Isolated Testicular Metastasis from Prostate Cancer

Prostatic adenocarcinoma is the most frequently diagnosed carcinoma in the male population; the most common sites of secondary lesions are nodes, bones, and lungs. We report the clinical case of a 58-year-old man presenting with a single metastasis in the left testis after a radical prostatectomy/lymphadenectomy for prostate cancer. CASE REPORT This clinical report focuses on a 58-year-old man with prostate cancer who developed an uncommon single metastasis in the left testis after radical surgery and adjuvant pelvic radiation therapy. CONCLUSIONS Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels are important in the follow-up of prostate cancer. At the same time, physical examination of all possible sites of metastasis and proper evaluation of all signs/symptoms are indispensable in the process of identifying recurrence and for the selection of patients undergoing adjuvant therapy

In vitro effects of particulate matter associated with a wildland fire in the north-west of Italy

Wildland fires, increasing in recent decades in the Mediterranean region due to climate change, can contribute to PM levels and composition. This study aimed to investigate biological effects of PM2.5 (Ø 10 (Ø 10 and PM2.5 were measured during the fire suggesting that near and distant sites were influenced by fire pollutants. The PM10 and PM2.5 extracts induced a significant mutagenicity in all sites and the mutagenic effect was increased with respect to historical data. All extracts induced a slight increase of the estrogenic activity but a possible antagonistic activity of PM samples collected near fire was observed. No cytotoxicity or DNA damage was detected. Results confirm that fires could be relevant for human health, since they can worsen the air quality increasing PM concentrations, mutagenic and estrogenic effects

Results from the European Union MAPEC_LIFE cohort study on air pollution and chromosomal damage in children: are public health policies sufficiently protective?

Background: Children are at high risk of suffering health consequences of air pollution and childhood exposure can increase the risk of developing chronic diseases in adulthood. This study, part of the MAPEC_LIFE project (LIFE12 ENV/IT/000614), aimed to investigate the associations between exposure to urban air pollutants and micronucleus (MN) frequency, as a biomarker of chromosomal damage, in buccal cells of children for supporting implementation and updating of environmental policy and legislation. Methods: This prospective epidemiological cohort study was carried out on 6- to 8-year-old children living in five Italian towns with different levels and features of air pollution. Exfoliated buccal cells of the children were sampled twice, in winter and spring, obtaining 2139 biological samples for genotoxicological investigation. Micronucleus (MN) frequency was investigated in buccal cells of children and its association with air pollution exposure was assessed applying multiple Poisson regression mixed models, including socio-demographic and lifestyle factors as confounders. We also dichotomize air pollutants\u2019 concentration according to the EU Ambient Air Quality Directives and WHO Air Quality Guidelines in all Poisson regression models to assess their risk predictive capacity. Results: Positive and statistically significant associations were found between MN frequency and PM10, PM2.5, benzene, SO2 and ozone. The increment of the risk of having MN in buccal cells for each \u3bcg/m3 increase of pollutant concentration was maximum for benzene (18.9%, 95% CIs 2.2\u201338.4%) and modest for the other pollutants (between 0.2 and 1.4%). An increased risk (between 17.9% and 59.8%) was found also for exposure to PM10, benzene and benzo(a)pyrene levels higher than the threshold limits. Conclusions: Some air pollutants are able to induce chromosomal damage in buccal cells of children even at concentrations below present EU/WHO limits. This type of biological effects may be indicative of the environmental pressure which populations are exposed to in urban areas

PINOT: an intuitive resource for integrating protein-protein interactions

The past decade has seen the rise of omics data, for the understanding of biological systems in health and disease. This wealth of data includes protein-protein interaction (PPI) derived from both low and high-throughput assays, which is curated into multiple databases that capture the extent of available information from the peer-reviewed literature. Although these curation efforts are extremely useful, reliably downloading and integrating PPI data from the variety of available repositories is challenging and time consuming. We here present a novel user-friendly web-resource called PINOT (Protein Interaction Network Online Tool; available at http://www.reading.ac.uk/bioinf/PINOT/PINOT_form.html) to optimise the collection and processing of PPI data from the IMEx consortium associated repositories (members and observers) and from WormBase for constructing, respectively, human and C. elegans PPI networks. Users submit a query containing a list of proteins of interest for which PINOT will mine PPIs. PPI data is downloaded, merged, quality checked, and confidence scored based on the number of distinct methods and publications in which each interaction has been reported. Examples of PINOT applications are provided to highlight the performance, the ease of use and the potential applications of this tool. PINOT is a tool that allows users to survey the literature, extracting PPI data for a list of proteins of interest. The comparison with analogous tools showed that PINOT was able to extract similar numbers of PPIs while incorporating a set of innovative features. PINOT processes both small and large queries, it downloads PPIs live through PSICQUIC and it applies quality control filters on the downloaded PPI annotations (i.e. removing the need of manual inspection by the user). PINOT provides the user with information on detection methods and publication history for each of the downloaded interaction data entry and provides results in a table format that can be easily further customised and/or directly uploaded in a network visualization software

Enhanced transfection of cell lines from Atlantic salmon through nucoleofection and antibiotic selection

Background Cell lines from Atlantic salmon kidney have made it possible to culture and study infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV), an aquatic orthomyxovirus affecting farmed Atlantic salmon. However, transfection of these cells using calcium phosphate precipitation or lipid-based reagents shows very low transfection efficiency. The Amaxa Nucleofector technology™ is an electroporation technique that has been shown to be efficient for gene transfer into primary cells and hard to transfect cell lines. Findings Here we demonstrate, enhanced transfection of the head kidney cell line, TO, from Atlantic salmon using nucleofection and subsequent flow cytometry. Depending on the plasmid promoter, TO cells could be transfected transiently with an efficiency ranging from 11.6% to 90.8% with good viability, using Amaxa's cell line nucleofector solution T and program T-20. A kill curve was performed to investigate the most potent antibiotic for selection of transformed cells, and we found that blasticidin and puromycin were the most efficient for selection of TO cells. Conclusions The results show that nucleofection is an efficient way of gene transfer into Atlantic salmon cells and that stably transfected cells can be selected with blasticidin or puromycin