Delayed germination of Arabidopsis seeds under chilling stress by overexpressing an abiotic stress inducible GhTPS11.

Trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (TPS) plays an important role in metabolic regulation and stress responses in a variety of organisms. However information about cotton TPS is poor. Here a cotton TPS gene GhTPS11 was isolated and characterized. Expression analysis revealed that GhTPS11 was induced in 20-day old cotton seedlings by heat drought and high salt stresses as well as GA and ABA. Moreover GhTPS11 was induced by chilling stress and mannitol while was depressed by sucrose. Tissue expression analysis indicated that GhTPS11 expressed higher in leaves than in stems and roots of 20-day old cotton seedlings. The GhTPS11 overexpressing Arabidopsis seeds germinated slower than the wild-type (WT) under chilling stress. Trehalose-6-phosphate (T6P) and trehalose contents were evidently higher in GhTPS11 overexpressing lines 3, 5, and 22 than in WT under normal germination condition as well as chilling stress. Further analysis demonstrated that the expression of ICE1 CBF3 and RCI2A was induced lower whereas that of CBF1 and CBF2 was induced higher under chilling stress in the GhTPS11 overexpressing seeds than WT respectively. These results suggested that GhTPS11 encoded a stress-responsive TPS protein and functioned in chilling stress during seed germination. Perhaps the chilling stress sensitivity of transgenic Arabidopsis seeds was caused by the expression changes of at least some chilling-related genes such as ICE1 CBFs and RCI2A other than HOS1. So this article provided the useful information for GhTPS11 usage for crop molecular breeding.

DJ-1: a promising marker in metastatic uveal melanoma.

PURPOSE: Overexpression of DJ-1 was associated with metastatic uveal melanoma (UM). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential of serum DJ-1 as a biomarker for metastasis of uveal melanoma. METHODS: Serum DJ-1 levels were determined by ELISA assays in 27 patients with metastatic UM metastatic uveal melanoma and in 76 patients who were disease free for at least 10 years and 30 age- and sex-matched controls. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the feasibility of DJ-1 in detection of metastatic uveal melanoma. RESULTS: Serum DJ-1 levels were significantly higher in patients with metastatic UM compared with patients who were disease free for at least 10 years (P < 0.001) or with controls (P < 0.001). ROC curve for DJ-1 revealed an area under the curve of 86.3%, and when 3.350 ng/mL was used as the cutoff value, a sensitivity of 74.1% and a specificity of 94.3% were achieved. Comparison of DJ-1 and liver function tests (LFTs) ROC curves indicated that DJ-1 was superior to LFTs in detection of metastatic UM. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that DJ-1 might be a promising serum marker for monitoring metastatic uveal melanoma.

Serum YKL-40 independently predicts outcome after transcatheter arterial chemoembolization of hepatocellular carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) is the most widely used treatment option for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Elevated serum YKL-40 level has been shown to predict poor prognosis in HCC patients undergoing resection. This study was designed to validate the prognostic significance of serum YKL-40 in patients with HCC undergoing TACE treatment. METHODS: Serum YKL-40 level was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Overall survival (OS) was evaluated with the Kaplan-Meier method and compared by the log-rank test. Multivariate study with Cox proportional hazard model was used to evaluate independent prognostic variables of OS. RESULTS: The median pretreatment serum YKL-40 in HCC patients with was significantly higher than that in healthy controls (P<0.001). The YKL-40 could predict survival precisely either in a dichotomized or continuous fashion (P<0.001 and P = 0.001, respectively). Multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that serum YKL-40 was an independent prognostic factor for OS in HCC patients (P = 0.001). In further stratified analyses, YKL-40 could discriminate the outcomes of patients with low and high alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) level (P = 0.006 and 0.016, respectively). Furthermore, the combination of serum YKL-40 and AFP had more capacity to predict patients' outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Serum YKL-40 was demonstrated to be an independent prognostic biomarker in HCC patients treated with TACE. Our results need confirmation in an independent study.