more sensitive to TX-45 and its degradation products than the microalgae P. subcapitata.