No abstract

No abstract

Among patients with ACE-inhibitor-induced angioedema, the time to complete resolution of edema was significantly shorter with icatibant than with combination therapy with a glucocorticoid and an antihistamine. (Funded by Shire and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01154361.).

Key Points• First comprehensive and timeresolved characterization of platelet cAMP/PKA signaling upon iloprost treatment.• More than 2700 phosphorylation sites quantified between 4 time points and from 3 individual healthy donors.One of the most important physiological platelet inhibitors is endothelium-derived prostacyclin which stimulates the platelet cyclic adenosine monophosphate/protein kinase A (cAMP/PKA)-signaling cascade and inhibits virtually all platelet-activating key mechanisms. Using quantitative mass spectrometry, we analyzed time-resolved phosphorylation patterns in human platelets after treatment with iloprost, a stable prostacyclin analog, for 0, 10, 30, and 60 seconds to characterize key mediators of platelet inhibition and activation in 3 independent biological replicates. We quantified over 2700 different phosphorylated peptides of which 360 were significantly regulated upon stimulation. This comprehensive and time-resolved analysis indicates that platelet inhibition is a multipronged process involving different kinases and phosphatases as well as many previously unanticipated proteins and pathways. (Blood. 2014;123(5):e1-e10)

1b. Laryngoscope, 2016 127:303-308, 2017.

BackgroundThe prognostic role of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) after induction chemotherapy using docetaxel, cisplatin and fluorouracil (TPF) prior to surgery and adjuvant (chemo)radiation in locally advanced oral squamous cell cancer (OSCC) was evaluated.MethodsIn this prospective study, peripheral blood samples from 40 patients of the phase II study TISOC-1 (NCT01108042) with OSCC before, during, and after treatment were taken. CTCs were quantified using laser scanning cytometry of anti– epithelial cell adhesion molecule–stained epithelial cells. Their detection was correlated with clinical risk factors, recurrence-free (RFS) and overall survival (OS).ResultsBefore starting the treatment CTCs were detected in 32 of 40 patients (80%). The median number at baseline was 3295 CTCs/ml. The median maximal number of CTCs during treatment was 5005 CTCs/ml. There was a significant increase of CTCs before postoperative radiotherapy compared to baseline before 1st cycle of IC (p = 0.011), 2nd cycle of IC (p = 0.001), 3rd cycle of IC (p = 0.004), and before surgery (p = 0.002), but not compared to end of therapy (p = 0.118). CTCs at baseline >median was also associated to risk of recurrence (p = 0.014). Maximal CTCs during therapy >median was more frequently observed in tumors of the oral cavity (p=0.022) and related to higher risk of death during follow-up (p = 0.028). Patients with CTCs at baseline >median value had significant lower RFS than patients with CTCs at baseline median during the complete course of therapy had a significantly lower OS than patients with values

Modern mass spectrometry setups used in today's proteomics studies generate vast amounts of raw data, calling for highly efficient data processing and analysis tools. Software for analyzing these data is either monolithic (easy to use, but sometimes too rigid) or workflow-driven (easy to customize, but sometimes complex). Thermo Proteome Discoverer (PD) is a powerful software for workflow-driven data analysis in proteomics which, in our eyes, achieves a good trade-off between flexibility and usability. Here, we present two open-source plugins for PD providing additional functionality: LFQProfiler for label-free quantification of peptides and proteins, and RNP(xl) for UV-induced peptide-RNA cross-linking data analysis. LFQProfiler interacts with existing PD nodes for peptide identification and validation and takes care of the entire quantitative part of the workflow. We show that it performs at least on par with other state-of-the-art software solutions for label-free quantification in a recently published benchmark ( Ramus, C.; J. Proteomics 2016 , 132 , 51 - 62 ). The second workflow, RNP(xl), represents the first software solution to date for identification of peptide-RNA cross-links including automatic localization of the cross-links at amino acid resolution and localization scoring. It comes with a customized integrated cross-link fragment spectrum viewer for convenient manual inspection and validation of the results.

Mucosal melanoma of the head and neck is a rare and aggressive tumor entity with a poor prognosis. The standard treatment is radical tumor resection, with or without adjuvant radiation, where conventional chemotherapies in advanced stage or recurrent diseases have shown little benefit. Overexpression of the programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) is a common feature in human cancer. Although PD-L1 is an acknowledged prognostic biomarker for dismal prognosis in other tumors of the head and neck, expression and clinical relevance of PD-L1 in mucosal melanoma have not been addressed so far. We assessed PD-L1 expression using immunohistochemical staining in 23 tumor samples from patients with primary mucosal melanoma and correlated expression status with clinicopathological and outcome data. Tumors were derived from the nasal cavity (43.5%), nasal sinuses (43.5%), and the conjunctiva (13%). All patients had undergone surgery; 39% of all patients received adjuvant radiation and 13% were administered systemic interferon therapy. The probability of 1- and 5-year overall survival was 87 and 34.8%, respectively. The mean overall survival was 51 months and the mean recurrence-free survival was 23 months. Immunohistochemical staining showed PD-L1 expression in 13% (3/23) of mucosal melanoma. In contrast, prominent PD-L1 staining was detected in 100% of tissue sections from a control group of cutaneous melanoma (n=9). PD-L1 expression in mucosal melanoma was not correlated with age, sex, nor anatomical localization of the tumor. Interestingly, patients with PD-L1-positive mucosal melanoma had a significantly longer recurrence-free survival (P=0.026). In contrast to cutaneous melanoma and some other malignancies, a relevant PD-L1 overexpression in mucosal melanoma could not be confirmed.