Association of an insertion/deletion polymorphism in IL1A 3′-UTR with risk for cervical carcinoma in Chinese Han Women

Emerging evidence has demonstrated that polymorphisms of interleukin-1 (IL-1) may be involved in human tumorigenesis by regulating the production of this cytokine. Previous studies have investigated the association between two genetic variants (rs3783553 and rs17561) of IL1A and many diseases. The present study was conducted to evaluate whether these two variants are associated with cervical carcinoma (CC). These two polymorphisms were genotyped in 319 CC patients and 424 healthy controls by polymerase chain reaction polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PCR-PAGE) and polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Significantly reduced CC risk was observed to be associated with the insertion allele of rs3783553 (P = 0.014, OR = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.57–0.88). Stratification analysis based on different certain clinical features showed that patients with the heterozygous genotype were associated with a reduced predisposition advancing to clinical stage II-III or developing non-squamous cell carcinoma. Furthermore, patients with the insertion homozygous genotype were also associated with a reduced risk to have a poor tumor differentiation. No significant association was observed between rs17561 and CC. The present study provided evidence that the rs3783553 in IL1A 3′-UTR is inversely associated with CC risk, suggesting an important role IL-1α may play in cervical carcinogenesis.     

Mobile Phone Text Messaging Intervention for Cervical Cancer Screening: Changes in Knowledge and Behavior Pre-Post Intervention

Background

Cervical cancer poses a significant threat to Korean American women, who are reported to have one of the highest cervical cancer mortality rates in the United States. Studies consistently report that Korean American women have the lowest Pap test screening rates across US ethnic groups.

Objective

In response to the need to enhance cervical cancer screening in this vulnerable population, we developed and tested a 7-day mobile phone text message-based cervical cancer Screening (mScreening) intervention designed to promote the receipt of Pap tests by young Korean American women.

Methods

We developed and assessed the acceptability and feasibility of a 1-week mScreening intervention to increase knowledge of cervical cancer screening, intent to receive screening, and the receipt of a Pap test. Fogg’s Behavior Model was the conceptual framework that guided the development of the mScreening intervention. A series of focus groups were conducted to inform the development of the intervention. The messages were individually tailored for each participant and delivered to them for a 7-day period at each participant’s preferred time. A quasi-experimental research design of 30 Korean American women aged 21 to 29 years was utilized with baseline, post (1 week after the completion of mScreening), and follow-up (3 months after the completion of mScreening) testing.

Results

Findings revealed a significant increase in participants’ knowledge of cervical cancer (P<.001) and guidelines for cervical cancer screening (P=.006). A total of 23% (7/30) (95% CI 9.9-42.3) of the mScreening participants received a Pap test; 83% (25/30) of the participants expressed satisfaction with the intervention and 97% (29/30) reported that they would recommend the program to their friends, indicating excellent acceptability and feasibility of the intervention.

Conclusions

This study provides evidence of the effectiveness and feasibility of the mScreening intervention. Mobile technology is a promising tool to increase both knowledge and receipt of cervical cancer screening. Given the widespread usage of mobile phones among young adults, a mobile phone-based health intervention could be a low-cost and effective method of reaching populations with low cervical cancer screening rates, using individually tailored messages that cover broad content areas and overcome restrictions to place and time of delivery.     

Systemic injection of TLR1/2 agonist improves adoptive antigen-specific T cell therapy in glioma-bearing mice

Adoptive immunotherapy is an attractive strategy for glioma treatment. However, some obstacles still need be overcome. In this study, GL261-bearing mice treated with adoptively transferred antigen-specific T cells and systemic injection of bacterial lipoprotein (BLP), a TLR1/2 agonist, got a long-term survival and even immune protection. By analyzing adoptive T cells, it was found that BLP maintained T cell survival, proliferation and anti-tumor efficacy in the brains of tumor-bearing hosts. Moreover, tumor microenvironment was modified by up-regulating IFN-γ-secreting CD8+ T cells and down-regulating MDSC, which might be related with high CXCL10 and low CCL2 expression. In addition, TLR2 deficiency abrogated therapeutic effect with increased MDSC accumulation and decreased IFN-γ-secreting CD8+ T cells in the brains. Thus, the systemic injection of BLP could improve the adoptive T cell therapy by maintaining T cell persistence, modifying the tumor microenvironment and even inducing systemic anti-tumor immunity, which might offer a clinically promising immunotherapeutic strategy for glioma.