Background-Coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality is rising in many developing countries. We examined how much of the increase in CHD mortality in Beijing, China, between 1984 and 1999 could be attributed to changes in major cardiovascular risk factors and assessed the impact of medical and surgical treatments. Methods and Results-A validated, cell-based mortality model synthesized data on (1) patient numbers, (2) uptake of specific medical and surgical treatments, (3) treatment effectiveness, and (4) population trends in major cardiovascular risk factors (smoking, total cholesterol, blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes). Main data sources were the WHO MONICA and Sino-MONICA studies, the Chinese Multi-provincial Cohort Study, routine hospital statistics, and published meta-analyses. Age-adjusted CHD mortality rates increased by Ϸ50% in men and 27% in women (1608 more deaths in 1999 than expected by application of 1984 rates). Most of this increase (Ϸ77%, or 1397 additional deaths) was attributable to substantial rises in total cholesterol levels (more than 1 mmol/L), plus increases in diabetes and obesity. Blood pressure decreased slightly, whereas smoking prevalence increased in men but decreased substantially in women.In 1999, medical and surgical treatments in patients together prevented or postponed Ϸ642 deaths, mainly from initial treatments for acute myocardial infarction (Ϸ41%), hypertension (24%), angina (15%), secondary prevention (11%), and heart failure (10%). Multiway sensitivity analyses did not greatly influence the results. Conclusions-Much of the dramatic CHD mortality increases in Beijing can be explained by rises in total cholesterol, reflecting an increasingly "Western" diet. Without cardiological treatments, increases would have been even greater.

Objective Macrophages are critical contributors in abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) disease. We examined the ability of MKEY, a peptide inhibitor of CXCL4-CCL5 interaction, to influence AAA progression in murine models. Methods and Results AAAs were created in 10-week-old male C57BL/6 mice by transient infrarenal aortic porcine pancreatic elastase (PPE) infusion. Mice were treated with MKEY via intravenous injection either 1) before PPE infusion, or 2) after aneurysm initiation. Immunostaining demonstrated CCL5 and CCR5 expression on aneurysmal aortae and mural monocytes/macrophages, respectively. MKEY treatment partially inhibited transmural AAA migration of adaptively transferred leukocytes in recipient mice. While all vehicle-pretreated mice developed AAA, aneurysms formed in only 60% (3/5) and 14% (1/7) of mice pretreated with MKEY at 10 and 20 mg /kg, respectively. MKEY pretreatment reduced aortic diameter enlargement, preserved medial elastin fibers and smooth muscle cells, and attenuated mural macrophage infiltration, angiogenesis, and aortic MMP2 & 9 expression following PPE infusion. MKEY initiated after PPE infusion also stabilized and/or reduced enlargement of existing AAAs. Finally, MKEY treatment was effective in limiting AAA formation following angiotensin II infusion in apolipoprotein E deficient mice. Conclusion MKEY suppresses AAA formation and progression in two complementary experimental models. Peptide inhibition of CXCL4-CCL5 interactions may represent a viable translational strategy to limit progression of human AAA disease.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most malignant human tumours because of its high incidence of metastasis. The mechanisms underlying the metastasis of HCC, however, remain poorly understood. In this study, we performed cDNA microarray analysis to profile gene expression patterns in two subtypes of HCC, solitary large HCC (SLHCC) and nodular HCC (NHCC), which differ significantly in the incidence of metastasis. Among 668 genes that were differentially expressed, we focused on RhoC, whose expression was significantly decreased in SLHCC compared to NHCC. The expression of RhoC in HCC and pericarcinomatous liver tissues (PCLT) was analysed at both the mRNA and protein levels by reverse transcription -polymerase chain reaction (RT -PCR) and Western blotting. In addition, immunohistochemistry was also performed on 94 cases of HCC with follow-up information. Collectively, our data indicate that the expression of RhoC significantly increased in HCC compared to PCLT; extrahepatic metastatic lesions expressed significantly higher levels of RhoC than the corresponding intrahepatic HCC tissues. There is a highly significant correlation of the RhoC expression levels with tumour vein invasion, number of tumour nodes and the status of differentiation. Significantly, the HCC patients with RhoC-positive expression had shorter survival than those with RhoC-negative expression. Together, our findings suggest a strong correlation between the expression of RhoC and HCC metastasis, implicating RhoC as a potential prognosis marker and therapeutic target for HCC.

No abstract

BackgroundMicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a family of endogenous, small and noncoding RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression by suppressing translation or degrading mRNAs. Recently, many studies investigated the association between hsa-miR-196a2 rs11614913 polymorphism and cancer risk, which showed inconclusive results.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe conducted a meta-analysis of 15 studies that included 9,341 cancer cases and 10,569 case-free controls. We assessed the strength of the association, using odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Overall, individuals with the TC/CC genotypes were associated with higher cancer risk than those with the TT genotype (OR = 1.18, 95% CI = 1.03–1.34, P<0.001 for heterogeneity test). In the stratified analyses, we observed that the CC genotype might modulate breast cancer risk (OR = 1.11, 95%CI = 1.01–1.23, P heterogeneity = 0.210) and lung cancer risk (OR = 1.25, 95%CI = 1.06–1.46, P heterogeneity = 0.958), comparing with the TC/TT genotype. Moreover, a significantly increased risk was found among Asian populations in a dominant model (TC/CC versus TT, OR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.07–1.43, P heterogeneity = 0.006).ConclusionsThese findings supported that hsa-miR-196a2 rs11614913 polymorphism may contribute to the susceptibility of cancers.

The RhoC gene may be related to malignant transformation and development of HCC and may play an important role in the invasion and metastasis of HCC by overexpression but not mutation.

Purpose: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most deadly human cancers because of its high incidence of metastasis. Our previous work identified a strong correlation between increased expression of RhoC and HCC metastasis. Here, we investigate to define the role of RhoC in HCC metastasis. Furthermore, we sought to determine whether inhibition of the expression of RhoC might block the metastasis of HCC in vivo. Experimental Design: A stable retroviral small interfering RNA approach was employed to selectively knockdown the expression of RhoC in vitro and in vivo. Invasion and migration assay, MTT and fluorescence-activated cell sorting analysis, Rho activity assay, and immunofluorescence staining were carried out to characterize RhoC in vitro. An anti-RhoC retroviral gene delivery BALB/c nude mice model was established to investigate whether knockdown of the expression of RhoC might inhibit the metastasis of HCC in vivo. Results: We confirmed the correlation of RhoC expression and metastatic potentials of HCC cell lines.We also showed that suppression of RhoC expression resulted in inhibition of invasion and migration without an apparent effect on cell survival and proliferation in HCCLM3 cells. Furthermore, a similar effect of RhoC on autotaxin-induced invasion of HCCLM3 cells was also observed. Significantly, we successfully adopted an HCC metastatic mouse model that allowed us to show that knockdown of the RhoC expression resulted in inhibition of metastasis of HCC in vivo for the first time. Conclusions: Our results show a critical role of RhoC in metastasis of HCC, implicating RhoC as a potential therapeutic target to block HCC metastasis.Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies in Asia and Africa, especially in China (1, 2). During the past decade, the long-term survival remains unsatisfactory because of a high incidence of recurrence and metastasis after the hepatic resection, with a 5-year actuarial recurrence rate of 75% to 100% reported in the literature (3). Thus, the inhibition of invasion and metastasis is of great importance in the HCC therapies.Available information indicates that invasion and metastasis is to a large extent attributable to the ability of cell migration (4, 5). Rho-GTPases, members of Ras superfamily of small GTPases, shuttle between inactive GDP-bound and active GTPbound form and exhibit intrinsic GTPase activities. Activation of the Rho protein leads to the assembly of the actin-myosin contractile filaments into focal adhesion complexes that lead to cell polarity and facilitate motility (6). Recently, RhoC has attracted interest because its increased expression has been linked to increased invasion in breast, melanoma, pancreatic, colon, bladder, hepatocellular, non-small cell lung carcinoma, and primary gastric tumor or cell lines (7 -13). Our previous study revealed that RhoC was a prognostic marker with HCC and its expression was correlated with invasion and metastasis of HCC (14 -16). Interestingly, a recent study using RhoCdefic...

Telmisartan effectively suppresses the progression of elastase-induced AAAs without apparent effect on PPARγ activation or T-cell differentiation. These findings reinforce the critical importance of endogenous AT1 activation in experimental AAA pathogenesis and reinforce the translational potential of AT1 inhibition in medical aneurysm disease management.