Metabolomic analysis reveals the biological characteristics of giant congenital melanocytic nevi.

Giant congenital melanocytic nevi (GCMN) is a congenital cutaneous developmental deformity tumor that usually occurs at birth or in the first few weeks after birth, but its pathogenesis is still unclear. In this study, nuclear magnetic resonance-based metabolomics strategy was employed to evaluate the metabolic variations in serum and urine of the GCMN patients in order to understand its underlying biochemical mechanism and provide a potential intervention idea. Twenty-nine metabolites were observed to change significantly in serum and urine metabolomes, which are mainly involved in a variety of metabolic pathways including glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, TCA cycle and metabolisms of amino acids. The substantial cores of all the disturbed metabolic pathways are related to amino acid metabolism and carbohydrate metabolism and regulate the physiological state of the GCMN patients. Our results provide the physiological basis and physiological responses of GCMN and will be helpful for better understanding the molecular mechanisms of GCMN in future research.

Understanding metabolomic characteristics of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma by HR-MAS NMR detection of pancreatic tissues.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal carcinomas due to an inefficient early diagnosis and a disastrous prognosis. High resolution magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (HR-MAS NMR) detection of pancreatic tissues would facilitate the understanding of metabolomic characteristics of PDAC and further its clinical diagnosis by in vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Pancreatic tissues from PDAC patients and Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats model and corresponding controls were detected and comparatively analyzed with HR-MAS NMR-based metabolomic strategy in order to get the underlying biomechanism and diagnostic information of PDAC. According to the univariate and multivariate statistical analysis, eight shared characteristic metabolites by PDAC patients and rats, including glycerophosphocholine (GPC), lactate, myo-inositol, methanol, taurine, methylene of lipid (L-CH2), ß-glucose and phosphocholine (PC), were identified as potential biomarkers of PDAC. Especially, GPC, PC and myo-inositol demonstrated high levels in pancreatic tissue and kept consistent metabolic changes both in PDAC patients and rat models. The occurrence of PDAC mainly involved the aberrations in glycerophospholipid metabolism, galactose metabolism and taurine and hypotaurine metabolism. As an in vitro alternative technique of in vivo MRS, HR-MAS NMR provided good resolution and sensitivity, thus underpinning a potential translation to the in vivo MRS setting for noninvasive detection and monitoring of clinical PDAC. The metabolic differences caused in the different species not only enhance the understanding of metabolic reprogramming of PDAC but also promote the intercommunication of PDAC metabolomes between the different species.

Ultra-high relaxivity iron oxide nanoparticles confined in polymer nanospheres for tumor MR imaging.

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles encapsulated in hydrophilic chitosan nanospheres were prepared by nonsolvent-aided counterion complexation completely in an aqueous solution. The T2 relaxation of these hybrid nanospheres in vitro and in vivo was investigated. It was found that the molar transverse relaxivity rate r2 of hybrid nanospheres highly depends upon the payload of iron oxide nanoparticles within hybrid nanospheres. Compared to free iron oxide nanoparticles, the molar transverse relaxivity rate, r2 of hybrid nanospheres shows an approximately 8-fold increase and reaches the maximum of 533 Fe mM-1 s-1. Such a high r2 value is probably associated with the clustering effect of iron oxide nanoparticles, which are confined in the chitosan nanospheres. The in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) demonstrates that the hybrid nanospheres shorten transverse relaxation time, T2 and significantly decrease the signal intensity of the tumor area, giving rise to high contrast tumor MR imaging at a relatively low dose.

[Castleman disease in head and neck: report of four cases with clinicopathologic analysis].

Castleman's disease(CD) is an uncommon special lymphoproliferative disorder. Four cases of CD in head and neck were reported, which clinical presentations were localized type, histopathological presentation were belong to hyaline vascular variant. The prognosis was good after surgical resection. The clinical symptom, cause, pathology, diagnosis, and trearment of CD were overviewed.