Progress Toward Rice Seed OMICS in Low-Level Gamma Radiation Environment in Iitate Village, Fukushima.

Here, we present an update on the next level of experiments studying the impact of the gamma radiation environment, created post-March, 2011 nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, on rice plant and its next generation-the seed. Japonica-type rice (Oryza sativa L. cv. Koshihikari) plant was exposed to low-level gamma radiation (~4 µSv/h) in the contaminated Iitate Farm field in Iitate village (Fukushima). Seeds were harvested from these plants at maturity, and serve as the treated group. For control group, seeds (cv. Koshihikari) were harvested from rice grown in clean soil in Soma city, adjacent to Iitate village, in Fukushima. Focusing on the multi-omics approach, we have investigated the dry mature rice seed transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome following cultivation of rice in the radionuclide contaminated soil and compared it with the control group seed (non-radioactive field-soil environment). This update article presents an overview of both the multi-omics approach/technologies and the first findings on how rice seed has changed or adapted its biology to the low-level radioactive environment.

MNX1 Is Oncogenically Upregulated in African-American Prostate Cancer.

Incidence and mortality rates for prostate cancer are higher in African-American (AA) men than in European-American (EA) men, but the biologic basis for this disparity is unclear. We carried out a detailed analysis of gene expression changes in prostate cancer compared with their matched benign tissues in a cohort of AA men and compared them with existing data from EA men. In this manner, we identified MNX1 as a novel oncogene upregulated to a relatively greater degree in prostate cancer from AA men. Androgen and AKT signaling play a central role in the pathogenesis of prostate cancer and we found that both of these signaling pathways increased MNX1 expression. MNX1 in turn upregulated lipid synthesis by stimulating expression of SREBP1 and fatty acid synthetase. Our results define MNX1 as a novel targetable oncogene increased in AA prostate cancer that is associated with aggressive disease. Cancer Res; 76(21); 6290-8. ©2016 AACR.

Molecular mechanism of anticancer effect of Sclerotium rolfsii lectin in HT29 cells involves differential expression of genes associated with multiple signaling pathways: A microarray analysis.

Sclerotium rolfsii lectin (SRL) is a lectin isolated from fungus S. rolfsii and has high binding specificity toward the oncofetal Thomsen-Friedenreich carbohydrate antigen (Galß1-3GalNAc-α-O-Ser/Thr, T or TF), which is expressed in more than 90% of human cancers. Our previous studies have shown that binding of SRL to human colon, breast and ovarian cancer cells induces cell apoptosis in vitro and suppresses tumor growth in vivo. This study investigated the SRL-mediated cell signaling in human colon cancer HT29 cells by mRNA and miRNA microarrays. It was found that SRL treatment results in altered expression of several hundred molecules including mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and c-JUN-associated, apoptosis-associated and cell cycle and DNA replication-associated signaling molecules. Pathway analysis using GeneSpring 12.6.1 revealed that SRL treatment induces changes of MAPK and c-JUN-associated signaling pathways as early as 2 h while changes of cell cycle, DNA replication and apoptosis pathways were significantly affected only after 24 h. A significant change of cell miRNA expression was also observed after 12 h treatment of the cells with SRL. These changes were further validated by quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction and immunoblotting. This study thus suggests that the presence of SRL affects multiple signaling pathways in cancer cells with early effects on cell proliferation pathways associated with MAPK and c-JUN, followed by miRNA-associated cell activity and apoptosis. This provides insight information into the molecular mechanism of the anticancer activity of this fungal lectin.