ObjectiveTo investigate the values of C-reactive protein (CRP) and pleural effusion in predicting the severity in the early stage of severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) . Methods A total of 89patients with acute pancreatitis were collected from October 2008 through October 2010 for retrospective analysis. Patients were divided into two groups, namely mild acute pancreatitis (MAP) group and SAP group as per the Guidelines for Clinical Diagnosis and Classification of Acute Pancreatitis set by the Society of Chinese Medical Association in 2003. The levels of CRP were measured on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 7th days after admission. Pleural effusion was also observed on the 1 st day after admission. The data of two groups were analyzed and compared. ResultsThere were significant differences in CRP at all intervals between SAP group and MAP group (P ＜0.05) . The relative risk of increase in CRP ( ＞ 150 mg/L),pleural effusion and increase in CRP along with pleural effusion were analyzed, and each of these three markers can be used as an independent severity factor of SAP. Particularly, increase in CRP along with pleural effusion could be most sensitive in predicting the severity of SAP with relative risk (RR) to be 4. 8 and specificity of predictive value to be 100％. ConclusionsC-reactive protein and pleural effusion are available, simple and economic biomarkers which can help us predict the risk of acute pancreatitis in the early stage.

Objective To study the change of serum diamine oxidase (DAO) level in patients with severely acute pancreatitis (SAP) in order to explore the role of DAO in assessing the severity of SAP and the magnitude of gastrointestinal dysfunction.Methods From January 2012 through December 2013,56 SAP patients with 33 male and 23 female and average age (45-± 14) years admitted within 3 days after onset were enrolled for this study.At admission,serum diamine oxidase (DAO) was detected,and APACHE Ⅱ score,computed tomography severity index (CTSI) score and Balthazar grading and gastrointestinal dysfunction score were calculated.And at the corresponding time,serum procalcitonin (PCT) was detected.The correlations between serum DAO level and 4 other markers were analyzed.Results The high level of serum DAO was found at admission in SAP patients correlating positively with serum PCT concentrations (r =0.516,P＜ 0.01),APACHE Ⅱ score (r =0.631,P＜ 0.01),CTIS score (r=0.640,P ＜ 0.01),and the degree of gastrointestinal dysfunction (r =0.730,P ＜ 0.01).Conclusions The role of serum DAO in assessing the severity of SAP and magnitude of gastrointestinal dysfunction in SAP patients is really valid.

Objective To observe the effect of Astragalus Injection(AI) on aquaporin-1(AQP-1) expression of peritoneal mesothelial cells in rats with peritoneal dialysis.Methods Twenty-five male SD rats were divided into the normal control group(N =7),model group(N =9) and AI group(N =9).Except the normal control group,the model group was given intraperitoneal injection of peritoneal dialysate(containing glucose 42.5 g/L),and AI group was given intraperitoneal injection of peritoneal dialysate(containing glucose 42.5 g/L) plus AI(20 mg/mL),25mL/d for 10 continuous days.On the 11th day of experiment,the amount of dialysis ultrafiltration(UF) and net UF,and the concentration ratio of dialysate and plasma sodium(D/PNa) were measured,peritoneal pathological changes were observed with light microscope,and the expression of AQP-1 in peritoneal mesothelial cells was detected with immunohistochemical method.Results When the peritoneal dialysate was kept in the abdominal cavity for 60 min,the amount of UF and Net UF was increased in AI group(P

Objective To investigate the T cell cytotoxicity induced by recombinant adenovirus carrying HIV-1 vpr gene.Methods C8166 cells infected with rAd-vpr or negative control rAd-vector,were analyzed for cell cycle distribution and cell death by flow cytometry.The discrimination of living cells,apoptotic and necrotic cells were differentiated with Hoechst-PI double staining under the confocal microscopy.Changes of mitochondrial membrane potential(△ψm)were monitored by JC-1 staining method.Results Annexin V-PI and Hoechst-PI staining indicated the death effects of HIV-1 Vpr on C8166 cells.PI flow cytometric analysis showed that cell cycle arrested in G2 phase.C8166 cell△ψm collapse mediated by Vpr was detected by JC-1 fluorescent staining.Conclusion The ability of recombinant adenovirus carrying HIV-1 vpr gene to induce mitochondria dysfunction,cell cycle G2 phase arrest and cell death was confirmed in C8166 cells.

Depleted uranium (DU) has been widely applied in industrial and military activities, and is often obtained from producing fuel for nuclear reactors. DU may be released into the environment, polluting air, soil, and water, and is considered to exert both radiological and chemical toxicity. In humans and animals, DU can induce multiple health effects, such as renal tubular necrosis and bone malignancies. This review summarizes the known information on DU's routes of entry, mechanisms of toxicity, and health effects. In addition, we survey the chelating agents used in ameliorating DU toxicity.
Animals ; Chelating Agents ; pharmacology ; Humans ; Inactivation, Metabolic ; Radiation-Protective Agents ; pharmacology ; Uranium ; metabolism ; toxicity

BACKGROUND: Cutaneous wound healing represents a common fundamental phenomenon requiring the participation of cells of distinct types and a major concern for the public. Evidence has confirmed that photobiomodulation (PBM) using near-infrared (NIR) can promote wound healing, but the cells involved and the precise molecular mechanisms remain elusive. METHODS: Full-thickness skin defects with a diameter of 1.0 cm were made on the back of rats and randomly divided into the control group, 10 J, 15 J, and 30 J groups. The wound healing rate at days 4, 8, and 12 postoperatively was measured. HE and Masson staining was conducted to reveal the histological characteristics. Immunofluorescence staining was performed to label the epidermal stem cells (ESCs) and hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs). Western blot was performed to detect the expressions of proteins associated with ESCs and HFSCs. Cutaneous wound tissues were collected for RNA sequencing. Gene ontology and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis was performed, and the hub genes were identified using CytoHubba and validated by qRT-PCR. RESULTS: PBM can promote reepithelialization, extracellular matrix deposition, and wound healing, increase the number of KRT14+/PCNA+ ESCs and KRT15+/PCNA+ HFSCs, and upregulate the protein expression of P63, Krt14, and PCNA. Three hundred and sixty-six differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and 7 hub genes including Sox9, Krt5, Epcam, Cdh1, Cdh3, Dsp, and Pkp3 were identified. These DEGs are enriched in skin development, cell junction, and cadherin binding involved in cell–cell adhesion etc., while these hub genes are related to skin derived stem cells and cell adhesion. CONCLUSION PBM accelerates wound healing by enhancing reepithelialization through promoting ESCs and HFSCs proliferation and elevating the expression of genes associated with stem cells and cell adhesion. This may provide a valuable alternative strategy to promote wound healing and reepithelialization by modulating the proliferation of skin derived stem cells and regulating genes related to cell adhesion.

Polysomnography (PSG) monitoring is an important method for clinical diagnosis of diseases such as insomnia, apnea and so on. In order to solve the problem of time-consuming and energy-consuming sleep stage staging of sleep disorder patients using manual frame-by-frame visual judgment PSG, this study proposed a deep learning algorithm model combining convolutional neural networks (CNN) and bidirectional gate recurrent neural networks (Bi GRU). A dynamic sparse self-attention mechanism was designed to solve the problem that gated recurrent neural networks (GRU) is difficult to obtain accurate vector representation of long-distance information. This study collected 143 overnight PSG data of patients from Shanghai Mental Health Center with sleep disorders, which were combined with 153 overnight PSG data of patients from the open-source dataset, and selected 9 electrophysiological channel signals including 6 electroencephalogram (EEG) signal channels, 2 electrooculogram (EOG) signal channels and a single mandibular electromyogram (EMG) signal channel. These data were used for model training, testing and evaluation. After cross validation, the accuracy was (84.0±2.0)%, and Cohen's kappa value was 0.77±0.50. It showed better performance than the Cohen's kappa value of physician score of 0.75±0.11. The experimental results show that the algorithm model in this paper has a high staging effect in different populations and is widely applicable. It is of great significance to assist clinicians in rapid and large-scale PSG sleep automatic staging.
Humans ; Polysomnography ; China ; Sleep Stages ; Sleep ; Algorithms