Comparative Analysis of Sea Surface Temperature Pattern in the Eastern and Western Gulfs of Arabian Sea and the Red Sea in Recent Past Using Satellite Data

With unprecedented rate of development in the countries surrounding the gulfs of the Arabian Sea, there has been a rapid warming of these gulfs. In this regard, using Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data from 1985 to 2009, a climatological study of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and its inter annual variability in the Persian Gulf (PG), Gulf of Oman (GO), Gulf of Aden (GA), Gulf of Kutch (KTCH), Gulf of Khambhat (KMBT), and Red Sea (RS) was carried out using the normalized SST anomaly index. KTCH, KMBT, and GA pursued the typical Arabian Sea basin bimodal SST pattern, whereas PG, GO, and RS followed unimodal SST curve. In the western gulfs and RS, from 1985 to 1991-1992, cooling was observed followed by rapid warming phase from 1993 onwards, whereas in the eastern gulfs, the phase of sharp rise of SST was observed from 1995 onwards. Strong influence of the El Niño and La Niña and the Indian Ocean Dipole on interannual variability of SST of gulfs was observed. Annual and seasonal increase of SST was lower in the eastern gulfs than the western gulfs. RS showed the highest annual increase of normalized SST anomaly (+0.64/decade) followed by PG (+0.4/decade)

Band selection algorithms for foliar trait retrieval using AVIRIS-NG: a comparison of feature based attribute evaluators

Interband information overlapping enhances redundancy in hyperspectral data. This makes identification of application-specific optimal bands essential for obtaining accurate information about foliar traits. The current study investigated the performance of three novel Band Selection (BS) algorithms (i.e. the Chi-squared-statistics based attribute evaluator (CSS), the Recursive elimination of features-based attribute evaluator (REF) and the Correlation-based attribute subset evaluator (CBS)) in identifying the spectral bands of Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer-Next Generation (AVIRIS-NG) from visible and Near Infrared (NIR) regions that are sensitive to variation in Chlorophyll Content (CC). Identified bands were employed to formulate Hyperspectral Indices (HIs) by incorporating combinations of Blue, Green, Red, and NIR regions. CC models were built by establishing a linear fit between ground CC and HIs. For all the three BS algorithms, optimum bands varied for visible and NIR regions. REF-HI (NIR,R), REF-HI(NIR,R + G), CSS-HI(NIR,R) and CSS-HI(NIR,R + G) had the best correlation with CC. HI(NIR,R) is identified as the best HI and REF the best BS algorithm for retrieving CC

WIP1 phosphatase as a potential therapeutic target in neuroblastoma.

The wild-type p53-induced phosphatase 1 (WIP1) is a serine/threonine phosphatase that negatively regulates multiple proteins involved in DNA damage response including p53, CHK2, Histone H2AX, and ATM, and it has been shown to be overexpressed or amplified in human cancers including breast and ovarian cancers. We examined WIP1 mRNA levels across multiple tumor types and found the highest levels in breast cancer, leukemia, medulloblastoma and neuroblastoma. Neuroblastoma is an exclusively TP53 wild type tumor at diagnosis and inhibition of p53 is required for tumorigenesis. Neuroblastomas in particular have previously been shown to have 17q amplification, harboring the WIP1 (PPM1D) gene and associated with poor clinical outcome. We therefore sought to determine whether inhibiting WIP1 with a selective antagonist, GSK2830371, can attenuate neuroblastoma cell growth through reactivation of p53 mediated tumor suppression. Neuroblastoma cell lines with wild-type TP53 alleles were highly sensitive to GSK2830371 treatment, while cell lines with mutant TP53 were resistant to GSK2830371. The majority of tested neuroblastoma cell lines with copy number gains of the PPM1D locus were also TP53 wild-type and sensitive to GSK2830371A; in contrast cell lines with no copy gain of PPM1D were mixed in their sensitivity to WIP1 inhibition, with the primary determinant being TP53 mutational status. Since WIP1 is involved in the cellular response to DNA damage and drugs used in neuroblastoma treatment induce apoptosis through DNA damage, we sought to determine whether GSK2830371 could act synergistically with standard of care chemotherapeutics. Treatment of wild-type TP53 neuroblastoma cell lines with both GSK2830371 and either doxorubicin or carboplatin resulted in enhanced cell death, mediated through caspase 3/7 induction, as compared to either agent alone. Our data suggests that WIP1 inhibition represents a novel therapeutic approach to neuroblastoma that could be integrated with current chemotherapeutic approaches

WIP1 expression correlates with neuroblastoma disease stage.

<p><b>A</b>, Analysis of a large patient cohort (88 patients) with annotated clinical data and long term follow up (Versteeg-88-Mas5.0) demonstrates higher <i>PPM1D</i> levels in stage 4 metastatic subgroup (# = p < 0.01, # # = p < 0.005, by Student T-test). <b>B</b>, Long-term survival was also significantly (Kaplan-Meier analysis p = 0.005) different for high (n = 50) versus low (n = 38) expression of <i>PPM1D</i>.</p

WIP1 is frequently overexpressed in neuroblastomas.

<p><b>A</b>, Survey of <i>PPM1D</i> (WIP1) mRNA expression from >25K microarray expression profiles across multiple human tumors, compared to composite of all normal tissues (detailed in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0115635#pone.0115635.s001" target="_blank">S1 Fig.</a>). <b>B</b>, <i>PPM1D</i> (204566_at) is frequently overexpressed in neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma among brain and CNS malignancies. Here, overexpression measured in tumor tissues is determined above the indicated threshold (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0115635#sec002" target="_blank">Materials and Methods</a>).</p

GSK2830371 selectively inhibits WIP1 among related phosphatases.

<p><b>A</b>, Release of free phosphate was measured after incubation of each recombinant enzyme with the generic phosphopeptide, RRA(pT)VA. (* p < 0.01). <b>B</b>, GSK2830371 inhibits the dephosphorylation of WIP1 substrates. Release of free phosphate was measured after exposure of PPM1D (WIP1) to increasing concentrations of GSK2830371, followed by a reaction with phosphopeptide substrates, H2AX (Ser-139) and p53 (Ser-15). Error bars represent SD.</p

GSK2830371 inhibits WIP1 signaling differentially in <i>TP53</i> wild-type vs. mutant neuroblastoma cell lines.

<p><i>TP53</i> wild-type (IMR-32) and mutant (SK-N-AS) cells were treated with indicated concentrations of GSK2830371 or DMSO for six hours. Cell lysates were analyzed by western blotting with antibodies to the indicated total and phospho-proteins. In both cell lines, GSK2830371 causes a concentration-dependent decrease in WIP1 protein and increases in WIP1 phospho-substrates, CHK2 (T68), H2AX (S139), and ATM (S1981). However, total and phospho-p53 (S15), and p53 transcriptional targets, p21 and PUMA, are only increased in the <i>TP53</i> wild-type cells.</p

Neuroblastoma cell lines with wild-type <i>TP53</i> and functional p53 response are sensitive to GSK2830371.

<p><b>A</b>, As a measure of p53 functional response, six neuroblastoma cell lines with different sensitivities to GSK2830371 (indicated by IC₅₀ value in a proliferation assay) and <i>TP53</i> mutational status were exposed to ionizing radiation and allowed to recover for 1 hour, after which RT-PCR was carried out to measure changes in <i>PPM1D</i> and <i>P21</i> transcript levels. Data represent fold change relative to untreated cells (mean ± SD). <b>B</b>, Anti-proliferative effect of GSK2830371 in a seven day cell proliferation assay. Data represent mean ± SD. Copy number for <i>PPM1D</i> and <i>MYCN</i> is represented as green for gain of >6 copies; yellow for 2–6 copies. WIP1 protein level was determined by western blotting of whole cell lysates from a panel of neuroblastoma cell lines. <b>C</b>. GSEA enrichment plot showing a <i>TP53</i> gene signature that is significantly enriched in the sensitive group (S) relative to the resistant group (R) of neuroblastoma cell lines (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0115635#pone.0115635.t001" target="_blank">Table 1</a>). Additional <i>TP53</i> genesets tested by GSEA and their respective numbers of genes (n), normalized enrichment scores (NES) and FDR q values are shown.</p

Molecular and pharmacological characteristics of cell line panel.

<p>SK-N-AS data from Nakamura, et al, <i>Biochem Biophys Res Commun</i> 2007, 354:892–898.</p><p>*Cell lines used in GSEA analysis – Microarray data for NGP, CHP-134, Lan-5 were obtained from GEO (GSE28019) and the rest were downloaded from CCLE</p><p>^#Sensitivity cut-off is 3 μM (10 X average of lowest five IC₅₀ values)</p><p>^Normal: 2 copies; Gain: between 2–6 copies; Amplified: >6 copies</p><p>Molecular and pharmacological characteristics of cell line panel.</p

GSK2830371 has synergistic anti-proliferative activity with chemotherapeutic agents in neuroblastoma cells.

<p>CHP-134 and IMR-32 cells were exposed to 1 μM GSK2830371 for one hour prior to addition of doxorubicin (4 nM proliferation; 1 nM caspase) or carboplatin (1 μM proliferation; 10 μM caspase). CellTiter-Glo (A) was added to plates at 72 hours and caspase-Glo 3/7 (B) was added to separate duplicate plates at 24 or 48 hours post-drug addition. Data represent mean ± SD. *p<0.05 vs DMSO control, ^#p<0.05 vs both single agents, ^$p<0.05 vs doxorubicin or carboplatin alone, using t-test, (2 tailed, unequal variance).</p