Folate is essential for the de novo biosynthesis of purines and thymidylate, and is an important mediator in the transfer of methyl groups for DNA methylation. Folate deficiency, therefore, could contribute to abnormal DNA integrity and methylation patterns. We investigated the effect of isolated folate deficiency in rats on DNA methylation and DNA strand breaks both at the genomic level and within specific sequences of the p53 tumor suppressor gene. Our data indicate that folate deficiency induces DNA strand breaks and hypomethylation within the p53 gene. Such alterations either did not occur or were chronologically delayed when examined on a genome-wide basis, indicating some selectivity for the exons examined within the p53 gene. Folate insufficiency has been implicated in the development of several human and experimental cancers, and aberrations within these regions of the p53 gene that were examined in this study are thought to play an integral role in carcinogenesis. The aforementioned molecular alterations may therefore be a means by which dietary folate deficiency enhances carcinogenesis.

Nanotechnology has been extensively explored for cancer diagnostics. However, the specificity of current methods to identify simultaneously several cancer biomarkers is limited due to color overlapping of bio-conjugated nanoparticles. Here, we present a technique to increase both the molecular and spectral specificity of cancer diagnosis by using tunable silver-gold nanorods with narrow surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and high photothermal contrast. The silver-gold nanorods were functionalized with four Raman-active molecules and four antibodies specific to breast cancer markers and with leukocyte-specific CD45 marker. More than two orders of magnitude of SERS signal enhancement was observed from these hybrid nanosystems compared to conventional gold nanorods. Using an antibody rainbow cocktail, we demonstrated highly specific detection of single breast cancer cells in unprocessed human blood. By integrating multiplex targeting, multicolor coding, and multimodal detection, our approach has the potential to improve multispectral imaging of individual tumor cells in complex biological environments.

Collectively these data suggest the potential role of carbamylated LDL in accelerated atherosclerosis in patients with chronic renal disease and, possibly, in healthy individuals.