1,720,979 research outputs found
Do pentraxin 3 and neural pentraxin 2 have different facet function in hepatocellular carcinoma?
No full textThe long pentraxin (PTX) 3 and the neuronal pentraxin (NPTX) 2 has been found to exert pleiotropic roles in cancers due to their action in inflammation. However, the accurate clinical significance of PTX3 and NPTX2 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), one of the commonest cancers in the world has not been well-defined. The aim of the study was to analyze the expression profile of PTX3 and NPTX2 in liver biopsies of HCV-positive HCC patients (liver recipients, LR, n = 14, age 59.4 ± 1.8 years) undergoing liver transplantation and in donors (LD, n = 14, age 62.1 ± 17.3 years), trying both to identify them as predictive biomarkers of clinical liver severity in HCC patients and to understand if they were mutually substitutable. The PTX3 and NPTX2 transcripts were significantly up regulated in HCC tissues (p = 0.004 and p = 0.02 LD vs. LR, respectively). Dividing patients following MELD score, PTX3 expression increased as a function of liver disease severity, while this trend was not observed for NPTX2, which mRNA level increased similarly in both MELD group, reaching the significance only in patients with MELD score < 9 (p = 0.01). A positive correlation was found between PTX3 and NPTX2 expression (p = 0.001; r = 0.69). This is the first study that concerns PTX3 and NPTX2 as a function of clinical severity from which emerged that both of them are unequivocally involved in HCC, but only PTX3 could be considered a staging marker in these HCV-related HCC patients, unlike NPTX2, which could only play a role as an inflammatory marker
Evaluation of Apelin/APJ system expression in hepatocellular carcinoma as a function of clinical severity
No full textApelin, a peptide of 77 amino acids, and its endogenous ligand, angiotensin-like-receptor 1 (APJ), play a key role in the development of tumors by enhancing angiogenesis, metastasis, cell proliferation, development of cancer stem cells and drug resistance and inhibiting apoptosis of cancer cells. However, little is known about Apelin/APJ system involvement in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aim of this study was to evaluate Apelin and APJ expression in liver specimens, obtained from subjects with HCV-positive HCC who underwent liver transplantation, according to liver disease severity (liver recipients, LR, n = 14, age 59.4 ± 1.8) and in donors (liver donors, LD, n = 14, age 62.1 ± 17.3). Apelin/APJ axis, apoptotic and inflammatory markers were evaluated by Real-Time PCR analysis. The Apelin/APJ system expression resulted significantly higher in LR in comparison with LD (p < 0.05), in particular in those with more severe liver disease. The apoptotic (Bcl-2, BAX, NOTCH-1, Casp-3) and inflammatory (IL-6, TNF-α) markers were increased as a function of disease severity (p < 0.05). Multiple significant positive correlations were found between Apelin/APJ axis and the other markers. Although further investigations are needed to better understand the role of Apelin/APJ axis in HCC, our result indicated a potential role of this axis in its development and progression as well as in recognizing novel therapeutic targets opening a new avenue for treatment
Data mining of key genes expression in hepatocellular carcinoma: novel potential biomarkers of diagnosis prognosis or progression
No full textHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the main cancer-related causes of death worldwide. The study aimed to perform a data mining analysis of the expression and regulatory role of key genes in HCC to reveal novel potential biomarkers of diagnosis prognosis, or progression since their availability is still almost lacking. Starting from data of our cohort of patients (HCV-positive HCC pts undergoing liver transplantation (LR, n = 10) and donors (LD, n = 14), deeply analyzed previously, in which apelin, osteopontin, osteoprotegerin, NOTCH-1, CASP-3, Bcl-2, BAX, PTX3, and NPTX2 were analyzed, we applied statistical analysis and in-silico tools (Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis, HCCDB database and GeneMania, UALCAN) to screen and identify the key genes. Firstly, we performed a stepwise regression analysis using our mRNA-datasets which revealed that higher expression levels of apelin and osteopontin were positively associated with the HCC and identified that the most consistently differentially expressed gene across multiple HCC expression datasets was only OPN. This comprehensive strategy of data mining evidenced that OPN might have a potential function as an important tumor marker-driven oncogenesis being associated with poor prognosis of HCC patients
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Comparison between galectin-3 and YKL-40 levels for the assessment of liver fibrosis in cirrhotic patients
No full textBackground and study aims: The circulatory levels of Galectin-3 and YKL-40 are considered as candidate biomarkers for the noninvasive assessment of liver fibrosis. This study aimed to evaluate the plasma protein profiles of Galectin-3 and YKL-40 in patients with cirrhosis (with and without hepatocellular carcinoma [HCC]) who underwent deceased-donor liver transplantation (LT), before and after surgery. Patients and methods: The plasma levels of Galectin-3 and YKL-40 were assessed in 46 subjects, including 24 liver graft recipients (before, 1 day after, and 1 month after LT) and 22 healthy controls using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Results: The levels of Galectin-3 and YKL-40 in the LT recipients before the transplant were significantly higher than those in the healthy controls (p < 0.001 and p < 0.01, respectively). YKL-40 levels returned to normal within 1 day after LT, whereas those of Galectin-3 decreased 1 day after LT and returned to normal levels after 1 month. The levels of both proteins did not differ between patients with and without HCC. Unlike YKL-40, the pre-transplant levels of Galectin-3 were directly correlated to that of aspartate aminotransferase (AST; r = 0.473, p = 0.01), alanine aminotransferase (r = 0.395, p = 0.04), total bilirubin (r = 0.545, p = 0.003), and lactate dehydrogenase (r = 0.452, p = 0.02) and to the AST to platelet ratio index (APRI; r = 0.411, p = 0.03) and Child–Pugh score (r = 0.601, p < 0.001). Galectin-3 levels increased significantly according to the severity of cirrhosis (25.9 ± 2.7; 57.4 ± 29.6; and 81 ± 27 ng/mL in Class A, B, and C cirrhosis, respectively), whereas those of YKL-40 tended to be higher in the Class C patients compared to the Class A patients (8.9 ± 2.6 vs. 7.4 ± 0.8 ng/mL). Conclusion: Circulating levels of Galectin-3 could be an indicator of liver damage and inflammation that are correlated with fibrosis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
