The significance of c.690G>T polymorphism (rs34529039) and expression of the CEBPA gene in ovarian cancer outcome

The CEBPA gene is known to be mutated or abnormally expressed in several cancers. This is the first study assessing the clinical impact of CEBPA gene status and expression on the ovarian cancer outcome. The CEBPA gene sequence was analyzed in 118 ovarian cancer patients (44 platinum/cyclophosphamide (PC)-treated and 74 taxane/platinum (TP)-treated), both in tumors and blood samples, and in blood from 236 healthy women, using PCR-Sanger sequencing and Real-Time quantitative PCR (qPCR)-based genotyping methods, respectively. The CEBPA mRNA level was examined with Reverse Transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). The results were correlated to different clinicopathological parameters. Thirty of 118 (25.4%) tumors harbored the CEBPA synonymous c.690G>T polymorphism (rs34529039), that we showed to be related to up-regulation of CEBPA mRNA levels (p=0.0059). The presence of the polymorphism was significantly associated with poor prognosis (p=0.005) and poor response to the PC chemotherapy regimen (p=0.024). In accordance, elevated CEBPA mRNA levels negatively affected patient survival (pT, p.(Thr230Thr) (rs34529039) polymorphism of the CEBPA gene, together with up-regulation of its mRNA expression, are negative factors worsening ovarian cancer outcome. Their adverse clinical effect depends on a therapeutic regimen used, which might make them potential prognostic and predictive biomarkers for response to DNA-damaging chemotherapy

Conceivability and possibility : some dilemmas for Humeans

This research is published within the Project ‘The Logic of Conceivability’, funded by the European Research Council (ERC CoG), Grant Number 681404.The Humean view that conceivability entails possibility can be criticized via input from cognitive psychology. A mainstream view here has it that there are two candidate codings for mental representations (one of them being, according to some, reducible to the other): the linguistic and the pictorial, the difference between the two consisting in the degree of arbitrariness of the representation relation. If the conceivability of P at issue for Humeans involves the having of a linguistic mental representation, then it is easy to show that we can conceive the impossible, for impossibilities can be represented by meaningful bits of language. If the conceivability of P amounts to the pictorial imaginability of a situation verifying P, then the question is whether the imagination at issue works purely qualitatively, that is, only by phenomenological resemblance with the imagined scenario. If so, the range of situations imaginable in this way is too limited to have a significant role in modal epistemology. If not, imagination will involve some arbitrary labeling component, which turns out to be sufficient for imagining the impossible. And if the relevant imagination is neither linguistic nor pictorial, Humeans will appear to resort to some representational magic, until they come up with a theory of a ‘third code’ for mental representations.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Badanie preferencji konsumenckich na rynku produktów pszczelich. Część 1. Miód

Survey of consumer preferences on the bee product market. Part 1. Honey. The survey concerning the market consumer preferences of bee products was based on the internet anonymous questionnaire (517 persons). Over 95% of respondents declared honey consumption. More men than women eat honey. The quantity and frequency of honey use increases with age. As many as 70% of respondents sweeten using honey. The respondents choosing honey follow mainly the taste, individual properties of type of honeys, availability, price and appearance. Respondents the most willingly consume honey coming from Poland, and more than half of the respondents buy honey directly from a beekeeper. The most preferred are multi-fl ower, lime, acacia, buckwheat, honeydew and rapeseed honeys. A defi nitely higher percentage of respondents working in the sectors related to agriculture ate buckwheat, heather and dandelion honeys

Badanie preferencji konsumenckich na rynku produktów pszczelich. Część 2. Produkty pszczele

Survey of consumer preferences on bee product market. Part 2. Bee products. The aim of the work was to examine consumer preferences when choosing bee products. The research was conducted on the basis of the questionnaire presented in Part 1 of the article. Beeswax, propolis, bee bread were the bee products known to over half of the respondents. Education or work related to agriculture, animals and nutrition signifi cantly affected the knowledge of the properties of individual bee products. After learn ing the medicinal properties of bee products unknown to the respondents, 37.3% of them declared willingness to use inhalation with beehive air, 33.2% of royal jelly, 30.5% bee pollen and honey, 25.5% bee venom, 17.6 propolis, and 15.6% beeswax