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The tentative clinical application of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), such as human embryonic stem cells and human induced pluripotent stem cells, is restricted by the possibility of xenogenic contamination resulting from the use of mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) as a feeder layer. Therefore, we investigated hPSC cultures on biomaterials with different elasticities that were grafted with different nanosegments. We prepared dishes coated with polyvinylalcohol-co-itaconic acid hydrogels grafted with an oligopeptide derived from vitronectin (KGGPQVTRGDVFTMP) with elasticities ranging from 10.3 to 30.4 kPa storage moduli by controlling the crosslinking time. The hPSCs cultured on the stiffest substrates (30.4 kPa) tended to differentiate after five days of culture, whereas the hPSCs cultured on the optimal elastic substrates (25 kPa) maintained their pluripotency for over 20 passages under xeno-free conditions. These results indicate that cell culture matrices with optimal elasticity can maintain the pluripotency of hPSCs in culture.

We aimed to determine whether PAX1/SOX1 methylation could be translated to clinical practice for cervical neoplasia detection when used alone and in combination with current cytology-based Pap screening. We conducted a multicenter case–control study in 11 medical centers in Taiwan from December 2009 to November 2010. Six hundred seventy-six patients were included in the analysis, including 330 in the training set and 346 in the testing set. Multiplex quantitative methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed with a TaqMan probe system using a LightCycler 480 Real-Time PCR System (Roche). The level of human papilloma virus (HPV) was analyzed using a Hybrid Capture 2 system (Digene). Receiver operating characteristic curves were generated to obtain the best cutoff values from the training data set. The sensitivities, specificities, and accuracies were validated in the testing set. The sensitivities for methylated (m) PAX1m and SOX1m and HPV testing for detecting CIN3+ lesions were 0.64, 0.71, and 0.89, and the specificities were 0.91, 0.77, and 0.68, respectively. Combined parallel testing of PAX1m/SOX1m tests with Pap smearing showed superior specificity (0.84/0.71 vs. 0.66, respectively) and similar sensitivity (0.93/0.96 vs. 0.97) to the combination of Pap smear results and HPV testing. Thus, combined parallel testing using Pap smears and PAX1 or SOX1 methylation tests may provide better performance than a combination of Pap smears with HPV testing in detection for cervical neoplasia.

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Endometrial stromal tumors are rare uterine tumors (<1%). Four main categories include endometrial stromal nodule, low-grade endometrial stromal sarcoma (LG-ESS), high-grade endometrial stromal sarcoma (HG-ESS), and uterine undifferentiated sarcoma (UUS). This review is a series of articles discussing the uterine sarcomas. LG-ESS, a hormone-dependent tumor harboring chromosomal rearrangement, is an indolent tumor with a favorable prognosis, but characterized by late recurrences even in patients with Stage I disease, suggesting the requirement of a long-term follow-up. Patients with HG-ESS, based on the identification of YWHAE-NUTM2A/B (YWHAE-FAM22A/B) gene fusion, typically present with advanced stage diseases and frequently have recurrences, usually within a few years after initial surgery. UUS is, a high-grade sarcoma, extremely rare, lacking a specific line of differentiation, which is a diagnosis of exclusion (the wastebasket category, which fails to fulfill the morphological and immunohistochemical criteria of translocation-positive ESS). Surgery is the main strategy in the management of uterine sarcoma. Due to rarity, complex biological characteristics, and unknown etiology and risk factors of uterine sarcomas, the role of adjuvant therapy is not clear. Only LG-ESS might respond to progestins or aromatase inhibitors.