Copper, zinc, magnesium, calcium and iron were measured in serum and lung tissue – tumor mass and histologically nonneoplastic tissue – from lung cancer patients and compared with serum concentrations in healthy subjects and control lung tissue obtained from patients with nonmalignant lung disease. Lung cancer patients showed a significant increase in serum Cu and Cu/Zn ratio levels and decrease in serum Zn and Fe concentrations. These findings were correlated with TNM stage of the disease, but not with histologic type of tumor. Malignant lung tissue showed a higher level of Cu, Ca, Mg, and Cu/Zn ratio and lower Zn level than that found in control samples, as well as an increase in Cu, Mg and Cu/Zn ratio concentrations with regard to histologically nonneoplastic tissue samples from the same patient. Tissue concentration of trace metals was not significantly influenced either by histologic type of tumor or clinical TNM stage. Significant correlation coefficients between serum and tissue trace metal levels were not found.

Serum zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), and the Cu/Zn ratio were evaluated in 84 patients with pulmonary lesions before surgery and in 100 healthy normal controls. There were 20 patients with benign and 64 with malignant lung tumors. Only the mean (kSD) Cu/Zn ratio was significantly higher in malignant tumors (2.24 * 0.78) than in benign tissue (1.63 3~ 0.33) (P < 0.001). In the normal group, the Cu/Zn ratio was significantly lower (1.43 k 0.29). Patients with advanced disease (Stage 111) had higher Cu/Zn ratio than patients in Stages I and I1 (2.65 k 0.86 versus 1.9 k 0.27) (P < 0.001). At a cutoff value of 1.72, Cu/Zn ratio had a sensitivity of 89%, specificity of 841, positive predictive value of 78%, and negative predictive value of 92% between controls and lung cancer patients. Between lung cancer patients and patients with benign pulmonary lesions the aforementioned values were 89%, 70%, 90%, and 70% respectively. A correlation between increasing Cu/Zn ratio and tumor extension and postoperative survival was observed. These findings suggest that Cu/Zn ratio may be used as a diagnostic test in lung cancer patients. Cancer 63:726-730, 1989.

BackgroundGene expression analyses demand appropriate reference genes (RGs) for normalization, in order to obtain reliable assessments. Ideally, RG expression levels should remain constant in all cells, tissues or experimental conditions under study. Housekeeping genes traditionally fulfilled this requirement, but they have been reported to be less invariant than expected; therefore, RGs should be tested and validated for every particular situation. Microarray data have been used to propose new RGs, but only a limited set of model species and conditions are available; on the contrary, RNA-seq experiments are more and more frequent and constitute a new source of candidate RGs.ResultsAn automated workflow based on mapped NGS reads has been constructed to obtain highly and invariantly expressed RGs based on a normalized expression in reads per mapped million and the coefficient of variation. This workflow has been tested with Roche/454 reads from reproductive tissues of olive tree (Olea europaea L.), as well as with Illumina paired-end reads from two different accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana and three different human cancers (prostate, small-cell cancer lung and lung adenocarcinoma). Candidate RGs have been proposed for each species and many of them have been previously reported as RGs in literature. Experimental validation of significant RGs in olive tree is provided to support the algorithm.ConclusionRegardless sequencing technology, number of replicates, and library sizes, when RNA-seq experiments are designed and performed, the same datasets can be analyzed with our workflow to extract suitable RGs for subsequent PCR validation. Moreover, different subset of experimental conditions can provide different suitable RGs.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12938-017-0356-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Judges and Justice more and more realise the importance of medical expert reports in cases of domestic violence being made in a complete, rigorous and scientific way. For this reason, for the last six years we have placed our experience and knowledge at their service by creating the "Forensic Evaluation of Domestic Violence Unit" in the University of Granada. Our purpose was to carry out integral medical expertise in each case of violence, trying to establish a global and complete evaluation, of both victim and aggressor (and their children, when there are any). This paper describes the systematic protocol we have used for the psychological-psychiatric evaluation of the parts involved in the problem, as well as the obtained results which allow as to establish the diverse aggressor profiles. The comparison between the results for the profile of victim and aggressor personalities allows a comprehension of how the dynamics of the violence arises and what is the trigger for the aggressive behavior, as well as the level of risk that the aggressor represents for the victim. This global evaluation can provide to judge, prosecutor, and lawyers rigorous and objective information as a basis for the best decision for both victim and aggressor as well as for the measures to adopt in each case.

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