Three-Layer thought is an important proposition in Chinese traditional philosophy. This thought embodies the Chinese people's cosmology and methodology and exerts a far-reaching influence on various aspects of Chinese culture. The embodiment of Three-Layer thought in the theory and practice of acupuncture and moxibustion from naming of acupoints, principles of treatment, needling instruments, prescription of acupoints as well as needling techniques is elaborated and briefly analyzed. Thus it illustrates the comprehensive application of Three-Layer thought in acupuncture and moxibustion through the history and the significance of Chinese traditional philosophy in the science of acupuncture and moxibustion.
Acupuncture ; history ; instrumentation ; methods ; China ; Culture ; History, Ancient ; Humans ; Medicine in Literature ; Moxibustion ; history ; instrumentation ; methods

Cerebellar Neoplasms ; genetics ; Chromosome Aberrations ; Genes, myc ; Genes, p16 ; Genes, p53 ; Humans ; Medulloblastoma ; genetics ; Mutation ; Neuroectodermal Tumors, Primitive ; genetics ; Supratentorial Neoplasms ; genetics

The recombinant protein drug usually has a short half-life after intravenous (IV) or subcutaneous (SC) administration. The methods of prolonging the half-life of recombinant protein drug in common use are mainly based on three principles: 1 Amplifying the molecule weight of protein drug; 2 Making use of drug balance in the blood; 3 Reducing Immunogenicity. Three methods were focused on: Analog construction, PEGylation and Albumin fusion technology. The characteristics, half-life and immunogenicity problem of their products in the market and under development are summarized.

Objective To explore the role of mouse dermis-derived mesenchymal stem cells (mdMSC) on skin repair. Methods mdMSC and human dermal fibroblasts were isolated and identified. Human dermal fibroblasts were cultured alone or eoeultured with mdMSC in Transwell chambers with the density ratio of human dermal fibroblasts to mdMSC being 2/5, 1/1, and 2/1. On day 4 and 8 of culture, the expression levels of hydroxyproline and transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) 1 were measured in the supematant of monoculture and coculture by alkaline hydrolysis and ELISA respectively. Results The level of hydro-xyproline was significantly higher in the supematants of coculture system with a density ratio of 2/5 and 1/1 than that in monoculture supematants of human dermal fibroblasts on day 8 (both P < 0.05). Elevated level of TGF-betal was observed in all coculture supematants on day 8 (all P < 0.01) and in the supernatants of coculture system with a density ratio of 1/1 on day 4 (P < 0.05). There was no significant correlation between the expression level of TGF-betal and hydroxyproline in the coculture supernatants (r = 0.108, P ＞ 0.05). Conclusion In vitro coculture with mdMSC can increase the production of hydroxyproline and TGF-betal by fibroblasts, which may be a mechanism underlying the facilitation of skin repair by mdMSC.

Hepatitis B is a serious infectious disease worldwide, and hepatitis B virus (HBV) is the direct cause of this disease. In recent years, as an essential part of its evolutionary process, HBV mutation has been extensively studied domestically and globally. However, the study on the conserved sequences in HBV sequences is still in its infancy. In this study, we applied multiple EM for motif elicitation (MEME) algorithm to discover HBV motif and proposed a new metric, conservative index (CI), to carry out phylogenetic analysis based on HBV sequences. Then, the constructed phylogenetic tree was subjected to reliability assessment. The results demonstrated that the new metric CI combined with the MEME algorithm can effectively help to discover motifs in HBV sequences and construct a phylogenetic tree based on them and to analyze the evolutionary relationship between HBV sequences; in addition, the possible ancestral sequences of samples may be obtained by conservative analysis. The proposed method is valuable for the exploratory study on large HBV sequence data sets.
Computational Biology ; Conserved Sequence ; Evolution, Molecular ; Hepatitis B virus ; genetics ; Humans ; Nucleotide Motifs ; Phylogeny ; Reproducibility of Results

Acupuncture Therapy ; Adult ; Aged ; Bloodletting ; Combined Modality Therapy ; Female ; Humans ; Hypesthesia ; therapy ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Moxibustion

China ; epidemiology ; Hong Kong ; epidemiology ; Humans ; Microscopy, Electron ; SARS Virus ; genetics ; growth & development ; ultrastructure ; Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ; epidemiology ; prevention & control ; virology

Adult ; Aged ; Coal Mining ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; therapeutic use ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Phytotherapy ; Pneumoconiosis ; drug therapy ; immunology ; T-Lymphocyte Subsets ; drug effects

OBJECTIVETo observe the intervention of Dachengqi Granule (DG) on the apoptosis of small intestine smooth muscle cells (SMCs) in rats with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) and its mechanisms.

METHODSHealthy 100 adult Wistar rats were randomly divided into the control group (n =20), the MODS model group (n =40), and the DG group (n =40).E. coli suspension was peritoneally injected to rats in the model group and the DG group to establish bacterial peritonitis induced MODS model. DG at 1 mL/100 g was administered by gastrogavage to rats of the DG group, twice daily for 3 successive days. Twenty-four hours after modeling, the proximal segment of intestine was taken and stained by using terminal-deoxynucleotidyl transferase mediated nick end labeling (TUNEL) and immunohistochemistry. Changes of apoptosis quantity of SMCs and the expression of Bcl-2 associated X protein (Bax), B cell lymphoma/leukemia-2 (Bcl-2) and cytochrome c protein (Cyt c) in mitochondrial apoptotic signaling pathway were observed.

RESULTSCompared with the control group, the apoptosis quantity of SMCs and the expression of Bax and Cyt c protein significantly increased, and the expression of Bcl-2 protein significantly decreased in the MODS model group (P <0.01). Compared with the MODS model group, the apoptosis quantity of SMCs and the expression of Bax and Cyt c proteins significantly decreased, and the expression of Bcl-2 protein significantly increased in the DG group (allP <0.01).

CONCLUSIONDG could inhibit apoptosis of SMCs through suppressing activation of mitochondrial apoptotic signaling pathway in intestinal SMCs, thus promoting the recovery of the gastrointestinal motility function in rats with MODS.

Animals ; Apoptosis ; drug effects ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacology ; therapeutic use ; In Situ Nick-End Labeling ; Intestine, Small ; physiopathology ; Multiple Organ Failure ; drug therapy ; Muscle, Smooth ; physiopathology ; Myocytes, Smooth Muscle ; drug effects ; Plant Extracts ; pharmacology ; therapeutic use ; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-bcl-2 ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar ; bcl-2-Associated X Protein ; metabolism

Objective To evaluate the role of contrast-enhanced color Doppler ultrasonography with Levovist in the diagnosis of liver tumors.Methods One hundred and twenty-five patients with 126 hepatic solid lesions were examined by conventional color Doppler and contrast enhanced ultrasonography.All hepatic lesions were confirmed by pathology.Of these,79 cases with hepatocellular carcinoma,4 cases with metastatic liver carcinoma,13 cases with hemangioma,7 cases with inflammatory pseudotumor of liver,7 cases with focal nodule hyperplasia,and 15 cases with other benign lesions.The Levovist with a concentration of 400 mg/ml was injected into an antecubital vein within approximately 2 minutes.Results All hepatic solid lesions with blood supply were differently enhanced by contrast-ultrasonography (I～IV grades).The color flow signals with grade III and grade IV were detected in one malignant lesion before contrast-enhancement and in 41 malignant lesions ( 49.4%) after contrast-enhancement.The color flow signals were detected by contrast-enhanced sonography in 26 malignant lesions ( 92.8%) with no color Doppler signals and in 33 benign lesions ( 76.7%).The mean resistive index of liver cancer group was much higher than that of benign lesion group before and after contrast-enhancement.The accuracy rate for diagnosing liver tumors was raised from 66.7% (84/126) in pre-enhancement to 94.4% (119/126) in post-enhancement.Conclusions The contrast-enhanced color Doppler ultrasonography is very useful in the differential diagnosis of liver tumors.