Siah2 control of T-regulatory cells limits anti-tumor immunity.

Understanding the mechanisms underlying anti-tumor immunity is pivotal for improving immune-based cancer therapies. Here, we report that growth of BRAF-mutant melanoma cells is inhibited, up to complete rejection, in Siah2-/- mice. Growth-inhibited tumors exhibit increased numbers of intra-tumoral activated T cells and decreased expression of Ccl17, Ccl22, and Foxp3. Marked reduction in Treg proliferation and tumor infiltration coincide with G1 arrest in tumor infiltrated Siah2-/- Tregs in vivo or following T cell stimulation in culture, attributed to elevated expression of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27, a Siah2 substrate. Growth of anti-PD-1 therapy resistant melanoma is effectively inhibited in Siah2-/- mice subjected to PD-1 blockade, indicating synergy between PD-1 blockade and Siah2 loss. Low SIAH2 and FOXP3 expression is identified in immune responsive human melanoma tumors. Overall, Siah2 regulation of Treg recruitment and cell cycle progression effectively controls melanoma development and Siah2 loss in the host sensitizes melanoma to anti-PD-1 therapy

Uromodulin concentrations are not associated with incident CKD among persons with coronary artery disease

Abstract Background A common variant of the UMOD gene was linked with prevalent chronic kidney disease (CKD) in large, genomics consortia. One community-based study found that urine concentrations of the uromodulin protein forecast risk of incident CKD. This study within persons with known coronary artery disease (CAD) evaluated whether uromodulin concentrations could distinguish CKD risk. Methods In the Heart and Soul Study, the UMOD snp (12917707) was genotyped in 879 individuals with baseline creatinine clearance (CrCl) measured from a 24-hour urine collection. Uromodulin protein was measured from stored urine specimens among a subset of 120 participants, balanced by genotype. Incident CKD cases (N = 102) were defined by an initial CrCl > 70 ml/min and a 5-year follow-up CrCl <60 ml/min; controls (N = 94) were matched on age, sex, and race. Results Among 527 self-described White participants with DNA, 373 (71%) were homozygous for the dominant allele (G/G), 133 (25%) were heterozygous (G/T) and only 21 (4%) were homozygous for the minor allele (T/T). The T/T genotype had an approximately 11 ml/min higher CrCl than the other 2 groups, but this difference did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.20). The T/T genotype had significantly lower uromodulin levels than the common G/G genotype, and the G/T genotype had intermediate levels. However, uromodulin concentrations were similar between cases and controls (44 vs. 48 mg/dL, p = 0.88). Conclusions This study among a cohort of persons with established CAD found no association between urine uromodulin and incident CKD, although UMOD genotype was associated with urine uromodulin concentrations

Clinical Assessment of Potential Drug Interactions of Faldaprevir, a Hepatitis C Virus Protease Inhibitor, With Darunavir/Ritonavir, Efavirenz, and Tenofovir

Faldaprevir is a potent hepatitis C virus NS3/4A protease inhibitor. The findings from 3 phase 1 studies reported here suggest that faldaprevir can be safely coadministered with commonly used antiretroviral

Drug-gene interactions of antihypertensive medications and risk of incident cardiovascular disease: a pharmacogenomics study from the CHARGE consortium

Background Hypertension is a major risk factor for a spectrum of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), including myocardial infarction, sudden death, and stroke. In the US, over 65 million people have high blood pressure and a large proportion of these individuals are prescribed antihypertensive medications. Although large long-term clinical trials conducted in the last several decades have identified a number of effective antihypertensive treatments that reduce the risk of future clinical complications, responses to therapy and protection from cardiovascular events vary among individuals. Methods Using a genome-wide association study among 21,267 participants with pharmaceutically treated hypertension, we explored the hypothesis that genetic variants might influence or modify the effectiveness of common antihypertensive therapies on the risk of major cardiovascular outcomes. The classes of drug treatments included angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, and diuretics. In the setting of the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) consortium, each study performed array-based genome-wide genotyping, imputed to HapMap Phase II reference panels, and used additive genetic models in proportional hazards or logistic regression models to evaluate drug-gene interactions for each of four therapeutic drug classes. We used meta-analysis to combine study-specific interaction estimates for approximately 2 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in a discovery analysis among 15,375 European Ancestry participants (3,527 CVD cases) with targeted follow-up in a case-only study of 1,751 European Ancestry GenHAT participants as well as among 4,141 African-Americans (1,267 CVD cases). Results Although drug-SNP interactions were biologically plausible, exposures and outcomes were well measured, and power was sufficient to detect modest interactions, we did not identify any statistically significant interactions from the four antihypertensive therapy meta-analyses (Pinteraction > 5.0×10−8). Similarly, findings were null for meta-analyses restricted to 66 SNPs with significant main effects on coronary artery disease or blood pressure from large published genome-wide association studies (Pinteraction ≥ 0.01). Our results suggest that there are no major pharmacogenetic influences of common SNPs on the relationship between blood pressure medications and the risk of incident CVD

A Quick Image Registration Algorithm Based on Delaunay Triangulation

The traditional image matching algorithms adopt more complex strategies when dealing with mismatch caused by a lot of noise. In this paper, a simple, intuitive and effective noise processing algorithm is proposed based on Delaunay triangulation in computational geometry. The algorithm extracts feature points using SIFT method, respectively establishes Delaunay triangulation in multi-spectral and panchromatic images, and removes the feature points that three points are collinear and four points are on circle by Delaunay triangulation, obtains the registration images through the correspondence between the Delaunay triangulations. The effect of image registration is evaluated by objective method. In the image matching, Delaunay triangulation is introduced. The establishment of Delaunay triangulation is independent of the selection of initial values. In general, a unique Delaunay triangulation can be got when a feature point set is given, and it can provide the accuracy of the algorithm. The algorithm is simple and clear for converting a lot of mismatch noise to the operation of Delaunay triangulation. Experiment results show the algorithm can keep the good rotation feature and translation invariance in SIFT method, the number of extraction feature points has been significantly reduced in the algorithm compared with SIFT method, registration speed and accuracy are better than the registration algorithm based on conventional SIFT method. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/telkomnika.v11i2.200

Color Difference Evaluation Model on Partly Changed Complex Images

Since there has been a strong demand from industry to have an efficient way of managing color image quality presented in different media, by specifically investigating partly changed complex images, this article proposed a revision to existing CIE color difference model which cannot give a proper color difference assessment on partly changed complex images. The key method applied is to find out weight coefficients of color attributes such as lightness, hue and chroma in color difference prediction