Objective To observe hematoxylin's cytocidal and apoptosis-inducing effects on human urinary cancer cell-T24,and its cytocidal mechanism to the target cell.Methods Target cells were incubated in the medium 1640 for 24h,which contained hematoxylin in dosage of zero(blank),12.5,25,50,100,200μg/ml,respectively;under inverted microscopy to observe target cells'morphologic change,and then harvest them;by trypan blue tmpochrome method to determine hematoxylin's cytocidal activity to the target cells;by flow cytomelry to detect the effects of hematoxylin in its different levels on target cells'apoptosis.Results The control group(without hematoxylin)showed their target cells in a fusiform adherent growth,plump,close-arranged,and with a good transparence.With the addition and increment of hematoxylin,target cells turned round,not adherent,pyknotic,with a bad transparence,as well as chromatin condensation,the cells clumped.Cell death rate of control group was(2.63±0.29)%,with the increased dosage of hematoxylin the cell death rate of test groups was(10.00±4.82)%,(21.88±3.42)%,(76.41±4.82)%,(92.27±6.54)%,and(96.34±8.70)%respectively.Flow cytometry showed cell apoptosis rate in control group was 0.47%(occurred spontaneously),but hematoxylin in dose of 50μg/ml made the apoptosis rate increased markedly,to 43.1 8%,dead cell rate 48.47%,and survival cell rate 8.35%.With the increased hematoxylin dose,cell apoptosis rate decreased gradually,while dead cell rate increased.Conclusion Hematoxylin can inhibit the target cell by two routes:to induce apoptose or kill it.In a lower dose it is able to induce target cell to apeptose;hematoxylin in a dose over 100μg/ml can directly kill the target cell.Making this trial for checking the cell's morphologic changes benefits determining the optimal dosage level and optimal acting duration for the apoptosis induction.

The liposomes were prepared by reverse-phase evaporation technique. The morphology of the liposomes, the entrapment efficiency and the particle size distribution were evaluated. The CT signals of Iohexol liposomes in rabbits were compared with those of Iohexol injection in rabbits. The entrapment efficiency of Iohexol liposomes was 82.35% +/- 1.82%. The liposmes were spherical or ellipsoidal shape in shape. The mean diameter of the Iohexol liposomes was 207 7 nm. The polydispersity index was 0.355. The Zeta potential was--1.83 mV. The drug was highly entrapped into the liposomes with good reproduction and stability. The in vitro release of Iohexol liposomes was significantly slower than that of Iohexol,and was 98.57% at 24 h. Iohexol liposomes may reduce the dosage, prolong the effective time of the developing agent, and could reduce the side effects of Iohexol on the blood vessels and cerebral nerves.
Animals ; Contrast Media ; chemical synthesis ; chemistry ; Drug Carriers ; Drug Delivery Systems ; Iohexol ; chemical synthesis ; chemistry ; Liposomes ; administration & dosage ; chemical synthesis ; Microscopy, Electron, Scanning ; Particle Size ; Rabbits ; Random Allocation

OBJECTIVETo establish a method that can quantitatively detect S100 protein in CSF, and evaluate the possibility in diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).

METHODSS100 gene was amplified by PCR from a commercially supplied human brain cDNA library. After verified by sequence analysis, the full length of S100 DNA was subcloned into a (GST) expression vector Pgex-2T, and the expression of GST-S100 fusion protein was induced. Rabbits were immunized with the purified GST-S100 fusion protein, and the antiserum raised against S100 protein was collected and further evaluated. Using biotin-avidin system, a sandwich ELISA was established for quantitatively determining S100 protein, and further, used in screening for S100 protein in CSF and serum samples.

RESULTSSDS-PAGE assays yielded a roughly 35,000 GST-S100 fusion protein. Using the established method, three CSF samples from probable CJD patients (14-3-3 protein positive in CSF) showed higher concentration of S100 protein (higher than 2.900 microg/L), whereas other CSF samples collected from patients with other CNS diseases showed lower concentration of S100 (less than 0.180 microg/L).Moreover, the sera S100 proteins from all the collected samples showed distinct individual difference.

CONCLUSIONSThe established method can be used in determining S100 protein in CSF quantitatively. The feasibility and significance of S100 protein in CSF for diagnosis of CJD should be further considered with more CSF samples.

Animals ; Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome ; cerebrospinal fluid ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; methods ; Humans ; Immune Sera ; biosynthesis ; Rabbits ; S100 Proteins ; biosynthesis ; cerebrospinal fluid ; Sensitivity and Specificity

To investigate the prevalence of Enterococcus faecalis in saliva and filled root canals of patients requiring endodontic retreatment for apical periodontitis. Patients with apical periodontitis who were referred for endodontic retreatment were examined. The type and quality of the restoration, symptoms, quality of obturation were recorded. During retreatment, an oral rinse sample and root canal sample were cultured using brain-heart infusion agar and bile esculinazide agar to select for E. faecalis. The 16S rRNA technique was used to identify E. faecalis. A total of 32 women and 22 men (mean age: 38 years; s.d.: 11 years) and 58 teeth were studied. The prevalence of E. faecalis was 19% in the saliva and 38% in the root canals. The odds that root canals harbored E. faecalis were increased if the saliva habored this bacterium (odds ratio=9.7; 95% confidence interval=1.8-51.6; P<0.05). Teeth with unsatisfactory root obturation had more cultivable bacterial species in root canals than teeth with satisfactory root obturation (P<0.05). E. faecalis is more common in root canals of teeth with apical periodontitis than in saliva. The prevalence of E. faecalis in root canals is associated with the presence of E. faecalis in saliva.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Chi-Square Distribution ; Colony Count, Microbial ; Dental Pulp Cavity ; microbiology ; Dental Restoration Failure ; Enterococcus faecalis ; isolation & purification ; Female ; Humans ; Logistic Models ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Multivariate Analysis ; Periapical Periodontitis ; microbiology ; therapy ; Quality of Health Care ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; genetics ; Retreatment ; Root Canal Obturation ; Saliva ; microbiology ; Young Adult

The aim of this study is to analyze the evolutional and molecular characteristics of Hemagglutinin (HA),Neuraminidase(NA)and non-structural (NS) genes of H5N1 avian influenza virus (AIV) from sewage in live bird markets (LBMs) in Changsha,2014.Five hundred and one specimens were collected from environment in LBMs in Changsha,2014,and real-time RT-PCR was used for influenza A typing and subtyping (H5,H7 and H9) detection.Sequencing were used for the positive of single H5.The sequence homology of HA,NA and NS genes of the viruses were analyzed with the online Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST).The phylogenetic trees for HA,NA and NS genes and the ClustalW Multiple alignments of amino acids were constructed using MEGA 5 and BioEdit software,respectively.Results showed that of 501 environmental samples,177 (35.33 ％) samples were positive for influenza A viruses and H5 subtype.Eight H5N1 subtype AIV were confirmed by sequencing from the samples of the positive of single H5.Phylogenetic analysis indicated that most of HA genes of the H5N1 subtype AIV strains isolated in Changsha city were located in 2.3.2 and clustered into new subclade,and the most of NA and NS genes in this study were clustered into subclade 2.3.2.1b.QSG of the HA protein of the receptor binding site were found in these H5N1 viruses,and the characteristics was shown to be associated with increased affinity of HA to the glycan-receptors of AIV.In strains from this study,we did not found amino acid substitutions of the NA protein at H275Y and N295S,and sensitive to neuraminidases,and the high pathogenicity molecular characteristics of HA,NA and NS genes were showed in these viruses.In conclusion,molecular characteristics of the HA,NA and NS of these H5N1 subtype viruses in this study showed high pathogenicity,but that may not facilitate human infection.So,the prevalence and genetic evolution of this virus should be closely monitored.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is currently the most common chronic liver disease worldwide. Although it has become one of the leading causes of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma in the Western world, the proportion of NAFLD patients developing these complications is rather small. Therefore, current guidelines recommend noninvasive tests for the initial assessment of NAFLD. Among the available non-invasive tests, transient elastography by FibroScan® (Echosens, Paris, France) is commonly used by hepatologists in Europe and Asia, and the machine has been introduced to the United States in 2013 with rapid adoption. Transient elastography measures liver stiffness and the controlled attenuation parameter simultaneously and can serve as a one-stop examination for both liver steatosis and fibrosis. Liver stiffness measurement also correlates with clinical outcomes and can be used to select patients for varices screening. Although obesity is a common reason for measurement failures, the development of the XL probe allows successful measurements in the majority of obese patients. This article reviews the performance and limitations of transient elastography in NAFLD and highlights its clinical applications. We also discuss the reliability criteria for transient elastography examination and factors associated with false-positive liver stiffness measurements.

Although computational approaches have been complementing high-throughput biolog-ical experiments for the identification of functional regions in the human genome,it remains a great challenge to systematically decipher interactions between transcription factors(TFs)and regulatory elements to achieve interpretable annotations of chromatin accessibility across diverse cellular con-texts.To solve this problem,we propose DeepCAGE,a deep learning framework that integrates sequence information and binding statuses of TFs,for the accurate prediction of chromatin acces-sible regions at a genome-wide scale in a variety of cell types.DeepCAGE takes advantage of a den-sely connected deep convolutional neural network architecture to automatically learn sequence signatures of known chromatin accessible regions and then incorporates such features with expres-sion levels and binding activities of human core TFs to predict novel chromatin accessible regions.In a series of systematic comparisons with existing methods,DeepCAGE exhibits superior perfor-mance in not only the classification but also the regression of chromatin accessibility signals.In a detailed analysis of TF activities,DeepCAGE successfully extracts novel binding motifs and mea-sures the contribution of a TF to the regulation with respect to a specific locus in a certain cell type.When applied to whole-genome sequencing data analysis,our method successfully prioritizes puta-tive deleterious variants underlying a human complex trait and thus provides insights into the understanding of disease-associated genetic variants.

Background/Aims: Studies of hepatic steatosis (HS) effect on COVID-19 vaccine immunogenicity are lacking. We aimed to compare immunogenicity of BNT162b2 and CoronaVac among moderate/severe HS and control subjects. Methods: Two hundred ninety-five subjects who received BNT162b2 or CoronaVac vaccines from five vaccination centers were categorized into moderate/severe HS (controlled attenuation parameter ≥268 dB/m on transient elastography) (n=74) or control (n=221) groups. Primary outcomes were seroconversion rates of neutralising antibody by live virus Microneutralization (vMN) assay (titer ≥10) at day21 (BNT162b2) or day28 (CoronaVac) and day56 (both). Secondary outcome was highest-tier titer response (top 25% of vMN titer; cutoff: 160 [BNT162b2] and 20 [CoronaVac]) at day 56. Results: For BNT162b2 (n=228, 77.3%), there was no statistical differences in seroconversion rates (day21: 71.7% vs. 76.6%; day56: 100% vs. 100%) or vMN geometric mean titer (GMT) (day21: 13.2 vs. 13.3; day56: 91.9 vs. 101.4) among moderate/severe HS and control groups respectively. However, lower proportion of moderate/severe HS patients had highest-tier response (day56: 5.0% vs. 15.5%; P=0.037). For CoronaVac (n=67, 22.7%), there was no statistical differences in seroconversion rates (day21: 7.1% vs. 15.1%; day56: 64.3% vs. 83.0%) or vMN GMT (5.3 vs. 5.8,) at day28. However, moderate/severe HS patients had lower vMN GMT (9.1 vs. 14.8, P=0.021) at day 56 with lower proportion having highest-tier response (21.4% vs. 52.8%, P=0.036). Conclusions While there was no difference in seroconversion rate between moderate/severe HS and control groups after two doses of vaccine, a lower proportion of moderate/severe HS patients achieved highest-tier response for either BNT162b2 or CoronaVac.

During smile evaluation and anterior esthetic construction, the anatomic and racial variations should be considered in order to achieve better matching results. The aims of this study were to validate an objective method for recording spontaneous smile process and to categorize the smile and upper lip curvature of Chinese Han-nationality youth. One hundred and eighty-eight Chinese Han-nationality youths (88 males and 100 females) ranged from 20 to 35 years of age were selected. Spontaneous smiles were elicited by watching comical movies and the dynamics of the spontaneous smile were captured continuously with a digital video camera. All subjects' smiles were categorized into three types: commissure, cuspid and gummy smile based on video editing software and final images. Subjects' upper lip curvatures were also measured and divided into three groups: upward, straight and downward. Reliability analysis was conducted to obtain intra-rater reliabilities on twice measurements. The Pearson Chi-square test was used to compare differences for each parameters (α=0.05). In smile classification, 60.6% commissure smile, 33.5% cuspid smile and 5.9% gummy smile were obtained. In upper lip measurement, 26.1% upward, 39.9% straight and 34.0% downward upper lip curvature were determined. The commissure smile group showed statistically significant higher percentage of straight (46.5%) and upward (40.4%) in upper lip curvatures (P<0.05), while cuspid smile group (65.1%) and gummy smile group (72.7%) showed statistically significant higher frequency in downward upper lip curvature (P<0.05). It is evident that differences in upper lip curvature and smile classification exist based on race, when comparing Chinese subjects with those of Caucasian descent, and gender.
Adult ; Cephalometry ; methods ; China ; ethnology ; Cuspid ; anatomy & histology ; Ethnic Groups ; Female ; Gingiva ; anatomy & histology ; Humans ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Lip ; anatomy & histology ; Male ; Smiling ; Video Recording ; methods ; Young Adult

BACKGROUND: Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are derived from internal cellular compartments, and have potential as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool in degenerative disease associated with aging. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have become a promising tool for functional EVs production. This study investigated the efficacy of EVs and its effect on differentiation capacity. METHODS: The characteristics of MSCs were evaluated by flow cytometry and stem cell differentiation analysis, and a production mode of functional EVs was scaled from MSCs. The concentration and size of EVs were quantitated by Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA). Western blot analysis was used to assess the protein expression of exosomespecific markers. The effects of MSC-derived EVs were assessed by chondrogenic and adipogenic differentiation analyses and histological observation. RESULTS The range of the particle size of adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs)- and Wharton’s jelly -MSCs-derived EVs were from 130 to 150 nm as measured by NTA, which showed positive expression of exosomal markers. The chondrogenic induction ability was weakened in the absence of EVs in vitro. Interestingly, after EV administration, type II collagen, a major component in the cartilage extracellular matrix, was upregulated compared to the EV-free condition.Moreover, EVs decreased the lipid accumulation rate during adipogenic induction.