Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; Humans ; Isoflavones ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Phytoestrogens ; Plant Preparations ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Plants, Medicinal ; chemistry ; Platelet Aggregation Inhibitors ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Pueraria ; chemistry ; Scutellaria baicalensis ; chemistry

Objective To evaluate the effect of medicial and surgical treatment for juvenile hyperthyroidism.Methods Ortapazole was administ rated separately in drug therapy group for 1.5-2 years.Bilateral subtotal thyroidectomy was done in surgical therapy group.Results In drug therapy group,effective rate was 60 percent in 6 months and 70 percent in one year.Recurrence rate was 40 percent after drug withdrawal in 2 years curative rate was 60 percent.In surgical therapy group,the average stay in hospital was 16 days.There was no nerve injury,parathyroidal hypofunction,thyroid crisis or hypothyroidism complications,with 100 percent curative rate after 2 years′ followup.Postoperative growth and development were normal.Conclusions Surgical treatment may be suitable for those who have no response to drug therapy,with recurrence after drug withdrawal,whose compression symptom was obvious,with moderate and severe hyperthyroidism or those who could not take medicine persistently.Bilateral subtotal thyroidectomy applied in juvenile hyperthyroidism could achieve quick and better recovery,and has no influence on the juvenile growth and development.

Isolated alkaloids from Coptis chinensis Franch. The compounds were identified as berberine, columbamine, groenlandicine, jatrorrhizine, magnoflorine, corydaldine and ferulic acid methylester. Then measured their bitter degree based on the electronic tongue and evaluated the antibacterial. The results based on the Electronic Tongue showed that berberine, columbamine, groenlandicine and jatrorrhizine have higher bitter degree than magnoflorine and corydaldine. And they also appeared better antibacterial activity on E. coli and S. aureus. The correlation coefficients between bitter degree and the two bacteria antibacterial activity were 0.983 and 0.911. So there was close relationship between the bitter degree and antibacterial activity of bitter components. Thus, it is confirmed further that bitter components are the material foundation of medicinal effectiveness of bitter herbs.
Aporphines ; analysis ; Berberine ; analogs & derivatives ; analysis ; Berberine Alkaloids ; analysis ; Biomedical Research ; instrumentation ; methods ; Coptis ; chemistry ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; analysis ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Electronics ; instrumentation ; methods ; Escherichia coli ; drug effects ; growth & development ; Microbial Sensitivity Tests ; Reproducibility of Results ; Staphylococcus aureus ; drug effects ; growth & development ; Taste

OBJECTIVE: To realize the automated assessment of the levels of epiphysis of distal radius and ulna by support vector machine (SVM). METHODS: The X-ray films of the left wrist joints were taken from 140 teenagers aged from 11 to 19 years old as training samples. The levels of epiphysis of distal radius and ulna were divided into five developmental levels. Each level contained 28 samples. Another 35 cases were selected as independent verifying samples. SVM classification models of the five developmental levels of epiphysis of distal radius and ulna were established. The internal cross validation was made by leave one out cross validation (LOOCV), while the external validation was made by histogram of oriented gradient (HOG), and then the accuracy (PA) of testing results was calculated, respectively. RESULTS: The PA of SVM, LOOCV and HOG of distal radius epiphyseal level were 100%, 78.6%, and 82.8%, respectively; whereas the PA of SVM, LOOCV and HOG of distal ulna epiphyseal level were 100.0%, 80.0% and 88.6%, respectively. CONCLUSION The SVM-based automatic models of the growth stage of distal ra- dius and ulna appear to have certain feasibility, and may provide a foundation for software development of bone age assessment by forensic medicine.
Adolescent ; Bone Development/physiology* ; Child ; Epiphyses/growth & development* ; Female ; Humans ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/methods* ; Male ; Radius/growth & development* ; Support Vector Machine ; Ulna/growth & development* ; Wrist/growth & development* ; Wrist Joint/growth & development* ; Young Adult

ObjectiveTo study the relevant effect of proinflammatory cytokines interelenkin-17(IL-17), -6 and endothelin-1 (ET-1) on statins attenuating no-reflow phenomenon after myocardial ischemia-reperfusion in rats.MethodsEighteen healthy male Wistar rats were randomly divided into 3 groups according to body weight: sham operation, injury, preconditioning groups. The preconditioning group was given atorvastatin 2 mg·kg-1 ·d-1 and the other two groups were given the same volume of saline once. After 7 days, the rats were anesthetized with an intraperitoneal injection of chloral hydrate, and then the thoracic cavity was opened. The coronary artery of injury group and preconditioning group were ligated for 60 minutes, and then opened for 15 minutes, to establish the rat acute myocardial ischemia-reperfusion model. The sham operation group was was treated with a seam through the coronary artery without ligation. Eleetrocardiogram was checked before ligation, and ligation was carried out for 15, 30, 45 minutes and then reperfusion for 15 minutes. After reperfusion for 15 minutes, the thioflavine S and Even's were injected from femoral venous, then the heart and blood were obtained(keeping left ventricular only). Hearts were flushed with saline and sliced transversely into five to seven sections. Finally, observed at 365 nm wave length the existence of non-fluorescent areas, which was no-reflow zone. The level of serum IL-17, IL-6 and ET-1 was detected by ELISA. Results The electrocardiogram confirmed that the sham operation group had no ischemic damage and the model of myocardial ischemia- reperfusion was established in preconditioning group and injury group. The noreflow phenomenon could be observed under 365 nm wave length in preconditioning group and injury group. The ligated area[LA％, (57.34 ± 11.49)％, (53.08 ± 8.66)％] of injury group and preconditioning group was higher than that of sham operation group(0, all P ＜ 0.05); the area of no-reflow[ANF％, (48.96 ± 6.94)％, (21.37 ±3.35)％] of injury group and preconditioning group was higher than that of sham operation group(0, all P ＜ 0.05),and the ANF％ of preconditioning group was lower than that of injury group(P ＜ 0.05) ; the level of serum IL-17,IL-6 and ET-1[(151.67 ± 11.19) × 10-9, (167.89 ± 5.13) × 10-9, (322.37 ± 19.08) × 10-9 g/L] of injury group was higher than those of sham group and preconditioning operation group[(49.75 ± 14.06) × 10-9, (59.32 ± 5.26) ×10-9, (109.9 ± 12.12) × 10-9, (90.45 ± 11.63) × 10-9, (112.47 ± 10.40) × 10-9 and(198.91 ± 27.88) × 10-9 g/L,P ＜ 0.05], the level of serum IL-17, IL-6 and ET-1 of preconditioning group was higher than those of sham operation group(P＜ 0.05). Conclusionsno-reflow phenomenon is related with IL-17 and ET-1 which can promote the expression of IL-6, statins decreases the expression of IL-17 and ET-1, and then decreases the on-reflow phenomenon.

Objective To construct transgenic mice tissue-specifically co-expressing human DAF/CD59 in the vascular endothelia and to investigate the ability to protect against human comple- ment-mediated attack.Methods Transgenic mice were generated by co-microinjection of hDAF/CD59 expression constructs driven by the human intercellular adhesion molecule-2(ICAM-2)promoter.PCR and Southern blot of genomic DNA were used to assess the presence of hDAF/CD59 in the genome of the founders,and the expression at protein level was measured by flow cytometry.Immunohistochemis- try was used to detect the distribution of hDAF/CD59.An ex vivo perfusion model was used to com- pare hearts from these hDAF/CD59 transgenic mice with hDAF hearts.Results After microinjection of genes,11 of 135 mice born were shown to be double-transgenic,and human DAF/CD59 were ex- pressed on the surface of leucocytes in 6 of the 11 DAF/CD59-integrated mice.Expression levels of 6 founders ranged from 80% to 95% of that in human leucocytes.Human DAF/CD59 were strongly expressed in the vascular endothelia of heart,kidney,with little or no positive staining observed in non- endothelial cells.Compared to hDAF hearts that maintained approximately 20% maximum work during perfusion with 20% human plasma,these endothelial-specific hDAF/CD59 hearts were further protected with work maintained at 40% of the maximum level during 60 min.Conclusion The intro- duced hDAF/CD59 genes have been integrated and specifically expressed in the vascular endothelia. The endothelial co-expression of hDAF/CD59 can provide greater protection against human complement-mediated attack than the expression of hDAF alone.

AIMTo determine clonidine in rabbit plasma by LC-MS.

METHODSThe LC-MS system consisted of Waters Alliance 2790 HPLC and Micromass ZQ-4000 MS. The HPLC was performed by using XTerra C18 (150 mm x 2.1 mm ID, 5 microm). The mobile phase, consisting of acetonitrile/ammonium hydrogen carbonate solution, was maintained to a flow-rate of 0.2 mL x min(-1) and the linear gradient elution was adopted. Mass spectrum was obtained by using electrospray ionization interface and the m/z of SIM was 230.

RESULTSThe average recovery was high and the method was reproducible. The calibration curve showed good linearity in the range of 1 - 80 microg x L(-1), the lowest limit of detection was 0.05 microg x L(-1). The Cmax, AUC0-t, and Tmax value of the pharmacokinetics parameter were (27 +/- 9) microg x L(-1), (5,352 +/- 1,121) microg x L(-1), (79 +/- 17) h.

CONCLUSIONThe results demonstrated that the method had high sensitivity, good selectivity, accuracy and precision. It is used to determine the clonidine concentration in plasma. The transdermal patch can deliver clonidine to the surface of rabbit skin stably for periods of up to 1 week after a single application.

Administration, Cutaneous ; Animals ; Antihypertensive Agents ; administration & dosage ; blood ; pharmacokinetics ; Area Under Curve ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; methods ; Clonidine ; administration & dosage ; blood ; pharmacokinetics ; Rabbits ; Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization ; methods

OBJECTIVETo investigate the effects of metoprolol on cardiomyocyte apoptosis and caspase-8 activation after coronary microembolization(CME) in rats.

METHODSAdult rats were randomly assigned into CME group (intraventricular injection of 3000 microspheres with 42 µm in diameter), sham-operated group (0.1 ml saline) and CME plus metoprolol group (pretreatment with 3 bolus metoprolol 2.5 mg/kg intravenous injection at 10 minutes interval at 30 minutes before microspheres injection, n = 15, each group). Cardiac function was evaluated by echocardiography at 6 hours post various treatments. Cardiomyocyte apoptosis was detected with TUNEL staining and the expression of caspase-3 and caspase-8 was detected with Western blot analysis.

RESULTSCompared with sham-operated group, LVEF (72.68% ± 3.26% vs. 82.64% ± 3.43%, P < 0.05), fractional shortening (FS) (37.46% ± 2.38% vs. 42.85% ± 3.25%) and cardiac output (CO) [(0.101 ± 0.006) L/min vs. (0.162 ± 0.008) L/min] were significantly reduced while left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVEDd) [(6.22 ± 0.17) mm vs. (5.18 ± 0.43) mm] was significantly increased in CME group (all P < 0.05). Cardiac function [LVEF:73.94% ± 4.22%, FS:38.53% ± 2.03%, CO:(0.120 ± 0.012) L/min, LVEDd:(6.18 ± 0.27) mm] was similar in CME plus metoprolol group compared to CME group (all P > 0.05). The cardiomyocytes apoptosis rates (3.19% ± 1.23% vs. 0.18% ± 0.10%) and the levels of activated caspase-3 and caspase-8 proteins were significantly increased in CME group than in sham-operated group (all P < 0.05). The cardiomyocyte apoptosis rate (1.32% ± 0.28%) and the levels of activated caspase-3 and caspase-8 proteins were significantly lower in CME plus metoprolol group than in CME group (all P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONSMetoprolol pretreatment reduced post-CME myocardial apoptosis possibly through downregulating death receptor-mediated apoptotic pathway.

Animals ; Apoptosis ; drug effects ; Caspase 8 ; metabolism ; Coronary Occlusion ; drug therapy ; Disease Models, Animal ; Embolism ; drug therapy ; Ischemic Preconditioning, Myocardial ; Male ; Metoprolol ; therapeutic use ; Myocytes, Cardiac ; drug effects ; metabolism ; pathology ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley

OBJECTIVETo investigate the clinical effects of the Chinese traditional medicine Yougui Capsules and Wuziyanzong Pills on sperm viability and motility in patients with oligoasthenospermia.

METHODSA total of 80 infertile men oligoasthenospermia were equally randomized into a trial and a control group, the former treated with Yougui Capsules at 1.68 g tid, while the latter with Wuziyanzong Pills at 6 g bid, both for a course of 12 weeks. The sperm viability and motility of the patients were detected and compared before and after medication.

RESULTSAfter 12 weeks of medication, the sperm viability and percentages of grade a and grade a + b sperm were (65.7 +/- 13.1), (22.5 +/- 9.1) and (47.6 +/- 15.8)% in the trial group, significantly higher than (38.1 +/- 11.1), (13.2 +/- 6.8) and (24.1 +/- 10.9)% in the control (P<0.05). What's more, the above three parameters of the two groups were also significantly higher than those before medication, which were (31.9 +/- 16.9), (8.2% +/- 3.7) and (15.7 +/- 13.9)% in the former and (31.7 +/- 17.0), (7.9 +/- 4.5) and (16.9 +/- 13.6)% in the latter (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONBoth Yougui Capsules and Wuziyanzong Pills can improve sperm viability and motility in patients with oligoasthenospermia, and the former is even more efficacious than the latter.

Adult ; Asthenozoospermia ; therapy ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; therapeutic use ; Humans ; Male ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Phytotherapy ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo investigate the molecular mechanisms of effective ingredients of Astragalus-Salvia compound (ASC) in increasing placental blood supply, to provide thought for establishing an effective prevention and treatment of insufficient placental blood supply caused complications of pregnancy.

METHODSThe effective ingredients of ASC was isolated and abstracted and the rat model of inhibited nitric oxide synthesis was established by using L-Arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor. The mRNA expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in placental trophocyte and primordial micrangial endothelial cell was determined by using in situ hybridization at 12th day of pregnancy.

RESULTSThe VEGF mRNA expression was significantly lower in nitric oxide synthesis inhibited model rats than that in rats non-modeled, or in model rats treated by ASC abstracts or nitroglycerin (P < 0.05, P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONEffective ingredients of ASC may improve VEGF mRNA expression in placental trophocyte and vascular endothelial cell in early pregnancy, and thus be favorable for placental vascular net formation, trophocyte infiltration and mother-placental circulation constitution for increasing placental blood supply to prevent and treat the insufficient placental blood supply caused diseases such as pregnancy-induced hypertension syndrome.

Animals ; Astragalus membranaceus ; chemistry ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacology ; Endothelial Cells ; cytology ; Female ; Male ; Nitric Oxide ; biosynthesis ; Placenta ; cytology ; metabolism ; Pregnancy ; RNA, Messenger ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Salvia miltiorrhiza ; chemistry ; Trophoblasts ; metabolism ; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A ; biosynthesis ; genetics