Sensitivity map of laser tweezers Raman spectroscopy for single-cell analysis of colorectal cancer

Raman spectroscopy on single, living epithelial cells captured in a laser trap is shown to have diagnostic power over colorectal cancer. This new single-cell technology comprises three major components: primary culture processing of human tissue samples to produce single-cell suspensions, Raman detection on singly trapped cells, and diagnoses of the cells by artificial neural network classifications. it is compared with DNA flow cytometry for similarities and differences. Its advantages over tissue Raman spectroscopy are also discussed. In the actual construction of a diagnostic model for colorectal cancer, real patient data were taken to generate a training set of 320 Raman spectra and, a test set of 80. By incorporating outlier corrections to a conventional binary neural classifier, our network accomplished significantly better predictions than logistic regressions, with sensitivity improved from 77.5% to 86.3% and specificity improved from 81.3% to 86.3% for the training set and moderate improvements for the test set. Most important, the network approach enables a sensitivity map analysis to quantitate the relevance of each Raman band to the normal-to-cancer transform at the cell level. Our technique has direct clinic applications for diagnosing cancers and basic science potential in the study of cell dynamics of carcinogenesis. (C) 2007 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.

Diagnosis of colorectal cancer using Raman spectroscopy of laser-trapped single living epithelial cells

A single-cell diagnostic technique for epithelial cancers is developed by utilizing laser trapping and Raman spectroscopy to differentiate cancerous and normal epithelial cells. Single-cell suspensions were prepared from surgically removed human colorectal tissues following standard primary culture protocols and examined in a near-infrared laser-trapping Raman spectroscopy system, where living epithelial cells were investigated one by one. A diagnostic model was built on the spectral data obtained from 8 patients and validated by the data from 2 new patients. Our technique has potential applications from epithelial cancer diagnosis to the study of cell dynamics of carcinogenesis. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.

Sensitivity map of laser tweezers Raman spectroscopy for single-cell analysis of colorectal cancer

Raman spectroscopy on single, living epithelial cells captured in a laser trap is shown to have diagnostic power over colorectal cancer. This new single-cell technology comprises three major components: primary culture processing of human tissue samples to produce single-cell suspensions, Raman detection on singly trapped cells, and diagnoses of the cells by artificial neural network classifications. it is compared with DNA flow cytometry for similarities and differences. Its advantages over tissue Raman spectroscopy are also discussed. In the actual construction of a diagnostic model for colorectal cancer, real patient data were taken to generate a training set of 320 Raman spectra and, a test set of 80. By incorporating outlier corrections to a conventional binary neural classifier, our network accomplished significantly better predictions than logistic regressions, with sensitivity improved from 77.5% to 86.3% and specificity improved from 81.3% to 86.3% for the training set and moderate improvements for the test set. Most important, the network approach enables a sensitivity map analysis to quantitate the relevance of each Raman band to the normal-to-cancer transform at the cell level. Our technique has direct clinic applications for diagnosing cancers and basic science potential in the study of cell dynamics of carcinogenesis. (C) 2007 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.

Urinary nucleosides as biological markers for patients with colorectal cancer

AIM: Fourteen urinary nucleosides, primary degradation products of tRNA, were evaluated to know the potential as biological markers for patients with colorectal cancer.

三叶因子在结直肠癌组织中的表达与临床关系及三叶因子-2在大肠杆菌中的重组表达和活性研究

癌症是世界发达国家和许多发展中国家人口的疾病主要死亡原因之一，其中，每年结直肠癌的新增病例和死亡病例排在癌症的第三位。在我国，北京、上海等地的统计资料显示，结直肠癌的发病上升很快 ，已排在癌症的第二位。结直肠癌的发生发展过程涉及一系列细胞和分子事件的改变，包括基因结构的异常和基因表达谱的异常。三叶因子（trefoil factor, TFF）是在上世纪80年代末到90初初由不同研究小组先后发现的含特殊的三叶因子结构域的蛋白多肽，其结构域的特征是含38-40个氨基酸残基的肽段中，有6保守的个半胱氨酸残基以1—5、2—4、3—6的方式形成二硫键，从而形成紧密的三叶结构域。在哺乳动物体内目前发现的三叶因子有三种，由粘膜组织内不同细胞合成并分泌到粘膜表面，对粘膜起保护作用。在粘膜损伤时，可通过多种途径促进上皮细胞迁移和抑制细胞凋亡，并促进血管形成，参与粘膜损伤的修复和重建。三叶因子在肿瘤组织中表达，则可能对癌症的发展起促进作用。研究资料显示，三叶因子在肿瘤中的表达异常与多种肿瘤的发生和发展过程有关。我们通过DNA测序检测结直肠癌组织中TFF1和TFF3基因各外显子的核苷酸序列，以确定是否存在基因突变。并用QRT-PCR和免疫组织化学的方法检测结直肠癌组织中TFF1和TFF3的mRNA和蛋白质的表达水平，分析其表达与结直肠癌的临床和病理特征之间的关系。同时，用ELISA方法检测结直肠癌患者血清中TFF1和TFF3的含量，以分析其与临床的关系，并逐步研究这两种三叶因子有否可能作为结直肠癌有用的血清分子标记。 目前得到以下研究结果：①在TFF1基因5`-端非翻译区位于起始密码上游—2bp处有一高频率的（C→T）突变位点,频率为40%，在其他非编码区也发现若干个较低频率的突变位点。未发现TFF3的基因突变；②TFF1和TFF3的mRNA水平在不同患者结直肠癌组织中的表达水平差异很大。与临床病理关系由于样品例数较少，未作统计学出理。结直肠癌组织中TFF1和TFF3蛋白表达检出阳性率分别为90%和94%。TFF1的表达与结直肠癌临床及病理类型未发现统计学意义，TFF3的表达上调与肿瘤淋巴结转移有关；③结直肠癌患者血清中TFF1的含量为（78.6575±53.300ng/ml），比健康人群血清TFF1含量（19.6457±5.3880ng/ml），增高约4倍，这一结果属首次报道。结直肠癌患者血清中TFF3的含量为（27.96±21.985ng/ml），比正常人群血清TFF3含量（9.0875±2.0315ng/ml）增高约3 1 倍。TFF1和TFF3能否作为结直肠癌的血清分子标志，尚需完善相关资料和作进一步研究。 TFF1和TFF3分别含一个三叶结构域，在靠近C-末端有一个游离的半胱氨酸巯基，TFF1和TFF3通过此二硫键形成同源二聚体，是其活性的主要形式。TFF2含两个三叶结构域，在三叶结构域外其靠近N-端和C-端各有一个半胱氨酸，两者以二硫键相连，形成紧密的结构。我们用pET系统克隆和表达人TFF2(hTFF2)，以及TFF2三叶结构域外二硫键解开的突变型TFF2(MhTFF2)，并测定细胞迁移活性。结果获得高效表达的hTFF2和MhTFF2，占细胞质总蛋白量的40%以上，经亲和层析后得到样品纯度在95%以上。对HCT116细胞株的划痕试验表明，hTFF2和MhTFF2对HCT116细胞具有迁移作用，细胞迁移数约为对照BSA的1.5倍。 结论:①结直肠癌组织中三叶因子-1和三叶因子-3基因突变不是三叶因子表达异常的主要原因；②TFF1和TFF3的转录水平在不同结直肠癌组织中有很多差异，TFF3蛋白的高表达与结直肠癌淋巴转移有关；③血清中TFF1和TFF3的含量检测可能会成为结直肠癌有用的血清分子标志；④pET质粒系统可高效表达可溶性三叶因子-2，并可表达获得有细胞迁移活性的重组融合蛋白TFF2；⑤TFF2的三叶结构域外的二硫键对TFF2的细胞迁移活性不是必须的。

Applications of homemade kit in mutation detection of genes

Several methods of mutation detection, such as single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP), tandem SSCP/heteroduplex analysis and SNaPshot analysis were developed using homemade kit on ABI 310 genetic analyzer, and were successfully applied to mutation detection of 31 colorectal tumor samples. The sieving capability of homemade kit and commercial kit were compared, results demonstrate that homemade kit has higher resolution and shorter analysis time. In clinical tumor samples, 26% K-ras (exon 1) and 24% p53 (exons 7-8) were found to have mutations, and all mutations were single point variations. A majority of mutations occurred in one gene, only 1 tumor contained alterations in the two genes, which indicates that development of colorectal cancer lies on alternate pathways, and may correlate with different gene mutations.

A single-strand conformation polymorphism method by capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence for detection of the T1151A mutation in hMLH1 gene

Mutation of hMLH1 gene plays an important role in human tumorigenesis. A highly sensitive single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) method for detection of the T1151A mutation in exon 12 of the hMLH1 gene was for the first time developed employing laser-induced fluorescence capillary electrophoresis (LIF-CE). Effects of the concentration of linear polyacrylamide solution, running temperature, running voltage and the addition of glycerol on SSCP analysis were investigated, and the optimum separation conditions were defined. Thirty colorectal cancer patients and eight lung cancer patients were screened and the T1151A mutation was found in four of them. Based on CE-sequencing the mutation was further confirmed. To our knowledge, this is for the first time that the T1151A mutation is found in lung cancer. Our method is simple, rapid, and highly sensitive and is well suited to the analysis of large numbers of clinical samples.