Serological expression cloning of antigens eliciting a humoral immune response to a syngeneic mouse sarcoma identified pem (mouse placenta and embryonic expression gene) as a new member of the cancer͞testis family. To identify the human homologue of pem, mouse pem sequences and pem-related expressed sequence tags from human testis were used as PCR primers for amplification using human testis cDNA. However, rather than pem, another gene, designated OY-TES-1, was isolated and found to be the human homologue of proacrosin binding protein sp32 precursor originally identified in mouse, guinea pig, and pig. OY-TES-1 maps to chromosome 12p12-p13 and contains 10 exons. Southern blot analysis suggests the presence of two OY-TES-1-related genes in the human genome. In normal tissues, OY-TES-1 mRNA was expressed only in testis, whereas in malignant tissues, a variable proportion of a wide array of cancers, including bladder, breast, lung, liver, and colon cancers, expressed OY-TES-1. Serological survey of 362 cancer patients with a range of different cancers showed antibody to OY-TES-1 in 25 patients. No OY-TES-1 sera reactivity was found in 20 normal individuals. These findings indicate that OY-TES-1 is an additional member of the cancer͞testis family of antigens and that OY-TES-1 is immunogenic in humans.testis cDNA ͉ PCR cloning ͉ antibody response

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Metallo-␤-lactamase IMP-1 is a di-Zn(II) metalloenzyme that efficiently hydrolyzes

These results suggest that IL-18 and IFN-gamma are involved in the pathogenesis of acute hepatic injury in humans, and that, in particular, elevated serum levels of IL-10 may be predictive of improved outcomes for these patients.

The results suggest that VEGF, FGF-2, and endostatin concentrations are elevated prior to the emergence of HCC and that the distribution of VEGF changes dynamically during the development of HCC.