Establishment of improved review criteria for hematology analyzers in cancer hospitals.

BACKGROUND: Although hematologic review criteria for general hospitals have been established, they may be insufficient for cancer hospitals. This study aimed to establish the appropriate review criteria for hematology analyzers in cancer hospitals. METHODS: A total of 1003 samples from our hospital were randomly selected for blood smear preparation and microscopic review. The review criteria of the International Consensus Group for Hematology Review (ICGH) and Chinese consensus group were used to obtain the review, true-negative (TN), true-positive (TP), false-negative (FN), and false-positive (FP) rates, as well as the triggered rules. Our review criteria were established by comparing flag or numeric value information of TP and FP samples, adjusting rules to obtain better efficiency, a low slide review rate, and an acceptable FN rate. RESULTS: Overall, 197 (19.64%) samples showed positive smear findings. Compared to the ICGH criteria, the slide review rate of the newly established criteria declined from 51.25% to 39.28%, and the TP and TN rates increased from 17.85% and 46.06% to 23.13% and 55.83%, respectively. The FN rate of the newly established criteria was 3.69%. Another set of samples used to validate the newly established criteria yielded the review, FN, and FP rates as 33.49%, 1.86%, and 25.58%, respectively. CONCLUSION: The newly established review criteria for hematology analyzers enabled the prompt identification, smear, and further verification of doubtful specimens, without a significant increase in the workload, thus improving the efficiency of the review process. This study provided data support for other cancer hospitals to establish review criteria.

Serum haptoglobin as a novel molecular biomarker predicting colorectal cancer hepatic metastasis.

Early detection of liver metastasis is important for improving colorectal cancer (CRC) patient survival. Our previous studies showed haptoglobin was highly expressed in primary CRC tissues, especially in heterochronous metastatic cases. Here, we assessed the potential of serum haptoglobin (sHP) as a biomarker for early detection of CRC liver metastasis by evaluating the sHP in 475 CRC patients and 152 healthy volunteers. In the training set (250 cases), sHP level in CRC-M1 (1773.18 ± 690.25 ng/mL) were significantly increased as compared to in CRC-M0 (1544.37 ± 1497.65 ng/mL) or healthy (917.76 ± 571.59 ng/mL). And the high sHP level was correlated with poor survival. Logistic regression analysis revealed that sHP, serum carcinoembryonic antigen (sCEA) and serum carbohydrate antigen 19.9 (sCA19.9) level were the significant parameters for detecting liver metastasis. In leave-one-out-cross-validation, these three markers resulted in 89.1% sensitivity and 85.8% specificity for hepatic metastasis detection. In an independent test set (225 cases), receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of sHP in CRC liver metastasis showed an area under the curve of 0.735, with a sensitivity of 87.2% and a specificity of 59.9%. Combination of sHP, sCEA and sCA19.9 improved diagnostic accuracy to 0.880, with a sensitivity of 88.5% and a specificity of 87.8%. Silencing of HP by specific shRNA significantly inhibited the LOVO and SW620 cell invasion, and suppressed xenograft tumor invasive growth. In summary, these results demonstrate that sHP is associated with poor prognosis of CRC patients and that HP promotes colorectal cancer cell invasion. sHP combining with sCA19.9 and sCEA may be used as accurate predictors of CRC liver metastasis.

Early steps of angiosperm pollinator coevolution.

The hypothesis that early flowering plants were insect-pollinated could be tested by an examination of the pollination biology of basal angiosperms and the pollination modes of fossil angiosperms. We provide data to show that early fossil angiosperms were insect-pollinated. Eighty-six percent of 29 extant basal angiosperm families have species that are zoophilous (of which 34% are specialized) and 17% of the families have species that are wind-pollinated, whereas basal eudicot families and basal monocot families more commonly have wind and specialized pollination modes (up to 78%). Character reconstruction based on recent molecular trees of angiosperms suggests that the most parsimonious result is that zoophily is the ancestral state. Combining pollen ornamentation, size, and aperture characteristics and the abundance of single-species pollen clumps of Cenomanian angiosperm-dispersed pollen species from the Dakota Formation demonstrates a dominance of zoophilous pollination (76% versus 24% wind pollination). The zoophilous pollen species have adaptations for pollination by generalist insects (39%), specialized pollen-collecting insects (27%), and other specialized pollinators (10%). These data quantify the presences of more specialized pollination modes during the mid-Cretaceous angiosperm diversification.

An image dataset of cleared, x-rayed, and fossil leaves vetted to plant family for human and machine learning.

Leaves are the most abundant and visible plant organ, both in the modern world and the fossil record. Identifying foliage to the correct plant family based on leaf architecture is a fundamental botanical skill that is also critical for isolated fossil leaves, which often, especially in the Cenozoic, represent extinct genera and species from extant families. Resources focused on leaf identification are remarkably scarce; however, the situation has improved due to the recent proliferation of digitized herbarium material, live-plant identification applications, and online collections of cleared and fossil leaf images. Nevertheless, the need remains for a specialized image dataset for comparative leaf architecture. We address this gap by assembling an open-access database of 30,252 images of vouchered leaf specimens vetted to family level, primarily of angiosperms, including 26,176 images of cleared and x-rayed leaves representing 354 families and 4,076 of fossil leaves from 48 families. The images maintain original resolution, have user-friendly filenames, and are vetted using APG and modern paleobotanical standards. The cleared and x-rayed leaves include the Jack A. Wolfe and Leo J. Hickey contributions to the National Cleared Leaf Collection and a collection of high-resolution scanned x-ray negatives, housed in the Division of Paleobotany, Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C.; and the Daniel I. Axelrod Cleared Leaf Collection, housed at the University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley. The fossil images include a sampling of Late Cretaceous to Eocene paleobotanical sites from the Western Hemisphere held at numerous institutions, especially from Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (late Eocene, Colorado), as well as several other localities from the Late Cretaceous to Eocene of the Western USA and the early Paleogene of Colombia and southern Argentina. The dataset facilitates new research and education opportunities in paleobotany, comparative leaf architecture, systematics, and machine learning.

Pregnancy-specific glycoprotein 9 (PSG9), a driver for colorectal cancer, enhances angiogenesis via activation of SMAD4.

PSG9 is a member of the pregnancy-specific glycoprotein (PSG) family and has been shown to contribute to the progression of colorectal cancer (CRC) and cancer-related angiogenesis. Here, we aim to investigate abnormal PSG9 levels in patients with CRC and to emphasize the role of PSG9 in driving tumorigenesis. Serum from 140 patients with CRC and 125 healthy controls as well as 74 paired tumors and adjacent normal tissue were used to determine PSG9 levels. We discovered that PSG9 was significantly increased in serum (P<0.001) and in tumor tissues (P<0.001) from patients with CRC. Interestingly, the increased PSG9 levels correlated with poor survival (P=0.009) and microvessel density (MVD) (P=0.034). The overexpression of PSG9 strongly promoted the proliferation and migration of HCT-116 and HT-29 cells. However, PSG9 depletion inhibited the proliferation of SW-480 cells. Using a human umbilical vein endothelial cell tube-forming assay, we found that PSG9 promoted angiogenesis. The overexpression of PSG9 also increased the growth of tumor xenografts in nude mice. Co-immunoprecipitation experiments revealed that PSG9 was bound to SMAD4. The PSG9/SMAD4 complex recruited cytoplasmic SMAD2/3 to form a complex, which enhanced SMAD4 nuclear retention. The PSG9 and SMAD4 complex activated the expression of multiple angiogenesis-related genes (included IGFBP-3, PDGF-AA, GM-CSF, and VEGFA). Together, our findings illustrate the innovative mechanism by which PSG9 drives the progression of CRC and tumor angiogenesis. This occurs via nuclear translocation of PSG9/SMAD4, which activates angiogenic cytokines. Therefore, our study may provide evidence for novel treatment strategies by targeting PSG9 in antiangiogenic cancer therapy.