Objective To explore the risk factors on the symptoms of lumbar intervertebral disc herniation so as to develop a predictive model for the disease. Methods With a populationbased case-control study, 303 of 50 123 residents were diagnosed as having lumbar intervertebral disc herniation symptoms. 152 cases and 167 healthy controls, matched by gender and age, were randomly chosen as case and control groups. Questionnaires were used to collect information on the exposure to risk factors and logistic predictive model was then established. Results Through non-conditional logistic regression analysis, data showed that the positive family history of lumbar vertebra disorder, lumbar treatment or surgery, mental stress, acute low back injury, permanent work pose, and body mass index ≥23.0 kg/m2 were the risk factors among residents from the countryside. The area under the receiver operator characteristic curve of logistic predictive model was 0.809. When 0.4 was set as the classification cutoff, the total predictive correct rate, sensitivity, and specificity were 74.0%, 73.7%, and 74.3% respectively. Conclusion The occurrence of lumbar disk herniationcan in countryside population was affected by multi-variables including genetic and environmental, and could be predicted with the logistic regression model established by our group.The positive predictive results could be used to alarm the patients and doctors for prevention and treatment of the disease.

Objective To analyze the efficacy of the combination of MALDI-TOF and immunoadsorption to detect new biomarkers for lupus. Methods Twenty lupus patients at active stage (SLE group), 10 SLE patients in remission (SLE control group), 10 RA patients and 10 PSS patients (other rheumatic disease control group) and 20 healthy volunteers (healthy control group) were enrolled. The serum samples before and after immunoadsorption from SLE group and those from the control groups were co-incubated with activated chitosan copper derivative nano material. The adsorbed nano material was spotted onto the matrix used in MALDI-TOF for analysis by the Axima-CFR plus MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer. T-test was used for statistical analysis. Results MALDI-TOF MS screening showed that three potential protein biomarkers of mass-to-charge (m/z) ratio 3136, 3264, 3326 were found to be very specific for lupus patients: All of them were expressed before immunoadsorption in high quantity and none of them could be detected both after immunoadsorption and in all the three control groups. None of them (<10 000) were in the molecular weight range of the biomarkers used nowadays such as auto antibodies and complement (>50 000). Conclusion The combination of MALDI-TOF and immunoadsorption is effective in the detection of new serum protein biomarkers for lupus and it may be helpful in the screening of SLE patients at active stage from healthy people.

Objective To investigate the changes of indications, degree of difficulty in procedure, complication and its severity in endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) in Changhai hospital from 2001 to 2007. Methods The clinical data, including demographic data, indications, degree of difficulty in procedure, success rate, complication rate and severity of complication, of 2374 patients who underwent ERCP in 2001 and 2007 (966 in 2001 and 1408 in 2007), were retrospectively reviewed. Results Indications of ERCP changed at an interval of 5 years. Operations due to bile duct stone decreased (59.0% vs. 49.3%, P=0.000), while operations due to pancreas disease, especially chronic pancreatitis (6.6% vs. 18.5%, P=0.000) and recurrent pancreatitis (0.2% vs.1.6%, P=0.001), increased. Patients with biliary duct problems after liver transplantation appeared in 2007. The procedures of ERCP performed in 2007 were more difficult (P=0.000), with an increased percentage of Degree 5 procedure (7.3% vs. 33.3%, P=0.000). The number of diagnostic ERCP significantly decreased (Degree 1 + Degree 3, 30.5% +2.8% vs. 5.9% +3.1%, P=0.000). There was no significant difference in the success rate between the two years (P=0.084). The complication rate of ERCP in 2007 was significantly higher than that in 2001 (3.73% vs. 7.88%, P=0.000), but the severity of complication showed no significant difference (P=0.820). Conclusion Cases of diagnostic ERCP decreased in 2007. Indications of ERCP have changed, with a decrease in bile duct diseases and an increase in pancreatic diseases. The procedures are more complicated, but it does not lead to lower success rate. The increase in complication rate is possibly due to increase of therapeutic ERCP.

Objective:To investigate the expression of transmembrane 4 super family 1 (TM4SF1)in breast cancer tissue,and to elucidate its clinical significance and explore the related molecular biological mechanisms. Methods:A total of 190 cases of human breast cancer,110 cases of paracancerous tissue and 110 cases of normal breast tissue were collected.Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression levels of TM4SF1 mRNA in breast cancer tissue,paracancerous tissue,and normal breast tissue;Western blotting method was used to detect the expression levels of TM4SF1 in breast cancer tissue,paracancerous tissue,and normal breast tissue;RT-PCR method was used to detect the expression levels of TM4SF1 mRNA in breast cancer tissue,paracancerous tissue, and normal breast tissue.The positive expression rates of TM4SF1 in breast cancer tissue of the breast cancer patients with different clinicopathological features were detected.Results:The positive expression rate of TM4SF1 in the breast cancer tissue was significantly higher than those in paracancerous tissue and normal breast tissue (P <0.05);there was no significant difference in the positive expression rates of TM4SF1 between paracancerous tissue and normal breast tissue (P = 0.531);the expression of TM4SF1 was not correlated with age,but was closely correlated with tumor size,differentiation degree,lymph node metastasis and tumor stage (P <0.05);the positive expression rate of TM4SF1 in basal like breast cancer tissue was higher than those in the other three types of tissues (P <0.05).The results of Western blotting showed that the expression level of TM4SF1 in breast cancer tissue was higher than those in paracancerous tissue and normal breast tissue (P < 0.05 ), but there was no significant difference in the expression level of TM4SF1 between paracancerous tissue and normal breast tissue (P >0.05). The results of RT-PCR showed that the expression level of TM4SF1 mRNA in breast cancer tissue was higher than those in the paracancerous tissue and normal breast tissue (P <0.01);there was no significant difference in the expression level of TM4SF1 mRNA between paracancerous tissue and normal breast tissue (P > 0.05 ). Conclusion:The TM4SF1 is highly expressed in breast cancer tissue. TM4SF1 may affect the occurrence, development and distant metastasis of breast cancer through various mechanisms.TM4SF1 may be a potential target for the treatment of breast cancer.

LG1 strain of avian influenza virus H9N2 was passaged continuously for 40 generations in chicken embryos with anti-LG1 maternal antibodies in 4 parallel experiments, of which 3 experiments had a stable mutation of "G" to "A" at #99 of the neuraminidase gene(NA)from the 20th passage resulting in a change of Met to Ile and 2 had a stable mutation of "A" to "G" at #473 of the NA gene from the 30th passage resulting in a change of Asn to Ser which occurred in the 50th passage of another experiment. Eighty continuous passages in chicken embryos without antibody did not have the same mutation, indicating that the mutations of the 2 positions were associated with selective pressure of antibodies. Analysis of the ratios of nonsynonium (NS) vs synonium (S) mutations of nucleic acids demonstrated that NS/S of 4 parallel experiments with antibodies was 4.6 (32/7) compared with 2.0 (16/8) of the 2 experiments without antibodies and this significant difference implied the selective pressure of antibodies.
Animals ; Antibodies, Viral ; immunology ; Chick Embryo ; Influenza A Virus, H9N2 Subtype ; genetics ; immunology ; Mutation ; Neuraminidase ; genetics

The purpose of this study was to compare the whole genome sequences and replication dynamics in cell cultures of two Avian leukosis viruses of subgroup B (ALV) isolates, SDAU09E3 and SDAU09C2. Comparison of the amino acid sequences indicated that the gp85 identity of these two subgroup B isolates was 95.4%, the identity with other three ALV-B reference strains was 91.0%-94.9%, and less than 87.9% with ALV subgroup A, C, D, E and J. Comparison of the nucleotide sequence of gag and pol genes indicated that homologies of gag gene and pol gene of these two ALV-B isolates with all compared reference strains of different subgroups were above 93%. Homologies of LTR sequence of these two ALV-B isolates with other exogenous ALVs subgroups A, B, C, D and J were 72.6%-88.3%, but only 51.5% when compared with endogenous ALV subgroup E. The identity of LTR between these two ALV-B strains was only 74.8%, which was far lower than the identity of other genes. The identity of U3 region of LTR between these two ALV-B isolates was only 68.8% and there were obvious differences in the number CAAT Boxes. Replication dynamics in DF-1 cell indicated that the value of TCID50 was similar between 2 isolates but the concentration of nucleocapsid protein p27 antigen of SDAU09E3 was significantly higher than SDAU09C2 in cell culture supernatant, which indicated there was no parallel relationship between p27 antigen concentration and infectious virus particles. Whether such difference was resulted from the diversity of U3 region of LTR, further studies with their recombinant infectious clones is necessary.
Animals ; Antibodies, Viral ; immunology ; Avian Leukosis Virus ; classification ; genetics ; physiology ; Base Sequence ; Cell Line ; Cells, Cultured ; Chick Embryo ; Chickens ; Genome, Viral ; genetics ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Phylogeny ; Poultry Diseases ; virology ; Sequence Alignment ; Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid ; Viral Matrix Proteins ; genetics ; Virus Replication ; physiology

OBJECTIVETo explore the relationships and interaction among the exposure to environmental smoke, family history of chronic bronchitis (CB) and CB, in rural women.

METHODSA population-based case-control study chi(2) was used to analyze the relationship between environmental smoke exposure, CB family history and CB. Additive effects model was used to analyze the interaction.

RESULTSIn the first stage, 157 CB patients were screened from 24 268 women residents (prevalence rate is 6.47 per thousand), then 92 patients (case group) and 114 healthy women (control group) were investigated in the second stage. Results showed that: coal/firewood for heating (OR = 36.21) and CB family history (OR = 6.41) might serve as the risk factors of CB in rural women (P < 0.05). Factors as frequent cooking and using coal/firewood for heating had a positive interaction with family history of CB in rural women, CB with S as 5.39 and 9.02, attributable proportions of interaction (API) as 72% and 88%, relative excess risk of interaction (RERI) as 6.50 and 225.99, respectively.

CONCLUSIONUsing coal/firewood for heating and CB family history might be the risk factors of CB for rural women. A positive interaction between cooking frequently, heating model and CB family history was also seen.

Adult ; Air Pollution, Indoor ; adverse effects ; Bronchitis, Chronic ; epidemiology ; etiology ; Case-Control Studies ; China ; epidemiology ; Cooking ; Environmental Exposure ; adverse effects ; Female ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; Risk Factors ; Rural Population ; Smoke ; adverse effects

Objective:To express the recombinant varicella-zoster virus (VZV) gE Δ-Fc fusion protein using CHO cell expression system, and provide reference for screening candidate antigens of recombinant herpes zoster vaccines. Methods:A eukaryotic expression plasmid containing the gE Δ-Fc gene was transfected into CHO cells. Monoclonal cells were selected by methionine sulfoximine (MSX) pressure screening and limited dilution method to obtain the CHO cells secreting and expressing the gE Δ-Fc fusion protein. The expressed gE Δ-Fc fusion protein was purified by MabSelect SuRe affinity chromatography. The binding activity of gE Δ-Fc fusion protein to Fc receptors was identified by ELISA. Flow cytometry was used to detect the phagocytosis of antigens by DC2.4 cells. Antibody titers in serum samples of BALB/c mice immunized with the gE Δ-Fc fusion protein were detect by ELISA. Results:A CHO cell line stably expressing the gE Δ-Fc fusion protein was obtained. Flow cytometry suggested that the phagocytotic activity of DC2.4 cells against the gE Δ-Fc fusion protein was stronger than that against gE. Moreover, the gE Δ-Fc fusion protein could induce BALB/c mice to produce high titers of specific anti-VZV antibodies. Conclusions:The recombinant VZV gE Δ-Fc fusion protein expressed in CHO cells had a good immunogenicity. This study provided reference for screening candidate antigens of recombinant herpes zoster vaccines.

Objective To assess the safety, immunogenicity and efficacy of group A and C meningococcal polysaccharide vaccine (A/C MPV) in response to an outbreak of group C meningococcal disease. Methods A vaccination campaign with A/C MPV was prompted 6 weeks after the use of group A MPV in Laibin city, Guangxi, where an outbreak of group C meningococcal meningitis occurred in 2002.Vaccinees were observed for local and systemic reactions after the vaccination and followed up for the meningococcal disease for 5 years. Blood samples were collected from 71 people in the epidemic and 43 in the non-epidemic areas before and 1 month after the vaccination and examined by ELISA to detect IgG antibodies to group A and C polysaccharides. Results The vaccination coverage was 97%. No significant adverse reactions were observed. The positive rates of group C antibodies after vaccination was between 97.67% and 100% among the populations in the epidemic and non-epidemic areas, as well as among those negative and positive for group C antibodies prior to the vaccination.The geometric mean anti-C concentrations ranged 30.81 μg/ml to 37.44 μg/ml, showing no significant difference between groups. The incidence rate of meningococcal disease in students with timely immunization (218.58/100 000) dropped by 69.02% , when compared to that in those with delayed immunization (705.72/100 000). No clinical cases were identified during the follow-up period of 15 760 person-years. Conclusion The vaccination campaign with the Chinese group A/C MPV seemed successful in controlling the group C meningococcal outbreak.The vaccine was shown to be safe even administered after the group A vaccine only 6 weeks apart. It could induce high levels of antibodies in vulnerable population and significantly increase antibody levels in seropositive individuals, thus providing a protection of at least 5 years.

Objective To evaluate the safety and efficacy of therapeutic ERCP for patients above 90 years of age.Methods The data of 37 patients of above 90 years who underwent 42 ERCP procedures from January 2001 to December 2009 were studied retrospectively and compared with those of 152 matched patients ( 168 procedures) below 65 years old at a 1∶4 ratio for success rate and complications.Results The rate of complete success,partial success,and failure in observation group was 73.81％ (31/42),19.05％(8/42) and 2.38％ (1/42),respectively,which were similar (P ＞0.05) with those in control group,with complete success rate at 85.12％ ( 143/168),partial success rate at 12.50％ (21/168) and failure rate at 2.38％ (4/168).The rate of terminated operation in observation group (4.76％,2/42) was significantly higher than that of the control group (0.00％,0,P =0.039).The overall rate of complication in observation group was 7.14％ ( 3/42 ),slightly higher than that of the control group ( 6.55％,11/168,P ＞0.05 ).There was no significant difference between the two groups regarding the rates and severity of such complications as pancreatitis,hemorrhage and infection ( P ＞ 0.05 ).No perforation or death was observed.Conclusion Therapeutic ERCP for patients of 90 years or older is safe and effective.Adverse events related to chronic concomitant diseases need early detection and proper management.