The role of nesfatin and selected molecular factors in various types of endometrial cancer

Objectives: Endometrial cancers (ECs) are the most common gynaecological cancers in well developed countries. Diabetes and metabolic syndrome are among the biggest risk factors. Nesfatin-1, the adipokine derivative of NUCB2 (nucleobindin derivative 2) is linked to the clinical course of EC. Molecular factors, including mutations in MLH1 and MHS2 genes, c-MET and ARID1A are also related to prognosis in endometrial cancer. Material and methods: Using sections of paraffin-embedded preparations and immunohistochemistry, the expression of NESF1, MLH1, MSH2,c-MET and ARID1A were examined. Results: In this study on protein expression, EC tissues manifested (although insignificantly) an elevated expression of NESF-1 in type II EC. In type I EC, NESF-1 expression was significantly higher in G1 in comparison to G2 and G3 together. A significantly lower expression of MLH1 was demonstrated in type I EC. Conclusions: The most pronounced expression involved c-MET in all EC I and EC II tissues (in over 80% of cases). A tendency was detected for a high expression of NESF-1 in patients with type II EC, who also exhibited a high expression of MSH2

QUALITÉ ET POLLUTION DES EAUX D’UN HYDROSYSTÈME LITTORAL TROPICAL : CAS DU SYSTÈME LAGUNAIRE DE LOMÉ, TOGO

This study was conducted to evaluate the physicochemical quality and heavy metals (HM) in the water of Lomé lagoon system. The conductivity, pH, nitrogen, phosphorus, organic matter and HM were determined by AFNOR methods. The results showed that the waters of Lomé lagoon system have generally pH close to neutral (pH between 7.34 and 8.5). However, the balance of the water in the equilibrum canal has an acid pH (pH 6.53). The levels of nitrogen and phosphorus are relatively high 1.27 mg/L phosphorus against 0.15 mg/L in natural waters. Dissolved organic matter is higher at the site C4 over the entire lagoon system. The East Lake E3 and E1 sites recorded a high rate of mineralization with 2536 mg/L of dissolved salts. The contents of the major ions such as Ca2+, Na+, K+, Mg2+,Cl-, NO3-, SO42- and HCO3- helped to highlight the nature of brackish water of Lomé lagoon system. The material suspended (77 mg/L) and turbidity (35 NTU) are also very high in the waters of the equilibrium canal. C4 websites, C2, E3, O11, O5 and B3 have recorded the highest levels of HM. This indicates a potential bioavailability of HM in the waters of Lomé lagoon system. The degree of contamination and the interrelationships between the physical and chemical parameters of water and metallic micropollutants were confirmed by Principal Component Analysis (PCA)

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Bioavailability of Colloidal Iron to Heterotrophic Bacteria in Sediments, and Effects on the Mobility of Colloid-Associated Metal(loid)s

The submicrometric fraction of surface sediments that accumulate in the bottom of dam reservoirs represent important sources of nutrients and contaminants in freshwater systems. However, assessing their stability in the presence of sediment bacteria as well as their bioavailability in the sediment remains poorly understood. We hypothesized that sediment’s bacteria are able to extract nutrients from sedimentary colloids (<1 µm fraction) and thus contribute to the release of other colloid-associated elements to water. Experiments were performed under laboratory conditions, using the submicrometric fractions of sediments recovered from two dam reservoirs (in calcareous and crystalline granitic contexts) and two heterotrophic bacteria (Gram-negative Pseudomonas sp. and Gram-positive Mycolicibacterium sp.). The results demonstrated that bacteria were able to maintain their metabolic activity (the acidification of the growth medium and the production of organic ligands) in the presence of colloids as the sole source of iron (Fe) and regardless of their chemical composition. This demonstrates that bioavailable Fe, aside from ionic forms, can also occur in colloidal forms. However, the bacteria also catalyzed the release of potentially toxic metallic elements (such as Pb) associated with colloids. These results help improve our understanding of the processes that influence contaminants’ mobility in the ecosystems as well as provide an important insight into current research evaluating the bioavailability of different forms of nutrients

Une approche expérimentale du rôle de la dissolution réductrice des oxyhydroxydes de fer et de la dynamique des matières organiques sur les transferts de métaux à l interface sol / eau

L installation de conditions réductrice dans les sols de zones humides peut transférer des éléments traces métalliques (ETM) et de matière organique (MO) dissoute dans la solution. Sachant que les oxyhydroxydes de fer et la MO sont des complexants des ETM, il est très difficile à partir d un suivi temporel de la chimie de la solution du sol d identifier le mécanisme responsable à ces relargages. Le but de ce travail était d identifier les mécanismes exacts de ces transferts. Les résultats d études expérimentales ont montré que la plupart des ETM mobilisés est lié à la MO. La libération de MO est engendrée par la désorption, provoquée par l augmentation du pH due aux réactions de réduction. La réduction des oxyhydroxydes de fer, jusqu ici montrée comme étant la cause principale de la libération des ETM et de la MO, n apporte que peu de MO et d ETM dans la solution. Les bactéries semblent réduire préférentiellement le fer colloïdal lié à la MO et non le fer sous forme solide inorganique.RENNES1-BU Sciences Philo (352382102) / SudocSudocFranceF

Potentially Mobilizable Geogenic As and Sb in an Agricultural Wetland Soil

The mobility of arsenic (As) and antimony (Sb) in soils is controlled by several processes (adsorption/desorption, (co)precipitation/dissolution and oxidation/reduction), depending on various environmental factors that are often convoluted and site-dependent. This study investigated: (i) the content and solid-phase distribution of geogenic As and Sb in a vertical soil profile (0–130 cm) of an agricultural wetland subject into alternating oxic and anoxic conditions induced by periodic waterlogging and (ii) identifies the stability of the As and Sb host phases during soil reduction (laboratory incubation) using a sequential extraction procedure (fractions: loosely and strongly adsorbed, carbonates, easily reducible, reducible, oxidable and residual). The field results showed that, in the deeper, permanently water-saturated soil layers (<60 cm), the amounts of As and Sb were relatively low (As: 8 ± 2 µg·g−1 and Sb: 0.9 ± 0.2 µg·g−1) and related to the Fe content. In the periodically flooded upper soil layers (0–40 cm), the amounts of As and Sb were higher compared to the deeper layers (As: 36 ± 3 µg·g−1 and Sb: 1.14 ± 0.05 µg·g−1). The observed enrichment towards the surface was attributed to the higher content of organic matter (for Sb) and metalloids distribution among the easily reducible fraction (for As). The anoxic laboratory incubation of periodically waterlogged soil showed that, during soil reduction, As is largely mobilized from the easily reducible fraction and undergoes partial readsorption. Unlike As, Sb displayed a higher affinity for more stable soil components (e.g., reducible and residual fractions), which highlights its limited mobility in periodically waterlogged soil compared to As. The potentially mobilizable As and Sb estimated as the sum of the acetate-exchangeable, P-exchangeable, easily reducible and H2O2-organic fractions represent up to 83%, 69% and 53% of the total As and up to 53%, 44% and 54% of the total Sb at 0–20-cm, 40–60-cm and 90–110-cm depths, respectively. Thus, unpolluted soils may act as sources of As and Sb to aquatic environments and therefore have negative consequence on the downstream water quality

Sedimentary phosphorus accumulation and distribution in the continuum of three cascade dams (Creuse River, France)

International audienc

Phosphorus mobility in dam reservoir affected by redox oscillations: An experimental study

International audienc

Key role of the sorption process in alteration of metal and metalloid quantification by fouling development on DGT passive samplers

International audienceThe DGT technique (diffusive gradients in thin films) is widely used for passive sampling of labile trace metals and metalloids in natural waters. Although development of fouling on the protective membranes is frequently observed, its effect on DGT sampling has been barely investigated. This study evaluates the influence of fouling on sampling of trace cationic metals Cd(II), Cu(II), Ni(II) and Pb(II) and oxyanions As(V), Cr(VI), Sb(V) and Se(VI). Fouling was developed in situ on polycarbonate membranes in four diverse natural freshwater environments and sampling alteration was assessed in controlled laboratory experiments. Accumulation of oxyanions and Ni was unaltered in the presence of fouling whereas significant alteration occurred in sampling of Cd, Cu and Pb (at pH ∼5.4). Characterization of the fouled membranes highlighted the intervention of sorption phenomenon as sampling alteration was systematically observed alongside element sorption onto fouled membrane. A preliminary flowchart for identifying potentially biased quantifications linked to fouling development during in situ DGT deployment in natural waters is proposed