miR-155 is up-regulated in primary and secondary glioblastoma and promotes tumour growth by inhibiting GABA receptors.

An altered expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) contributes both to the development of cancer and to the progression of the disease. Malignant tumours and tumour cell lines have widespread deregulated expressions of miRNAs compared to normal tissues. In this study, we investigated the expression profiles of 340 mammalian miRNAs in 93 cases of multiform glioblastoma (primary and secondary glioblastoma tumours), by means of DNA microarrays. We show that the expression profiles of 10 miRNAs can distinguish primary from secondary glioblastoma types. Moreover, we found elevated miR-155 levels in primary and secondary glioblastoma tissues as well as in glioblastoma primary cultures. We hypothesised that γ-aminobutyric acid A receptor 1 (GABRA1) is a miR-155 target, and studied the correlation between miR-155 up-regulation and the GABRA1 protein in cultured glioblastoma cells by miRNA silencing. We show that a decrease in miR-155 expression to normal levels restores the expression of GABRA1, making glioblastoma cells sensitive to signals that inhibit cell proliferation mediated by GABRA1. In conclusion, the expression patterns of different miRNAs characterise primary and secondary glioblastomas. The aberrant overexpression of miR-155 contributes to the malignant phenotype of glioblastoma cells removing growth inhibition

Retrospective protein expression and epigenetic inactivation studies of CDH1 in patients affected by low-grade glioma.

Aberrant methylation of CpG islands in the promoter regions of tumour cells results in loss of gene function. In addition to genetic lesions, changes in the methylation profile of the promoters may be considered a factor for tumour-specific aberrant expression of the genes.We investigated the methylation status of E-cadherin gene (CDH1) promoter in low-grade glioma and correlated it with clinical outcome. Eighty-four cases of low-grade glioma (43 diffuse astrocytomas, 27 oligodendrogliomas and 14 oligoastrocytomas) with assessable paraffin-embedded tumour blocks and normal brain tissue, derived from non-cancerous tissue adjacent to tumour and commercially normal brain tissue, were collected, from which we determined CDH1 promoter methylation status and E-cadherin protein expression by methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MSP) and immunohistochemistry, respectively. CDH1 promoter was found hypermethylated in 54 out of 84 low grade gliomas (64%) compared with 84 normal brain tissue. CDH1 hypermethylation was found in 65% astrocytomas, 66% oligodendrogliomas and 57% oligoastrocytomas. A significant correlation between hypermethylation status, patient survival and progression-free survival was found (P = 0.04). Survival and progression-free survival were lower in patients with hypermethylated CDH1 promoter. We found that 15 astrocytomas, 9 oligodendrogliomas and 6 oligoastrocytomas were immunoreactive for E-cadherin. The incidence of loss of immunoreactivity for E-cadherin decreased significantly with age, overall survival and progression-free survival (P = 0.001, Kaplan-Meier test). We have demonstrated that CDH1 promoter hypermethylation significantly associated with down-regulated E-cadherin expression and overall survival of patients. This may have a bearing on the prognosis of low-grade glioma

miR-155 is up-regulated in primary and secondary glioblastoma and promotes tumour growth by inhibiting GABA receptors

An altered expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) contributes both to the development of cancer and to the progression of the disease. Malignant tumours and tumour cell lines have widespread deregulated expressions of miRNAs compared to normal tissues. In this study, we investigated the expression profiles of 340 mammalian miRNAs in 93 cases of multiform glioblastoma (primary and secondary glioblastoma tumours), by means of DNA microarrays. We show that the expression profiles of 10 miRNAs can distinguish primary from secondary glioblastoma types. Moreover, we found elevated miR-155 levels in primary and secondary glioblastoma tissues as well as in glioblastoma primary cultures. We hypothesised that γ-aminobutyric acid A receptor 1 (GABRA1) is a miR-155 target, and studied the correlation between miR-155 up-regulation and the GABRA1 protein in cultured glioblastoma cells by miRNA silencing. We show that a decrease in miR-155 expression to normal levels restores the expression of GABRA1, making glioblastoma cells sensitive to signals that inhibit cell proliferation mediated by GABRA1. In conclusion, the expression patterns of different miRNAs characterise primary and secondary glioblastomas. The aberrant overexpression of miR-155 contributes to the malignant phenotype of glioblastoma cells removing growth inhibition

Gliomatosis cerebri type II: two case reports.

Abstract Introduction Two types of gliomatosis cerebri exist: Type I and Type II. We report the results of a histological and genetic study of two cases of gliomatosis cerebri Type II, correlating these results with therapy and prognosis. Case presentation Two patients, a 52-year-old man (Patient 1) and a 76-year-old man (Patient 2) with gliomatosis cerebri II were admitted to our institution; they underwent surgical treatment and received radiotherapy and chemotherapy. At the 24-month follow-up, Patient 1 was still alive, while Patient 2 had died. The poor prognosis of Patient 2 was underlined by molecular analysis which showed that the angiogenesis related genes VCAM1 and VEGF were overexpressed, reflecting the high degree of neovascularization. Conclusion Genes involved in drug resistance and metallothioneins were highly expressed in Patient 2 and this, associated with unmethylated O6-methylguanine methyltransferase, can explain the lack of response to chemotherapy.</p

A filtration-based real-time PCR method for the quantitative detection of viable Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes in food samples.

We developed a novel filtration-based method that can eliminate dead or severely damaged Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes in food samples. This new method can recover all viable bacteria in less than 30 min, and can be coupled with a subsequent bacterial DNA extraction and real-time PCR. No statically significant differences (p0.9969) over a 5-log dynamic range with PCR efficiencies >0.9754. When compared with the standard microbiological methods for the detection of these foodborne pathogens, the relative accuracy was excellent ranging from 95.72% to 104.48%. Finally, we applied the pre-treatment method to the direct detection of viable forms of these foodborne pathogens in food samples using yogurt as a model, the results being similar to those obtained using pure cultures

Replication data for: Awareness is bliss: How acquiescence affects exploratory factor analysis

These files contain the code and data to evaluate the impact of an agreeing response style (ARS) on the assessment of the psychometric properties of unidimensional and multidimensional scales using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Specifically, through a simulation study we assessed (a) the selected number of factors, and the recovery of factor loadings and correlations when ARS was (b) taken into count (i.e., extracted), and (c) ignored (i.e., not extracted