Establishment and verification of a digital PCR assay for the detection of expression in quantitative analysis of circulating tumor cell.

The objective of this study was to establish and verify a digital PCR assay for the detection of gene expression, and to use it to detect circulating tumor cells (CTC) by taking advantages of its ultra-high sensitivity and absolute quantitation. Firstly, the primers and probes were designed according to the mRNA sequence of gene, and housekeeping gene was used as the internal control. The best candidate was screened by human breast cancer MCF7 cells and healthy human leukocytes from 13 sets of primer and probes and verified by direct sequencing.

[Inhibitory effects of human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells on proliferation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from spondyloarthritis patients].

Objective: To explore the inhibitory effects of human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hUCMSC) on the proliferation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from spondyloarthritis (SpA) patients.

Methods: A total of 12 SpA patients at Chinese PLA General Hospital were recruited from May 2012 to October 2012. Information on demographic characteristics, disease and functional activity was collected.

A comparison of ARMS and direct sequencing for EGFR mutation analysis and tyrosine kinase inhibitors treatment prediction in body fluid samples of non-small-cell lung cancer patients.

Background: Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation is strongly associated with the therapeutic effect of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Nevertheless, tumor tissue that needed for mutation analysis is frequently unavailable. Body fluid was considered to be a feasible substitute for the analysis, but arising problems in clinical practice such as relatively lower mutation rate and poor clinical correlation are not yet fully resolved.