EGFR Mutation and FHIT Methylation: Inverse Relationship in Patients with Lung Adenocarcinoma and Tuberculosis

Objective:To investigate the genetic correlations between epithelial growth factor receptor(EGFR)mutation and FHIT methylation in patients diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma(AC)and pulmonary tuberculosis(TB).Methods:The presence of EGFR mutations and the methylation status of the FHIT gene in patients presenting with AC and TB were analyzed.The correlation between TB status and the observed genetic and epigenetic variations was also examined.Results:Among the 90 patients included in the study,38 exhibited EGFR mutations(14 among those with TB and 24 among those without TB),while 29 exhibited FHIT myelination(19 among those with TB and 10 among those without TB).Furthermore,the protein expression levels of EGFR and FHIT were significantly higher in patients diagnosed solely with AC compared to those presenting with both AC and TB.A robust inverse correlation was identified between TB status and the frequency of EGFR mutation(P<0.001).Moreover,significant associations were observed between TB status and FHIT methylation(P<0.01).Conclusion:The findings suggest a correlation between TB and the prevalence of EGFR mutation and FHIT methylation in the pathogenesis of AC.

Corrigendum:EGFR Mutation and FHIT Methylation:Inverse Relationship in Patients with Lung Adenocarcinoma and Tuberculosis

Correction The funding in the original publication(https://www.doi.org/10.26689/par.v8i2.6444)is incorrect.The original funding was:The Ethnic Minority Science and Technology Program of Xinjiang Autonomous Region(201523122).

SW Origin of North Pacific’s Wide Warm Surface Current

There is a long and wide continuous trough of deep mixed layers connecting the tropical western North Pacific Ocean with the offshore waters of the coast of California. Relatively warm water that is nearly uniform vertically fills the trough, which is concluded here to be a northeastward flow joining the wide warm surface current at mid-latitudes off California documented earlier. Evi-dence for the trough comes from a North Pacific atlas based on very many indi-vidual mixed layer depth data points, taken over a 27-year period, compiled (av-eraged) in monthly mean charts with contours of constant mixed layer depth dis-played. BTs (bathythermographs) were used to record temperature versus depth continuously from which the mixed layer depths were determined. Centerline curves, connecting the deepest mixed layer depths, which approximate the mid-dle of the troughs, are constructed from the atlas and are presented for all twelve months. In going from west to east, these curves bend counterclockwise, gradu-ally most of the way then more markedly near California. The curves for the summer months come closer to California than any of the other ones do, suggest-ing that the warm current itself is nearest to California in summer. Confirmation of the prediction awaits future efforts.

North Pacific Month to Month SST Changes

Month to month changes in the SST of the North Pacific, on the eastern side at mid-latitudes, are studied based on 30 years of ship-injection temperatures. Along both 40 and 35 N the SST maximum shifts west in summer, but it starts west at 35 N two months sooner than at 40 N. In July the maximum at 40 N is at the same location as the maximum at 35 N was in June: 155 W. Since the longitudinal SST maximum in the eastern North Pacific has previously been identified as the signature of a very wide, warm and sluggish current permanently flowing northeast off California, the month to month SST changes are used to estimate its mean speed: 10 - 20 cm/sec. Also the month to month SST changes indicate that in summer a new body of warm water goes north, in a pulse- like movement, to the west of the existing wide warm current. This is consistent with the need of the western equatorial ocean to export more heat northward out of the tropics in summer due to the increased absorption of solar radiation in the surface layer in that season.

Seasonal sea surface temperatures of the North Pacific

Mean seasonal surface temperatures of the North Pacific are illustrated in three maps. Twenty nine years of ship-injection temperatures are used for the whole North Pacific (north of 20?N). Map number two shows geographical regions of the month of highest sea surface temperature. There are two broad bands in the central and eastern basin, trending northeast/southwest, such that the September band lies east of the August band along a given latitude line. Map three depicts regions of the lowest monthly mean temperatures. March is the most common month, but in the middle of the ocean is a band of Februarys trending northeast/southwest. These features on maps two and three are interpreted in terms of the newly proposed wide warm surface current and its seasonal variations, mainly in horizontal position, flowing northeastward off California. It has not been found possible to compare maps two and three with the results from any earlier work. Map one shows the mean seasonal range of surface temperature, which has a character similar to maps going all the way back to the late 1800s, but is based on considerably more data.

North Pacific’s Very Wide Warm Poleward Surface Flow in Summer

Two independent SST atlases are compared for the western tropical North pacific by means of their monthly mean charts. Good agreement is found in three cases involving the 80 F isotherm in the ship-injection temperature atlas and the 25 C isotherm in the BT atlas. From winter to summer the area between the equator and the particular isotherms doubles in size while the SST variation inside the areas is small. Also the average northward speed of the isotherms is the same: about 15 cm/sec. Mixed layer depth charts in the BT atlas strengthen an earlier prediction that in the spring and summer of every year excess absorbed solar radiation is advected out of the tropics toward the sub-polar regions, pushed by a downward slope to the north in sea level set up by thermal expansion in the deep and long surface layer trough described earlier. This is the main result of the paper.

Double North Pacific High in Summer

An example of sea level pressure (SLP) and sea surface temperature (SST) is displayed for a summer month based on historical monthly mean data for the North Pacific. A double North Pacific High (NPH) co-occurred with a double large-scale SST maximum along 40 N. Centers of the two NPHs had very nearly the same longitudes as did the SST maxima. Seven similar coincidences happened within the 30-year records. These particular associations between extrema of SLPs and SSTs enhance a previously published conjecture that single and double NPHs are caused by heat transfer from the sea surface to the atmosphere. The eastern SST maximum is the signature of a permanent wide warm surface current flowing northeast off California. To the west of it in the summer is a transient wide warm surge of surface water flowing north as it crosses mid-latitudes. These are the heat sources that generate the single and double NPHs.

Non-Seasonal SSTs of the Western Tropical North Pacific

Seasonal changes in SSTs are very small in the western tropical North Pacific, in spite of the fact that significantly more solar radiation per unit time and per unit area is absorbed by the surface layer in summer than in winter and mainly at lower latitudes. Therefore, an efficient heat transport mechanism must be operating to keep up with the solar input. Sea surface temperatures from a world atlas are analyzed where it is found that the areas between the 80 and 82.5 F contours and the equator have marked seasonal variations: increasing in spring and summer as the contours move north, then decreasing in fall and winter as the contours return south. Between winter and summer, the area under the 80 F contour doubles in size. The increase of surface areas is likely due to the increase of absorption of solar radiation. When the areas decrease with time, the inferred heat in the surface layer must go somewhere. Arguments consistent with the available data suggest that the accumulated heat in spring and summer is advected north out of the tropics. The surface temperature gradient, related to the driving force for the flow, computed between the contours and the Aleutian Islands, increases slowly from January to June but then increases much faster till September, after which it rapidly decreases again. It is conjectured that cold surface water from the subarctic surges south beginning in June causing a warm tropical water pulse simultaneously to go north. The large volume of high temperature water of the surface layer in the western tropical North Pacific is thought to be the source of the permanent northward wide warm current off California as well as the additional northward warm surge in summer, both of which have been established previously on the basis of very many observations.

Northward Heat Flux in Midwest Summers

Watching the winds in northwest Iowa during more than 30 summers has led me to two conclusions about the local atmosphere at ground level: there is a net northward transport of heat and water taking place throughout the summer;warm humid winds from the south continually alternate with cool dry winds from the north. The proposed northward heat transfer is consistent with the constraint, placed on the motions of the oceans and the atmosphere, of the earth’s heat balance due to the increased absorption of solar radiation at low latitudes compared to that at high latitudes. At mid-latitudes in the interior of continents, like North America, it is the job of the atmosphere alone to constantly help satisfy the global heat balance. Although qualitative in nature, the predicted northward heat flux is strongly based on frequent observations over lengthy time intervals.

Sea Level across North Pacific’s Wide Warm Surface Current

Sea level across the wide warm northeastward current off California is calculated from hydrographic data along 35N using the hydrostatic balance and the assumption that the warm mixed layer water floats on the colder stratified water underneath. It is found that the sea level is higher above the warm water by a maximum of 7 cm in the middle of the flow. However, the mean east/west slope of the sea surface is deduced to be too small to balance the Coriolis force on the northward current. Therefore, geostrophy, as it is usually understood, is not operating strictly within the surface layer itself.

Climate and Weather of the North Pacific

Combining two satellite cloud photographs of the eastern North Pacific separated by 18 hours in the spring of 1976 with concurrent weather measurements from the bridge of an oceanographic ship leads to the following propositions. Two clockwise curving long bands of clouds were each independently produced by cold air flowing south and pushing the warmer in situ air up and out of the way causing the clouds to form. The cloud bands are oriented roughly northeast/southwest with a separation of about 30 degrees of longitude at mid-latitudes. Curvature of the cloud bands is thought to be due to the Coriolis force acting on the southward flow. These conclusions could become more general if additional observations support them. A significant theoretical addition to an earlier discussion of the subject, regarding the time variability of approximately two days in the hypothesized circulation, is offered here along with a bit of confirming evidence from existing data. An old story with a new ending is presented.

Northwest Indian Ocean’s Spring Cooling

A major cooling down of the northwestern Indian Ocean’s surface, including the Arabian Sea, starts in May, according to a well-known world atlas of SSTs. This is before the southwest monsoon which usually begins in June. Also within one year, there are two surface temperature maxima and two minima, which is not typical for the northern hemisphere. A surface current, cooler than the surrounding water, crosses the equator in April and May heading north and east on the western side of the ocean. That proposal is consistent with the given SST information. The warmer surrounding water is then moved to east and south as a consequence. Since wind driving is not available for initiation, the relatively cool northeastward current is thought to be caused by a thermohaline force related to the unstable northward temperature gradient in the west, which is of constant sign right across the equator beginning in May: cool in the south monotonically increasing to warm in the north.

Northwest Atlantic Ocean’s SSTs

In the southwestern North Atlantic Ocean, the area between the 80F isotherm and the equator, and between 30W longitude and the western most land boundary, is compiled for each month from a world atlas of sea surface temperatures. Between February and March, the area starts to increase from 100 units until a maximum of over 1000 units is reached in August, after which the area decreases. One unit equals one latitude/longitude square. While increasing by swelling to the north, the temperature inside the area essentially does not increase, in spite of the self-evident fact that absorption of solar heat increases the whole time in the top 100 m of the water column. It is proposed that sea level rises by thermal expansion, starting at the equator, producing a northward slope in sea level which in turn drives warm water in the surface layer northward. This proposition is consistent with the heat balance required of the North Atlantic.

Thermal Convection in the North Pacific High Pressure Cell

If it is accepted that thermal convection consistently takes place inside the North Pacific High, as proposed here, then the existence of the NPH, as well as its seasonal variation, will be explained simultaneously, building on an earlier attempt. More observations than available at present would help prove that thermal convection happens and pin down its characteristics, since it is not visible. Also the physics of how thermal convection produces relatively high pressure at sea level needs work.

Western Tropical North Pacific: A Climatology

Sea surface temperature data have shown that the area of highest temperatures of the North Pacific, always in the western tropics, increases in spring and summer by expanding northward. Thirty years of ship-injection temperatures are used here to document the year to year SST fluctuations for a given month and the month to month variations for a given year of the large surface area of the western tropics during the warming seasons. Some of the fluctuations are significantly large and may therefore be real. Thus the previously hypothesized exportation of warm surface water northward out of the western tropics at the end of every summer may deliver variable amounts of oceanic heat to mid- and higher latitudes from one year to another. A possible connection with mid-latitude weather changes on time scales of months to years is briefly stated.

Summer’s Warm Surge in the North Pacific

A physical mechanism is proposed for initiation of summer’s warm surge, which is a large body of surface layer water, heated by the spring and summer sun, which moves north to mid- and high latitudes near the ocean’s center starting from the western tropical North Pacific. As the sun approaches the equator from the south during January to March, the surface layer warms and the sea level rises due to thermal expansion, creating a downward slope to the north of the sea surface. Warm surface water will therefore begin to move north assuming that there is no counterbalancing force. At some point the colder surface water to the north, being unstable, will move south and cause the warm surface layer in the south to move farther north than the sun can urge it to do. Summer’s warm surge is a transient and shallow thermal circulation that occurs every year. Measurements in the western tropics of the northward slope of the sea surface, and the northward surface flow, are needed to confirm the proposed hypothesis.

Depth decay rate for surface gravity wave pressure and velocity

Linear governing equations are formulated for the depth decay of the pressure and velocity variations associated with propagating surface gravity waves. These governing equations come from combining Bernoulli’s equation for steady frictionless flow along a streamline and the crossstream force balance involving gravity, the centrifugal force and a pressure gradient. Qualitative solutions show that the pressure decreases downward faster than the velocity does and at a rate that is probably not the normal exponential decrease, which does not agree with the classical result. The radius of curvature of the streamlines is a non-constant coefficient in these equations and it needs to be supplied, either from measurements or another theory, in order to complete the solution of the derived governing equations. There is no sensitivity of the solution to the exact path the radius of curvature takes between its minimum value at the surface of a crest and trough and infinity at great depth. In the future measurements, perhaps streak photographs, will be needed to distinguish between the new and old theories.

Lift on a Low Speed Circular Arc Wing due to Air Compression

A fluid flow model consisting of Bernoulli’s law in its normal form, the equation of state of air, and the cross-stream force balance between a downward pressure gradient and the upward centrifugal force on fluid particles moving along curved streamlines over the top circular wing surface involving three equations in three unknowns (pressure, density and velocity) are solved to show that both density and pressure decrease upward as the inverse square of the distance from the circle’s center, and the velocity is independent of that dis-tance. These derived characteristics are used to explain the lift force on the wing in what is believed to be a novel way.

Lift Force on a Circular Arc Wing

The lift force is calculated for a gliding wing with a circular arc top and a flat bottom in a uniform fluid. It is: constρU2/R0, where??is the constant fluid density, U is the uniform flow speed far from the wing and??is the radius of curvature of the wing’s top surface. To obtain this result two non-linear differential equations in pressure and velocity are combined into one linear governing equation for velocity, which contains a non-constant coefficient, R(z), the radius of curvature of the streamlines above the wing as a function of the vertical coordinate z. Bernoulli’s principle along a streamline?and the force balance across a streamline (pressure gradient equals centrifugal force) are the starting equations. A solution to the governing equation is derived by providing an algebraic function for R(z)?that is consistent with observations, and the order of magnitude one constant?in the lift force is worked out. It is believed that the present approach to understanding the lift force on a wing has not been tried before. More theoretical and observational work are needed to better specify R(z).

Frictionless Surface Gravity Waves

A physical explanation is given for the observations that ocean surface gravity waves can travel up to half way around the world from generation in a wind storm to dissipation on shore. Inherent in these waves is an orbital fluid particle motion, known from laboratory experiments, that has no friction according to the Navier-Stokes equations. The prediction is based on application of Bernoulli’s law to all the closed orbital paths of the fluid particles and the cross-stream force balance on the particles between a pressure gradient and the centrifugal force in each orbital loop.