Objective: The kisspeptin/GPR54 pathway has been proven to be crucial in the process of puberty onset, yet the polymorphisms in the KISS1 gene and their relationships with central precocious puberty (CPP) have not been investigated. This study was performed to reveal the relationship between the gene and the disease. Design and Methods: 272 Chinese Han girls diagnosed to be CPP patients were recruited as Case Group I, 43 unrelated African women as Case Group II, and 288 unrelated normal Chinese Han girls as Control Group. Polymorphism scans of the KISS1 gene were performed for the first time by bidirectional resequencing of the whole gene in a subset of the patients, and then by ligase detection reaction some of the polymorphisms identified were typed in the two groups and the respective haplotypes were constructed. The relationships of the typed polymorphisms and the haplotypes with CPP were evaluated by an association study between genotypes and phenotypes. Results: By resequencing, eight polymorphisms were identified, five of which were typed forming 18 haplotypes. Although one novel nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphism substituting one amino acid in kisspeptin (P110T) was found to be statistically related to the disease (PZ0.025), no further supporting evidence has yet been found. The other polymorphisms and all the haplotypes were not found to be related. Conclusion:The polymorphism scanning and typing of KISS1 uncovered several potentially meaningful polymorphisms, but the conclusion was not solid and further studies are necessary for function validation of these polymorphisms.

Aims: The GPR54 gene has been proved to be important in the process of puberty onset, yet no association study has been performed to evaluate the effect of polymorphisms in the gene on central precocious puberty (CPP). This study was designed to scan for polymorphisms in the GPR54 gene and to investigate the relationships between the genotypes of GPR54 and the disease. Methods: 272 Chinese Han girls diagnosed to be CPP patients were recruited as the case group and 288 unrelated normal Chinese Han girls as the control group. The whole GPR54 gene was directly sequenced in randomly selected case samples, and the polymorphisms identified were genotyped by ligase detection reaction in both groups. Distributions of the polymorphisms and haplotypes were calculated for statistical evaluation. Results: Totally 6 polymorphisms were found in sequencing, one of which is a nonsynonymous mutation, while genotyping declared that another SNP located in the promoter region was statistically related to the disease (p = 0.037). Conclusion: One polymorphism in GPR54 gene might be correlated with some cases of CPP, likely by changes in expression of the receptor, but the moderate p value and the lack of functional data make it hard to confirm the correlation. Further studies on the polymorphisms are needed for the exact mechanism.

PurposeThe study aims to investigate the role of 18F-alfatide positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in predicting the short-term outcome of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).MethodsEighteen patients with advanced NSCLC had undergone 18F-alfatide PET/CT scans before CCRT and PET/CT parameters including maximum and mean standard uptake values (SUVmax/SUVmean), peak standard uptake values (SUVpeak) and tumor volume (TVPET and TVCT) were obtained. The SUVmax of tumor and normal tissues (lung, blood pool and muscle) were measured, and their ratios were denoted as T/NT (T/NTlung, T/NTblood and T/NTmuscle). Statistical methods included the Two-example t test, Wilcoxon rank-sum test, Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and logistic regression analyses.ResultsWe found that SUVmax, SUVpeak, T/NTlung, T/NTblood and T/NTmuscle were higher in non-responders than in responders (P = 0.0024, P = 0.016, P < 0.001, P = 0.003, P = 0.004). According to ROC curve analysis, the thresholds of SUVmax, SUVpeak, T/NTlung, T/NTblood and T/NTmuscle were 5.65, 4.46, 7.11, 5.41, and 11.75, respectively. The five parameters had high sensitivity, specificity and accuracy in distinguishing non-responders and responders. Multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that T/NTlung was an independent predictor of the short-term outcome of CCRT in patients with advanced NSCLC (P = 0.032).Conclusions 18F-alfatide PET/CT may be useful in predicting the short-term outcome of CCRT in patients with advanced NSCLC.