Systematic literature review on election and stock performance

Political factor is one of the main factors that influence investors’ decision-making. Considering that, this study presents a systematic review of the research work, published on the topic of election effects and stock market behaviour. Through Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), this study critically assessed and examined sixteen research studies, published between 1995 and 2021, in different regions across the globe. Based on the outcomes, most of these past studies highlighted that the election effects rely entirely on the political climate. If the election outcome benefits the economy, stock markets react positively. Moreover, stock market volatility was noted to be significantly impacted by elections. Higher volatility induced by election whenever there is unforeseen outcome and volatility adjusted back to normal when uncertainty resolve. The findings of this review are expected to reveal the knowledge of theoretical and literature significance on stock market behaviour around elections to researches and investor community. Finally, this paper reveals some significant research gap to advance the research agenda for future research

Proteomics Profiling of Cellular Reprogramming: Are Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hiPSCs) Indistinguishable from Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESCs)?

<p><em>presented in: ASMS 2010 in Salt Lake City, Utah</em></p> <p> </p> <p>“Are iPS cells indistinguishable from ES cells?”<br>We prole the proteomes of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) with quantitative dimethyllabeling developed in-house to unravel the similarities and dierences between the two cell lines. Our results show that both pluripotent cell lines are nearly indistinguishable at the proteome level.</p> <p>Being self-renewing and pluripotent, hESCs hold great promise for cell transplantation therapies to cure degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease or heart failures. However, this technology is limited by ethical issues since embryos are inevitably destroyed upon derivation of hESCs. Besides, potential risks do exist for immune rejection posttransplantion. These issues can probably be addressed now by the reprogramming<br>technology where adult somatic cells are induced to become hESC-like by the ectopic expression of dened transcription factors. These induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) closely resemble hESCs in many aspects, such as the expression of certain stem cell markers. More importantly, they are also capable of pluripotency and self-renewal.</p> <p>Being patient-derived and thus patient-specic, hiPSCs are ideal replacements for hESCs in cell transplantation therapies. However, before any clinical applications, they need to be characterized extensively so as to evaluate their abilities for replication and dierentiation in comparison to the actual hESCs.</p> <p>More recently, transcriptomic approaches have been used to assess the gene expression proles of both cell types. We argue that mRNA levels are not truly representative of the true character of a cell as proteins are the actual functional entities. Therefore, we used “proteomics profiling” instead and ask “Are iPS cells indistinguishable from ES cells?”</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p

In vitro evaluation of dual-antigenic PV1 peptide vaccine in head and neck cancer patients

Peptide vaccines derived from tumour-associated antigens have been used as an immunotherapeutic approach to induce specific cytotoxic immune response against tumour. We previously identified that MAGED4B and FJX1 proteins are overexpressed in HNSCC patients; and further demonstrated that two HLA-A2-restricted 9–11 amino acid peptides derived from these proteins were able to induce anti-tumour immune responses in vitro independently using PBMCs isolated from these patients. In this study, we evaluated the immunogenicity and efficacy of a dual-antigenic peptide vaccine (PV1), comprised of MAGED4B and FJX1 peptides in HNSCC patients. We first demonstrated that 94.8% of HNSCC patients expressed MAGED4B and/or FJX1 by immunohistochemistry, suggesting that PV1 could benefit the majority of HNSCC patients. The presence of pre-existing MAGED4B and FJX1-specific T-cells was detected using a HLA-A2 dimer assay and efficacy of PV1 to induce T-cell to secrete cytotoxic cytokine was evaluated using ELISPOT assay. Pre-existing PV1-specific T-cells were detected in all patients. Notably, we demonstrated that patients’ T-cells were able to secrete cytotoxic cytokines upon exposure to target cells expressing the respective antigen post PV1 stimulation. Furthermore, patients with high expression of MAGED4B and FJX1 in their tumours were more responsive to PV1 stimulation, demonstrating the specificity of the PV1 peptide vaccine. Additionally, we also demonstrated the expression of MAGED4B and FJX1 in breast, lung, colon, prostate and rectal cancer suggesting the potential use of PV1 in these cancers. In summary, PV1 could be a good vaccine candidate for the treatment of HNSCC patients and other cancers expressing these antigens