OBJECTIVETo study the expression of specific anti- platelet glycoprotein autoantibodies GP II b/III a, GP I b/IX and GP I a/II a in primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), and to evaluate the relationship between the therapeutic effect and the expression of specific anti- platelet glycoprotein antibodies GPIIb/IIIa, GPIb/IX and GPIa/IIa.

METHODSAnti-GPIIb/IIIa, GPIb/ IX and GP I a/II a antibodies were assayed by ELISA for patients with ITP. Total 442 patients in our hospital, who were retrospectively investigated from December 2010 to November 2012, were divided into newly diagnosed ITP, persistent and chronic ITP. The expression of specific anti- platelet glycoprotein antibody in each group was measured separately. The newly diagnosed ITP patients were treated with intravenous IgG (IVIG) and corticosteroids. The relationship between the expression of specific anti- platelet glycoprotein antibodies GPIIb/IIIa, GPIb/IX and GPIa/IIa and the complete response (CR) was studied.

RESULTSPositive rates of anti- platelet glycoprotein antibodies were 59.09%, 26.97% and 37.35% respectively in newly diagnosed ITP, persistent and chronic ITP, the difference was statistical significant (P<0.05). In newly diagnosed ITP, positive rate of antibody against GPIIb/IIIa was 38.64%, double positive rate of antibodies against both GP II b/III a and GP I a/II a was 15.91%, there was statistical significance (P<0.05) compared with that of persistent and chronic ITP. The complete response (CR) rate in newly diagnosed ITP patients with positive antibody against GP II b/III a was 80.39% after treatment with IVIG and corticosteroids. There was statistical significance compared with that in patients having no antibodies (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONThe expression of antibodies against GP II b/III a and double positive for both GP II b/III a and GP I a/II a autoantibodies increased in newly diagnosed ITP patients. Patients with anti-GP II b/III a autoantibody had good response to medication with IVIG and corticosteroids.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Autoantibodies ; metabolism ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Platelet Glycoprotein GPIIb-IIIa Complex ; immunology ; Platelet Glycoprotein GPIb-IX Complex ; immunology ; Platelet Membrane Glycoproteins ; immunology ; Retrospective Studies ; Thrombocytopenia ; drug therapy ; immunology ; metabolism ; Treatment Outcome ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo investigate the role of Th17 cells in immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) mice model.

METHODITP was induced by daily intraperitoneal injection of anti-platelet membrane CD41 antibody (MWReg30) into BALB/c mice, the mRNA expressions of Th17 cell associated transcription factors and cytokines in peripheral blood and spleen mononuclear cells were measured by real-time PCR, and the proportion of Th17 cells by FCM analysis.

RESULTSThe percentage of Th17 cell was significantly elevated in ITP mice both in splenocyte and peripheral blood as compared with that in normal controls (P<0.01). ITP mice had elevated mRNA expressions of IL-17F, IL-17A and IL-6 in splenocyte (P<0.05), and of IL-21 in peripheral blood (P<0.05). There was a positive correlation between IL-17A and IL-17F (r = 0.934, P = 0.000), and between IL-17A/IL-17F and IL-6 (r = 0.598, P = 0.001; r = 0. 619, P = 0.000).

CONCLUSIONSTh17 cell might play an important role in the pathogenesis of ITP, at least involving in the clearance of platelets.

Animals ; Disease Models, Animal ; Female ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred BALB C ; Th17 Cells ; immunology ; Thrombocytopenia ; immunology

OBJECTIVETo study the three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction and 3D visualization of the pancreas and create anatomy of the digitalized visual pancreas so as to construct a concrete basis for virtual operation and surgical operation on pancreas.

METHODSThe digital imaging data of pancreas, duodenum, common bile duct, arteries and veins were obtained from the Virtual Chinese Human-Female 1 (VCH-F1) and processed using ACDSee and Photoshop so as to reconstruct 3D pancreas digitally and realize 3D visualization of pancreas.

RESULTSWe successfully 3D reconstructed and visualized the pancreas and the peri-pancreatic structures: the duodenum, the common bile duct, the inferior vena cava, the portal vein vessels, the aorta, the ceoliac trunk vessels. The 3D and visualized pancreas manifested itself with its complete structure as well as its adjacency to other tissues.

CONCLUSIONSThe 3D reconstruction and 3D visualization of the pancreas based on the digital data of VCH-F1 produces a digitally visualized pancreas, which promises us a novel method for virtual operation on pancreas, clinical operation on pancreas and anatomy of 3D visualized pancreas.

Anatomy, Cross-Sectional ; China ; Female ; Humans ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; Pancreas ; anatomy & histology ; diagnostic imaging ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Visible Human Projects

To establish a relation between an protein amino acid sequence and its tendencies to generate antibody response, and to investigate an improved in silico method for linear B-cell epitope (LBE) prediction. We present a sequence-based LBE predictor developed using deep maxout network (DMN) with dropout training techniques. A graphics processing unit (GPU) was used to reduce the training time of the model. A 10-fold cross-validation test on a large, non-redundant and experimentally verified dataset (Lbtope_Fixed_ non_redundant) was performed to evaluate the performance. DMN-LBE achieved an accuracy of 68.33% and an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.743, outperforming other prediction methods in the field. A web server, DMN-LBE, of the improved prediction model has been provided for public free use. We anticipate that DMN-LBE will be beneficial to vaccine development, antibody production, disease diagnosis, and therapy.
Amino Acid Sequence ; Computational Biology ; methods ; Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte ; chemistry ; immunology ; ROC Curve

Cancer cell vaccine-based immunotherapy has received increasing interest in many clinical trials involving patients with breast cancer. Combining with appropriate adjuvants can enhance the weak immunogenic properties of tumor cell lysates (TCL). In this study, diphtheria toxin (DT) and two tandem repeats of mycobacterial heat shock protein 70 (mHSP70) fragment 407-426 (M2) were conjugated to TCL with glutaraldehyde, and the constructed cancer cell vaccine was named DT-TCL-M2. Subcutaneous injection of DT-TCL-M2 in mice effectively elicited tumor-specific polyclonal immune responses, including humoral and cellular immune responses. High levels of antibodies against TCL were detected in the serum of immunized mice with ELISA and verified with Western blot analyses. The splenocytes from immunized mice showed potent cytotoxicity on Ehrlich ascites carcinoma cells. Moreover, the protective antitumor immunity induced by DT-TCL-M2 inhibited tumor growth in a mouse breast tumor model. DT-TCL-M2 also attenuated tumor-induced angiogenesis and slowed tumor growth in a mouse intradermal tumor model. These findings demonstrate that TCL conjugated with appropriate adjuvants induced effective antitumor immunity in vivo. Improvements in potency could further make cancer cell vaccines a useful and safe method for preventing cancer recurrence after resection.
Adjuvants, Immunologic ; Animals ; Bacterial Proteins ; genetics ; immunology ; Cancer Vaccines ; immunology ; Carcinoma, Ehrlich Tumor ; immunology ; pathology ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Cell Proliferation ; Diphtheria Toxin ; genetics ; immunology ; Female ; HSP70 Heat-Shock Proteins ; genetics ; immunology ; Immunoglobulin G ; immunology ; Immunotherapy ; Mice ; Neovascularization, Pathologic ; Peptide Fragments ; genetics ; immunology ; Recombinant Fusion Proteins ; genetics ; immunology ; T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic ; immunology ; Tandem Repeat Sequences

Slow freezing is the most commonly used technique for the cryopreservation of spermatozoa in clinical practice. However, it has been shown to have a negative impact on sperm function and structure. Vitrification as a successful alternative method has been proved to have better protective effects on human embryos, but vitrification of spermatozoa is still subject to low recovery rates. In this study, a modified vitrification method for native spermatozoa was developed. A total of 28 semen samples were included; each sample was divided into three equal parts and assigned to fresh, slow freezing, and vitrification groups. Sperm vitality, motility, morphology, DNA integrity, and acrosome reaction were assessed for each of the groups. The results showed that vitrification achieves better results for several sperm protection parameters than slow freezing; vitrification achieves a higher recovery rate (P < 0.05), motility (P <0.05), morphology (P <0.05), and curve line velocity (P <0.05) than slow freezing. Furthermore, DNA fragmentation was decreased (P <0.05) and better acrosome protection (P <0.05) was exhibited in the spermatozoa after vitrification. Principal component analysis of all sperm parameters revealed that the vitrification cluster was closer to the fresh cluster, indicating that spermatozoa are better preserved through vitrification. In conclusion, while both slow freezing and vitrification have negative effects on sperm function and structure, the vitrification protocol described here had a relatively better recovery rate (65.8%) and showed improved preservation of several sperm quality parameters compared with slow freezing.