Overexpression of adrenomedullin gene markedly inhibits proliferation of PC3 prostate cancer cells in vitro and in vivo

The expression of the gene encoding adrenomedullin (AM), a multifunctional peptide hormone, in the prostate is localized to the epithelial cells. Prostate cancer cells are derived from prostatic epithelial cells. To elucidate the potential role of the AM gene in prostate cancer progression, we have stably-transfected the PC3 human prostate cancer cell line with an AM gene expression vector. The AM-transfected PC3 sublines were studied along with parental and empty vector transfected PC3 cells as controls. The average level of AM in the conditioned media of AM-transfected cells was 0.959+/-0.113 nM, a physiologically relevant concentration. The ectopic expression of AM gene inhibited the proliferation of PC3 cells in culture dishes. In addition, anchorage-independent growth of the transfected sublines was virtually abolished in soft agar assays. Flow cytometry studies showed that overexpression of AM gene caused a very significant G(1)/G(0) cell cycle arrest. In vivo experiments demonstrated that AM gene expression markedly inhibited the growth of xenograft tumors in nude mice. Our in vivo and in vitro studies suggest that AM could strongly suppress the malignancy of prostate cancer cells, via autocrine and/or paracrine mechanisms

The PHENIX Experiment at RHIC

The physics emphases of the PHENIX collaboration and the design and current status of the PHENIX detector are discussed. The plan of the collaboration for making the most effective use of the available luminosity in the first years of RHIC operation is also presented.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Further details of the PHENIX physics program available at http://www.rhic.bnl.gov/phenix

Sustainable development in professional planning: a potential contribution of the EIA and UET concepts

Social and economic goals realised through development are unattainable without the use of resources and negative environmental impacts. The integration of conservation and development and the concept of sustainable development indicate how detrimental development impacts can be curtailed whilst its benefits are not lost. The main progress in this field is usually linked with Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA). It can be questioned, however, whether they have reached the roots of environmental decay in the development decision making processes. Planners can argue that location, scale and type of development are decided prior to EIA involvement. This precludes environmentally proactive planning. The article advocates the need for integration of ecological considerations to the planning process from its outset through the concept of "framing" development by spatial, quantitative, qualitative and temporal environmental dimensions indicated in the planning process. From these dimensions development constraints may be derived. They can be overcome at varying investment, ecological or aesthetic costs and represent environmental thresholds to development. This concept has led to the formulation of the Ultimate Environmental Threshold (UET) method which is compared in the article with EIA to identify their potential contribution in the integration of ecological considerations into professional planning. The evidence shows that billions are spent for an ex post removal of environmental damage resulting from erroneous development decisions. A lot of these costs can be attributed to planning blunders which could have been prevented had ecological thinking been introduced into early stages of the planning process. Commonly, however, plans do not have identifiable impact assessments and measures mitigating adverse environmental impacts, derived from EIAs, are applied to the already allocated land uses. In addition, the lists of developments of which EIAs are legally required is revealing not by what is in it but by what is not, as developments potentially threatening to the natural environment are often absent on these lists. The EIAs are preventative but also partially reactive as they are to mitigate the impact of proposals generated without their contribution. The UET is more proactive as it has been designed to set an environmentally sound "frame" for the formulation of these proposals. Cost savings derived from preventing ecological blunders at the outset of development decision making may be substantial as this is the only time when major changes to the location, scale or type of development can be made without serious cost implications while changes afterwards are always much more difficult. Some research programmes to refine the UET method are proposed by this article which also illustrates the two approaches by hypothetical case studies

Heat Capacity and Neutron Diffraction of Low Doped Fe3-xZnxO4

We report on the heat capacity and neutron diffraction studies of Fe3-xZnxO4 (w<0.04) series. Adiabatic heat capacity measurements, performed on single crystals, confirm our earlier observations that in the range x<0.012 the Verwey transition is of first order, whereas for 0.012<x<0.035 the transition character changes to second order. The change of transition order is accompanied by the clear difference in heat capacity baselines below Verwey transition temperature Tv. The time-of-flight neutron diffraction data were collected at the High Resolution Powder Diffractometer in ISIS in the T range 4-240 K for two Fe3-xZnxO4 samples with x falling within first and second order regime. The comparison of spectra for both samples shows that second order sample undergoes much smaller structure change than that observed for first order sample what was suggested by our heat capacity measurements results