Risk of having BRCA1 mutation in high-risk women with triple-negative breast cancer: a meta-analysis.

Testing for BRCA1 mutation has important clinical implications such as identifying risk of second primary cancers and risk of cancer in the family. This study seeks to quantify the risk of having BRCA1 mutation in female breast cancer patients with triple-negative phenotype compared with those with other phenotypes. We undertook a search of MEDLINE and EMBASE databases for relevant studies through 10 May 2013. Outcomes were calculated and reported as risk ratio and risk difference. 12 studies comprising 2533 breast cancer patients were included in the analysis. It was found that almost all eligible studies were performed on high-risk population with breast cancer. By analyzing the incidence rates of BRCA1 mutation in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and non-TNBC, our meta-analysis provides a relative risk of 5.65 [95% confidence interval (CI), 4.15-7.69] and risk difference of 0.22 (95% CI, 0.15-0.29). This implies that, in selected population with high-risk features, women with TNBC are approximately five and a half times more likely to have BRCA1 mutation compared with non-TNBC phenotype, and approximately two in nine women with TNBC harbor BRCA1 mutation. Triple-negative phenotype significantly increases the risk of having BRCA1 mutation in high-risk breast cancer patients compared with non-TNBC.

Dorid nudibranch elaborates its own chemical defense.

A biosynthetic experiment with mevalonic acid labeled with carbon-14 showed that the nudibranch Dendrodoris limbata elaborates polygodial, a sesquiterpenoid dialdehyde stored in the mantle, which constitutes its chemical defense against predators. Previously described nudibranchs drew defensive chemicals from their preys.

Sponsorship and conflicts of interests in CME: the Italian experience.

Pursuant to the Italian healthcare framework, sponsorship of Continuing Medical Education (CME) for healthcare professionals governs the relationship between the medical industry and the healthcare sector, as public institutions are directly involved in it. Sponsorship is based on a voluntarily sharing of mutual benefits between two contracting parties, namely the sponsor and the sponsorship beneficiary, whose interests are relevant to the same degree. To avoid conflicts of interests from occurring, sponsorship shall comply with two ethical standards: 1) the contracting parties shall verify if their interests about CME activities converge or conflict; 2) the sponsorship contract shall be published and advertised to disclose what kind of commitment the contracting parties undertook. When entering a CME sponsorship contract as sponsorship beneficiary, Italian local health authorities may rely on a code of conduct which lays down all principles, criteria and proceedings that shall apply.

Escherichia coli RecA promotes strand invasion with cisplatin-damaged DNA.

The antitumor drug cisplatin causes intrastrand cross-linking of adjacent guanine residues that severely distorts the DNA backbone. These DNA adducts impede the progress of the replisome and may result in replication fork arrest. In Escherichia coli, the response to cisplatin involves the action of the prototypic recombinase RecA. Here we show that RecA can utilize, albeit at reduced levels, oligonucleotides that bear site-specific cisplatin-induced 1,2 d(GpG) intrastrand cross-links in strand invasion reactions. Binding of RecA to cisplatin-damaged oligonucleotides was not affected, indicating that the impediment was in the pairing step. The cognate E. coli single-strand DNA-binding protein specifically stimulated strand invasion particularly with cisplatin-damaged DNA. These results indicate that RecA is capable of processing the major cisplatin-induced lesion via a recombination mechanism.

Multidisciplinary and multisetting team management programme in heart failure patients affects hospitalisation and costing.

BACKGROUND: We evaluated whether multidisciplinary disease management programme developed with collaboration of physicians and nurses inside and outside general district hospital settings can affect clinical outcomes in heart failure population over a 12-month period. METHODS: 571 patients hospitalised with CHF were referred to our unit and 509 patients agreed to participation. The intervention team included physicians and nurses from Internal Medicine and Cardiac Dept., and the patient's general practitioners. Contacts were on a pre-specified schedule, included a computerised programme of hospital visits and phone calls; in case of NYHA functional class III and IV patients, home visits were also planned. RESULTS: The median age of patients was 77.7+/-9 years (43.3% women). At baseline the percentage of patients with NYHA class III and IV was 56.0% vs. 26.0% after 12 months (P<0.05). Programme enrolment reduced total hospital admissions (82 vs. 190, -56%, P<0.05), number of patients hospitalised (62 vs. 146, 57%, P<0.05). All NYHA functional class benefited (class I=75%, class IV=67%), with reduction in the costing (-48%, P<0.05). Improvement in symptoms (-9.0+/-3.2) and signs (-5.2+/-3.1) scores was measured (P<0.01). Therapy optimisation was obtained by 20.5% increase in patients taking betablockade and 21.0% increase in those on anti-aldosterone drugs. CONCLUSIONS: Multidisciplinary approach to CHF management can improve clinical management, reducing hospitalisation rate and costing.

Reconstitution of the base excision repair pathway for 7,8-dihydro-8-oxoguanine with purified human proteins.

In mammalian cells, repair of the most abundant endogenous premutagenic lesion in DNA, 7,8-dihydro-8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG), is initiated by the bifunctional DNA glycosylase OGG1. By using purified human proteins, we have reconstituted repair of 8-oxoG lesions in DNA in vitro on a plasmid DNA substrate containing a single 8-oxoG residue. It is shown that efficient and complete repair requires only hOGG1, the AP endonuclease HAP1, DNA polymerase (Pol) beta and DNA ligase I. After glycosylase base removal, repair occurred through the AP lyase step of hOGG1 followed by removal of the 3'-terminal sugar phosphate by the 3'-diesterase activity of HAP1. Addition of PCNA had a slight stimulatory effect on repair. Fen1 or high concentrations of Pol beta were required to induce strand displacement DNA synthesis at incised 8-oxoG in the absence of DNA ligase. Fen1 induced Pol beta strand displacement DNA synthesis at HAP1-cleaved AP sites differently from that at gaps introduced by hOGG1/HAP1 at 8-oxoG sites. In the presence of DNA ligase I, the repair reaction at 8-oxoG was confined to 1 nt replacement, even in the presence of high levels of Pol beta and Fen1. Thus, the assembly of all the core proteins for 8-oxoG repair catalyses one major pathway that involves single nucleotide repair patches.

In Vitro Apoptotic Effects of Farnesyltransferase blockade in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cells.

Farnesyltransferase inhibitors (FTIs) are a class of oral anti-cancer drugs currently tested in phase I-II clinical trials for treatment of hematological malignancies. The in vitro effects of various FTIs (alpha-hydroxyfarnesylphosphonic acid, manumycin-A and SCH66336) were tested on CD34+ KG1a cell line and in primary acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells from 64 patients. By cell viability and clonogeneic methylcellulose assays, FTIs showed a significant inhibitory activity in CD34+ KG1a and primary bone marrow (BM) leukemic cells from 56% of AML patients. FTIs also induced activation of caspase-3 and Fas-independent apoptosis, confirmed by the finding that inhibition of caspase-8 was not associated with the rescue of FTI-treated cells. We concluded that other cellular events induced by FTIs may trigger activation of caspase-3 and subsequent apoptosis, but the expression of proapoptotic molecules, as Bcl-2 and Bcl-XL, and antiapoptotic, as Bcl-X(s), were not modified by FTIs. By contrast, expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) was increased in FTI-treated AML cells. Our results suggest a very complex mechanism of action of FTIs that require more studies for a better clinical use of the drugs alone or in combination in the treatment of hematological malignancies.

Prolonged complete hematologic response in relapsed/refractory T-large granular lymphocyte leukemia after bendamustine treatment.

T-large granular lymphocyte leukemia (T-LGLL) is a chronic clonal proliferation of effector memory cytotoxic CD3+CD57+CD56- T cells and the current guidelines suggest immunosuppressive therapy as first-line therapy, but the treatment of refractory/relapsed patients is still challenging due to the lack of prospective studies. We describe a series of two refractory/relapsed T-LGLL patients successfully treated with bendamustine, a chemotherapeutic agent largely used for B-cell neoplasms, but poorly investigated for the treatment of T-cell diseases. Complete remission (CR) was achieved in 3 and 6 months, respectively, and maintained for at least 20 months. One patient relapsed after a 20-month CR, but she was responsive to bendamustine therapy again, obtaining a further prolonged CR. Bendamustine as single agent or in combination could be a feasible therapeutic option in refractory/relapsed T-LGLL, especially for elderly patients because of its safety profile.

Functional analysis of subunits III and IV of Bacillus subtilis aa3-600 quinol oxidase by in vitro mutagenesis and gene replacement.

Using the high efficiency of homologous gene recombination in Bacillus subtilis, a strategy for mutational analysis of the proton pumping aa3-600 quinol oxidase of this organism has been developed. The qox operon with the qoxA, qoxB, qoxC and qoxD genes, coding for the four subunits of this oxidase, was deleted and then replaced with mutated copies in which qoxC (subunit III) or qoxD (subunit IV) genes were deleted. The complete deletion of the qox operon caused disappearance of heme aa3-600 and a slight depression of the overall respiratory activity, compensated by alternative oxidase with no proton pumping activity. Deletion of qoxC probably resulted in a defective assembly of the aa3-600 quinol oxidase. The strain with deletion of qoxD gene expressed normal content of heme aa3-600 but exhibited a reduced respiratory activity and a significantly depressed proton pumping activity. These results show that subunit IV is critical for the activity of the proton pumping aa3-600 quinol oxidase.

Expression of five iduronate-2-sulfatase site-directed mutations.

Five point mutations (R88H, R88P, T118I, 959delT, R468Q) previously identified in the iduronate-2-sulfatase (IDS) gene of Italian Hunter patients were expressed in COS cells to evaluate their functional consequence on enzyme activity, processing and intracellular localization. The 88 arginine residue belongs to the CXPSR pentapeptide conserved in all human sulfatases, where cysteine modification to formylglycine is required for enzyme activity. Substitution of arginine with histidine residue resulted in 13.7% residual enzyme activity, with an apparent K(m) value (133 microM) lower than that found for the normal enzyme (327 microM), indicating a higher affinity for the substrate; substitution of arginine with proline resulted in total absence of residual activity, in agreement with the phenotypes observed in patients carrying R88H and R88P mutations. For the four missense mutations, pulse-chase labelling experiments showed an apparently normal maturation; however, subcellular fractionation demonstrated poor transport to lysosomes. Therefore, residues 88, 118 and 468 appear to be not essential for processing but important for IDS conformation.

Uptake of recombinant iduronate-2-sulfatase into neuronal and glial cells in vitro.

Mucopolysaccharidosis type II (MPS II, Hunter syndrome) is a congenital storage disorder resulting from mutations on the iduronate-2-sulfatase (IDS) gene. The disease shows variable clinical phenotypes from severe to mild with progressive neurological dysfunction. The therapeutic options for treatment of MPS II are limited and currently no specific therapies are available; the problem is further compounded by difficulties in delivering therapeutic agents to the central nervous system (CNS). In this work, as a potential treatment for this disease, the transfer of the recombinant IDS enzyme into brain cells has been studied in vitro. Two different approaches to obtain recombinant IDS have been utilized: production of the recombinant enzyme by a transfected human clone (Bosc 23 cells); production of the recombinant enzyme by adenoviral transduction of neuronal (SK-N-BE) or glial (C6) cells. Our data indicate that the transfected as well as the infected cells produce a large amount of the IDS enzyme, which is efficiently endocytosed into neuronal and glial cells through the mannose 6-phosphate (M6P) receptor system. Somatic gene therapy appears therefore to be suitable to correct IDS deficiency in brain cells.

The effect of four mutations on the expression of iduronate-2-sulfatase in mucopolysaccharidosis type II.

Mucopolysaccharidosis type II (Hunter syndrome; OMIM 309900) is a rare X-linked recessive lysosomal storage disorder caused by the deficiency of the enzyme iduronate-2-sulfatase (IDS; EC 3.1.6.13). Different alterations at the IDS locus, mostly missense mutations, have been demonstrated, by expression study, as deleterious, causing significant consequences on the enzyme function or stability. In the present study we report on the results of the transient expression of the novel K347T, 533delTT, N265I and the already described 473delTCC (previously named DeltaS117) mutations in the COS 7 cells proving their functional consequence on IDS activity. This type of information is potentially useful for genotype-phenotype correlation, prognosis and possible therapeutic intervention.

Maroteaux-lamy syndrome: five novel mutations and their structural localization.

Maroteaux-Lamy syndrome (mucopolysaccharidosis type VI, MPS VI) is an autosomal recessive disorder due to the deficiency of the lysosomal enzyme N-acetylgalactosamine-4-sulfatase (arylsulfatase B, ASB). Mutation analysis in Maroteaux-Lamy syndrome resulted in the identification of approximately 40 molecular defects underlying a great genetic heterogeneity. Here we report five novel mutations in Italian subjects: S65F, P116H, R315Q, Q503X, P531R; each defect was confirmed by restriction enzyme or amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS) analysis. We also performed a three-dimensional (3-D) structure analysis of the alterations identified by us, and of an additional 22 point mutations reported by other groups, in an attempt to draw helpful information about their possible effects on protein conformation.

Heparan N-sulfatase gene: two novel mutations and transient expression of 15 defects.

Sanfilippo syndrome type A or mucopolysaccharidosis IIIA (MPS IIIA) results from the deficiency of the enzyme heparan N-sulfatase (NS, EC 3.10.1.1), required for the degradation of heparan sulfate. Molecular defects of 24 Italian MPS IIIA patients were recently reported by our group. We report here two novel mutations: 1040insT and Q365X and the expression studies on 15 of the identified defects. Transient expression of COS cells by cDNA mutagenized to correspond to heparan N-sulfatase mutations Y40N, A44T, 166delG, G122R, P128L, L146P, R150Q, D179N, R182C, R206P, P227R, 1040insT, 1093insG, E369K, R377C did not yield active enzyme, demonstrating the deleterious nature of the mutations. Western blot analysis and metabolic labeling experiments revealed, for cells transfected with wild-type enzyme, a precursor 62-kDa form and a mature 56-kDa form. Western blot resulted, for 11 mutations, in the presence of both forms, indicating a normal maturation of the mutant enzyme. Western blot, metabolic labeling and immunofluorescence experiments suggested, for mutations 166delG, L146P, 1040insT and 1093insG, an increased degradation of the mutant enzymes.

HMG1 protein inhibits the translesion synthesis of the major DNA cisplatin adduct by cell extracts.

When situated in a fork-like synthetic DNA replication substrate, the 1,2-intrastrand crosslink at the d(GpG) site, the most frequent adduct formed in the reaction between DNA and the anticancer drug cisplatin (cis-diamminedichloroplatinum (II)), is efficiently bypassed by eukaryotic cell extracts. We show here that the rat high-mobility-group protein 1 (HMG1) binds preferentially to the platinated fork-like synthetic DNA and inhibits the translesion synthesis. The same protein, but without the acidic tail, inhibits also the translesion synthesis. These results suggest that HMG proteins might contribute to the sensitivity of cells to cisplatin by directly affecting DNA replication.

In vivo control of respiration by cytochrome c oxidase in human cells.

The metabolic control of oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) has attracted increasing attention in recent years, especially due to its importance for understanding the role of mitochondrial DNA mutations in human diseases and aging. Experiments on isolated mitochondria have indicated that a relatively small fraction of each of several components of the electron transport chain is sufficient to sustain a normal respiration rate. These experiments, however, may have not reflected the in vivo situation, due to the possible loss of essential metabolites during organelle isolation and the disruption of the normal interactions of mitochondria with the cytoskeleton, which may be important for the channeling of respiratory substrate to the organelles. To obtain direct evidence on this question, in particular, as concerns the in vivo control of respiration by cytochrome c oxidase (COX), we have developed an approach for measuring COX activity in intact cells, by means of cyanide titration, either as an isolated step or as a respiratory chain-integrated step. The method has been applied to a variety of human cell types, including wild-type and mtDNA mutation-carrying cells, several tumor-derived semidifferentiated cell lines, as well as specialized cells removed from the organism. The results obtained strongly support the following conclusions: (i) the in vivo control of respiration by COX is much tighter than has been generally assumed on the basis of experiments carried out on isolated mitochondria; (ii) COX thresholds depend on the respiratory fluxes under which they are measured; and (iii) measurements of relative enzyme capacities are needed for understanding the role of mitochondrial respiratory complexes in human physiopathology.

A cooperative model for protonmotive heme-copper oxidases. The role of heme a in the proton pump of cytochrome c oxidase.

Oxido-reductions of metal centers in cytochrome c oxidase are linked to pK shifts of acidic groups in the enzyme (redox Bohr effects). The linkage at heme a results in proton uptake from the inner space upon reduction and proton release in the external space upon oxidation of the metal. The relationship of this process to the features of the proton pump in cytochrome c oxidase and its atomic structure revealed by X-ray crystallography to 2.8-2.3 A resolution is examined. A mechanism for the proton pump of cytochrome c oxidase, based on cooperative coupling at heme a, is proposed.

H+/e- stoichiometry of mitochondrial cytochrome complexes reconstituted in liposomes. Rate-dependent changes of the stoichiometry in the cytochrome c oxidase vesicles.

The H+/e- stoichiometry of protonmotive cytochrome c oxidase, isolated from bovine heart mitochondria and reconstituted in liposomes, has been determined by making use of direct spectrophotometric measurements of the initial rates of e- flow and H+ translocation. It is shown that the ----H+/e- ratio for redox-linked proton ejection by the oxidase varies from around 0 to a maximum of 1 as a function of the rate of overall electron flow in the complex.

Effects of a single intrastrand d(GpG) platinum adduct on the strand separating activity of the Escherichia coli proteins RecB and RecA.

RecB and RecA proteins play key roles in the process of DNA recombination in Escherichia coli and both possess DNA unwinding activities which can displace short regions of duplex DNA in an ATP-dependent manner in vitro. We have examined the effect of the most abundant DNA adduct caused by the chemotherapeutic agent cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(II) on those activities. For this purpose, we have constructed a partially duplex synthetic oligonucleotide containing the intrastrand d(GpG) crosslink positioned at a specific site. We report here that both the DNA strand separating and DNA-dependent ATPase activities of the RecB protein are inhibited by the d(GpG) cis-DDP adduct. In contrast, neither the unwinding nor the ATPase activities of RecA protein appear to be perturbed by this lesion.

Role of supernumerary subunits in mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase.

Role of supernumerary subunits of bovine heart cytochrome c oxidase has been investigated by examining the influence on the enzymatic activity of their removal by chromatographic procedures or controlled digestion by trypsin. Is has been shown that partial proteolytic cleavage of subunit IV results in depression of respiratory activity and of redox-linked proton translocation. Selective removal by gel-filtration of subunit Vlb has no significant influence on the redox and protonmotive activity of the oxidase.