Further evidence that the 3’Untranslated Region of the CHOP mRNA possesses mRNA destabilizing effect

Poster presentation - Theme 1: Cell biologyThe transcription regulatory factor known as Chop is commonly induced to express in stressed cells. In most cases, the expression of CHOP is associated with apoptosis. Although the regulation of CHOP expression at the transcriptional level has been studied to considerable details, the involvement of post-transcriptional mechanism such as mRNA stability has not been much addressed. We previously provided indirect evidence that the 3’UTR of CHOP mRNA had an mRNA destabilizing effect. The objective of this study was to provide more direct evidence to support this hypothesis. A reporter plasmid was constructed so as to express an EGFP mRNA that has its original ...postprin

Nanomedicine: A new frontier in cancer therapeutics

Nanotechnology is a cutting edge and rapidly evolving technology in medicine. The potential of nanomedicine in cancer therapy is infinitely promising due to the fact that novel developments are constantly being explored. This is particularly the case in the use of nanoparticles in both tumor diagnosis, as well as treatment. This article will attempt to describe some recent advances using nanoparticle drug delivery system in cancer therapy. The evolution history, the challenges and the role of nanoparticles in cancer drug delivery will briefly be discussed together with additional opportunities in cancer therapy. An overall understanding of these issues will help with further advancement of designing better drug delivery system that can be applied clinically. © 2011 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.published_or_final_versio

A review of 10 children on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis

The experience of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis in children of the Queen Mary Hospital for the past 11 years was reviewed. Seven boys and three girls (aged 4.3 to 15.9 years) were treated for a mean of 27 months (range 5 to 58 months). There was significant biochemical improvement and patients led an active life on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis. The commonest complications were peritonitis, occurring on average once per 10 patient-months and mostly due to Staphylococcus spp. The median catheter survival time was 30 months. There were two technique failures due to fungal peritonitis which necessitated transfer to haemodialysis due to fungal peritonitis. The only mortality was due to concurrent cardiac disease. This review supports that children with renal failure in Hong Kong can be maintained on long term dialysis with a reasonable quality of life. However, significant morbidity due to infective and mechanical complications still exists. Continuous ambulatory peitonitis dialysis remains a temporary treatment modality while patients are waiting for renal transplantation.published_or_final_versio

A molecular arms race between host innate antiviral response and emerging human coronaviruses

Coronaviruses have been closely related with mankind for thousands of years. Communityacquired human coronaviruses have long been recognized to cause common cold. However, zoonotic coronaviruses are now becoming more a global concern with the discovery of highly pathogenic severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronaviruses causing severe respiratory diseases. Infections by these emerging human coronaviruses are characterized by less robust interferon production. Treatment of patients with recombinant interferon regimen promises beneficial outcomes, suggesting that compromised interferon expression might contribute at least partially to the severity of disease. The mechanisms by which coronaviruses evade host innate antiviral response are under intense investigations. This review focuses on the fierce arms race between host innate antiviral immunity and emerging human coronaviruses. Particularly, the host pathogen recognition receptors and the signal transduction pathways to mount an effective antiviral response against SARS and MERS coronavirus infection are discussed. On the other hand, the counter-measures evolved by SARS and MERS coronaviruses to circumvent host defense are also dissected. With a better understanding of the dynamic interaction between host and coronaviruses, it is hoped that insights on the pathogenesis of newly-identified highly pathogenic human coronaviruses and new strategies in antiviral development can be derived.postprin

Stanniocalcin-1 Reduces Tumor Size in Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Growing evidence has revealed high expression levels of stanniocalcin-1 (STC1) in different types of human cancers. Numerous experimental studies using cancer cell lines demonstrated the involvement of STC1 in inflammatory and apoptotic processes; however the role of STC1 in carcinogenesis remains elusive. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) an exemplified model of inflammation-related cancer, represents a paradigm of studying the association between STC1 and tumor development. Therefore, we conducted a statistical analysis on the expression levels of STC1 using clinicopathological data from 216 HCC patients. We found that STC1 was upregulated in the tumor tissues and its expression levels was positively correlated with the levels of interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-8. Intriguingly tumors with greater expression levels of STC1 (tumor/normal >= 2) were significantly smaller than the lower level (tumor/normal<2) samples (p = 0.008). A pharmacological approach was implemented to reveal the functional correlation between STC1 and the ILs in the HCC cell-lines. IL-6 and IL-8 treatment of Hep3B cells induced STC1 expression. Lentiviral-based STC1 over-expression in Hep3B and MHCC-97L cells however showed inhibitory action on the pro-migratory effects of IL-6 and IL-8 and reduced size of tumor spheroids. The inhibitory effect of STC1 on tumor growth was confirmed in vivo using the stable STC1-overexpressing 97L cells on a mouse xenograft model. Genetic analysis of the xenografts derived from the STC1-overexpressing 97L cells, showed upregulation of the pro-apoptotic genes interleukin-12 and NOD-like receptor family, pyrin domain-containing 3. Collectively, the anti-inflammatory and pro-apoptotic functions of STC1 were suggested to relate its inhibitory effect on the growth of HCC cells. This study supports the notion that STC1 may be a potential therapeutic target for inflammatory tumors in HCC patients.published_or_final_versio

IPA-3 inhibits the growth of liver cancer cells by suppressing PAK1 and NF-kB activation

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the major malignancies worldwide and is associated with poor prognosis due to the high incidences of metastasis and tumor recurrence. Our previous study showed that overexpression of p21-activated protein kinase 1 (PAK1) is frequently observed in HCC and is associated with a more aggressive tumor behavior, suggesting that PAK1 is a potential therapeutic target in HCC. In the current study, an allosteric small molecule PAK1 inhibitor, IPA-3, was evaluated for the potential in suppressing hepatocarcinogenesis. Consistent with other reports, inhibition of PAK1 activity was observed in several human HCC cell lines treated with various dosages of IPA-3. Using cell proliferation, colony formation and BrdU incorporation assays, we demonstrated that IPA-3 treatment significantly inhibited the growth of HCC cells. The mechanisms through which IPA-3 treatment suppresses HCC cell growth are enhancement of apoptosis and blockage of activation of NF-κB. Furthermore, our data suggested that IPA-3 not only inhibits the HCC cell growth, but also suppresses the metastatic potential of HCC cells. Nude mouse xenograft assay demonstrated that IPA-3 treatment significantly reduced the tumor growth rate and decreased tumor volume, indicating that IPA-3 can suppress the in vivo tumor growth of HCC cells. Taken together, our demonstration of the potential preclinical efficacy of IPA-3 in HCC provides the rationale for cancer therapy.published_or_final_versio

Cultural fairness of the Digit Vigilance Test

This study was designed to examine the cultural fairness of the Digit Vigilance Test by comparing performance on the test between Chinese and American participants. Thirty-five Chinese undergraduates, 12 male and 23 female, were recruited as participants. Their scores on the test, specifically the time and error scores, were compared with the published American norms. The findings indicated equivalent performance of the two samples on the test, suggesting the cultural fairness of the Digit Vigilance Test. Nevertheless, generalization of the present findings to other Chinese populations should take into consideration the unique characteristics of the sample in this study.published_or_final_versio

Can the colour of per-rectal bleeding estimate the risk of lower gastrointestinal bleeding caused by malignant lesion?

PURPOSE: To estimate the risk of lower gastrointestinal bleeding (LGIB) caused by malignant lesion in patients presenting with per-rectal bleeding (PRB), by using visual aid as an objective measurement of PRB colour. METHODS: This was a prospective observational study on patients presented with PRB to Family Medicine Specialty Clinic, who undergo flexible sigmoidoscopy (FS) or colonoscopy (CLN) from December 2012 to September 2013. Patients aged 40 years old or above, haemodynamically stable, with normal haemoglobin level were included. Patients with a history of previous colonic surgery, refused to have FS or CLN, with ophthalmologic diseases such as colour blindness were excluded. Parameters including subjective description of PRB colour, number of chosen red colour by patients, source and distance of bleeding from anal verge were recorded for analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to identify the optimal cutoff level of colour for diagnosing colonic lesion. Diagnostic accuracy was assessed by area under the ROC curve (AUC). Accountability of this model was assessed by logistic regression. RESULTS: The dark PRB colour was associated with diagnosis of tumour (p < 0.001) and advanced neoplastic polyp (p < 0.001). The light PRB colour was associated with the diagnosis of piles (p < 0.001). The performance of our model to predict tumour or advanced neoplastic polyps by colour (AUC, 0.798) had a better discriminative power than that to predict colonic lesion alone (AUC, 0.610) by ROC curve analysis. CONCLUSION: Objective measurement of PRB colour accurately estimated the risk of LGIB caused by malignant lesion in patients presenting with PRB.postprin

Understanding the preferred role in infertility treatment decision making among Chinese infertile women in Hong Kong

Session 38: Managing patient expectations: no. O-140This free journal suppl. entitled: Abstract book of the 31st ESHRE Annual Meeting, Lisbon, Portugal, 14–17 June 2015STUDY QUESTION: What are the treatment decision making preferences in Chinese women undergoing fertility treatments in Hong Kong? ...postprin

A Formal, Resource Consumption-Preserving Translation of Actors to Haskell

We present a formal translation of an actor-based language with cooperative scheduling to the functional language Haskell. The translation is proven correct with respect to a formal semantics of the source language and a high-level operational semantics of the target, i.e. a subset of Haskell. The main correctness theorem is expressed in terms of a simulation relation between the operational semantics of actor programs and their translation. This allows us to then prove that the resource consumption is preserved over this translation, as we establish an equivalence of the cost of the original and Haskell-translated execution traces.Comment: Pre-proceedings paper presented at the 26th International Symposium on Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation (LOPSTR 2016), Edinburgh, Scotland UK, 6-8 September 2016 (arXiv:1608.02534