Objective To explore the clinical significance and treatment regimen of sentinel lymph node(SLN) micrometastases and isolated tumor cell metastasis in breast cancer.Methods Ninety-seven breast cancer patients with sentinel lymph node micrometastases or isolated tumor cell metastasis from January 2013 to December 2015 were retrospectively studied.The patients were assigned to axillary lymph node dissection group (ALND,41 cases) and non axillary lymph node dissection group(non-ALND,56 cases) according to the final surgery mode to the axilla.Disease-free survival(DFS) and overall survival (OS) were compared between the two groups.Results Neither clinico-pathological factors,such as age,tumor size,grade,ER/PR status,HER-2 gene expression,Ki-67 expression and the size of the SLN metastasis,nor the treatment,such as breast surgery,postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy,radiotherapy and hormone therapy were found statistically different between the two groups (P ＞ 0.05).There were 96 patients evaluable with a median follow up of 24 months.The DFS of the ALND and non-ALND group was 97.5％ and 96.6％ (P ＞ 0.05),and the OS was 100％ and 98.2％ (P ＞ 0.05) respectively with no difference between the two groups.There were 2 ispilateral axillary recurrence in the non-ALND group and non in the ALND group.Conclusion Axillary lymph node dissection may be omitted for the breast cancer patients with sentinel lymph node micrometastases and isolated tumor cell metastases.But the postoperative adjuvant systemic treatment should be emphasized.

Objective: To observe the effect of atorvastatin combined with insulin glargine on renal function in patients with early diabetic nephropathy. Methods: From January 2016 to March 2019, 100 patients with early diabetic nephropathy admitted to Hanzhong 3201 Hospital Affiliated with Xi′an Jiaotong University Medical School were selected as subjects. According to the random number table, patients were divided into control group and observation group, with 50 cases in each group. All patients underwent diet control, blood pressure control and symptomatic treatment. Patients in the control group were treated with insulin glargine to control blood glucose. Patients in observation group were given atorvastatin on this basis. After 16 weeks of treatment, the therapeutic effects of the two groups were observed, as well as the change in urinary albumin excretion rate (UAER), serum creatinine (Scr), C-reactive protein (CRP), total cholesterol (TC), and triglyceride (TG). Adverse reactions were observed during treatment in both groups. Results: After treatment, the levels of UAER, Scr, CRP, TC and TG of the two groups were lower than those before treatment, and the above indexes of the observation group were lower than those of the control group. The difference were statistically significant (P<0.05). During the treatment period, the incidence of adverse reactions in control group and observation group was 4.00%(2/50) and 12.00%(6/50), and there was no significant difference (P>0.05). Conclusions Atorvastatin combined with insulin glargine in the treatment of early diabetic nephropathy can effectively reduce the levels of UAER, Scr, CRP, TC and TG, and has good safety.

Objective: To predict the tumor neoantigen peptides in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and examine their specific immune effects against the tumor cells without injury to normal cells. Methods: The data of whole-genome sequencing and exome sequencing of HCC tumor and matched non-tumor liver tissues were analyzed to confirm the HCC-associated somatic mutations. Based on the HLA phenotype of the patients, we used NetMHC software to predict the neoantigen epitopes with high binding affinity to their MHC-I molecules. The predicted peptides with mutation sites included were synthesized. GPL10687 platform was applied to examine the gene expression difference between tumor and normal tissues of the selected genes in GSE25097, one of the GEO databases. The quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-qPCR) and immunohistochemistry were used to confirm the expressions in tumors and normal tissues of the selected genes. By using the predicted peptides, we induced the generation of antigen-specific CD8⁺ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) and examined their specific effects against tumor cells. Results: The mutation frequency of TP53 (tumor protein p53) was 40%, and LAMA3 (Laminin Subunit Alpha 3) was 8% in the analyzed HCC tissues. In GSE25097 database, TP53 and LAMA3 mRNA levels in tumors were 1.57±0.02 and 1.37±0.10, which were significantly increased than those in matched no-tumor tissue (0.54±0.01 and 0.36±0.01, P<0.05). The differences of expression levels of TP53 and LAMA3 in tumor and no-tumor tissues were validated by using qRT-qPCR and immunohistochemistry in 10 HCC tissues. The mRNA levels of TP53 and LAMA3 in tumors were 0.24±0.03 and 0.13±0.06, which were significantly elevated than those in matched no-tumor tissue (0.11±0.01 and 0.01±0.01, P<0.05). Among the Chinese population, HLA-A2 and HLA-A11 and HLA-A24 accounted for 70%, representing the major MHC-I molecules. The CTLs induced by predicted peptides showed cytotoxicity to the targets pulsed with mutated peptide, with no effect on the target pulsed with normal peptide and on normal cells. Conclusions TP53 and LAMA3 existed relative higher mutation frequency in HCC, and expressed higher in tumor tissues. The induced CTLs by predicted peptides derived from mutation-associated protein could specific kill the target cells without injury to normal cells.

Nitrate is the main form of inorganic nitrogen that crop absorbs, and nitrate transporter 2 (NRT2) is a high affinity transporter using nitrate as a specific substrate. When the available nitrate is limited, the high affinity transport systems are activated and play an important role in the process of nitrate absorption and transport. Most NRT2 cannot transport nitrates alone and require the assistance of a helper protein belonging to nitrate assimilation related family (NAR2) to complete the absorption or transport of nitrates. Crop nitrogen utilization efficiency is affected by environmental conditions, and there are differences between varieties, so it is of great significance to develop varieties with high nitrogen utilization efficiency. Sorghum bicolor has high stress tolerance and is more efficient in soil nitrogen uptake and utilization. The S. bicolor genome database was scanned to systematically analyze the gene structure, chromosomal localization, physicochemical properties, secondary structure and transmembrane domain, signal peptide and subcellular localization, promoter region cis-acting elements, phylogenetic evolution, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) recognition and annotation, and selection pressure of the gene family members. Through bioinformatics analysis, 5 NRT2 gene members (designated as SbNRT2-1a, SbNRT2-1b, SbNRT2-2, SbNRT2-3, and SbNRT2-4) and 2 NAR2 gene members (designated as SbNRT3-1 and SbNRT3-2) were identified, the number of which was less than that of foxtail millet. SbNRT2/3 were distributed on 3 chromosomes, and could be divided into four subfamilies. The genetic structure of the same subfamilies was highly similar. The average value of SbNRT2/3 hydrophilicity was positive, indicating that they were all hydrophobic proteins, whereas α-helix and random coil accounted for more than 70% of the total secondary structure. Subcellular localization occurred on plasma membrane, where SbNRT2 proteins did not contain signal peptides, but SbNRT3 proteins contained signal peptides. Further analysis revealed that the number of transmembrane domains of the SbNRT2s family members was greater than 10, while that of the SbNRT3s were 2. There was a close collinearity between NRT2/3s of S. bicolor and Zea mays. Protein domains analysis showed the presence of MFS_1 and NAR2 protein domains, which supported executing high affinity nitrate transport. Phylogenetic tree analysis showed that SbNRT2/3 were more closely related to those of Z. mays and Setaria italic. Analysis of gene promoter cis-acting elements indicated that the promoter region of SbNRT2/3 had several plant hormones and stress response elements, which might respond to growth and environmental cues. Gene expression heat map showed that SbNRT2-3 and SbNRT3-1 were induced by nitrate in the root and stem, respectively, and SbNRT2-4 and SbNRT2-3 were induced by low nitrogen in the root and stem. Non-synonymous SNP variants were found in SbNRT2-4 and SbNRT2-1a. Selection pressure analysis showed that the SbNRT2/3 were subject to purification and selection during evolution. The expression of SbNRT2/3 gene and the effect of aphid infection were consistent with the expression analysis results of genes in different tissues, and SbNRT2-1b and SbNRT3-1 were significantly expressed in the roots of aphid lines 5-27sug, and the expression levels of SbNRT2-3, SbNRT2-4 and SbNRT3-2 were significantly reduced in sorghum aphid infested leaves. Overall, genome-wide identification, expression and DNA variation analysis of NRT2/3 gene family of Sorghum bicolor provided a basis for elucidating the high efficiency of sorghum in nitrogen utilization.
Nitrate Transporters ; Nitrates/metabolism* ; Sorghum/metabolism* ; Anion Transport Proteins/metabolism* ; Phylogeny ; Protein Sorting Signals/genetics* ; Nitrogen/metabolism* ; DNA ; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant ; Plant Proteins/metabolism*