In order to investigate the expression levels of Pin1 mRNA and protein in cervical cancer and its association with Ki67 and their clinical significance, amplification of Pin1 gene was examined by RT-PCR, and the expression of both Pin1 and Ki67 protein was detected by immunohistochemistry in cervical cancer tissues. It was shown that the expression levels of Pin1 were higher in cervical cancer than in normal cervical tissues (P<0.05). The expression of Pin1 protein was increased progressively along with the disease process from normal cervix to CIN and to cervical cancer (P<0.05). No significant difference in the Pin1 expression was found between disease stages (FIGO), pathological grades or pelvic lymph node metastasis status (P>0.05). The expression of Pin1 was significantly higher in adenocarcinoma than in squamous carcinoma of the uterine cervix (P<0.05). In cervical cancer, the overexpression of Pin1 was positively correlated with that of Ki67 (P<0.05). These results suggested that the overexpression of Pin1 was closely related with cancer cell proliferation or progression of cervical cancer and contributed to oncogenesis. Pin1 may serve as a potential marker for cervical cancer diagnosis.
In order to elucidate the effect of dexamethasone on the expression of transforming growth factor-betal (TGF-β1) in ciliary pigment epithelial (CPE) cells cultured in vitro, rabbit CPE cells were cultured in vitro, treated with DMEM medium containing 0,1×10−8, 5×10−8, 10×10−8 and 50×10−8 mol/L dexamethasone respectively for 5 days. The TGF-β1 expression was detected by immunohistochemistry Supervision methods and analyzed semi-quantitatively by HMIAS-2000 image system. As opposed toin vivo, rabbit CPE cells expressed TGF-β1 under cultured circumstance in vitro. The gray scales of the positive yellow staining in the groups of 1×10−8, 5×10−8, 10×10−8 and 50×10−8 mol/L dexamethasone were 136.57±4.43, 140.20±6.10, 142.98±2.99, 146.80±1.68 and 150.05±1.94 respectively. When the concentrations of dexamethasone were equal to or higher than 5×10−8 mol/L and, the expression of TGF-β1 was inhibited. 10−7 mol/L dexamethasone showed a significant inhibition. It was suggested that CPE cells possess the potential ability of synthesizing and expressing TGF-β1. The inhibition of TGF-β1 expression by dexamethasone may be beneficial to the treatment of proliferative vitroretinopathy, also exert some influence on the secretion of aqueous humor and ciliary inflammation.
To investigate the expression of plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), interferon regulatory factor-7 (IRF-7) and interferon alpha (IFN-α) mRNA in skin lesions of patients with psoriasis vulgaris, the expressions of plasmacytoid dendritic cells, IRF-7, IFN-α mRNA in the lesional skin of psoriasis vulgaris were detected by immunohistochemical technique (SP) and RT-PCR. Normal skin of healthy volunteers, serving as control, was also tested. The immunohistochemical study showed that the expression of pDCs in the psoriatic lesions was significantly higher than that in the normal controls. RT-PCR showed that the mRNA expression of IRF-7 was much higher than that in normal controls, but no difference in the expression of IFN-α mRNA was found between two groups. Our findings indicate that up-regulated expression of pDCs, IRF-7mRNA might be involved in the pathogenesis of psoriasis.