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The first soil map of the whole Aosta Valley Region was produced at the 1:100,000 scale. We used 691 soil profiles, attributed to 16 Cartographic (soil) Units, spatialized using a Maximum Likelihood Estimation model available in ArcGIS software. Six maps were used as base layers, representing the most important soil-forming factors: parent material, vegetation/land use, mean annual precipitation, elevation, absolute aspect and slope angle. The Maximum Likelihood Estimation was followed by an expert-based check that led to a re-assignment of some wrongly attributed cartographic polygons. The validation process revealed that the User's and Producer's Accuracies were rather high (between 47.5% and 84.4% for common soil types). A particularly high pedodiversity, associated to strong geological, vegetational and climatic gradients was observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recently developed, adaptive constant-current electroporation technique was used to immunize mice with an intramuscular injection of plasmid coding for the extracellular and transmembrane domains of the product of the rat neu664V-E oncogene protein. In wild-type BALB/c mice, plasmid electroporation at lower current settings elicits higher antibody titers, a strong cytotoxic response and completely protects all mice vaccinated with 10, 25 and 50 μg of plasmid against a lethal challenge of rat neu+ carcinoma cells. BALB/c mice transgenic for the transforming rat neu664V−E (ErbB-2, Her-2/neu) oncogene (BALB-neuT664V−E) develop an invasive mammary gland carcinoma by 20 weeks of age. Remarkably, when transgenic BALB-neuT664V−E mice were vaccinated at a 10- week interval with 50 μg of plasmid with 0.2 A electroporation, mice remained tumor free for more than a year. A single administration of plasmid associated with electroporation was enough to markedly delay carcinogenesis progression in mice with multiple microscopic invasive carcinomas, and keep about 50% of mice tumor free at one year of age. Thus, vaccination using a clinically relevant dose of plasmid encoding the extracellular and transmembrane domains of the neu oncogene delivered by electroporation prevents long-term tumor formation. These improvements in the efficacy of this cancer vaccine regimen vastly increase its chances for clinical success.Cancer Gene Therapy (2008) 15, 108–114; doi:10.1038/sj.cgt.7701106; published online 9 November 2007 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An assessment was made of the effectiveness of DNA vaccination in prevention of the mammary adenocarcinomas of BALB/c female mice transgenic for the activated rat Her2/neu oncogene. Atypical hyperplasia is evident in their mammary glands when they are 6 weeks old and in situ carcinoma by the 13th week. Palpable invasive carcinomas appear around the 17th week and are always evident in all 10 glands by the 33rd week. Intramuscular vaccinations with 100 µg plasmid DNA encoding the extracellular domain of the Her-2/neu p185 (ECD) performed at the 6th, 12th, 18th and 24th week provided no significant protection, whereas those ECD plasmids in which the DNA coding for the immunomodulatory 163-171 (VQGEESNDK) nonapeptide of human IL 1β (ECD-IL 1βp) had been inserted both delayed carcinogenesis and reduced tumor multiplicity. This reduction was associated with a marked immune-inflammatory reaction and a conspicuous leukocyte infiltrate located in the stroma surrounding the hyperplastic mammary ductulalveolar structures. It was also directly correlated with a high anti-p185[sup neu] antibody production and an immunoglobulin switch to IgG2a and IgA. No anti-p185[sup neu] cytotoxic response was found. No significant protection was obtained when the DNA coding for the non-active peptide 189-197 of IL 1β was inserted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]