Objective To investigate the mechanism of capsaicin in treating active psoriasis vulgaris. Methods A total of 42 patients with active psoriasis vulgaris diagnosed by histology and clinical features were given either placebo or 0.025% capsaicin ointment four times daily for 30 days randomly by double-blind method. Vasoactive intestinal polypeptide receptor 1(VIPR1) gene translation in active psoriatic lesions before and after treatment with capsaicin ointment was detected by in situ hybridization. Results There was positive staining of VIPR1 gene in all the layers of psoriatic epidermis (95.5%) before the treatment with capsaicin ointment, but nearly no dyeing in epidermis (18.2%) after the treatment for 30 days. There was nearly no brown staining before and after treatment in control group. Conclusion VIPR1 gene translation in psoriatic epidermis is down-regulated after capsaicin treatment for 30 days.

Translationally controlled tumor protein (TCTP)is a small protein highly conserved in a variety of eukaryotic species.TCTP is overexpressed in various tumor cells and has been implicated in the regu-lation of cellular processes including apoptosis,DNA repair and drug resistance.By reviewing the recent pro-gress of TCTP research,TCTP is becoming an important regulator of DNA repair and a new molecular target for tumor therapy.

To study the significance of the levels of plasma inflammatory cytokines (IL-6,IL-8,IL-10 and TNF-?) in patients with acute deep venous thrombosis (DVT) of lower extremity. Methods Forty untreated DVT cases were selected as the subjects in the DVT group, while thirty healthy subjects, whose ages and genders showed no significant difference with the DVT patients, were collected as the control group. The plasma levels of IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-? were detected by radioimmunoassay (RIA), and the plasma level of IL-10 was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationships between the levels of different inflammatory cytokines within DVT group. Results The levels of plasma cytokines in the DVT group were all significantly higher than those in control group (P

Objective To Btudy effect of standardized acupuncture combined with rehabilitation therapy (function training)on improvement of comprehensive function among patients with stroke in communities,Changning District of Shanghai.Methods One hundred and seventy-six stroke patients were divided into rehabilitation therapy group(88 cases)and control group(88 cages)with block randomization.Patients in rehabilitation therapy group were treated with standardized acupuncture combined with function training in addition to regular medical treatment,and patients in control group regular medical treatment only.All the patients were evaluated with functional comprehensive assessment(FCA)scale by the end of 2-and 5-month of treatment,respectively.Results By the end of 5-month of treatment,scores of FCA in both groups increased significantly (P＜0.01),as compared to those before treatment,more in rehabilitation therapy group than that in control group(P＜0.05).Conclusions Effect of standardized acupuncture combined with rehabilitation therapy Can obviously improve their comprehensive function among stroke patients in communities.

AIK is a novel cationic peptide with potential antitumor activity. In order to construct the AIK expression vector by Gateway technology, and establish an optimal expression and purification method for recombinant AIK, a set of primers containing AttB sites were designed and used to create the AttB-TEV-FLAG-AIR fusion gene by overlapping PCR. The resulting fusion gene was cloned into the donor vector pDONR223 by attB and attP mediated recombination (BP reaction), then, transferred into the destination vector pDESTl 5 by attL and attR mediated recombination (LR reaction). All the cloning was verified by both colony PCR and DNA sequencing. The BL21 F. coli transformed by the GST-AIR expression plasmid was used to express the GST-AIK fusion protein with IPTG induction and the induction conditions were optimized. GST-AIR fusion protein was purified by glutathione magnetic beads, followed by rTEV cleavage to remove GST tag and MTS assay to test the growth inhibition activity of the recombinant AIR on human leukemia HL-60 cells. We found that a high level of soluble expression of GST-AIK protein (more than 30% out of the total bacterial proteins) was achieved upon 0.1 mmol/L ITPG induction for 4 h at 37 °C in the transformed BL21 F. coli with starting OD₆₀₀ at 1.0. Through GST affinity purification and rTEV cleavage, the purity of the resulting recombinant AIK was greater than 95%. And the MTS assays on HL-60 cells confirmed that the recombinant AIK retains an antitumor activity at a level similar to the chemically synthesized AIK. Taken together, we have established a method for expression and purification of recombinant AIK with a potent activity against tumor cells, which will be beneficial for the large-scale production and application of recombinant AIK in the future.
Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides ; biosynthesis ; Antineoplastic Agents ; metabolism ; Escherichia coli ; metabolism ; Genetic Vectors ; HL-60 Cells ; Humans ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Recombinant Proteins ; biosynthesis ; Sequence Analysis, DNA

Objective The shRNA library was used to screen the tumor suppressor genes related to lung epithelial cells,and its function of inhibiting malignant transformation in lung cells was preliminarily verified,which provided a theoretical basis and a new therapeutic target for tumor prevention and treatment. Methods The shRNA retrovirus library was constructed by GP2 -293 virus packaging cell line to infect the immortalized lung bronchial epithelial BEAS-2B cells. The transfected epithelial cell clones were screened by soft agar colony formation,and a single transformed cell clone with a diameter greater than 1. 0 mm was selected. The in-serted shRNA fragment was amplified by PCR,and the target candidate gene corresponding to shRNA was determined by the conven-tional DNA sequencing and blast alignment. A candidate tumor suppressor gene INPP4B was verified by soft agar cloning and tumor formation in nude mice. MTT assay was used to detect the cell proliferation. Results Six lung epithelial malignant transformation in-hibitory factors were screened by soft agar colony formation. The candidate INPP4B gene was selected for functional experiments. Si-lencing INPP4B gene in BEAS-2B cells promoted the formation of clones in the soft agar plates,and the cell proliferation rate was accelerated. The silencing cell line showed the enhanced tumorigenicity in nude mice,indicating that INPP4B was involved in tumor formation. Conclusion shRNA library and soft agar colony formation assays are a powerful tool for screening tumor suppressor genes, and INPP4B is a malignant transformation inhibitor of lung epithelial cells.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with the impairment of white matter (WM) tracts. The current study aimed to verify the utility of WM as the neuroimaging marker of AD with multisite diffusion tensor imaging datasets [321 patients with AD, 265 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 279 normal controls (NC)], a unified pipeline, and independent site cross-validation. Automated fiber quantification was used to extract diffusion profiles along tracts. Random-effects meta-analyses showed a reproducible degeneration pattern in which fractional anisotropy significantly decreased in the AD and MCI groups compared with NC. Machine learning models using tract-based features showed good generalizability among independent site cross-validation. The diffusion metrics of the altered regions and the AD probability predicted by the models were highly correlated with cognitive ability in the AD and MCI groups. We highlighted the reproducibility and generalizability of the degeneration pattern of WM tracts in AD.
Humans ; White Matter/diagnostic imaging* ; Diffusion Tensor Imaging/methods* ; Alzheimer Disease/complications* ; Reproducibility of Results ; Cognition ; Cognitive Dysfunction/complications* ; Brain/diagnostic imaging*