Flectobacillus pallidus sp. nov., isolated from a freshwater spring.

A novel bacterial strain, MVW-6T, was isolated from a freshwater spring in Taiwan and characterized using a polyphasic taxonomy approach. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain MVW-6T belonged to the genus Flectobacillus and showed the highest levels of sequence similarity to Flectobacillus lacus CL-GP79T (98.2 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity) and Flectobacillus fontis MIB-4T (97.4 %). Cells of strain MVW-6T were Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-motile rods that were covered by large capsules and formed light pink colonies. Growth occurred at 15-37 °C (optimum 15-25 °C), at pH 5-9 (optimum pH 7) and with 0-0.5 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 0 %). Strain MVW-6T contained iso-C15 : 0, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c), C16 : 1ω5c and C16 : 0 as the predominant fatty acids. The polar lipid profile consisted of phosphatidylethanolamine, five unidentified aminophospholipids, one unidentified glycolipid, one unidentified phospholipid, one unidentified aminolipid and two unidentified lipids. The major isoprenoid quinone was MK-7. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 39.5 mol%. DNA-DNA hybridization values for strain MVW-6T with Flectobacillus lacus CL-GP79T and Flectobacillus fontis MIB-4T were less than 50 %. On the basis of the phylogenetic inference and phenotypic data, strain MVW-6T a novel species of the genus Flectobacillus, for which the name Flectobacillus pallidus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MVW-6T (=BCRC 80975T=LMG 29555T=KCTC 33800T).

MicroRNA-related polymorphisms in apoptosis pathway genes are predictive of clinical outcome in patients with limited disease small cell lung cancer.

We examined the impact of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at miRNA binding sites in the 3'-UTRs of genes in the apoptosis pathway on the prognosis of patients with limited disease-small cell lung cancer (LD-SCLC). Twelve tagSNPs in seven genes were genotyped using blood samples from 146 LD-SCLC patients treated with chemoradiotherapy. Cox proportional hazard regression models and recursive partitioning analysis were performed to identify SNPs significantly associated with overall survival. Three SNPs, CASP8: rs1045494 (C > T), PIK3R1: rs3756668 (A > G) and CASP7: rs4353229 (T > C), were associated with longer overall survival in LD-SCLC patients after chemoradiotherapy. The adjusted hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) were 0.480 (0.258-0.894), 0.405 (0.173-0.947) and 0.446 (0.247-0.802), respectively, and remained significant after multiple comparison correction. Moreover, subset analysis showed these SNPs were still predictive of overall survival in stage III patients. Recursive partitioning analysis enabled patients to be classified into three risk subgroups based on unfavorable genotype combinations of the rs1045494 and rs4353229 SNPs. These findings suggest miRNA-related polymorphisms in the apoptosis pathway may be useful biomarkers for selection of LD-SCLC patients likely to benefit from chemoradiotherapy.