The present study showed that both major Cryptosporidium species can be detected simultaneously and distinguished from each other by using TaqI to digest the CP2 gene of C. hominis. Because the CP2 gene is highly compound library specific, no genetic information is available for other Cryptosporidium species, except for C. parvum and C. hominis in GenBank (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/). The genotypes of Cryptosporidium in Korea have been reported [9-11]. Cheun et al. [11] studied Cryptosporidium sp. in 3 rural areas by using a PCR-RFLP method to detect 18S rDNA sequences and identified C. parvum in 12 patients with Cryptosporidium infection. Therefore, the case confirmed by the present study is very important, because it indicates the presence of C. hominis infection in Korea.
In the present study, we developed a simple and accurate qPCR-based RFLP method for differentiating C. parvum from C. hominis. This method could be helpful in facilitating the detection of C. hominis infection in Korea. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported by the Basic Science Research Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea (RF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (2011-3333702) and by a grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH-2010E5401000), Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Republic of Korea. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
AIM: To explore effects of telomerase RNA-targeting phosphorothioate antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (PS-ASODN) on growth of human gastrointestinal stromal tumors transplanted in mice.
METHODS: A SCID mouse model for transplantation of human gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) was established using tumor cells from a patient who was diagnosed with GIST and consequently had been treated with imatinib. GIST cells cultured for 10 passages were used for inoculation into mice. Transfection of PS-ASODN was carried out with Lipotap Liposomal Transfection Reagent. GISTs that subsequently developed in SCID mice were subjected to intra-tumoral injection once daily from day 7 to day 28 post-inoculation, and mice were divided into the following four groups according to treatment: PS-ASODN group (5.00 ��moL/L of oligonucleotide, each mouse received 0.2 mL once daily); imatinib group (0.1 mg/g body weight); liposome negative control group (0.01 mL/g); and saline group (0.01 mL/g).
On day 28, the mice were sacrificed, and tumor attributes including weight and longest and shortest diameters were measured. Tumor growth was compared between treatment groups, Batimastat and telomerase activity was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Apoptosis was examined by flow cytometry. Real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to detect expression of the mRNA encoding the apoptosis inhibition B-cell leukemia/lymphoma 2 (bcl-2) gene. RESULTS: In the PS-ASODN group, tumor growth was inhibited by 59.