Recent developments in bio-scaffold materials as delivery strategies for therapeutics for endometrium regeneration.

Intrauterine adhesions (IUAs) refer to the repair disorder after endometrial injury and may lead to uterine infertility, recurrent miscarriage, abnormal menstrual bleeding, and other obstetric complications. It is a pressing public health issue among women of childbearing age. Presently, there are limited clinical treatments for IUA, and there is no sufficient evidence that these treatment modalities can effectively promote regeneration after severe endometrial injury or improve pregnancy outcome. The inhibitory pathological micro-environment is the main factor hindering the repair of endometrial damaged tissues. To address this, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine have been achieving promising developments. Particularly, biomaterials have been used to load stem cells or therapeutic factors or construct an in situ delivery system as a treatment strategy for endometrial injury repair. This article comprehensively discusses the characteristics of various bio-scaffold materials and their application as stem cell or therapeutic factor delivery systems constructed for uterine tissue regeneration.

Role of single nucleotide polymorphisms of DNA repair genes in susceptibility to pancreatic cancer in Chinese population.

We conducted a case-control study to investigate the role of ERCC1-ERCC5 gene polymorphisms in the risk of pancreatic cancer. This study included 195 patients who were newly diagnosed with histopathologically confirmed primary pancreatic cancer, and 254 controls were recruited from Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, between January 2012 and December 2014. Genotyping of ERCC1 rs3212986 and rs11615, ERCC2 rs13181, ERCC3 rs4150441, ERCC4 rs6498486, and ERCC5 rs2094258 polymorphisms was carried out using polymerase chain reaction coupled with restriction fragment length polymorphism. Unconditional logistic regression analyses showed that the TT genotype of ERCC1 rs3212986 was associated with an increased risk of pancreatic cancer, and the OR (95%CI) was 2.26 (1.21-4.22). However, we did not find a significant association between ERCC1 rs11615, ERCC2 rs13181, ERCC3 rs4150441, ERCC4 rs6498486, and ERCC5 rs2094258 polymorphisms and risk of pancreatic cancer. In summary, we found that the presence of the ERCC1 rs3212986 polymorphism correlated with an increased risk of pancreatic cancer.

Association between ERCC1 and ERCC2 polymorphisms and breast cancer risk in a Chinese population.

We conducted a case-control study to investigate the role of ERCC1 rs3212986 and ERCC2 rs13181 gene polymorphisms in the development of breast cancer. Between March 2012 and March 2014, a total of 242 newly diagnosed breast cancer patients with histopathologically confirmed primary breast cancer and 242 healthy controls were recruited. Genotyping of ERCC1 rs3212986 and ERCC2 rs13181 polymorphisms was carried out using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. Unconditional logistic regression analyses indicated that the TT genotype of rs3212986 was associated with a higher risk of breast cancer compared to that associated with the GG genotype (OR = 2.05, 95%CI = 1.13-3.78). In dominant and recessive models, we found that the rs3212986 polymorphism was associated with increased risk of breast cancer, and the ORs were 1.50 (95%CI = 1.03-2.18) and 1.74 (95%CI = 1.01-3.11), respectively. In summary, we found that the ERCC1 rs3212986 polymorphism was associated with the development of breast cancer.