HLA-B*13:01 was associated with the development of the dapsone hypersensitivity syndrome among patients with leprosy. (Funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and others.).

Exposure to genotoxic agents is a major cause of human cancer, and cellular responses to genotoxic stress are important defense mechanisms. These responses are very complex, involving many cellular factors that form an extensive signal transduction network. This network includes a protein kinase cascade that connects the detection of DNA damage to the activation of transcription factors, which in turn regulate the expression of genes involved in DNA repair, cell cycle arrest and programmed cell death (apoptosis). The mitogen-activated protein kinases are the best-studied members of the kinase cascade with an acknowledged role in the genotoxic stress response. However, the initial activation of the protein kinase cascade is not fully understood, although several protein kinases, such as ataxia telangiectasia, mutated (ATM), ATM- and Rad3-related (ATR), and DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK) in humans, are increasingly recognized for their potential roles in the sensing of DNA damage and initiating the subsequent protein kinase cascade. In this review, the properties of these three kinases are discussed and their functions in the initiation of the genotoxic stress response are explored.

Ceramide has been suggested to participate in the neuronal cell death that leads to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but its role is not yet well-understood. We compared the levels of six ceramide subspecies, which differ in the length of their fatty acid moieties, in brains from patients who suffered from AD, other neuropathological disorders, or both. We found elevated levels of Cer16, Cer18, Cer20, and Cer24 in brains from patients with any of the tested neural defects. Moreover, ceramide levels were highest in patients with more than one neuropathologic abnormality. Interestingly, the range of values was higher among brains with neural defects than in controls, suggesting that the regulation of ceramide synthesis is normally under tight control, and that this tight control may be lost during neurodegeneration. These changes, however, did not alter the ratio between the tested ceramide species. To explore the mechanisms underlying this dysregulation, we evaluated the expression of four genes connected to ceramide metabolism: ASMase, NSMase 2, GALC, and UGCG. The patterns of gene expression were complex, but overall, ASMase, NSMase 2, and GALC were upregulated in specimens from patients with neuropathologic abnormalities in comparison with age-matched controls. Such findings suggest these genes as attractive candidates both for diagnostic purposes and for intervening in neurodegenerative processes.

Our data suggested that circulating miRNAs could serve as biomarkers for CaP, and compared to single miRNA, the 5 miRNAs panel can accurately discriminate CaP from BPH and healthy controls with high sensitivity and specificity, and therefore, combined with routine PSA test, these 5 CaP-specific miRNAs may help improve CaP diagnosis in clinical application.