Objective: We observed the influence of recombinant human growth hormone(rhGH) on protein metabolism in hepatocirrhotic rats and investigated mechanisms. Methods: Ninety rats were randomized into three groups(n=30 for each group): group A(normal rats), B(cirrhotic rats) and C(cirrhotic rats receiving rhGH). Rats in group C were subcutaneously given rhGH with a dosage of 1 U/(kg?d) for up to 1 week. The plasma concentrations of albumin(ALB), prealbumin(PA), transferrin(TF) and insulin-like growth factor-1(IGF-1) were detected on experimental day 14. And liver biopsy was taken to examine the expression level of albumin mRNA with TR-PCR. Results: The albumin, prealbumin, transferrin and IGF-1 levels in groups A and C were significantly higher than those in group B. The expression level of albumin mRNA in grup C was significantly higher than that in group B. Conclusions: The rhGH can improve the level of IGF-1 in plasma and improve the expression of albumin mRNA. Moreover, it may significantly improve the synthesis of protein and attenuate hypoproteinemia in cirrhotic rats.

Objective To define the stages of medical rescue after earthquake or tsunami disaster and their significance.Method Three stages of medical rescue were defined according to the clinical features of diseases in 3-37 days after earthquake or tsunami in Pakistan and Indonesia.The classification of diseases was based on the criteria of disaster medical rescue set by World Health Organization.Five diseases including injuries/wounds,acute upper respiratory tract infection,acute hemorrhagic enterocolitis,acute enterecolitis and other diseases of internal medicine except epidemic or suspected epidemic diseases were employed to define the stages of disaster medical rescue.Results Injuries/wounds mainly occurred in 6 days after disaster.The incidences were 61.45% to 79.52% and 61.48% to 72.35% in Pakistan and Indonesia,respectively.The incidence of acute upper respiratory tract infection reached to a considerably high rate one week after disaster.Other diseases usually appeared one week later with incidence of 33.93% to 71.11% and 31.50% to 52.11% in Pakistan and Indonesia,respectively.The rate of acute hemorrhagic enterocolitis was 2%o in Indonesia whereas 35‰of acute enterocolitis was found in Pakistan.Conclusion Three stages of disaster medical rescue could be well defined.(1)Early or critical stage(in 6 days after disaster):Treatment of injuries/wound and resuscitation was the primary step to deal with.(2)Intermediate of subaeute stage(7-30days following disaster):The incidences of various kinds of diseases increased and more medical resources were needed in order to treat the upper respiratory tract infection and to lower the disable rate,and to prevent the prevalence of epidemic diseases.(3)Later or recovery stage(1-3months after disaster):The general condition of victims became even better than that of those affected by commonly occurred local diseases,and during this period,there were shortages of medical facilities and medical personnel.Therefore,supplement of medical resources was required.The well defined stages of medical rescue have an important significance for medical rescue teams to treat victims and prevent epidemic diseases more efficiently and timely,and also provide a guidance of scientific basis for the logistics officers of local government as well as our government to make a proper and reasonable distribution of medical resources,and dispatch and arrangement of medical rescue teams.This guidance also helps to make victims re- reliant.

Objective:To retrospectively analyze the early mortality and related risk factors in adult patients with maintenance hemodialysis (MHD).Methods:Adult MHD patients from 2008 to 2018 were enrolled and divided into training data group and validation data group. In training data group, multivariate logistic regression was used to analyze the risk factors of early death within 120 days after hemodialysis and establish a prediction model. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was applied to evaluate the prediction ability of the model.Results:A total of 4 885 patients were included. The cumulative mortality within 120 days was 20.97/100 person years, and that within 365 days was 12.25/100 person years. A total of 3 603 patients in the training data group were analyzed. The following risk factors were correlated with early mortality (all P<0.05), including age at start of dialysis over 60 years old ( OR=1.792), non-chronic glomerulonephritis ( OR=2.214), cardio-cerebrovascular disease ( OR=2.695), plasma albumin less than 35 g/L ( OR=1.358), platelet count less than 120×10 9/L ( OR=2.194), serum creatinine less than 600 μmol/L ( OR=1.652), blood urea nitrogen over 30 mmol/L ( OR=1.887), blood phosphorus less than 1.13 mmol/L ( OR=1.783), pulse pressure over 55 mmHg(1 mmHg=0.133 kPa) ( OR=1.656), low density lipoprotein less than 1.5 mmol/L ( OR=1.873), and blood calcium over 2.5 mmol/L ( OR=1.876). Risk prediction model was established. The other 1 282 cases in the validation data group were verified. The area under ROC curve was 0.810, with sensitivity 85.7%, and specificity 62.5%. Conclusion:The mortality rate of adult MHD patients within 120 days after dialysis is high. The established prediction model can effectively predict the risk of early death.

To establish a LC-MS/MS method to determine the concentrations of liquiritin, glycyrrhizin, glycyrrhetinic acid, amygdalin, amygdalin prunasin, ephedrine, pseudoephedrine and methylephedrine of Maxing Shigan decoction in rat plasma, and study the differences on their pharmacokinetic process in normal rats and RSV pneumonia model rats. After normal rats and RSV pneumonia model rats were orally administered with Maxing Shigan decoction, the blood was collected from retinal vein plexus of different time points. Specifically, tetrahydropalmatine was taken as internal standard for determining ephedrine, while chloramphenicol was taken as internal standard for determining other components. After plasma samples were pre-treated as the above, the supernatant was dried with nitrogen blowing concentrator and then redissolved with methylalcohol. The chromatography was eluted with mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid solution in a gradient manner. ESI sources were adopted to scan ingredients in ephedra in a positive ion scanning mode and other ingredientsin a negative ion scanning mode. The multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) method was developed the plasma concentration of each active component. The pharmacokinetic parameters of each group were calculated by using Win-Nonlin 4.1 software and put into the statistical analysis. The result showed the plasma concentration of the eight active ingredients, i.e., liquiritin, glycyrrhizin, glycyrrhetinic acid, amygdalin, amygdalin prunasin, ephedrine, pseudoephedrine and methylephedrine within the ranges of 1.04-1040, 1.04-1040, 0.89-445, 1.05-4200, 1.25-2490, 0.3-480, 0.3-480, 0.3-480 microg x L(-1), with a good linearity and satisfactory precision, recovery and stability in the above ingredients. After modeling, except for glycyrrhetinic acid whose pharmacokinetic parameters were lacked due to the data missing, all of the rest components showed significant higher Cmax, AUC(0-1) and lower clearance rate (CL) than that of the normal group, indicating the increase in absorption in rats in the pathological state by reducing the clearance rate. The method is accurate and sensitive and so can be used to determine the plasma concentrations of the eight active ingredients in Maxing Shigan decoction. RSV pneumonia-infected rats absorbed more ingredients in Maxing Shigan decoction.
Animals ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; Disease Models, Animal ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacokinetics ; Male ; Pneumonia, Viral ; drug therapy ; metabolism ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infections ; drug therapy ; metabolism ; Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Adult ; Aged ; Analgesics, Opioid ; administration & dosage ; pharmacology ; Dose-Response Relationship, Drug ; Female ; Humans ; Injections, Spinal ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Pupil ; drug effects ; Sufentanil ; administration & dosage ; pharmacology

OBJECTIVETo detect the expression of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) protein and mRNA in bile duct carcinomas and the adjacent tissues and to elucidate its role in bile duct carcinogenesis.

METHODSThe expression of hTERT protein and hTERT mRNA in the formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded specimens of 71 cases of bile duct cancers and 39 cases of adjacent tissues was detected by streptavidin-peroxidase immunostaining and in situ hybridization. The correlation was analysed statistically between the expression of hTERT protein and mRNA and clinicopathological parameters bile duct carcinomas.

RESULTSThe positive rate of hTERT protein expression and mRNA expression in malignant specimens was 78.9% (56/71) and 67.6% (48/71), while that in the adjacent tissues was 35.9% (14/39) and 23.1% (9/39), respectively. All the positive signals were found in the hyperplastic biliary epithelia. No significant correlation was established between hTERT expression and clinicopathological parameters.

CONCLUSIONhTERT gene transcription and protein expression is most likely involved in the proliferation and malignant transformation of bile epithelia and the malignant progression of bile duct carcinomas. The detection of hTERT expression may serve elucidating the carcinogenesis of bile duct.

Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Bile Duct Neoplasms ; enzymology ; pathology ; DNA-Binding Proteins ; Female ; Humans ; Immunohistochemistry ; Male ; Middle Aged ; RNA, Messenger ; analysis ; Telomerase ; analysis ; genetics

The establishment of high specificity and sensitivity method of small molecule monoclonal antibody-based immunoassay has a great importance in the study of small molecule compounds in Chinese medicine, wherein synthesis of small molecule artificial antigen is a critical step in the preparation of small molecule antibodies. Oxidation method using sodium iodide was used to synthesize immunogenic antigen (FRn-BSA) and coating antigen (FRn-OVA) of forsythin. UV spectroscopy and thin layer chromatography showed that forsythin was successfully conjugated with BSA and OVA. After immuned FRn-BSA, the mice could specifically produce anti-forsythin antibodies with titer up to 1:8 000, and the linear range was from 1 mg x L(-1) to 100 mg x L(-1). In this paper, the artificial antigen of forsythin was successfully synthesized, which can be applied for preparation of monoclonal antibodies and establishment of appropriate immune method.
Animals ; Antibodies ; immunology ; Antigens ; chemistry ; immunology ; Bridged Bicyclo Compounds, Heterocyclic ; chemistry ; immunology ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; Furans ; chemistry ; immunology ; Male ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred BALB C

The paper reports the development of a quality evaluation method for Angelica different processed products. The data of high-performance liquid chromatography, water, total ash and extract were analyzed with SPSS Clementine 11.0 software. Discriminant analysis (DA) established the classification model and parameter for Angelica different processed products. Fish's discriminant functions of Angelica different processed products were generated using 8 predictor variables selected from 59 indexes. The correct rate of discriminating back substitution is 96.7%. Angelica different processed products can be accurately and reliably recognized and validated with DA of SPSS Clementine 11.0 software.
Angelica ; chemistry ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; methods ; Data Mining ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; analysis ; standards ; Plant Roots ; chemistry ; Plants, Medicinal ; chemistry ; Quality Control ; Software

OBJECTIVETo study the status of beta-lactamase produced by multiresistant Aeromonas selected from cirrhosis patients to provide reference for treatment and reduce resistance and control spreading.

METHODSFour multiresistant Aeromonas strains isolated from serious liver cirrhosis patients from the No. 302 hospital. The TEM resistant genes were detected by PCR and agarose gel electrophoresis.

RESULTSThree TEM-1 positive strains were detected from four multiresistant Aeromonas isolates consisting of one Aeromonas sobria and three Aeromonas hydrophila isolated from blood and ascites. This was further confirmed by gene sequencing. The multiresistance to antibiotics was higher in four Aeromonas isolates. All strains tested were resistant to ampicillin, cefazolin and cefmetazole.The cirrhosis patients who suffered from Aeromonas infection had poor prognosis and had mortality rate of 3/4.

CONCLUSIONThe beta-lactamase TEM-1 resistant genes was detected in clinical multiresistant Aeromonas strain isolated from serious cirrhosis patients.The results suggested that TEM-1 was the main resistance mechanism of Aeromonas strain and was reduced by adding enzyme inhibitor.

Adult ; Aeromonas ; drug effects ; genetics ; isolation & purification ; Anti-Bacterial Agents ; pharmacology ; Drug Resistance, Bacterial ; genetics ; Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections ; microbiology ; Humans ; Liver Cirrhosis ; microbiology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Prognosis ; beta-Lactamases ; genetics

BACKGROUNDNeuropathic pain results from a lesion or disease affecting the somatosensory system at either the peripheral or central level. The transmission of nociception within the central nervous system is subject to modulation by release and reuptake of neurotransmitters, which maintain a dynamic balance through the assembly and disassembly of the SNARE complex as well as a series of neurotransmitter transporters (inhibitory GABA transporters GAT and excitatory glutamate transporters GT). Neuronal hyper-excitability or defected inhibition involved in neuropathic pain is one of the outcomes caused by imbalanced neurotransmission. SNAP-25, which is one of the SNARE complexes, can modulate the release of neurotransmitters. Glia glutamate transporter (GLT) is one of the two glutamate transporters which account for most synaptic glutamate uptake in the CNS. The role of SNAP-25 and GLT as well as GAT is not clearly understood.

METHODSWe used the rat chronic constriction injury (CCI) model for research, and degraded SNAP-25 by a single intrathecal administration of BoNT/A. The mechanical (MWT) and thermal withdrawal latency (TWL) were tested. The level of SNAP-25, GLT, and GAT-1 were assayed using RT-PCR and Western blotting.

RESULTSSNAP-25 was suppressed by a single intrathecal administration of 0.01U BoNT/A and the reduction of SNAP- 25 was correlated with the relief of nociceptive responses in CCI rats. MWT and TWL returned to normal from the 5th to 14th day (P < 0.05) after the administration. On the 14th day after surgery, compared to the sham group, the upregulation of SNAP-25 in CCI rats was reversed after BoNT/A treatment (P < 0.05). The decreased GLT was reversed after BoNT/A treatment but increased GAT-1 was not influenced by BoNT/A treatment.

CONCLUSIONSSNAP-25 and GLT play important roles in the development of neuropathic pain, and the mechanism may involve the imbalance of neurotransmission after peripheral nerve injury. Intrathecal administration of BoNT/A reversed the upregulation of SNAP-25 and downregulation of GLT after CCI, but had no significant effect on the expression of GAT-1.

Amino Acid Transport System X-AG ; genetics ; metabolism ; Animals ; Disease Models, Animal ; GABA Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins ; Male ; Neuralgia ; genetics ; metabolism ; Neuroglia ; metabolism ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Synaptic Transmission ; genetics ; physiology ; Synaptosomal-Associated Protein 25 ; genetics ; metabolism