Description: Background: A lot of empirical studies have been conducted to evaluate the prevalence of depression and anxiety among Chinese adults with cancer. We aimed to conduct a meta-analysis in order to evaluate the prevalence and odds ratios of depression and anxiety in Chinese adults with cancer compared with those without. Methods: The three most comprehensive computerized Chinese academic databases-CNKI, Wangfang and Vip databases-were systematically screened through September 2012. PubMed and Web of Science (SCIE) were also searched from their inception until September 2012 without language restrictions, and an internet search was also used. Case--control studies assessing the prevalence of depression and anxiety among Chinese adults with cancer were analyzed. Study selection and appraisal were conducted independently by three authors. The non-weighted prevalence, pooled random-effects estimates of odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were all calculated. Results: Seventeen eligible studies with a total of 3497 subjects were included. The prevalence of depression and anxiety were significantly higher in adults with cancer compared with those without (Depression: 54.90% vs. 17.50%, OR = 7.85, 95%CI = 5.56-11.07, P = 0.000; Anxiety: 49.69% vs. 18.37%, OR = 6.46, 95%CI = 4.36-9.55, P = 0.000), the same situation was also observed in subgroup of control groups, assessment methods and cancer types. Although no difference of depression was observed in studies utilizing clinical diagnosis compared with self-report, the OR of anxiety in adults with cancer compared with those without was higher in studies utilizing clinical diagnosis (OR = 8.42, 95%CI = 4.83-14.70) than self-reports (OR = 5.83, 95%CI = 3.64-9.34). The ORs of depression and anxiety in cancer patients compared with disease group (Depression: OR = 6.03, 95%CI = 4.23-8.61; Anxiety: OR = 4.40, 95%CI = 3.05-6.36) were lower than in those compared with normal group (Depression: OR = 13.58, 95%CI = 6.26-29.46; Anxiety: OR = 15.47, 95%CI = 10.00-23.95). Conclusions: We identified high prevalence rates of depression and anxiety among Chinese adults with cancer. The findings support that the prevalence of depression and anxiety among adults with cancer should receive more attention in Chinese medical settings.

Description: Background: The taxonomy and systematics of Salix subgenus Salix s.l. is difficult. The reliability and evolutionary implications of two important morphological characters (number of stamens, and morphology of bud scales) used in subgeneric classification within Salix remain untested, and a disjunct Old–New World distribution pattern of a main clade of subgenus Salix s.l., revealed by a previous study, lacks a reasonable explanation. To study these questions, we conducted phylogenetic analyses based on 4,688 bp of sequence data from four plastid (rbcL, trnD–T, matK, and atpB–rbcL) and two nuclear markers (ETS and ITS) covering all subgenera of Salix, and all sections of subgenus Salix s.l. Results: Subgenus Salix came out as para- or polyphyletic in both nrDNA and plastid trees. The plastid phylogeny successfully resolved relationships among the major clades of Salix, but resolution within subgenus Salix s.l. remained low. Nevertheless, three monophyletic groups were identifiable in subgenus Salix s.l.: the ‘main clade’ of subgenus Salix s.l., with New and Old World species being reciprocally monophyletic; the section Triandroides clade; and the subgenus Pleuradenia clade. While nrDNA regions showed higher resolution within subgenus Salix s.l., they failed to resolve subgeneric relationships. Extensive, statistically significant gene-tree incongruence was detected across nrDNA–plastid as well as nrDNA ETS–ITS phylogenies, suggesting reticulate evolution or hybridization within the group. The results were supported by network analyses. Ancestral-state reconstructions indicated that multiple stamens and free bud scales represent the plesiomorphic states within Salix, and that several significant shifts in stamen number and bud scale morphology have occurred. Conclusions: Subgenus Salix s.l. is not monophyletic, and the evolutionary history of the subgenus has involved multiple reticulation events that may mainly be due to hybridization. The delimitation of subgenus Salix s.l. should be redefined by excluding section Triandrae and subgenus Pleuradenia from it. The evolutionary lability of bud-scale morphology and stamen number means that these characters are unreliable bases for classification. The disjunct Old–New World distribution of subgenus Salix s.l. appears to be linked to the profound climatic cooling during the Tertiary, which cut off gene exchange between New and Old World lineages.

Description: Background: The NIMA-related kinase 2 (NEK2) is a serine/threonine kinase that is involved in regulation of centrosome duplication and spindle assembly during mitosis. Dysregulation of these processes causes chromosome instability and aneuploidy, which are hallmark changes of many solid tumors. However, whether aberrant expression of NEK2 is associated with outcome of prostate cancer (PCa) patients remains to be determined. Methods: Expression of NEK2 in human PCa cells and primary PCa tissues was assessed by quantitative RT-PCR. Expression of NEK2 in human PCa cells was depleted with siRNA. Effects of the depletion on cell proliferation, survival, and tumorigenicity were assessed both in vitro with cell cultures and in vivo with subcutaneous implantation of xenografts. In silico analyses of the online Taylor dataset were carried out to determine whether the expression level of NEK2 correlated with the clinicopathological characteristics of prostate cancer. Results: Compared with benign human prostatic epithelial cells and tissues, the expression of NEK2 was elevated in human PCa cells and primary PCa tissues. Depleting NEK2 expression inhibited human PCa cell proliferation in vitro and xenograft growth in vivo. Expression level of NEK2 in PCa positively correlated with the Gleason score and pathologic stage of the patient. Conclusion: The results suggest that overexpression of NEK2 has the potential to serve as a biomarker for PCa prognosis. Further validation with large sample pool is warrant.

Description: Background: Studies of functional modules in a Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) network contribute greatly to theunderstanding of biological mechanisms. With the development of computing science,computational approaches have played an important role in detecting functional modules. Results: We present a new approach using multi-agent evolution for detection of functional modules in PPInetworks. The proposed approach consists of two stages: the solution construction for agents in apopulation and the evolutionary process of computational agents in a lattice environment, where eachagent corresponds to a candidate solution to the detection problem of functional modules in a PPInetwork. First, the approach utilizes a connection-based encoding scheme to model an agent, andemploys a random-walk behavior merged topological characteristics with functional information toconstruct a solution. Next, it applies several evolutionary operators, i. e., competition, crossover, andmutation, to realize information exchange among agents as well as solution evolution. Systematicexperiments have been conducted on three benchmark testing sets of yeast networks. Experimentalresults show that the approach is more effective compared to several other existing algorithms. Conclusions: The algorithm has the characteristics of outstanding recall, F-measure, sensitivity and accuracy whilekeeping other competitive performances, so it can be applied to the biological study which requireshigh accuracy.

Description: Disease similarity study provides new insights into disease taxonomy, pathogenesis, which plays a guiding role in diagnosis and treatment. The early studies were limited to estimate disease similarities based ...

Description: Background: Studies investigating the association between Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) have reported inconsistent findings. We conducted a meta-analysis of epidemiological studies to explore this relationship. Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted to identify the eligible studies of hepatitis infections and ICC risk up to September 2011. Summary odds ratios (OR) with their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated with random-effects models using Review Manager version 5.0. Results: Thirteen case-control studies and 3 cohort studies were included in the final analysis. The combined risk estimate of all studies showed statistically significant increased risk of ICC incidence with HBV and HCV infection (OR = 3.17, 95% CI, 1.88-5.34, and OR = 3.42, 95% CI, 1.96-5.99, respectively). For case-control studies alone, the combined OR of infection with HBV and HCV were 2.86 (95% CI, 1.60-5.11) and 3.63 (95% CI, 1.86-7.05), respectively, and for cohort studies alone, the OR of HBV and HCV infection were 5.39 (95% CI, 2.34-12.44) and 2.60 (95% CI, 1.36-4.97), respectively. Conclusions: This study suggests that both HBV and HCV infection are associated with an increased risk of ICC.

Description: Background: The optimal treatment for adrenal metastases from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has not been established. This study analyzed the effects of radiation therapy (RT) for such metastases and identified clinical features and predictors of survival in these patients. Methods: We retrospectively investigated 55 patients with adrenal metastasis from HCC who had been treated with RT. Radiation doses to the adrenal lesions ranged from 26 to 60 Gy, while the intrahepatic lesions were treated by surgical resection, transarterial chemoembolization (TACE), liver transplantation, and/or RT. RT was conducted to adrenal lesions after their intrahepatic lesions were controlled more than 2 months. The parameters studied included survival rates and tumor responses to RT. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to evaluate survival rate and the Cox regression model was used to identify potential predictors of outcome. Results: The patients treated by RT had adrenal metastasis on the right side (41), the left (6), or on both sides (8). In all 55 patients, the median survival duration was 13.6 months and there was 100% pain relief after completion of RT. Adverse effects were mild to moderate. Unfavorable pretreatment predictors determined by univariate analysis were associated with multiple intrahepatic foci, metastases to additional organs, high gamma-glutamyltransferase and alpha-fetoprotein levels, liver function of Child-Pugh classification B and uncontrolled primary HCC. By multivariate analysis, unfavorable predictors were multiple intrahepatic foci, metastases to additional organs and uncontrolled primary HCC. Conclusions: Radiotherapy as treatment for adrenal metastases in HCC is a good palliative therapy that is associated with reasonable safety. It appears reasonable that such patients should be considered to be treated with radiotherapy. Multiple intrahepatic foci, metastases to additional organs and uncontrolled primary HCC were unfavorable predictors.

Description: Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical efficacy of postoperative radiotherapy (PORT), administered using three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) and our institutional standard clinical target volume (CTV) delineation, for completely resected stage IIIA(N2) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: From 2005 to 2012, consecutive patients with pT1-3 N2 NSCLC who were treated with PORT employing our institutional CTV delineation after complete surgery or who underwent complete resection in our hospital but without PORT were identified. We excluded patients who had received neoadjuvant chemotherapy or radiation therapy (RT). Kaplan-Meier estimates for locoregional recurrence-free survival (LRFS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) and overall survival (OS) were performed. In the OS estimation, patients who received epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI) during follow-up were censored at the time of TKI initiation. Results: Data from 70 patients in the PORT group and 287 in the non-PORT group were analysed. All 70 cases received 3D-CRT following our institutional CTV guideline, with a median total dose of 50.4 Gy at 1.8 Gy/fraction. At a median follow-up of 34.3 months for the PORT group and 31.2 months for the non-PORT group, PORT significantly improved local control (5-yr LRFS 91.9% for PORT vs 66.4% for non-PORT, P 

Description: In genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for complex diseases, the association between a SNP and each phenotype is usually weak. Combining multiple related phenotypic traits can increase the power of gene sea...