Expressions of NF-κBp50, p53 and Bcl-2 in cervical cancer and their relationship with human papillomavirus infection

Objective:To explore the relationship between expressions of NF-κBp50,p53 and Bcl-2 in tissue of cervical can-cer and human papillomavirus(HPV)infection.Methods:The expressions of NF-κBp50,p53 and Bcl-2 were detected using immuohistochemical staining in 46 specimens of cervical cancer and 26 specimens of normal cervical tissue.The infection of HPV DNA were determined by PCR.Results:The expressions of NF-κBp50,p53 and Bcl-2 in tissue of cervical cancer were significantly higher than that in normal cervical tissue(P<0.01),and the expressions of NF-κBp50 and p53 or Bcl-2 were closely related(P<0.05).The expression of NF-κBp50 in HPV DNA positive group was significantly higher than that in HPV negative group(P<0.05),but there were no significantly differences in the expressions of p53 and Bcl-2 between HPV DNA positive group and HPV negative group(P>0.05).Conclusion:The expressions of NF-κBp50,p53 and Bcl-2 were significantly correlated with cervical carcinogenesis.NF-κBp50 may be activated by HPV infection.

Chimerically fused antigen rich of overlapped epitopes from latent membrane protein 2 （LMP2） of Epstein-Barr virus as a potential vaccine and diagnostic agent

Epstein-Barr virus （EBV） is prevalent throughout the world and is associated with several malignant diseases in humans. Latent membrane protein 2 （LMP2） of EBV plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of EBV-associated tumors; therefore, LMP2 has been considered to be a potential immunodiagnostic and immunotherapeutic target. A multi-epitope-based antigen is a promising option for therapeutic vaccines and diagnoses of such malignancies. In this study, we systematically screened cytotoxic T lymphocyte （CTL）, helper T cell （Th） and B-cell epitopes within EBV-LMP2 using bioinformatics. Based on the screen, two peptides rich in overlapping epitopes of both T cells and B cells were selected to construct a plasmid containing the sequence for a chimeric multi-epitope protein referred to as EBV-LMP2m, which is composed of LMP2aa195-232 and LMP2aa419-436. The EBV-LMP2m protein was expressed in E. coil BL21 （DE3） after prokaryotic codon optimization. Inoculation of the purified chimeric antigen in BALB/c mice induced not only high levels of specific IgG in the serum and secretory IgA in the vaginal mucus but also a specific CTL response. By using purified EBV-LMP2m as an antigen, the presence of specific IgG in the serum specimens of 202 nasopharyngeal carcinoma （NPC） patients was effectively detected with 52.84% sensitivity and 95.40% specificity, which represents an improvement over the traditional detection method based on VCA-IgA （60.53% sensitivity and 76.86% specificity）. The above results indicate that EBV-LMP2m may be used not only as a potential target antigen for EBV-associated tumors but also a diagnostic agent for NPC patients.