Transient receptor potential (TRP) channels are widely found throughout the animal kingdom. By serving as cellular sensors for a wide spectrum of physical and chemical stimuli, they play crucial physiological roles ranging from sensory transduction to cell cycle modulation. TRP channels are tetrameric protein complexes. While most TRP subunits can form functional homomeric channels, heteromerization of TRP channel subunits of either the same subfamily or different subfamilies has been widely observed. Heteromeric TRP channels exhibit many novel properties compared to their homomeric counterparts, indicating that co-assembly of TRP channel subunits has an important contribution to the diversity of TRP channel functions.
Animals ; Ankyrin Repeat ; Humans ; Models, Molecular ; Protein Interaction Domains and Motifs ; Protein Multimerization ; Protein Structure, Quaternary ; Protein Structure, Tertiary ; Protein Subunits ; TRPC Cation Channels ; chemistry ; genetics ; physiology

OBJECTIVETo investigate the feasibility of no nasogastric intubation and early oral feeding at will after thoracolaparoscopic esophagectomy for patients with esophageal cancer.

METHODSBetween January 2013 and January 2014, the feasibility of no nasogastric intubation and early oral feeding at postoperative day(POD) 1 after thoracolaparoscopic esophagectomy was prospectively investigated in 156 patients (trial group) with esophageal cancer in the Henan Cancer Hospital. One hundred and sixty patients previously managed in the same unit who were treated routinely after thoracolaparoscopic esophagectomy were served as control group.

RESULTSOf 156 patients of trial group, 6(3.8%) patients could not take food early as planned because of postoperative complications. The overall complication rate in trial group was 19.2%(30/156), which was 25.0%(30/160) in control group (P=0.217). The anastomotic leakage in trial group and control group was 2.6%(4/156) and 4.3%(7/160) respectively (P=0.380). Compared with control group, time to first flatus [(2.1±0.9) d vs. (3.3±1.1) d, P<0.001], bowel movement [(4.4±1.3) d vs. (6.6±1.0) d, P<0.001] and postoperative hospital stay [(8.3±3.2) d vs. (10.4±3.6) d, P<0.001] were significantly shorter in trial group.

CONCLUSIONSNo nasogastric intubation and early oral feeding postoperatively in patients with thoracolaparoscopic esophagectomy is feasible and safe. This management can shorten postoperative hospital stay and fasten postoperative bowel function recovery.

Eating ; Esophageal Neoplasms ; surgery ; Esophagectomy ; Fasting ; Feasibility Studies ; Humans ; Intubation, Gastrointestinal ; Postoperative Complications ; Postoperative Period

Patch clamp is a technique that can measure weak current in the level of picoampere (pA). It has been widely used for cellular electrophysiological recording in fundamental medical researches, such as membrane potential and ion channel currents recording, etc. In order to obtain accurate measurement results, both the resistance and capacitance of the pipette are required to be compensated. Capacitance compensations are composed of slow and fast capacitance compensation. The slow compensation is determined by the lipid bilayer of cell membrane, and its magnitude usually ranges from a few picofarads (pF) to a few microfarads (μF), depending on the cell size. The fast capacitance is formed by the distributed capacitance of the glass pipette, wires and solution, mostly ranging in a few picofarads. After the pipette sucks the cells in the solution, the positions of the glass pipette and wire have been determined, and only taking once compensation for slow and fast capacitance will meet the recording requirements. However, when the study needs to deal with the temperature characteristics, it is still necessary to make a recognition on the temperature characteristic of the capacitance. We found that the time constant of fast capacitance discharge changed with increasing temperature of bath solution when we studied the photothermal effect on cell membrane by patch clamp. Based on this phenomenon, we proposed an equivalent circuit to calculate the temperature-dependent parameters. Experimental results showed that the fast capacitance increased in a positive rate of 0.04 pF/℃, while the pipette resistance decreased. The fine data analysis demonstrated that the temperature rises of bath solution determined the kinetics of the fast capacitance mainly by changing the inner solution resistance of the glass pipette. This result will provide a good reference for the fine temperature characteristic study related to cellular electrophysiology based on patch clamp technique.
Cell Membrane ; Electric Capacitance ; Membrane Potentials ; Patch-Clamp Techniques ; Temperature