Sinonasal carcinomas are head and neck tumours arising from the nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses characterized by unfavourable outcome, difficult treatment, diagnosis and prognosis. MicroRNAs are key molecules in the regulation of development and progression of cancer and their expression profiles could be used as prognostic biomarkers, to predict the patients’ survival and response to treatment. In this study, we used quantitative real-time PCR with TaqMan® Advanced miRNA Assays to investigate the relative expression values of selected micro-RNAs in a unique set of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue samples obtained from 46 patients with sinonasal squamous cell carcinoma. Our results showed statistically significant up-regulation of three mature microRNAs: miR-9-5p (fold change: 6.80), miR-9-3p (fold change: 3.07) and let-7d (fold change: 3.93) in sinonasal carcinoma patients. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and logrank test identified association between higher expression of miR-9-5p and longer survival of the patients (P = 0.0264). Lower expression of let-7d was detected in the patients with impaired survival, and higher expression of miR-137 was linked to shorter survival of the patients., We alsoidentified several correlations between expression of the studied microRNAs and recorded clinico-pathological data. Higher expression of miR-137 and lower expression of let-7d correlated with local recurrence (P = 0.045 and P = 0.025); lower expression of miR-9-5p and higher expression of miR-155-5p correlated with regional recurrence (P = 0.045 and P = 0.036). Higher expression of miR-9-3p correlated with occupational risk (P = 0.031), presence of vascular invasion (P = 0.013) and perineural invasion (P = 0.031). Higher expression of miR-155-5p was present in the samples originating from maxillary sinus (P = 0.011), cN1-3 classified tumours (P = 0.009) and G2-3 classified tumours (P = 0.017). In conclusion, our study supports the hypothesis of future prospect to use expression of miRNAs as prognostic biomarkers of squamous cell sinonasal carcinoma. In particular, miR-9-5p and miR-9-3p seem to be important members of the sinonasal cancer pathogenesis., and Corresponding author: Helena Kovaříková
The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is highly expressed in psoriasis skin lesions. The aim of this study was to investigate serum concentrations of AhR, cytochromes P450 (CYP) 1A1 and 1B1 in patients with exacerbated psoriasis vulgaris treated with combined therapy of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) and crude coal tar. The analyses were performed by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Before the treatment, the patients had significantly higher serum levels of AhR and CYP1A1 than healthy controls. AhR median noticeably decreased after the therapy; nevertheless, it remained significantly higher compared to the controls. CYP1A1 levels measured before and after the therapy did not differ significantly. Serum CYP1A1 positively correlated with AhR values before and after the treatment. The serum values of CYP1B1 were very low and we did not see any differences between the study group and the control group. The study demonstrated that serum levels of AhR and CYP1A1 could indicate their immunopathological and metabolic roles in exacerbated psoriasis. and Corresponding author: Martin Beránek
Troponin T (TnT) is recently being considered to be an important diagnostic marker of myocardial damage in adults, but this marker has not yet been used in neonates. The present study was designed to determine the normal level of cardiac TnT in the cord blood of healthy term neonates. Cardiac troponin T concentration in cord blood was measured in 15 healthy term neonates using commercial kit (Enzymun-Test System, Boehringer, Mannheim). TnT serum concentration was 0.05±0.04 /ig/1 in 10 of 15 babies whereas in the remaining 5 haemolysed samples its concentration was elevated (mean 0.19±0.07 /vg/1). It is important to consider that incidental haemolysis of blood samples can mimic pathological elevation of TnT by interfering with the assay.