OBJECTIVETo investigate the therapeutic effect of Corbrin shugan capsule for treatment of alcoholic hepatic fibrosis in rats.

METHODSThe rat model of alcoholic hepatic fibrosis was induced by intragastric administration of alcohol repeatedly. The serum procollagen III (PC III), laminin (LN) and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) levels were measured with ELISA, and the content of hydroxyproline (Hyp) in liver tissue were determined with colorimetric method. Collagen deposition in liver tissue was observed with Masson's staining, and the fibrosis area was measured with digital medical image analysis system (Motic Med 6.0).

RESULTSCompared with the model control group, the serum TIMP-1 and LN levels and hepatic fibrosis area in liver tissue significantly decreased in Corbrin shugan capsule groups with doses of 0.09,0.27 and 0.45 g*kg(-1), and the serum PC III and the Hyp contents in liver tissue also decreased of Corbrin shugan capsule groups with doses of 0.27 and 0.45g*kg(-1).

CONCLUSIONCorbrin shugan capsule can decrease serum PC III, TIMP-1 and LN levels and Hyp levels in liver tissue and hepatic fibrosis area in rats, indicating it may have therapeutic effect on alcoholic hepatic fibrosis.

Animals ; Disease Models, Animal ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; therapeutic use ; Hydroxyproline ; metabolism ; Laminin ; blood ; Liver ; metabolism ; pathology ; Liver Cirrhosis, Alcoholic ; drug therapy ; metabolism ; pathology ; Male ; Procollagen ; blood ; Rats ; Tissue Inhibitor of Metalloproteinase-1 ; blood

Objective: To investigate the function and mechanism of phospholipase Cγ1 (PLCγ1) in cell-matrix adhesion in colorectal cancer. Methods: Highly metastatic colorectal cancer cell line LoVo and lowly metastatic colorectal cancer cell line SW480 were subjected to cell-matrix adhesion assay. U73122 (a specific inhibitor of PLC) and pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC) (an inhibitor of NF-κB) were used to study the effect of PLCγ1 and NF-κB on cell-matrix adhesion. Furthermore, Western blot and gel electrophoresis mobility shift assay (EMSA) were performed to detect the mechanism of PLCγ1 in colorectal cancer cell adhesion to matrix. Results: Inhibition of PLCγ1 or NF-κB resulted in reduction of cell-matrix adhesion in a dose-dependent manner in LoVo cells(P<0.05), but had no marked effect on SW480 cells. Western blot analysis showed that epidermal growth factor (EGF) stimulated the phosphorylation of PLCγ1 in LoVo. The results of EMSA indicated that inhibition of PLCγ1 signaling pathway also down-regulated the activity of NF-κB while EGF reversed the function. Conclusion:These data suggest that PLCγ1 plays a pivotal role in the EGF-induced cell-matrix adhesion of highly metastatic colorectal cancer cells and that NF-κB is also functional in this signaling pathway.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to investigate the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of patients with heat-related il ness, and guide the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of heat-related il ness. METHODS: From June 2013 to August 2013, seventy patients with heat-related illness were treated at Jinshan Hospital of Fudan University, and their epidemiological characteristics, laboratory results, treatment and prognosis were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: In the 70 patients, 18 patients suffered from heat stroke and 52 patients from non-heat stroke. When the environmnent temperature was above 35 °C, the body temperature of the patients began to increase markedly. The patients with heat stroke were significantly older than those with non-heat stroke (P<0.05). The body temperature, heart rate, blood glucose, blood lactate dehydrogenase and blood creatine kinase in the patients with heat stroke were higher than those in the patients with non-heat stroke (P<0.05). Blood lactate dehydrogenase and blood creatine kinase were positively correlated with body temperature (r=0.801). CONCLUSION: When the environmental temperature goes above 35 °C, heat-related illness should be prevented, especially in the elderly. The body temperature, heart rate, blood glucose, blood lactate dehydrogenase and blood creatine kinase in patients with heat stroke are higher than those in patients with non-heat stroke. Blood lactate dehydrogenase and blood creatine kinase are positively correlated with body temperature, but their relationship with heat-related illness awaits further study.

OBJECTIVEThis study explored the dynamic expression of the E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase gene, Arkadia, in response to carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced liver fibrosis in a mouse model and investigated the differential expression that occurs following treatment with the anti-fibrotic bone morphogenetic protein-7 (BMP-7).

METHODSThirty healthy male imprinting control region (ICR) mice were randomly assigned to three groups: normal (control; n = 6), CCl4-induced model group (model; n = 18), and CCl4-induced model with BMP-7 treatment group (treatment; n = 6). The model group was further divided into three subgroups (n = 6 each) for analysis at 4, 8 and 12 weeks after fibrosis induction. Liver fibrosis was induced by hypodermic injections of 60% CCl4 /peanut oil (5 mL/kg) to the hind legs of mice two-times per week in alternating legs for a period of 12 weeks. At week 9, the treatment group of CCl4-induced mice were given an intraperitoneal injection of BMP-7 (300 pg/g) simultaneously with that day's hypodermic injection of 60% CCl4 /peanut oil, and then every other day for a period of four weeks. The pathological changes in liver tissues were observed after staining with hematoxylin-eosin (HE) and Masson's trichrome. Messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein expression of Arkadia in liver were evaluated using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry and Western blotting, respectively.

RESULTSMouse models of liver fibrosis were successfully established by CCl4 exposure. Arkadia, Smad7 and TGF-beta1 mRNA levels were up-regulated in the model group in a time-dependent manner (vs. control group), and BMP-7 treatment led to significant down-regulation of the CCl4-induced expression of the three genes (vs. control group: F = 812.80, 451.46, and 998.96, respectively; P less than 0.01). At week 12, the mRNA levels of Arkadia, Smad7, and TGF-b1 were significantly lower in the BMP-7 treatment group than in the model group (t = 12.108, 18.737, and 16.364, respectively; P less than 0.01). Arkadia, Smad7, and TGF-b1 protein staining was weak in the portal area of control liver tissue. In contrast, the model group showed significantly stronger staining for all three proteins in the portal area and in the cytoplasm of liver cells. The staining of Arkadia, Smad7, and TGF-b1 proteins was significantly lower in the treatment group (vs. control group: F = 8.399, 609.690, and 900.561, respectively; P < 0.01). At week 12, the protein levels of Arkadia, Smad7, and TGF-b1 were significantly lower in the treatment group than in the model group (t = 23.438, 11.667, and 42.889, respectively; P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONArkadia expression gradually increased along with the development of liver fibrosis but was suppressed by treatment with the anti-fibrotic factor, BMP-7.

Animals ; Bone Morphogenetic Protein 7 ; pharmacology ; Liver ; metabolism ; Liver Cirrhosis, Experimental ; metabolism ; prevention & control ; Male ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred ICR ; Ubiquitin-Protein Ligases ; metabolism ; Up-Regulation

OBJECTIVETo investigate the expression and relationship of p27(kip1) and its nuclear export factor Jab1 during proliferation process of lymphoma cell.

METHODSJurkat and Raji cells were treated with serum starvation and then serum release. The protein and mRNA expression of p27(kip1), Jab1 in the cells were detected by Western blot and RT-PCR respectively. LMB were used for stimulating Jurkat cells during their proliferation process, and then the expression changes of p27(kip1) and Jab1 were detected. An eukaryotic expression plasmid(pcDNA3. 1-myc) containing Jab1 was constructed. Jurkat cell were transfected in vitro with or without pcDNA3. 1-myc-Jab1. Double immunolabelling was used to identify the localization of p27(kip1). Immunoprecipitation was used to detect the combination of p27(kip1) and Jab1.

RESULTSThe growth of Jurkat and Raji cells were blocked by serum starvation. The total protein amount of p27(kip1) increased while that of Jab1 decreased. The reverse changes were happened after serum release, but the mRNA expression of p27(kip1) has no significant change. LMB could inhibit the cell proliferation caused by serum release. The expression of p27(kip1) was up-regulated and Jab1 down-regulated when Jurkat cells were treated with LMB. After pcDNA3. 1-myc-Jab1 infected Jurkat cells for 48 h, the distribution of p27(kip1) was translocated from nucleus into cytoplasma. p27(kip1) and Jab1 could form compound in Jurkat and Raji cells detected by Immunoprecipitation.

CONCLUSIONJab1 may influence the location and expression of p27(kip1) through integrating with p27(kip1), and then participates in regulating the growth of NHL cell through interfering with the function of p27(kip1).

COP9 Signalosome Complex ; Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p27 ; metabolism ; Humans ; Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins ; metabolism ; Jurkat Cells ; Peptide Hydrolases ; metabolism ; Plasmids ; RNA, Messenger ; metabolism ; Transfection

To investigate the characteristics of the allele distribution of HLA-B*15 gene family in Chinese Han population and to study its influence on the selection of clinical transplantation donor, population of a 815 Han in north China from Shaanxi sub-registry of Chinese National Marrow Donor Project was randomly selected and out of them 206 HLA-B*15 positive samples according to the previous known low-resolution typing results were acquired. HLA-B*15 gene polymorphisms of above-mentioned samples and other 17 individuals were analyzed for the first time by polymerase chain reaction sequence-based typing (PCR-SBT) at high-resolution level. The structure differentiation of all HLA-B*15 alleles were analyzed by HLA three-dimensional structure modeling and software Swiss-PdbViewer. The results showed that the distribution of HLA-A, -B, -DRB1 gene of randomly selected 815 samples accorded with Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and the gene frequency of HLA-B*15 was 0.1379. There were a total of 16 kinds of alleles of HLA-B*15 gene family to be obtained, which belonged to 7 kinds of serologic specificities. HLA-B*1501, B*1511, B*1502 and B*1518 were the major alleles with a frequency of 0.0485, 0.0215, 0.0178 and 0.0160 respectively, and the constituent ratio of their accumulated frequencies was 75.11%. The each frequency of the other 12 kinds of B*15 alleles was lower than 0.0100. Among the homozygote of 10 samples at low/medial-resolution level, there were only 4 samples to be pur sang homozygote of HLA-B*15xx, --at high-resolution level, and all the homozygote were constituted by respective dominating alleles. HLA three-dimensional structure modeling demonstrated that within the same specificity, gentle structure differentiation not only existed, such as B*1501, 1505, 1507, 1525, 1527, 1532 (each RMSD Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; genetics ; China ; ethnology ; HLA-B Antigens ; genetics ; HLA-B15 Antigen ; Humans ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; methods ; Polymorphism, Genetic ; Tissue Donors

Clinical evidence of hematopoietic restoration with umbilical cord blood (UCB) grafts indicates the UCB can be a useful source of hematopoietic stem cells for routine bone marrow reconstitution. Considering (10 +/- 5) x 10(8) nucleared cells per cord blood unit, there is a potential limitation for the use of cord blood in adults, which, however, can be overcome by ex vivo expansion of cells. A prerequisite for expansion is the significantly higher recovery of MNC, CD34+ cells and colony-forming cells (CFC) by thawing cryopreserved MNC. Cooling rate always acts as a critical factor that can affect the recovery of cells. Although the rate of - 1 degrees C/min is adopted in most of the cryopreservations, no data has been reported about the detailed effects of different cooling rates. The aim of the study was to reveal the different effects of cooling rates on cryopreservation of hematopoietic stem cells from cord blood. UCB samples were collected, and cryopreserved as mononuclear cells (MNC) with different cooling rates of - 0.5 degrees C/min, - 1 degrees C/min, - 5 degrees C/min, and the recovery and viability of MNC and CD34+ cells, the clonogenic capacity and the ex vivo expansion potential of UCB progenitor cells were evaluated after thawing. With - 1 degrees C/min cooling rate, the recovery of MNC reached 93.3% +/- 1.8% , viability 95.0% +/- 3.9% , recovery of CD34+ cells 80.0% +/- 17.9% , and clonogenic recovery were 87.1% +/- 5.5%, 88.5% +/- 8.9%, 86.2% +/- 7.4% for BFU-E CFU-GM CFU-MK, respectively. After 14 days of liquid culture, no significant difference was detected in CFC expansion between fresh and cryopreserved MNC cells with - 1 degrees C/min cooling rate, but this was not the case with - 0.5 degreesC/min and - 5 degrees C/min. In conclusion, it was demonstrated that controlling the rate at - 1 degrees C/min is more suitable for cryopreservation of hematopoietic stem cells than - 0.5 degrees C/min and - 5 degrees C/min.
Cell Survival ; physiology ; Cells, Cultured ; Cryopreservation ; methods ; Erythroid Precursor Cells ; cytology ; Fetal Blood ; cytology ; Flow Cytometry ; Granulocyte-Macrophage Progenitor Cells ; cytology ; Hematopoietic Stem Cells ; cytology ; Humans

OBJECTIVETo assess the co-morbidity of anxiety and depression in hospitalized patients and to analyze the degree of symptoms and the influential factors.

METHODSThirty patients with malignant tumor were injected with thymosin alpha 1 subcutaneously at the dose of 1.6 mg q.d. for the first month and q.o.d. for the following month. The number of T cell subgroups and the activity of NK cell in peripheral blood were detected and the quality of life of the patients were evaluated before treatment and at the end of treatment.

RESULT(1) About 39.9 % of the patients presented the symptoms of anxiety and depression and out of them 6.7 % were taken psychotropic medication. (2) Stepwise Logistic Regression showed that the factors related to anxiety and depression could be classified into four categories: economic factor, sleeping status, cognition of disease, the other factors such as course of disease and the environment of hospital. (3) Data analysis of oncology patients showed that the cognition of disease would be an important factor, which would affect anxiety and depression status.

CONCLUSIONMultiple factors can affect anxiety and depression symptoms of inpatients. The results suggest that psychological intervention such as cognitive therapy should be considered in clinical practice.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Anxiety ; etiology ; therapy ; Depressive Disorder ; etiology ; therapy ; Female ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Inpatients ; Logistic Models ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Psychotherapy

OBJECTIVETo study the effect of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) on U937 cell growth and its mechanism.

METHODSCell cycle was detected by flow cytometry (FCM), expressions of cell cycle associated protein and the p27 related protein were detected by Western blot. The binding of P27 and Skp2 was detected by immunoprecipitation.

RESULTSFCM displayed that ATRA could inhibit the proliferation of U937 cells. At 72 h on 1 micromol/L ATRA treatment, 72% of the cells were arrested at G0/G1 phase. Western blot displayed that ATRA could decrease the expression of cyclin A, up-regulate the expression of p21 and p27, and down-regulate the expression of p27 related proteins Skp2. p27 could bind with Skp2 in U937 cells as detected by immunoprecipitation.

CONCLUSIONATRA may arrest the proliferation of U937 cells through the reduction of Skp2 expression, and finally the induction of the accumulation of p27.

Cell Cycle ; drug effects ; Cell Proliferation ; drug effects ; Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p27 ; metabolism ; Humans ; S-Phase Kinase-Associated Proteins ; metabolism ; Tretinoin ; pharmacology ; U937 Cells

OBJECTIVETo investigate the effects of Corbrin Shugan capsule on dimethylnitrosamine (DMN)-induced hepatic fibrosis in rats.

METHODSHepatic fibrosis was induced by DMN in AD rats. The serum concentrations of III pro-collagen (III PC),laminin (LN) and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1(TIMP-1) were determined with ELISA. The concentration of albumin (ALB) in sera and the content of hydroxyproline (Hyp) in liver tissues were determined with chemical colorimetric and HPLC, respectively. The fibrosis area was measured with Motic Med 6.0 digital medical image analysis system.

RESULTSCompared to model group the high-dose (450 mg kg(-1)),mid-dose (270 mg kg(-1)) and low-dose (90 mg kg(-1)) groups of Corbrin Shugan capsule had significantly lower serum content of III PC [34.46 ± 13.95),(36.15 ± 9.46), and (40.58 ± 7.72)ng ml(-1) compared with (49.38 ± 10.95)ng ml(-1),P<0.05 or P<0.01],TIMP-1 [(16.65 ± 4.24),(16.66 ± 4.34),and (18.99 ± 6.05)ng ml(-1) compared with (30.84 ± 14.48)ng ml(-1), P<0.05 or P<0.01], LN [(12.94 ± 4.29), (12.96 ± 3.21),and (15.32 ± 8.00)ng ml(-1) compared with (30.22 ± 17.00)ng ml(-1),P<0.05 or P<0.01] and smaller hepatic fibrosis area [(0.02240 ± 0.01337), (0.02176 ± 0.01460) and (0.02384 ± 0.01405)μm(2) compared with vs (0.03929 ± 0.01732)μm2, P<0.05 or P<0.01]; the high-dose and mid-dose groups of Corbrin Shugan capsule had significantly lower content of Hyp in liver tissues [(0.77 ± 0.09) and (0.81 ± 0.09)μg μmg(-1) compared with (1.06 ± 0.33)μg mg(-1),P<0.05 or P<0.01]; and the high-dose group of Corbrin Shugan capsule significantly increased the content of ALB in sera [(34.02 ± 4.17)g L(-1) compared with (30.25 ± 4.21)g L(-1),P<0.05].

CONCLUSIONCorbrin Shugan capsule is effective in treatment of DMN-induced hepatic fibrosis in rats.

Albumins ; metabolism ; Animals ; Capsules ; Collagen Type III ; blood ; Dimethylnitrosamine ; adverse effects ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; therapeutic use ; Hydroxyproline ; metabolism ; Laminin ; blood ; Liver Cirrhosis, Experimental ; drug therapy ; Male ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Tissue Inhibitor of Metalloproteinase-1 ; blood