Objective To investigate the expression of ADAM8 in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its clinical significance.Methods The protein expression of ADAM8 in HCC tissues was analyzed using immunohistochemical analysis.Serum levels of ADAM8 were measured by ELISA in 126 patients with HCC,50 patients with liver cirrhosis (LC) and 50 healthy individuals.The relationship between patients' pathological features and serum ADAM8 level was analyzed.Results Immunohistochemical analysis showed that ADAM8 expression was associated closely with serum AFP elevation,tumor size,histological differentiation,and tumor stage.The ELISA assay showed that the serum levels of ADAM8 in the HCC were significantly higher than those in LC and healthy groups.Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that high expression of serum ADAM8 exhibited a significant correlation with poor prognosis for HCC patients.Multivariate analysis revealed that serum ADAM8 expression is an independent prognostic parameter for the overall survival rate of HCC patients.Conclusion ADAM8 expression was closely associated with tumor size,serum AFP elevation,tumor differentiation,tumor stage and prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma.Therefore,ADAM8 expression may serve as a biomarker for predicting the prognosis of patients in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Objective To establish rSAG1-IgM-ELISA with purified rSAG1 fusion protein for immunodiagnosis of toxoplasmosis. Methods The rSAG1 fusion protein was purified by Ni 2+ column. The ELISA plate was coated with different concentrations of rSAG1, reacted with pooled positive and negtive human sera. Goat anti-human IgM conjugated to horseradish peroxidase was used as the second antibody. The appropriate detecting condition of the rSAG1-IgM-ELISA assay was determined by orthogonal experiment. The reproducibility, sensitivity and specificity of the assay were assessed. Thirty-five IgM-positive and 57 IgM-negative human sera detected by the imported IgM-ELISA kit were detected with the rSAG1-IgM-ELISA. Results The purity of rSAG1 was above 90%. The appropriate detecting condition was that the coated rSAG1 was 2 5 ?g/ml, the human serum was in 1∶100 dilution, and the second antibody was in 1∶4000 dilution. The coefficient of variation (CV) value of IgM-positive and IgM-negative pooled sera were 13 8% and 7 7% respectively. The inhibition rate of the assay was 62 0% The positive correspondence rate and negative correspondence rate were 82 9% (29/35) and 91 2% (52/57) respectively,the total correspondence rate was 88 0%, compared with the imported IgM-ELISA kit. Conclusions The rSAG1-IgM-ELISA has high sensitivity and specificity, and good correspondence rate with the imported IgM-ELISA kit. It indicates that rSAG1-IgM-ELISA has potential value for early diagnosis of toxoplasmosis.