OBJECTIVETo analyze the influence of retinoic acid (RA) on the undifferentiated state and EB formation abilities of human embryonic stem cells.

METHODSThe biological characteristics of H9 ESCs after RA treatment were characterized by real-time PCR, MTS proliferation assay and immunofluorescence staining. The expression of three germ layers markers, osteogenic differentiation markers and adipogenic differentiation markers in H9-differentiated embryoid bodies (EBs) with RA treatment were quantified by real time PCR.

RESULTSThe proliferation of H9 ESCs in the early logarithmic growth phase was accelerated by RA treatment. In addition, RA induced differentiation of H9 ESC coupled with morphology changes, decreased expression of undifferentiated markers Oct4, Nanog, Sox2 and OCT4 mRNA binding protein Lin28 at mRNA level, and reduced expression of Oct4 at protein level. RA induced formation of cavities in EBs. Real time PCR results showed that the expressions of ectodermal markers: NeuroD1, Noggin; mesodermal markers: Brachyury, Twist and endodermal markers: AFP, GATA-4 were significantly increased (P < 0.05), especially for AFP (P < 0.01), by RA treatment in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, the expression of adipogenic differentiation marker C/EBPalpha was increased while the osteogenic differentiation marker OPN was decreased in EBs after RA treatment for 5 days.

CONCLUSIONSHigh concentrations of RA induced the loss of stemness in H9 ESCs and excessive differentiation in EBs, and damaged the balance between osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation during early EB differentiation, which may be relevant to the congenital malformations.

Cell Differentiation ; drug effects ; Cell Proliferation ; drug effects ; Cells, Cultured ; Embryonic Stem Cells ; cytology ; drug effects ; Humans ; Tretinoin ; pharmacology

Objective To analyze the status of supply and the affected factors of the home care of the elderly in community of Shenzhen.Methods The investigation was carried out in 78 community health ser-vice centers and 216 elderly from 6 communities using self-designed questionnaire.Results 84% of the el-derly had the demand of home care, 38.1% of them had even received home care services.In 32 demand items of home care, the top 6 were in turn the blood pressure monitoring, the blood sugar monitoring, the health consults, the caregivers guidance, the psychological care, medication instruction.48 of 78 commu-nity health service center provided door-to-door services, 44% of them(home care service center)provided more than 10 projects, 67% of the center provided more than 5 projects, 17% of them provided 2 projects, 30 community health service center did not provide door-to-door service.The main reasons that influenced home care delivery in community were the shortage of nursing staff of home medical care, the risk factors, the medical environment, and the limited health care facilities.Conclusions The elderly has large de-mand to the home care service, home care which the community health center provided is lagging and in short supply.It is imperative to increase the number of community nurses, improve the community home care profession standard and promote stable development of home care.

To investigate the protective effects and possible mechanism of Mycelium of Hirsutella hepiali Chen et Shen (MHCS) on metabolic syndromes, free fatty acid and MHCS-treated hepatocytes were used for detecting autophagy-related LC3, p62 and lipid accumulation. Moreover, high fat diet fed mice were used to establish metabolic syndromes model. 50-weeks age mice were randomly divided into: control group, model group and MHCS group. At 80-weeks age, 15 mice were randomly chosen from each group separately for examining oral glucose tolerance, serum insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), hepatic LC3, p62, p-NF-kappaB p65, NF-kappaB p65, IL-6 and CXCL-8. Moreover, insulin resistance index (IRI) was calculated. Hepatic pathological changes, including vacuoles, lipids accumulation and fibrosis were observed. Remaining mice were fed with diet separately to 110 weeks-age for statistics of mortality. MHCS promoted autophagy of free fatty acid treated hepatocytes. Mice fed with high fat plus MHCS diet exhibited improved oral glucose tolerance, insulin resistance, hepatic pathology, inflammation, mortality and activated autophagy. The protective effects of MHCS against metabolic syndroms might be through the activation of hepatic autophagy.
Animals ; Autophagy ; Diet, High-Fat ; adverse effects ; Glucose Tolerance Test ; Hepatocytes ; metabolism ; pathology ; Hypocreales ; Insulin ; blood ; Insulin Resistance ; Insulin-Like Growth Factor I ; metabolism ; Interleukin-6 ; metabolism ; Interleukin-8 ; metabolism ; Liver ; metabolism ; pathology ; Male ; Metabolic Syndrome ; etiology ; metabolism ; pathology ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Microtubule-Associated Proteins ; metabolism ; Mycelium ; physiology ; Random Allocation ; Transcription Factor RelA ; metabolism ; Transcription Factors ; metabolism

Purpose To discuss the clinical,histopathological characteristics,diagnosis,differential diagnosis and prognosis of malignant intraductal papillary lesions of the breast.Methods 28 cases of malignant intraductal papillary lesions of the breast were analyzed by histology and immunobistochemistry.Clinical and follow-up information was obtained.The published relevant literatures were reviewed.Results All the patients were females with a mean age of 55.7 years.The clinical features were a palpable mass or nipple discharge.28 cases were diagnosed including 22 cases of intraductal papaillary carcinoma,2 cases of encapsulated papillary carcinoma and 4 cases of solid papillary carcinoma.Microscopically,the tumor showed solid and papillary area inside the capsule wall with fine delicate fibrovascular septa.The tumor cells usually displayed low-grade nuclear features.Immunohistochemistry,the tumor cells revealed diffusely strong positive ER and PR in almost all cases and HER-2,CK5/6 were negative positive.All cases were negatiive for CK5/6,p63 and SMA in the celluar nodules.CD56,Syn and CgA were found positively in some solid papillary carcinoma cases.The average positive rate of Ki-67 in tumor cells was 5.3 ％.27 patients were available for follow-up examination from 10 to 79 months and all the patients were alive.Conclusion Malignant intraductal papillary lesions of the breast most occurs in postmenopausal women.The diagnosis should be based on the clinical information,histopathological features and immunohistoehemistry stain due to its diverse histology.The main differential diagnosis is intraductal papilloma.This kind of lesion is a low grade malignant tumor with favorable prognosis.

To develop a method to estimate the anti-Aspergilli activity of active ingredients of Chinese herbs. With the broth microdilution testing procedure proposed by NCCLS, anti-Aspergilli activity of active ingredients ( cinnamalde-hyde, cinn. and citral) of Chinese herbs was determined.The MIC values of cinn. to Aspergillus flavus, A.fumigatus were 0.100?g /mL , 0.050?g/mL.The MIC values of citral to A. flaws, A.fumigatus were 2.600?g/mL, 0.650?g/ mL.These results demonstrate that citral and cinn. have high potency activity against Aspergillus spp. .The research may provide references to establishing a standard for evaluating the effect of anti-Aspergilli Chinese herbs.

Objective： To study the changes of water molecular diffusion in the ischemic region by using MR dephase technique and discuss the potential mechanism of the diffusion changes at early stage. Methods: Totally 43 cases were studied retrospectively. There were 10 cases whose MRI examinations were performed within 6 hours，12 cases from 7－24 hours，7 cases from 2－7 days, 8 cases from 8－14 days, 6 cases from 15 days to 2 months. The apparent diffusion coefficients in the ischemic region were calculated. Results: The ADCav in the grey matter was 8.61×10－4mm2*s－1. The ADCav decreased to (4.72×10－4±1.51×10－4) mm2*s－1 in ischemic region at superacute stage, ADCav ratio to contralateral corresponding region was 0.55±0.18, and ADCav increased to (5.68×10－4±1.22×10－4) mm2*s－1 during the time range of 2-7 days, （9.22×10－4±2.07×10－4） during the time range of 8－14 days, and approaching （26.42×10－4+9.65×10－4） mm2*s－1 during the time range of 2 months. The pearson product- moment correlation between the changes of diffusion value and time was sighificent (r=0.95, P<0.001). ADCv increased at superacute stage and decreased over time. Conclusion: The diffusion of water molecules in ischemic region decreased at superacute stage, and the ADC increased over time. The anisotropy increased at superacute stage and decreased as the course developed. DWI could detect ischemic lesion much earlier than CT and routine MR examination. DWI has great value in the diagnosis of superacute stroke. The mechanism of the diffusion changes at early stage may be the intracellular toxicity edema.

To study the clinical skills training methods and formulate a training objective for pediatric long-year-program students, to let the students, through three years of training program, reach the clinical ability as a chief resident, with better laboratory research skills, teaching awareness and responsibility, and also with good comprehensive quality and excellent English, and finally become clinical talents with great potential and innovation, this report summarized our study results of training two terms of long-year-program pediatric graduates, who fully meeted the training objectives in the department's practice.

Emerging evidence has indicated that circular RNAs (circRNAs) play pivotal roles in the regulation of cellular processes and are found to be aberrantly expressed in a variety of tumors.However,the clinical role of circRNAs in bladder cancer (BC) and the molecular mechanisms have yet to be fully understood.In this study,the clinical specimens were obtained and the expression level of a circRNA BCRC4 was detected by real-time PCR in both BC tissues and cell line.The circular RNA over-expression plasmid was constructed and transfected into BC cells and related cell line.The cell cycles and apoptosis were observed using inverted microscope and flow cytometry.Western blotting was used to compare the relative protein expression of groups with different treatments.It was found that circRNA BCRC4 expression was lower in BC tissues than in adjacent normal tissues.Furthermore,consequences of fomed-expression of BCRC4 promoted apoptosis and inhibited viability of T24T and UMUC3 cells,and up-regulated BCRC4-inereased miR-101 level,which suppressed EZH2 expression in both RNA and protein levels.In addition,gambogic acid (GA) is a promising natural anticancer compound for BC therapy,and GA treatment increased the BCRC4 expression in T24T and UMUC3 cells in a dose-dependent manner.Altogether,our findings suggest that BCRC4 functions as a tumor suppressor in BC,and mediates anticancer function,at least in part,by up-regulating the expression of miR-101.Targeting this newly identified circRNA may help us develop a novel strategy for treating human BC.

BACKGROUND: The correlation of gycosylphosphatidilinoditol-specific phospholipase D (GPI-PLD) activity, mRNA expression to leukemia type, hepatosplenomegaly and/or lymphadenopathy has been rarely reported. OBJECTIVE: To explore the correlation of GPI-PLD expression to leukemia type and hepatosplenomegaly and/or lymphadenopathy of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. METHODS: Fresh bone marrow specimens were obtained from 43 newly diagnosed AML patients, 28 acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) patients, and 21 normal persons. Bone marrow mononuclear cells were harvested by density gradient centrifugation. GPI-anchored human placent alkaline phosphatase was used as substrate. GPI-PLD activity was determined bytriton-X114 phase partitioning procedure. GPI-PLD mRNA expression was detected by semi-quantitative RT-PCR. The relationship of GPI-PLD activity, mRNA expression and leukemia type, hepatosplenomegaly and/or lymphadenopathy was analyzed. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Compared with control group, GPI-PLD activity and mRNA expression in bone marrow mononuclear cells were significantly higher in AML group (P < 0.01), while they were significantly lower in the ALL group (P < 0.01). Of 43 patients with AML patients, 13 patients had hepatosplenomegaly and/or lymphadenopathy. The GPI-PLD activity (%) and mRNA expression were significantly higher in AML patients without hepatosplenomegaly and lymphadenopathy than those patients with hepatosplenomegaly and/or lymphadenopathy (P < 0.05). These results demonstrated that GPI-PLD activity alteration is consistent with GPI-PLD mRNA expression in AML patients, and the expression levels correlate to leukemia type and hepatosplenomegaly and/or lymphadenopathy of AML patients.

Objective To investigate prevalence and risk factors of peripheral artery disease (PAD), metabolic syndrome (MS) and peripheral artery disease complicated with metabolic syndrome among Kazakh adults lived in Xinjiang Yili prefecture. Methods Four-stage cluster sampling method was used to select adults aged 35 years and over for the study from six cities and prefectures of Xinjiang. All the participants were interviewed with questionnaire to collect their demographic characteristics. Physical checksup and blood biochemical measurements were performed for all of them, as well as blood pressure was measured in their lower legs and arms to calculate ankle brachial pressure index ( ABPI), a ratio of the blood pressure in the lower legs to that in the arms. Only data of Kazakh adults in Yili prefecture were analyzed in this paper, including prevalence and risk factors for PAD and MS, as well as their relationship.The patients with PAD were divided into two groups, one complicated with MS and the other without it Logistic regression analysis was used to identify potential risk factors for PAD and MS and their combination.Results A total of 1365 adult Kazakh people were surveyed. Prevalence of MS was 23.7 percent, 30.4 percent for men and 19.0 percent for women, respectively, and that of PAD was 9. 4 percent, 7.0 percent for men and 11.0 percent for women, respectively. Mean age in patients of PAD complicated with MS was older than that in those without MS (t=-5.348, P＜0.01). Risk of PAD complicated with MS in Kazakh people associated with gender ( men), age, systolic pressure, diastolic pressure and blood glucose level.(P＜0.05). Conclusions Both prevalence of PAD and MS are significantly higher among Kazakh people in Yili prefecture of Xinjiang, and increase with age. Prevalence of PAD is significantly higher in those with MS than that in those without MS. Risk factors of PAD complicated with MS include gender(men), age,systolic pressure, diastolic pressure and blood glucose level.