A multicentre cohort study on colonization and infection with ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae in high-risk patients with haematological malignancies.

Background: Bloodstream infections (BSIs) caused by enterobacteria remain a leading cause of mortality in patients with chemotherapy-induced neutropenia. The rate and type of colonization and infection with ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae (ESBL-E) and their mode of transmission in German cancer centres is largely unknown.

Methods: We performed a prospective, observational study at five German university-based haematology departments.

Zoledronic acid has direct antiproliferative and antimetastatic effect on pancreatic carcinoma cells and acts as an antigen for delta2 gamma/delta T cells.

Beside their use as antiresorptive drug, bisphosphonates are well known to stimulate gammadelta T cells and to have direct effects on tumor growth. We determined the direct cytotoxic potential, induction of apoptosis, and antimigratory effect of zoledronic acid. The susceptibility of pancreatic carcinoma cells pretreated with bisphosphonates against gammadelta T cells was tested and the subgroup involved in killing was determined.

Minimal size MIDGE vectors improve transgene expression in vivo.

Viral and plasmid vectors may cause immunological side-effects resulting from the expression of therapeutically unwanted genes and from CpG motifs contained in their sequence. A new vector type for minimalistic, immunological-defined gene expression (MIDGE) may overcome these problems. MIDGE is a minimal size gene transfer unit consisting of the expression cassette, including promotor, gene and RNA-stabilizing sequences, flanked by two short hairpin oligonucleotide sequences.

Transfection of human monocyte-derived dendritic cells with CpG oligonucleotides.

Monocyte-derived dendritic cells (mDC), the most frequently applied DC subset in clinical studies, which can be obtained easily from peripheral blood monocytes after incubation with GM-CSF and IL-4, have not been clearly demonstrated to be activated by CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN). The development of novel molecular strategies - such as the use of CpG-ODN - to increase immunological functions and thus improve the therapeutic efficiency of mDC vaccines in the treatment of malignant diseases is highly desirable. CpG-ODN need to be internalized into specific intracellular compartments to be active.