Hand, foot and mouth disease in an immunocompetent adult due to Coxsackievirus A6

Hand, foot and mouth disease most commonly occurs in children less than 10 years old, but can occur in immunocompetent adults. We describe a 37-year-old immunocompetent man who presented with multiple painful papules and vesicles on his palms and feet together with vesicles inside the mouth. Real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed Coxsackievirus A6 in the vesicle fluid from the feet, throat swab, and rectal swab. Since the disease is highly contagious, to contain the infection it is prudent to recognise that hand, foot and mouth disease can occur in immunocompetent adults.published_or_final_versio

早期發現和篩選鼻咽癌的EB病毒血清學檢測

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a common cancer among Chinese, especially Southern Chinese; except for a few other ethnic groups with moderate incidence, it is otherwise a rare cancer in the world. NPC has a male dominance of about 3:1 and mainly afflicts people in mid-life. There is now compelling evidences to suggest that Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a category I human tumor virus defined by UICC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) in 1997, is a causal agent of NPC and is most likely to be involved in the multi-step and multi-factorial development of NPC. In this article, the role of EBV in pathogenesis of NPC is reviewed briefly, and principle applications of EBV antibodies and EBV DNA as markers of NPC are outlined. Based on current knowledge of EBV antibody responses by NPC and taking available testing technologies into account, serologic screening strategy to facilitate efficient early detection of NPC is formulated.鼻咽癌是中國人,特別是中國南方人的一種常見癌癥;世界上除其他少數族群具有中等程度的發病率以外,它是一種罕見的癌癥。鼻咽癌多見于男性,男女發病率之比約為3∶1,且好發于中年人。現今已有令人信服的證據,支持EB病毒(國際癌癥研究協會歸屬為第一類人體腫瘤病毒)是鼻咽癌的致病因子,肯定參與鼻咽癌的多階段、多因素發生過程。本文簡要地復閱了EB病毒在鼻咽癌發病機理中的作用,重點地介紹了EB病毒抗體和EB病毒DNA作為鼻咽癌標志的主要應用;根據由鼻咽癌導致的EB病毒抗體反應的現代知識,并考慮到目前可采用的檢測技術,提出了促進有效地早期發現鼻咽癌的血清學篩選策略。link_to_subscribed_fulltex

β2-Microglobulin and systemic lupus erythematosus

Serum β2-microglobulin (β2-M) was measured in 115 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) on 192 occasions. Raised β2-M was found in 16.4% of patients with only extrarenal manifestations of SLE, in 29.2% of patients with renal manifestation but an endogenous creatinine clearance >80 ml/min/1.73 m2 and in 65.7% of patients with decreased creatinine clearance. β2-M was higher in SLE than non-SLE glomerulonephritides matched for creatinine clearance. Using an arbitrary scoring system, renal, extrarenal and serological activity correlated with β2-M. Changes in clinical activity on repeat studies were reflected by changes in β2-M. Serum β2-M can serve as a monitor of disease activity in SLE.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Anticardiolipin antibodies and lupus anticoagulant in Chinese patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Ninety-one consecutive patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) were studied. Forty-two patients had positive anticardiolipin antibodies (aCl) 40 aCl-IgG (44.4%); 4 aCl-IgA (4.4%); 1 aCl-IgM (1.1%). One patient had both a Cl-IgG and aCl-IgA and 1 patient had aCl-IgG, aCl-IgA and aCl-IgM. Ten patients (11.1%) had lupus anticoagulant (LA). Both aCl isotypes and LA had no statistical association with thrombosis or thombocytopenia.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Characterization and specificity controls of murine monoclonal antibodies against serogroup C1 Salmonella

Two IgG3 murine monoclonal antibodies, Cl-1 and Cl-2, that showed serologic specificities for the O antigens of serogroup C1 (O:6,6) Salmonella were established. The epitopes for the antibodies were found to reside on the repeating units of the serogroup C1 Salmonella lipopolysaccharide and were labile to sodium metaperiodate oxidation. Serologic reactivities of Cl-1 and Cl-2 were not inhibited by commercial monospecific antiserum to O antigen 7, but were inhibited to various degrees by anti-[O:6,7] serum. Both antibodies reacted strongly with all strains of serogroup C1 Salmonella that have either O:61,7, O:62,7, or O:61,2,7 antigens. Reactivities of Cl-1 and Cl-2 with the phage-14 lysogenized C1 strains that bear the phage-modified O antigen (O:6,7 → O:6,7,14) were detected by slide agglutination method only and not by wholecell enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Both Cl-1 and Cl-2 antibodies did not react with other O serogroups of salmonellae, nor with other Gram-negative or Gram-positive bacteria. The diagnostic value of these monoclonal antibodies together with a previously described monoclonal antibody against the serogroup C2 Salmonella was demonstrated using the slide agglutination method with monoclonal antibodies ascitic fluids. © 1992.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Sensitive and specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay using chemiluminescence for detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome viral infection

Here we report the development of a more-sensitive immunoassay for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) based on an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay using chemiluminescence (CLEIA) to detect the viral nucleocapsid (N) antigen in nasopharyngeal aspirate (NPA) from patients infected with SARS coronavirus (CoV). The CLEIA was established with an optical combination of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against SARS CoV N protein prepared from mice immunized with recombinant N protein without cultivating the virus. The capture and detecting MAbs of the CLEIA reacted to the carboxyl-terminal and amino-terminal peptides of the N protein, respectively. The CLEIA was capable of detecting recombinant N protein at 1.56 μg/ml and viral N protein in SARS CoV cell culture lysates at 0.087 of 50% tissue culture infective doses/ml. The CLEIA showed no cross-reactivities to recombinant N proteins of common human CoV (229E, OC43, and NL63) or lysates of cells infected with 229E and OC43. In addition, an evaluation with 18 SARS-positive NPA samples, all confirmed SARS positive by quantitative PCR and antibodies to SARS CoV, revealed that all (18/18) were found positive by the CLEIA; thus, the sensitivity of detection was 100%. When we tested 20 SARS-negative NPA samples, the CLEIA was shown to have high specificity (100%). The sensitivity of our novel SARS CLEIA was significantly higher than the previous EIA and comparable to the other methods using reverse transcription-PCR. Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

A novel dirofilaria species causing human and canine infections in Hong Kong

Dirofilariasis is globally the commonest manifestation of zoonotic filariasis. We report the detection of a novel canine species causing human and canine dirofilariasis in Hong Kong. Three human cases occurring over 10 months were identified, one presenting with cervical lymphadenopathy, one with an abdominal subcutaneous mass, and one with a subconjunctival nodule. Transected worms recovered from the resected abdominal subcutaneous mass were morphologically compatible with Dirofilaria. The cox1 gene sequences of the three human isolates were identical; however, they were only 96.2% and 89.3% identical to the cox1 gene of Dirofilaria repens and Dirofilaria immitis, respectively. Sequencing of the 18S-ITS1-5.8S gene cluster was successful in the intact worm, and the nucleotide sequences were 94.0% and 94.9% identical to those of D. repens and D. immitis, respectively. Screening of the blood samples from 200 dogs and 100 cats showed the presence of the novel Dirofilaria species in 3% (6/200) of the dogs' but none of the cats' blood samples. Nucleotide sequences of the cox1 gene and 18S-ITS1-5.8S gene clusters of the dogs' samples were identical to those in the human samples. The sera of canines infected by this novel Dirofilaria species were negative when tested with the SNAP 4Dx D. immitis detection kit, except in the case of dogs with a mixed infection with D. immitis as detected by PCR. The results from this study suggest that this novel Dirofilaria species is a cause of filarial infection in humans and dogs in Hong Kong. We propose to name this Dirofilaria species "Candidatus Dirofilaria hongkongensis." Copyright © 2012, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.link_to_subscribed_fulltex