Objective To examine DNMT1,?-catenin and P-GSK-3? expressions in tissues of colon carcinoma compared with tumor clinicopathological parameters including differentiation and metastasis.Methods SYBR Green real-time PCR and immunoblotting method were used to detect these gene expressions in 62 tissues of colon carcinoma and 21 tissues of normal colon.Results Overexpressions of DNMT1,?-catenin,and P-GSK-3? were found in colon carcinoma tissues.The expression of DNMT1 was found to be higher in poorly differentiated tissues.The results also demonstrated statistical significance in the expression of ?-catenin involving differentiation and metastasis,but no statistical significance in the expression of P-GSK-3?.Conclusion These results show that DNMT1,?-catenin and P-GSK-3? expressions are regulated throughout colon cancer progression.

Depression is the most common mental disorder in epilepsy, which means that they maybe have some common pathogene-sis. This paper discussed the biological relation mechanism, such as neurotransmitter, neuropeptide and its receptor, glial cell, immune-medi-ators, nerve signal transduction pathway, synaptic plasticity and nerve regeneration.

Tanshinone ⅡA is one of the main effective components in Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma. It plays a role in the resistance to atherosclerosis by participating in anti-inflammatory in vascular wall, such as the regulating endothelial cell apoptosis and correcting lipid metabolism disorder. This article summarized recent researches of the basic role of tanshinone ⅡA in the resistance to atherosclerosis and provided references for clinical application of antiatherosclerotic effect of tanshinone ⅡA.

To investigate the role of immediate-early gene c-fos in sodium selenite-induced apoptosis and its position in a possible cascade of apoptogenic genes, we compared the time-courses of expression for 5 related genes, including c-fos, during the apop- tosis induced by sodium selenite with or without blockage of c-fos expression by adding c-fos antisense oligodeoxynucleotide ( ASO) in cultured cortical neurons. The results showed that: (1) in control experiments without c-fos ASO adding, 0. 5 μmol/ L sodium selenite-induced apoptosis as revealed by electrophoretic and flow cytometric examinations; at the same time, sodium selenite also induced down-regulation of bcl-2 mRNA expression and up-regulations of mRNAs related to bax, c-fos, p53, and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) genes; (2) in similar experimental conditions with c-fos ASO cotreatment, the sodium selenite-in- duced apoptosis was blocked with the up-regulation of p53 expression still emerging as before, while the changes in expressions of bcl-2, bax, AChE genes were reversed at the same time. The results suggest that c-fos ASO could play a protective role upon cortical neurons from suffering apoptosis induced by sodium selenite, and there might exist a cascade of gene expressions with p53 and c-fos genes being regulated upstream and then bcl-2, bax, and AChE genes being regulated downstream.

It has been widely verified by various sorting methods that cancer stem cells (CSCs) exist in different types of tumor cells or tissues. However, due to lack of specific stem cell surface markers, CSCs are very difficult to be separated from some cancer cells, which becomes the key barrier of functional studies of CSCs. The sorting method by side population cells (SP) lays a solid foundation for in-depth and comprehensive study of CSCs. To identify the existence of SP in prostate cancer cell lines, we applied flow cytometry sorting by SP to cultures of prostate cancer cell lines (TSU, LnCap, and PC-3), and the cancer stem-like characteristics of SP were verified through experiments in vitro and in vivo. The proportion of SP in TSU cells was calculated to be 1.60%±0.40% [Formula: see text], and that in PC-3 and LnCap cells was calculated to be 0.80%±0.05% and 0.60%±0.20%, respectively. The colony formation assay demonstrated that the colony formation rate of SP to non-SP sorted from TSU via flow cytometry was 0.495±0.038 to 0.177±0.029 in 500 cells, 0.505±0.026 to 0.169±0.024 in 250 cells, and 0.088±0.016 to 0.043±0.012 in 125 cells respectively. In the in vivo experiments, tumors were observed in all the mice on the 10th day after injecting 50 000 cells subcutaneously in SP group, whereas when 5×10(6) cells were injected in non-SP group, tumors were developed in only 4 out of 8 mice until the 3rd week before the end of the experiment. Our results revealed that prostate cancer cells contain a small subset of cells, called SP, possessing much greater capacity of colony formation and tumorigenic potential than non-SP. These suggest that SP in prostate cancer cells may play a key role in the self-renewal and proliferation, and have the characteristics of cancer stem-like cells. Dissecting these features will provide a new understanding of the function of prostate CSCs in tumorigenicity and transformation.

AIM:Chronic exposure to elevated levels of free fatty acids (FFAs) in type 2 diabetes patients is toxic to pancreatic β-cells.Thioredoxin (Trx)-interacting protein (TXNIP), an endogenous Trx-inhibiting protein, is up-regulated by glucose and is a critical mediator of hyperglycemia-induced β-cell apoptosis in diabetes.However, the effects of FFAs on TXNIP are unknown.In this experiment we observed the effect of palmitate on TXNIP expression in cultured INS-1 islet cells and the pathways involved were analyzed meanwhile.METHODS:After the full basis of preliminary experiment of incubating INS-1 cells with palmitate at different concentrations for different time, INS-1 islet cells were cultured with 0.5 mmol/L palmitate for 24 h.TXNIP expression, cell apoptosis, and expression of transcription factors related to TXNIP transcriptional regulation were determined.RESULTS:Compared with control group, the expression of TXNIP at mRNA and protein levels in palmitate group was significantly up-regulated (P<0.01).Cleaved caspase-3/caspase-3 ratio was increased in palmitate group (P<0.05), and the apoptosis of the INS-1 cells was also significantly increased (P<0.01).Palmitate enhanced the phosphorylation of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) (P<0.01), and the NF-κB inhibitors, PDTC and SN50, both blocked the palmitate-induced up-regulation of TXNIP expression.CONCLUSION:Saturated fatty acid palmitate enhances the expression of TXNIP.The mechanism of palmitate-induced TXNIP expression may be associa-ted with the increase in NF-κB phosphorylation.

Objective To compare differences and similarities of the content of trigonelline in Himalaica mirabilis of either wild or cultivated materials from different places. Methods An HPLC method was established to determine the content of trigonelline in Himalaica mirabilis. ZORBAX XDB-CN column (4.6 mm×250 mm, 5 μm) was used, with mobile phase of acetonitrile-0.03%acetic acid (85∶15), flow rate of 0.8 mL/min, detection wavelength of 265 nm, determination wavelength of 360 nm, and column temperature of 30 ℃. Results Regression calculation was made on peak area with the reference solution concentration, and then got the regression equation A=23.409C-26.398, r=0.999 8. Trigonelline showed good linear relation with peak area among the range of 2.004-200.400 μg/mL. The average recovery of trigonelline was 99.57%, RSD=1.11%. Conclusion There was no significant difference in the content of trigonelline of either wild or cultivated materials from different places. This study laid the foundation of application of the cultivated Himalaica mirabilis.

Objective Fructus Amomi(Sharen) is derived from the dry ripe fruit of Amomum villosum Lour., A.villosum Lour. var. xanthioides T.L. Wu et Senjen and A.longiligulate T.L.Wu, which is widely utilized for its clinic effects on digestive system. However, Fructus Amomi from different species and habitats, possessing different quality, is difficult to identify. In this study, we aim to develop a simple, rapid and reliable method for authentication of Fructus Amomi. Methods Twenty-five batches of samples of Fructus Amomi were collected and electronic nose was introduced into analyzing their odor with multiple mathematical statistics methods. Na?ve bayes network (NBN), radical basis function (RBF) and random forest (RF) were applied to establish different classifiers while BestFirst+CfsSubsetEval (BC) was used to screen the attributes for searching sensor array with higher contributions. Results Firstly, after attribute-screening via BC, the established discriminative models via NBN, RBF and RF could successfully identify genuine and non-genuine samples, presenting correct judging ratios of 78% and 84% through ten-fold cross validation and external test set validation, respectively. Besides, quantity predictive models were constructed as well. In case of content of bornyl acetate, one of the effective components in Fructus Amomi, values were higher than 3.5 mg/g and lower than 1.8 mg/g with sensor response of 0.04 and 0.03, respectively. Conclusion In this paper, quality discriminative model and quantity predictive model of Fructus Amomi were established via electronic nose and multiple mathematical statistics methods. It indicates that electronic nose could be a promising method for quality evaluation of Chinese material medica.

This study was aimed to identify Chrysanthemi Flosbefore and after sulfur fumigation based on its different odour by the electronic nose technology.It was expected to explore a new method for the Chrysanthemi Flos identification according to the odour.The electronic nose technology was used in the detection of peak response values of Chrysanthemi Flos on sensor array.The principal component analysis (PCA) and 10 machine learning (ML) ways were used in the analysis of response values and establishment of optimized identification models.The results showed that there was a significant difference in the odour between sulfur fumigated Chrysanthemi Flos and non-sulfur fumigated ones.The identification models were successful with high correct judge rate by PCA and 6 ML ways including BF Tree,J48 and Random Tree.It was concluded that the electronic nose technology can be used for the accurate identification of sulfur fumigated Chrysanthemi Flos and non-sulfur fumigated ones.The electronic nose technology combined with multiple ML methods can be introduced in the quality evaluation of Chrysanthemi Flos.It provided more ideas for the application of electronic nose in data mining for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) studies.

This study was aimed to establish the TLC identification method of Radix Mirab ilis himalaic a. The β-sitosterol and daucosterol were used as the reference substances. The single-factor test was used. A variety of factors which affected TLC were systematically investigated to filter out the best TLC conditions for identification of different batches of medicines. The results showed that the best TLC conditions were as follows: silica gel G plates, extraction solvent (methanol), reagent (5% sulfuric acid in ethanol), extraction method (ultrasonic extraction with methanol), ex-tracted time (30 min), the agent (petroleum ether-ethyl acetate-acetone (5:2:1)) and sample volume (6 μL). It was concluded that the method, which had high separation degree, was reproducible and simple. It can be used as the quality control of Radix Mirab ilis himalaic a.