PCDHB15 as a potential tumor suppressor and epigenetic biomarker for breast cancer.

Breast cancer is among the most frequently diagnosed cancer types and the leading cause of cancer-related death in women. The mortality rate of patients with breast cancer is currently increasing, perhaps due to a lack of early screening tools. In the present study, using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) breast cancer dataset (n=883), it was determined that methylation of the protocadherin ß15 (PCDHB15) promoter was higher in breast cancer samples than that in normal tissues. A negative association between promoter methylation and expression of PCDHB15 was observed in the TCGA dataset and breast cancer cell lines. In TCGA cohort, lower PCDHB15 expression was associated with shorter relapse-free survival times. Treatment with the DNA methyltransferase inhibitor restored PCDHB15 expression in a breast cancer cell line; however, overexpression of PCDHB15 was shown to suppress colony formation. PCDHB15 methylation detected in circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) isolated from serum samples was higher in patients with breast cancer (40.8%) compared with that in patients with benign tumors (22.4%). PCDHB15 methylation was not correlated with any clinical parameters. Taken together, PCDHB15 is a potential tumor suppressor in cases of breast cancer, which can be epigenetically silenced via promoter methylation. PCDHB15 methylation using cfDNA is a novel minimally invasive epigenetic biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer.

Determination of closantel residues in milk and animal tissues by HPLC with fluorescence detection and SPE with oasis MAX cartridges.

A liquid chromatographic method for the determination of closantel residues in milk and tissues is developed and validated. An acetonitrile-acetone solution (80:20, v/v) is used for the extraction of closantel residues from milk and animal tissues, and the extract is purified by solid-phase extraction with Oasis MAX cartridges and a mixture of formic acid-acetonitrile (5:95, v/v) as the elution solution. A C(18) bonded silica column is used for chromatographic separation. The mobile phase consists of acetonitrile-water (85:15, v/v) containing 0.05% triethylamine at pH 2.5, adjusted with phosphoric acid with the flow-rate set at 1.0 mL/min. Using the fluorescence emission of closantel at lambda(ex) = 335 nm and lambda(ex) = 510 nm, the calibration curve is linear, with a correlation coefficient of 0.9999 over the concentration range of 10-5000 microg/kg for the tissue sample and 10-5000 microg/L for the milk sample. The detection limit (s/n = 3) is 3 microg/kg for tissue sample and 3 microg/L for milk sample. The intra- and inter-day repeatabilities are between 3.35-7.66% and 4.04-8.67%, respectively. The proposed method enables the quantitative determination of closantel residues at levels as low as 10 microg/kg in animal tissue samples and 10 microg/L in milk samples.

Determination of banned 10 azo-dyes in hot chili products by gel permeation chromatography-liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry.

An accurate method based on the use of gel permeation chromatography (GPC)-liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry interfaced with electrospray ionization (GPC-LC-ESI-MS/MS) was devised for the simultaneous determination of Sudan (I-IV), Sudan Orange G, Sudan Red B, Sudan Red G, Sudan Red 7B, Butter Yellow and Para Red in hot chili products. A GPC clean-up procedure was developed for simultaneous quantification of 10 dyes in hot chili and hot chili products avoiding some interference and permitting multiple injections without damaging the column. A HPLC was performed on an Inertsil C18 column using a multistep gradient elution with 0.1% formic acid and methanol as the mobile phase. Mass spectral acquisition was done in positive ion mode. Linearity of around three orders in the magnitude of concentration was generally obtained with the correlation coefficients (r2) of 0.9984-0.9997. Limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) for the investigated dyes were in the ranges of 0.1-1.8 and 0.4-5.0 microg/kg depending on matrices, respectively. The recoveries of the 10 synthetic dyes in five matrices ranged from 81.7 to 92.9%. The intra- and inter-day precision (RSDs) was between 2.9-7.8 and 3.9-8.1%, respectively. This method has been applied successfully for the determination of the studied 10 banned dyes in hot chili products.

Simultaneous determination of seven nitroimidazole residues in meat by using HPLC-UV detection with solid-phase extraction.

A method was developed for the determination of the seven nitroimidazoles including metronidazole (MNZ), ronidazole (RNZ), dimetridazole (DMZ), tinidazole (TNZ), ornidazole (ONZ), secnidazole (SNZ) and the common metabolite of RNZ and hydroxydimetridazole (DMOHZ) in poultry and pork muscles by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ultraviolet detection (UV). After extraction with ethyl acetate and evaporation, the nitroimidazoles were redissolved in ethyl acetate and purified using strong cation exchange (SCX) solid-phase extraction (SPE) column. The HPLC separation was carried through on a C(18) bonded silica column with a deionized water-methanol-acetonitrile mobile phase using a gradient elution procedure. The limit of detection of all the seven nitroimidazoles was 0.2 microg/kg. The recoveries of the seven nitroimidazoles for chicken, pork and bacon samples spiked with 1-20 microg/kg were in the range of 71.4-99.5%. The linearity is satisfactory with a correlation coefficient of >0.998 at concentrations ranging from 0.7 to 60 microg/kg. The relative standard deviations of 10 measurements for spiked chicken, pork and bacon samples at the concentration of 1 and 20 microg/kg were in the range of 6.2-13.9% and 4.0-8.7%, respectively. The intra-day precision (n=5) for nitroimidazoles residues in chicken spiked at 20 microg/kg is 6.9%, and the inter-day precision for 5 days (n=25) is 11%. The method is capable of identifying nitroimidazole residues at > or =0.7 microg/kg levels and was applied in the determination of nitroimidazole residues in meat sample.

Time-resolved chemiluminescence technique for the microdetermination of proteins based on their complexation with copper(II).

Based on the complexation between proteins and Cu(II) coupled with the time-resolved chemiluminescence (CL) technique, a highly sensitive and quantitative assay for measuring proteins in solution is described. The complexes of proteins with Cu(II) have a strongly catalytic effect on the luminol-H2O2 CL reaction. Because the CL emission produced by the complexes is much more long-lived than that by Cu(II), the CL signals originating from proteins can be easily identified and measured with a time-resolved technique. On this basis, bovine albumin fraction V (BAF V) can be quantitatively determined in the range of 0.01 - 5.0 microg/ml with a detection limit of 5.8 ng/ml. The results show that the proposed assay exhibits a small variation in the response values for the same amount of different proteins, as compared to the Lowry as well as Bradford assays. The CL assay has also been studied for the detection of immobilized proteins.