AIM: To study the relationship between renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and hypertension in coal miners. METHODS: The coal miners received questionnaire investigation and their blood pressure, height and weight were measured, plasma renin activity(PRA), plasma angiotensin Ⅱ(AngⅡ) and aldosterone(ALD) were tested by means of radioimmunoassay in coal miners with hypertension and nor-hypertension. RESULTS: It was found that levels of PRA,AngⅡ and ALD were significantly higher in hypertensive group than in nor-hypertensive group(all P

Recently, it had been demonstrated that some free radical scavengers, reduced glutathion ( GSH ) , Ascorbic acid(AA), the purified aponin Rg1andRb1 of Panax notoginseng, Sodium selenate

This investigation with questionnaires is about the recognition of ethical issues involved in therapeutic cloning and human embryo managemeat, and its aim is to provide basis for working out ethical guidelines of therapeutic cloning and human embryo management. The investigation has been carried out among professionals in the field of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive medicine in the east and west parts of our country including 12 third grade hospitals in Shanghai and Xi'an and 20 maternal and child health stations at the district and county levels with randomized sampling and voluntarily billing the questionnaires without name. A total of 400 feedbacks have been received. The results show that 91. 25% of the investigated persons admit researches on therapeutic cloning, and that majority of them recognize that moral status of embryos develops and changes in accordance with the different stages of embryo development, and put forward some recommendations to strengthen the researches on therapentic cloning and the management of human embryos in order to protect the human dignity and support the researches on therapeutic cloning.

Candida albicans is the most abundant fungal species in oral cavity. As a smart opportunistic pathogen, it increases the virulence by switching its forms from yeasts to hyphae and becomes the major pathogenic agent for oral candidiasis. However, the overuse of current clinical antifungals and lack of new types of drugs highlight the challenges in the antifungal treatments because of the drug resistance and side effects. Anti-virulence strategy is proved as a practical way to develop new types of anti-infective drugs. Here, seven artemisinins, including artemisinin, dihydroartemisinin, artemisinic acid, dihydroartemisinic acid, artesunate, artemether and arteether, were employed to target at the hyphal development, the most important virulence factor of C. albicans. Artemisinins failed to affect the growth, but significantly inhibited the hyphal development of C. albicans, including the clinical azole resistant isolates, and reduced their damage to oral epithelial cells, while arteether showed the strongest activities. The transcriptome suggested that arteether could affect the energy metabolism of C. albicans. Seven artemisinins were then proved to significantly inhibit the productions of ATP and cAMP, while reduced the hyphal inhibition on RAS1 overexpression strain indicating that artemisinins regulated the Ras1-cAMP-Efg1 pathway to inhibit the hyphal development. Importantly, arteether significantly inhibited the fungal burden and infections with no systemic toxicity in the murine oropharyngeal candidiasis models in vivo caused by both fluconazole sensitive and resistant strains. Our results for the first time indicated that artemisinins can be potential antifungal compounds against C. albicans infections by targeting at its hyphal development.
Animals ; Mice ; Candida albicans ; Candidiasis, Oral/drug therapy* ; Antifungal Agents/pharmacology* ; Hyphae ; Artemisinins/pharmacology*