Respiratory diseases are common in the elderly and often the main causes of death among this population. In addition, it is expected that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lower respiratory tract infections, lung cancer, and pulmonary tuberculosis will be listed in the top ten diseases in 2020. Therefore, screening, diagnosis and management of respiratory diseases should be strengthened among the elderly; meanwhile, studies on geriatric respiratory medicine should be further enhanced.
Aged ; Geriatrics ; Humans ; Pulmonary Medicine ; Respiratory Tract Diseases

OBJECTIVETo analyze the change in drug resistance of Staphylococcus aureus (SAU) in the PLA general hospital from January 2008 to December 2012, and to provide solid evidence to support the rational use of antibiotics for clinical applications.

METHODSThe SAU strains isolated from clinical samples in the hospital were collected and subjected to the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion test. The results were assessed based on the 2002 American National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) guidelines.

RESULTSSAU strains were mainly isolated from sputum, urine, blood and wound excreta and distributed in penology, neurology wards, orthopedics and surgery ICU wards. Except for glycopeptide drugs, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) had a higher drug resistance rate than those of the other drugs and had significantly more resistance than methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) (P < 0.05). In the dynamic observation of drug resistance, we discovered a gradual increase in drug resistance to fourteen test drugs during the last five years.

CONCLUSIONDrug resistance rate of SAU stayed at a higher level over the last five years; moreover, the detection ratio of MRSA keeps rising year by year. It is crucial for physicians to use antibiotics rationally and monitor the change in drug resistance in a dynamic way.

Anti-Bacterial Agents ; pharmacology ; Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial ; Humans ; Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus ; drug effects ; Staphylococcal Infections ; drug therapy ; Staphylococcus aureus ; drug effects

italic>Alangium chinense is a commonly used medicinal plant of Alangiaceae Alangium, one of the characteristic Miao medicines in Guizhou. The genus is strongly differentiated and has complex morphological variation, with significant differences in active ingredients and potency among herbs. In this paper, we sequenced the chloroplast genomes of Alangium chinense subsp. Pauciflorum, Alangium chinense subsp. Strigosum and Alangium kurzii Craib using Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology. The genomes of Alangium chinense subsp. Pauciflorum, Alangium chinense subsp. Strigosum and Alangium kurzii Craib chloroplasts were sequenced, their assembly annotation and structural characterization were completed, and the genomes of the congeners Alangium chinense and Alangium alpinum were downloaded from NCBI for comparative analysis. Finally, the phylogenetic tree was constructed by selecting published species with close affinity to Alangium chinense family from NCBI. The results were as follows: Alangium chinense subsp. Pauciflorum, Alangium chinense subsp. Strigosum and Alangium kurzii Craib chloroplast genomes were 156 670, 156 672 and 156 871 bp in length, with a typical four-segment structure, all containing one long single copy region (LSC), one short single copy region (SSC) and two inverted repeat regions (IRa and IRb). All of them were annotated to 133 genes, including 88 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes and 8 rRNA genes. Three types of long repeat sequences and SSR loci, forward repeats, palindrome repeats and reverse repeats, were found in all chloroplast genomes. Comparative genomic analysis showed that there was diversity in the boundary transition regions of the five species, no rearrangements or inversions were found in the chloroplast genome, and there were significant differences in the coding regions of ndhA, ycf1, rpl16, ycf2, and petD genes, which provided new loci for molecular identification of Patagonia. In the phylogenetic analysis, Alangium kurzii var. kurzii clustered as a single species, and Alangium chinense subsp. Pauciflorum and Alangium chinense subsp. Strigosum clustered as a single species, with a support rate of 93 and close affinity, indicating that the phylogenetic tree can be used for the species identification. This paper can provide a basis for the taxonomic identification of Alangium, ensure the safety of clinical use of anise herbs and regulate the market of Alangium chinense herbs.

In the previous study, a high-throughput screening method was established to find the antagonists of CD36. In the present study, a new compound named IMB-1680 was found using this method. The anti-atherosclerotic activities of IMB-1680 were then evaluated. Dose-dependent activities of IMB-1680 were detected by using Sf9 [hCD36] and CHO [hCD36] models. Fluorescence microscopic photography and flow cytometry were used to analyze uptake of mLDL. Foam cell test with RAW264.7 macrophages was used to examine lipid accumulation. The results showed that IMB-1680 inhibited CD36 activity with IC50 of 2.80 and 8.79 micromol x L(-1) in Sf9[hCD36] and CHO [hCD36] cells, respectively. Fluorescence microscopic photography and flow cytometry revealed that IMB-1680 could significantly reduce DiI-AcLDL uptake. Meanwhile, IMB-1680 also could reduce lipids accumulation in RAW264.7 macrophages. In all, the data indicated that IMB-1680 might be a potent effective anti-atherosclerotic leading compound.
Animals ; CD36 Antigens ; antagonists & inhibitors ; genetics ; metabolism ; CHO Cells ; Cells, Cultured ; Cricetulus ; Dose-Response Relationship, Drug ; Foam Cells ; cytology ; High-Throughput Screening Assays ; Humans ; Lipoproteins, LDL ; metabolism ; Macrophages ; cytology ; metabolism ; Mice ; Molecular Structure ; Plasmids ; Receptors, Scavenger ; antagonists & inhibitors ; Sf9 Cells ; Spodoptera ; Transfection

Objective To analyze the CT imaging features of Castleman disease and enhance our knowledge of Castleman disease.Methods Twenty two patients with lymph node biopsy-proved or surgeryproved Castleman disease were retrospectively reviewed in this study.Of the 22 patients,18 had localized lesion and 4 patients had multicentric lesions.Correlation was made between CT and pathologic findings.Results Eighteen patients with localized Castleman disease had the hyaline-vascular type and showed well-circumscribed masses with soft-tissue density [mean CT value,(45 ± 16) HU],punctate or bifurcate calcification and linear low-density areas on non-enhanced CT images.All localized masses showed significant enhancementwith an increase of(56 ± 22)HU on arterial phase and showed residual enhancement and some low-density areas on delayed phase.Enhancing patterns were variable,including homogeneous enhancement,gradual enhancement from the edge to the center of mass and heterogeneous enhancement.Four patients with localized lesion demonstrated enhancing vessels around masses.Four patients with muhicentric CD belonged to the plasma cell type and had multiple enlarged lymph nodes.Plasma cell type masses with homogeneous density also showed enhancement after injection of contrast media but appeared to reveal a less increase of (32 ± 10) HU than the hyaline vascular type.Conclusions The localized Castleman disease showed certain characteristics on CT imaging includingcalcification and contrast enhancing patterns,which could help in the differential diagnosis of this disease.The muhicentric Castleman disease did not reveal any useful imaging features.

Aged ; Coal Mining ; Electrocardiography ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Pneumoconiosis ; complications ; physiopathology ; Tachycardia ; etiology

Objective To estimate the dietary diversity,overweight and obesity of the rural adults aged 18-65 years in Jilin Province by diet diversity score(DDS),and to analyze the association between dietary diversity and overweight,obesity.Methods A representative sample of 674 rural residents was selected by a multistage sampling method from Jilin Province in 2012 June to July. A validated semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire was used to assess the usual food intake. The height and body weight were measured and the body mass index (BMI)was calculated. Logistic regression analysis was applied to calculate the risk of overweight and obesity for different DDS,after adjusted for mixed factors.Results 62.4% people in rural scored ≥6 while 1 1.8% people in rural scored ≤3.The detection rate of obesity of the rural adults in Jilin Province was higher than the mean level in China .For rural adults with moderate and adequate diversity score, the risk of overweight and obesity was 0.946 and 0.816 times the risk of overweight and obesity of the rural adults with pool diversity score. Conclusion Diet diversity of the rural adults in Jilin Province is low.The risk of overweight and obesity is high;the risk of obesity is decreased with the increasing of diet diversity level.

Objective To determine the allelic frequency distribution and genetic parameters of nine non-CODIS DNA index systems of the short tandemrepeat (STR ) loci (D2S1772, D6S1043, D7S3048, D8S1132, D11S2368, D12S391, D13S325, D18S1364, and GATA198B05). Methods A total of 353 blood samples were collected, extracted, amplified, and analyzed fromunrelated healthy individuals of Han na-tionality in Hunan Province, China. Results O ne hundred and fourteen alleles were observed in the pop-ulation with corresponding allelic frequencies ranged from0.001 0 to 0.323 0. For all the nine non-CODIS STR loci, the observed genotypic data showed no significant deviations fromthe Hardy-W einberg equi-librium. The Ho, He, PIC, D P, and PE of the studied non-CODIS STR loci ranged from0.108 0 to 0.195 0, 0.805 0 to 0.892 0, 0.770 0 to 0.860 0, 0.925 0 to 0.966 0 and 0.607 0 to 0.780 0, respectively. Conclusion N ine non-CODIS STR loci have high degrees of polymorphisms, which may be useful in in-dividual forensic identification and parentage testing in forensic practice.

OBJECTIVETo observe the anti-inflammatory effect of total saponins of Panax japonicus on LPS-induced RAW264. 7 macrophages.

METHODThe effect of total saponins of P. japonicus of different concentrations on RAW264. 7 cell viability was determined with the MTT method. The NO kit assay was adopted to detect the NO release of total saponins of P. japonicus to LPS-induced RAW264. 7 cells. The enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect the secretion of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and interleukin 1-beta (IL-1beta). The reverse transeriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to determine the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) ,TNF-alpha,IL-1beta. The protein expression of nuclear transcription factor-kappaB p65 (NF-kappaB p65) was tested by Western blot.

RESULTThe safe medication range of total saponins of P. japonicus was less than 80 mg x L(-1). Compared with the LPS model group, total saponins of P. japonicus high, middle and low dose groups (0.1, 1, 10, 40 mg x L(-1)) could significantly reduce the secretion of NO, TNF-alpha, IL-1beta of LPS-induced RAW264. 7 cells, and inhibit the expressions of iNOS, TNF-alpha and IL-1beta mRNA and the protein expression of NF-kappaB p65.

CONCLUSIONThis study preliminarily proves the protective effect of total saponins of P. japonicus on LPS-induced RAW264.7 macrophages. Its action mechanism may be related to NF-kappaB signal pathway.

Animals ; Anti-Inflammatory Agents ; pharmacology ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacology ; Humans ; Inflammation ; drug therapy ; genetics ; immunology ; Interleukin-1beta ; genetics ; immunology ; Lipopolysaccharides ; adverse effects ; Macrophages ; drug effects ; immunology ; Mice ; NF-kappa B ; genetics ; immunology ; Nitric Oxide ; immunology ; Nitric Oxide Synthase Type II ; genetics ; immunology ; Panax ; chemistry ; Protective Agents ; pharmacology ; Saponins ; pharmacology

Objective Our hypothesis was if we rendered host' s cytotoxic tumor lymphocytes insensitive to TGF-β,these immune cells could be able to overcome the TGF-β mediated immunosuppression and reject the tumor.We aimed to develop a lentivirus mediated gene transfer program incorporating a herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase(HSV-tk)in our dominant negative TGF-β type Ⅱ receptor(TβRⅡDNglytk)expression vector.So we first need to construct the lentiviral pLenti6/V5-D-TOPO vector containing TβRⅡDNglytk and produce the recombinant lentivirus as the transfection vector.Methods PCR were used to amplify the genes TβRⅡDN and HSV-tk from the respective plasmids.Then the genes were linked by recombinant PCR technology to construct the fusion gene TβRⅡDNglytk and control vector TRANSglytk.According to the operation manual from the Invitrogen company,TOPO cloning technology was used to construct the plasmids of pLenti6/V5-D-TOPO(R)-TβRⅡDNglytk and pLenti6/V5-D-TOPO(R)-TRANSglytk.Both of the constructed plasmids were verified by sequencing.ViraPowerTM Lentiviral System and 293 FT cells provided by Invitrogen were used to produce the recombinant lentivirus vector,the tillers of the lentivirus were determined by 293 cells.Results The construction of the plasmids of pLenti6/V5-D-TOPO(R)-TβRⅡDNglytk and pLenti6/V5-D-TOPO(R)-TRANSglytk were completed succefully.The DNA sequencing results showed that both the plasmids were constructed correctly.Using them we successfully produced infectious lentivirus vectors with appropriate tilters.Conclusions Using TOPO cloning technology in the construction of the plasmids of pLenti6/V5-D-TOPO(R)-TβRⅡDNglytk and pLenti6/V5-D-TOPO(R)-TRANSglytk and recombinant PCR in the fusion genes is feasible.Recombinant PCR combine with TOPO cloning technology can be a simple,highly efficient and rapid way to construct lentiviral vector.The production of infectious lentivirus with appropriate tilters using 293FT is suitable and feasible.The construction of pLenti6/V5-D-TOPO(R)-TβRⅡDNglytk and production of the infectious lentivirus will lay a foundation for immunotherapy of prostate cancer.