4 research outputs found
Bright nanoparticles for an even brighter future: efficient production of luminescent carbon nanodots from olive mill wastewater
Este trabalho foi financiado pelo Concurso Anual para Projetos de Investigação, Desenvolvimento, Inovação e Criação Artística (IDI&CA) 2016 do Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa. Código de referência IPL/2016/NANOLIVE/ISELCarbon nanodots (CNDs) are a very recent class of spherical-shaped nanosized carbon materials possessing average typical diameters < 10 nm. Since the very first reports on carbon dots,1,2 a variety of methods (top-down and bottom-up strategies), carbon sources and passivating agents, have dealt with their synthesis.3 The bottom-up approach, encompassing the use of pyrolytic/solvothermal processes, is more amenable for large-scale production and can cope with a large diversity of carbon precursors, either from natural or synthetic sources, typically endowed with acid, alcohol and amine functionalities.4 Some of the interesting CNDs properties include tunable photoluminescence, outstanding photostability and negligible cytotoxicity. These unique properties have prompted their intense and widespread use in several fields, such as fluorescent bioimaging and nanomedicine, chemo/biosensing, photocatalysis and optoelectronics.4info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Using Prior Information from the Medical Literature in GWAS of Oral Cancer Identifies Novel Susceptibility Variant on Chromosome 4-the AdAPT Method
Background: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) require large sample
sizes to obtain adequate statistical power, but it may be possible to
increase the power by incorporating complementary data. In this study we
investigated the feasibility of automatically retrieving information
from the medical literature and leveraging this information in GWAS.
Methods: We developed a method that searches through PubMed abstracts
for pre-assigned keywords and key concepts, and uses this information to
assign prior probabilities of association for each single nucleotide
polymorphism (SNP) with the phenotype of interest - the Adjusting
Association Priors with Text (AdAPT) method. Association results from a
GWAS can subsequently be ranked in the context of these priors using the
Bayes False Discovery Probability (BFDP) framework. We initially tested
AdAPT by comparing rankings of known susceptibility alleles in a
previous lung cancer GWAS, and subsequently applied it in a two-phase
GWAS of oral cancer.
Results: Known lung cancer susceptibility SNPs were consistently ranked
higher by AdAPT BFDPs than by p-values. In the oral cancer GWAS, we
sought to replicate the top five SNPs as ranked by AdAPT BFDPs, of which
rs991316, located in the ADH gene region of 4q23, displayed a
statistically significant association with oral cancer risk in the
replication phase (per-rare-allele log additive p-value [p(trend)] =
2.5 x 10(-3)). The combined OR for having one additional rare allele was
0.83 (95% CI: 0.76-0.90), and this association was independent of
previously identified susceptibility SNPs that are associated with
overall UADT cancer in this gene region. We also investigated if
rs991316 was associated with other cancers of the upper aerodigestive
tract (UADT), but no additional association signal was found.
Conclusion: This study highlights the potential utility of
systematically incorporating prior knowledge from the medical literature
in genome-wide analyses using the AdAPT methodology. AdAPT is available
online (url: http://services.gate.ac.uk/lld/gwas/service/config)
The 12p13.33/RAD52 Locus and Genetic Susceptibility to Squamous Cell Cancers of Upper Aerodigestive Tract
Genetic variants located within the 12p13.33/RAD52 locus have been
associated with lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC). Here, within 5,947
UADT cancers and 7,789 controls from 9 different studies, we found
rs10849605, a common intronic variant in RAD52, to be also associated
with upper aerodigestive tract (UADT) squamous cell carcinoma cases (OR
= 1.09, 95% CI: 1.04-1.15, p = 6x10(-4)). We additionally identified
rs10849605 as a RAD52 cis-eQTL inUADT(p = 1x10(-3)) and LUSC (p =
9x10(-4)) tumours, with the UADT/LUSC risk allele correlated with
increased RAD52 expression levels. The 12p13.33 locus, encompassing
rs10849605/RAD52, was identified as a significant somatic focal copy
number amplification in UADT(n = 374, q-value = 0.075) and LUSC (n =
464, q-value = 0.007) tumors and correlated with higher RAD52 tumor
expression levels (p = 6x10(-48) and p = 3x10(-29) in UADT and LUSC,
respectively). In combination, these results implicate increased RAD52
expression in both genetic susceptibility and tumorigenesis of UADT and
LUSC tumors
Risk factors for head and neck cancer in young adults: a pooled analysis in the INHANCE consortium
Background: Increasing incidence of head and neck cancer (HNC) in young
adults has been reported. We aimed to compare the role of major risk
factors and family history of cancer in HNC in young adults and older
patients.
Methods: We pooled data from 25 case-control studies and conducted
separate analyses for adults <= 45 years old (’young adults’, 2010 cases
and 4042 controls) and > 45 years old (’older adults’, 17 700 cases and
22 704 controls). Using logistic regression with studies treated as
random effects, we estimated adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95%
confidence intervals (CIs).
Results: The young group of cases had a higher proportion of oral tongue
cancer (16.0% in women; 11.0% in men) and unspecified oral cavity /
oropharynx cancer (16.2%; 11.1%) and a lower proportion of larynx
cancer (12.1%; 16.6%) than older adult cases. The proportions of never
smokers or never drinkers among female cases were higher than among male
cases in both age groups. Positive associations with HNC and duration or
pack-years of smoking and drinking were similar across age groups.
However, the attributable fractions (AFs) for smoking and drinking were
lower in young when compared with older adults (AFs for smoking in young
women, older women, young men and older men, respectively, =19.9% (95%
CI = 9.8%, 27.9%), 48.9% (46.6%, 50.8%), 46.2% (38.5%, 52.5%),
64.3% (62.2%, 66.4%); AFs for drinking = 5.3% (-11.2%, 18.0%),
20.0% (14.5%, 25.0%), 21.5% (5.0%, 34.9%) and 50.4% (46.1%,
54.3%). A family history of early-onset cancer was associated with HNC
risk in the young [OR = 2.27 (95% CI = 1.26, 4.10)], but not in the
older adults [OR = 1.10 (0.91, 1.31)]. The attributable fraction for
family history of early-onset cancer was 23.2% (8.60% to 31.4%) in
young compared with 2.20% (-2 .41%, 5.80%) in older adults.
Conclusions: Differences in HNC aetiology according to age group may
exist. The lower AF of cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking in young
adults may be due to the reduced length of exposure due to the lower
age. Other characteristics, such as those that are inherited, may play a
more important role in HNC in young adults compared with older adults