[Clinical application of serum Golgi protein 73 in patients with chronic liver diseases].

Golgi protein 73 (GP73) is a transmembrane protein on the Golgi apparatus and can be cut and released into the blood. In recent years, an increasing number of clinical studies have shown that the elevated serum GP73 level is closely related to liver diseases. And thus GP73 is expected to be used as a new serum marker for assessing progress of chronic liver diseases. Herein, the clinical application of serum GP73 in chronic hepatitis, liver fibrosis, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma with different etiologies was reviewed based on available literatures; and a research outlook in this field is made.

[Performance of matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight biotyper system in clinical bacteria identification].

Objective: To evaluate the performance of MALDI Biotyper system in identification of clinically isolated pathogens so as to provide a new rapid identification method. Methods: Total 21 270 pathogens strains, isolated from the First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical Universityduring Nov. 2015 to Dec. 2016, were identified by VITEK-Ⅱ, API and MALDI Biotyper system, respectively.The isolated strains were confirmed by DNA sequencing. Results: The identification of common bacteria with MALDI Biotyper and phenotypic system is highly consistent (>95% and >90%). Among 43 strains of anaerobic bacteria, MALDI Biotyper could identify 90.7% bacteria to species level and 97.7% bacteria to genus level with the statistical significance(χ(2)=6.76, P<0.01), while phenotypic system only identified 65.1% bacteria to species and 69.8% bacteria to genus. Also, no statistical significance was shown for Trichosporon and Candida(P>0.05). MALDI Biotyper could identify 76% filamentous fungi and all of Actinomycetes, Nocardia, Mycobacterium and Legionella to genus level. Conclusions: MALDI Biotyper is an easy-performed, sensitive method for the identification of clinically isolated pathogens. Additionally, the pretreatment and reference database has the effect on identification.

Molecular characteristics of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium from a tertiary care hospital in Chengdu, China: molecular characteristics of VRE in China.

The aim of this study was to characterize vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) isolates phenotypically and molecularly, and investigate associations between the virulence factors enterococcal surface protein (esp), hyaluronidase (hyl), and collagen adhesin (acm) and colonization/infection. A total of 126 E. faecium [66 VREfm and 60 vancomycin-susceptible (VSEfm)] were collected in West China Hospital. Nine E. faecium isolates (7 VREfm and 2 VSEfm) were selected at random for comparative study in a large region from China. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were measured by Etest and agar dilution, vancomycin resistance genes (vanA, vanB, and vanC) and virulence genes (esp, acm, and hyl) were detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Thirty-four VREfm underwent repetitive sequence-based PCR (rep-PCR) and multi-locus sequence typing (MLST). One linezolid-resistant isolate (MIC = 8 µg/ml) was found; none were tigecycline resistant. All 73 VREfm (28 infective strains and 45 intestinal colonizers) had the vanA gene and VanA phenotype. Positivity for esp, hyl, and acm in VREfm was 79.5, 46.6, and 86.3%, respectively, which was higher than in VSEfm (54.8, 27.4, and 56.5%, respectively). Among VSEfm, positivity for acm in isolates from pleural or cerebrospinal fluid (84.6%) was higher than that from blood (32.4%). There were 11 rep-PCR types (similarity >95%) and MLST revealed nine sequence types (STs) among the selected isolates. Most VREfm and all VSEfm belonged to clonal complex 17. A new ST was found, with allele sequence (15, 1, 38, 1, 1, 1, 1). In China, most VREfm seem to belong to the classical nosocomial CC17 clone, and many of them have acquired virulence genes, further strengthening a hospital-adapted type.