Actins ; metabolism ; Animals ; Antigens, CD ; metabolism ; Cadherins ; metabolism ; Carotid Artery Injuries ; metabolism ; pathology ; Endothelium, Vascular ; metabolism ; ultrastructure ; Fluorescent Antibody Technique ; Microscopy, Confocal ; Rats ; Troponin ; metabolism

Electrocardiography ; Humans ; Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy ; Ventricular Dysfunction, Left

Drug-Eluting Stents ; adverse effects ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; Myocardial Infarction ; etiology ; Sirolimus ; administration & dosage ; Thrombosis ; etiology

Objective To optimize methods of culturing smooth muscle progenitor cells(SPCs) from mononuclear cells(MNCs) of peripheral blood. Methods Human MNCs isolated from buffy coat were seeded on M-199 with bovine pituitary extraction.On the eighth day outgrowth cells were stimulated with platelet-derived growth factor-BB(PDGF-BB).Fifteen days later,immunofluorescence,Western blot or RT-PCR was used to analyzed the expression of smooth muscle cell specific ?-actin(?-SMA),smooth muscle myosin heavy chain(SM MHC),Calponin,CD34,Tie-2 and Flk-1,and fluorescence activated cell sorter was employed to examine ?-SMA positive cells ratio. Results The cells stimulated by PDGF-BB for 15 d were positive for ?-SMA,SM MHC,Calponin,CD34 and Flk-1,but negative for Tie-2.The ?-SMA positive cells ratio was(90.57?5.63)%,significantly different from that of the control(P

Alanine Transaminase ; metabolism ; Animals ; Liver ; drug effects ; Male ; Mice ; Plant Extracts ; pharmacology

Secretory anti-gp96 scFv fragment was expressed in Pichia pastoris to obtain a small molecule antibody that specifically recognizes heat shock protein gp96. The gp96-scFv fragment gene was synthesized and cloned to Pichia pastoris expression plasmid pPICZa-A. Pichia pastoris X33 was electroporated with the linearized recombinant expression vector, and expression of gp96-scFv fragment was induced by methanol. The His-tagged recombinant protein was then purified by affinity chromatography and analyzed with SDS-PAGE and Western blotting assays. The biological activities of recombinant gp96-scFv fragment were determined by Western blotting, Immunofluorescence, ELISA and FACS assays. The gp96-scFv fragment was expressed successfully in Pichia pastoris. About 50 mg of recombinant protein could be purified from 1 liter of the Pichia pastoris culture supernatant. Its molecular weight was about 15 kDa. The gp96-scFv fragment could specifically bind to gp96 protein by Western blotting, immunofluorescence, ELISA and FACS analyses. Pichia pastoris-expressed gp96-scFv fragment specifically recognizes gp96 protein, which could be used for Western blotting, Immunofluorescence, ELISA and FACS analyses.
Blotting, Western ; Chromatography, Affinity ; Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Membrane Glycoproteins ; immunology ; Pichia ; metabolism ; Plasmids ; Recombinant Proteins ; biosynthesis ; Single-Chain Antibodies ; biosynthesis

OBJECTIVETo study the blood pressure (BP) changes in the liver transplant recipients.

METHODSA total of 206 patients without preoperation hypertension received liver transplantation in our hospital from February 2001 to July 2005. The BP level and serum immunosuppressant concentration at preoperation and various time points post operation were determined.

RESULTSCompared with the preoperation, the average systolic and diastolic pressure was significantly increased at the 2 week, 1, 2, 4 and 6 months post operation. The mobility of hypertension increased significantly after liver transplantation, with the highest mobility (46.49%) at the 1st month post operation. There was no linear correlation between the immunosuppressant (FK506) concentration and the BP level at any time point.

CONCLUSIONThere was a high hypertension incidence after liver transplantation. Although the use of immunosuppressive drugs accompanied with the BP increase, there was no linear correlation between the immunosuppressant concentration and the BP level post operation.

Blood Pressure ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Hypertension ; etiology ; Immunosuppressive Agents ; adverse effects ; Liver Transplantation ; adverse effects ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Postoperative Complications ; physiopathology ; Retrospective Studies

Objective To investigate the effects of hypertonic saline/hetastarch 40 injection (HSH40) on intracranial pressure and cerebral oxygenation in patients undergoing neurosurgery for supratentorial glioma. Methods Thirty adult ASA grade Ⅰ or Ⅱ patients undergoing excision of supratentorial glioma were randomly divided into 2 groups: HSH40 4 mL ·kg~(-1) (trial group, 15 cases) or 20% mannitol 1 g·kg~(-1) (control group, 15 cases) was given intravenously over 15 min when hemodynam-ics was stable. Mean arterial pressure (MAP) , cerebrospinal fluid pres-sure(CSFP) and urine output were measured and recorded at different time-points. Cerebral arterial to jugular venous oxygen content differ-ences (Da-jvO_2) and cerebral oxygen extraction rate (CERO_2) were calculated. Results As compared to their baseline, CSFP significantly decreased from 15 min to 120 min after infusion in the 2 groups, and the reduction at 15 min in trial group was more significant than that in control group. Urine output was significantly lower in trial group than that in control group. Da-jvO_2and CERO_2 significantly decreased and internal jugular venous oxygen saturation(SjvO_2) markedly increased at 60 min, 120 min as compared to their baseline in the 2 groups. Conclusion HSH40 is more effective than 20% mannitol in reducing CSFP and can improve cerebral oxygenation during excision of intracranial tumour.

OBJECTIVETo evaluate the applicability of Porthsmouth modified physiological and operative severity score for the enumeration of mortality and morbidity (P-POSSUM) in predicting the mortality of the patients undergoing hip joint arthroplasty.

METHODSA total of 141 patients (75 males and 66 females, aged 63.22 years+/-14.45 years on an average) undergoing hip joint arthroplasty during January 2002 and March 2005 were studied retrospectively with P-POSSUM. Their average physiological score and operative severity score were 17.48+/-5.16 and 12.43+/-3.05, respectively. The predicted postoperative mortality with P-POSSUM was compared with the observed value. Subgroup analysis was performed to investigate the predictive capability of P-POSSUM. POSSUM scoring system was used as the control.

RESULTSThree patients died after operation in this study actually. The average physiological scores were 32.33+/-9.87 in the death group and 17.16+/-4.56 in the survival group. The former was obviously higher than the latter, which showed statistical difference between the two groups (Wilcoxon rank sum test, P<0.05). Perfect agreement was found between the observed death number and the predicted death number calculated by P-POSSUM (Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel chi(2) test, P>0.05), though POSSUM overestimated the overall mortality.

CONCLUSIONSP-POSSUM can predict the mortality accurately in the patients undergoing hip joint arthroplasty, which is superior to POSSUM.

Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Arthroplasty, Replacement, Hip ; mortality ; Chi-Square Distribution ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Predictive Value of Tests ; Severity of Illness Index

OBJECTIVETo investigate the morphologic changes of embryonic palatal development exposed to retinoic acid (RA) in mouse, and to detect the significance of the expression of TGFbeta1, TGFbeta3, EGF and BCL2.

METHODSThe stage of palatal development was examined by light microscopy. S-P immunohistochemistry and in-situ hybridization was used to detect spatio-temporal patterns of expression of TGFbeta1, TGFbeta3, EGF and BCL2 in embryonic palate.

RESULTSThe fetus exposed to RA resulted in formation of small palatal shelves without contact and fusion of each other to form and intact palate. RA can regulate the embryonic palatal expression of genes involved in RA-induced cleft palate.

CONCLUSIONSRA can inhibit the proliferation of MEPM cell to form small palatal shelves and induce abnormal differentiation of MEE cell causing the bi-palatal shelves no contact and fuse with each other, then induce the formation of cleft palate. RA can regulate the spatio-temporal patterns of expression of TGFbeta1, TGFbeta3 and EGF in embryonic palatal processes and the change of special expression of these genes in embryonic palatal processes are involved in RA-induced cleft palate.

Abnormalities, Drug-Induced ; etiology ; Animals ; Cleft Palate ; chemically induced ; embryology ; Embryo, Mammalian ; Epidermal Growth Factor ; biosynthesis ; Female ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Palate ; embryology ; metabolism ; Transforming Growth Factor beta ; biosynthesis ; Tretinoin ; toxicity