Purpose To explore the effect of Levothyroxine on spatial working memory in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) using blood oxygenation level dependent-functional MRI (BOLD-fMRI). Materials and Methods Sixteen patients with SCH before and after 6 months levothyroxine (LT4) treatment and 16 matched euthyroid volunteers underwent n-back task fMRI scanning. AFNI software was used for localization and quantification. Results All the subjects demonstrated activated areas including bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), bilateral premotor area (PreMA), supplementary motor area/anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral parietal area (PA) and right caudate nucleus/thalamus, with right hemisphere dominance. Quantitative analysis of regions of interests showed that all these regions had load effect related to memory load in the control group (P<0.001), whereas only left DLPFC, left PA, bilateral PreMA and right caudate nucleus/thalamus showed the same effect in SCH group. After 6-month treatment with LT4, BOLD signal change was observed in SCH patients within the right DLPFC, right PA and anterior cingulate/supplementary motor cortex (P<0.001). The activation intensity of working memory related brain regions was lower in SCH group compared with that of the control group. Conclusion Spatial working memory impairments in SCH patients are likely related to decreased right DLPFC and right posterior parietal function. LT4 replacement therapy is important to improve and reverse the memory impairment.

Osteoporosis is a progressive metabolic disease. In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), deficiency of the liver, spleen and kidney and blood stasis can induce osteoporosis. The main etiology was kidney deficiency which harmed the liver and spleen and causeqi-blood deficiency and blood stasis. The insufficiency of natural endowment and postnatal malnutrition caused poor nutrition of tendons and vessels, which induced debility of bone. This article discussed the etiology and pathogenesis of TCM understanding on osteoporosis in details. Opportunities and challenges of TCM in osteoporosis treatment were explored. The homology of Chinese medicine and food as well as the long-term of osteoporosis showed that TCM had incomparable superiority in osteoporosis treatment. While, the scientific research methods and reasonable evaluation of TCM safety were important to display its advantages in osteoporosis treatment.

Objective To observe the application of allopurinol in the treatment of gouty nephropathy, and evaluate its clinical effect on the level of serum creatinine and urea nitrogen. Methods Patients with gouty nephropathy from April 2015 to May 2017 in Xining first people's hospital 126 patients as the research object, divided into observation group and control group of 63 cases with double blind random method, given the reference group of patients basic treatment, the observation group treated with allopurinol in the reference group on the basis, effects were compared between the two groups the clinical therapeutic effect and serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen, blood pressure level. Results After 12 months of therapy, compared two groups of patients before treatment, serum uric acid, creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, blood pressure (systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure) were improved, and the observation group was obviously better than that of control group (P<0.05); the observation group total efficiency of treatment group was 88.89％ (56/63), the reference group was 74.60％ (47/63), with significant difference between two groups (P<0.05). Conclusion Allopurinol can be used in the treatment of gouty nephropathy. It can help to improve the clinical effect and improve the clinical symptoms of the patients. It is of practical value.

An HPLC method was developed for determinantion of trolline in the flowers of Trollius chinensis commercially available in China. The HPLC analysis was conducted on an Agilent C18 ODS column (4.6 mm x 250 mm, 5 microm) with acetonitrile-0.5% acetic acid solution (gradient: 0-30 min, 2:98-100:0) as mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL x min(-1). The detecting wavelength was at 258 nm. Linearity of trolline was good in the range of 0.1380-1.2410 microg and the content of trolline in nine batches of the flowers of T. chinensis commercially available in China was ranged from 0.05% to 0.11%. This method is good in terms of precision, accuracy and repeatability and can be used for the quantitative determination of trolline.
Alkaloids ; analysis ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; methods ; Flowers ; chemistry ; Ranunculaceae ; chemistry ; Reproducibility of Results

Aim To investigate the effect of curcumin against high-fat-diet induced C57BL/6J mice bone changes and the correlation between the expression of cathepsin K and curcumin.Methods Curcumin treated C57BL/6J mice had been on high fat diet for 12 weeks.The HE, Alizarin red S staining and Safranin O/fast green staining of femur were employed to evaluate bone microstructure, bone metabolism and bone development.The expressions of cathepsin K were assessed by Western blot and immunohistochemical staining.Results Histopathological results showed that curcumin could improve the destruction of trabecular bone structure, cartilage development and bone calcification.Biomechanical results proved that curcumin could improve the bone strength of the type 2 diabetic mice induced by high fat.The results of immunohistochemistry and Western blot assay indicated that curcumin could significantly inhibit the expression of cathepsin K in bone tissues of mice.Conclusion Curcumin can increase bone strength, improve bone microstructure, and enhance the degree of bone calcification, which may be achieved by inhibiting the expression of cathepsin K.

The C-glycosidic bond that connects the sugar moiety with aglycone is difficult to be broken or made due to its inert nature. The knowledge of C-glycoside breakdown and synthesis is very limited. Recently, the enzyme DgpA/B/C cascade from a human intestinal bacterium PUE was identified to specifically cleave the C-glycosidic bond of puerarin (daidzein-8-C-glucoside). Here we investigated how puerarin is recognized and oxidized by DgpA based on crystal structures of DgpA with or without substrate and biochemical characterization. More strikingly, we found that apart from being a C-glycoside cleaving enzyme, DgpA/B/C is capable of efficiently converting O- to C-glycoside showing the activity as a structure isomerase. A possible mechanistic model was proposed dependently of the simulated complex structure of DgpB/C with 3″-oxo-daidzin and structure-based mutagenesis. Our findings not only shed light on understanding the enzyme-mediated C-glycosidic bond breakage and formation, but also may help to facilitate stereospecific C-glycoside synthesis in pharmaceutical industry.