Relation of study quality, concordance, take home message, funding, and impact in studies of influenza vaccines: systematic review

Objective To explore the relation between study concordance, take home message, funding, and dissemination of comparative studies assessing the effects of influenza vaccines

Breast and other cancer dormancy as a therapeutic endpoint: speculative recombinant T cell receptor ligand (RTL) adjuvant therapy worth considering?

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.BACKGROUND: Most individuals who died of trauma were found to harbour microscopic primary cancers at autopsies. Surgical excision of the primary tumour, unfortunately, seems to disturb tumour dormancy in over half of all metastatic relapses. PRESENTATION OF THE HYPOTHESIS: A recently developed immune model suggested that the evolutionary pressure driving the creation of a T cell receptor repertoire was primarily the homeostatic surveillance of the genome. The model is based on the homeostatic role of T cells, suggesting that molecular complementarity between the positively selected T cell receptors and the self peptide-presenting major histocompatibility complex molecules establishes and regulates homeostasis, strictly limiting variations of its components. The repertoire is maintained by continuous peripheral stimulation via soluble forms of self-peptide-presenting major histocompatibility complex molecules governed by the law of mass action. The model states that foreign peptides inhibit the complementary interactions between the major histocompatibility complexes and T cell receptors. Since the vast majority of clinically detected cancers present self-peptides the model assumes that tumour cells are, paradoxically, under homeostatic T cell control.The novelty of our hypothesis therefore is that resection of the primary tumour mass is perceived as loss of 'normal' tissue cells. Consequently, T cells striving to reconstitute homeostasis stimulate rather than inhibit the growth of dormant tumour cells and avascular micrometastases. Here we suggest that such kick-start growths could be prevented by a recombinant T cell receptor ligand therapy that modifies T cell behaviour through a partial activation mechanism. TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS: The homeostatic T cell regulation of tumours can be tested in a tri-transgenic mice model engineered to express potent oncogenes in a doxycycline-dependent manner. We suggest seeding dissociated, untransformed mammary cells from doxycycline naïve mice into the lungs of two mice groups: one carries mammary tumours, the other does not. Both recipient groups to be fed doxycycline in order to activate the oncogenes of the untransformed mammary cells in the lungs, where solitary nodules are expected to develop 6 weeks after injection. We expect that lung metastasis development will be stimulated following resection of the primary tumour mass compared to the tumour-free mice. A recombinant T cell receptor ligand therapy, starting at least one day before resection and continuing during the entire experimental period, would be able to prevent the stimulating effect of surgery. IMPLICATIONS OF THE HYPOTHESIS: Recombinant T cell receptor ligand therapy of diagnosed cancer would keep all metastatic deposits microscopic for as long as the therapy is continued without limit and could be pursued as one method of cancer control. Improving the outcome of therapy by preventing the development of metastases is perhaps achievable more readily than curing patients with overt metastases

Dynamics of the weed community during pineapple growth in the Brazilian semi-arid region.

The pineapple belongs to the family Bromeliaceae and is a slow-growing succulent monocot with a reduced superficial root system. For this reason, the interference of weeds in competition with this crop can cause significant losses to the production. One of the bases to elaborate a control strategy is the knowledge of the diversity of weeds that occur in the cultivated areas. The objective of this study was to identify the weed community during pineapple growth in a semi-arid climate region of Brazil. Weeds were collected 60, 120, 180, 240, 300, and 360 days after planting (DAP) the pineapple. These collections were made in three different plots every two months until floral induction, composed of three pineapple cultivars. The weed community found in the irrigated pineapple field, in semi-arid climate conditions, was mostly composed by species belonging to the families Amaranthaceae, Asteraceae, Convolvulaceae, Fabaceae, Malvaceae, and Poaceae. The highest diversity of weed species was found at 60 DAP. The species Ipomoea acuminata was present throughout the development of the pineapple and showed the highest importance value index in most of the periods evaluated during the pineapple growth.Título em espanhol: Dinámica de la comunidad de malezas a lo largo del crecimiento de piña en la región semiárida brasileña