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Advanced prostate cancer remains one of the most common and deadly cancers, despite advances in treatment options. Immunotherapy has provided little benefit to a majority of patients, largely due to the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment that gives rise to inherently “cold tumors”. In this review, we discuss the immunopathology of the prostate tumor microenvironment, strategies for treating prostate cancer with immunotherapies, and a perspective on potential approaches to enhancing the efficacy of immunotherapies.

Databases, including PubMed, Google Scholar, and Cochrane, were searched for articles relevant to the immunology of prostate cancer. We discuss the impact of different types of treatments on the immune system, and potential mechanisms through which prostate cancer evades the immune system.

The tumor microenvironment associated with prostate cancer is highly immunosuppressive due to (1) the function of regulatory T cells, tumor-associated macrophages, and myeloid-derived suppressor cells e to multiple immunosuppressive mechanisms that have been difficult to overcome with any one immunotherapeutic approach. Enhancing the clinical activity of immunotherapies will require strategic combinations of multiple therapies to address the emerging mechanisms of tumor immune resistance.

Enzalutamide and abiraterone acetate plus prednisone (AAP) have similar efficacy in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), but different mechanisms of action. The aim was to compare patient-reported health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in men treated with enzalutamide vs AAP for mCRPC.

We systematically reviewed the literature in June 2020 according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) recommendations. Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) until the last follow-up were summarised in a narrative synthesis. Short-term changes (12 weeks) in HRQoL, measured by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Prostate total score (FACT-P), were compared between treatment groups and were analysed for enzalutamide and AAP in separate meta-analyses. Higher FACT-P scores indicate better HRQoL.

Eight studies were included in the systematic review, four of which were randomised clinical trials (RCTs) eligible for the meta-analyses. The meta-analyses showed menger follow-up, but the long-term studies had serious risks of bias.

In patients presenting with metastatic prostate cancer, the role of local therapy is evolving. Two recently reported large-scale randomized trials suggest that radiotherapy (RT) directed at the prostate improves overall survival (OS) in patients with low metastatic burden. We reviewed the experience of prostate RT in this setting at our center.

The study population consisted of men with newly-diagnosed metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC) referred to a comprehensive cancer center between 2005 and 2015 and treated initially with androgen deprivation therapy. Patients were eligible for inclusion if they received (1) prostate RT with biological effective dose (BED) at least that of a course of 40 Gy in 15 fractions or (2) no prostate RT. The association between receipt of prostate RT and OS was studied. OS was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression was used to identify factors associated with OS.

The cohort consisted of 410 patients, of whom 128 received prostate RT. Medipt of prostate RT was associated with improved OS and the magnitude of the OS benefit was clinically significant. The possibility of an RT dose-response gradient in this setting merits further study.FeS2/TiO2 nanotube array composite films with clean, high efficiency, low cost and low consumption were prepared by electrochemical anodization and hydrothermal methods. The modification of FeS2 nanoparticles on the surface of TiO2 nanotube array film not only broadens the light absorption range of TiO2, but also improves the utilization ratio of visible light and the separation rate of photogenerated electron-hole pairs, which greatly improves the photoelectrochemical cathodic protection performance of TiO2 for 304 stainless steel (304SS). Under visible light irradiation, the open circuit potential of 304SS coupled with the FeS2/TiO2 nanocomposite films decreased from – 170 to – 700 mV, and the electrode potential can still maintained at – 400 mV after the light was turned off. Compared with pure TiO2 nanotube array film, FeS2/TiO2 nanocomposite film has better photoelectrochemical cathodic protection effect on 304SS in 3.5 wt% NaCl corrosion medium.Antibiotic subsistence in bacteria represents an alternative resistance machinery, while paradoxically, it is also a cure for environmental resistance. Antibiotic-subsisting bacteria can detoxify antibiotic-polluted environments and prevent the development of antibiotic resistance in environments. However, progress toward efficient in situ engineering of antibiotic-subsisting bacteria is hindered by the lack of mechanistic and predictive understanding of the assembly of the functioning microbiome. By top-down manipulation of wastewater microbiomes using sulfadiazine as the single limiting source, we monitored the ecological selection process that forces the wastewater microbiome to perform efficient sulfadiazine subsistence. We found that the community-level assembly selects for the same three families rising to prominence across different initial pools of microbiomes. We further analyzed the assembly patterns using a linear model. Detailed inspections of the sulfonamide metabolic gene clusters in individual genomes of isolates and assembled metagenomes reveal limited transfer potential beyond the boundaries of the Micrococcaceae lineage. Our results open up new possibilities for engineering specialist bacteria for environmental applications.Laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs) driven by picosecond-scale, kilojoule-class lasers can generate particle beams and x-ray sources that could be utilized in experiments driven by multi-kilojoule, high-energy-density science (HEDS) drivers such as the OMEGA laser at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) or the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This paper reports on the development of the first LPA driven by a short-pulse, kilojoule-class laser (OMEGA EP) connected to a multi-kilojoule HEDS driver (OMEGA). In experiments, electron beams were produced with electron energies greater than 200 MeV, divergences as low as 32 mrad, charge greater than 700 nC, and conversion efficiencies from laser energy to electron energy up to 11%. The electron beam charge scales with both the normalized vector potential and plasma density. Tucidinostat chemical structure These electron beams show promise as a method to generate MeV-class radiography sources and improved-flux broadband x-ray sources at HEDS drivers.