Objective To explore the clinical value of real time contrast-enhanced ultrasound in diagnosis of liver localized fatty deletion and fatty infiltration which couldn't be confirmed by conventional ultrasonography. Methods Contrast-enhanced ultrasound was performed on 94 patients with liver localized diseases confirmed by baseline sonography, among them 34 patients with liver localized fatty deletion and fatty infiltration were enrolled. Results Contrast-enhanced ultrasonography didn't show apparent occupancy nidus in 34 patients. Enhancement mode of lesions was the same as liver parenchyma, which was distinctly different from liver occupancy diseases. Conclusion Real time contrast-enhanced ultrasound can display typical signs of liver localized fatty deletion and fatty infiltration and has significant value in diagnosis and differentiating diagnosis of them.

BACKGROUND: Cognitive function of simple leukoaraeosis (LA) and subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy (SAE) is a part of research in cerebrovascular neuropsychology, however, there is no contrast study on cognitive function between the two diseases. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the different features in cognitive function among patients with simple leukoaraeosis, subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy and simple leukoaraeosis combined with cerebral infarction. DESIGN: Randomized controlled observation SETTING: Department of Neurological Medicine, Qilu Hospital, ShandongUniversity. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 91 cases of patients with cerebrovasculardisease diagnosed in Department of Neurological Medicine of Qilu Hospital of Shandong University from March 1997 to May 2000 were selected. All the patients participated in the observation voluntarily. They were divided into 3 groups according to the type of disease, with 27 cases in simple leukoaraeosis group, 33 cases in subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathygroup and 31 cases in simple leukoaraeosis + cerebral infarction group.Additionally, 30 healthy cases were selected as control group. All the subjects in the above groups participated in the observation voluntarily. METHODS: Assessment on cognitive function and memory ability was conducted on the subjects in each group, and contrast analysis was performed. Mini-mental state examination was used for detecting cognitive function. Patients whose score was less than 17, 20, 22, 23 respectively according to different educational degree (illiteracy, primary school, middle school, university), would be diagnosed as dementia. Clinical me mory scale A edited by Psychology Institute of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences was used for detecting memory ability including associative learning, directive memory, recognition of nonsense figure, image free recall and portrait characteristics associative recall. Conversed the above 5 items of detecting results to scores of scales and calculated out the memory quotients. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: State of cognitive disorder and scoresof mini-mental state examination and clinical memory scale of subjects in each group. RESULTS: All the 91 cases of patients with cerebrovascular disease and 30 healthy control cases entered results analysis without any drop out. ① Comparison of the state of cognitive disorder among subjects in each group: There were 21 cases of mild cognitive disorder (77.8%) in simpleleukoaraeosis group, 8 cases of moderate cognitive disorder (24.2%) and 25 cases of dementia (75.8%) in subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy group, 6 cases of moderate cognitive disorder (19.4%) and 24 cases of dementia (77.4%) in simple leukoaraeosis + cerebral infarction group. ② Comparison of the scores of mini-mental state examination among and clinical memory scale: Scores of the two scales in simple leukoaraeosis group, subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy group and simple leukoaraeosis + cerebral infarction group were significantly lower than those in healthy control group (t=2.14-3.81, P ＜ 0.05-0.01). The scores in subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy group and simple leukoaraeosis+ cerebral infarction group were significantly lower than those in simple leukoaraeosis group (t=2.13-3.37, P ＜ 0.05-0.01).CONCLUSION: ① The cognitive impairment in simple leukoaraeosis is mainly mild cognitive disorder. ② The cognitive impairments in subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy and simple leukoaraeosis + cerebral infarction are mainly moderate cognitive disorder and dementia which are obviously severer than mild cognitive disorder. Cognitive function can be used as reference indicator for assessing simple leukoaraeosis and subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy.Liang LP, He Y, Guo HZ.A contrast between the cognitive function of patients with simple leukoaraeosis and subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy.

AIM: To evaluate the effects of glycemic control on refraction in diabetic patients. METHODS: Twenty newly diagnosed diabetic patients were included in this study. The random blood glucose, HbA1c levels, fasting C-peptide and postprandial 2h C-peptide were measured before treatment. The patients with random blood glucose higher than 12.0mmol/L and HbA1c level higher than 10.0% were selected. Refraction, intraocular pressure, radius of the anterior corneal curvature, depth of the anterior chamber, lens thickness, vitreous length, and axial length were measured on admission and at the end of week 1, 2, 3 and 4 during glycemic control.RESULTS: A transient hyperopic change occurred in all the patients receiving glycemic control. The maximum hyperopic change was 1.60D (range 0.50±3.20D). Recovery of the previous refraction occurred between two and four weeks after insulin treatment. There was a positive correlation between the maximum hyperopic changes and the HbA1c levels on admission (r=0.84, P<0.05). There was a positive correlation between the maximum hyperopic changes and the daily rate of blood glucose reduction over the first 7 days of the treatment (r=0.53, P<0.05). During transient hyperopia, no significant changes were observed in the intraocular pressure, radius of the anterior corneal curvature, depth of the anterior chamber, lens thickness, vitreous length and axial length.CONCLUSION: Transient hyperopic changes occur after glycemic control in diabetic patients with severe hyperglycemia. The degrees of transient hyperopia are highly dependent on HbA1c levels before treatment and the rate of reduction of the blood glucose level.

Fungal polyketide synthases are responsible for the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites such as pigments, mycotoxins, and they are very important in pharmacology , food science and agriculture. The recent advances in the methods for the isolation and manipulation of multiple classes of polyketide synthase genes from fungi were introduced. It is useful for discovery of novel fungal polyketide synthase gene clusters. These methods can also be useful for revealing the genetic potential of fungi to produce multiple types of bioactive polyketide.

Biomarkers, Tumor ; Humans ; Kidney ; Kidney Neoplasms ; Neoplasms

BACKGROUND: Many scholars have paid attentions on neural stem cells (NSCs), which are regarded as the cell source to repair the injured nervous tissues. And it is becoming a key point that NSCs will be obtained in an effective way.OBJECTIVE: To observe the characteristics of isolation, proliferation and differentiation of in vitro NSCs from subventricular zone (SVZ) and hippocampus of neonatal rats.DESIGN: Single-sample trial.SETTING: Department of Neurosurgery in the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University.MATERIALS: Ten SD rats aged 3 days, of either gender, were offered from the Experimental Animal Center of Sun Yat-sen University. Nestin antibody (rabbit-anti-rat), neurofilament (NF-200) antibody (rabbit-anti-rat), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) antibody (mice-anti-rat) were all purchased from Sigma Company.METHODS: The experiment was carried out in the Laboratory of Histology and Embryology, Basic Medical College of Sun Yat-sen University from September to December in 2006. According to the ethical requirement, the serum-free DMEM/F12 medium containing basic fibroblast growth factor and epidermal growth factor was utilized to isolate and incubate NSCs from SVZ and hippocampus of neonatal rats. Then the proliferation and differentiation of NSCs in vitro were observed.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Fluorescence immunocytochemistry was applied to detect the antigen of nestin expressed from NSCs, NF expressed from neuron cells and GFAP expressed from astrocytes. The differentiation of NSCs was identified.RESULTS: The cells isolated from SVZ and hippocampus of neonatal rats possessed the ability of proliferation and self-renewal. Through inverted microscope, nestin positive cells could be found in the cell clone sphere at passage 20 of cells. Cells induced to differentiate could express antigen of NF and GFAP by the attached cell clone sphere.CONCLUSION: The NSCs successfully isolated from SVZ and hippocampi of neonatal rats possess the ability of self-renewal, proliferation, and differentiation into neuron-like cells and astrocytes.

AIM: To establish a simple, rapid and accurate high performance liquid chromatographic method (HPLC) for the determination of cyclosporin A (CsA) in human whole blood, and to study the influence of nicotinylmethylamide (Nic) on the pharmacokinetic parameters of cyclosporin A (CsA). METHODS: Whole blood CsA concentrations were measured by HPLC in 18 healthy volunteers administrated single CsA or co administrated Nic. The data of time blood concentrations of CsA were analyzed by 3p97 Program. The analysis of variance and two one sided t test were used to compare the main pharmacokinetic parameters of CsA in the two administrations. RESULTS: C max and AUC 0～∞ of CsA had statistically significance between the single CsA group and co administration of Nic group (P0.05). CONCLUSION: This HPLC method is simple, sensitive and accurate, and is suitable for routine determination of blood CsA levels in human. Nic can improve the absorption of CsA and increase the C max and AUC of CsA, but has no influence on the metabolism of CsA.

Objective To explore the value of? red blood cell distribution width (RDW) changes in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) prognosis by analysing relationship between red blood cell distribution width, cardiac troponin I (cTnI) and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein. Methods 140 hospitalized patients with AMI were selected from May 2014 to October 2014 and devided into 2 groups. 70 patients without heart failure were AMI1 group and the other 70 patients with heart failure were AMI2 group. 70 cases of healthy persons were selected as control group. RDW was compared between three groups and the relationship between the level of RDW, cTnI and hs-CRP was analyzed. Evaluating value of RDW in predicting heart failure in AMI patients by using univariate logistic regression analysis and ROC curve analysis. Results In the comparison of AMI1 group, AMI2 group and control group, either of RDW, cTnI and hs-CRP showed a trend of increasing (P < 0.01). In the AMI patients , RDW level and cTnI level were positive correlation , and there was no linear correlation between RDW level and hs-CRP level. RDW≥14.55% was the independent risk factors in predicting heart failure in patients with AMI. Conclusion RDW≥14.55% can be an available independent predictor of the prognosis of AMI.

Pregnancy ; Female ; Humans ; Lymphohistiocytosis, Hemophagocytic/complications*

A sesquiterpene synthase (AsSS4) full-length open reading frame (ORF) cDNA was cloned from wounded stems of Aquilaria sinensis by RT-PCR method. The result showed that the ORF of AsSS4 was 1,698 bp encoding 565 amino acids. Prokaryotic expression vector pET28a-AsSS4 was constructed and transformed into E. coli BL21 (DE3) pLysS. Recombinant AsSS4 protein was obtained after induction by IPTG and SDS-PAGE analysis with a MW of 64 kD. Enzymatic reactions using farnesyl pyrophosphate showed that recombinant AsSS4 protein purified by Ni-agarose gel yielded five sesquiterpene compounds, cyclohexane, 1-ethenyl-1-methyl-2, 4-bis(1-methylethenyl)-, β-elemene, α-guaiene, α-caryophyllene and δ-guaiene. This paper reported the first cloning and functional characterization of AsSS4 gene from A. sinensis, which will establish a foundation for future studies on the molecular mechanisms of wound-induce agarwood formation in A. sinensis
Alkyl and Aryl Transferases ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Azulenes ; Cloning, Molecular ; DNA, Complementary ; Escherichia coli ; Open Reading Frames ; Polyisoprenyl Phosphates ; Recombinant Proteins ; biosynthesis ; Sesquiterpenes ; metabolism ; Sesquiterpenes, Guaiane ; Thymelaeaceae ; enzymology ; genetics