Citations

Mitral valve function was assessed by roentgen videodensitometry. Mitral reflux was rare when single ventricular ectopic systoles were produced by electronic stimulation of the right or left ventricle at various times in the cardiac cycle. It was also rare during the compensatory pause after the ectopic systole or with the following postectopic systole. Recurrent ventricular ectopic systoles interposed once per cycle were associated with minor reflux when introduced in mid-cycle. Such extrasystoles occurred late enough in the cardiac cycle for the ventricle to relax after the primary systole and for the mitral valve to open before the extrasystole. The extrasystolic contractions were, however, weak and incapable of opening the aortic valve. When interposed early in the cardiac cycle, extrasystolic potentiation of the primary ventricular contraction occurred, and no or minimal mitral reflux was observed.

Abstract In this study, we investigated the precursor and active forms of a p53 small-molecule inhibitor for their effects on temozolomide (TMZ) antitumor activity against glioblastoma (GBM), using both in vitro and in vivo experimental approaches. Results from in vitro cell viability analysis showed that the cytotoxic activity of TMZ was substantially increased when p53 wild-type (p53wt) GBMs were cotreated with the active form of p53 inhibitor, and this heightened cytotoxic response was accompanied by increased poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase cleavage as well as elevated cellular phospho-H2AX. Analysis of the same series of GBMs, as intracranial xenografts in athymic mice, and administering corresponding p53 inhibitor precursor, which is converted to the active compound in vivo, yielded results consistent with the in vitro analyses: TMZ + p53 inhibitor precursor cotreatment of three distinct p53wt GBM xenografts resulted in significant enhancement of TMZ antitumor effect relative to treatment with TMZ alone, as indicated by serial bioluminescence monitoring as well as survival analysis (P < 0.001 for cotreatment survival benefit in each case). Mice receiving intracranial injection with p53null GBM showed similar survival benefit from TMZ treatment regardless of the presence or absence of p53 inhibitor precursor. In total, our results indicate that the p53 active and precursor inhibitor pair enhances TMZ cytotoxicity in vitro and in vivo, respectively, and do so in a p53-dependent manner. [Cancer Res 2008;68(24):10034–8]

AbstractOver 22,000 cases of ovarian cancer were diagnosed in 2007 in the United States, but only a fraction of them can be attributed to mutations in highly penetrant genes such as BRCA1. To determine whether low-penetrance genetic variants contribute to ovarian cancer risk, we genotyped 1,536 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in several candidate gene pathways in 848 epithelial ovarian cancer cases and 798 controls in the North Carolina Ovarian Cancer Study (NCO) using a customized Illumina array. The inflammation gene interleukin-18 (IL18) showed the strongest evidence for association with epithelial ovarian cancer in a gene-by-gene analysis (P = 0.002) with a <25% chance of being a false-positive finding (q value = 0.240). Using a multivariate model search algorithm over 11 IL18 tagging SNPs, we found that the association was best modeled by rs1834481. Further, this SNP uniquely tagged a significantly associated IL18 haplotype and there was an increased risk of epithelial ovarian cancer per rs1834481 allele (odds ratio, 1.24; 95% confidence interval, 1.06-1.45). In a replication stage, 12 independent studies from the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium (OCAC) genotyped rs1834481 in an additional 5,877 cases and 7,791 controls. The fixed effects estimate per rs1834481 allele was null (odds ratio, 0.99; 95% confidence interval, 0.94-1.05) when data from the 12 OCAC studies were combined. The effect estimate remained unchanged with the addition of the initial North Carolina Ovarian Cancer Study data. This analysis shows the importance of consortia, like the OCAC, in either confirming or refuting the validity of putative findings in studies with smaller sample sizes. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(12):3567–72)