ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of ThinPrep UroCyte filters, which were designed specifically for the preparation of slides for fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis of urine specimens. One hundred urine specimens were evenly split, and one portion was utilized to prepare a slide with the UroCyte filter method and the other portion was used to prepare a slide with a manual dropping method. All 17 of the 100 specimens identified as positive by the manual method were also identified as positive with the UroCyte method. No significant differences were noted in the percentage of chromosomally abnormal cells (P = 0.227), cellularity (P = 0.857), signal quality (P = 0.816), and DAPI counterstain quality (P = 0.369) between the two methodologies. The average time taken to prepare a batch of 10 slides using the UroCyte method, and that using manual method was 103 min (10.3 min/case) and 194 min (19.4 min/case), respectively. This study suggests that the UroCyte filter method of preparing slides for FISH analysis reduces the time required to prepare these slides with overall results that are similar to the currently utilized manual dropping method.
Subject(s)
In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence/methods , Specimen Handling , Urinary Bladder Neoplasms/pathology , Cytodiagnosis/instrumentation , Cytodiagnosis/methods , Humans , Reproducibility of Results , Urinalysis/instrumentation , Urinalysis/methodsABSTRACT
Notch receptors play a key role in several cellular processes including differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis. This study investigated whether the activation of Notch signaling would affect the maturation of dendritic cells (DCs). Direct stimulation of Notch signaling in DCs with a peptide ligand induced DC maturation, similar to LPS: DCs up-regulated maturation markers, produced IL-12, lost endocytosis capacity, and became able to activate allogeneic T cells. Furthermore, coculture of DCs with cells expressing Notch ligand Jagged-1 induced up-regulation of maturation markers, IL-12 production, T cell proliferative responses, and IFN-gamma production. Our data suggest that activation of Notch by Jagged-1 plays an important role in maturation of human DCs. Additionally, they reveal a novel role for Notch signaling in cell maturation events distal to the cell fate decision fork. These data may have important medical implications, since they provide new reagents to induce DC activity, which may be beneficial as adjuvants in situations where an immune response needs to be elicited, such as tumor immunotherapy.
