Objectives: To evaluate in vitro antitumor effects of bee honey (BH) and Nigella sativa (NS) on HepG2 through their antioxidant and apoptotic activities. Methods: HepG2 cell line was treated with different concentrations of diluted unfractionated BH and different concentrations of alcohol extract of NS. Exposure lasted for different time durations (6-72 hours), both dose-response and time course-response were conducted. Cell viability was tested by trypan blue exclusion test. Total antioxidant status and caspase-3 activity were estimated in the cell lysate. Nitric oxide levels were measured in culture supernatants of both treated and untreated HepG2 at all indicated times. Results: Treatment of HepG2 cells with BH and NS leads to a significant decrease in both the number of viable HepG2 cells and the levels of nitric oxide on one hand, but improvement of the total antioxidant status and caspase-3 activity on the other, especially in HepG2 cells treated with higher doses of BH and NS (20% and 5000 μg/mL, respectively) and for longer duration (72 hours). Conclusions: BH and NS are effective in reducing the viability of HepG2 cells, improving their antioxidant status and inducing their apoptotic death.

Recent research has tried to use exosomal RNAs (coding and noncoding) as potential diagnostic markers for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Initially, by using bioinformatics, we selected an HCC-exosomal RNA-based biomarker panel. The choice of this panel depends on the integration of Ras-related in brain (RAB11A) gene expression and its competing endogenous network. This network includes long noncoding RNA RP11-513I15.6 (lncRNA-RP11-513I15.6) and microRNA-1262 (miR-1262). Secondly, we tried to validate the expression of this network in the sera of 60 patients with HCC in comparison with 42 chronic hepatitis C virus-infected patients and 18 healthy controls. Then we assessed the diagnostic efficiency of this panel using a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. The panel of 3 exosomal RNA-based biomarkers (lncRNA-RP11-513I15.6, miR-1262, and RAB11A) showed excellent sensitivity and specificity in discriminating patients with HCC from patients with chronic hepatitis C virus and healthy controls. Among these 3 RNAs, serum RAB11A mRNA was the most independent prognostic factor. The selected circulatory exosomal RNA-based biomarker panel showed its ability to be used as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker tool for HCC. Moreover, these biomarkers could be therapeutic targets.

The detection of urinary HYAL1 and survivin RNA is a promising noninvasive test for bladder cancer early detection. HYAL1 RNA was more sensitive and specific than urine cytology. Semiquantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction is favored for its high sensitivity and specificity.

The circulatory RNA-based biomarker panel can serve as a potential biomarker for HCC diagnosis and prognosis.

Plasma levels of HDACs and copper may be used as peripheral biomarkers in diagnosis of AD, while IL-8 level could be a useful biomarker in following AD progression.

Background: Bladder cancer cells illustrate major disruptions in their DNA methylation patterns as compared with normal ones. Authors aimed to identify epigenetic molecular markers in urine for early detection of bladder cancer.Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the methylation status of RARb 2 and APC genes in urine samples from 210 bladder cancer patients, 61 patients with benign urological diseases, and 49 healthy volunteers by using methylation-specific PCR.Results: Methylated RARb 2 and APC were significantly higher in bladder cancer patients (62.8%, 59.5%) than benign (16.4%, 5%) but not detected in healthy volunteers (0%) at (P < 0.0001). Both methylated genes showed no significant difference among clinicopathologic factors; however, they were detected in all grades and stages. Among the 128 patients with bilharzial bladder cancer, 94 (73.4%) showed methylated RARb 2 and 86 (67.2%) showed methylated APC. Homoplasmic methylation pattern of both genes were only detected in bilharzial bladder cancer cases. Both sensitivities and specificities of the methylated genes for bladder cancer detection were superior to urine cytology and when altogether combined, the sensitivities improved to (91.8%), (93.5%), (91.9%), and (80.9%) in detection of: bladder cancer, non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, low-grade tumors, and bilharzial associated bladder cancer, respectively.Conclusion: Thus, methylated RARb 2 and APC genes might be valuable urinary molecular markers for early detection of bilharzial and nonbilharzial bladder cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 20(8); 1657-64. Ó2011 AACR.

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The aim of this study is to identify micro-ribonucleic acid (microRNA) and its target, in addition to their relationship to the outcome in breast cancer (BC). To achieve this aim, we investigated microRNA-10b (miR-10b) and minichromosome maintenance complex component 5 (MCM5 mRNA) expression in 230 breast tissue samples by real-time PCR and semiquantitative conventional RT-PCR, respectively. Relapse-free survival (RFS) associated with miRNA-10b and MCM5 mRNA were tested by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. The impact of miRNA-10b andMCM5 mRNA expression on the survival was evaluated by Cox proportional hazard regression model. The expression of miRNA-10b and MCM5 mRNA was positive in 86.4 and 79.7 % breast cancer patients, respectively. The overall concordance rate between miRNA-10b and MCM5 RNA was 90.4 %. The median follow-up period was 50 months. The survival analysis showed that high levels of both miR-10b and MCM5 were associated with short relapse free survival of BC. We identified MCM5 mRNA expression changes consistent with the miRNA-10b target regulation. Thus, we could consider miRNA-10b and MCM5 mRNA as prognostic markers and potential therapeutic targets in breast cancer to be applied to other patient data sets.