Circulating Extracellular Vesicles in Gynecological Tumors: Realities and Challenges

Although liquid biopsy can be considered a reality for the clinical management of some cancers, such as lung or colorectal cancer, it remains a promising field in gynecological tumors. In particular, circulating extracellular vesicles (cEVs) secreted by tumor cells represent a scarcely explored type of liquid biopsy in gynecological tumors. Importantly, these vesicles are responsible for key steps in tumor development and dissemination and are recognized as major players in cell-to-cell communication between the tumor and the microenvironment. However, limited work has been reported about the biologic effects and clinical value of EVs in gynecological tumors. Therefore, here we review the promising but already relatively limited data on the role of circulating EVs in promoting gynecological tumor spread and also their value as non-invasive biomarkers to improve the management of these type of tumors

La Biomedicina del segle XXI

En els darrers trenta anys, la nostra societat ha assistit perplexa al desenvolupament d'una revolució que, sens dubte, la història jutjarà com la de més transcendència des que els humans habiten el planeta Terra. Ens referim a l'immens progrés en el coneixement de la ciència i la tècnica i al desenvolupament de les seves aplicacions. La biologia i, en particular, el desenvolupament de la biologia molecular, ocupa un espai majoritari en aquest procés. També la informàtica, l'electrònica, la robòtica o, de manera més general, la física i la química, estan en la primera línia de la seva evolució. Aquest capítol pretén posar totes aquestes troballes juntes en benefici de la nova medicina que ha sorgit d'aquesta barreja. Sense cap pretensió de voler resumir tots els avenços que componen aquesta nova medicina, hem volgut discutir breument el que signifiquen ara mateix i en un futur molt proper aquests canvis que comporten, entre molts altres, el diagnòstic i tractament millors del càncer, la teràpia gènica per a malalties genètiques fins ara incurables, els diferents tipus de diagnòstic per imatge amb un sofisticat suport informàtic, el coneixement del nostre genoma, la producció de proteïnes de propietats terapèutiques per biotecnologia, així com la connexió dels malalts a una xarxa de metges i d'hospitals que els permeti estar adequadament atesos. Nogensmenys, aquestes millores espectaculars d'un món altament tecnificat no ens han de fer ignorar els desafiaments ètics que tot això pot comportar, així com quelcom més elemental i bàsic, que és la solidaritat i caritat envers els febles, oblidats o mancats de recursos.In the last 30 years, we have assisted astonished to the development of a revolution that, with no doubt, history will judge as the most important since humans live in this planet. We refer to the progress in the knowledge of science and technology, and to the development of their applications. Biology, and, in particular, the development of molecular biology, is fundamental in this process. Also computer science, electronics, robotics, or, in a more general way, physics and chemistry are also in the frontline of their growth. This chapter only pretends to put together all these findings in favor of a new medicine. This is not an exhaustive review of these major advances, but just a brief summary of few breakthroughs like the improved diagnosis and treatment of cancer, gene therapy as a solution for genetic diseases, improved image based diagnosis methods, unravelling of the human genome, production of therapeutic recombinant proteins by biotechnology, as well as the new medical care system by having patients connected to physician and hospital networks. Nevertheless, those spectacular improvements in a highly technified world cannot avoid the new ethic challenges emerging in this process. At the same time, solidarity towards weak, poor and discriminated people does not have to be forgotten

Smartphone-based Janus micromotors strategy for motion-based detection of glutathione

Herein, we describe a Janus micromotor smartphone platform for the motion-based detection of glutathione. The system compromises a universal three-dimensional (3D)-printed platform to hold a commercial smartphone, which is equipped with an external magnification optical lens (20-400x) directly attached to the camera, an adjustable sample holder to accommodate a glass slide, and a light-emitting diode (LED) source. The presence of glutathione in peroxide-rich sample media results in the decrease in the speed of 20 mu m graphene-wrapped/PtNPs Janus micromotors due to poisoning of the catalytic layer by a thiol bond formation. The speed can be correlated with the concentration of glutathione, achieving a limit of detection of 0.90 mu M, with percent recoveries and excellent selectivity under the presence of interfering amino acids and proteins. Naked-eye visualization of the speed decrease allows for the design of a test strip for fast glutathione detection (30 s), avoiding previous amplification strategies or sample preparation steps. The concept can be extended to other micromotor approaches relying on fluorescence or colorimetric detection for future multiplexed schemes.Ministerio de Ciencia e InnovaciónMinisterio de Economía, Industria y CompetitividadComunidad de Madri

A parallel spatial quantum search algorithm applied to the 3-SAT problem

This work presents a quantum search algorithm to solve the 3-SAT problem. An improvement over one of the best known classical algorithms for this problem is proposed, replacing the local search with a quantum search algorithm. The performance of the improved algorithm is assessed by simulating it using parallel programming techniques with shared memory. The experimental analysis demonstrate that the parallel simulation of the algorithm takes advantage of the available computing resources to improve over the eficiency of the sequential version, thus allowing to perform realistic simulations in reduced execution times.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Daple is a novel non-receptor GEF required for trimeric G protein activation in Wnt signaling

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Performance of parallel FDTD method for shared- and distributed-memory architectures: Application tobioelectromagnetics

This work provides an in-depth computational performance study of the parallel finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The parallelization is done at various levels including: shared- (OpenMP) and distributed- (MPI) memory paradigms and vectorization on three different architectures: Intel's Knights Landing, Skylake and ARM's Cavium ThunderX2. This study contributes to prove, in a systematic manner, the well-established claim within the Computational Electromagnetic community, that the main factor limiting FDTD performance, in realistic problems, is the memory bandwidth. Consequently a memory bandwidth threshold can be assessed depending on the problem size in order to attain optimal performance. Finally, the results of this study have been used to optimize the workload balancing of simulation of a bioelectromagnetic problem consisting in the exposure of a human model to a reverberation chamber-like environment

EGFR-Based Immunoisolation as a Recovery Target for Low-EpCAM CTC Subpopulation

Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) play a key role in the metastasis process, as they are responsible for micrometastasis and are a valuable tool for monitoring patients in real-time. Moreover, efforts to develop new strategies for CTCs isolation and characterisation, and the translation of CTCs into clinical practice needs to overcome the limitation associated with the sole use of Epithelial Cell Adhesion Molecule (EpCAM) expression to purify this tumour cell subpopulation. CTCs are rare events in the blood of patients and are believed to represent the epithelial population from a primary tumour of epithelial origin, thus EpCAM immunoisolation is considered an appropriate strategy. The controversy stems from the impact that the more aggressive mesenchymal tumour phenotypes might have on the whole CTC population. In this work, we first characterised a panel of cell lines representative of tumour heterogeneity, confirming the existence of tumour cell subpopulations with restricted epithelial features and supporting the limitations of EpCAM-based technologies. We next developed customised polystyrene magnetic beads coated with antibodies to efficiently isolate the phenotypically different subpopulations of CTCs from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients with metastatic cancer. Besides EpCAM, we propose Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) as an additional isolation marker for efficient CTCs detection.This work was supported by Axencia Galega de Innovación (Xunta de Galicia) and InveNNta (Innovation in Nanomedicine), cofinanced by the European Union (EU) through the Operational Programme for Cross-border Cooperation: Spain-Portugal (POCTEP 2007-2013), and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)S

Detection of Prostate Cancer by Urine Proteomics

Comunicaciones a congreso

Genetic susceptibility, residential radon, and lung cancer in a radon prone area

INTRODUCTION: Radon exposure has been classified as the second cause of lung cancer, after tobacco, and the first in never smokers. GSTM1 and GSTT1 genes deletion increase the risk of lung cancer. We aim to know whether the risk of lung cancer because of residential radon is modulated by these genetic polymorphisms. METHODS: Hospital-based, case-control study where cases had confirmed lung cancer. Cases and controls did not have previous neoplasm and were older than 30. Controls attended hospital for noncomplex surgery. We analyzed the results for the whole sample and separately for never/light smokers and moderate/heavy smokers. RESULTS: Seven-hundred and ninety-two participants were analyzed. GSTM1 and GSTT1 deletion conferred an odds ratio (OR) of 1.38 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.93-2.04) and 1.13 (95% CI 0.70-1.82), respectively. Individuals with GSTM1 present and residential radon concentrations higher than 148 Bq/m had an OR of 1.48 (95% CI 0.73-3.00), whereas those with GSTM1 deleted had an OR of 2.64 (95% CI 1.18-5.91) when compared with participants with GSTM1 present and radon concentrations below 50 Bq/m3. Similar results were observed for GSTT1 deletion. These results were basically the same for the moderate/heavy smokers' subgroup. CONCLUSIONS: The absence of GSTM1 and GSTT1 genes increases the risk of lung cancer because of radon exposure. These genes might modulate the carcinogenic pathway of alpha radiation. Further studies are warranted analyzing this association in never smokers