Asterquanzhouensis (Asteraceae), a new riparian species from eastern China.

Asterquanzhouensis sp. nov. (Asteraceae) from Fujian, eastern China, is described and illustrated. It grows on rocks in the riparian zone. Morphological, cytological and molecular investigations of A.quanzhouensis were carried out. The morphological data and phylogenetic analysis based on combined ITS, ETS and trnL-F dataset suggest that A.quanzhouensis is a separate species closely related to A.tonglingensis. The new species differs from the latter by the shorter stem length, leaf morphology, colour of phyllaries, number of ray florets, and achene shape. The cytological observation shows that the new species is diploid with a karyotype of 2n = 18.

Association of Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms in Monoubiquitinated FANCD2-DNA Damage Repair Pathway Genes With Breast Cancer in the Chinese Population.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to estimate breast cancer risk conferred by individual single-nucleotide polymorphisms of breast cancer susceptibility genes. METHODS: We analyzed the 48 tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms of 8 breast cancer susceptibility genes involved in the monoubiquitinated FANCD2-DNA damage repair pathway in 734 Chinese women with breast cancer and 672 age-matched healthy controls. RESULTS: Forty-five tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms were successfully genotyped by SNPscan, and the call rates for each tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms were above 98.9%. We found that 13 tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms of 5 genes ( Parter and localizer of Breast cancer gene2 ( PALB2), Tumour protein 53 ( TP53), Nijmegen breakage syndrome 1, Phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted from chromosome 10 ( PTEN), and Breast cancer gene 1 ( BRCA1-interacting protein 1)) were significantly associated with breast cancer risk. A total of 5 tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms (rs2299941 of PTEN, rs2735385, rs6999227, rs1805812, and rs1061302 of Nijmegen breakage syndrome 1) were tightly associated with breast cancer risk in sporadic cases, and 5 other tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms (rs1042522 of TP53, rs2735343 of PTEN, rs7220719, rs16945628, and rs11871753 of BRCA1-interacting protein 1) were tightly associated with breast cancer risk in familial and early-onset cases. CONCLUSIONS: Some of the tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms of 5 genes ( PALB2, TP53, Nijmegen breakage syndrome 1, PTEN, and BRCA1-interacting protein 1) involved in the monoubiquitinated FANCD2-DNA damage repair pathway were significantly associated with breast cancer risk.

Associations between body mass index and molecular subtypes as well as other clinical characteristics of breast cancer in Chinese women.

BACKGROUND: Several studies have shown a positive association between body mass index (BMI) and the development of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer in postmenopausal women; however, the associations between BMI groups and molecular subtypes have yet to be well defined in premenopausal breast cancer patients. METHODS: A total of 2465 female breast cancer patients diagnosed at our institution were recruited for this study. Clinicopathologic information (including age, body height and weight, as well as tumor subtypes and stages) was collected; analyses of these characteristics and the associations between them were performed. RESULTS: A total of 1951 cases were included in the study. The mean age was 47.3 years, the majority of patients were of normal weight, premenopausal, had stage 2 cancer, and did not present with positive nodes. The prevalence of the luminal A, luminal B, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2+, and triple-negative subtypes were 57.8%, 11.6%, 6.1%, and 24.5%, respectively. There were significant differences in the clinicopathologic features among BMI groups in premenopausal patients. The case-only odds ratio (OR) analysis revealed that normal weight patients tended to have luminal B cancer (OR = 1.4, P = 0.206), and overweight and obese patients tended to have triple-negative cancer in premenopausal patients (OR = 2.8, OR = 3.7, respectively; P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: IN CHINESE WOMEN, BREAST CANCER CAME WITH THESE CHARACTERISTICS: young mean age (premenopause), luminal A subtype, and the majority of them were within a normal weight range. In premenopausal patients, underweight patients tended to have luminal A, lower human epidermal growth factor receptor 2+ expression, stage 1 and no positive node cancer. However, overweight and obese patients tended to have a triple-negative, stage 3, and lymph node metastatic cancer.

Haplotype analysis of eight genes of the monoubiquitinated FANCD2-DNA damage-repair pathway in breast cancer patients.

BACKGROUND: Ten genes are associated with increased susceptibility to inherited breast cancer have also been associated with population breast cancer risk, and all are involved directly or indirectly in the monoubiquitinated FANCD2-DNA damage repair pathway. We analyzed 13 haplotype blocks in eight of these genes to estimate the breast cancer risk conferred by individual haplotypes. METHODS: Haplotype blocks were constructed with 48 tag single-nucleotide polymorphisms (tSNPs) identified in eight breast cancer susceptibility genes, TP53, PTEN, CHEK2, ATM, NBS1, RAD50, BRIP1, and PALB2. Genotyping was performed by SNPscan on 734 female patients and 672 female age-matched controls. RESULTS: Forty-five tSNPs were successfully genotyped by SNPscan, and call rates for each tSNP were above 98.9%. Thirteen haplotype blocks of eight genes were constructed with 41 successfully genotyped tSNPs. We found that seven haplotypes from four haplotype blocks located within three genes (NBS1, PTEN, and BRIP1) were significantly associated with breast cancer risk. Among these, four haplotypes (ATC in block 1 of NBS1, GCCCC and GCCCT in block 2 of NBS1, and GCT in block 2 of BRIP1) were correlated with breast cancer risk in sporadic cases (OR (95% CI) 1.350(1.124-1.623), 0.752(0.584-0.969), 0.803(0.649-0.993), and 0.776(0.604-0.997), respectively), and only one haplotype (GGCCT in block 2 of NBS1) was significantly associated with breast cancer risk in familial and early-onset cases (OR(95% CI) 1.902(1.134-3.191)). CONCLUSIONS: Four haplotypes within two genes (NBS1 and BRIP1) involved in the monoubiquitinated FANCD2-DNA damage-repair pathway are significantly associated with increased sporadic breast cancer risk, while one haplotype within NBS1 is correlated with an increased risk of familial or early-onset breast cancer, indicating that specific haplotypes may be distinct predictors of breast cancer.