Quantitative Plasma Proteomics to Identify Candidate Biomarkers of Relapse in Pediatric/Adolescent Hodgkin Lymphoma

Classical pediatric Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL) is a rare malignancy. Therapeutic regimens for its management may be optimized by establishing treatment response early on. The aim of this study was to identify plasma protein biomarkers enabling the prediction of relapse in pediatric/adolescent HL patients treated under the pediatric EuroNet-PHL-C2 trial. We used untargeted liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)-based proteomics at the time of diagnosis—before any therapy—as semiquantitative method to profile plasma proteins specifically associated with relapse in 42 children with nodular sclerosing HL. In both the exploratory and the validation cohorts, six proteins (apolipoprotein E, C4b-binding protein α chain, clusterin, fibrinogen γ chain, prothrombin, and vitronectin) were more abundant in the plasma of patients whose HL relapsed (|fold change| ≥ 1.2, p < 0.05, Student’s t-test). Predicting protein function with the Gene Ontology classification model, the proteins were included in four biological processes (p < 0.01). Using immunoblotting and Luminex assays, we validated two of these candidate biomarkers—C4b-binding protein α chain and clusterin—linked to innate immune response function (GO:0045087). This study identified C4b-binding protein α chain and clusterin as candidate early plasma biomarkers of HL relapse, and important for the purpose of shedding light on the molecular scenario associated with immune response in patients treated under the EuroNet-PHL-C2 trial.     

Reusable abstractions for modeling languages

Model-driven engineering proposes the use of models to describe the relevant aspects of the system to be built and synthesize the final application from them. Models are normally described using Domain-Specific Modeling Languages (DSMLs), which provide primitives and constructs of the domain. Still, the increasing complexity of systems has raised the need for abstraction techniques able to produce simpler versions of the models while retaining some properties of interest. The problem is that developing such abstractions for each DSML from scratch is time and resource consuming.     

A Material History of Electroshock Therapy

The article considers the history of electroshock therapy as a history of medical technology, professional cooperation and business competition. A variation of a history from below is intended; though not from the patients’ perspective (Porter, Theory Soc 14:175–198, 1985), but with a focus on electrodes, circuitry and patents. Such a ‘material history’ of electroshock therapy reveals that the technical make-up of electroshock devices and what they were used for was relative to the changing interests of physicians, industrial companies and mental health politics; it makes an intriguing case for the Social Construction of Technology theory (Bijker et al., The social construction of technological systems: new directions in the sociology and history of technology. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987).     

Influence of the smoking habit in the surgery of inflammatory bowel disease

The smoking habit is a key factor in the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but little information exists as to the relationship between smoking habit, the need of surgery and its complications. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the relationship between smoking habit, the need of surgery, their complications and clinical recurrence after surgery in Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). METHODS: We studied a group of 62 patients (22 with UC and 40 with CD) with previous surgery. We analyzed the clinical and surgical characteristics of the disease. Smoking habit was established by a personal interview. This group of patients was compared with another control group of 202 patients (133 with UC and 69 with CD) with IBD without previous surgery. RESULTS: Smoking habit was similar between operated and non-operated patients for both UC (73% and 80% non-smokers) and CD (67% and 63% smokers) The number and type of complications after surgery were not related with smoking habit. In CD patients, although the recurrences did not depend on the smoking habit, they did occur earlier in smokers than in non smokers (83.6 +/- 21 vs 155 +/- 50 weeks, p = ns). CONCLUSIONS: The smoking habit does not seem to influence significantly the need of surgery and post surgical development of IBD, although in CD the smokers seems to present recurrence before non smokers.     

On the crystallinity and some structure/property relationships of poly(ethylene terephthalate)—poly(amide-6,6) blends

Following the ester-amide interchange reaction in the poly(ethylene terephthalate)/poly(amide-6, 6) (PET/PA) system in the presence of p-toluenesulfonic acid (TsOH), samples were injection molded and tested in the tensile mode. A brittle fracture was observed for these unoriented specimens. To separate the influence of the crystallinity from that of the interphases, the samples were studied using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The DSC results indicated an increase of crystallinity in the blends caused by enhanced nucleation of PA (which crystallizes first) and that of the copolymer resulting from the esteramide interchange reaction. It has been independently verified that neat PET samples of comparable crystallinity to that existing in the PET/PA blends show a similar behavior.     

Surface and interfacial FT–IR spectroscopic studies of latexes. VI. Orientation and spatial distribution of acid functionalities at the film–substrate interface

Formation of dimeric carboxylic acid functional groups observed at the film-substrate interface of ethyl acrylate/methacrylic acid (EA/MAA) and butyl acrylate / methyl meth-acrylate / methacrylic acid (BA/MMA/MAA) latex films prepared on a high surface tension substrate, such as liquid mercury, is observed when sodium dioctyl sulfosuccinate (SDOSS) is employed as the synthetic emulsifier. To address the acid species assembled at this interface due to the inability of SDOSS to effectively alleviate interfacial tension and to assess the orientation and spatial configuration of acid groups species at the interface, polarized attenuated total reflectance, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR FT–IR) is employed. It is found that the acid dimer rings adopt an average “on-edge” configuration at the interface with the hydrogen-bonded rings perpendicular to the film-mercury interface. This configuration serves to provide not only the necessary interfacial acid-dimer layer, but also facilitates favorable ring–ring interactions between groups of opposite polarity on adjacent rings. This study indicates that the on-edge configuration may also serve to reduce unfavorable interactions between the polar acid functionality and the less polar components present in the bulk of the coalesced latexes. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Energy conservation and land use planning: A Canadian perspective

This paper describes five energy conservation land use planning strategies for municipal planning, and indicates their usage in Canadian municipalities. The paper is instructive to urban planners, engineers, administrators and others who seek practical information on the energy conservation opportunities of manipulating land use and structural characteristics.