Dibenzothiophene (DBT) was used as a model compound. A bacteria strain, which can degrade dibenzo-thiophene efficiently, was obtained. This strain was identified as Pseudomonas stutzeris UP-1 according to its morphological, physiological and biochemical characters, and 16S rDNA sequence. The strain exhibits strong degradation capacity of DBT, and the end product of degradation is a kind of soluble compound. After the analysis of product of DBT degradation, it was deduced that the degradation of DBT by Pseudomonas stutzeri UP-1 is in accordance with the Kodama mechanism.

OBJECTIVETo probe a better method for treatment of trigeminal neuralgia. Methods One hundred and four cases of trigeminal neuralgia were randomly divided into a treatment group (n=57) and a control group (n=47). The treatment group were treated witb acupoint injection of 2000 microg of VitB12, with Xiaguan (ST 7) selected as main point, and the control group witb oral administration of Carbamazepine. The therapeutic effect were analyzed after 3 tberapeutic courses.

RESULTSTbe cured and markedly effective rate and the effective rate were 82.5% and 98.2% in the treatment group, and 57.4% and 8O.9% in the control group, with a very significant difference between the two groups (P < 0.01). After treatment, there was a very significant difference in the cumulative score of pain between the two groups (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONAcupoint injection of VitB12 has a better therapeutic effect than that of oral administration of Carbamazepine.

Acupuncture Points ; Adult ; Aged ; Female ; Humans ; Injections ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Trigeminal Neuralgia ; therapy ; Vitamin B 12 ; administration & dosage

The study is to establish an HPLC method using fluorescence detector for the determination of doxazosin enantiomers and investigate their chiral inversion in vitro and in vivo. Ultron ES-OVM was taken as the chiral chromatographic column, and the column temperature was 30 degrees C. Isocratic elution using a mobile phase of phosphate buffer-acetonitrile (85 : 15, v/v) at a flow rate of 0.8 mL x min(-1) was done. The fluorescence detection was set at lambda(Ex) = 255 nm and lambda(Em) = 385 nm. Prazosin was used as the internal standard. (-) Doxazosin or (+) doxazosin added into rat plasma in vitro was determined after incubating in 37 degrees C water bath for 2, 5 and 10 days. (-) Doxazosin or (+) doxazosin was administered orally to the rats for one months. Plasma samples were taken at 8 h after the last administration. A good linear relationship was achieved when the concentration of doxazosin enantiomers was within the range of 4 - 2 000 ng x mL(-1). The average recovery for (-) doxazosin was 99.5% with RSD 3.6%, and for (+) doxazosin was 99.3% with RSD 4.3%. Chiral inversion was observed neither in vitro nor in vivo studies. The method is selective, accurate and reproducible, which is suitable for the detection of doxazosin enantiomers in rat plasma. The in vitro and in vivo studies indicate that chiral inversion occurs uneasily between (-) doxazosin and (+) doxazosin in the rat.
Animals ; Blood Chemical Analysis ; methods ; Doxazosin ; blood ; chemistry ; Male ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Reproducibility of Results ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Stereoisomerism

Metabolome has become an important part of Systems Biology, and a large set of data has already gained by applying the methods of metabolome. How to deal with the data and how to combine data of metabolome with data of other omics are problems that can not be ignored. An Enzyme Amount Multiple Factor was imported into the enzyme kinetic equation. When the enzyme amount in the system changed, in silico model, it means to alter the Enzyme Amount Multiple Factor. In order to observe ethanol concentration response to enzyme amount changes in S. cerevisiae glycolysis pathway model, enzyme amount was separately set at high and low level, the corresponding Enzyme Amount Multiple Factor value was 10 and 0.1, relatively. Based on the result of simulation, twelve enzymes in pathway were separated into two classes, class I and class II by cluster analysis. The four enzymes belonging to class I, ADH, HK, PFK and PDC, all catalyze irreversible reactions. The six out of eight enzymes belonging to class II, ALD, GAPDH, GlcTrans, lpPEP, PGI and TIM, catalyze reversible reactions. The other two enzymes belonging to class II, lpGlyc and PK, catalyze irreversible reactions. Based on this method, data of metabolome and proteomics are easily integrated to accomplish relatively overall analysis of system properties.
Algorithms ; Cluster Analysis ; Computer Simulation ; Enzymes ; classification ; metabolism ; Ethanol ; metabolism ; Fungal Proteins ; metabolism ; Glycolysis ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; Metabolomics ; methods ; Models, Biological ; Saccharomyces cerevisiae ; metabolism ; Systems Biology ; methods

OBJECTIVETo confirm alternative methods for Mandarin hearing in noise test (MHINT) to get the performance-intensity (PI) function, and to set up right test rules for scoring sentence intelligibility for subjects.

METHODSSentence speech reception thresholds were obtained for 30 normally hearing subjects with the MHINT test using several adaptive rules based on either character or word segmentation of the sentences. Each adaptive rule was intended to measure the threshold at a different point on the PI function. By also measuring sentence intelligibility at each threshold, the accuracy with which the PI function was estimated could be evaluated for each type of segmentation. The results of different segmentation were compared.

RESULTSThere was no significant difference in the reception threshold of sentences (RTS) between the group which used character segmentation and the group which used word segmentation (P > 0.05); and also no significant difference in their speech recognition score (SRS, P > 0.05). When the same subject used both character segmentation and word segmentation to do the test, there was no significant difference in their RTS between character segmentation and word segmentation (P > 0.05); and also no significant difference in their SRS (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONSThis method could be used not only with normally hearing individuals and people with hearing loss to evaluate their sentence intelligibility, but also with people who had aided equipment.

Acoustic Stimulation ; Adolescent ; Adult ; Audiometry, Speech ; methods ; Female ; Humans ; Language ; Male ; Speech Intelligibility ; Speech Perception ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo analyses the clinical characteristics and electrophysiological finding of 106 patients with auditory neuropathy (AN). Investigate the differential curve type of pure tone audiogram and the abnormal ABR.

METHODSReview the history of patients, pure tone audiometry, middle ear acoustic reflexes, auditory brainstem response, distortion product otoacoustic emission and radiologic imaging studies of the brain of 106 patients with AN during December 2001 to May 2007 in retrospect.

RESULTSThe 106 patients with AN were of both genders. The age were between 11-37 years old, and the average age was 17.5 years old. The most patients were adolescence (70.8%). Twelve cases of the 106 patients had evidence of other peripheral neuropathy in addition to hearing loss. Another 94 patients were idiopathic origins. The pure tone audiogram showed a minimal to moderate sensorineural hearing loss at low frequencies 0.5 kHz and 0.25 kHz in 209 ears (98.6%). The average hearing threshold (WHO 1997) in 23.2% of disordered ears at less than 25 dB in the "normal" range. Auditory brainstem response could not be recorded in 124 ears (58.5%) at maximum stimulus. The other 88 ears showed 1 or 2 wave, but the wave were small. There were 23 patients which one side ear ABR was 1 or 2 small waves presented, but the contralateral side were all waves absent. In 3 cases of AN with other peripheral neuropathy which ABR were both ears 1 or 2 small wave ear recorded. However, 1 patient in our sample could not be detected distortion product otoacoustic emission at 3-6 kHz (left ear) and 5-6 kHz (right ear).

CONCLUSIONSAN was not rare in adolescence. The average hearing threshold for AN should be discussed.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Audiometry, Pure-Tone ; Child ; Electrophysiology ; Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Retrospective Studies ; Vestibulocochlear Nerve Diseases ; physiopathology ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo investigate whether Hantavirus (HV) and Orientia tsutsugamushi ( OT) can naturally infect and coexist in their host and role.

METHODSBy field epidemiological study, Leptotrombidium scutellare (3829) was collected and separated from mice(166) in epidemic areas. The cells of mites separated from their host and role were cultured. PCR was used to detect HV-RNA and OT-DNA in the cell culture.

RESULTSIn 105 Apodemus agrarius, 3 HV-RNA positive, 2 OT-DNA positive and 2 coinfection with HV and OT were detected;in 41 Brown rattus, 2 HV-RNA positive, 1 OT-DNA positive and 1 co-infection with HV and OT were detected. From 15 mites co-infected with HV and OT, 2 strains of HV pathogen, 2 strains of OT pathogen were separated and 1 HV and OT pathogen in the same mite were separate.

CONCLUSIONThe study demonstrates that co-infection of HV and OT did simultaneously exist in wild Leptotrombidium scutellare. This theory has some significance to the epidemic and precaution of HV and OT.

Animals ; Disease Vectors ; Hantavirus ; genetics ; pathogenicity ; Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome ; epidemiology ; Host-Parasite Interactions ; Orientia tsutsugamushi ; genetics ; pathogenicity ; Rats ; Scrub Typhus ; epidemiology ; Trombiculidae ; microbiology

OBJECTIVE: To observe the expression of Bcl-2 and Bax proteins in rat's myocardial cells after Macleaya cordata alkaloids poisoning, and to provide certain molecular biology references for the detection of Macleaya cordata alkaloids poisoning. METHODS: Experimental model of Macleaya cordata alkaloids poisoning was established, the expression levels of Bcl-2 and Bax proteins in these cells were detected by immunohistochemistry, and the results were analyzed by computer image system. RESULTS: The expression levels of Bcl-2 and Bax proteins in myocardial cells in poisoning groups were much greater than those in the control groups (P<0.05). CONCLUSION If the clinical symptoms may not be obvious, the detection of Bcl-2 and Bax proteins level by immunohistochemistry still could be ancillary method.
Animals ; Disease Models, Animal ; Female ; Immunohistochemistry ; Male ; Myocardium/pathology* ; Myocytes, Cardiac/pathology* ; Papaveraceae/chemistry* ; Papaverine/poisoning* ; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-bcl-2/metabolism* ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Staining and Labeling ; Time Factors ; bcl-2-Associated X Protein/metabolism*

OBJECTIVEThe aim of this study is to investigate the self-reported prevalence and other epidemiological characteristics of allergic rhinitis from 11 cities throughout the mainland of China.

METHODSTelephone interviews were conducted in the two main municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai) and eight capital cities (Changsha, Changchun, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shenyang, Wuhan, Urumqi and Xi'an) of main provinces throughout the mainland of China after sampling target phone numbers by the approach of random digital dialing (RDD) via computer.

RESULTSIn total, the survey had sampled 684 blocks of telephone numbers in 11 cities, and dialed 119 319 telephone numbers. Of the 38 203 respondents, 4253 subjects reported allergic rhinitis, while the other 33 950 were screened negative in the telephone interviews. The self-reported prevalence of allergic rhinitis was lowest in Xi'an (8.0%), and highest in Urumqi (21.4%), with Nanjing having intermediate value (11.5%). The gender-adjusted prevalence ranged from 8.5% in Xi'an to 21.3% in Urumqi, while the age-adjusted prevalence of self-reported allergic rhinitis ranged from 8.7% in Beijing to 24.1% in Urumqi.

CONCLUSIONSThe study demonstrates that the self-reported prevalence of allergic rhinitis in 11 cities throughout the mainland of China has wide variations, and the strategy of prevention for allergic rhinitis should be conducted according to the epidemic features of it.

China ; epidemiology ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Prevalence ; Rhinitis, Allergic, Perennial ; epidemiology ; Rhinitis, Allergic, Seasonal ; epidemiology ; Self Report ; Surveys and Questionnaires