SnO2Nanowire Arrays and Electrical Properties Synthesized by Fast Heating a Mixture of SnO2and CNTs Waste Soot

SnO2nanowire arrays were synthesized by fast heating a mixture of SnO2and the carbon nanotubes waste soot by high-frequency induction heating. The resultant SnO2nanowires possess diameters from 50 to 100 nm and lengths up to tens of mircrometers. The field-effect transistors based on single SnO2nanowire exhibit that as-synthesized nanowires have better transistor performance in terms of transconductance and on/off ratio. This work demonstrates a simple technique to the growth of nanomaterials for application in future nanoelectronic devices

Expression of Bmi-1 is a prognostic marker in bladder cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The molecular mechanisms of the development and progression of bladder cancer are poorly understood. The objective of this study was to analyze the expression of Bmi-1 protein and its clinical significance in human bladder cancer.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We examined the expression of Bmi-1 mRNA and Bmi-1 protein by RT-PCR and Western blot, respectively in 14 paired bladder cancers and the adjacent normal tissues. The expression of Bmi-1 protein in 137 specimens of bladder cancer and 30 specimens of adjacent normal bladder tissue was determined by immunohistochemistry. Statistical analyses were applied to test the relationship between expression of Bmi-1, and clinicopathologic features and prognosis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Expression of Bmi-1 mRNA and protein was higher in bladder cancers than in the adjacent normal tissues in 14 paired samples (<it>P </it>< 0.01). By immunohistochemical examination, five of 30 adjacent normal bladder specimens (16.7%) versus 75 of 137 bladder cancers (54.3%) showed Bmi-1 protein expression (<it>P </it>< 0.05). Bmi-1 protein expression was intense in 20.6%, 54.3%, and 78.8% of tumors of histopathological stages G1, G2, and G3, respectively (<it>P </it>< 0.05). Expression of Bmi-1 protein was greater in invasive bladder cancers than in superficial bladder cancers (81.5% versus 32.5%, <it>P </it>< 0.05). In invasive bladder cancers, the expression of Bmi-1 protein in progression-free cancers was similar to that of cancers that have progressed (80.0% versus 82.4%, <it>P </it>> 0.5). In superficial bladder cancers, the expression of Bmi-1 protein in recurrent cases was higher than in recurrence-free cases (62.5% versus 13.7%, <it>P </it>< 0.05). Bmi-1 expression was positively correlated with tumor classification and TNM stage (<it>P </it>< 0.05), but not with tumor number (<it>P </it>> 0.05). Five-year survival in the group with higher Bmi-1 expression was 50.8%, while it was 78.5% in the group with lower Bmi-1 expression (<it>P </it>< 0.05). Patients with higher Bmi-1 expression had shorter survival time, whereas patients with lower Bmi-1 expression had longer survival time (<it>P </it>< 0.05).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Expression of Bmi-1 was greater in bladder cancers than in the adjacent normal tissues. The examination of Bmi-1 protein expression is potentially valuable in prognostic evaluation of bladder cancer.</p

Genetic diversity in cultivated carioca common beans based on molecular marker analysis

A wide array of molecular markers has been used to investigate the genetic diversity among common bean species. However, the best combination of markers for studying such diversity among common bean cultivars has yet to be determined. Few reports have examined the genetic diversity of the carioca bean, commercially one of the most important common beans in Brazil. In this study, we examined the usefulness of two molecular marker systems (simple sequence repeats – SSRs and amplified fragment length polymorphisms – AFLPs) for assessing the genetic diversity of carioca beans. The amount of information provided by Roger’s modified genetic distance was used to analyze SSR data and Jaccards similarity coefficient was used for AFLP data. Seventy SSRs were polymorphic and 20 AFLP primer combinations produced 635 polymorphic bands. Molecular analysis showed that carioca genotypes were quite diverse. AFLPs revealed greater genetic differentiation and variation within the carioca genotypes (Gst = 98% and Fst = 0.83, respectively) than SSRs and provided better resolution for clustering the carioca genotypes. SSRs and AFLPs were both suitable for assessing the genetic diversity of Brazilian carioca genotypes since the number of markers used in each system provided a low coefficient of variation. However, fingerprint profiles were generated faster with AFLPs, making them a better choice for assessing genetic diversity in the carioca germplasm

The ongoing pursuit of neuroprotective therapies in Parkinson disease

Many agents developed for neuroprotective treatment of Parkinson disease (PD) have shown great promise in the laboratory, but none have translated to positive results in patients with PD. Potential neuroprotective drugs, such as ubiquinone, creatine and PYM50028, have failed to show any clinical benefits in recent high-profile clinical trials. This 'failure to translate' is likely to be related primarily to our incomplete understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms underlying PD, and excessive reliance on data from toxin-based animal models to judge which agents should be selected for clinical trials. Restricted resources inevitably mean that difficult compromises must be made in terms of trial design, and reliable estimation of efficacy is further hampered by the absence of validated biomarkers of disease progression. Drug development in PD dementia has been mostly unsuccessful; however, emerging biochemical, genetic and pathological evidence suggests a link between tau and amyloid-β deposition and cognitive decline in PD, potentially opening up new possibilities for therapeutic intervention. This Review discusses the most important 'druggable' disease mechanisms in PD, as well as the most-promising drugs that are being evaluated for their potential efficiency in treatment of motor and cognitive impairments in PD

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe