Browsing by Author "Zhou, Wei"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    High IL2RA mRNA expression is an independent adverse prognostic biomarker in core binding factor and intermediate-risk acute myeloid leukemia
    (2019-06-06) Du, Wen; He, Jing; Zhou, Wei; Shu, Simin; Li, Juan; Liu, Wei; Deng, Yun; Lu, Cong; Lin, Shengyan; Ma, Yaokun; He, Yanli; Zheng, Jine; Zhu, Jiang; Bai, Lijuan; Li, Xiaoqing; Yao, Junxia; Hu, Dan; Gu, Shengqing; Li, Huiyu; Guo, Anyuan; Huang, Shiang; Feng, Xiaolan; Hu, Dong
    Abstract Background Elevated protein expressions of CD markers such as IL2RA/CD25, CXCR4/CD184, CD34 and CD56 are associated with adverse prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, the prognostic value of mRNA expressions of these CD markers in AML remains unclear. Through our pilot evaluation, IL2RA mRNA expression appeared to be the best candidate as a prognostic biomarker. Therefore, the aim of this study is to characterize the prognostic value of IL2RA mRNA expression and evaluate its potential to refine prognostification in AML. Methods In a cohort of 239 newly diagnosed AML patients, IL2RA mRNA expression were measured by TaqMan realtime quantitative PCR. Morphological, cytogenetics and mutational analyses were also performed. In an intermediate-risk AML cohort with 66 patients, the mRNA expression of prognostic biomarkers (BAALC, CDKN1B, ERG, MECOM/EVI1, FLT3, ID1, IL2RA, MN1 and WT1) were quantified by NanoString technology. A TCGA cohort was analyzed to validate the prognostic value of IL2RA. For statistical analysis, Mann–Whitney U test, Fisher exact test, logistic regression, Kaplan–Meier and Cox regression analyses were used. Results In AML cohort of 239 patients, high IL2RA mRNA expression independently predicted shorter relapse free survival (RFS, p < 0.001) and overall survival (OS, p < 0.001) irrespective of age, cytogenetics, FLT3-ITD or c-KIT D816V mutational status. In core binding factor (CBF) AML, high IL2RA mRNA expression correlated with FLT3-ITD status (p = 0.023). Multivariable analyses revealed that high IL2RA expression (p = 0.002), along with c-KIT D816V status (p = 0.013) significantly predicted shorter RFS, whereas only high IL2RA mRNA expression (p = 0.014) significantly predicted shorter OS in CBF AML. In intermediate-risk AML in which multiple gene expression markers were tested by NanoString, IL2RA significantly correlated with ID1 (p = 0.006), FLT3 (p = 0.007), CDKN1B (p = 0.033) and ERG (p = 0.030) expressions. IL2RA (p < 0.001) and FLT3 (p = 0.008) expressions remained significant in predicting shorter RFS, whereas ERG (p = 0.008) and IL2RA (p = 0.044) remained significant in predicting shorter OS. Similar analyses in TCGA intermediate-risk AML showed the independent prognostic role of IL2RA in predicting event free survival (p < 0.001) and OS (p < 0.001). Conclusions High IL2RA mRNA expression is an independent and adverse prognostic factor in AML and specifically stratifies patients to worse prognosis in both CBF and intermediate-risk AML.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Investigation of Initial Water Mobility and its Effects on SAGD Performance in Oil Sands
    (2016) Zhou, Wei; Dong, Mingzhe; Chen, Shengnan; James, Lesley; Wong, Ron Chik-Kwong; Mahinpey, Nader; Hassanzadeh, Hassan
    Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) has become a primary commercial in-situ thermal recovery method for oil sands in Alberta. Evidence of initial water mobility during the SAGD process has been observed by many previous field studies. However, no its effective determination method and little research about its effects on SAGD performance have been reported. In this thesis, a novel method is proposed to effectively determine the mobility of initial water existing as the continuous wetting phase in oil sands. More specifically, wax is used for the first time to simulate the immobile oil phase. Laboratory experiments are conducted to determine the initial water mobility with a stationary oil phase. To obtain a general correlation of initial water saturation and its mobility, a triangular tube bundle model is constructed to simulate the measured experimental data. A correlation of the initial water mobility is developed by matching the experimental results with the constructed triangular tube bundle model. To conduct a lab-scale study of initial water mobility, a new two-dimensional physical model with a water flowing boundary is proposed for the first time. The greatest novelty of the 2D model is that the capillary pressure generated from the very fine sands with very strong water wettability, can prevent the oil from flowing into the fine sands zone, but can allow the water flow into the fine sands zone. It is proved by the experiments for the first time that the mobile initial water can promote the vertical and lateral growth of the steam chamber. To investigate effects of initial water mobility on SAGD performance at the field-scale, an elaborated numerical simulation study, with the properties of a typical Athabasca oil sands, is conducted. Initial water mobility is firstly classified into two categories (low and high) based on their steam chamber shapes. The simulation results show that, for a single well pair, low initial water mobility can benefit the steam chamber growth, but high initial water mobility has a negative impact. For the adjacent steam chambers in the same pad, low initial water mobility case with the same injection pressure has the highest NPV.