Soy germ extract alleviates menopausal hot flushes: placebo-controlled double-blind trial.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: A double-blind, placebo-controlled study was performed to assess the potency of a soy germ preparation for the alleviation of menopausal hot flushes. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Caucasian women with at least seven hot flushes daily were treated with soy germ extract (100 mg isoflavone glycosides) daily or with placebo for 12 weeks, followed by 12 weeks of open treatment with soy. Outcome parameters were the number of hot flushes and the evaluation of the Greene Climacteric Scale. RESULTS: A total of 192 women were included. As the hot flush diaries from one study centre were lost, the assessment of hot flushes was based on 136 participants (soy: 54 women; placebo: 82 women). After 12 weeks, 180 women were available for the analysis of Greene Scale and safety (soy and placebo: each 90 women). Hot flushes were reduced by 43.3% (-3.5 hot flushes) with soy and by 30.8% with placebo (-2.6; p < 0.001). After the open treatment phase with soy, both original groups showed a reduction of 68% of hot flushes. A subgroup analysis showed better effects for soy when symptoms were classified as "severe" at baseline. After 12 weeks of double-blind treatment, there was an improvement from baseline values of 71 and 78% with soy with the items "hot flushes" and "sweating", compared with 24% for both items with placebo. Hormonal safety parameters remained uninfluenced. CONCLUSIONS: Soy germ extract with 100 mg of isoflavone glycosides was shown to modestly, but significantly reduce menopausal hot flushes.

Interaction of tumor cells with the immune system: implications for dendritic cell therapy and cancer progression.

There is a continuous demand for preclinical modeling of the interaction of dendritic cells with the immune system and cancer cells. Recent progress in gene expression profiling with nucleic acid microarrays, in silico modeling and in vivo cell and animal approaches for non-clinical proof of safety and efficacy of these immunotherapies is summarized. Immunoinformatic approaches look promising to unfold this potential, although still unstable and difficult to interpret. Animal models have progressed a great deal in recent years, finally narrowing the gap from bench to bedside. However, translation to the clinic should be done with precaution. The most significant results concerning clinical benefit might come from detailed immunologic investigations made during well designed clinical trials of dendritic-cell-based therapies, which in general prove safe.

Genome-wide screen for Mycobacterium tuberculosis genes that regulate host immunity.

In spite of its highly immunogenic properties, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) establishes persistent infection in otherwise healthy individuals, making it one of the most widespread and deadly human pathogens. Mtb's prolonged survival may reflect production of microbial factors that prevent even more vigorous immunity (quantitative effect) or that divert the immune response to a non-sterilizing mode (qualitative effect). Disruption of Mtb genes has produced a list of several dozen candidate immunomodulatory factors. Here we used robotic fluorescence microscopy to screen 10,100 loss-of-function transposon mutants of Mtb for their impact on the expression of promoter-reporter constructs for 12 host immune response genes in a mouse macrophage cell line. The screen identified 364 candidate immunoregulatory genes. To illustrate the utility of the candidate list, we confirmed the impact of 35 Mtb mutant strains on expression of endogenous immune response genes in primary macrophages. Detailed analysis focused on a strain of Mtb in which a transposon disrupts Rv0431, a gene encoding a conserved protein of unknown function. This mutant elicited much more macrophage TNFα, IL-12p40 and IL-6 in vitro than wild type Mtb, and was attenuated in the mouse. The mutant list provides a platform for exploring the immunobiology of tuberculosis, for example, by combining immunoregulatory mutations in a candidate vaccine strain.

Effects of soy isoflavones on 17beta-estradiol-induced proliferation of MCF-7 breast cancer cells.

Based on the results of in vitro-experiments in practically estrogen-free media and in the absence of estrogen-beta receptors, soy isoflavones have been suspected to enhance proliferation of MCF-7 breast cancer cells. In this study the effects of soy isoflavones on MCF-7 cells were investigated in the presence and absence of estrogen, directly and in a metabolized form by testing sera of postmenopausal women supplemented with isoflavones. First, three concentrations of isoflavones (0.1, 1 and 10 mumol/l) were tested at increasing levels of 17-beta-estradiol (<10 pM, 50, 100 and 500 pM). Next, blood sera from women supplemented for two weeks either with 200mg isoflavones or with 2 mg 17-beta-estradiol per day, or the combination of both were investigated in an MCF-7 cell proliferation assay. Further, the samples were screened for changes in gene expression patterns of the MCF-7 cells with Gene Chip arrays. Only at unphysiologically low estrogen levels isoflavones led to minor proliferation-enhancing effects. In contrast, at estradiol levels of >20 pM, isoflavones both tested directly and indirectly (metabolized) revealed significant anti-proliferative effects as well as in the proliferation and the gene chip assay. These findings emphasize the reported advantageous properties of isoflavones for postmenopausal women.

E. coli microcosms indicate a tight link between predictability of ecosystem dynamics and diversity.

The diversity-stability hypothesis proposes that ecosystem diversity is positively correlated with stability. The impact of ecosystem diversity is, however, still debated. In a microcosm experiment using diverged Escherichia coli cells, we show that the fitness of community members depends on the complexity (number of participants) of the system. Interestingly, the spread of a community member with a superior genotype is mostly stochastic in low-complexity systems, but highly deterministic in a more complex environment. We conclude that system complexity provides a buffer against stochastic effects.

Similar mating and sperm displacement patterns in two highly divergent D. simulans populations from Africa and Europe.

The frequency of remating in Drosophila melanogaster is affected by both genetic and ecological factors. We studied the remating behaviour in one European (Italy) and one African (Uganda) Drosophila simulans population using six highly polymorphic microsatellite markers. Despite that the populations were genetically distinct (F(ST) = 0.18) and originated from very dissimilar ecological settings with different population densities, we inferred a very similar mating pattern. The remating parameter alpha was similar in both populations (a = 1.3-1.4). No more than two distinct paternal genotypes per family were detected in each population.