Backgroundp63 is a member of the p53 family that has been implicated in maintenance of epithelial stem cell compartments. Previous studies demonstrated that p63 is downregulated in muscle-invasive bladder cancers, but the relationship between p63 expression and survival is not clear.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe used real-time PCR to characterize p63 expression and several genes implicated in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in human bladder cancer cell lines (n = 15) and primary tumors (n = 101). We correlated tumor marker expression with stage, disease-specific (DSS), and overall survival (OS). Expression of E-cadherin and p63 correlated directly with one another and inversely with expression of the mesenchymal markers Zeb-1, Zeb-2, and vimentin. Non-muscle-invasive (Ta and T1) bladder cancers uniformly expressed high levels of E-cadherin and p63 and low levels of the mesenchymal markers. Interestingly, a subset of muscle-invasive (T2–T4) tumors maintained high levels of E-cadherin and p63 expression. As expected, there was a strongly significant correlation between EMT marker expression and muscle invasion (p<0.0001). However, OS was shorter in patients with muscle-invasive tumors that retained p63 (p = 0.007).Conclusions/SignificanceOur data confirm that molecular markers of EMT are elevated in muscle-invasive bladder cancers, but interestingly, retention of the “epithelial” marker p63 in muscle-invasive tumors is associated with a worse outcome.

Sasa borealis (Hack.) Makino & Shibata is widely distributed in South Korea. With amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers, we analyzed the genetic diversity of S. borealis to predict and measure the phytogeographical factors of these populations. Relatively high levels of genetic diversity (PPL = 37.2%, h = 0.143, I = 0.205) and genetic differentiation (G st = 0.324, θ B = 0.395) were confirmed in populations of S. borealis. Moreover, an analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed that the rate of differentiation among the populations was 47.7%. The results showed that genetic diversity is inversely proportional to the latitude of the S. borealis populations, indicating that the distribution of S. borealis may have extended from lower to higher latitudes. This method of investigating the correlation between genetic diversity and latitude presents critical information for estimating changes in distributions and plant conservation due to climate change.