ObjectiveThe identification of cancer stem-like cells is a recent development in ovarian cancer. Compared to other cancer cells, cancer stem-like cells present more chemo-resistance and more aggressive characteristics. They play an important role in the recurrence and drug resistance of cancer. Therefore, the target therapy of cancer stem-like cell may become a promising and effective approach for ovarian cancer treatment. It may also help to provide novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.MethodsThe OVCAR3 cell line was cultured under serum-free conditions to produce floating spheres. The CD44+CD117+ cell line was isolated from the human ovarian cancer cell line OVCAR3 by using immune magnetic-activated cell sorting system. The expression of stemness genes such as OCT3/4, NANOG and SOX2 mRNA were determined by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. OVCAR3 parental and OVCAR3 CD44+CD117+ cells were grown in different doses of paclitaxel and salinomycin to evaluate the effect of salinomycin. And growth inhibition of OVCAR3 CD44+CD117+ cells by paclitaxel combined with salinomycin was determined by the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay.ResultsTumor spheroids generated from the OVCAR3 cell line are shown to have highly enriched CD44 and CD117 expression. Treatment with a combination of paclitaxel and salinomycin demonstrated growth inhibition of OVCAR3 CD44+CD117+ cells.ConclusionThe present study is a detailed investigation on the expression of CD44 and CD117 in cancer stem cells and evaluates their specific tumorigenic characteristics in ovarian cancer. This study also demonstrates significant growth inhibition of cancer stem-like cells by paclitaxel combined with salinomycin. Identification of these cancer stem-like cell markers and growth inhibition effect of salinomycin may be the next step to the development of novel target therapy in ovarian cancer.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is affiliated with the β-coronavirus subgroup, which includes SARS-CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), but is far more infectious than the 2. Because it is potentially life-threatening to infants and pregnant women with weak immune systems, clinical manifestations and vertical transmission of COVID-19 are matters of interest. Staff of the obstetrics department of university hospitals in Daegu and of the Daegu metropolitan government designated Daegu Fatima Hospital for the delivery of pregnant women with suspected and confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Thirteen pregnant women with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 were identified. Among them was a 28-year-old pregnant woman who had recovered from COVID-19 and had given birth to a healthy girl at 38 weeks of gestational age. We present our uncommon experience with a brief review of literatures.

8577 Background: Burkitt Lymphoma is defined by canonical translocations between MYC and immunoglobulin IgH, IgK or IgL (8:14, 8:2, 8:22, respectively), and is commonly associated with HIV. The identification of HIV from sequenced samples is critical to understanding HIV-associated Burkitt Lymphoma. While recent novel gene mutations (ID3 and TCF3) have been implicated in functional roles, concomitant genomic structural variants and the interaction of HIV with structural variation is less well defined. Methods: We sequenced the whole genomes of 15 patients with 100bp paired-end reads on Illumina Hi-Seq platform, resulting in an average insert size of 278 (+/- 63) and coverage of 60X tumor and 30X normal. We included 7 HIV-negative, and 8 HIV-positive subjects. Sequencing reads were mapped to the reference genome using BWA. Large-scale structural variation was detected by the BreakDancer and Crest programs. Functional annotation was used to prioritize structural variants for validation. Single nucleotide variants and small insertions and deletions were detected by CARNAC, a somatic variation discovery pipeline. The subset of WGS reads that failed to align to the human reference genome were tested for the presence of HIV sequences by comparing the unmapped reads to a database of viral DNA sequences which included the common subtypes of HIV defined by Los Alamos. Reads matching HIV or EBV with an expectation value of <10-4 were analyzed to determine virus coverage and viral integration sites. Results: Canonical MYC-IgH translocations were identified in 9/15 (60%) tumor samples, with 2 additional subjects harboring either a deletion or an inversion near exon1 of MYC; 4 had no MYC rearrangement. MYC translocations occurred equally in both groups. TP53 and SMARC4 point mutations were observed recurrently in the HIV uninfected group but not in the HIV infected patients. Variable levels of HIV DNA sequence were observed in normal tissue of all HIV infected patients. Conclusions: Whole genome sequencing has identified known somatic variants in HIV infected and uninfected patients. Two genes, TP53 and SMARC4, appear to be differentially mutated, but additional samples are needed to achieve statistical significance.