Up-regulation of delta-like 4 ligand in human tumor vasculature and the role of basal expression in endothelial cell function.

The Notch signaling pathway and the delta-like 4 ligand (DLL4) play key roles in embryonic vascular development. Many of the pathways involved in embryonic vascular development also play important roles in tumor angiogenesis. In this study, we assessed the expression of DLL4 in primary renal cancer and investigated the biological function of DLL4 in primary endothelial cells. Using real-time quantitative PCR and in situ hybridization, we showed that the expression of DLL4 was up-regulated within the vasculature of clear cell-renal cell carcinoma almost 9-fold more than normal kidney and was correlated with the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The expression of DLL4 in endothelial cells was up-regulated by VEGF and basic fibroblast growth factor synergistically, and by hypoxia through hypoxia-inducible factor 1alpha. Down-regulation of DLL4 expression with RNA interference led to decreased expression of HEY1 and EphrinB2, and the inhibition of endothelial cell proliferation, migration, and network formation, all of which are important processes in tumor angiogenesis. The inhibition of proliferation occurred via the induction of cell cycle arrest in G0-G1 by increased expression of p21 and decreased phosphorylation of retinoblastoma. We conclude that an optimal window of the DLL4 expression is essential for tumor angiogenesis and that selective modulation of the DLL4 expression within human tumors may represent a potential novel antiangiogenic therapy

Game saturation of intersecting families

We consider the following combinatorial game: two players, Fast and Slow, claim $k$-element subsets of $[n]=\{1,2,...,n\}$ alternately, one at each turn, such that both players are allowed to pick sets that intersect all previously claimed subsets. The game ends when there does not exist any unclaimed $k$-subset that meets all already claimed sets. The score of the game is the number of sets claimed by the two players, the aim of Fast is to keep the score as low as possible, while the aim of Slow is to postpone the game's end as long as possible. The game saturation number is the score of the game when both players play according to an optimal strategy. To be precise we have to distinguish two cases depending on which player takes the first move. Let $gsat_F(\mathbb{I}_{n,k})$ and $gsat_S(\mathbb{I}_{n,k})$ denote the score of the saturation game when both players play according to an optimal strategy and the game starts with Fast's or Slow's move, respectively. We prove that $\Omega_k(n^{k/3-5}) \le gsat_F(\mathbb{I}_{n,k}),gsat_S(\mathbb{I}_{n,k}) \le O_k(n^{k-\sqrt{k}/2})$ holds

Up-regulation of endothelial delta-like 4 expression correlates with vessel maturation in bladder cancer.

PURPOSE: Angiogenesis and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression are associated with a poor outcome in bladder cancer. To understand more about the mechanisms, we studied the role of delta-like 4 (DLL4), an endothelial-specific ligand of the Notch signaling pathway, in bladder cancer angiogenesis. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: The expression of DLL4, CD34, and VEGF were studied in a cohort of 60 bladder tumors and 10 normal samples using quantitative PCR. In situ hybridization was used to study the pattern of DLL4 expression in 22 tumor and 9 normal samples. Serial sections were also stained for CD34 and alpha-smooth muscle actin (alpha-SMA) using conventional immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: The expression of DLL4 was significantly up-regulated in superficial (P < 0.01) and invasive (P < 0.05) bladder cancers. DLL4 expression significantly correlated with CD34 (P < 0.001) and VEGF (P < 0.001) expression. The in situ hybridization studies showed that DLL4 was highly expressed within bladder tumor vasculature. Additionally, DLL4 expression significantly correlated with vessel maturation as judged by periendothelial cell expression of alpha-SMA, 98.7% of DLL4-positive tumor vessels coexpressed alpha-SMA, compared with 64.5% of DLL4-negative tumor vessels (P < 0.001). High DLL4 expression may have prognostic value in superficial and invasive bladder. CONCLUSION: DLL4 expression is associated with vascular differentiation in bladder cancer; thus, targeting DLL4 may be a novel antiangiogenic therapy

Life Cycle-Dependent Cytoskeletal Modifications in Plasmodium falciparum Infected Erythrocytes

10.1371/journal.pone.0061170PLoS ONE84

Sequence and Structure Signatures of Cancer Mutation Hotspots in Protein Kinases

Protein kinases are the most common protein domains implicated in cancer, where somatically acquired mutations are known to be functionally linked to a variety of cancers. Resequencing studies of protein kinase coding regions have emphasized the importance of sequence and structure determinants of cancer-causing kinase mutations in understanding of the mutation-dependent activation process. We have developed an integrated bioinformatics resource, which consolidated and mapped all currently available information on genetic modifications in protein kinase genes with sequence, structure and functional data. The integration of diverse data types provided a convenient framework for kinome-wide study of sequence-based and structure-based signatures of cancer mutations. The database-driven analysis has revealed a differential enrichment of SNPs categories in functional regions of the kinase domain, demonstrating that a significant number of cancer mutations could fall at structurally equivalent positions (mutational hotspots) within the catalytic core. We have also found that structurally conserved mutational hotspots can be shared by multiple kinase genes and are often enriched by cancer driver mutations with high oncogenic activity. Structural modeling and energetic analysis of the mutational hotspots have suggested a common molecular mechanism of kinase activation by cancer mutations, and have allowed to reconcile the experimental data. According to a proposed mechanism, structural effect of kinase mutations with a high oncogenic potential may manifest in a significant destabilization of the autoinhibited kinase form, which is likely to drive tumorigenesis at some level. Structure-based functional annotation and prediction of cancer mutation effects in protein kinases can facilitate an understanding of the mutation-dependent activation process and inform experimental studies exploring molecular pathology of tumorigenesis

Coding errors: a comparative analysis of hospital and prospectively collected departmental data.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the accuracy of a hospital coding database at a busy tertiary referral urological unit. METHODS: Prospectively collected departmental coding data for all urological patients attending the Churchill Hospital, Oxford between 1 May 1999 and 30 April 2000 were compared with the coding data entered by hospital coding clerks on the Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust database. RESULTS: There were significant discrepancies between the number of patients on the hospital and the departmental database (639 vs 1109). There were gross procedural coding errors in 74 cases. CONCLUSION: Hospital-coded data in this study were incomplete and inaccurate. This has important implications when considering the validity of hospital-trust databases when used as a source for medical research, clinical audit and as a representation of a consultants' clinical workload