阴道菌群移植治疗细菌性阴道炎的发展现状及展望

细菌性阴道炎 (Bacterial vaginosis,BV) 是由患者阴道内菌群失调导致的一类疾病。当前常规的抗生素疗法可进一步加剧阴道菌群失衡、破坏阴道酸性环境、导致耐药,因此其对BV治愈率低,复发率高。作为一种新兴的活菌疗法,阴道菌群移植 (Vaginal microbiota transplantation,VMT) 直接将健康妇女完整的阴道菌群“嫁接”给患者,可迅速恢复患者阴道菌群的平衡,改善患者的整体健康。文中对VMT的发展历程进行了回顾,讨论了VMT发展过程中面临的难题及发展方向,以期寻求新的治疗BV的策略,加速VMT的临床应用。     

Tape transfer sectioning of tissue microarrays introduces nonspecific immunohistochemical staining artifacts

Abstract

Tissue microarrays place tens to hundreds of formalin fixed, paraffin embedded tissue cores into a paraffin block in a systematic grid pattern that permits their simultaneous evaluation in a single section. The fragmented nature of the tissue cores often makes sectioning of tissue microarrays difficult so that the resulting disks of tissue lose their shape, fracture or fall out of the paraffin section altogether. We have evaluated an alternative sectioning protocol for stabilizing the tissue microarray surface by placing an adhesive tape “window” over the face of the paraffin block prior to sectioning. Once sectioned, the tape/sections are transferred directly onto coated microscope slides, thereby avoiding routine floating of sections on a water bath. After sectioning with either the tape transfer or standard protocols, slides were stained either using hematoxylin and eosin or immunohistochemistry using antibodies to S-100 protein and the tissue specific antigens, keratin (AE1/3) and the leukocyte common antigen CD45. We found that the tape method produced thicker sections that were darker and more densely packed with loss of tissue definition compared to sections prepared using water bath flotation. Quantitative image analysis of immunohistochemical staining demonstrated that the tape method produced a higher incidence of nonspecific staining, which raised the potential for false positive staining.     

Influence of skin aging effects on the skin surface profile and the correlated distribution of topically applied sunscreens

The surface profile of human skin influences characteristically the distribution pattern of topically applied formulations and consequently the efficacy of sunscreens. The volumes of furrows and the spectroscopically determined factors of inhomogeneity are investigated for three sunscreens. A clear correlation between both measurands exists. The average values for younger (<32 years) and older (≥51 years) volunteers do not show statistically significant differences. Systematic variations found for the individual values are due to a reduced elasticity of the skin with age improving the homogeneity of the sunscreen distribution. (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

定君生联合甲硝唑治疗滴虫性阴道病的临床疗效观察

目的 通过定君生联合甲硝唑以及单独用药治疗滴虫性阴道病的临床疗效观察,探讨联合用药对滴虫性阴道病的疗效.方法 选择诊断明确的滴虫性阴道病患者150例,随机分为3组,试验组采用甲硝唑联合定君生的治疗,对照组Ⅰ采用定君生单独用药,对照组Ⅱ采用甲硝唑治疗,观察治疗后的症状、体征、滴虫和阴道的pH的变化.结果 3组患者有效率差异有统计学意义(P＜0.05),起效时间和复发率差异有统计学意义(P＜0.01).结论 定君生联合甲硝唑治疗滴虫性阴道病,疗效好,有利于快速恢复阴道的微生物环境的平衡,降低复发率.     

Factors Affecting Detection of Burrowing Owl Nests During Standardized Surveys

Abstract: Identifying causes of declines and evaluating effects of management practices on persistence of local populations of burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia) requires accurate estimates of abundance and population trends. Moreover, regulatory agencies in the United States and Canada typically require surveys to detect nest burrows prior to approving developments or other activities in areas that are potentially suitable for nesting burrowing owls. In general, guidelines on timing of surveys have been lacking and surveys have been conducted at different times of day and in different stages of the nesting cycle. We used logistic regression to evaluate 7 factors that could potentially affect probability of a surveyor detecting a burrowing owl nest. We conducted 1,444 detection trials at 323 burrowing owl nests within 3 study areas in Washington and Wyoming, USA, between February and August 2000–2002. Detection probability was highest during the nestling period and increased with ambient temperature. The other 5 factors that we examined (i.e., study area, time of day, timing within the breeding season, wind speed, % cloud cover) interacted with another factor to influence detection probability. Use of call-broadcast surveys increased detection probability, even during daylight hours when we detected >95% of owls visually. Optimal timing of surveys will vary due to differences in breeding phenology and differences in nesting behavior across populations. Nevertheless, we recommend ≥3 surveys per year: one that coincides with the laying and incubation period, another that coincides with the early nestling period, and a third that coincides with the late nestling period. In northern latitudes, surveys can be conducted throughout the day. (JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT 72(3):688–696; 2008)     

Differences between the normal vaginal bacterial community of baboons and that of humans

Humans and baboons (Papio spp.) share considerable anatomical and physiological similarities in their reproductive tracts. Given the similarities, it is reasonable to expect that the normal vaginal microbial composition (microbiota) of baboons would be similar to that of humans. We have used a 16S rRNA phylogenetic approach to assess the composition of the baboon vaginal microbiota in a set of nine animals from a captive facility and six from the wild. Results show that although Gram‐positive bacteria dominate in baboons as they do in humans, there are major differences between the vaginal microbiota of baboons and that of humans. In contrast to humans, the species of Gram‐positive bacteria (Firmicutes) were taxa other than Lactobacillus species. In addition, some groups of Gram‐negative bacteria that are not normally abundant in humans were found in the baboon samples. A further level of difference was also seen even within the same bacterial phylogenetic group, as baboon strains tended to be more phylogenetically distinct from human strains than human strains were with each other. Finally, results of our analysis suggests that co‐evolution of microbes and their hosts cannot account for the major differences between the microbiota of baboons and that of humans because divergences between the major bacterial genera were too ancient to have occurred since primates evolved. Instead, the primate vaginal tracts appear to have acquired discrete subsets of bacteria from the vast diversity of bacteria available in the environment and established a community responsive to and compatible with host species physiology. Am. J. Primatol. 73:119–126, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Proliferation and differentiation of prepubertal mouse vaginal epithelial cells in vitro and the specificity of estrogen-induced growth retardation

Summary Mouse vaginal epithelial cells were isolated from intact 21-day-old BALB/cCrgl mice and cultured in a serum-free medium (SF₂₀: basal medium supplemented with insulin, epidermal growth factor, transferrin, and bovine serum albumin—fraction V) to examine the proliferation, differentiation, and specificity of estrogen-induced growth retardation in vitro. Histologic and ultrastructural studies showed that vaginal epithelial cells undergo differentiative changes in vitro in the absence of estrogen, and that these changes are similar to those induced in vivo by estrogen. Addition of 17β-estradiol inhibited cellular proliferation in a dose-dependent manner. Whereas other estrane derivatives (17α-estradiol and estriol) also significantly retarded cellular proliferation, cholesterol, testosterone, and progesterone had no effect. Keoxifene, an antiestrogen, significantly reversed estrogen-induced growth inhibition, resulting in proliferation of estrogen-treated cells equivalent to that of the untreated control. The results suggest that both proliferation and differentiation of prepubertal mouse vaginal epithelial cells in vitro are estrogen-independent, and that the growth inhibition is a specific estrogen-induced response. This work was supported by grants CA-05388 and CA-09041 from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD.     

Continuous Data Block Placement in and Elevation from Tertiary Storage in Hierarchical Storage Servers

Given the cost of memories and the very large storage and bandwidth requirements of large-scale multimedia databases, hierarchical storage servers (which consist of disk-based secondary storage and tape-library-based tertiary storage) are becoming increasingly popular. Such server applications rely upon tape libraries to store all media, exploiting their excellent storage capacity and cost per MB characteristics. They also rely upon disk arrays, exploiting their high bandwidth, to satisfy a very large number of requests. Given typical access patterns and server configurations, the tape drives are fully utilized uploading data for requests that fall through to the tertiary level. Such upload operations consume significant secondary storage device and bus bandwidth. In addition, with present technology (and trends) the disk array can serve fewer requests to continuous objects than it can store, mainly due to IO and/or backplane bus bandwidth limitations. In this work we address comprehensively the performance of these hierarchical, continuous-media, storage servers by looking at all three main system resources: the tape drive bandwidth, the secondary-storage bandwidth, and the host's RAM. We provide techniques which, while fully utilizing the tape drive bandwidth (an expensive resource) they introduce bandwidth savings, which allow the secondary storage devices to serve more requests and do so without increasing demands for the host's RAM space. Specifically, we consider the issue of elevating continuous data from its permanent place in tertiary for display purposes. We develop algorithms for sharing the responsibility for the playback between the secondary and tertiary devices and for placing the blocks of continuous objects on tapes, and show how they achieve the above goals. We study these issues for different commercial tape library products with different bandwidth and tape capacity and in environments with and without the multiplexing of tape libraries.