Novel recombinant human thyroid-stimulating hormone in aiding postoperative assessment of patients with differentiated thyroid cancer-phase I/II study.

PURPOSE: Thyroid hormone withdrawal (THW) inevitably induced hypothyroidism in patients with differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC), and we aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a novel recombinant human thyroid-stimulating hormone (rhTSH, ZGrhTSH) as an alternative of THW in China. METHODS: Totally, 64 DTC patients were enrolled with 24 in the dose-escalation cohort equally grouped into 0.9 mg × 1 day, 0.9 mg × 2 day, 1.8 mg × 1 day, and 1.8 mg × 2 day dosage, and 40 further enrolled into 0.9 mg × 2 day dose-expansion cohort. All patients underwent both ZGrhTSH phase and levothyroxine (L-T4) withdrawal phase for self-comparison in terms of TSH levels, the radioactive iodine (RAI) uptake, stimulated thyroglobulin level, and the quality of life (QoL). RESULTS: In ZGrhTSH phase, no major serious adverse events were observed, and mild symptoms of headache were observed in 6.3%, lethargy in 4.7%, and asthenia in 3.1% of the patients, and mostly resolved spontaneously within 2 days. Concordant RAI uptake was noticed in 89.1% (57/64) of the patients between ZGrhTSH and L-T4 withdrawal phases. The concordant thyroglobulin level with a cut-off of 1 µg/L was noticed in 84.7% (50/59) of the patients without the interference of anti-thyroglobulin antibody. The QoL was far better during ZGrhTSH phase than L-T4 withdrawal phase, with lower Billewicz (- 51.30 ± 4.70 vs. - 39.10 ± 16.61, P < 0.001) and POMS (91.70 ± 16.70 vs. 100.40 ± 22.11, P = 0.011) scores which indicate the lower the better. Serum TSH level rose from basal 0.11 ± 0.12 mU/L to a peak of 122.11 ± 42.44 mU/L 24 h after the last dose of ZGrhTSH. In L-T4 withdrawal phase, a median of 23 days after L-T4 withdrawal was needed, with the mean TSH level of 82.20 ± 31.37 mU/L. The half-life for ZGrhTSH clearance was about 20 h. CONCLUSION: The ZGrhTSH held the promise to be a safe and effective modality in facilitating RAI uptake and serum thyroglobulin stimulation, with better QoL of patients with DTC compared with L-T4 withdrawal.

[Effects of long-term nitrogen addition on the nitrogen pools in a meadow steppe ecosystem]. / é•¿æœŸæ°®æ·»åŠ å¯¹è‰ç”¸è‰åŽŸç”Ÿæ€ç³»ç»Ÿæ°®åº“çš„å½±å“.

Increasing atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition greatly affects species diversity, productivity, and stability of ecosystems. It is thus of the great importance to understand how grassland N pools respond to the increased atmospheric N deposition. This study was conducted in a meadow steppe in Erguna, Inner Mongolia, China. There were six levels of N addition (i.e., 0, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 g·m-2·a-1) and two levels of mowing (i.e., mowing and unmown). Samples of aboveground tissues of dominant plant, root, aboveground litter, and soil to the depth of 100 cm were collected in the seventh year after treatments. The N content was measured and the N pool was calculated. The results showed that N addition significantly increased the N content of aboveground plant tissues and litter, as well as N pools of Leymus chinensis, plant community, litter and ecosystem. Mowing significantly increased the N content of L. chinensis leaf and litter, but reduced N pools of L. chinensis, plant community and litter, and did not affect their responses to N addition. There was a significant interactive effect between mowing and N addition on plant community N pool. High levels of N addition in the unmown treatment led to more N stored in the litter pool, with the saturation threshold for the plant community N pool occurred at 10 g·m-2·a-1. Under mowing treatment, the plant community N pool increased with the increasing N addition, and more N stored in plant community N pool after mowing. Mowing could alleviate the negative impacts of increasing N deposition on biodiversity and ecosystem stability, and extended postponing the occurrence of ecosystem N saturation induced by increasing N deposition.

[Expression and clinical significance of vascular endothelial growth factor-C and nm23-H1 in stage II and III colorectal carcinomas].

OBJECTIVE: To discuss the expression and clinical significance of VEGF-C and nm23-H1 in stage II and III colorectal carcinomas. METHODS: SP immunohistochemical staining was employed to determine the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) and nm23-H1 in the tumor tissues of 110 cases of stage II and III colorectal carcinomas and in the adjacent mucosal tissues of 53 cases as control, and analyze their correlation with cliniopathological features and prognosis. RESULTS: The positive expression of VEGF-C in the carcinoma tissues was 71.8%, significantly higher than that in the adjacent mucosal tissues (22.6%, P < 0.001). The positive expression of nm23-H1 in the carcinoma tissues was 57.3%, significantly lower than that in the adjacent mucosal tissues (90.6%, P < 0.001). The expression of VEGF-C was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis (P < 0.05), and the nm23-H1 expression was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis and pathological type (P < 0.05). The expression of VEGF-C and nm23-H1 did not show a significant correlation with age, gender, primary tumor site, tumor size and depth of invasion (P > 0.05). The VEGF-C expression was negatively related with nm23-H1 expression in colorectal carcinoma (r = -0.361, P < 0.001). The median overall survival (MOS) and median disease free survival (MDFS) of 110 patients with colorectal carcinoma were 55 and 48 months, respectively. The colorectal patients with different VEGF-C and nm23-H1 expression showed significant differences in the 5-year OS rate and 5-year DFS rate (P < 0.001). The patients with negative VEGF-C expression and positive nm23-H1 expression had a better prognosis. CONCLUSIONS: The joint detection of VEGF-C and nm23-H1 expression is very promising in prediction of the prognosis of patients with stage II and III colorectal carcinoma. However, whether it can be used as a marker in prognosis judgment needs further investigation.

Induction of p53 expression and apoptosis by a recombinant dual-target MDM2/MDMX inhibitory protein in wild-type p53 breast cancer cells.

The tumor suppressor gene p53 is often inactivated in breast cancer cells due to gene mutation or overexpression of its repressors (such as murine double minute 2 and murine double minute X). Inhibitors of murine double minute 2 (MDM2) and murine double minute X (MDMX) could lead to tumor suppression by restoration of p53 activity and such an approach is a promising strategy for future control of breast cancer. This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of the recombinant MDM2 and MDMX inhibitory protein in control of breast cancer in vitro. A cell-permeable dual-target MDM2/MDMX inhibitory protein was expressed in E. coli and incubated with p53 wild-type breast cancer cells. The data showed that this recombinant MDM2/MDMX inhibitory protein reduced the viability of MCF-7 and ZR-75-30 breast cancer cell lines and promoted cell cycle arrest and apoptosis by activation and stabilization of the p53 protein. Mechanistically, this MDM2/MDMX inhibitory protein increased the expression of p21, Bax and puma proteins, and inhibitory expression of MDM2 and MDMX proteins. This recombinant protein showed a better in vitro effect than that of nutlin-3α, a small molecule MDM2 inhibitor. The data further support the hypothesis that targeting of the p53 gene pathway could effectively control breast cancer.