Estimation of Vaccine Efficacy in Non-Randomly Mixing Populations

A deterministic model for the transmission of an acute infectious disease in a heterogeneous, nonrandomly mixing population is developed. This model facilitates the estimation of transmission probabilities from the observed attack rates. If some of the members of the population are vaccinated, then the vaccine efficacy (VE), defined as the relative reduction in the transmission probability due to vaccination, can be estimated. We provide several estimators of VE, depending on the amount of information available on the mixing pattern and on the action of the vaccine. We show that if vaccinated persons increase the frequency of their contacts with infectious persons, then estimators ignoring this change in behavior may substantially underestimate the VE.     

Comparison of rat hepatocyte and differentiated hepatoma cell line cultures as bio indicators of CYP 1A1 inducers in urban air

Cytochrome P450 1A1 CYP1A1 enzymatic activity was evaluated in cultured liver cells, and taken as a biological indicator of the presence of inducers of this isoform in urban airborne particulate matter fraction samples. It is known that CYP1A1 inducers can play an important role in the risk of mutagenesis and carcinogenesis by environmental pollution. A romatic polycyclic hydrocarbons PAH from urban air were collected in the city of Genoa Italy at two sites on two different days of the year. The objective of the study was to compare the inducibility of cultured rat hepatocytes with that of MH1C1 and FaO rat hepatoma cell lines after exposure to a PAH mixture and to a standard compound, such as benzo b fluoranthene B b F . Cytotoxic effects of the tested concentrations were evaluated by means of 3 4,5, dimenthylthyazol 2 yl 2,5 diphenyltetrazolium bromide MTT and lactate dehydrogenase release LDH tests, the potency of inducers by ethoxyresorufin O deethylase EROD assay. The results were in agreement in the three cellular systems: after exposure to the PAH mixture, an induction at low concentrations was observed; whereas no induction, but rather a decrease in activity was shown at higher concentrations; instead, the exposure to pure B b F showed a dose-response relationship in all cells, even at the highest doses. Such a difference between the toxicity of the complex mixture and that of the pure compound could be ascribed to the presence of drug metabolism inhibitors in the mixture, or to interactions between the original components and their metabolites. The finding that the cell lines responded to the CYP1A1 induction in a very efficient way gives further proof of the applicability of this system to environmental biomonitoring.     

长期高脂饮食加小剂量链脲佐霉素建立人类普通2型糖尿病大鼠模型的研究

目的　建立类似人类普通 2型糖尿病大鼠模型。方法　采用长期高脂高能量饮食结合小剂量链脲佐霉素 (STZ)腹腔注射的方法。结果　模型大鼠有高血糖 (18 78± 1 97)mmol L、高甘油三酯血症 (10 95 4± 5 5 4 )mmol L、高胆固醇血症 (2 4 4 2± 0 74 )mmol L、脂肪肝、高胰岛素血症 (0 937± 0 2 6 )mmol L、胰岛素敏感性下降及不低于正常对照组的体重。结论　这是一种类似人普通 2型糖尿病大鼠模型     

建立慢性阻塞性肺疾病动物模型方法的研究进展

慢性阻塞性肺疾病(COPD)是一种重要的慢性呼吸系统疾病,主要包括慢性支气管炎和肺气肿,患病人数多,病死率高,由于其缓慢进行性发展,严重影响患者的劳动能力和生活质量.为此,国内外许多学者近年来对COPD的发病机制进行了大量的研究工作,但是到目前为止,COPD的研究进展仍然十分缓慢,其主要原因是COPD病因太多,发病机制复杂.本文旨在将国内外有关COPD的实验动物模型进行一次总结,并对各种模型的优缺点给予客观的评价.     

Conservation of key members in the course of the evolution of the insulin signaling pathway

Our understanding of the evolution of the insulin signaling pathway (ISP) is still incomplete. One intriguing unanswered question is the explanation of the emergence of the glucostatic role of insulin in mammals. To find out whether this is due to the development of new sets of signaling transduction elements in these organisms, or to the establishment of new interactions between pre-existing proteins, we rebuilt putative orthologous ISPs in 17 eukaryotic organisms. Then, we computed the conservation of orthologous ISPs at different levels, from sequence similarity of orthologous proteins to co-evolution of interacting domains. We found that the emergence of glucostatic role in mammals can neither be explained by the development of new sets of signaling elements, nor by the establishment of new interactions between pre-existing proteins. The comparison of orthologous IRS molecules indicates that only in mammals have they acquired their complete functionality as efficient recruiters of effector sub-pathways.     

代谢性疾病实验动物模型的建立与评价

代谢综合征是一组以多种代谢性疾病合并出现为临床特点的临床症候群。建立适合的MS动物模型对研究代谢性疾病的发病机理和相关药物筛选有十分重要的意义。本文就目前MS实验动物模型的建立做一综述,并对其进行评价。     

Intraguild predation in biological control: consideration of multiple resource species

Theoretical models of intraguild predation (IGP) predict that IGP decreases the effectiveness of biological control while many empirical studies do not agree with this prediction. In this study, I discuss the importance of explicit consideration of multiple resource species that has been neglected in most theoretical IGP models. In the previous models of IGP, a single resource species represented the pest species. However, there are multiple resource species (e.g., multiple pest species or aggregates of pest and non-pest species) in real systems. This study shows that models with multiple resource species can predict a variety of outcomes including those consistent with the empirical observations. The explicit consideration of resource species is useful for the future development of theories in biological control. Handling Editor: Helen Roy     

Population dynamics of pampas mice (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Akodon azarae</Emphasis>): signatures of competition and predation exposed through time-series modeling

The ability of four mechanistic population models to mirror a 5-year time series of seasonal densities of the pampas mouse, Akodon azarae, from central Argentina, is evaluated in this paper. The different models included, singly or in combination, the effects of a putative competitor and a specialist predator on the dynamics of pampas mice. The most simple model, a logistic single-species stochastic differential equation, failed to fit the observed time series satisfactorily (R _model² = 0.36), while models including interspecific effects gave much better fits with increasing model complexity (competition R _model² = 0.71, predation R _model² = 0.62, competition and predation R _model² = 0.83). Using Akaike’s information criterion, the competition model was selected as the best alternative with regard to model fit and model complexity. Synthetic time-series probes obtained by simulations from the parameterized stochastic mechanistic models were significantly different and indicated the competition plus predation model as a slightly better alternative than the competition model. The differences between the two methods for selecting models indicate that the incorporation of predation only slightly improves the match between the predicted and observed time series and that this slight improvement is not sufficient to override the increase in model complexity. Competition thus seems to play a more important role than predation in shaping the population dynamics of pampas mice.     

SOD1 (copper/zinc superoxide dismutase) deficiency drives amyloid β protein oligomerization and memory loss in mouse model of Alzheimer disease

Oxidative stress is closely linked to the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration. Soluble amyloid β (Aβ) oligomers cause cognitive impairment and synaptic dysfunction in Alzheimer disease (AD). However, the relationship between oligomers, oxidative stress, and their localization during disease progression is uncertain. Our previous study demonstrated that mice deficient in cytoplasmic copper/zinc superoxide dismutase (CuZn-SOD, SOD1) have features of drusen formation, a hallmark of age-related macular degeneration (Imamura, Y., Noda, S., Hashizume, K., Shinoda, K., Yamaguchi, M., Uchiyama, S., Shimizu, T., Mizushima, Y., Shirasawa, T., and Tsubota, K. (2006) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 103, 11282-11287). Amyloid assembly has been implicated as a common mechanism of plaque and drusen formation. Here, we show that Sod1 deficiency in an amyloid precursor protein-overexpressing mouse model (AD mouse, Tg2576) accelerated Aβ oligomerization and memory impairment as compared with control AD mouse and that these phenomena were basically mediated by oxidative damage. The increased plaque and neuronal inflammation were accompanied by the generation of N(ε)-carboxymethyl lysine in advanced glycation end products, a rapid marker of oxidative damage, induced by Sod1 gene-dependent reduction. The Sod1 deletion also caused Tau phosphorylation and the lower levels of synaptophysin. Furthermore, the levels of SOD1 were significantly decreased in human AD patients rather than non-AD age-matched individuals, but mitochondrial SOD (Mn-SOD, SOD2) and extracellular SOD (CuZn-SOD, SOD3) were not. These findings suggest that cytoplasmic superoxide radical plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of AD. Activation of Sod1 may be a therapeutic strategy for the inhibition of AD progression.     

Aromatase inhibitors and xenograft studies

Aromatase inhibitors (AIs) have become the front-line choice for treatment of ER+ breast cancer. Nevertheless, although patients are responsive initially, they may acquire resistance and become unresponsive to further treatment. In addition, approximately 25% of breast cancers do not express the estrogen receptor (ERα) and consequently, are innately resistant to endocrine therapy. We have investigated the mechanisms associated with this lack of treatment response using xenograft models. We found that in cells and tumors that acquired resistance to the AI letrozole therapy, expression of the ER was reduced whereas growth factor signally was enhanced, including a marked increase in HER2 expression. Treatment with trastuzumab (HER2 antibody) resulted in a significant down-regulation of HER2 and p-MAPK as well as restoration of ERα expression. Thus, when trastuzumab was added to letrozole treatment at the time of tumor progression, there was significantly prolonged tumor suppression compared to trastuzumab or letrozole alone. This suggests that inhibition of both HER2 and ERα signaling pathways are required for overcoming resistance and restoring treatment sensitivity. ER negative tumors are innately resistant to endocrine therapy. Repression of the ERα has been found to be due to epigenetic modifications such as increased methylation and histone deacetylation. We found that entinostat (ENT), a histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi), activated not only expression of ERα but also aromatase in MDA-MB-231 ER-negative breast cancer cells, resulting in their ability to respond to estrogen and letrozole. Treatment with ENT in combination with letrozole significantly reduced tumor growth rate in xenografts compared to control tumors (p < 0.001). ENT plus letrozole treatment also prevented the colonization and growth of MDA-MB-231 cells in the lung with a significant reduction (p < 0.03) in both visible and microscopic foci. These results provide a strong indication for possible use of AIs in combination with HDAC inhibitors for the treatment of ER-negative breast cancer.