[Value of magnetic resonance imaging in diagnosis of brucellar spondylitis].

OBJECTIVE: To study characteristic presentations of Brucellar spondylitis on MRI in order to improve the diagnostic level. METHODS: From October 2009 to December 2010,15 patients with Brucellar spondylitis were evaluated by MRI. They included 11 males and 4 females ranging in age from 31 to 64 (mean 49) years. The major clinical manifestations were different degrees of fatigue,fever and low back pain. All patients underwent MRI and treated with antibiotic drugs. RESULTS: Brucellar spondylitis was mostly localized at the lumbar spine with obvious bony hyperostosis in the vertebral periphery. Most foci were in the edge, anterior and middle parts of the vertebral body, with low signals on T1WI and mixed low signals on T2WI, and high signals on T2 fat suppression, mostly without significant changes in intervertebral space. Paraspinal abscess was observed in 5 cases. Thirteen cases involved the lumbar vertebrae, 1 case involved the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, and 1 case involved the lumbar and sacral vertebrae. Two vertebrae were affected in 14 cases, and 3 vertebrae were affected in 1 case. CONCLUSION: MRI can provide imaging clues for diagnosis and differential diagnosis of Brucellar spondylitis, and has a high clinical value.

Effects of small interfering RNAs targeting MAPK1 on gene expression profile in HeLa cells as revealed by microarray analysis.

The mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPK) signaling cascade plays an important role in cell life. We proved that small interfering RNAs targeting MAPK1 (siRNA-2) could inhibit HeLa cell growth, but the effects of siRNA-2 on gene expression profile were unclear. Using Affymetrix GeneChip HG-U133A 2.0, we identified the long-term changes for 48 h in gene expression profile in HeLa cell treated by siRNA-2. The results showed that expressions of 181 genes were altered by siRNA-2 and were divided into two groups: (i) one group showed downregulation by siRNA-2, including the proliferation associated genes, small G protein, cytoskeleton associated protein and extracellular matrix associated protein; and (ii) the other group showed upregulation by siRNA-2, including interferon response genes, OAS family, TRIM family and apoptosis associated genes. The results of Real-time quantitative PCR for MAPK1, NUP188, P38, STAT1, STAT2, MPL and OAS1 were consistent with that of gene chip. Two networks were found to react substantially to the downregulation of MAPK1 by siRNA-2. One of the networks regulates cell growth through cell-cycle control, apoptosis and cytoskeleton. The other network is related to interferon-like response. Our findings suggest that siRNA-mediated downregulation of MAPK1 could be an attractive strategy for cancer therapy.

[New progress of the highly efficient siRNA design].

RNA interference (RNAi), a conserved evolutionary mechanism widely found in living nature, is considered for defending the alien gene and virus infection. RNAi can induce gene silencing by prohibiting the translation of the target mRNA, which is specially recognized by the corresponding siRNA, and finally degraded by the RISC. So RNAi can be applied as a new technology tool for the functional gene research and gene therapy. But the effects of random designed siRNAs on gene silencing differ greatly from each other. The design of the special, highly efficient siRNA comes to be a crucial problem. This issue gives an overview about the new progress of the siRNA design principle.