Cloning of a novel gene associated with human nasopharyngeal carcinoma

One EST N27741 with high expression in normal adult nasopharynx tissues but low expression in adult poorly differentiated squamous nasopharyngeal carcinoma has been selected out by the high-density cDNA array expression profiling technique. The differential expression has been confirmed by RT-PCR. One novel gene of 1096 bp has been cloned based on this EST. Bioinformatics analysis found that the new gene sequence contains a whole reading frame encoding 256 amino acids. There is a stop codon TAA in front of the 5’ end start codon, and a tailing signal AATAAA and poly A tail at the 3’ end. There is no homologous known gene found after searching by blasting this sequence to non-redundancy nucleotide database. Therefore it is considered a novel gene related to nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Profiling gene expression patterns of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and normal nasopharynx tissues with cDNA microarray

5 μg of total RNAs from normal nasopharynx and nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissue have been labeled with α-32P-dCTP during reverse transcription. The synthesized cDNA probes have been hybridized to high-density cDNA microarray containing 5184 genes or expression sequence tags (ESTs). Then image analysis software has been applied to comparing their expression profiles. Results show that 187 ESTs were of density value above 200 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissue while there were 307 such ESTs in normal nasopharynx tissue; 38 ESTs were strongly expressed in nasopharynx, but weakly expressed in nasopharyngeal carcinoma; 48 ESTs were strongly expressed in nasopharyngeal carcinoma, but weakly expressed in normal nasopharynx. These results suggest that there may exist some new differentially expressed genes involved in nasopharyngeal carcinoma development. Furthermore, the results strongly indicate that high-density cDNA microarray is a powerful and efficient tool for large-scale screening differentially

Correction:Advances in targeted therapy mainly based on signal pathways for nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Since the acceptance and publication of this article1,the authors opted to change the order of authors in the author group.The correct order of authors is:Yuanbo Kang,Weihan He,Caiping Ren,Jincheng Qiao,Qiuyong Guo,Caiping Ren,Jingyu Hu,Hongjuan Xu,Xingjun Jiang1 and Lei Wang This has been corrected in the original version.

Advances in targeted therapy mainly based on signal pathways for nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma(NPC)is a malignant epithelial carcinoma of the head and neck region which mainly distributes in southern China and Southeast Asia and has a crucial association with the Epstein–Barr virus.Based on epidemiological data,both incidence and mortality of NPC have significantly declined in recent decades grounded on the improvement of living standard and medical level in an endemic region,in particular,with the clinical use of individualized chemotherapy and intensity-modulated radiotherapy(IMRT)which profoundly contributes to the cure rate of NPC patients.To tackle the challenges including local recurrence and distant metastasis in the current NPC treatment,we discussed the implication of using targeted therapy against critical molecules in various signal pathways,and how they synergize with chemoradiotherapy in the NPC treatment.Combination treatment including targeted therapy and IMRT or concurrent chemoradiotherapy is presumably to be future options,which may reduce radiation or chemotherapy toxicities and open new avenues for the improvement of the expected functional outcome for patients with advanced NPC.

Roles of THEM4 in the Akt pathway:a double-edged sword

The protein kinase B(Akt)pathway can regulate the growth,proliferation,and metabolism of tumor cells and stem cells through the activation of multiple downstream target genes,thus affecting the development and treatment of a range of diseases.thioesterase superfamily member 4(THEM4),a member of the thioesterase superfamily,is one of the Akt kinase-binding proteins.Some studies on the mechanism of cancers and other diseases have shown that THEM4 binds to Akt to regulate its phosphorylation.Initially,THEM4 was considered an endogenous inhibitor of Akt,which can inhibit the phosphorylation of Akt in diseases such as lung cancer,pancreatic cancer,and liver cancer,but subsequently,THEM4 was shown to promote the proliferation of tumor cells by positively regulating Akt activity in breast cancer and nasopharyngeal carcinoma,which contradicts previous findings.Considering these two distinct views,this review summarizes the important roles of THEM4 in the Akt pathway,focusing on THEM4 as an Akt-binding protein and its regulatory relationship with Akt phosphorylation in various diseases,especially cancer.This work provides a better understanding of the roles of THEM4 combined with Akt in the treatment of diseases.