• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.243-246
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• 2016

The characteristics of a bimetallic surface plasmon resonance (SPR) chip were investigated to detect a tumor biomarker, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). The linewidth and the tangential slope of the reflectance curve of the bimetallic SPR chip was compared with those of the reflectance curve of a conventional gold (Au) SPR chip. The changes in reflectance in response to the variation in CEA in the critical concentration range were analyzed at an angle where the tangential slope of the reflectance curve was maximum. From linear regression analysis, the sensitivity of the bimetallic SPR chip with respect to the CEA in critical concentration was obtained.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.75 no.3
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• pp.104-110
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• 2013

Background: Osteopontin (OPN) and carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX), which are expressed on the surface of tumor cells, are associated with hypoxia during tumor development and progression. However, the roles of these proteins in the plasma of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are poorly understood. Herein, we hypothesized that plasma OPN and CAIX levels could be used as diagnostic and prognostic tumor markers in patients with NSCLC. Methods: Fifty-three patients with NSCLC and 50 healthy control subjects were enrolled. We selected controls without malignancy and matched them with NSCLC patient cases according to age and gender. Blood samples were collected at the time of diagnosis; the plasma levels of OPN and CAIX were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Results: The plasma levels of OPN in the patients with NSCLC were significantly elevated as compared to those in the controls (p=0.016). However, there was no difference in the plasma level of CAIX between the NSCLC patients and controls. NSCLC patients with a distant metastasis had a remarkable increase in plasma OPN compared with patients without metastasis (p=0.026), but no such correlation was found for CAIX. There was no difference in overall survival rates according to the plasma level of OPN between the two groups (by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis). Conclusion: Plasma OPN levels were elevated in patients with NSCLC as compared with the controls, with greater elevation of OPN levels in the advanced stages of disease. Therefore, plasma OPN may have utility as a diagnostic, but not prognostic, biomarker of advanced NSCLC.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.21
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• pp.9071-9075
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• 2014

Background: microRNAs are small non-coding RNA that control gene expression by mRNA degradation or translational inhibition. These molecules are known to play essential roles in many biological and physiological processes. miR-205 may be differentially expressed in head and neck cancers; however, there are conflicting data and localization of expression has yet to be determined. Materials and Methods: miR-205 expression was investigated in 48 cases of inflammatory, benign and malignant tumor tissue array of the neck, oronasopharynx, larynx and salivary glands by Locked Nucleic Acid in situ hybridization (LNA-ISH) technology. Results: miR-205 expression was significantly differentially expressed across all of the inflammatory, benign and malignant tumor tissues of the neck. A significant increase in miR-205 staining intensity (p<0.05) was observed from inflammation to benign and malignant tumors in head and neck tissue array, suggesting that miR-205 could be a biomarker to differentiate between cancer and non-cancer tissues. Conclusions: LNA-ISH revealed that miR-205 exhibited significant differential cytoplasmic and nuclear staining among inflammation, benign and malignant tumors of head and neck. miR-205 was not only exclusively expressed in squamous epithelial malignancy. This study offers information and a basis for a comprehensive study of the role of miR-205 that may be useful as a biomarker and/or therapeutic target in head and neck tumors.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.69-79
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• 2010

Objectives: Various cytokines induced by inhalation of coal dust may mediate inflammation and lead to tissue damage or fibrosis, such as coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP). Methods: To investigate the relevance of serum cytokines in CWP, the levels of serum interleukin-8 (IL-8) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-${\alpha}$) as CWP biomarkers in 110 retired coal miners (22 controls and 88 CWP subjects) were related to cross sectional findings and 1-year progressive changes of the pneumoconiosis. Progressive changes of CWP were evaluated by paired comparison of chest radiographs. Analysis by a receiver operating characteristic curve assessed the biomarker potential of each cytokine. Results: The mean serum IL-8 level was significantly higher in CWP compared to controls and IL-8 levels correlated with the degree of CWP. The median serum TNF-${\alpha}$ level was significantly higher in subjects with progressive CWP compared to subjects without CWP progression. The area under the ROC curve for IL-8 (0.70) and TNF-${\alpha}$ (0.72) for CWP identification and progression, respectively, indicated the biomarker potential of the two cytokines. Serum cutoff values of IL-8 and TNF-${\alpha}$ were 11.63 pg/mL(sensitivity, 69%; specificity, 64%) and 4.52 pg/mL (sensitivity, 67%; specificity, 79%), respectively. Conclusion: The results suggest that high levels of serum IL-8 are associated with the presence of CWP and those of serum TNF-${\alpha}$ are associated with the progression of CWP.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.16
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• pp.7031-7038
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• 2015

Background: Arginine may play important roles in tumor progression by providing ornithine for polyamine biosynthesis, required for cell growth. The aim of this work was to determine the expression of arginine metabolic pathway enzymes in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) in northeast India. Materials and Methods: The expressions of arginase isoforms (ARG1 and ARG2), ornithine aminotransferase (OAT) and ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) were examined in fifty paired HNSCC and adjacent non-tumor tissues by immunohistochemistry. Immunocytochemistry, semiquantitative reverse transcription sq-PCR and quantitative real-time qPCR were used to assess protein and mRNA expressions in peripheral blood of fifty HNSCC patients and hundred controls. Results: ARG1 and ODC protein and mRNA were strongly expressed in peripheral blood from HNSCC patients. No ARG2 expression was observed. In vivo, expression of ARG1, ARG2 and ODC was significantly higher in tumor than in non-tumor tissues. Most tumors expressed low levels of OAT, with no difference in tissues or blood, compared to controls. The absolute extent of maximal ARG1 upregulation with qPCR showed 6.23 fold increase in HNSCC. Conclusions: These findings strongly suggest that in HNSCCs, the ARG1 pathway is stimulated leading to the formation of polyamines as indicated by higher ODC expression, which promote tumor growth.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7315-7319
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• 2013

Background: The metastasis gene osteopontin (OPN) is subject to alternative splicing, which yields three messages, osteopontin-a, osteopontin-b and osteopontin-c. Osteopontin-c is selectively expressed in invasive, but not in noninvasive tumors. In the present study, we examined the expression of OPN-c in esophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCCs) and assessed its value as a diagnostic biomarker. Methods: OPN-c expression was assessed by immunohistochemistry in 63 ESCC samples and correlated with clinicopathologic factors. Expression was also examined in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 120 ESCC patients and 30 healthy subjects. The role of OPN-c mRNA as a tumor marker was investigated by receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis. Results: Immunohistochemistry showed that OPN-c was expressed in 30 of 63 cancer lesions (48%)and significantly associated with pathological T stage (P=0.038) and overall stage (P=0.023). Real time PCR showed that OPN-c mRNA was expressed at higher levels in the PBMCs of ESCC patients than in those of healthy subjects (P<0.0001) with a sensitivity as an ESCC biomarker of 86.7%. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that expression of OPN-c is significantly elevated in ESCCs and this upregulation could be a potential diagnostic marker.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.3 no.6
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• pp.555-565
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• 2019

Development of a biomarker for predicting tumor-treatment efficacy is a matter of great concern, to reduce time, medical expense, and effort in oncology therapy. In a preclinical study, we hypothesized that the blood-flow parameter based on laser speckle flowmetry (LSF) could be a potential indicator to estimate the efficacy of breast-cancer treatment. To verify this hypothesis, a 13762-MAT-B-III rat breast tumor was grown in a dorsal skinfold window chamber applied to a nude mouse, and the change in blood flow rate (BFR) - or the speckle flow index (SFI) is used together as the same meaning in this manuscript - was longitudinally monitored during tumor growth and metronomic cyclophosphamide treatment. Based on the daily LSF angiogram, several BFR parameters (baseline SFI, normalized SFI, and △rBFR) were compared to tumor size in the normal, treated, and untreated tumor groups. Despite the incomplete tumor treatment, we found that the daily changes in all BFR parameters tended to have partially positive correlation with tumor size. Moreover, we observed that the changes in baseline SFI and normalized SFI responded one day earlier than the tumor shrinkage during chemotherapy. However, daily variations in the hypercapnia-induced △rBFR lagged tumor shrinkage by one day. This study would contribute not only to evaluating tumor vascular response to treatment, but also to monitoring blood-flow-mediated diseases (in brain, skin, and retina) by using LSF in preclinical settings.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.363-368
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• 2014

Determination of the cause of malignant pleural effusions is important for treatment and management, especially in cases of unknown primaries. There are limited biomarkers available for prediction of the cause of malignant pleural effusion in clinical practice. Hence, we evaluated pleural levels of five tumor biomarkers (CEA, AFP, CA125, CA153 and CA199) in predicting the cause of malignant pleural effusion in a retrospective study. Kruskal-Wallis or Mann-Whitney U tests were carried out to compare levels of tumor markers in pleural effusion among different forms of neoplasia - lung squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, or small cell carcinoma, mesothelioma, breast cancer, lymphoma/leukemia and miscellaneous. Receiver operator characteristic analysis was performed to evaluate sensitivity and specificity of biomarkers. The Kruskal-Wallis test showed significant differences in levels of pleural effusion CEA (P<0.01), AFP (P<0.01), CA153 (P<0.01) and CA199 (P<0.01), but not CA125 (P>0.05), among the seven groups. Receiver operator characteristic analysis showed that, compared with other four tumor markers, CA153 was the best biomarker in diagnosing malignant pleural effusions of lung adenocarcinoma (area under curve (AUC): 0.838 (95%confidence interval: 0.787, 0.888); cut-off value: 10.2U/ml; sensitivity: 73.2% (64.4-80.8)%, specificity: 85.2% (77.8-90.8)%), lung squamous cell carcinoma (AUC: 0.716 (0.652, 0.780); cut-off value: 14.2U/ml; sensitivity: 57.6% (50.7-64.3)%, specificity: 91.2% (76.3-98.0)%), and small-cell lung cancer (AUC: 0.812 (0.740, 0.884); cut-off value: 9.7U/ml; sensitivity: 61.5% (55.0-67.8)%, specificity: 94.1% (71.2-99.0)%); CEA was the best biomarker in diagnosing MPEs of mesothelioma (AUC: 0.726 (0.593, 0.858); cut-off value: 1.43ng/ml; sensitivity: 83.7% (78.3-88.2)%, specificity: 61.1% (35.8-82.6)%) and lymphoma/leukemia (AUC: 0.923 (0.872, 0.974); cut-off value: 1.71ng/ml; sensitivity: 82.8% (77.4-87.3)%, specificity: 92.3% (63.9-98.7)%). Thus CA153 and CEA appear to be good biomarkers in diagnosing different causes of malignant pleural effusion. Our findings implied that the two tumor markers may improve the diagnosis and treatment for effusions of unknown primaries.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.577-583
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• 2014

The recent discovery of tiny microRNAs (miRNAs) has brought about awareness of a new class of regulators of diverse pathways in many physiological and pathological processes, such as tumorigenesis. They modulate gene expression by targeting plethora of mRNAs, mostly reducing the protein yield of a targeted mRNA. With accumulation of information on characteristics of miR-205, complex and in some cases converse roles of miR-205 in tumor initiation, progression and metastasis are emerging. miR-205 acts either as an oncogene via facilitating tumor initiation and proliferation, or in some cases as a tumor suppressor through inhibiting proliferation and invasion. The aim of this review is to discuss miR-205 roles in different types of cancers. Given the critical effects of deregulated miR-205 on processes involved in tumorigenesis, they hold potential as novel therapeutic targets and biomarkers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Toxicology Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.137-137
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• 2002

Biologically Based Dose-Response (BBDR) models were developed using biomarkers for cancer risk assessment. To establish the relationship among biomarkers, exposure dose and tumor response, biomarkers in the lung, liver, stomach or blood were measured after a single or continuous administration of selected carcinogen (; BaP) in mice or rats.(omitted)