拉萨地区冠心病与幽门螺杆菌感染相关性研究

目的 探讨西藏拉萨地区幽门螺杆菌(Helicobacter pyloric,Hp)感染与冠心病及多种危险因素的关系,为该地区冠心病的防治提供依据.方法 分为冠心病组46例和非冠心病组51例,应用检测血抗HpIgG及14C-尿素呼气试验方法检测Hp感染情况,并分别测定各组血脂、血糖、餐后2 h血糖、C反应蛋白、纤维蛋白原、白细胞总数.结果 冠心病组患者血清抗HpIgG阳性率为50.0%(23/46),明显高于非冠心病组的23.5%(12/51),P<0.05;冠心病患者Hp现症感染率为54.3%(25/46),明显高于非冠心病组的31.3%(27/51),P<0.05;冠心病组Hp感染患者血脂、空腹及餐后2 h血糖、C反应蛋白、纤维蛋白原较非感染患者明显升高(P<0.05).结论 Hp感染与冠心病相关,可能是拉萨地区冠心病发病的独立危险因素.     

免疫功能正常患者鼻眶部毛霉菌病的研究

目的：报告1例免疫功能正常患者鼻眶部毛霉菌病非典型病例,并对该病例进行相关文献回顾。患者,男,17岁,免疫功能正常,左眼2mo缓慢进行性疼痛肿胀。行组织活检,病理学诊断为毛霉菌病。采用综合疗法,包括筛窦及上颌窦侵入性内窥镜切除和清创、左眼眶内容物刮除术、静脉注射两性霉素B和眶内两性霉素B冲洗,成功根除真菌感染。该病例说明,鼻眶部毛霉菌病可发生在年轻健康的个体身上。早期诊断,积极的药物和手术治疗对成功地治疗这种罕见的具有潜在致命性的疾病是至关重要的。     

Cancer regulator microRNA: potential relevance in diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of cancer

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small (typically 22 nucleotides) non-coding, endogenous, single-stranded RNAs. MiRNA genes are evolutionarily conserved and are located within the introns or exons of protein-coding genes, as well as in intergenic areas. Before the discovery of miRNAs, it had been known that a large part of the genome is not translated into proteins. This so called "junk" DNA was thought to be evolution debris with no function. Recently, the explosive research in this area has established miRNAs as powerful regulators of gene expression. While only about 1,424 human miRNA sequences have been identified so far, genomic computational analysis indicates that as many as 50,000 miRNAs may exist in the human genome, and each may have multiple targets based on similar sequences in the 3'-UTR of mRNA. MiRNAs have been implicated in different areas such as the immune response, neural development, DNA repair, apoptosis, oxidative stress response and others and it is impressive the list of diseases which have recently been found to be associated with abnormal miRNA expression. Here, we focus our attention on the importance of cancer regulator miRNAs. They are divided into oncomiRs and anti-oncomiRs that negatively regulate tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes, respectively. Importantly, the association of miRNAs with cancer has prompted additional functional classification of these short RNAs and their potential relevance in cancer diagnosis, prognosis and treatment.     

HIV-1 Nef Protein Affects Cytokine and Extracellular Vesicles Production in the GEN2.2 Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Line

Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) are a unique dendritic cell subset specialized in type I interferon production, whose role in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection and pathogenesis is complex and not yet well defined. Considering the crucial role of the accessory protein Nef in HIV pathogenicity, possible alterations in intracellular signalling and extracellular vesicle (EV) release induced by exogenous Nef on uninfected pDCs have been investigated. As an experimental model system, a human plasmacytoid dendritic cell line, GEN2.2, stimulated with a myristoylated recombinant Nef_SF2 protein was employed. In GEN2.2 cells, Nef treatment induced the tyrosine phosphorylation of STAT-1 and STAT-2 and the production of a set of cytokines, chemokines and growth factors including IP-10, MIP-1β, MCP-1, IL-8, TNF-α and G-CSF. The released factors differed both in type and amount from those released by macrophages treated with the same viral protein. Moreover, Nef treatment slightly reduces the production of small EVs, and the protein was found associated with the small (size < 200 nm) but not the medium/large vesicles (size > 200 nm) collected from GEN2.2 cells. These results add new information on the interactions between this virulence factor and uninfected pDCs, and may provide the basis for further studies on the interactions of Nef protein with primary pDCs.     

Mouse spleen lymphoblasts generated in vitro. Their replication and differentiation in vitro

Mouse spleen lymphoblasts induced with lipopolysaccharide and fetal calf serum were obtained in high yield and purity in their first proliferative cell cycle by floatation in dense bovine plasma albumin columns (3). The blasts were maintained in vitro for 3 more days. The cultures were examined in bulk on each day, and in addition, those cells in S phase initially were tagged with [(3)H]thymidine and followed continuously in vitro. Grain count dilution data indicated that most blasts divided but twice over a 2- to 3-day interval in vitro. [(3)H]Thymidine pulse radiolabeling and flow microfluorometry suggested that at least 50-70 percent of the proliferating blasts withdrew from proliferative activity after 2-3 days of culture. Morphologic studies demonstrated that lymphoblasts persisted as such for 1-2 days in vitro and then matured into typical plasma cells. Many of the blastprogeny had small nuclei and considerable basophilic cytoplasm on Giemsa-stained cell smears; abundant rough endoplasmic reticulum by electron microscopy; and readily detectable cytoplasmic Ig by immunocytochemistry. Reversion of blasts to small lymphocytes could not be detected; however, some blasts persisted even after 3 days of culture. The viability of the cultured lymphoblast was followed by initially tagging the cells with [(3)H]thymidine as well as several other techniques. Little cell death was documented during the first day of culture. The number of labeled progeny increased twofold whereas the grain count halved. But 40- 50 percent of the cell-associated label was lost during each of the second and third days, and fewer labeled progeny than predicted by grain count dilution were identified. The culture medium could not be implicated in this loss of lymphoblast progeny, and we suggest that the maturation of the lymphoblast to a short-lived plasma cell was responsible. Therefore mitogen-stimulated B blasts seem to mature into typical plasma cells after just two cycles of cell division. The plasma cells resemble those produced in situ during an immune response in their cytologic features, withdrawal from active proliferative activity, and short life-span.     

Tumor cell anti-oxidant defenses. Inhibition of the glutathione redox cycle enhances macrophage-mediated cytolysis

The basis of resistance to oxidative injury was studied in six murine tumor cell lines that differed 54-fold in their resistance to enzymatically generated H(2)0(2). The tumors varied 56.7-fold in their specific activity of catalase, 5.3-fold in glutathione peroxidase (GPO), 3.3-fold in glutathione reductase (GR), and 2.7-fold in glutathione. There was no correlation among the levels of the three enzymes, and tumor cell resistance to lysis by H(2)0(2). However, the logarithm of the flux of H(2)0(2) necessary to cause 50 percent lysis of the tumor cells correlated with their content of glutathione (r = 0.91). The protective role of glutathione was analyzed by blocking GR and GPO, the catalysts of the glutathione redox cycle. This was facilitated by the demonstration that the anti-neoplastic agent 1,3-bis-(2- chloroethyl)-l-nitrosourea (BCNU) was a potent inhibitor of GR in intact tumor cells. BCNU inactivated tumor cell GR with a 50 percent inhibitory dose of 11 μM and a t(l/2) of inhibition of 30 s. Complete inhibition of GR was attained with no effect on GPO or catalase. Tumor cells whose GR was inactivated by BCNU could be lysed by fluxes of H(2)0(2) to which they were otherwise completely resistant. They could be killed by phorbol myristate acetate (PMA)-stimulated, bacilli Calmette-Guerin-activated macrophages in numbers which were otherwise insufficient, and by nonactivated macrophages, which otherwise were ineffective. BCNU-treated target cells were also much more sensitive to antibody-dependent, macrophage-mediated cytolysis. However, such tumor cells were no more sensitive than controls to lysis by alloreactive T cells or by antibody plus complement. Next, we deprived tumor cells of selenium by passage in selenium-deficient mice. GPO was inhibited 85 percent in such cells, with no effect on GR or catalase. Tumor cells with reduced GPO activity were markedly sensitized to lysis by small fluxes of H(2)0(2) or by PMA-stimulated macrophages or granulocytes. In contrast, inhibition of catalase with aminotriazole had no effect on the sensitivity of three tumors to peroxide-mediated lysis, and had modest effects with two others. Thus, the oxidation-reduction cycle of glutathione serves as one of the major defense mechanisms of tumor cells against three related forms of oxidant injury: lysis by fluxes of H(2)0(2), by PMA-triggered macrophages, and by macrophages in the presence of anti-tumor antibody.     

Antitumor effects of hydrogen peroxide in vivo

Glucose oxidase, covalently coupled to polystyrene microspheres (GOL), produced H(2)0(2) at an average rate of 3.6 nmol/min per 10(9) beads under standard assay conditions. Injection of 1.3 × 10(10) to 1.1 × 10(11) GOL i.p. prolonged the survival of mice by 27 percent after injection of 10(6) P388 lymphoma cells in the same site, consistent with destruction of 97.6 percent of the tumor cells. Placing mice for several hours in 100 percent O(2), the probable rate-limiting substrate for GOL, afforded a 42 percent prolongation of survival from P388 lymphoma, consistent with destruction of 99.6 percent of the tumor cells. When the P388 inoculum was 10(5), 10(4), or 10(3) cells, GOL led to long-term survival (presumed cure) of 23 percent, 77 percent, and 92 percent of the mice, respectively, consistent with reduction of the injected tumor dose to less than 10 cells. Subcutaneous growth of 10(5) P388 cells (approximately 300 lethal dose to 50 percent of mice) was suppressed in 83 percent of mice by admixture of GOL with the tumor cell inoculum. GOL alone had no effect against a more peroxide-resistant tumor, P815 mastocytoma. However, P815 cell glutathione reductase could be inhibited in vivo by well-tolerated doses of the antitumor agent, 1,3-bis(2-chloroethyl)- 1-nitrosourea (BCNU). BCNU alone cured few mice with P815. Together, BCNU and GOL apparently cured 86 percent of mice injected with 10(6) P815 cells i.p. The protective effect of GOL was abolished by boiling it to inactivate the enzyme, by co-injection of catalase coupled to latex beads, or by delaying the injection of tumor cells for 3 h, by which time the beads had formed aggregates. Soluble glucose oxidase, in doses threefold higher than that bound to GOL, had no detectable antitumor effect. A single injection of preformed H(2)0(2) readily killed P388 cells in the peritoneal cavity, but only at doses nearly lethal to the mice. In contrast, GOL had very little toxicity, as judged by the normal appearance of the mice for over 400 d, gross and microscopic findings at autopsy, and various blood tests. GOL injected i.p. remained in the peritoneal cavity, where it was gradually organized into granulomata by macrophages, without generalized inflammation. Thus, an H(2)0(2)-generating system confined to the tumor bed exerted clear- cut antitumor effects with little toxicity to the host.