A yeast peroxidase that reduces H2O2 and alkyl hydroperoxides with the use of reducing equivalents provided by thioredoxin was identified previously and named thioredoxin peroxidase (TPx) [Chae, H. Z., Chung, S. J., and Rhee, S. G. (1994) J. Biol. Chem. 269, 27670-27678]. A second type thioredoxin-dependent peroxidase, named type II TPx, has now been purified from yeast, and several peptide sequences have been obtained. Using those sequences, the corresponding cDNA has been identified from the GenBank database. Comparison of the predicted sequence of 176 amino acids of type II TPx with that of the 195 residues of TPx, now renamed type I TPx, revealed no substantial homology except for a short segment preceding Cys62 of type II TPx. Kinetic characterization of the reactions catalyzed by type I and II TPxs revealed that type I preferentially reduces H2O2 rather than alkyl hydroperoxides, whereas type II shows the reverse specificity. Type II TPx contains three cysteine residues at positions 31, 62, and 120. Experiments with mutant proteins in which these three cysteine residues were replaced individually with serine suggest that Cys62-SH constitutes the site of oxidation by peroxides and that the oxidized Cys62 reacts with the Cys120-SH group of another type II TPx molecule to form an intermolecular disulfide linkage. The formed disulfide can then be reduced by thioredoxin, but not by glutathione. Thus, type II TPx mutants lacking Cys62 or Cys120 showed no detectable TPx activity, whereas mutation of Cys31 had no effect on TPx activity. An antioxidant function of type II TPx in intact cells was demonstrated by the observation that Escherichia coli cells overexpressing wild-type protein were less sensitive to inhibition of growth by alkyl hydroperoxides than were control cells or cells overexpressing the mutant protein lacking Cys62.

SLN biopsy using a radioisotope in patients with gastric cancer is a technically feasible and accurate technique, and it is a minimally invasive approach in the assessment of patient nodal status.

Seven hundred forty seven cases of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) in Koreans who were diagnosed between 2001 and 2002 were analyzed to evaluate their occurrence and their clinical, pathologic and immunohistochemical findings. The most frequent location of tumor was in the stomach (63%), followed by the small intestine (30%), the colorectum (5%), and the esophagus (2%). c-kit expression was found in 93.6% of the cases, while CD34, SMA and S-100 protein was positive in 80.1%, 28.2%, and 20.2%, respectively. c-kit positivity was high in the stomach (94.2%) and small intestine (94.6%), while it was relatively low in the colorectum (85.0%), and esophagus (81.2%). The positivity for CD34 was correlated with the higher risk of GISTs (p=0.04). Follow up of the patients showed that 58 primary GISTs patients died and 20 of these patients were recurrent or metastatic at the time of diagnosis. The pathologic diagnosis to predict the risk of aggressive behavior of GISTs was correlated with the numbers of tumor, clinical stage, epithelioid histologic type, cellularity, cellular atypia, necrosis, and mucosal invasion (p=0.00). GISTs with a poor prognosis were closely related to the clinical stage at presentation, the locations of the tumor, and the ages of the patients.