Association of Arsenic Exposure with Lung Cancer Incidence Rates in the United States

Although strong exposure to arsenic has been shown to be carcinogenic, its contribution to lung cancer incidence in the United States is not well characterized. We sought to determine if the low-level exposures to arsenic seen in the U.S. are associated with lung cancer incidence after controlling for possible confounders, and to assess the interaction with smoking behavior.Measurements of arsenic stream sediment and soil concentration obtained from the USGS National Geochemical Survey were combined, respectively, with 2008 BRFSS estimates on smoking prevalence and 2000 U.S. Census county level income to determine the effects of these factors on lung cancer incidence, as estimated from respective state-wide cancer registries and the SEER database. Poisson regression was used to determine the association between each variable and age-adjusted county-level lung cancer incidence. ANOVA was used to assess interaction effects between covariates.Sediment levels of arsenic were significantly associated with an increase in incident cases of lung cancer (P<0.0001). These effects persisted after controlling for smoking and income (P<0.0001). Across the U.S., exposure to arsenic may contribute to up to 5,297 lung cancer cases per year. There was also a significant interaction between arsenic exposure levels and smoking prevalence (P<0.05).Arsenic was significantly associated with lung cancer incidence rates in the U.S. after controlling for smoking and income, indicating that low-level exposure to arsenic is responsible for excess cancer cases in many parts of the U.S. Elevated county smoking prevalence strengthened the association between arsenic exposure and lung cancer incidence rate, an effect previously unseen on a population level

The Effects of Hydrolytic Enzyme Treatments on Three British Columbian Interior Fir Kraft Pulps Differing in Their Initial Fiber Coarseness

The effects of carbohydrate-degrading enzymes on three softwood kraft pulps, differing primarily in their initial fiber coarseness, were assessed. The pulps were treated with three different enzyme preparations (a crude cellulase, an endoglucanase, and a xylanase) to assess the potential of the different enzymes to alter handsheet properties and to evaluate their effects on fiber coarseness. All enzymatic treatments increased handsheet densities irrespective of the furnish used. The most significant modifications in handsheet properties were evident after treatment with either the crude cellulase or the endoglucanase. Although increased densification occurred with all the pulps, the degree of fiber coarseness of the original pulp influenced the magnitude of response to the different enzymatic treatments. While the tensile index of the coarser pulp was improved by treatment with the crude cellulase, a similar trend was not evident with the pulps of lower coarseness. In contrast, the tensile strength of all pulps, irrespective of the inherent fiber coarseness, was improved by the endoglucanase treatments. The tear strength decreased after treatments with both the crude cellulase and endoglucanase. Xylanase treatments did not significantly alter the handsheet properties of any of the pulps, regardless of the nature of the starting furnish

Oocyte donation pregnancies-non-disclosure of oocyte recipient status to obstetric care providers and perinatal outcomes

Background: Oocyte donation pregnancies-non-disclosure of oocyte recipient (OR) status to obstetric care providers and perinatal outcomes. Many studies report a higher rate of pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) and severe pre-eclampsia (PET) in OR pregnancies. The objective is to determine the rates of non-disclosure of OR pregnancy to obstetric care providers and also the rates of perinatal complications. Method: This was a retrospective review of all oocyte recipient (OR) pregnancies, who subsequently delivered at Cork University Maternity Hospital, between 2007-2012 inclusive. Obstetric case notes were reviewed to investigate perinatal outcomes and whether OR status had been documented (unambiguously, in code or not at all). Results Less than one-third (30.2%; n=32/106) had unambiguous documentation, one-third (33%; n=35/106) had no documentation and the remainder (36.8%; n=39/106) had a code familiar only to their obstetrician. There was a high rate of gestational hypertensive disorders (28.3%; n= 30), most frequently occurring with multiple gestation. Conclusion There was a low rate of clear documentation of OR status. Gestational hypertensive disorders occurred with increased frequency

Taxon abundance, diversity, co-occurrence and network analysis of the ruminal microbiota in response to dietary changes in dairy cows

We thank Mari Talvisilta and the staff in the metabolism unit at Natural Resources Institute Finland for technical support, care of experimental animals and assistance in sample collection. We thank Paula Lidauer for ruminal cannulation surgeries, Richard Hill from Aberystwyth University, UK for performing qPCR and Aurélie Bonin from Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, CNRS, France for preparing archaea amplicon libraries for sequencing. Kevin J. Shingfield passed away before the submission of the final version of this manuscript. Ilma Tapio accepts responsibility for the integrity and validity of the data collected and analyzed. Funding: Study was funded by the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as part of the GreenDairy Project (Developing Genetic and Nutritional Tools to Mitigate the Environmental Impact of Milk Production; Project No. 2908234). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Inactivation of Aurora kinases and Cyclin-dependent kinases 4/6 allows cancers to adopt an endoreplication and form polyploid/polyaneuploid giant cancer cells (PGCCs/PACCs) that resist antimitotic drugs

View full abstracthttps://openworks.mdanderson.org/leading-edge/1044/thumbnail.jp

sIR: siRNA Information Resource, a web-based tool for siRNA sequence design and analysis and an open access siRNA database

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>RNA interference has revolutionized our ability to study the effects of altering the expression of single genes in mammalian (and other) cells through targeted knockdown of gene expression. In this report we describe a web-based computational tool, siRNA Information Resource (sIR), which consists of a new open source database that contains validation information about published siRNA sequences and also provides a user-friendly interface to design and analyze siRNA sequences against a chosen target sequence.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The siRNA design tool described in this paper employs empirically determined rules derived from a meta-analysis of the published data; it uses a weighted scoring system that determines the optimal sequence within a target mRNA and thus aids in the rational selection of siRNA sequences. This scoring system shows a non-linear correlation with the knockdown efficiency of siRNAs. sIR provides a fast, customized BLAST output for all selected siRNA sequences against a variety of databases so that the user can verify the uniqueness of the design. We have pre-designed siRNAs for all the known human genes (24,502) in the Refseq database. These siRNAs were pre-BLASTed against the human Unigene database to estimate the target specificity and all results are available online.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although most of the rules for this scoring system were influenced by previously published rules, the weighted scoring system provides better flexibility in designing an appropriate siRNA when compared to the un-weighted scoring system. sIR is not only a comprehensive tool used to design siRNA sequences and lookup pre-designed siRNAs, but it is also a platform where researchers can share information on siRNA design and use.</p