This study presents the 2016 nationwide cancer statistics in Korea, including cancer incidence, survival, prevalence, and mortality.
Cancer incidence data from 1999 to 2016 were obtained from the ...Korea National Cancer Incidence Database and followed until December 31, 2017. Mortality data from 1983 to 2016 were obtained from Statistics Korea. The prevalence was defined as the number of cancer patients alive on January 1, 2017 among all cancer patients diagnosed since 1999. Crude and age-standardized rates (ASRs) for incidence, mortality, and prevalence and 5-year relative survivals were also calculated.
Overall, 229,180 and 78,194 Koreans were newly diagnosed and died from cancer in 2016, respectively. The ASRs for cancer incidence and mortality in 2016 were 269.0 and 79.8 per 100,000 individuals, respectively. The all-cancer incidence rate increased significantly by 3.6% annually from 1999 to 2011 and started to decrease after 2011 (2011-2016; annual percent change, -3.1%). However, overall cancer mortality has decreased 2.7% annually since 2002. The 5-year relative survival rate for patients diagnosed with cancer between 2012 and 2016 was 70.6%, an improvement from the 41.2% for patients diagnosed between 1993 and 1995.
The cancer prevalence in Korea has increased very fast as survival has improved remarkably. The high prevalence of cancer emphasizes the need for comprehensive cancer control efforts in Korea.
The survival of patients with ovarian cancer has improved because of surgery and chemotherapy. This study aimed to estimate the changes in survival rates among Korean women with ovarian cancer prior ...to the introduction of targeted therapy for ovarian cancer.
Data were obtained from the Korea Central Cancer Registry regarding patients who were diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer between 1995 and 2014. The relative survival rates were calculated for 5-year periods using the Ederer II method. Cox proportional hazard models were created to assess the associations of demographic and clinicopathological factors with ovarian cancer survival.
During the study period, 22,880 women were diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer. The 5-year relative survival rate improved from 57.2% during 1995-1999 to 63.8% during 2010-2014 (P < 0.001). Survival outcomes improved between 1995 and 1999 and 2010-2014 for the serous and endometrioid carcinoma subtypes (P < 0.001). However, no improvements were observed for the mucinous and clear cell carcinoma subtypes (P = 0.189 and P = 0.293, respectively). Multivariate analysis revealed that younger age, early stage, recent diagnosis, primary surgical treatment, and non-serous histological subtype were favorable prognostic factors.
Survival outcomes have improved for serous and endometrioid epithelial ovarian cancer in the last 20 years. However, no improvement was observed for patients with mucinous and clear cell carcinoma subtypes.
Objectives and design
Chlorogenic acid, which belongs to the polyphenols, is an anti-oxidant and anti-obesity agent. In this study, we investigated the role of chlorogenic acid in inflammation.
...Materials and methods
Anti-inflammatory effects of chlorogenic acid were examined in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated murine RAW 264.7 macrophages and BV2 microglial cells. We observed the level of various inflammation markers such as nitric oxide (NO), inducible NO synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 1 (CXCL1) under LPS treatment with or without chlorogenic acid. To clarify the specific effect of chlorogenic acid, we evaluated the adhesion activity of macrophages and ninjurin1 (Ninj1) expression level in macrophages. Finally, we confirmed the activation of the nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) signaling pathway, which is one of the most important transcription factors in the inflammatory process.
Results
Chlorogenic acid significantly inhibited not only NO production but also the expression of COX-2 and iNOS, without any cytotoxicity. Chlorogenic acid also attenuated pro-inflammatory cytokines (including IL-1β and TNF-α) and other inflammation-related markers such as IL-6 in a dose-dependent manner. Additionally, endotoxin-induced adhesion of macrophages and the expression level of ninjurin1 (Ninj1) were decreased by chlorogenic acid. Finally, chlorogenic acid inhibited the nuclear translocation of NF-κB.
Conclusions
Chlorogenic acid may be beneficial for the prevention and treatment of anti-inflammatory diseases.
Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) causes secondary damage in injured and adjacent regions due to temporal deprivation of oxygen and energy supply. Peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor γ ...(PPARγ) is known to regulate cell survival mechanisms such as hypoxia, oxidative stress, inflammation and energy homeostasis in various tissues. Thus, PPARγ has the potential to show neuroprotective properties. However, the role of endogenous spinal PPARγ in SCI is not well established. In this study, under isoflurane inhalation, a 10‐g rod was freely dropped onto the exposed spinal cord after T10 laminectomy using a New York University impactor in male Sprague–Dawley rats. Cellular localization of spinal PPARγ, locomotor function and mRNA levels of various genes including NFκB‐targeted pro‐inflammatory mediators after intrathecal administration of PPARγ antagonists, agonists or vehicles in SCI rats were then analysed. In both sham and SCI rats, spinal PPARγ was presented in neurons but not in microglia or astrocytes. Inhibition of PPARγ induced IκB activation and increased mRNA levels of pro‐inflammatory mediators. It also suppressed recovery of locomotor function with myelin‐related gene expression in SCI rats. However, a PPARγ agonist showed no beneficial effects on the locomotor performances of SCI rats, although it further increased the protein expression of PPARγ. In conclusion, endogenous PPARγ has a role in anti‐inflammation after SCI. Inhibition of PPARγ might have a negative influence on motor function recovery through accelerated neuroinflammation. Nonetheless, exogenous PPARγ activation does not appear to effectively help with functional improvement after SCI.
The free cantilever method (FCM) is a bridge construction method in which the left and right segments are joined in sequence from a pier without using a bottom strut. To support the imbalance of the ...left and right moments during construction, temporary steel rods, upon which tensile force is applied that cannot be managed after construction, are embedded in the pier. If there is an excessive loss of tensile force applied to the steel rods, the segments can collapse owing to the unbalanced moment, which may cause personal and property damage. Therefore, it is essential to monitor the tensile force in the temporary steel rods to prevent such accidents. In this study, a tensile force estimation method for the temporary steel rods of an FCM bridge using embedded Elasto-Magnetic (EM) sensors was proposed. After the tensile force was applied to the steel rods, the change in tensile force was monitored according to the changing area of a magnetic hysteresis curve, as measured by the embedded EM sensors. To verify the field applicability of the proposed method, the EM sensors were installed in an FCM bridge pier under construction. The three sensors were installed in conjunction with a sheath tube, and the magnetic hysteresis curve was measured over nine months. Temperature data from the measurement period were used to compensate for the error due to daily temperature fluctuations. The estimated tensile force was consistent with an error range of ±4% when compared with the reference value measured by the load cell. Based on the results of this experiment, the applicability of the proposed method was demonstrated.
Electrocatalytic water splitting is crucial to generate clean hydrogen fuel, but implementation at an industrial scale remains limited due to dependence on expensive platinum (Pt)‐based ...electrocatalysts. Here, an all‐dry process to transform electrochemically inert bulk WS2 into a multidomain electrochemical catalyst that enables scalable and cost‐effective implementation of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in water electrolysis is reported. Direct dry transfer of WS2 flakes to a gold thin film deposited on a silicon substrate provides a general platform to produce the working electrodes for HER with tunable charge transfer resistance. By treating the mechanically exfoliated WS2 with sequential Ar‐O2 plasma, mixed domains of WS2, WO3, and tungsten oxysulfide form on the surfaces of the flakes, which gives rise to a superior HER with much greater long‐term stability and steady‐state activity compared to Pt. Using density functional theory, ultraefficient atomic sites formed on the constituent nanodomains are identified, and the quantification of atomic‐scale reactivities and resulting HER activities fully support the experimental observations.
This paper reports an approach to maximize the electrocatalytic performance of mechanically exfoliated WS2 through sequential plasma treatments. This dry process can spatially tune the level of surface oxidation as well as the concentration of sulfur vacancies such that compositionally graded, mixed‐domain electrochemical catalysts induced hydrogen evolution reaction performance greater than platinum with high stability over centimeter‐scale areas.
Summary
Weedy rice is the same biological species as cultivated rice (Oryza sativa); it is also a noxious weed infesting rice fields worldwide. Its formation and population‐selective or ‐adaptive ...signatures are poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the phylogenetics, population structure and signatures of selection of Korean weedy rice by determining the whole genomes of 30 weedy rice, 30 landrace rice and ten wild rice samples. The phylogenetic tree and results of ancestry inference study clearly showed that the genetic distance of Korean weedy rice was far from the wild rice and near with cultivated rice. Furthermore, 537 genes showed evidence of recent positive or divergent selection, consistent with some adaptive traits. This study indicates that Korean weedy rice originated from hybridization of modern indica/indica or japonica/japonica rather than wild rice. Moreover, weedy rice is not only a notorious weed in rice fields, but also contains many untapped valuable traits or haplotypes that may be a useful genetic resource for improving cultivated rice.
During the maternal-to-zygotic transition (MZT), maternal RNAs are actively degraded and replaced by newly synthesized zygotic transcripts in a highly coordinated manner. However, it remains largely ...unknown how maternal mRNA decay is triggered in early vertebrate embryos. Here, through genome-wide profiling of RNA abundance and 3′ modification, we show that uridylation is induced at the onset of maternal mRNA clearance. The temporal control of uridylation is conserved in vertebrates. When the homologs of terminal uridylyltransferases TUT4 and TUT7 (TUT4/7) are depleted in zebrafish and Xenopus, maternal mRNA clearance is significantly delayed, leading to developmental defects during gastrulation. Short-tailed mRNAs are selectively uridylated by TUT4/7, with the highly uridylated transcripts degraded faster during the MZT than those with unmodified poly(A) tails. Our study demonstrates that uridylation plays a crucial role in timely mRNA degradation, thereby allowing the progression of early development.
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•TUT4 and TUT7 are conserved writers of U tail in vertebrates•mRNA uridylation is induced during early embryogenesis•Uridylation facilitates the programmed elimination of maternal RNAs•TUT4 and TUT7 are required for gastrulation in zebrafish and Xenopus
An embryo begins its life with maternally deposited RNAs that undergo timely translation and degradation. Chang et al. show that terminal uridylyltransferases add uridine tails to trigger decay of short poly(A)-tailed RNAs and that uridylation is critical for temporal organization of transcriptome in early vertebrate embryos.
Low-level somatic mutations have been shown to be the major genetic etiology of intractable epilepsy. The extents thereof, however, have yet to be systematically and accurately explored in a large ...cohort of resected epilepsy brain tissues. Moreover, clinically useful and precise analysis tools for detecting low-level somatic mutations from unmatched formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) brain samples, the most clinically relevant samples, are still lacking. In total, 446 tissues samples from 232 intractable epilepsy patients with various brain pathologies were analyzed using deep sequencing (average read depth, 1112x) of known epilepsy-related genes (up to 28 genes) followed by confirmatory site-specific amplicon sequencing. Pathogenic mutations were discovered in 31.9% (74 of 232) of the resected epilepsy brain tissues and were recurrently found in only eight major focal epilepsy genes, including
AKT3, DEPDC5, MTOR, PIK3CA, TSC1, TSC2, SCL35A2
, and
BRAF
. Somatic mutations, two-hit mutations, and germline mutations accounted for 22.0% (51), 0.9% (2), and 9.1% (21) of the patients with intractable epilepsy, respectively. The majority of pathogenic somatic mutations (62.3%, 33 of 53) had a low variant allelic frequency of less than 5%. The use of deep sequencing replicates in the eight major focal epilepsy genes robustly increased PPVs to 50–100% and sensitivities to 71–100%. In an independent FCDII cohort of only unmatched FFPE brain tissues, deep sequencing replicates in the eight major focal epilepsy genes identified pathogenic somatic mutations in 33.3% (5 of 15) of FCDII individuals (similar to the genetic detecting rate in the entire FCDII cohort) without any false-positive calls. Deep sequencing replicates of major focal epilepsy genes in unmatched FFPE brain tissues can be used to accurately and efficiently detect low-level somatic mutations, thereby improving overall patient care by enriching genetic counseling and informing treatment decisions.
The precise control of plasmonic nanostructures and their use for less invasive apoptotic pathway-based therapeutics are important but challenging. Here, we introduce a highly controlled synthetic ...strategy for plasmonic core-petal nanoparticles (CPNs) with massively branched and plasmonically coupled nanostructures. The formation of CPNs was facilitated by the gold chloride-induced oxidative disassembly and rupture of the polydopamine corona around Au nanoparticles and subsequent growth of Au nanopetals. We show that CPNs can act as multifunctional nanoprobes that induce dual photodynamic and photothermal therapeutic effects without a need for organic photosensitizers, coupled with the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and allow for imaging and analyzing cells. Near-infrared laser-activated CPNs can optically monitor and efficiently kill cancer cells via apoptotic pathway by dual phototherapeutic effects and ROS-mediated oxidative intracellular damage with a relatively mild increase in temperature, low laser power, and short laser exposure time.
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