No abstract

Background The pregnant women often take Elevit as the multivitamin supplement which has a substantial amount of biotin that might potentially interfere with the HBsAg immunoassay performed by the prevalent Sysmex system in clinical laboratories. We therefore wanted to determine this, so that the therapeutic intervention on the hepatitis B virus infection during pregnancy and birth would not be missed. Methods Elevit was both serially diluted in vitro and orally taken by healthy volunteers whose blood samples were then taken at different time points. All samples were added to a serum sample with a known result of HBsAg and then measured by Sysmex. The Abbott immunoassay system was used as the control as it involves no streptavidin‐biotin binding in the reagent set. Besides, the HBsAg results were compared between the pregnant women taking or not taking Elevit. Results Biotin at 25 ng/mL in the Elevit started to suppress the HBsAg and reached about 50% suppression at 100 ng/mL on Sysmex. In the volunteers, biotin reached the peak concentration at 2 hours. However, their blood samples showed no suppression on the HBsAg detection by Sysmex. In samples from pregnant women who took Elevit, the HBsAg results by Sysmex were highly correlated with those by Abbott (R2 = 0.96). Comparison of the results from Sysmex between the age‐ and pregnancy‐matched females with and without Elevit intake showed no difference. Conclusion Elevit intake in pregnant women shows no significant interference with HBsAg immunoassay on Sysmex.

Lung cancer has become a challenging health problem worldwide. More than 1.0 million people die of the disease each year. 1,2 According to the histopathological classification, lung cancer can be divided into small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) and NSCLC, in which NSCLC accounts for approximately 85% and is the most common type of clinical lung cancer. NSCLC can be subdivided into squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma and large cell carcinoma. [3][4][5] In spite of the development in lung cancer diagnosis and treatment, the

Aims: Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common clinical lung cancer. Polymorphonuclear-myeloid derived suppressor cells (PMN-MDSCs), which are the major population of MDSCs, are involved in NSCLC progression. Recently, it was found that lectin-type oxidized LDL receptor 1 (LOX-1) could identify humsn PMN-MDSCs. However, the role of CD15+LOX-1+ PMN-MDSCs in NSCLC early diagnosis has not been revealed. Here, we tried to confirm the application of the newly-identified CD15+LOX-1+ PMN-MDSCs in the early diagnosis of NSCLC. Methods: Flow cytometry (FCM) was used to detect the proportion of CD15+LOX-1+ PMN-MDSCs in the peripheral blood (PB) of healthy controls (HC) and NSCLC patients. The correlation of CD15+LOX-1+ PMN-MDSC frequency with levels of cytokeratin 19-fragments (CYFRA21-1), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125) was analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to estimate the diagnostic efficacy of CD15+LOX-1+ PMN-MDSCs for NSCLC. Additionally, the association of CD15+LOX-1+ PMN-MDSC frequency with NSCLC prognosis/recurrence after surgery was explored. Results: The proportion of CD15+LOX-1+ PMN-MDSCs increased in PB of NSCLC patients. CD15+LOX-1+ PMN-MDSC proportion was positively correlated with levels of CEA and CYFRA21-1. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of PMN-MDSC percentage was higher than CYFRA21-1, CEA and CA125. The proportion of CD15+LOX-1+ PMN-MDSCs decreased in patients after surgery. The frequency of CD15+LOX-1+ PMN-MDSCs was lower in NSCLC patients without recurrence compared to those with recurrence after surgery. Conclusions: Circulating CD15+LOX-1+ PMN-MDSCs are a potential diagnostic marker for NSCLC, and are associated with NSCLC prognosis and recurrence after surgery.

Background: Immunoglobulin superfamily 6 (IGSF6) is a novel member of the immunoglobulin superfamily, and it is related to multiple diseases. However, the association of IGSF6 with the prognosis and anti-tumor immune response in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remains unknown. Results: By analyzing IGSF6 expression in different cancers based on the pan-cancer data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), it was found that IGSF6 expression was decreased in LUAD. Results of quantitative-real-time-PCR (qRT-PCR), western-blot and immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining further confirmed this finding in paired tumor and normal tissues of LUAD patients. Meanwhile, promoter methylation level of IGSF6in LUAD samples increased compared to that in peritumor samples, implying a potential mechanism that leads to the aberrant expression of IGSF6 in LUAD. By estimating the correlation between IGSF6 expression and the prognosis of LUAD, we found that low IGSF6 expression was significantly related to a worse survival rate. The enrichment analysis of IGSF6 co-expression showed that IGSF6 expression was closely associated with gene sets involved in immune cell proliferation and exogenous antigen presentation. In addition, high IGSF6 expression was positively correlated with immune infiltrates with anti-tumor activity, including M1 macropahges, dendritic cells (DCs), and T helper 1 (Th1) cells. Finally, IGSF6 protein was indicated to be mainly located on the membrane of macrophages in LUAD, which might enable exogenous antigen uptake and presentation so as to regulate anti-tumor immune response. Conclusions:IGSF6 is a biomarker for LUAD, which may promote the anti-tumor immune response leading to ameliorative prognosis.