Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women. Serum biomarkers such as cancer antigen 15-3 (CA15-3), cancer antigen 125 (CA125), and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) can be used as diagnostic and prognostic factors and can also provide valuable information during follow-up. However, serum protein biomarkers show limited diagnostic sensitivity and specificity in stand-alone assays because their levels reflect tumor burden. To validate whether biomarkers in nipple discharge may serve as novel biomarkers for breast cancer, we composed a panel of potential cancer biomarkers, including CA15-3, CA125, CEA, and malignant tumor-specific growth factor (TSGF), and evaluated their expression in both serum and nipple discharge in order to explore the expression and significance of estrogen receptor (ER), progestrone receptor (PR), epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER2/neu), CA15-3, CA125, CEA, and TSGF expression for their combined predictive value for breast cancer and in judging the prognosis of breast cancer. Univariate analysis revealed that combined detection of CA15-3, CA125, CEA, and TSGF in nipple discharge served as novel biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer, but in the multivariate analyses the adverse effects of the four biomarkers combination in nipple discharge positivity on overall survival were lost. Multivariate analysis revealed that the positivity of the combined detection of the four biomarkers in both nipple discharge and serum was significantly higher than that of other detection methods. Thus, the combined detection of these four biomarkers both in serum and nipple discharge was retained as an independent prognostic variable in breast cancer patients. Our results indicate that CA15-3, CA125, CEA, and TSGF in nipple discharge can serve as novel biomarkers in the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer.

A novel two-step extraction technique combining ionic-liquid-based dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction with magnetic solid-phase extraction was developed for the preconcentration and separation of aflatoxins in animal feedstuffs before high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection. In this work, ionic liquid 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate was used as the extractant in dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction, and hydrophobic pelargonic acid modified Fe O magnetic nanoparticles as an efficient adsorbent were applied to retrieve the aflatoxins-containing ionic liquid. Notably, the target of magnetic nanoparticles was the ionic liquid rather than the aflatoxins. Because of the rapid mass transfer associated with the dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction and magnetic solid phase steps, fast extraction could be achieved. The main parameters affecting the extraction recoveries of aflatoxins were investigated and optimized. Under the optimum conditions, vortexing at 2500 rpm for 1 min in the dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction and magnetic solid-phase extraction and then desorption by sonication for 2 min with acetonitrile as eluent. The recoveries were 90.3-103.7% with relative standard deviations of 3.2-6.4%. Good linearity was observed with correlation coefficients ranged from 0.9986 to 0.9995. The detection limits were 0.632, 0.087, 0.422 and 0.146 ng/mL for aflatoxins B , B2, G1, and G2, respectively. The results were also compared with the pretreatment method carried out by conventional immunoaffinity columns.

The complete mitochondrial genome of Bombyx mori strain Yu39 (Lepidoptera: Bombycidae) is a circular molecule of 15,652 bp in length, containing 37 typical mitochondrial genes: 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNAs, 2 ribosomal RNAs and a non-coding AT-rich region. Its gene order and arrangement are identical to the common type found in most insect mitogenomes. All PCGs start with a typical ATN codon, except for the cox1 gene, which begins with uncertained codon. All PCGs terminate in the common stop codon TAA, except for the cox1 and cox2, which use single T as their stop codons. The non-coding AT-rich region is 494-bp long, located between rrnS and trnM genes. It contains some structures of repeated motifs and microsatellite-like elements characteristic of the other lepidopterons.

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