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Over the past three decades political relationships between mainland China and Taiwan have fluctuated precariously between warm peace and cold war. Instead of playing the role of the biblical peacemaker, Christian theologians on both sides have developed irreconcilable nationalist theologies in order to sanctify their respective nationalist programs: Chinese unification versus Taiwanese independence. For the purpose of constructing peace across the Taiwan Strait, a new political theology needs to be built on the centrality of religious freedom to be found in the Bible, democratic values, and the actual politics of both China and Taiwan. The second section of this article analyzes the biblical sources of a Chinese unification theology and a Taiwanese independence theology. The third and fourth sections introduce the historical development of nationalism and nationalist theology in both societies. The fifth section concludes by proposing a democratic union theology that builds on the centrality of religious freedom in the Bible, democratic values, and actual politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did the East Asian economies make remarkable achievements before the 1990s, but suffer greatly since the foreign exchange crisis of 1997? Current theories of both liberal economics and the developmental state cannot provide a satisfactory answer, nor can they offer effective policy suggestions to solve the current crisis. This article suggests that a politico-institutional approach provides a better explanation to the above question and offers more effective prescriptions than current theories. The authors argue that politico-institutional relationships among the state, the ruling party, local factions, and conglomerates in these countries contributed significantly to the massive mobilization of resources but also generated long-term inefficiencies in resource utilization, which ultimately led to the economic breakdown during the foreign exchange crisis. Thus, solutions to the East Asian recession come not from cosmetic and inflationary Keynesian policies, which, in fact, might be counterproductive, but rather from the readjustment of the politico-institutional relationships among the four institutional actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neolitsea acuminatissima (Lauraceae) is an endemic plant in Taiwan. One new carboline alkaloid, demethoxydaibucarboline A (1), two new eudesmanolide-type sesquiterpenes, methyl-neolitacumone A (2), neolitacumone E (3), and twelve known compounds (4–15) were isolated from the root of Neolitsea acuminatissima. Their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis. Glucuronidation represents a major metabolism process of detoxification for carcinogens in the liver. However, intestinal bacterial β-Glucuronidase (βG) has been considered pivotal to colorectal carcinogenesis. To develop specific bacterial-βG inhibitors with no effect on human βG, methanolic extract of roots of N. acuminatissima was selected to evaluate their anti-βG activity. Among the isolates, demethoxydaibucarboline A (1) and quercetin (8) showed a strong bacterial βG inhibitory effect with an inhibition ratio of about 80%. Methylneolitacumone A (2) and epicatechin (10) exhibited a moderate or weak inhibitory effect and the enzyme activity was less than 45% and 74%, respectively. These four compounds specifically inhibit bacterial βG but not human βG. Thus, they are expected to be used for the purpose of reducing chemotherapy-induced diarrhea (CID). The results suggest that the constituents of N. acuminatissima have the potential to be used as CID relief candidates. However, further investigation is required to determine their mechanisms of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undetected micrometastasis may play a key role in the early relapse of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. The aim of this study was to detect circulating tumor cells (CTCs) for predicting early relapse of CRC patients by a weighted enzymatic chip array (WEnCA) and analyze 15 candidate genes associated with CRC carcinogenesis. The genes of 105 postoperative CRC patients were analyzed by membrane array and direct sequencing. We constructed a WEnCA platform including five prognosis-related genes and analyzed the detection rate of WEnCA for CTCs in 30 clinically confirmed CRC relapse patients. Postoperative relapse was significantly correlated with gene overexpression, including EVI2B (p=0.001, OR=4.622), ATP2A2 (p=0.006, OR=4.688), S100B (p=0.001, OR=11.521), TM4SF3 (p=0.001, OR=6.756), and OLFM4 (p=0.008, OR=3.545). Using WEnCA (weighting score of each gene: 5 to EVI2B, 5 to ATP2A2, 12 to S100B, 7 to TM4SF3, and 4 to OLFM4), we could detect CTCs presenting these genotypes in relapsed CRC patients. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were 94.7%, 93.5%, and 97%, respectively. The results of the present study suggest that EVI2B, ATP2A2, S100B, TM4SF3, and OLFM4 could be potential prognostic markers for CRC patients.

Background: The melanoma-associated antigen (MAGE) gene family consists of different expression patterns in various tumor types. They are considered tumor-specific antigens and are ideal targets for cancer immunotherapy. The purpose of this study is to identify the expression profiles of the MAGE family genes in Taiwanese colorectal cancer patients., Methods: In this study, a well-constructed chip array platform was used to analyze the expression of the MAGE family genes of 100 colorectal cancer tissues. Statistical analysis of the experimental results and patients' clinical manifestations were also conducted., Results: The results showed MAGE-A2 (87%), -A7 (83%), -A8 (75%), -A12 (71%), -B2 (75%), -B3 (79%), -D2 (75%), -F1 (79%), and -H1 (70%) were significantly overexpressed genes in colorectal cancer tissues. MAGE-A2 was the most highly overexpressed gene among the MAGE family. MAGE-B3 gene expression is statistically correlated with tumor size, lymph node, and UICC stage. In addition, the overexpression of MAGE-D2 and -H1 genes are statistically correlated to the tumor size and depth, respectively (P < 0.05)., Conclusions: This is the first comprehensive report to clarify the differential expression profile of whole MAGE family in CRCs, and it might provide some crucial information about the carcinogenesis and progression in Taiwanese patients with CRC., ((c) 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)

Background: Early relapse in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients is attributed mainly to the higher malignant entity (such as an unfavorable genotype, deeper tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis and advance cancer stage) and poor response to chemotherapy. Several investigations have demonstrated that genetic polymorphisms in drug-targeted genes, metabolizing enzymes, and DNA-repairing enzymes are all strongly correlated with inter-individual differences in the efficacy and toxicity of many treatment regimens. This preliminary study attempts to identify the correlation between genetic polymorphisms and clinicopathological features of CRC, and evaluates the relationship between genetic polymorphisms and chemotherapeutic susceptibility of Taiwanese CRC patients. To our knowledge, this study discusses, for the first time, early cancer relapse and its indication by multiple genes., Methods: Six gene polymorphisms functional in drug-metabolism - GSTP1 Ile105Val, ABCB1 Ile1145Ile, MTHFR Ala222Val, TYMS double (2R) or triple (3R) tandem repeat - and DNA-repair genes - ERCC2 Lys751Gln and XRCC1 Arg399Gln - were assessed in 201 CRC patients using a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment-length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique and DNA sequencing. Patients were diagnosed as either high-risk stage II (T2 and 3 N0 M0) or III (any T N1 and 2 M0) and were administered adjuvant chemotherapy regimens that included 5-fluorouracil (5FU) and leucovorin (LV). The correlations between genetic polymorphisms and patient clinicopathological features and relapses were investigated., Results: In this study, the distributions of GSTP1 (P = 0.003), ABCB1 (P = 0.001), TYMS (P < 0.0001), ERCC2 (P < 0.0001) and XRCC1 (P = 0.006) genotypes in the Asian population, with the exception of MTHFR (P = 0.081), differed significantly from their distributions in a Caucasian population. However, the unfavorable genotype ERCC2 2251A>C (P = 0.006), tumor invasion depth (P = 0.025), lymph node metastasis (P = 0.011) and cancer stage (P = 0.008) were significantly correlated with early relapse. Patients carrying the ERCC2 2251AC or2251CC genotypes had a significantly increased risk of early relapse (OR = 3.294, 95% CI, 1.272-8.532)., Conclusion: We suggest that ERCC2 2251A>C alleles may be genetic predictors of early CRC relapse.

Extensive researches have found that the mutation of p53 tumor suppressor gene is the most frequent event in many human cancers and associated with a poor clinical outcome in lung cancer patients. Because the p53 molecular mutation involved in tumorigenesis of patients with lung cancer in Taiwan remains poorly defined, the aim of this study was to assess the p53 mutation spectrum and possible etiological factors of Taiwan's patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC). Cancer specimens were obtained surgically from 61 patients with pathologically proven NSCLC. Polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) and direct sequencing were used to study p53 mutations in exon 4-8. We also performed immunohistochemistry (IHC) to detect p53 protein expression. Our results provided that 34 mutations of p53 gene were found in 27 cases with a mutation rate of 44% (27/61). There were six cases having more than two p53 mutations. Among the 34 mutations, 19 were point mutations (56%, 19/34) consisted of a majority of missense mutations including transversion (13/19, 68%) and transitions (6/19, 32%) with four cases (4/6, 67%) occurring in the CpG sequence. One of the most important finding in our study was the high frequency of frameshift (44%, 15/34) which included 11 insertions and 4 deletions of p53 in NSCLC in Taiwan. Surprisingly, our results disclosed distinct novel mutations at codon 181, 185, 208 (Exon 5-6) of p53. Especially, 4 cases with mutation at codon181 and codon 185 seemed to have more advanced clinical outcome with survival time less than 6 months. In addition, there were two recurring mutations at codon 168 and three at condon193. The different mutation spectrum in our series, including a high frequency of frameshift mutations and distinctly novel hot spots suggested the heterogenous entity of exogenous mutagens in NSCLC in Taiwan.