• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.3545-3549
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• 2016

Background: The incidence of bladder cancer is lower in Asian than in Western countries. However, the crude incidence and mortality of bladder cancer have recently increased in Japan because of the increased number of senior citizens. We have already reported risk factors for urothelial cancer in a large population-based cohort study in Japan (JACC study). However, we did not evaluate the cancer risk in the upper and lower urinary tract separately in our previous study. Materials and Methods: Here we evaluated the risk of cancer death in the upper and lower urinary tracts, separately, using the database of the JACC study. The analytic cohort included 46,395 males and 64,190 females aged 40 to 79 years old. The Cox proportional hazard model was used to determine hazard ratios and their 95% confidence intervals. Results: Current smoking increased the risk of both upper and lower urinary tract cancer deaths. A history of kidney disease was associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer death, even after controlling for age, sex and smoking status. Conclusions: The present study confirmed that current smoking increases the risk of both upper and lower urinary tract cancer deaths and indicated the possibility that a history of kidney disease may be a risk factor for bladder cancer death in the Japanese population.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.191-202
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• 2021

Purpose: A near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence imaging is a promising tool for cancer-specific image guided surgery. Human epidermal receptor 2 (HER2) is one of the candidate markers for gastric cancer. In this study, we aimed to synthesize HER2-specific NIR fluorescence probes and evaluate their applicability in cancer-specific image-guided surgeries using an animal model. Materials and Methods: An NIR dye emitting light at 800 nm (IRDye800CW; Li-COR) was conjugated to trastuzumab and an HER2-specific affibody using a click mechanism. HER2 affinity was assessed using surface plasmon resonance. Gastric cancer cell lines (NCI-N87 and SNU-601) were subcutaneously implanted into female BALB/c nu (6-8 weeks old) mice. After intravenous injection of the probes, biodistribution and fluorescence signal intensity were measured using Lumina II (Perkin Elmer) and a laparoscopic NIR camera (InTheSmart). Results: Trastuzumab-IRDye800CW exhibited high affinity for HER2 (K_D=2.093(3) pM). Fluorescence signals in the liver and spleen were the highest at 24 hours post injection, while the signal in HER2-positive tumor cells increased until 72 hours, as assessed using the Lumina II system. The signal corresponding to the tumor was visually identified and clearly differentiated from the liver after 72 hours using a laparoscopic NIR camera. Affibody-IRDye800CW also exhibited high affinity for HER2 (K_D=4.71 nM); however, the signal was not identified in the tumor, probably owing to rapid renal clearance. Conclusions: Trastuzumab-IRDye800CW may be used as a potential NIR probe that can be injected 2-3 days before surgery to obtain high HER2-specific signal and contrast. Affibody-based NIR probes may require modifications to enhance mobilization to the tumor site.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.61-66
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• 2020

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is the process by which epithelial cells lose their characters and acquire the properties of mesenchymal cells. EMT has been reported to exert an essential role in embryonic development. Recently, EMT has emerged as a pivotal mechanism in the metastasis of cancer and the fibrosis of chronic diseases. In particular, EMT is drawing attention as a mechanism of renal fibrosis in chronic kidney diseases such as diabetic nephropathy. In this study, we developed an EMT model by treating TGF-β1 on the podocytes, which play a key role in the renal glomerular filtration. This study explored the effects of Hwanggeum-tang (HGT) recorded in Dongeuibogam as being able to be used for the treatment of Sogal whose concept had been applied to Diabetes Mellitus (DM), on the TGF-β1-induced podocyte EMT. HGT suppressed the expression of vimentin and α-SMA, the EMT marker, in the human podocytes stimulated by TGF-β1. However, HGT increased the expression of ZO-1 and nephrin. Interestingly, HGT selectively inhibited the mTOR pathway rather than the classical Smad pathway. HGT also activated the AMPK signaling. HGT's inhibitory effect on the podocyte EMT through regulation of the mTOR pathway was achieved through the activation of AMPK, which was confirmed by comparison with cells treated with compound C (CC), an inhibitor of AMPK signaling. In conclusion, HGT can be applied to the renal fibrosis by preventing TGF-β1-induced EMT of podocytes through AMPK activation and mTOR inhibition.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.44-47
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• 2018

Onco-testicular sperm extraction is used to preserve fertility in patients with bilateral testicular tumors and azoospermia. We report the case of a testicular tumor in the solitary testis of a patient who had previously undergone successful contralateral orchiectomy and whose sperm was preserved by onco-testicular sperm extraction. A 35-year-old patient presented with swelling of his right scrotum that had lasted for 1 month. His medical history included a contralateral orchiectomy during childhood. Ultrasonography revealed a mosaic echoic area in his scrotum, suggesting a testicular tumor. The lesion was palpated within the normal testicular tissue along its edge and semen analysis showed azoospermia. Radical inguinal orchiectomy and onco-testicular sperm extraction were performed simultaneously. Motile spermatozoa were extracted from normal seminiferous tubules under microscopy and were frozen. Eventual intracytoplasmic sperm injection using the frozen spermatozoa is planned. Onco-testicular sperm extraction is an important fertility preservation method in patients with bilateral testicular tumors or a history of a previous contralateral orchiectomy.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.100-105
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• 2006

Liver and kidney are specific organs which play an active role in biotransformation and detoxification mechanisms. Ant adverse effect of chemicals or heavy metal can cause the delay or fade in these mechanisms. Present study was designed to find out the protective effect of Panax ginseng extract on renal functions altered by mercuric chloride (heavy metal) in albino rat. Fifty albino rats were divided into 10 groups. Five groups for acute study and five groups for sud-acute study viz. control group (Tween 20 and distilled water), mercuric chloride treated group (0.926 mg/kg body wt. for acute and 0.044 mg/kg body wt. for sub-acute group after calculated $LD_{50}$ (9.26 mg/kg body wt.) by probit analysis (Finney, 1971), Panax ginseng extract treated group (10 mg/kg body wt. for acute and sub-acute sets), mercuric chloride treated followed by Panax ginseng extract and Panax ginseng extract followed by mercuric chloride group. All doses were given orally by gavage tube. The result revealed that the serum urea and creatinine significantly increased in mercuric chloride treated group, while significantly decreased (p<0.01) in Panax ginseng extract group after acute and sub-acute treatment. The biochemical estimation is also confirmed by nephropathological aspect. However, the Panax ginseng extract treated followed by mercuric chloride group is more prominent than the mercuric chloride treated followed by Panax ginseng extract group. It can be concluded that Panax ginseng extract had a protective nature on renal functions against mercuric chloride toxicity in albino rats.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.283-291
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• 1999

We have synthesized novel platinum (II) coordination complex containing cis-1,2-diaminocyclohexane (DACH) as a carrier ligand and 1,2-bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane (DPPE) as leaving group. Furthermore, nitrate was added to improve the water-solubility. A new series of [Pt(cis-DACH)(DPPE)] $2NO_3(PC)$ was evaluated its antitumor activity on various MKN-45 human gastric adenocarcinoma cell-lines and normal primary cultured kidney cells. The new platinum complex demonstrated high efficacy in the cytotoxicity on MKN-45 cell-lines as well as adriamycin-resistant (MKN-45/ADR) and cisplatin-resistant (MKN-45/CDDP) cells. The cytotoxicities of PC were found quite less than those of cisplatin in rabbit proximal renal tubular cells, human renal cortical cells and human renal cortical tissues using MTT assay, $[^3H]-thymidine$ uptake and glucose consumption tests. Based on these results, this novel platinum (II) coordination complex, was considered as better a valuable lead for improving antitumor activities with low nephrotoxicities in the development of a new clinically available anticancer chemotherapeutic agents.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.22.1-22.15
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• 2023

Kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) is one of the most aggressive cancer type of the urinary system. Metastatic KIRC patients have poor prognosis and limited therapeutic options. Ankyrin 3 (ANK3) is a scaffold protein that plays important roles in maintaining physiological function of the kidney and its alteration is implicated in many cancers. In this study, we investigated differential expression of ANK3 in KIRC using GEPIA2, UALCAN, and HPA databases. Survival analysis was performed by GEPIA2, Kaplan-Meier plotter, and OS-kirc databases. Genetic alterations of ANK3 in KIRC were assessed using cBioPortal database. Interaction network and functional enrichment analyses of ANK3-correlated genes in KIRC were performed using GeneMANIA and Shiny GO, respectively. Finally, the TIMER2.0 database was used to assess correlation between ANK3 expression and immune infiltration in KIRC. We found that ANK3 expression was significantly decreased in KIRC compared to normal tissues. The KIRC patients with low ANK3 expression had poorer survival outcomes than those with high ANK3 expression. ANK3 mutations were found in 2.4% of KIRC patients and were frequently co-mutated with several genes with a prognostic significance. ANK3-correlated genes were significantly enriched in various biological processes, mainly involved in peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) signaling pathway, in which positive correlations of ANK3 with PPARA and PPARG expressions were confirmed. Expression of ANK3 in KIRC was significantly correlated with infiltration level of B cell, CD8+ T cell, macrophage, and neutrophil. These findings suggested that ANK3 could serve as a prognostic biomarker and promising therapeutic target for KIRC.

• The Korean Journal of Urological Oncology
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.119-125
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• 2018

Purpose: We compared subtypes of papillary renal cell carcinoma (pRCC; types 1 and 2) and clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) in patients with T1-stage RCC to analyze the impact of the subtype on oncological outcomes. Materials and Methods: This paper reviewed 75 patients with pRCC and 252 patients with ccRCC at T1-stage from 1998-2012. Thus, we assessed the impact of subtype on oncologic outcomes among patients with T1-stage RCC. We used Kaplan-Meier analysis to estimate the overall survival and recurrence-free survival The median follow-up duration was 95 months (interquartile range, 75.4-119.3 months). Results: The 5-year recurrence-free survivals of pRCC and ccRCC were 95.4% and 97.6%, respectively. pRCC is worse than ccRCC in terms of recurrence-free survival (p=0.008) and there was no significant difference in the overall survival between pRCC and ccRCC (p=0.32). In addition, there was no significant statistical difference between type 1 pRCC and type 2 pRCC in terms of either recurrence-free survival (p=0.526) or overall survival (p=0.701). Age (hazard ratio [HR], 1.069; p<0.001) and recurrence (HR, 4.93; p<0.001) were predictors of overall survival. Only tumor size (HR, 1.071; p=0.004) was predictors in the case of cancer specific survival in the multivariate analysis. Conclusions: Among patients with T1-stage RCC, recurrence after surgery was more common in pRCC than ccRCC. The subtype of pRCC (types 1 and 2) had no impact on the recurrence-free survival or overall survival.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.565-579
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• 2016

In this paper a novel cancer subtype's classifier based on Hybrid Samples Balanced Genetic Algorithm with Extreme Learning Machine (hSBGA-ELM) is presented. Proposed cancer subtype's classifier uses genes' expression data of 16063 genes from open Global Cancer Map (GCM) data base for accurate cancer subtype's classification. Proposed method efficiently classifies 14 subtypes of cancer (breast, prostate, lung, colorectal, lymphoma, bladder, melanoma, uterus, leukemia, renal, pancreas, ovary, mesothelioma and CNS). Proposed hSBGA-ELM unifies genes' selection procedure and cancer subtype's classification into one framework. Proposed Hybrid Samples Balanced Genetic Algorithm searches a reduced robust set of genes responsible for cancer subtype's classification from 16063 genes available in GCM data base. Selected reduced set of genes is used to build cancer subtype's classifier using Extreme Learning Machine (ELM). As a result, reduced set of robust genes guarantees stable generalization performance of the proposed cancer subtype's classifier. Proposed hSBGA-ELM discovers 95 genes probably responsible for cancer. Comparison with existing cancer subtype's classifiers clear indicates efficiency of the proposed method.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.3729-3734
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• 2013

The aim of this study was to evaluate expression of COX-1 in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and its prognostic value. mRNA of COX-1 was detected in 42 paired RCC and adjacent normal tissues with quantitative realtime polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Expression of COX-1 was also evaluated in 196 RCC sections and 91 adjacent normal tissues with immunohistochemistry. Statistical analysis was performed to assess COX-1 expression in RCC and its prognostic significance. The results of qRT-PCR showed mRNA levels of COX-1 in RCC tissues to be significantly higher than that in adjacent normal tissues (p < 0.001). Immunohistochemical assays also revealed COX-1 to be overexpressed in RCC tissues (p < 0.001). Statistical analysis demonstrated high expression of COX-1 was correlated with tumour size (p = 0.002), pathological stage (p = 0.003), TNM stage (p = 0.003, 0.007, 0.027, respectively), and tumour recurrence (p < 0.001). Survival analysis indicated patients with high expression of COX-1 had shorter survival time (p < 0.001), and COX-1 was an independent predictor. This is the first study to reveal overexpression of COX-1 in RRC and point to use as a prognostic marker in affected patients.