Toward an understanding of the molecular mechanism for successful blood feeding by coupling proteomics analysis with pharmacological testing of horsefly salivary glands

Horseflies are economically important blood-feeding arthropods and also a nuisance for humans and vectors for filariasis. They rely heavily on the pharmacological properties of their saliva to get a blood meal and suppress immune reactions of hosts. Little information is available on antihemostatic substances in horsefly salivary glands; especially no horsefly immune suppressants have been reported. By proteomics or peptidomics and coupling transcriptome analysis with pharmacological testing, several families of proteins or peptides, which act mainly on the hemostatic system or immune system of the host, were identified and characterized from 30,000 pairs salivary glands of the horsefly Tabanus yao (Diptera, Tabanidae). They are: (i) a novel family of inhibitors of platelet aggregation including two members, which possibly inhibit platelet aggregation by a novel mechanism and act on platelet membrane, (ii) a novel family of immunosuppressant peptides including 12 members, which can inhibit interferon-gamma production and increase interleukin-10 secretion, (iii) a serine protease inhibitor with 56 amino acid residues containing anticoagulant activity, (iv) a serine protease with anticoagulant activity, (v) a protease with fibrinogenolytic activity, (vi) three families of antimicrobial peptides including six members, (vii) a hyaluronidase, (viii) a vasodilator peptide, which is an isoform of vasotab identified from Hybomitra bimaculata, and interestingly (ix) two metallothioneins, which are the first metallothioneins reported from invertebrate salivary glands. The current work will facilitate the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of the ectoparasite-host relationship and help in identifying novel vaccine targets and novel leading pharmacological compounds.

Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroups M7b1 ' 2 and M8a Affect Clinical Expression of Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy in Chinese Families with the m.11778G -> A Mutation

Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) is the most extensively studied mitochondrial disease, with the majority of the cases being caused by one of three primary mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations. Incomplete disease penetrance and gender bias are two

In vitro activities of small peptides from snake venom against clinical isolates of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis

The recent re-emergence of tuberculosis, especially the multidrug-resistant cases, has highlighted the importance of screening effective novel drugs against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In this study, the in vitro activities of small peptides isolated from snake venom were investigated against multidrug-resistant M. tuberculosis. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were determined by the Bactec TB-460 radiometric method. A small peptide with the amino acid sequence ECYRKSDIVTCEPWQKFCYREVTFFPNHPVYLSGCASECTETNSKWCCTTDKCNRARGG (designated as vgf-1) from Naja atra (isolated from Yunnan province of China) venom had in vitro activity against clinically isolated multidrug-resistant strains of M. tuberculosis. The MIC was 8.5 mg/l. The antimycobacterial domain of this 60aa peptide is under investigation. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. and the International Society of Chemotherapy. All rights reserved.

Multiplex detection of mutations in clinical isolates of rifampin-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis by short oligonucleotide Ligation assay on DNA chips

A new approach, short-oligonucleotide-ligation assay on DNA chip (SOLAC), is developed to detect mutations in rifampin-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The method needs only four common probes to detect 15 mutational variants of the rpoB gene within 12 h. Fifty-five rifampin-resistant M. tuberculosis isolates were analyzed, resulting in 87.3% accuracy and 83.6% concordance relative to DNA sequencing.

The development of long - Term ambulatory pH monitoring system and its clinical application

This paper introduced a long-term ambulatory intragastric pH monitoring system, which is designed for prolonged ambulatory studies of Gastroesophageal Reflux Diseases. The whole system is composed of the gastric catheter with two pH sensors, a small data logger (Microdatalog), and a notebook PC. In this paper, the design of monitoring system hardware and software are described in detail. Clinical applications reveal good results.

重离子束治疗皮肤恶性肿瘤的初步临床结果；Clinical trial of carbon ion radiotherapy for malignant neoplasm of skin

目的:评价重离子束对皮肤恶性肿瘤放射治疗的近期疗效和毒副反应。方法:29例皮肤恶性肿瘤患者分6批接受重离子束放射治疗,其中恶性黑色素瘤13例,皮肤鳞癌及Bowen’s病各6例,基底细胞癌2例,其他皮肤恶性肿瘤2例。照射总剂量(50～70)GyE/(6～12)d,单次剂量5.5～11.67GyE,1f/d,连续治疗。采用RTOG标准和WHO近期疗效标准分别评价毒副反应和近期疗效。结果:截止2009-05,中位随访时间为13.5个月(1～25个月),随访率为100%。29例患者中完全缓解(CR)24例(82.8%),部分缓解(PR)5例(17.2%),有效率(RR)为100%,中位生存时间为22.8个月(95%CI:20.6～24.9)。皮肤反应0度11例(37.9%),Ⅰ度9例(31.0%),Ⅱ度6例(20.7%),Ⅲ度2例(6.9%),Ⅳ度1例(3.4%);血液毒副反应治疗前后无明显改变。结论:重离子束(12C6+)放射治疗皮肤恶性肿瘤近期疗效好,并发症轻,远期疗效、晚期副反应等尚需进一步长期全面的观察和更多的研究提供依据。

Application of probabilistic neural network in the clinical diagnosis of cancers based on clinical chemistry data

As a recently developed and powerful classification tool, probabilistic neural network was used to distinguish cancer patients from healthy persons according to the levels of nucleosides in human urine. Two datasets (containing 32 and 50 patterns, respectively) were investigated and the total consistency rate obtained was 100% for dataset 1 and 94% for dataset 2. To evaluate the performance of probabilistic neural network, linear discriminant analysis and learning vector quantization network, were also applied to the classification problem. The results showed that the predictive ability of the probabilistic neural network is stronger than the others in this study. Moreover, the recognition rate for dataset 2 can achieve to 100% if combining, these three methods together, which indicated the promising potential of clinical diagnosis by combining different methods. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.