B-Lymphocytes ; Graft vs Host Disease ; Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation ; Humans

Carcinoma, Hepatocellular ; virology ; Genome, Viral ; Hepatitis B virus ; genetics ; Humans ; Liver Neoplasms ; virology ; Mutation

MicroRNAs(miRNAs) are endogenous non-coding RNAs,about 20 nucleotides in length.They play a pivotal role in the regulation of genes involved in diverse biology processes such as cell development,proliferation,differentiation and apoptosis by the translation repression or mRNA degradation.Recent evidence has suggested that miRNA alterations are involved in the initiation and progression of various human cancer including hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC),and miRNA-expression profiling of HCC has identified signatures associated with diagnosis,staging,progression and prognosis.As a novel molecular target,miRNAs holds great promise in diagnosis and biotherapy of HCC.

Circulating nucleic acids (CNAs) are extracellular nucleic acids found in cell-free serum,plasma and other body fluids from healthy subjects as well as in patients. The ability to detect and quantitate specific DNA and RNA sequences has opened up the possibility of diagnosis and monitoring of diseases,especially in the field of cancer. Furthermore,in some recent studies it has been suggested a kind of non-coding RNA-microRNA (miRNA),also exist in cell-free serum and plasma,highlighting the field of using CNAs to diagnose cancer. As a novel tumor marker,tumor-specific circulating miRNAs holds great promise in early diagnosis of cancer.

Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC),one of the most common malignant tumors,is the main cause of cancer death in China.Early diagnosis of the disease is of great importance.Serum tumor markers have been effective for detecting HCC for a long time.Among those markers,alpha fetoprotein(AFP)is the most widely used one in detecting patients with HCC,but it has limited utility for detecting HCC due to its limited sensitivity and specificity.Searching better markers for HCC has been a re- search focus in recent years.This review introduces many useful markers to supplement AFP for detecting HCC.

The surveillance of schistosomiasis in three sites of Mianzhu City after earthquake showed that there were no infected Oncomelania snails and cases,but the emerging area with snails were 7 895 m~2.Therefore,the control measures should be strengthened.

Hypoxia-inducible factor(HIF) plays a key role in the adaptation of tumour cells under hypoxic circumstance,there are some advances in the literatures regarding HIF as an important target for anticancer agents and gene therapy.In this review,the molecular mechanism and clinical significance of compounds targeting on hypoxia- inducing factor was summarized.

Early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)is still a great challenge in clinical practice.Tumor markers such as alpha-fetoprotein(AFP),liver enzymes,cytokines,and some special glycoproteins,though helpful,are not sensitive and specific enough for early diagnosis of HCC.The establishment of several interesting predictive diagnostic models on liver fi- brosis/cirrhosis suggests that mathematic predictive model,which is developed based on large sample size and follow-up study, might be of higher sensitivity,specificity and feasibility in clinical application.Here we suggest that more attention should be paid to this kind of multi-parameter predictive diagnostic models clinically,so as to improve the early diagnosis of HCC in a more economical and feasible way.

Musashi1 (Msi1) is an evolutionary conservative RNA-binding protein (RBP),and it is a stem marker in a variety of organizations,including intestinal,neural system.Msi1 maintains the balance between self-renewal and differentiation.Recently,many researchers report that Msi1 is overexpressed in many types of tumors,especially in colorectal neoplasms,participating in the regulation of cell cycle,proliferation,apoptosis and so on.Msi1 becomes a key regulator of many cancers,which is expected to turn into a new target for cancer therapy.

BACKGROUND: The angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) is the important component of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAS). The ACE gene has, in fact,insertion/deletion polymorphism in intron 16, consisting of a 287-base pair Alu repeat sequence. ACE gene heterozygotes insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism is correlated with cardiovascular disease and IgA nephropathy and other diseases. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the distribution of ACE gene I/D polymor-phism in Chinese Han population in comparison with other known ethnic populations. DESIGN: Observation study on healthy individuals of Han nationality. SETTING: Key Laboratory of Clinical Immunology of Jiangsu Province; Department of Laboratory Medicine, First Hospital Affiliated to Soochow University; Department of aboratory Medicine, College of Medical Technology of Jiangsu University PARTICIPANTS: Totally 241 healthy individuals who received the healthy examination in the First Hospital of Soochow University between December 2005 and January 2006 were recruited in the experiment. They were 152 male and 89 female , with mean age of (27±8)years. All the participants without blood relationship were Han nationality from Suzhou region in China, free from disorder of hepatic, renal, endocrine and cardio- cerebrovascular diseases which were confirmed by clinical and experimen- tal examination. METHODS: Genotype of ACE gene I/D polymorphism allele of 241 healthy individuals of Han nationality was detected with polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR purified products with genotype of deletion/deletion (DD) and insertion/insertion (Ⅱ) polymorphism were performed DNA sequencing with fluorescence-labeled end termination method. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Genotype and allele frequency of ACE gene I/D, as well as the comparison between them and those of other ethnic population. RESULTS: All the 241 subjects participated in final result analysis. ① The genotypes of ACE were DD, Ⅱ and ID. Compared with allele Ⅰ, allele D lost 287-base pair Alu repeat sequence. ②The frequencies of genotype Ⅱ, ID and DD were 46.1％, 41.5％ and 12.4％ respectively, with an allelic frequency of 66.8％ for allele Ⅰ and 33.2％ for allele D. ③The distribution of ACE genotype was similar between Japanese and Han nationality crowd, both presenting that type Ⅱ was commonly seen and type DD was the least; ID was mostly found in European and American crowd, but Ⅱ was little found. There was racial diversify of frequency of the distribution of ACE genotype among individuals of Han nationality and Japanese as well as Europeans and Americans. Compared with other nationalities, allele Ⅰ of individuals of Han nationality was significantly higher than that of above nationalities (χ2=105.55,P ＜ 0.01), but allele D was obviously lower (χ2=87.54,P ＜ 0.01). CONCLUSION: ACE gene polymorphism has racial diversify. To know genetic features of ACE gene polymorphism of individuals of different na tionalities is the basis and prerequisite to study the correlation of ACE gene I/D polymorphism with diseases.