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Breast cancer is a prevalent malignant cancer worldwide, and a lack of defined biomarkers for early prognostication contributes to its high associated mortality rate, especially in human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2)-positive breast cancer. In the present study, HER-2 mRNA levels in patients were detected prior to surgery and during neoadjuvant chemotherapy to explore its potential diagnostic and prognostic value. Blood samples were collected from 70 patients with breast cancer, including 50 HER-2-negative and 20 HER-2-positive patients, prior to and following surgery (postoperative, n=13; neoadjuvant chemotherapy, n=5); the control group included 35 samples from healthy individuals. The relative mRNA level of HER-2 in blood was determined by one-step reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. HER-2 expression curves of measurements taken during neoadjuvant chemotherapy were compared with the tumor size. A significant difference in the blood HER-2 mRNA level was observed between healthy women and patients with breast cancer (P

Coatomer and v-ATPase are two genes expressed in insect midgut epithelial cells and their knockdown is lethal to insect larvae. To investigate the RNAi response mediated by multiple siRNA duplexes, partial length cDNA of Helicoverpa armigera coatomer β and v-ATPase A was cloned and siRNA feeding-based RNAi was performed. Simultaneous ingestion of siRNAs specific to the H. armigera coatomer β and v-ATPase A led to co-silencing of the target genes and reduction in larval survival rate and weight gain. These results suggest that silencing two genes by feeding of multiple siRNAs is a good RNAi strategy.

Background and purpose The present study aimed to investigate the endovascular indication with close monitoring of both endovascularly treated and untreated unruptured vertebrobasilar aneurysms. Materials and methods In the past 2 years, 36 patients [7 women and 29 men with a mean age of 48.5 years (range, 13–75 years)] who had 40 unruptured vertebrobasilar artery aneurysms were reviewed. The decision of the endovascular treatment was not randomized. In both endovascularly untreated and treated patients, overall mortality and morbidity corresponding to Glasgow outcome scale (GOS) score III or worse was counted as unruptured aneurysm related event. The ratio of event free was compared between endovascularly treated and untreated patients using Log-rank test. In a univariate analysis, poor outcome was predicted by endovascularly untreated. Results Thirty-six patients were followed with a mean period of 10.7 months (range, 0.7 months–21 months). In untreated cases, new neurological deficits caused by the aneurysm were noted in 2 cases. The annual deterioration rate of the untreated cases was 9.1%. In endovascularly treated cases, there was no mortality and morbidity. There was no SAH in all cases during follow-up period. When ratio of event free was compared, significant advantage of endovascular treatment was noted (X2 = 4.429, P = 0.035). Conclusions The present results indicated that endovascular treatment has a benefit for the unruptured vertebrobasilar artery aneurysms.