aureus infection in mice. To identify the antigenic epitope of ClfA, a monoclonal antibody (mAb) D01 against the recombinant protein was produced by the hybridoma technique. The mAb was used to immunoscreen a random phage-displayed peptide library as the immunogen. After three rounds of biopanning, 41 positive

clones were identified. Sixteen phage clones were sequenced and their amino acids were deduced. One mimotope (SKVGIDKRRGTA) showed good match with ClfA adhesin at 383-394 aa and the serum of mice induced by the phage clone clearly recognized ClfA adhesin. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Purpose: To prospectively differentiate, at magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, patients with locally advanced

nonmucinous rectal cancer who will respond to long-course chemotherapy Z-VAD-FMK clinical trial and radiation therapy (CRT) from those who will not respond, with histopathologic CFTRinh-172 cell line results as the reference standard.

Materials and Methods: Institutional review board approval for this study was obtained, and all patients provided written informed consent. High-spatial-resolution T2-weighted MR images were acquired before and 6-8 weeks after CRT in 53 patients (33 men, 20 women; mean age, 63 years; age range, 42-79 years). Patients were categorized as responders to CRT (patients with T3 cancer that converted to T2 or a lower stage, patients with T4 cancer that converted to T3 or a lower stage) or as nonresponders (patients with stable or progressive disease). At the posttreatment MR imaging examination, a decrease in signal intensity was considered to represent a morphologic response with fibrosis. Before CRT and surgery, tumor volume was calculated at MR imaging by multiplying cross-sectional area by section thickness. Tumor length was measured at MR imaging and in the histopathologic specimen. Nodal downstaging was evaluated. The relationship

between pathologic response, morphologic MR imaging response, and percentage volume reduction IPI-145 was evaluated with the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon two-sample test.

Results: Morphologic response assessment with MR imaging achieved a positive predictive value (PPV) of 84.2% (32 of 38) and a negative predictive value (NPV) of 66.7% (10 of 15). Volume reduction extent (>= 70%) was significantly different between patients in whom disease was downstaged and those in whom it was not downstaged (P = .000005) and showed additional diagnostic value, with an overall accuracy of 86.8% (46 of 53). Presurgical MR imaging and histopathologic tumor length did not show a significant difference. MR imaging accuracy for lymph node (N) stage was 86.8% (46 of 53) on the basis of morphologic criteria.

Conclusion: After CRT, morphologic and volumetric evaluation at MR imaging had a high PPV and a low NPV for response assessment. The detection of small clusters of residual tumor cells within fibrosis remains a problem.