There are two beamlines (BLs), 4C1 and 4C2, at the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory that are dedicated to small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). The 4C1 BL was constructed in early 2000 and is open to public users, including both domestic and foreign researchers. In 2003, construction of the second SAXS BL, 4C2, was complete and commissioning and user support were started. The 4C2 BL uses the same bending magnet as its light source as the 4C1 BL. The 4C1 BL uses a synthetic double multilayer monochromator, whereas the 4C2 BL uses a Si(111) double crystal monochromator for both small angle and wide angle X-ray scattering. In the 4C2 BL, the collimating mirror is positioned behind the monochromator in order to enhance the beam flux and energy resolution. A toroidal focusing mirror is positioned in front of the monochromator to increase the beam flux and eliminate higher harmonics. The 4C2 BL also contains a digital cooled charge coupled detector, which has a wide dynamic range and good sensitivity to weak scattering, thereby making it suitable for a range of SAXS and wide angle X-ray scattering experiments. The general performance of the 4C2 BL was initially tested using standard samples and further confirmed by the experience of users during three years of operation. In addition, several grazing incidence X-ray scattering measurements were carried out at the 4C2 BL.

A hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine has been developed using a new adjuvant and HBV surface antigens produced from a CHO cell line. The purified HBV surface antigens are composed of L protein, M protein, and S protein in a mixture of 20-and 40-nmdiameter particles and filamentous forms. This HBV surface antigen, formulated with L-pampo, a proprietary adjuvant, induced 10 times more antibody than the same antigen with alum and was capable of inducing strong immune responses in three different HBV transgenic mice. In spite of the presence of a large amount of HBV antigen in the blood, no antibody against HBV surface antigen was normally detected in these transgenic mice. After immunization, the HBV antigen was also cleared from the blood. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major cause of liver disease worldwide (3, 10, 24). Efficient vaccines against HBV infection are widely available, yet HBV infection is still a major problem in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. Every year, 50 million people are infected with HBV, and 5 to 10% become chronically infected. Vertical infection and infection from mother to neonate, however, lead to chronic infections in almost 100% of cases. Additionally, more than 90% of HBV infections in babies younger than 10 months result in chronic infection. Therefore, an improved HBV vaccine that can elicit protective immunity within 1 to 2 months would be beneficial, since currently available vaccines take 7 to 10 months to produce protective immunity.Considerable efforts have been made to improve prophylactic HBV vaccines: mainly to achieve faster and better protection, to seroconvert those who do not respond to currently available vaccines, and to meet the demands of special groups of people, such as health care workers and immune-suppressed individuals (22,30). In these efforts to develop advanced vaccines, the major strategy for improvement has been to supplement the small HBV surface antigen (8,14,25), the antigen used in most of the currently available vaccines, with the pre-S1 and pre-S2 portions of the HBV surface antigen (HBsAg).HBsAg is composed of three kinds of envelope proteins: the S protein, consisting of 226 amino acids (aa); the 281-aa M protein, formed by the S protein linked to pre-S2 (55 aa); and the 389-or 400-aa L protein, formed by the M protein linked to pre-S1 (108 or 119 aa, depending on the HBV serotype). Glycosylation of these proteins yields six different molecules: two S proteins, a nonglycosylated 24-kDa protein (P24) and a glycosylated 27-kDa protein (GP27); two M proteins glycosylated on one (GP33) or two (GP36) glycosylation sites; and two L proteins, a nonglycosylated 39-kDa protein (P39) and a glycosylated 42-kDa protein (GP42) (7,16,23). In addition to these six proteins, one more 46-kDa protein band is routinely observed.We have developed a CHO cell line that produces all three forms of HBV surface antigens, the L protein, the M protein, and the S protein, in three different particle forms. These particle forms of the HBV envelope antigen, when fo...

Primary renal malignant fibrous histiocytoma is a rare tumor of the kidney. It is clinically and radiologically indistinguishable from a renal cell carcinoma. Even following radical surgery, the tumor shows a strong predilection for local recurrence and the prognosis is generally poor. We report on a 32-year-old man with malignant fibrous histiocytoma of the kidney who remained free of recurrence for 1 year after radical nephrectomy.

Despite the possibility of combining Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands as adjuvants to improve vaccine efficacy, it remains unclear which combinations of TLR ligands are effective or what their underlying mechanisms may be. Here, we investigated the mechanism of action of L-pampo, a proprietary adjuvant composed of TLR1/2 and TLR3 ligands. L-pampo dramatically increased humoral immune responses against the tested target antigens, which was correlated with an increase in follicular helper T cells and the maintenance of antigen-specific CD4+ T cells. During the initial priming phase, in contrast to the induction of type I interferon (IFN) and pro-inflammatory cytokines stimulated by polyI:C, L-pampo showed a greatly diminished induction of type I IFN, but not of other cytokines, and remarkably attenuated IRF3 signaling, which appeared to be critical to L-pampo-mediated adjuvanticity. Collectively, our results demonstrate that the adjuvant L-pampo contributes to the promotion of antigen-specific antibodies and CD4+ T cell responses via a fine regulation of the TLR1/2 and TLR3 signaling pathways, which may be helpful in the design of improved vaccines.

CIA07 is an immunostimulatory agent composed of bacterial DNA fragments and modified lipopolysaccharide, which has antitumor activity against bladder cancer in mice. In this study, the adjuvant activity of CIA07 was evaluated using hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg) as the immunogen. Mice were immunized intramuscularly three times at 1-week intervals with HBsAg alone or in combination with alum, bacterial DNA fragments, modified lipopolysaccharide, CIA07 or CpG1826, and immune responses were assessed. At 1 week after the final injection, the HBsAg-specific total serum IgG antibody titer in CIA07-treated mice was 14 times higher than that in animals administered antigen alone, six times higher than in mice given alum or bacterial DNA fragments and twice as high as those treated with modified lipopolysaccharide or CpG1826, and remained maximal until 8 weeks postimmunization. Animals receiving antigen alone or plus alum displayed barely detectable HBsAg-specific serum IgG2a antibody responses. However, coadministration of CIA07 with antigen led to markedly enhanced serum IgG2a antibody titer and IFN-gamma(+) production in splenocytes, indicating that CIA07 effectively induces Th1-type immune responses. In addition, the number of HBsAg-specific CD8(+) T cells in peripheral blood mononuclear cells was elevated in CIA07-treated mice. These data clearly demonstrate that CIA07 is able to induce both cellular and humoral immune responses to HBsAg, and confirm its potential as an adjuvant in therapeutic vaccines for hepatitis B virus infections.