The analysis of essential oil in seeds ofDeseurainia sophia provided an experimental basis for further research on essential oil activity test at the first time. Essential oil was extracted by steam distillation method. Analysis and identification were made by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technology in combination with retention indices. A total of 33 components in seeds ofD. sophia were detected by GC-MS and 28 compounds were identified by MS in combination with Kovats retention index. The compounds with high contents were as follows: 3-methylene-nonane (68.14%), 1,3-diazine (29.32%), 2-n-butylacrolein (0.58%), methyl nipecotate (0.43%), 4-oxo-butanenitrile (0.31%), 8-chloro-neoisol-ongifolene (0.25%) and so on. It was concluded that 28 volatile components were identified by GC-MS combined with retention indices. The total detected components were 99.91%. This method was able to improve the accuracy of qualitative detection results.

The DNA fragments of ag85b、esat-6、hsp65、mpb64 and ag85b-esat-6、hsp65-esat-6、mpb64-esat-6 were amplified by PCR and SOE technique.These seven fragments were inserted into pCDNA3.1(+)vector to construct recombinant plasmids pCA、pCE6、pCH、pCM、pCAE、pCHE and pCME.The seven plasmids were transfected into SP2/0 cell in vitro to detect the expression of target genes.BALB/c mice were intramuscularly vaccinated with the seven plasmids and the control vector pCDNA3.1(+)and PBS respectively.The serum antibodies and the spleen lymphocyte proliferation(SLP)and secreted IFN～? of spleen were tested.The results of indirect ELISA showed the levels of antibodies in all recombinant plasmids groups were significantly higher than the two control groups(P

Objective:To study the role of ethanol extract of Euonymus alatus stems (EAT) and ethanol extract of Euonymus alatus wings (EAW) in anti-hepatic fibrosis induced by carbon tetrachloride in mice, and to explore its preliminary mechanism. Methods:Sixty C57BL/6 mice were selected and randomly divided into healthy control group, carbon tetrachloride model (CTM) group, EAW low dose (EAW-L) group, EAW high dose (EAW-H) group, EAT low dose (EAT-L) group and EAT high dose (EAT-H) group, with 10 mice in each group. Three days before modeling, the mice of EAT-L, EAT-H, EAW-L and EAW-H group were gavaged with EAT or EAW at 2.0 or 8.0 g/kg, respectively, and the mice of healthy control group and CTM group were gavaged with equal volume of pure water, once a day till the 30th day after modeling (total 33 times). Five percent carbon tetrachloride olive oil solution was intraperitoneally injected at 8 mL/kg to establish liver fibrosis model in CTM, EAT-L, EAT-H, EAW-L and EAW-H groups. The mice in the healthy control group were intraperitoneally injected with equal volume of 0.9% sodium chloride solution, twice per week for 30 days, and a total of 9 times of injection. The liver index, serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), total bilirubin (TBil) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) were detected. Hematoxylin-eosin and Masson staining were used to observe the pathological changes of mouse liver tissue and calculate the collagen volume fraction. The liver inflammatory response and fibrosis degree were evaluated by histological activity index (HAI) and Ishak system score. The level of α-smooth muscle actin(α-SMA)in liver tissue was both detected by immunohistochemistry and Western blotting. The expression of matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP2) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) 1/2 at protein and mRNA level was detected by Western blotting and fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Analysis of variance, Tukey test and Dunn test were used for statistical analysis.Results:The hepatic indexes of EAW-L, EAW-H and EAT-H groups were lower than that of CTM group(0.06±0.01, 0.05±0.01 and 0.05±0.01 vs. 0.07±0.01), and the differences were statistically significant ( q=5.12, 7.70, 7.11; all P<0.01). The serum ALT and AST levels of EAW-L, EAW-H, EAT-L and EAT-H groups were lower than those of CTM group((601.76±141.38), (283.35±42.32), (734.74±116.06) and (391.60±34.33) U/L vs.(982.45±96.04) U/L, (509.49±152.29), (345.41±67.39), (282.30±65.72) and(243.23±45.20) U/L vs.(766.01±114.49) U/L), and the differences were statistically significant ( qALT =9.88, 20.81, 7.65, 17.58, qAST =5.11, 12.52, 14.92, 15.56; all P<0.001). The serum TBil levels of EAW-H and EAT-H groups were lower than that of CTM group((6.81±0.49) and (7.08±1.78) μmol/L vs.(12.68±3.28) μmol/L), and the differences were statistically significant( q=6.31, 6.01; both P<0.01). The serum IL-6 levels of EAW-L, EAW-H, EAT-L and EAT-H groups were lower than that of CTM group((29.26±5.42), (24.28±4.75), (9.05±1.74) and (8.01±1.24) ng/L vs.(53.21±10.05) ng/L); the serum IL-6 level of EAT-L group was lower than that of EAW-L group; the serum IL-6 level of EAT-H group was lower than that of EAW-H group, and the differences were statistically significant( q=12.20, 14.73, 22.48, 22.11, 10.28, 7.96; all P <0.001). The collagen volume fractions of EAW-L, EAW-H, EAT-L and EAT-H groups were lower than that of CTM group (6.15±1.09, 2.91±0.76, 7.07±1.37 and 5.31±0.80 vs. 12.36±1.96); the collagen volume fraction of EAW-H group was lower than that of EAW-L, EAT-L and EAT-H groups, and the differences were statistically significant( q=11.68, 17.78, 9.94, 13.25; 6.10, 7.84, 4.53; all P <0.05). The HAI and Ishak system scores of EAW-H and EAT-H groups were lower than those of CTM group (6.0 (5.5, 7.5) and 7.0 (6.0, 7.5) vs. 13.0 (12.0, 13.0), 1.0 (1.0, 2.0) and 2.0 (1.0, 2.0) vs. 4.0 (3.0, 4.0)), and the differences were statistically significant( ZHAI=3.38, 3.23, Zlshak=3.22, 3.03; all P<0.05). The result of immunohistochemical analysis showed that the expression levels of α-SMA in the mice liver tissues of EAW-L, EAW-H, EAT-L, EAT-H and CTM groups were 4.76±0.36, 2.75±0.29, 3.72±0.34, 5.20±0.79 and 5.98±0.52, respectively. The result of Western blotting showed that the expression levels of α-SMA in the mice liver tissues of CTM, EAW-L, EAW-H, EAT-L and EAT-H groups were 0.96±0.11, 0.67±0.07, 0.22±0.01, 0.78±0.08 and 0.68±0.07, respectively. Two detection methods both showed that the expression levels of α-SMA of EAW-L, EAW-H and EAT-H groups were lower than that of CTM group; the expression level of α-SMA of EAW-H group was lower than that of EAW-L, EAT-L and EAT-H group, and the differences were statistically significant( qimmunohistochemical =6.06, 15.95, 11.18, 9.92, 12.10 and 4.79, qWestern blotting=7.29, 18.34, 6.84, 11.05, 13.97 and 11.49, all P<0.05). The expression levels of MMP2 and ERK1/2 at protein and mRNA levels in the mice liver tissues of EAW-L, EAW-H, EAT-L, EAT-H and CTM groups were 0.18±0.04, 0.16±0.04, 0.28±0.02, 0.21±0.02 and 0.84±0.02, 0.80±0.02, 0.57±0.08, 0.83±0.03, 0.69±0.02 and 0.91±0.04, 18.74±1.90, 10.73±1.24, 24.99±1.84, 7.19±0.48 and 24.68±1.18, 29.44±4.47, 11.96±0.53, 24.75±4.04, 5.30±0.36 and 35.76±0.85, respectively. The expression levels of MMP2 at protein level in EAW-L, EAW-H, EAT-L and EAT-H groups were lower than that in CTM group; the expression levels of ERK1/2 at protein level in EAW-H and EAT-H groups were lower than that in CTM group; the expression level of ERK1/2 at protein level in EAW-H group was lower than that in EAT-H group; the expression levels of MMP2 and ERK1/2 at mRNA level in EAW-H and EAT-H group were lower than those in CTM group; the expression levels of MMP2 and ERK1/2 at mRNA level in EAW-H group were lower than those in EAW-L group; the expression levels of MMP2 and ERK1/2 at mRNA level in EAT-H group were lower than those in EAT-L and EAW-H groups, and the differences were statistically significant( q=22.15, 22.96, 18.87, 21.31; 13.42, 8.53; 4.90; 18.57, 23.29, 16.49, 21.11; 10.66, 12.12; 23.70, 15.38, 13.48, 16.73; all P<0.05). Conclusions:Both EAT and EAW can alleviate carbon tetrachloride-induced liver injury and liver fibrosis in mice, which may be related with inhibiting the expression of ERK1/2 and IL-6 and then affecting the Ras/ERK-MMP2 signaling pathway.

Suffering is prevalent in the palliative care population and is an important factor affecting the quality of life of palliative care patients and their family caregivers. In this paper, we review the assessment content, measurement methods, current application status and advantages and disadvantages of suffering assessment tools for palliative care patients, analyze the problems of current suffering assessment tools for palliative care patients and make suggestions, aiming to provide reference for palliative suffering treatment in China.

Objective:To investigate the prognostic value of using preoperative serum albumin-related biomarkers in gallbladder carcinoma (GBC) patients after resection.Methods:The clinical data of patients who underwent curative-intent resection for GBC at the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University from January 2011 to December 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. Of 427 patients who were included in this study, there were 131 males and 296 females, aged (61.75±10.69) years old, range 30 to 87 years old. The 427 patients were divided into the training set ( n=300) and the testing set ( n=127). The training set was used to develop the nomogram model, and the testing set was used to evaluate its predictive ability. The X-Tile software was used to determine the best cut-off values for prognostic nutritional index (PNI), platelet to albumin ratio (PAR), fibrinogen to albumin ratio (FAR), and albumin to γ-glutamyl transpeptidase ratio (AGR). Based on the independent risk factors screened by the Cox proportional hazards regression model, the nomogram survival prediction model was developed by the rms installation package of the R software. The predictive ability of the nomogram was assessed by C-index and calibration curve. Results:The best cut-off values of PNI, PAR, FAR, and AGR were determined to be 44.0, 6.25×10 9/g, 0.08, and 2.03 g/U, respectively. FAR was better than PNI, PAR and AGR in predicting prognosis of patients after radical resection of GBC. Multivariate analysis showed that FAR>0.08 ( HR=2.124, 95% CI: 1.424-3.168), CEA>5.0 ng/ml ( HR=1.577, 95% CI: 1.047-2.375), CA-125>35.0 U/ml ( HR=1.454, 95% CI: 1.031-2.179), N1-2 stage ( HR=2.074, 95% CI: 1.420-3.029), major vascular invasion ( HR=3.292, 95% CI: 1.640-6.608), perineural infiltration ( HR=1.781, 95% CI: 1.045-3.034) and poor tumor differentiation ( HR=6.100, 95% CI: 2.753-13.515) were independent risk factors affecting prognosis of GBC after radical resection ( P<0.05). The C-index of the nomogram model was 0.790 (95% CI: 0.779-0.801) and 0.771 (95% CI: 0.754-0.788) in the training set and the testing set, respectively. Conclusion:Preoperative FAR had a good predictive ability for overall survival in patients with gallbladder carcinoma after radical resection, and it could be used for prognostic evaluation.

BACKGROUND: Textbook outcome (TO) can guide decision-making among patients and clinicians during preoperative patient selection and postoperative quality improvement. We explored the factors associated with achieving a TO for gallbladder carcinoma (GBC) after curative-intent resection and analyzed the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) on TO and non-TO patients. METHODS: A total of 540 patients who underwent curative-intent resection for GBC at the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University from January 2011 to December 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. Multivariable logistic regression was used to investigate the factors associated with TO. RESULTS: Among 540 patients with GBC who underwent curative-intent resection, 223 patients (41.3%) achieved a TO. The incidence of TO ranged from 19.0% to 51.0% across the study period, with a slightly increasing trend over the study period. The multivariate analysis showed that non-TO was an independent risk factor for prognosis among GBC patients after resection ( P = 0.003). Age ≤60 years ( P = 0.016), total bilirubin (TBIL) level ≤34.1 μmol/L ( P <0.001), well-differentiated tumor ( P = 0.008), no liver involvement ( P <0.001), and T1-2 stage disease ( P = 0.006) were independently associated with achieving a TO for GBC after resection. Before and after propensity score matching (PSM), the overall survival outcomes of non-TO GBC patients who received ACT and those who did not were statistically significant; ACT improved the prognosis of patients in the non-TO group ( P <0.05). CONCLUSION Achieving a TO is associated with a better long-term prognosis among GBC patients after curative-intent resection, and ACT can improve the prognosis of those with non-TO.
Humans ; Middle Aged ; Gallbladder Neoplasms/pathology* ; Retrospective Studies ; Prognosis ; Hepatectomy ; Cholecystectomy