Major changes and updates of Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) document M100-S22 for performance standards for antimicrobial susceptibility testing were introduced in the article,which includes ( 1 ) general changes; (2) changes of drugs recommended for testing and reporting;( 3 ) changes of interpretive criteria ( breakpoints ) and comments ; ( 4 ) changes of quality control and others; and (5) changes of appendixes and glossaries.

Liver fibrosis can be caused by chronic liver injury arising from various etiological factors and it is a reversible process.The activation of the hepatic stellate cell(HSC)is the central event in liver fibrosis,since we know that cytokines secreted from Kupffer cell participate in HSC proliferation,apoptosis and ECM metabolism.In this paper we focus on the relationship between HSCs,Kupffer cell,cytokines and the course of hepatic fibrosis.Elucidating this relationship will benefit research on the role of Kupffer and HSCs in hepatic fibrosis.

Objective To investigate the transactivating effect of hepatitis C virus(HCV)core protein on inducible nitric oxide synthase(iNOS)gene promoter and the molecular biological mecha- nisms of HCV pathogenesis.Methods Polymerase chain reaction(PCR)technique was employed to amplify the sequence of iNOS promoter by using HepG2 genomic DNA as template,and the product was cloned into pGEM-T vector.The iNOSp gene was cut from T-iNOSp by KpnⅠand XhoⅠ,and then was cloned into pCAT3-Basic,the constructed vector was named as pCAT3-iNOSp,pCAT3-iN- OSp was transfected into the LO_2 cell line.LO_2 cell was also cotransfected with pcDNA3.1(-)-core and pCAT3-iNOSp by FuGENE 6 transfection reagents.The LO_2 cells transfected with pCAT3-Basic was used as negative control.The activity of CAT in LO_2 cells was detected by an ELISA kit after 48 hours,which reflected the transactivating function of HCV core protein to iNOS gene promoter.Re- sults The expressive vector pcDNA3.1(-)-core and report vector pCAT3-iNOSp had been construc- ted and confirmed by restriction enzyme digestion and sequencing.The expression of CAT in LO_2 cells transfected with pCAT3-iNOSp and peDNA3,1(-)-core was 11 times as higher as that of pCAT3-bas- ic,and 6 times as higher as that of pCAT3-iNOSp.Conclusion It is suggested that HCV core protein can transactivate iNOS gene promoter.

Objective To clone amastin coding genes from different strains of Leishmania parasites. Methods Using amastin cDNA sequence as the reference, dbEST data base established by National Center Biotechnology Information (NCBI), USA, was searched by BLAST tool. A 309 bp DNA fragment of Leishmania major was found and used as the probe for the screening of a DNA library. The amastin gene of Leishmania major Abdou was cloned and sequenced. Specific primers were designed and amastin genes for Leishmania mexicana WR972, Leishmania brizeliensis and Leishmania amazonensis joseph were amplified by polymerase chain reaction. Results The amastin genes from 4 strains of Leishmania parasites were cloned and sequenced. It was found that all 4 amastin genes contained unique open reading frame of 552 bp and encoded amastin protein of 183 amino acid residues. Conclusion The amastin genes of 4 strains of Leishmania parasites were successfully cloned.

To construct a cDNA subtractive library of genes transactivated by hepatitis C virus core protein with suppression subtractive hybridization technique. mRNA was isolated from HepG2 cells transfected with pcDNA3 1(-)-core and pcDNA3 1(-) empty vector,respectively, then cDNA was synthesized. After restriction enzyme RsaI digestion, small sized cDNA were obtained. Then tester cDNA was divided into two groups and ligated to the specific adaptor 1 and adaptor 2, respectively. After tester cDNA was hybridized with driver cDNA twice and underwent two times of nested PCR, and then it was subcloned into T/A plasmid vectors to set up the subtractive library. Amplification of the library was carried out with E.coli strain JM109. The cDNA were sequenced and analyzed in GenBank with Blast search after PCR. The subtractive library of genes transactivated by HCV core protein was constructed successfully. The amplified library contained 233 positive clones. Colony PCR product showed that 213 clones contained 100~ 1 000 bp inserts. Sequence analysis was performed in 63 clones. Six of the sequences were unknown genes before. The full length sequences were obtained with bioinformatics method,which had been accepted by GenBank. It suggested that six novel cDNA sequences might be target genes transactivated by HCV core protein.

Liver fibrosis can be caused by chronic liver injury arising from various etiological factors and it is a reversible process. The activation of the hepatic stellate cell( HSC) is the central event in liver fibrosis,since we know that cytokines secreted from Kupffer cell participate in HSC proliferation,apoptosis and ECM metabolism. In this paper we focus on the relation-ship between HSCs,Kupffer cell,cytokines and the course of hepatic fibrosis. Elucidating this relationship will benefit research on the role of Kupffer and HSCs in hepatic fibrosis.

Objective To investigate clinical significance of proinsulin and true insulin in obese children with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT).Methods There were 21 IGT and 52 normal glucose tolerance (NGT) children. Control cases were 40 normal children. The levels of serum fasting proinsulin,true insulin,insulin,c-peptide and glucose were measured in all the subjects.Results 1.Levels of fasting proinsulin,c-peptide, glucose, insulin, true insulin and homeostasis insulin resistance in obese children with IGT showed significant difference compared with NGT (P

Objective To construct a cDNA subtractive library of genes transactivated by c-terminally truncated middle surface protein of hepatitis B virus(MHBs t) with suppression subtractive hybridization technique for cloning genes associated with transactivation. Methods The mRNA was isolated from HepG2 cells transfected with pcDNA3.1(-)-Mt167 and pcDNA3.1(-) empty vectors, respectively, then cDNA was synthesized. After restriction enzyme Rsa I digestion, small-size cDNAs were obtained. Then tester cDNA was divided into two groups and ligated to the specific adaptor 1 and adaptor 2, respectively. After tester cDNA was hybridized with driver cDNA twice and underwent two times of nested PCR and then was subcloned into T/A plasmid vectors to set up the subtractive library. Amplification of the library was carried out with E. coli strain JM109. The cDNA was sequenced and analyzed in GenBank with Blast search after PCR. Results The subtractive library of genes transactivated by MHBs t was constructed successfully. The amplified library contained 94 positive clones. Colony PCR showed that these clones contained 200-800bp inserts. Sequence analysis was performed in 50 clones,and the full length sequences were obtained with bioinformatics method. 23 coding sequences were obtained in total, which consisted of 19 known and 4 unknown ones.Conclusions The obtained sequences may be target genes transactivated by MHBs t, among which some genes coding proteins may involve in cell cycle regulation, immune response and tumour genesis.

In order to screen genes transregulated by core protein of hepatitis C virus, cDNA microarray technology was employed to detect the gene expression change between HepG2 cells transfected with pcDNA3 1(-) core and the empty vector, respectively. Among 1152 genes, there were 95 genes with different expressions, of which 45 genes were upregulated and 50 genes were downregulated in HepG2 cells transfected with core protein expression plasmid. These genes transregulated by HCV core protein included human genes encoding proteins involved in cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, signal transduction and immune regulation. Therefore, the results provided some new clues for further clarifying the molecular biology mechanism of pathogenesis and tumorigenesis of HCV core protein

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) non structure 3 (NS3) protein and hepatitis B virus (HBV) X protein expressing plasmids were constructed with the vector pcDNA3 1(-). The plasmids were transfected into HepG2 cells and the viral proteins expressed in HepG2 cells were identified using Western blotting methods. Then the two recombined plasmids were transfected into HepG2 cells and were cotransfected into HepG2 cells with reporter plasmid pCAT3 promoter. The activity of CAT enzyme was detected by a CAT ELISA assay kit, which reflected the transactivating function of two proteins on SV40 early promoter. The findings indicated that the expression of two viral proteins were successfully detected in soluble protein cell extracts of transiently transfected HepG2 cells. HCV NS3 protein transactivated the CAT enzyme expressed at a value 3 5 fold higher than the control, while HBX protein transactivated at a value 4 4 times. It arrived at 8 5 times when transfected with two plamids simultaneously. The activating effect was increased in relation to the amount of plasmids. It was suggested that the two kinds of viral proteins had a transactivating effect on SV40 early promoter, and they acted synergistically. These results might contribute to explaining the mechanisms of liver injury or tumorigenesis induced by HCV or/and HBV infection