Epitope vaccine is one of the emerging vaccine techniques developing in past decade years.Particularly the advantages of this vaccine on preventing and therapy illness,as cancer and virus,are espacially outstanding.The most importent elements about the vaccine,namely T/B-epitopes obtainment and identification,vehicles for epitope and vaccine construction,are reviewed.In addition,applications of the vaccine technique in some refractory diseases,such as cancer,virus and pathogen infection,are depicted.

By non-steady method,the effective diffusivity of ferrous sulphate within alginate calcium gel entrapped without bacteria was measured.Meanwhile the oxidation ability of entrapped bacteria was analyzed.Experimental results showed that the effective diffusion coefficient of ferrous sulphate decreased with the increase of alginate concentration,the optimum alginate concentration is 2%(W/V).The effect of calcium chloride on the effective diffusivity was neglectable.The incubation of ferrooxidans would pass through 10 hours,and the diffusion coefficient within gel entrapped Thiobacillus ferrooxidans cells was less remarkably than that of ferrous sulphate without entrapped cells.For the entrapped cells,the absolute oxidation time was shortest and the rate change was fastest with the initial Fe concentration 5g/L.The absolute oxidation time was same when the initial Fe concentration was 8g/L and 10g/L.

?AlM: To investigate the outcome and safety of Ahmed glaucoma valve implantation treatment in uncontrolled primary congenital glaucoma ( PCG) .
? METHODS: Twenty - two eyes in 22 children with uncontrolled PCG were reviewed retrospectively and underwent Ahmed glaucoma valve implantation treatment from January 2011 to December 2014. Main checking index included intraocular pressure ( lOP ) before and after operation, corneal diameter and complications.
?RESULTS: Preoperative mean age was 3. 74±2. 24y, and 2. 59 ± 1. 78y apart from the last operation. Postoperative average lOP was 35. 22 ± 6. 36mmHg. Average corneal diameter was 12. 79 ± 0. 75mm. Mitomycin C ( 0. 3 - 0. 5mg/mL ) was used in all operations for 3-5min. Glaucoma valves were implanted in the temporal or nose above the equator sclera. Postoperative lOP was 11. 4±4. 45mmHg at 1wk, and 16. 73± 7. 23mmHg after 12mo. As lOP< 21mmHg for success criteria, lOP of 16 eyes ( 73%) were controlled after 12mo. Preoperative 6 cases had shallow anterior chamber, recovered spontaneously. No serious complication was recorded, such as rejection of glaucoma valve, endoophthalmitis and corneal decompensation.
?CONCLUSlON:Ahmed glaucoma valve implantation in uncontrolled PCG is a safe and viable treatment.

BackgroundThe influence of glaucoma on the quality of life in patients is of increasing concern for ophthalmologists in recent years. However,some studies demonstrated that different types of questionnaires about quality of life have various disadvantages. Therefore, to accurately and fully assess the influencing factors of quality of life in glaucoma patients is very important. ObjectiveThe present study was to survey the self-reported visionrelated quality of life(QOL) in glaucoma patients by means of utility analysis and to tentatively analyze its influencing factors. Methods Patients with glaucoma were recruited from a single tertiary ophthalmic department. Standard face-to-face interviews were conducted. Utility values of linear rating scale ( RS ) and time trade-off ( TTO ) were calculated to evaluate the self-reported vision-related QOL of the patients. The correlations of the utility values with the patients' general and ophthalmologic characteristics were also analyzed. This survey was approved by the Ethic Committee of Beijing Tongren Hospital. Oral informed consent was obtained from the subjects before the study.ResultsA cross-sectional study was designed. A total of 86 glaucoma patients were enrolled in this study with 62 male and 24 female, with a mean age of 44. 67 years old. The mean utility values measured by RS and TTO were 0. 62± 0. 19 and 0. 77 ± 0. 12, respectively, and no evidential correlation was found between these two values ( r =0. 074, P=0. 499 ). The RS value was associated with daily visual acuity,mean deviation(MD) of visual field and the history of trabeculectomy. Neither daily visual acuity nor MD showed a significant correlation with the TTO value. Age, work status and educational background contributed to higher utility value for the TTO method. After adjusting for age, work status and educational level,patients with visual acuity in the worse-seeing eye better than 0. 3 showed a higher TTO value than those with less than 0. 3. Conclusions Utility analysis possesses the advantages of convenience and sensitivity. RS utility value is easily affected by the Objective visual status and surgery history in glaucomatous patients,which reflects the subjective assessment of patients'visual quality. However, TTO value is primarily associated with age,work status and education level rather than visual function in glaucoma patients,which is therefore subjective assessment of the disease-related quality of life. These Results indicate that visual function impairment is not a determining factor for the QOL of glaucoma patients.

Recently, we have reported a new gfp gene isolated from Aequorea macrodactyla. The protein purified from expressed E. coli exhibited an excitation peak at 476 nm and an emission peak at 496 nm. However, the drawback of only maturing to fluorescence at low temperature limited its applications. In this paper, we further describe twelve mutants of GFPxm. Seven mutants produced enhanced fluorescence when expressed in E. coli at higher temperature (37 degrees C). After six hours of induction at 25 degrees C, 32 degrees C and 37 degrees C respectively, the relative fluorescent intensities of GFPxm16, GFPxm18 and GFPxm19 were higher than that of EGFP, moreover GFPxm16 and GFPxm163 could preserve high fluorescent intensity even expressed at 42 degrees C. Four mutants of the seven could reach high expression level in three kind of mammalian cells. Another 6 mutants had red-shift of excitation-emission maxima, and longest excitation-emission maxima were 514nm and 525nm. Another three mutants had two excitation peaks, and one mutant had only one UV-excitation peak. The most exciting result is the mutant of OFPxm with orange color. The mutant has an excitation peak at 509 nm and an emission peak at 523nm. 523nm is yellowish green but the protein is orange observed by eyes. The mutant could reach high expression level and matured at higher temperature but the fluorescent intensity was comparatively low because of low quantum yield.
Animals ; Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel ; Green Fluorescent Proteins ; genetics ; metabolism ; Humans ; Luminescent Proteins ; genetics ; metabolism ; Mutation ; Temperature

Objective To explore the characteristics of human plague using a sero-epidemiologic method in the source of the three rivers area in Qinghai for possible plague control strategies. Methods Investigate human plague sero-epidemiologically in the source of 4 counties in the three rivers area in Qinghai. The human serum would be tested to confirm the sew-positive rate for plague F1 antibody using indirect hemagglutination assay(IHA). Results A total of 2508 local participants were tested in 4 counties, the overall plague sero-positive rate was 2.31%(58/2508). This represents a statistically significant difference with 4 counties(X2=19.30,P<0.01). The sew-positive rate for males and females were 2.54% (32/1261) and 2.09% (26/1247), respectively. There were no statistically significant differences between males and females(X2= 0.65,P 0.05). The sero-positive rate in herdsman, cadre, Tibetan, Hart nationalities were 3.54% (44/1243), 6.47% (11 / 170), 2.40% (56/2335) and 1.47% (2/136), respectively. The sero- positive rate increased with age. The highest titre for human plague serum antibody was 1 : 640. Conclusion There were occult infections of plague in the population on source of three rivers area in Qinghai. Sero-epidemiologic data revealed that the human plague sero-positive rate was closely correlated with the local animal plague.

OBJECTIVESince the advent in 2004 of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in Liaoning, a dramatic improvement had been seen in the number of patients attaining undetectable viral loads (92/104), but the extent of mutation diversity on human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) and the prevalence of drug resistance had remained elusive. This study aimed to analyze both HIV-1 mutation profiles and prevalence related to antiretroviral resistance following therapeutic failure.

METHODSA total of 104 blood samples circling Liaoning from HAART-treated between 2004 and 2008 were studied. Patients' CD(4)(+) T-cell count and viral load were determined. HIV-1 pol (PR and part of RT) gene fragments were amplified from patients' plasma by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and nest-PCR, subsequently sequenced and analyzed.

RESULTSCD(4)(+) T cell numbers and viral replication capacity were assessed. 88.4% (92/104) of the patients were successful after initial non-suppressive NRTI & NNRTI-based HAART regimens. Subjects on non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) regimens developed more (6/104) drug-resistance mutations than those on nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) regimens did (5/104). No protease-inhibitor (PI) drug resistance mutations developed. The whole rate of drug resistance mutations was about 6.73%. Subjects developing NNRTI-resistance (NNRTI-R) seemed more likely to develop drug-resistant viremia than with NRTI-based HAART.

CONCLUSIONThis finding might have implications in which that the prevalence of drug-resistance mutations was low but remained risk of transmission in HIV-infected therapeutic failure. Meanwhile, data from the present study showed that there was a high frequency of primary mutations, which offered resistance to nrti and nnrti. Monitoring patients with treatment failure seems an important tool in helping the physicians to improve their treatment schedule and to carry out epidemiological surveillance programs.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome ; drug therapy ; epidemiology ; virology ; China ; epidemiology ; Drug Resistance, Viral ; genetics ; HIV-1 ; drug effects ; genetics ; Humans ; Molecular Epidemiology ; RNA, Viral ; genetics ; Viral Load

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVERecent studies proved that P21-activated kinase 1 (PAK1) is highly expressed in many kinds of tumor and plays an important role in genesis, development, and metastasis of tumor. We aimed to detect the expression of PAK1 in gastric carcinoma and to analyze its relationship with clinicopathological features and prognosis of gastric carcinoma.

METHODSTissue microarray and immunohistochemical staining were performed to detect PAK1 in paraffin specimens of 189 gastric carcinomas, 54 paracancer tissues, 40 lymph nodes and 30 healthy tissues. Clinicopathologic features and follow-up data of the patients were analyzed by the Chi2 test and the Kaplan-Meier method.

RESULTSPositive rate of PAK1 was 73.0% in gastric carcinoma, 57.4% in paracancer tissues and 23.3% in healthy controls (Chi2 = 29.364, P < 0.05). Expression of PAK1 was significantly correlated with tumor size, tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis, Lauren classification and invasive depth (all P < 0.05). The positive rate of PAK1 was significantly higher in primary gastric carcinomas than in metastatic lymph nodes (75.0% vs. 52.5%, Chi2 = 4.381, P < 0.05). Survival analysis using the Kaplan-Meier method showed that the expression of PAK1 was a predictor for poor prognosis of the patients with gastric carcinoma (Chi2 = 6.857, P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONSExpression of PAK1 is an early molecular event in the tumorigenesis of gastric carcinoma. It is also closely correlated the development of gastric carcinoma and the patients' prognosis.

Adult ; Aged ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Lymph Nodes ; metabolism ; pathology ; Lymphatic Metastasis ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neoplasm Invasiveness ; Neoplasm Staging ; Prognosis ; Risk Factors ; Stomach Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; Survival Rate ; Tumor Burden ; p21-Activated Kinases ; metabolism

Objective To analyze the tendency of hospital based surveillance incidence rates of birth defects in Guangdong province to provide reference evidence for related intervention program. Methods Data from hospital based birth defects surveillance of Guangdong province during 1997-2007 were analyzed retrospectively. Results The overall surveillance rates of birth defects in Guangdong province showed an increasing trend form 98.9 per 10 000 birth in 1997 to 244.2 per 10 000 birth in 2007. Among the frequently seen birth defects, the rate of congenital heart diseases increased sharply, but the rates of congenital talipes equinovarus, polydactyly, cleft lip with/without cleft palate showed a slight increasing trend.It seemed that there was a significant difference between different maternal age interval and gender of the infants. Mother's illness, drug use, and exposure to environment harmful factors in early pregnancy stage, high maternal age, negative bearing history were the suspect risk factors for birth defects. Conclusion The increasing trend of surveillance rate of birth defects seemed to be comprehensively affected by the factors as: method being adopted, target and extension of birth defects surveillance, technology used for diagnosis, kinds of risk factor,and quality control on surveillance programs.

A fragment of hepatitis E virus open reading frame-2(ORF2), located from amino acid residues 394 to 604, was expressed in E. coli. The recombinant protein NE2 was found to form homodimer mostly in SDS-PAGE, which can be dissociated to monomers when treated with urea, and it was recognized more strongly in its dimeric form than the monomer by HEV reactive human serum in Western blotting. Besides, many aggregated form of NE2 from dimer to at least hexamer can be seen in MALDI-TOF-MS. And when the hydrated dynamic semidiameter of NE2 moleculars in PBS was measured as about 4 nm by Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), being equal to tetramer, but with high polydispersity, which suggested that the NE2 moleculars were existed in PBS in many different sizes. These results suggested that the recombinant NE2 can aggregate into several oligomer forms, the association in the dimer is most strong, and dimers can assemble further to form some super-structure.
Dimerization ; Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel ; Escherichia coli ; genetics ; Gene Expression ; Protein Conformation ; Recombinant Proteins ; chemistry ; genetics ; metabolism ; Viral Proteins ; chemistry ; genetics ; metabolism