Assessing the Knowledge of Environmental Risk Factors for Cancer among the UAE Population: A Pilot Study.

The incidence of cancer is increasing worldwide as well as in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Currently, researchers are advocating not only for prevention programs but also for early detection. In this study, we aimed to assess the general awareness of cancer among the UAE population, with a focus on environmental risk factors. A descriptive cross-sectional design was employed, and a structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 385 participants. A total of 91.2% of the study population identified cancer as the leading cause of death, while 64.6% of the subjects were able to identify the key causes of cancer. A total of 87.3% and 70.5% of the participants were able to define tobacco and alcohol, respectively, as cancer-causing agents. Most of the study population failed to identify cancer-related infectious agents and incense smoke as carcinogens. Respondents in the medical professions had the highest knowledge score when compared with respondents with a non-medical profession and unemployed participants (p < 0.0005). To fill the gaps in cancer-related knowledge, participants were asked about their preferred method for cancer education, and 83.9% of the participants favored the media as a source of information. Conclusively, our findings indicated a gap in cancer knowledge among UAE residents, which highlights the importance of educational campaigns by health authorities; a follow-up study evaluating the success of educational campaigns is also warranted.

Role of TGF­ß in the motility of ShcD­overexpressing 293 cells.

The newly identified Src homology and collagen (Shc) family member ShcD was observed to be upregulated in 50% of vertical growth phase and metastatic melanomas. The aim of the present study was to investigate the mechanism by which ShcD mediates cell motility. 293 cell lines were altered to stably express GFP (GF) or GFP­ShcD (G5). Treatment of the cells with transforming growth factor (TGF)ß2 promoted extracellular signal­regulated kinase (ERK) phosphorylation and, to a lesser extent, Smad2 phosphorylation in GFP­ShcD­expressing cells but not in GFP­overexpressing cells. GFP­ShcD­expressing cells exhibited upregulated expression of certain epithelial­mesenchymal transition­related genes, such as snail family transcriptional repressor 1 and SLUG, than GFP­expressing cells. Higher levels of ERK were found in the nuclear fraction of GFP­ShcD­expressing cells than that of GFP­expressing cells. Overall, GFP­ShcD­expressing cells demonstrated enhanced migration compared with GFP­expressing cells. A slight increase in cell migration was observed in both cell lines (GF and G5) when the cells were allowed to migrate towards conditioned medium derived from TGFß2­treated GFP­ShcD expressing cells. Collectively, ShcD upregulation was proposed to induce cell migration by affecting the expression of certain epithelial­mesenchymal transition­related genes. Thus, our findings may improve understanding of the role of ShcD in cell migration.