fatemeh asadi rahmani

Gastric cancer is one of the five most common cancers in Iran, the sixth most common cancer in the world, and the second cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Failure to diagnose gastric cancer in early stages suggests the need to find potential biomarkers. This study aimed to evaluate the miR-195 expression as a potential biomarker in the plasma of gastric cancer patients in Guilan province.

In this case-control study, the Q-RT-PCR method was used to evaluate the expression level of miR-195 in the plasma of 25 patients with gastric cancer and 25 normal individuals. The relationship between the expression level of miR-195 and clinicopathologic features was evaluated using the ANOVA test. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and area under the curve (AUC) were used to evaluate the miR-195 as a potential biomarker to discriminate cancerous from non-cancerous states of the samples.

Our analysis showed that miR-195 was significantly downregulated in gastric cancer patients compared to the normal individuals (p˂0.05). The AUC value of ROC analysis was 0.7325±0.008 (p=0.0119) with the sensitivity of 51.7% and specificity of 71.8%.

Downregulation of miR-195 in gastric cancer patients and ROC analysis suggested that miR-195 can be introduced as a potential biomarker in the diagnosis of gastric cancer in Guilan province.

Gastric cancer (GC) is the most prevalent malignancy worldwide and a common cause of death in Iran. Studies have proved that a variety of dysregulated microRNAs is involved in the development and progression of gastric cancer. The present study aimed to evaluate the expression levels of plasma circulating oncogenic miR-21 and miR-192 and their association with clinical phenotypes of patients with gastric cancer in the north of Iran.

Clinico-pathological analysis was conducted using a standard protocol and pathological tests. The expression levels of miR-21 and miR-192 were measured using quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction in the plasma of twenty pre/post-operative gastric cancer patients and twenty healthy subjects. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of these microRNAs was analyzed to investigate their diagnosis properties.

The study results indicated that plasma miR-21 expression was significantly associated with tumor stage and helicobacter pylori infection status (P=0.024, P=0.0004, respectively). However, no association was observed between clinic-pathological characteristics and miR-192 expression. The results showed that the plasma levels of miR-21 (P=0.0001) and miR-192 (P=0.0007) were significantly higher in GC patients compared to those in healthy individuals. Furthermore, the ROC analyses yielded the mean ±SD area under the curve (AUC) values of 0.9525±0.03 (P<0.0001) and 0.5925±0.09 (P=0.316) for miR-21 and miR-192, respectively. Pearson regression analysis showed that there was no significant correlation between the expression of miR-21 and miR-192 (P=0.1507).

Based on the obtained results, the expression of the plasma level of miR-21 was significantly higher in gastric cancer patients compared to that in the healthy group. Furthermore, the higher levels of AUC in miR-21 indicated the potential role of miR-21 as a noninvasive biomarker for the prognosis of gastric cancer in the population of the north of Iran.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen especially in immunocompromised patients. Drug resistance in P. aeruginosa is caused by different mechanisms such as mutations in topoisomerases subunits and negative regulators of efflux pump systems. This study was aimed to investigate mutations in gyrB, parC, and nfxB genes in ciprofloxacin-resistant P.aeruginosa isolates in Guilan province.
In this cross-sectional study, 200 isolates were obtained from different clinical samples of Rasht and Lahijan hospitals and laboratories and subsequently identified by biochemical tests. Antibiotic susceptibility pattern was determined by Kirby Bauer disk diffusion susceptibility test and Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) test. PCR-sequencing was used to assess mutations in gyrB, parC, and nfxB genes in ciprofloxacin-resistant P. aeruginosa isolates.
Out of 69 P. aeruginosa isolates, 26 isolates were ciprofloxacin-resistant. MIC of ciprofloxacin in resistant isolates was determined between 32-1024 µg/ml. PCR-sequencing analysis revealed that some resistant isolates have missense mutations in gyrB, parC, and nfxB genes. It seems that N368S, I424L, L464I, E468D, M520L, and I524V mutations in gyrB were reported for the first time in Iran.
It seems that reported mutations in gyrB and parC genes affect topoisomerases affinity to ciprofloxacin in resistant isolates. Furthermore, mutations in the nfxB gene may lead to overexpression of MexCD-OprJ efflux pump and ciprofloxacin resistance.