Baseline susceptibility of Asian corn borer (Ostrinia furnacalis (Guenée)) populations in Vietnam to Cry1Ab insecticidal protein

Susceptibility of Asian corn borer (ACB), Ostrinia furnacalis (Guenée) to Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) Cry1Ab protein was studied between 2015 and 2016 with 11 ACB populations, collected from various geographical regions in Vietnam. A concentration range of Cry1Ab from 0.20 to 26.10 ng/cm² of diet was evaluated against F₁ ACB neonates using diet surface-overlay bioassays. Mortality data was recorded daily until seven days after infestation. Growth inhibition was recorded at the end of seven days. The median lethal concentration (LC₅₀) varied ≈3-fold among the different populations, ranging from 0.58 to 1.83 ng/cm² of diet with an overall mean of 0.86 ng/cm² of diet. Even the lowest concentration of 0.20 ng/cm² caused 73.53% growth inhibition. >90% growth inhibition was achieved at 0.82 ng/cm² or higher concentrations. The results reflect natural variation in Bt susceptibility among ACB populations rather than variation caused by prior exposure to selection pressures. LC₉₉ value (17.26 ng/cm²) was generated by pooling mortality data across different populations. The upper fiducial limit of LC₉₉ (24.38 ng/cm²) could be a potential diagnostic dose for future resistance monitoring programs. The findings from this study suggest that ACB populations in Vietnam are highly susceptible to Cry1Ab protein. This is the first report of Cry1Ab susceptibility of different ACB populations in Vietnam and will serve as a baseline for future resistance monitoring work.     

两种药物性肝炎诊断评分标准的临床应用分析

目的:比较Maria药物性肝损害(1997年)诊断标准和我国常用诊断标准对药物性肝损害的效价。方法:回顾性分析我院2005年1月至2006年4月期间经肝穿病理诊断为药物性肝损害的54例病例,分别按照上述两个标准评分。评价每一标准的准确性。结果:符合Maria药物性肝损害(1997年)诊断标准的(>10分)有45例,占83%;符合我国常用诊断标准的有39例,占72%。结论:两个诊断标准符合率较高,均可做为药物性肝损害的诊断标准,但仍有部分病例不能准确诊断,需进一步完善。     

超声检查参数联合血清VEGF、Tg、Gal-1对甲状腺癌的诊断价值及其与淋巴结转移的关系

摘要 目的：探讨超声检查参数联合血清血管内皮生长因子（VEGF）、甲状腺球蛋白（Tg）、半乳糖血凝素-1（Gal-1）对于甲状腺癌的临床诊断价值及其与淋巴结转移的关系。方法：回顾性分析2017年6月至2020年6月入我院就诊的158例甲状腺肿瘤患者的临床资料。77例甲状腺癌患者纳入恶性组,81例甲状腺腺瘤患者纳入良性组,比较两组的超声检查参数及血清VEGF、Tg、Gal-1水平;此外,恶性组患者亚分组为淋巴结转移组（n=51）和无淋巴结转移组（n=26）,比较两组超声检查参数及血清VEGF、Tg、Gal-1水平。以受试者工作特征（ROC）曲线分析超声检查参数联合血清VEGF、Tg、Gal-1对甲状腺癌的诊断效能。采用Sprearman相关系数分析各指标水平变化与甲状腺癌患者发生淋巴结转移的相关性。结果：恶性组患者的血管化指数（VI）、血流指数（FI）及血清VEGF、Tg、Gal-1水平均高于良性组患者（P＜0.05）;淋巴转移组患者的VI、FI及血清VEGF、Tg、Gal-1水平均高于无淋巴结转移组患者（P＜0.05）;超声检查参数VI、FI联合血清VEGF、Tg、Gal-1诊断甲状腺癌的曲线下面积为0.933、敏感度为85.50%、特异度为80.00%,均明显高于五项指标单独检测。Spearman相关性分析结果显示,超声检查参数VI、FI以及血清VEGF、Tg、Gal-1与甲状腺癌患者淋巴结转移均呈正相关（P＜0.05）。结论：联合检测超声检查参数VI、FI及血清VEGF、Tg、Gal-1对甲状腺癌有较高的早期诊断价值,且上述指标均与患者淋巴结转移密切相关。     

Design of a polytopic construct of LACK,TSA and GP63 proteins for the diagnosis of cutaneous leishmaniasis: An in silico strategy

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), which is caused by different species of the genus Leishmania, including L. major, is a significant parasitic disease worldwide. Commercial leishmaniasis diagnostic kits frequently target the entire parasite antigen, although this approach can reduce the specificity of the tests. The present study sought to increase the specificity of antigen detection tests by identifying the B-cell epitopes on the surface of the protozoa and developing an antigenic multiepitope construct to react with the system of B-cell epitopes unique to L. major. More specifically, the linear and conformational B-cell epitopes for three L. major proteins, namely, GP63, LACK, and TSA, were predicted using the ABCprd, IEDB, LBtope, CBTOPE, and DiscoTope servers. The three-dimensional structures of these proteins, as well as of the complete multiepitope, were predicted using the I-TASSER server. The multiepitope structure models were validated by means of Ramachandran plots and the Prosa and Verify3D servers. The multiepitope construct was evaluated using the ProtParam and SOLpro servers. The synthesized multiepitope was then successfully expressed into a pET28a plasmid. The expression was confirmed using SDS-PAGE and dot blot techniques. Moreover, the expressed protein was evaluated by means of Western blotting. A band of approximately 39 kDa was observed by SDS-PAGE. The rGLT-pET-28a showed a high response with the 1:1000 dilution of the anti-His-tag monoclonal antibody by Western blot. The results of this study indicated that the integrated GP63, LACK, and TSA multiepitope antigens of L. major represent a potential target for a novel diagnostic kit for CL.     

Meta‐Analysis of Diagnostic Test Accuracy Studies with Multiple Thresholds using Survival Methods

Diagnostic tests play an important role in clinical practice. The objective of a diagnostic test accuracy study is to compare an experimental diagnostic test with a reference standard. The majority of these studies dichotomize test results into two categories: negative and positive. But often the underlying test results may be categorized into more than two, ordered, categories. This article concerns the situation where multiple studies have evaluated the same diagnostic test with the same multiple thresholds in a population of non‐diseased and diseased individuals. Recently, bivariate meta‐analysis has been proposed for the pooling of sensitivity and specificity, which are likely to be negatively correlated within studies. These ideas have been extended to the situation of diagnostic tests with multiple thresholds, leading to a multinomial model with multivariate normal between‐study variation. This approach is efficient, but computer‐intensive and its convergence is highly dependent on starting values. Moreover, monotonicity of the sensitivities/specificities for increasing thresholds is not guaranteed. Here, we propose a Poisson‐correlated gamma frailty model, previously applied to a seemingly quite different situation, meta‐analysis of paired survival curves. Since the approach is based on hazards, it guarantees monotonicity of the sensitivities/specificities for increasing thresholds. The approach is less efficient than the multinomial/normal approach. On the other hand, the Poisson‐correlated gamma frailty model makes no assumptions on the relationship between sensitivity and specificity, gives consistent results, appears to be quite robust against different between‐study variation models, and is computationally very fast and reliable with regard to the overall sensitivities/specificities.     

Meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy assessment studies with varying number of thresholds

Current meta-analytic methods for diagnostic test accuracy are generally applicable to a selection of studies reporting only estimates of sensitivity and specificity, or at most, to studies whose results are reported using an equal number of ordered categories. In this article, we propose a new meta-analytic method to evaluate test accuracy and arrive at a summary receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for a collection of studies evaluating diagnostic tests, even when test results are reported in an unequal number of nonnested ordered categories. We discuss both non-Bayesian and Bayesian formulations of the approach. In the Bayesian setting, we propose several ways to construct summary ROC curves and their credible bands. We illustrate our approach with data from a recently published meta-analysis evaluating a single serum progesterone test for diagnosing pregnancy failure.     

Accounting for nonignorable verification bias in assessment of diagnostic tests

A "gold" standard test, providing definitive verification of disease status, may be quite invasive or expensive. Current technological advances provide less invasive, or less expensive, diagnostic tests. Ideally, a diagnostic test is evaluated by comparing it with a definitive gold standard test. However, the decision to perform the gold standard test to establish the presence or absence of disease is often influenced by the results of the diagnostic test, along with other measured, or not measured, risk factors. If only data from patients who received the gold standard test were used to assess the test performance, the commonly used measures of diagnostic test performance--sensitivity and specificity--are likely to be biased. Sensitivity would often be higher, and specificity would be lower, than the true values. This bias is called verification bias. Without adjustment for verification bias, one may possibly introduce into the medical practice a diagnostic test with apparent, but not truly, high sensitivity. In this article, verification bias is treated as a missing covariate problem. We propose a flexible modeling and computational framework for evaluating the performance of a diagnostic test, with adjustment for nonignorable verification bias. The presented computational method can be utilized with any software that can repetitively use a logistic regression module. The approach is likelihood-based, and allows use of categorical or continuous covariates. An explicit formula for the observed information matrix is presented, so that one can easily compute standard errors of estimated parameters. The methodology is illustrated with a cardiology data example. We perform a sensitivity analysis of the dependency of verification selection process on disease.     

A molecular marker diagnostic of a specific isolate of an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus,Gigaspora margarita

To investigate the auto-ecology of a strain of Gigaspora margarita in a commercial inoculum, we found a pair of PCR primers amplifying a sequence of 235 bp diagnostic of the isolate. We designed an oligonucleotide probe based on the DNA sequence. The combination of PCR and the probing successfully detected the diagnostic sequence from both DNA preparations of single spores and colonized roots. This protocol enabled us to distinguish the isolate among several isolates from Japan, Nepal and the USA.     

Biopharming the SimpliRED™ HIV diagnostic reagent in barley, potato and tobacco

This is the first report of an antibody-fusion protein expressed intransgenic plants for direct use in a medical diagnostic assay. By the use ofgene constructs with appropriate promoters, high level expression of ananti-glycophorin single-chain antibody fused to an epitope of the HIV virus wasobtained in the leaves and stems of tobacco, tubers of potato and seed ofbarley. This fusion protein replaces the SimpliRED diagnostic reagent,used for detecting the presence of HIV-1 antibodies in human blood. The reagentis expensive and laborious to produce by conventional means since chemicalmodifications to a monoclonal antibody are required. The plant-produced fusionprotein was fully functional (by ELISA) in crude extracts and, for tobacco atleast, could be used without further purification in the HIV agglutinationassay. All three crop species produced sufficient reagent levels to be superiorbioreactors to bacteria or mice, however barley grain was the most attractivebioreactor as it expressed the highest level (150 g of reagentg^-1), is inexpensive to produce and harvest, poses aminuscule gene flow problem in the field, and the activity of the reagent islargely undiminished in stored grain. This work suggests that barley seed willbe an ideal factory for the production of antibodies, diagnosticimmuno-reagents, vaccines and other pharmaceutical proteins.