Identification and function analysis of BCL2 in immune response of Pteria penguin.

B-cell lymphoma/leukemia-2 (BCL2), an anti-apoptotic factor in the mitochondrial regulatory pathway of apoptosis, is critically important in immune defenses. In this study, a novel BCL2 gene was characterized from Pteria penguin (P. penguin). The PpBCL2 was 1482 bp long, containing an open reading frame (ORF) of 588 bp encoding 195 amino acids. Four highly conserved BCL-2 homology (BH) domains were found in PpBCL2. Amino acid alignment and phylogenetic tree showed that PpBCL2 had the highest similarity with BCL2 of Crassostrea gigas at 65.24 %. Tissue expression analysis showed that PpBCL2 had high constitutive expression in gill, digestive diverticulum and mantle, and was significantly increased 72 h of Vibrio parahaemolyticus (V. parahaemolyticus) challenge in these immune tissues. Furthermore, PpBCL2 silencing significantly inhibited antimicrobial activity of hemolymph supernatant by 1.4-fold, and significantly reduced the survival rate by 51.7 % at 72 h post infection in P. penguin. These data indicated that PpBCL2 played an important role in immune response of P. penguin against V. parahaemolyticus infection.

Relapsed and refractory yolk sac tumor of the peritoneum (mesentery): A case report and literature review.

Background: Extragonadal yolk sac tumor (YST) of peritoneum is a rare malignancy. Case Description: A 37-year-old Chinese woman was admitted to hospital with a 3-month abdominal pain 4 years ago. Alpha-fetoprotein was 228,499.0 ng/mL. Computed tomography scan revealed a massive mass in the left lower abdomen. Exploratory laparotomy exposed a huge mesenteric mass. Then, mesenteric tumor resection, partial sigmoidectomy, and single-lumen fistula of sigmoid colon were performed. Postoperative pathologic diagnosis reported a stage IV mesenteric YST. After surgery, the patient received 6 courses of BEP (bleomycin, etoposide, and cisplatin) chemotherapy. Seven months later, the patient underwent stoma reversion of sigmoid colon and received another 2 courses of BEP chemotherapy. Three months after the last chemotherapy, liver metastases were diagnosed. She subsequently underwent 3 surgeries, radiotherapy for liver metastases, and multiple tiers of palliative chemotherapies, including TP (docetaxel and carboplatin), VIP (ifosfamide, cisplatin, and etoposide), TIP (paclitaxel, ifosfamide, and cisplatin), and so on. After the third surgery (left hepatic lesion resection and right iliac lymph node resection), she received 4 cyclic chemotherapies of BEP´ (boanmycin, etoposide, and cisplatin) without pulmonary toxic side effects. Conclusion: Postoperative histopathology and immunohistochemistry are gold standards for the diagnosis of peritoneal YST. The standard first-line treatment is surgery plus BEP chemotherapy. Second-line therapy regimens and above, including VIP and TIP, improve the prognosis of recurrent germ cell tumors. This relapsed and refractory patient with peritoneal YST benefits from the secondary BEP´ chemotherapy.