Microseminoprotein-Beta Expression in Different Stages of Prostate Cancer

Microseminoprotein-beta (MSMB, MSMB) is an abundant secretory protein contributed by the prostate, and is implicated as a prostate cancer (PC) biomarker based on observations of its lower expression in cancerous cells compared with benign prostate epithelium. However, as the current literature on MSMB is inconsistent, we assessed the expression of MSMB at the protein and mRNA levels in a comprehensive set of different clinical stages of PC. Immunohistochemistry using monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies against MSMB was used to study protein expression in tissue specimens representing prostatectomies (n = 261) and in diagnostic needle biopsies from patients treated with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) (n = 100), and in locally recurrent castration-resistant PC (CRPC) (n = 105) and CRPC metastases (n = 113). The transcript levels of MSMB, nuclear receptor co-activator 4 (NCOA4) and MSMB-NCOA4 fusion were examined by qRT-PCR in prostatectomy samples and by RNA-sequencing in benign prostatic hyperplasia, PC, and CRPC samples. We also measured serum MSMB levels and genotyped the single nucleotide polymorphism rs10993994 using DNA from the blood of 369 PC patients and 903 controls. MSMB expression in PC (29% of prostatectomies and 21% of needle biopsies) was more frequent than in CRPC (9% of locally recurrent CRPCs and 9% of CRPC metastases) (p<0.0001). Detection of MSMB protein was inversely correlated with the Gleason score in prostatectomy specimens (p = 0.024). The read-through MSMB-NCOA4 transcript was detected at very low levels in PC. MSMB levels in serum were similar in cases of PC and controls but were significantly associated with PC risk when adjusted for age at diagnosis and levels of free or total PSA (p<0.001). Serum levels of MSMB in both PC patients and controls were significantly associated with the rs10993994 genotype (p<0.0001). In conclusion, decreased expression of MSMB parallels the clinical progression of PC and adjusted serum MSMB levels are associated with PC risk

Understanding Soft Errors in Uncore Components

The effects of soft errors in processor cores have been widely studied. However, little has been published about soft errors in uncore components, such as memory subsystem and I/O controllers, of a System-on-a-Chip (SoC). In this work, we study how soft errors in uncore components affect system-level behaviors. We have created a new mixed-mode simulation platform that combines simulators at two different levels of abstraction, and achieves 20,000x speedup over RTL-only simulation. Using this platform, we present the first study of the system-level impact of soft errors inside various uncore components of a large-scale, multi-core SoC using the industrial-grade, open-source OpenSPARC T2 SoC design. Our results show that soft errors in uncore components can significantly impact system-level reliability. We also demonstrate that uncore soft errors can create major challenges for traditional system-level checkpoint recovery techniques. To overcome such recovery challenges, we present a new replay recovery technique for uncore components belonging to the memory subsystem. For the L2 cache controller and the DRAM controller components of OpenSPARC T2, our new technique reduces the probability that an application run fails to produce correct results due to soft errors by more than 100x with 3.32% and 6.09% chip-level area and power impact, respectively.Comment: to be published in Proceedings of the 52nd Annual Design Automation Conferenc

Phytophthora cactorum and Colletotrichum acutatum: Survival and Detection

Phytophthora cactorum and Colletotrichum acutatum are pathogens which are transported with plant material as latent infections and can also survive in soil and plant debris. Since the beginning of 1990’s P. cactorum caused losses in strawberries in Finland and increased culling of silver birch seedlings in forest nurseries because of stem lesions. In this study primers specific for the pathogen were designed, and in a simple PCR they gave an amplification product from pure cultures only when P. cactorum was used as a template. No cross reactions were found with other Phytophthoras in group I or other microbes. Inoculated strawberry plants gave also a clear band in PCR-analyses when the template concentration was diluted. However, amplification was not always reproducible with birch seedlings. With soil samples the best result was gained by a combination of baiting and isolation. C. acutatum is a quarantine pathogen on strawberry in the European Union and thus the infected plants are destroyed in Finland to avoid further spread of the pathogen. The pathogen has earlier been found to survive over one winter in infected plant debris and soil. In the survival test (2003-2005) done in this study, specific amplification products were obtained from test plants inoculated with artificially infected plant residues after 20 months of storage outdoors on soil surface. More positive results were achieved from bait plants grown in soil collected from the field where infected plants had been destroyed two years before, than from samples collected a year after the plant destruction

Prostate specific antigen concentration at age 60 and death or metastasis from prostate cancer: case-control study

Objective To determine the relation between concentrations of prostate specific antigen at age 60 and subsequent diagnosis of clinically relevant prostate cancer in an unscreened population to evaluate whether screening for prostate cancer and chemoprevention could be stratified by risk

Prevalence and determinants of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency among three immigrant groups in Finland : evidence from a population-based study using standardised 25-hydroxyvitamin D data

Objective: We investigated the determinants of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [S-25(OH)D] and dietary vitamin D sources among three immigrant groups in Finland and compared their S-25(OH)D to the general Finnish population. Design: Cross-sectional population-based Migrant Health and Wellbeing Study and the nationally representative Finnish Health 2011 Survey. S-25(OH)D was standardised according to the Vitamin D Standardisation Program. Vitamin D sources were assessed by interview. Setting: Six different municipalities in Finland (60 degrees-63 degrees N). Participants: Immigrants aged 18-64 years (446 Russians, 346 Somalis, 500 Kurds), 798 Finns aged 30-64 years. Results: The mean of S-25(OH)D was 64 (95 % CI 62, 66), 44 (95 % CI 41, 46), 35 (95 % CI 34, 37) and 64 (95 % CI 62, 66) nmol/l for Russians, Somalis, Kurds and Finns, respectively. S-25(OH)D among Somalis and Kurds was lower compared with Finns (P <0 center dot 001). The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency (S-25(OH)DPeer reviewe

Migration of contaminants from milk tubes and teat liners

Reprinted with permission from the Journal of Food Protection. Copyright held by the International Association for Food Protection, Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A