Objective To explore the clinical significance of detecting serum levels of IL-6 and TNF-α in patients with intracranial hemorrhage.Methods The serum levels of IL-6 and TNF-α in different period were detected in patients with intracranial hemorrhage, by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), and compared with those of healthy subjects (the control group).ResultsThe serum levels of IL-6, TNF-α in the severe and slight patients of study group on 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th were signiifcantly higher than those in the control group (all withP<0.05). The serum levels of IL-6, TNF-α in the severe patients of study group were signiifcantly higher than those in slight patients of study group (all withP<0.05) on 5th and 7th. The serum levels of IL-6 and TNF-α in dead cases on 5th, 7th days admission were significantly higher than those in survival cases (P<0.05). The serum levels of IL-6 was positively correlated with TNF-α (r=0.721,P<0.05).Conclusion The detection of dynamically serum levels of IL-6 and TNF-α is of great clinical value for assessing the disease development therapeutic efifcacy and prognosis of brain injury patient with intracranial hemorrhage.

Objective To establish a universal stem loop primer (USLP) based real-time PCR method to scan mature miR profile and quantify it's expression.Methods The common universal stem-loop primer pairs were re-designed; 8 random nucleotides were introduced at 3 ' end for reverse transcription of the mature miR,establishing a miR scanning and quantifying system based on SYBR Green Ⅰ PCR (improved USLP method).10-fold gradient diluted standard miRNA-155 cDNA ( 1 ～ 109 copies/μ1) were utilized to evaluate the sensitivity of this method.The specificity was verified by melting curve assay; the precision was assessed by intra-assay coefficient of variation (ICV) of threshold cycle (Ct value) through 20 repeated detections of the standard miR-155 cDNA (2 × 105,2 × 106,2 × 107 copies/μl) ; cost of the primers and time were evaluated,compared with that of the conventional USLP method.Peripheral blood samples were cultured with phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) for0 h,16 h,24 h,48 h and 72 h,and 87 candidate miR that may be associated with human immunity from PubMed data were scanned and quantified from the cultured T cells.Results The sensitivity of the improved USLP method was 103 copies/μl of standard miR-155 cDNA.Melting curve assay showed a single melting peak at 80 ℃,suggesting the excellent PCR specificity of miR-155.Precision of our method quantifying miR-155 was acceptable (ICV ＜ 2.5％ ).Compared with the traditional stem loop primers,our method saved 75％ cost of primers ( 1 917 bp vs 7 851 bp) and 60％ test time of reverse transcription (85 min vs 205 min).By our method,85 of the 87 miR expression in T cells had no significant difference after the PHA stimulation; the expression of miR-150 (72 h) decreased by 10 times and that of miR-155 (48 h) increased 8 times after culture with PHA (Z =-2.032,P =0.042;Z =- 2.023,P =0.043,respectively ).Conclusions The improved USLP method is fast,precise,sensitive,and cost-effective.It could be used for miR profile scanning and quantifying in T cells.

Objective To investigate the efficiency of Trichostatin A (TSA) in inducing cell apoptosis and altering the Notch pathway genes expression in PANC-1 cells line.Methods The survival rate and apoptosis of PANC-1 cells were measured by MTT assay and Hoechst 33258 staining,respectively.mRNA expression levels of the genes,numb,gcn512,dll3,hes6,eaf2,cytohesins,in PANC-1 cells were assessed by real-time quantitive PCR.Western blot was used to measure the expression of bcl-2,bax,actived caspase-3 and NICD protein which was the biologically active form of Notch-1.Results After culturing with 0.1,0.2,and 0.4 μmol/L TSA for 24 hours,the cellular survival rate of PANC-1 cells significantly decreased to 72％,58％ and 39％,respectively.The survival rate of PANC-1 was negatively correlated to time length of culture with TSA.Increased apoptosis of PANC-1 cells after 12,24 and 36 h culture with TSA was detected by Hoechst 33258 staining.Western blotting showed that the expression of bax,actived caspase-3 and NICD protein increased while the bcl-2 protein decreased after culture with TSA.In real time quantitive PCR assessment,the mRNA expression of numb and hes6 in PANC-1 cells were upregulated by TSA (P ＜ 0.05),while the mRNA expression of gcn512 and dll3 were down-regulated by TSA (P ＜ 0.05).While mRNA expressions of eaf2 and cytohesin1,2,3,4 were not affected by TSA.Conclusions TSA induces apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cell line PANC-1.The Notch signal pathway may be involved in inducing cellular apoptosis of PANC-1 when cultured with TSA.

OBJECTIVETo establish a laboratory method for detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in sputum based on variable number tandem repeat (VNTR).

METHODSMycobacterium tuberculosis was tested by VNTR and fluorescent quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (FQ-PCR) in 130 sputum samples from patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and 200 specimens from patients with other lung diseases. According to the amplification conditions and clinical detection needs, MTUB21, MUTB04, QUB18, QUB26, QUB11b, MIRU31, MIRU10 and MIRU26 were selected as test targets. The results of VNTR and FQ-PCR were compared with Lowenstein-Jensen culture and clinical diagnosis, and analyzed by chi-square test.

RESULTSWith the results of L-J culture as the standard, the sensitivity and specificity of VNTR were 93.1% (108/116) and 97.7% (209/214), and those of FQ-PCR were 94.0% (109/116) and 96.7% (207/214), respectively; no significant difference was observed between two groups (χ2=0.352, P=0.569). Using the clinical diagnosis as the standard, the sensitivity and specificity of VNTR were 86.9% (113/130) and 100% (200/200), and those of FQ-PCR were 87.7% (114/130) and 99.0% (198/200), respectively; the difference was not statistically significant (χ2=0.030, P=0.862). In 113 VNTR positive samples, the molecular codes differed from each other in 98.2% samples (111/113); only 2 samples had identical code (5-4-6-8-5-5-3-8).

CONCLUSIONThe study suggests that VNTR provides a promising method for diagnosis of clinical tuberculosis.

Humans ; Minisatellite Repeats ; Mycobacterium tuberculosis ; isolation & purification ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Sputum ; microbiology ; Tuberculosis, Pulmonary ; diagnosis