AIM To study the effect of dl-3-n-butylphthalide (dl-NBP) on arachidonic acid(AA) release and phospholipase A2 (PLA2) mRNA in cerebral cortex of rats subjected to focal cerebral ischemia. METHODS Focal cerebral ischemia was induced by inserting a monofilament nylon suture into the internal carotid artery and blocking the origin of the middle cerebral artery. AA was determined with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The PLA2 mRNA expression was evaluated by Northern blot analysis. RESULTS Six hours of cerebral ischemia induced AA release in the ischemic cerebral cortex. dl-NBP (10 or 20 mg·kg-1) and nimodipine (0.5 mg·kg-1) given intraperitoneally 5 min and 120 min again after the onset of ischemia significantly reduced AA concentration in the cerebral cortex (P<0.01). d-NBP, but not l-NBP, decreased AA release in the brain after middle cerebral artery occlusion. The expression of PLA2 mRNA in cerebral cortex induced by cerebral ischemia was also inhibited by dl-NBP and d-NBP (10 or 20 mg·kg-1, ip). CONCLUSION dl-NBP and d-NBP inhibited AA release and PLA2 mRNA expression in the ischemic brain tissue in vivo.

China ; History, Ancient ; Humans ; Medicine in Literature ; Moxibustion ; history ; instrumentation

Child, Preschool ; Congenital Abnormalities ; pathology ; Humans ; Hypertrophy ; Male

Objective To investigate the effect of MOTOmed movement therapy on balance and ability in the activities of daily living (ADL) of convalescing stroke patients with hemiplegia. Methods Forty convalescent stroke patients exhibiting hemiplegia were randomly divided into a treatment group and a control group with 20 cases in each group. The control group received routine rehabilitation training; the treatment group received MOTOmed training in addition. Balance function of all the patients was assessed using Berg's balance scale (BBS) , and the Barthel Index ( BI) was used to assess ADL ability at the beginning of the program and after 6 weeks of treatment. Results Balance and ADL ability improved significantly in both groups after 6 weeks of treatment. The effect in the treatment group was significantly better than in the control group. Balance and ADL ability were positively correlated. Conclusions Applying MOTOmed therapy along with routine rehabilitation training can distinctly improve balance and the ADL ability of hemiplegics after stroke.

Objective To observe the changes of choroidal thickness after ranibizumab treatment for non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) with macular edema,and determine the association between choroidal thickness and visual acuity.Methods Twenty-three eyes from 23 patients diagnosed with NPDR and diabetic macuiar edema were treated with 3 monthly intravitreal injections of ranibizumab.The subfoveal choroidal thickness and central macular thickness were measured,and the best corrected visual acuity was recorded.Changes of subfoveal choroidal thickness,correlation between subfoveal choroidal thickness and best corrected visual acuity were assessed at 3 months follow-up.Results After 3 monthly anti-VEGF treatments,subfoveal choroidal thickness and central macular thickness decreased significantly,there was no statistical difference at 1 month and 2 months compared with pre-treatment (all P ＞ 0.05),but there was statistical differences at 3 months compared with pre-treatment (P =0.04,0.01).In the treatment,the best corrected visual acuity increased gradually,there was no statistical difference at 1 month and 2 months compared with pre-treatment (all P ＞ 0.05),but there was statistical differences at 3 months compared with pre-treatment (P =0.04).Before the treatment,the subfoveal choroidal thickness was positive correlated with macuiar retinal thickness (R2 =0.94,P =0.00);And the best corrected visual acuity before treatment and 3 months after treatment had a positive correlation (R2 =0.93,P =0.00;R2 =0.82,P =0.00).There was a positive correlation between central macular thickness and best corrected visual acuity at 3 months after treatment (R2 =0.83,P =0.00).There was a positive correlation in the best corrected visual acuity between before treatment and 3 months after treatment (R2 =0.84,P =0.00).Conclusion The subfoveal choroidal thickness is a clinical index to evaluate the efficacy of anti-VEGF in the treatment of diabetic macuiar edema.Baseline subfoveal choroidal thickness can be considered as one of the indicators of clinical efficacy in the short term.

Bufonis Venenum, as a precious Chinese materia medica, has complex chemical constituents and has been widely used in clinical treatment with significant effects. The chemical constituents in Bufonis Venenum mainly included bufadienolides, indole alkaloids, and steroids, etc. Modern pharmacological research has demonstrated its antitumor, cardiac, anti-inflammatory, and narcotic analgesic, etc. This paper reviewed the chemical constituents, pharmacological activity, and artificial synthesis of Bufonis Venenum, providing theoretical reference for material basic research, pharmacodynamic mechanism interpretation, development, and utilization.

Discrete industry is different from the complex industry, the patent citation between enterprises is the main channel of its dominant knowledge flow. In order to help the enterprises to find the imitative innovation objects and the investors to evaluate the value of the listed companies in the discrete industries, this study took the Chinese materia medica listed companies as the research samples, first used the social network analysis method to construct the visual flow chart of knowledge flow, then the K-means clustering was carried out by using the degree centrality and the betweenness centrality of the network graph, and the type of knowledge flow was divided and summarized. Finally, based on the previous classification of the main body, the binary logistic regression was adopted to explore the influence of patent factors and business factors on the knowledge flow from two dimensions of knowledge outflow and inflow. The results showed that enterprise age, technology width, enterprise scale and R & D investment had a significantly positive correlation with the knowledge outflow; The knowledge inflow was positively relative with R & D investment and the number of claims, while with significantly negative correlation with the enterprise age, technology width, scientific relevance and technical concentration.

Objective: To establish a RP-HPLC method for the determination of ligustrazine hydrochloride, ferulic acid, hydrosafflower yellow A, ginsenoside Rg1, ginsenoside Rb1, ginsenoside Re, and notoginsenoside R1 in Shuxiong prescription. Methods: The Inertsil ODS-SP (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) was used. The mobile phase, consisting of acetonitrile-0.05% phosphoric acid solution, was programmed for a gradient elution. The flow rate was 1.0 mL/min, the detection wavelength was 203 nm, and the column temperature was 30℃. Results: The excellent linearity with correlation coefficients (r) of 0.999 3-0.999 9 was obtained. The average recoveries of the seven compounds were 97.25%-103.52% and all RSD values were less than 3%. Conclusion: The method appears to be simple, accurate, and well reproducible, which could be used for the simultaneous determination of the above-mentioned seven compounds in Shuxiong prescription.

Objective Getting the robust exogenous gene expression vector under the control of porcine insulin promoter, and to lay the foundation for pancreaticβ-cells specific transgene expressing pigs.Method Using porcine insu-lin promoter ( PIP, 1500 bp of the 5′UTR from the porcine INS gene including the first exon and the first intron) to con-struct expression vector, the HindIII restriction site which connected the sequences of PIP and EGFP was designed before ATG, named PIP-HindIII-EGFP.Considering that the different location of restriction site may affect the expression efficien-cy of the transgene, we optimized the expression vector.Firstly the HindIII restriction site was deleted to realize the seam-less connection of PIP and EGFP,the vector was named PIP-EGFP.Also we mutated the 3′intron splicing acceptor site( SA) of the first intron into HindIII restriction site, named as PIP-SA( M)-EGFP.Three different EGFP expression vectors were respectively transfected MIN-6 mouse pancreatic β-cells, pig ear fibroblasts and kidney cells.The transfected cells were cultured for 48 h and harvested for RT-PCR, flow cytometry and Western blot analysis, to analyze and compare the expres-sion efficiency of vectors.Results After transfection,green fluorescence was observed only in MIN-6 mouse pancreaticβ-cells.RT-PCR analysis and product sequencing showed that the three expression vectors did have different stability with in-tron splicing.The PIP-HindIII-EGFP construct and PIP-EGFP vector produced two kinds of mRNA with the first intron spliced and no spliced, indicating the instability of intron splicing.Mutation of the PIP splice site would cause the first in-tron not spliced, while flow cytometry and Western blot displayed that the mutation induced a most efficient expression of the downstream gene.Conclusions A robust and specific β-cells expression vector has been successfully generated by mutating the intron splicing acceptor site of the porcine insulin promoter.It provides the foundation for preparation of pigs with pancreaticβ-cells specifically expressing the transgene.