The clozapine treatment of schizophrenic patients (n=26) for 6 weeks showed the significantly (all P

Many gene therapy protocols can induce antitumor immunity, however, the ex vivo approach restricts their uses. This sutydy intended to induce antitumor immunity by direct transfer of MHC class Ⅱ gene in vivo. Methods: MHC class Ⅱ gene cDNA was introduced directly into two tumors: P815, (a murine weak immunogenic mas-tocytoma) and B16 (a murine nonirnmunogenic melanoma) to observe the survival rate of the mice. Results: Tumori-genicity of P815 was reduced when MHC class Ⅱ gene was introduced directly into tumors in vivo. Further more, most vaccinated mice could survive after second challenge of P815. Co-injection of MHC class Ⅱ and B7 genes in the B16 also resulted in the tumor grow slowly, while the injection of MHC class Ⅱ gene was not enough to induce effective antitumor responses. Conclusion: The results showed the potential applications of direct transfer of MHC class Ⅱ gene in the treatment of tumor.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies suggest that vascular endothelial growth factor 121 may be an optimal target gene for thetreatment of acute myocardial infarction.OBJECTIVE: To investigate effect of direct myocardial injection of adenovirus recombinant human vascular endothelial growthfactor 121 gene (Ad-hVEGF121) on myocardial infracted rat heart structure, function and angiogenesis.METHODS: Totally 78 male SD rats were randomly divided into the sham-surgery (n=18), acute myocardial infarction (n=24),Ad-VEGF121 (n=19) and normal saline (n=17) groups. Among them, left anterior descending coronary arteries of the latter threegroups were ligated to prepare acute myocardial infarction models and rats were randomly selected to receive Ad-hVEGF12 ornormal saline via three points in the cardiac muscle at the 10-15 minutes after ligation. The chest was exposed without ligation inthe sham-surgery group.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: At 2 weeks after injection, cardiac ultrasound showed that, compared with the sham-surgerygroup, the number of new capillaries, body weight and left ventricular mass / body weight of the acute myocardial infarction,Ad-hVEGF121 and normal saline groups were obviously increased (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01), especially those received transfectedrAd-hVEGF12, had higher density of blood capillaries than those of the normal saline and acute myocardial infarction groups.However, there were no obviously differences between each group in infarct size, cardiac structure or functions. The directmyocardial injection of Ad-VEGF121 can significantly promote the formation of new blood vessels within the myocardium.

Objective:To investigate the damaging traits of cognitive function in late-onset depression.Methods:In this cross-sectional study,30 elderly out-and in-patients whose first onset of major depression occurred at 60 years of age and older were included as the case group,and 30 age-and gender-matched normal elderly people were included as the controls.The diagnoses of moderate to severe depressive episode or recurrent depression were made according to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems,Tenth Revision (ICD-10) diagnostic criteria.The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST),Stroop Test and Verbal Fluency Test (VFT) were used to assess attentional set shifting,attentional inhibition and working memory.The severity of depression was evaluated with the Hamilton Depression Scale-17(HAMD-17).Results:The performance scores of errors,perseverative responses,perseverative errors,percent of perseverative errors in the WCST were significantly higher in the patient group then in the control group[(61 ± 23) vs.(41 ± 25),(44 ± 27) vs.(27± 19),(36 ± 20) vs.(23 ± 16),(28 ± 15) vs.(19 ± 11),P ＜ 0.01].The scores of conceptual level responses [(36±24) vs.(54 ±26)],the correct scores of consistent group in Stroop test[(19 ±3) vs.(20 ±2)] and the scores of VFT in WCST[(10 ±2) vs.(11 ±2)] were lower in the patient group than in the control group (Ps ＜0.01).The scores of perseverative responses in the WCST were positively correlated with retardation factor scores(r =0.38,P ＜ 0.05).The correct scores of consistent group in the Stroop test were negatively correlated with retardation factor scores(r =-0.41,P ＜ 0.05).The scores of VFT were negatively correlated with retardation factor scores(r =-0.52,P ＜ 0.01).Conclusion:There may be impairment of cognitive function in late-onset depression,especially severe executive dysfunction.