Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the Scale for Assessment and Rating of Ataxia / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>The Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA) was shown to be a reliable and valid measurement for patients with spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA). The Brazilian version and the Japanese version of SARA were favorable for good reliability and validity. This study aimed to translate SARA into Chinese and test its reliability and validity in measurement of cerebellar ataxia.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>SARA was translated into Chinese. A total 39 patients with degeneration cerebellar ataxia were evaluated independently by two neurologists with the Chinese version of SARA. Then the patients were evaluated by one of above neurologists with International Cooperative Ataxia Rating Scale (ICARS). The statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 17.0 for Windows.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the Chinese version of SARA was 0.78, which represents a good internal consistence. The correlation coefficient of the Chinese version of SARA scores between the two evaluators was 0.86, illustrating that the inter-rater reliability of Chinese version of SARA was good. The correlation coefficient between the Chinese version of SARA and ICARS was 0.91, illustrating that the criterion validity of Chinese version of SARA was not bad.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The Chinese version of SARA is reliable and effective for the assessment of degeneration cerebellar ataxia. Compared with ICARS, the evaluation of Chinese version of SARA is more objective, the assessment time is shortened, and the maneuverability is better.</p>

Construction of a recombinant BAC-HSV-1 strain HF with a GFP reporter gene and characterization of its infectious progeny virus / 病毒学报

To construct the plasmid of BAC-HSV-1 with GFP reporter gene and research the biological property of its infectious progeny virus. We constructed the plasmid C223-UL43-left-arms-UL47-right-arms which carried the homologous sequences of HSV-1. Liposome embedding method was used to transfect HSV-1 genome and the plasmid C223-UL43-left-arms-UL47-right-arms linearized by Mlu I digestion into Vero cells. After the successful homologous recombination in the eukaryotic cells, the recombinant BAC-HSV-1 with GFP reporter gene was generated. Then, the positive CPE were taken by plaque purification and by hirt extraction during the moment of the circularization of HSV-1 DNA, and the plasmid of BAC -HSV-1 was acquired. Electroporation was used to transfect the BAC -HSV-1 into DH10B, and then the single colonies of interest were confirmed both by MluI digestion and PCR. Experimental group and the control group cells were given BAC-HSV-1 plasmid and HSV-1 genomic DNA respectively to produce the BAC-HSV-1 and HSV-1 progeny virions. Vero cells were inoculated with the progeny virions at MOI = 0.1 and then a TCID50 assay was performed to determine the titers of virons in the two groups at 48 hours post inoculation. The plasmid BAC-HSV-1 was successfully constructed by the restriction enzyme analysis and the PCR. The titers of progeny virions were calculated by the TCID50 assay. No significant difference in the titers of virions between two groups was observed (P > 0.05). The infectious BAC-HSV-1 shuttle virus/plasmid between eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells was successfully constructed.

Construction of the HSV-1 strain HF amplicon and study on its unversal function between different HSV serotypes / 病毒学报

The study aimed to construct the amplicon vector of HSV-1 strain HF and explore its universal package function between different serotypes of HSV. OriS and pac elements were obtained by enzyme digestion from the Plasmid BAC-HSV-1 strain HF and sequenced. With red fluorescence (DsRed) as a reporter gene, the amplicon vector of HSV-1 strain HF was constructed based on pSilencer2.0-U6. The amplicon vector was transfected into Vero cells by lipofectamine 2000, then packaged by HSV-1 strain HF and HSV-2 strain HG52 as helper virus separately. The supernatant was collected after cytopathic effect. Red fluorescence was observed in Vero cells reinfected by the supernatant. In this study,the amplicon vector of HSV-1 strain HF was successfully constructed and it could be packaged by HSV-1 strain HF and HSV-2 strainHG52.