© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Faculty of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.OBJECTIVE Many treatment options have guaranteed long-term survival in patients with localized prostate cancer and health-related quality of life has become a greater concern for those patients. The purpose of this study was to reveal the health-related quality of life after proton beam therapy and to clarify the differences from other treatment modalities for prostate cancer. METHODS Between January 2011 and April 2016, 583 patients were enrolled in the study and health-related quality of life outcomes using the Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite questionnaire were evaluated and compared with previous research targeted at Japanese patients. RESULTS We found a significant decrease in the least square mean scores for urinary and bowel domains excluding the incontinence subscale after proton beam therapy (P  less then  0.0001) and recovery at a year following treatment. The scores for sexual function in patients without androgen deprivation therapy decreased each year after proton beam therapy (P  less then  0.0001). The scores for hormones in patients without androgen deprivation therapy remained high and those of patients with androgen deprivation therapy were lower before treatment but were comparable to those of non-androgen deprivation therapy patients at 2 years post-treatment. We found that the impact of radiotherapy including proton beam therapy on urinary condition and sexual function was lower than that of surgery. CONCLUSIONS For the first time in Japan, we investigated health-related quality of life using Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite questionnaires in patients with prostate cancer after proton beam therapy and compared it with other treatment modalities. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press.OBJECTIVE Multidrug resistance and consequent relapse are two major obstacles for treating children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most frequent childhood malignancy. MicroRNAs have potential regulatory roles in response to chemotherapy. The goal of this study was to determine the microRNA that may have effects on the expression level of brain and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BAALC) and to investigate the in vitro and ex vivo association between their expression levels. METHODS In silico tools were utilized to determine a putative miRNA targeting BALLC. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to investigate expression levels of BAALC and its predicted microRNA, miR-326, in bone marrow samples of 30 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and 13 controls, in addition to the resistant and parental CCRF-CEM cell lines. To assess the status of response to therapy, minimal residual disease was measured using single-strand conformation polymorphism. RESULTS MiR-326 was selected due to ns@oup.com.Atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor (ATRT) is a rare, highly malignant central nervous system cancer arising in infants and younger children, historically considered to be homogenous, monogenic and incurable. Recent use of intensified therapies has modestly improved survival for ATRT, however, a majority of patients will still succumb to their disease. While ATRTs almost universally exhibit loss of SMARCB1 (BAF47/INI1/SNF5), recent whole genome, transcriptome and epigenomic analyses of large cohorts reveal previously under-appreciated molecular heterogeneity. These discoveries provide novel insights into how SMARCB1 loss drives oncogenesis and confer specific therapeutic vulnerabilities, raising exciting prospects for molecularly stratified treatment for patients with ATRT. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Neuro-Oncology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.Arsenic (As) contamination in paddy soil can cause phytotoxicity and elevated As accumulation in rice grains. Arsenic detoxification is closely linked to sulfur assimilation, but genes involved have not been characterized in rice. In this study, we characterized the function of OsOASTL-A1, an O-acetylserine(thiol) lyase, in cysteine biosynthesis and detoxification of As in rice. Tissue expression analysis revealed that OsOASTL-A1 mainly expressed in roots at the vegetative growth stage and in nodes at the reproductive stage. Furthermore, the expression of OsOASTL-A1 in roots was strongly induced by As exposure. Transgenic rice plants expressing pOsOASTL-A1GUS suggested that OsOASTL-A1 was strongly expressed in the outer cortex and the vascular cylinder in the root mature zone. Subcellular localization using OsOASTL-A1eGFP fusion protein showed that OsOASTL-A1 was localized to the cytosol. In vivo and in vitro enzyme activity assays showed that OsOASTL-A1 possessed the O-acetylserine(thiol) lyase activity. Knockout of OsOASTL-A1 led to significantly lower levels of cysteine, glutathione and phytochelatins in roots and increased sensitivity to arsenate stress. Furthermore, the osoastl-a1 knockout mutants reduced As accumulation in the roots, but increased As accumulation in shoots. We conclude that OsOASTL-A1 is the cytosolic O-acetylserine(thiol) lyase that plays an important role in non-protein thiol biosynthesis in roots for As detoxification.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/chir-98014.html  © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email journals.permissions@oup.com.BACKGROUND Primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) responds relatively quickly to chemotherapy or radiotherapy. However, determination of a complete response after treatment is often difficult because of extremely light residual contrast enhancement on magnetic resonance images due to the effects of microhemorrhages and scar tissue formation. These small enhancing lesions define an unconfirmed complete response. The aim of this study was to investigate the usefulness of carbon-11-labeled methionine (11C-Met) positron-emission tomography (PET) for determining the treatment response of PCNSL. METHODS Data for 36 patients who were treated for PCNSL between 2011 and 2015 and underwent magnetic resonance imaging and 11C-Met PET were reviewed. Magnetic resonance imaging findings were classified as complete response, unconfirmed complete response, and tumor mass (a composite of partial response, stable disease and progressive disease). PET images were evaluated, standardized uptake values were quantified, and the tumor-to-normal tissue count ratio (TNR) was calculated.