Expression of hnRNPK & Claudin-4 in HCV-Induced Early HCC and Adjacent Liver Tissue

BACKGROUND: HCC in Egypt usually occurs in HCV cirrhotic livers with poor prognosis due to late diagnosis. High hnRNPK & low Claudin-4 profiles indicate Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition (EMT), malignant transformation and high-grade tumours.AIM: We studied the immunohistochemical expression of hnRNPK and Claudin-4 in HCV induced early HCC (eHCC) and adjacent liver tissue in Egyptian patients to improve eHCC detection in cirrhotic livers with better curative therapy options.METHOD: We studied the immunohistochemical expression of hnRNPK and Claudin-4 in 100 Egyptian patients resection specimens of HCV induced early HCC (eHCC) and adjacent liver tissue, in order to improve eHCC detection in cirrhotic livers, thus improving their therapeutic options.RESULTS: Early HCC grade significantly directly correlated with nuclear hnRNPK/5HPFs count and inversely correlated with Claudin-4 expression %, with a converse correlation between hnRNPK and Claudin-4. Moreover in eHCC, combined hnRNPK ³ 30/5HPFs & Claudin-4 ³ 40% significantly distinguished low grade eHCC (G1) from high grade eHCC (G2&G3), with sensitivity 97% & specificity 69.7% for hnRNPK ³ 30/5HPFs, and with sensitivity 70% & specificity 94.3% for Claudin-4 ³ 40%. Moreover in the adjacent liver, both markers expressions significantly directly correlated with each other and with METAVIR fibrosis score but not with activity. Furthermore, 58% of eHCCs showed hnRNPK ³ 30 Claudin-4 < 40% profile, indicating EMT type3, compared to 26% with hnRNPK ³ 30 Claudin-4 £ 10% profile in adjacent cirrhotic/ precirrhotic liver, with significant use of combined hnRNPK ³30/5HPFs & Claudin 4 £ 10% as eHCC prediction cut offs in cirrhosis (p < 0.05).CONCLUSION: Combination of hnRNPK and Claudin-4 can indicate early HCC development in HCV cirrhotic livers using hnRNPK ³ 30/5HPFs & Claudin-4 £ 10% cut offs. Also, combination of hnRNPK ³ 30/5HPFs & Claudin-4 ³ 40% can distinguish low grade eHCC (G1) from high grade eHCC (G2&G3)

Overview of MDM2 and B-RAF Expression in Gastric Lesions

BACKGROUND: Globally, gastric cancer (GC) it is the fourth most common cancer and the third cause of cancer-related deaths. Overexpression of MDM2 and B-RAF appeared to be increased in malignancy and associated with poor prognosis in several human tumours, but their role in gastric cancer remains controversial. AIM: We had investigated the immunohistochemical expression of MDM2 and B-RAF in 136 gastric lesions with/without H. pylori association. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Studied specimens include chronic gastritis (32), intestinal type GC (70), diffuse GC (22) and gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST) (12). RESULTS: MDM2 expression increased significantly in intestinal GC compared to other groups (p < 0.001), while B-RAF expression increased significantly in GIST compared to other groups (p < 0.001). H. pylori increased expression of MDM2 in intestinal GC cases but did not affect B-RAF expression. MDM2 expression correlated with high grade of tumor differentiation (p < 0.001), deep invasion (p < 0.05), nodal metastases (p < 0.05) and distant metastases (p < 0.1) in intestinal GC, while B-RAF expression did not correlate with TNM stage (p < 0.1). CONCLUSION: MDM2 up-regulation was more frequent in intestinal GC, while B-RAF up-regulation was more frequent in GIST compared to other groups; MDM2 expression in intestinal GC was correlated with H. pylori association, high grade of differentiation, deep invasion, nodal and distant metastases, meanwhile, B-RAF expression was correlated with high-grade intestinal GC but did not correlate with H. pylori or TNM stage. The possible role of both MDM2 and B-RAF in predicting progression of gastric tumours and prognosis deserves further investigations

Characterization of Novel Trichoderma asperellum Isolates to Select Effective Biocontrol Agents Against Tomato Fusarium Wilt

The use of novel isolates of Trichoderma with efficient antagonistic capacity against Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici (FOL) is a promising alternative strategy to pesticides for tomato wilt management. We evaluated the antagonistic activity of 30 isolates of T. asperellum against 4 different isolates of FOL. The production of extracellular cell wall degrading enzymes of the antagonistic isolates was also measured. The random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) method was applied to assess the genetic variability among the T. asperellum isolates. All of the T. asperellum isolates significantly reduced the mycelial growth of FOL isolates but the amount of growth reduction varied significantly as well. There was a correlation between the antagonistic capacity of T. asperellum isolates towards FOL and their lytic enzyme production. Isolates showing high levels of chitinase and β-1,3-glucanase activities strongly inhibited the growth of FOL isolates. RAPD analysis showed a high level of genetic variation among T. asperellum isolates. The UPGMA dendrogram revealed that T. asperellum isolates could not be grouped by their anta- gonistic behavior or lytic enzymes production. Six isolates of T. asperellum were highly antagonistic towards FOL and potentially could be used in commercial agriculture to control tomato wilt. Our results are consistent with the conclusion that understanding the genetic variation within Trichoderma isolates and their biochemical capabilities are required for the selection of effective indigenous fungal strains for the use as biocontrol agents

Tornado: A Distributed Spatio-Textual Stream Processing System *

ABSTRACT The widespread use of location-aware devices together with the increased popularity of micro-blogging applications (e.g., Twitter) led to the creation of large streams of spatio-textual data. In order to serve real-time applications, the processing of these large-scale spatio-textual streams needs to be distributed. However, existing distributed stream processing systems (e.g., Spark and Storm) are not optimized for spatial/textual content. In this demonstration, we introduce Tornado, a distributed in-memory spatio-textual stream processing server that extends Storm. To efficiently process spatiotextual streams, Tornado introduces a spatio-textual indexing layer to the architecture of Storm. The indexing layer is adaptive, i.e., dynamically re-distributes the processing across the system according to changes in the data distribution and/or query workload. In addition to keywords, higher-level textual concepts are identified and are semantically matched against spatio-textual queries. Tornado provides data deduplication and fusion to eliminate redundant textual data. We demonstrate a prototype of Tornado running against real Twitter streams, where the users can register continuous or snapshot spatio-textual queries using a map-assisted queryinterface

Evaluation of CD44 and CD133 as markers of liver cancer stem cells in Egyptian patients with HCV-induced chronic liver diseases versus hepatocellular carcinoma

Background: Cancer stem cells (CSCs) play a critical role in tumor development, progression, metastasis and recurrence. Aim: To evaluate hepatic expression of CD44 and CD133 in Egyptian patients with HCV-induced chronic liver diseases and hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs), and to assess its correlation with inflammatory activity scores, stages of fibrosis (in chronic hepatitis with or without cirrhosis) and grades of HCC. Methods: This prospective case-control study was conducted on eighty subjects who attended the Tropical Diseases Department, Al-Azhar University Hospital, and in collaboration with Theodor Bilharz Research Institute (2014-2016). They were divided as follows: A) Control healthy group: Ten individuals with serologically negative HCV-Ab and HBsAg, and histopathologically normal liver, B) Seventy patients subdivided into 3 groups; Twenty subjects each, as: HCV-Ab+ non-cirrhotic, HCV-Ab+ cirrhotic and HCC. Necroinflammatory activity and fibrosis in non-neoplastic liver biopsies were scored according to the METAVIR scoring system. CD44 and CD133 immunostaining was evaluated in all groups semi-quantitatively using H score. Statistical analysis was performed by SPSS version 22, using independent-samples t-test. Results: Our study showed a significant increase of mean CD44 & CD133 expression values with disease progression among the groups (p<0.05). Their expressions increased significantly with the inflammatory activity scores and stages of fibrosis, reaching the highest values in A3F4 score compared to A1F1 (p<0.05). Moreover, there was a significant increase of their expressions across HCC grades (p<0.05), however with no significant correlation with focal lesions size. Conclusion: CSCs clusters exhibiting CD133+ and/or CD44+ profiles were identified in chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and HCC. CD133 and CD44 expressions significantly corresponded to the increased inflammatory activity, fibrosis stages and higher tumor grades. Therefore, evaluation of CD44 and CD133 expression profiles as CSCs markers in non-neoplastic liver and HCCs can help in development of novel therapeutic agents for HCC targeting and preventio