BACKGROUND:We tried to combine 8-bromo-7-methoxychrysin and sorafenib in order to offset the tolerance of hepatocelular cancer stem cels to sorafenib, thereby comprehensively improving the therapeutic efficacy on hepatocelular carcinoma. OBJECTIVE:To observe the effects of 8-bromo-7-methoxychrysin, sorafenib and their combination on apoptosis of liver cancer stem-like cels SMMC-7721, and to analyze their mechanisms. METHODS:SMMC-7721 cels were treated with 8-bromo-7-methoxychrysin, sorafenib alone and their combination for 24 hours. Then, flow cytometry was used to detect cel apoptosis and western blot assay was used to determine nuclear factor-κB protein expression. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Compared with 8-bromo-7-methoxychrysin group and sorafenib group, the apoptotic rates of SMMC-7721 cels were significantly enhanced after treatment with the combination of 8-bromo-7-methoxychrysin group and sorafenib (2.5, 5, 10, 50 μmol/L), and meanwhile, the protein expression of nuclear factor-κB was down-regulated significantly. These findings indicate that the combined therapy of 8-bromo-7-methoxychrysin group and sorafenib can enhance the apoptosis of SMMC-7721 cels, which may be associated with down-regulation of nuclear factor-κB protein.

Objective To explore the effects of anti-tumor immunity induced by dendritic cells (DCs) vaccine pulsed with PEP3-KLH (keyhole limpet hemocyanin) on induction of specific immunity against prostate cancers.Methods DCs were propagated from bone marrow of C57BL/6 mice in vitro with granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and interleukin-4 (IL-4).On day 5 of culture, DCs were harvested and incubated with PEP3-KLH or KLH.Then the DC vaccine was inoculated into C57BL/6 mice by subcutaneous injection for three times with an interval of two weeks.One week after the last vaccination, the levels of IL-2, IL-12, and interferon (IFN)-γwere measured with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit.The aforementioned immunized mice with DC vaccines were challenged with transgenic adenocarcinoma of mouse prostate (TRAMP)-C2 tumor cells, the tumor growth curve was drawn, and survival rate was checked and compared.The cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) activity induced by DCs was tested with lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release method.The percentages of CD3 + , CD4+ ,or CD8 + T cells in tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) were determined with flow cytometry.Results PEP3-KLH-DC group stimulated the body and induced higher levels of secreted IL-2, IL-12, and IFN-γ compared to DCs control and KLH-DC groups (P ＜ 0.01).The tumor of mice vaccinated with PEP3-KLHDC grew significantly slower than that injected with DCs or KLH-DC (P ＜0.01).Compared to the others, the survival rate in PEP3-KLH-DC group raised remarkably (P ＜ 0.01).PEP3-KLH-DC group induced more outstanding specific CTL activities of killing tumor cells than DCs control group and KLH-DC group (P ＜ 0.01), and the cytotoxicities of TILs in PEP3-KLH-DC group was significantly enhanced (P ＜0.01).The percentages of CD3 + , CD4 + , or CD8 + T cells in TILs (40.9％, 34.1％) in PEP3-KLH-DC group were significantly higher than those in DC-KLH (27.3％, 5.2％) or DCs (26.2％, 5.1％) group.Conclusions PEP3-KLH-DC vaccine can inhibit effectively tumor growth, enhance long-term survival in mice,intensify the local immunologic function of tumor, and elicit and promote profound specific anti-prostate cancer cellular immune responses.

Functions of the 3′untranslated regions (3′UTR) of eukaryotic mRNAs are complicated. They can control the stability and intracellular localization of mRNAs, and direct the translation of special amino acids. Mutations in the 3′UTR of some mRNA can cause serious diseases, and recent studies showed that the 3′UTR of some eukaryotic mRNAs possess tumor-suppression function.

OBJECTIVE: To observe the effects of warming spleen and stomach for dispersing phlegm recipe (Wenzhong Xiaotan Recipe, WZXTR), a compound traditional Chinese herbal medicine, on expression of interleukin-8 (IL-8) in S(180) tumor tissue in mice, and to explore the effectiveness and its mechanism. METHODS: Fifty mice were randomly divided into five groups: untreated group, cold water-treated group, cold water and WZXTR-treated group, cold water and dispersing phlegm and eliminating stagnation recipe (Xiaotan Sanjie Recipe, XTSJR, another compound traditional Chinese herbal medicine) treated group, cold water and tegafur-treated group. Mice in the latter 4 groups were fed 0-4 degrees centigrade cold distilled water 10 ml/(kg x d) one week before tumor inoculation for 3 weeks. Mice in the 5 groups were inoculated neoplastic cells which were diluted 2 x 10(7)/ml with normal saline in the right armpit at the second week. Forty-eight hours later, the mice were given drugs intragastrically (WZXTR, XTSJR and tegafur, respectively). The mice were continually intervened by cold water in the morning and given drugs in the afternoon. Mice in the cold water-treated group were given normal saline, and nothing was given in untreated group. Morphology appearance and changes of rectal temperature were observed, and the tumor weight and volume were measured and inhibitory rate was calculated 22 days after tumor inoculation. IL-8 was detected by avidin-biotin system-enzyme-labeled immunosorbent assay (ABC-ELISA) and real-time reverse polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR). RESULTS: The content of IL-8 in tumor tissue of the untreated group was significantly higher than that of the other groups (P<0.01), and that of the cold water-treated group was higher than that of the cold water and WZXTR-treated group (P<0.01) and the cold water and XTSJR-treated group (P<0.05), respectively. The gray scale value of cDNA amplification strap was descent more evidently in both the cold water and WZXTR-treated group and the cold water and XTSJR-treated group as compared with that of the cold water-treated group and the untreated group (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: WZXTR can restrain tumor growth, and the mechanism may be that it can degrade the expression of IL-8 in S180 tumor.

Objective:To explore influence of negative emotions on prognosis of patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) .Methods :Self‐rating anxiety scale (SAS) and self‐rating depression scale (SDS) were used to assess 90 patients undergoing PCI .According to the score results ,patients were divided into pure depression group (n=28 ,occupied 31.11% ) ,pure anxiety group (n=22 ,24.44% ) ,anxiety com‐plicated depression group (n= 25 ,27.78% ) and normal group (n = 15 ) . All patients were followed up for 12 months ,and Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze risk factors for major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) .Results:Incidence rates of MACE in pure depression group ,pure anxiety group and anxiety complicated depression group were significantly higher than that of normal group (42.86% vs .40.91% vs .64.00% vs .6.67% , P<0.05 or <0.01) ,and that of anxiety complicated depression group was significantly higher than those of pure depression group and pure anxiety group (P<0.05 both) .Logistic regression analysis indicated that anxiety ,depres‐sion ,anxiety complicated depression were risk factors for MACE (OR = 1.49 ,2.16 ,3.28 , P < 0.05 or < 0.01) . Conclusion : Most patients undergoing coronary intervention possesses negative emotions ,which are risk factors for adverse clinical events and affect their prognosis .

AIM:To make compound demethycantharidin(including Radix astragali and Rhizoma bletillae) into stomach remaining-floating sustained-release preparation. METHODS:Radix astragal and Rhizoma betillae pulverized to superfine powders were combined with hydrophilic gel to manufacture stomach remaining-floating sustained-release tablet(floating tablet). RESULTS:The tablet started to drift in 3 min in the artificial gastric juice and float lasted for more than 8 h. By isotopic tracering,the floating tablets given on an empty stomach were retarded for 2-3 h and on large meal for 4-5 h in combination with ordinary tablet only retarded for 1 h. A pharmacopoeia dissolution method was set up to determine the release. 50% of tablets were disintegration in 5 h,70% in 8 h. The t 1/2 was 5.1 h(2-4 h for ordinary tablets),and the MRT was 8.3 h(3.3 h for ordinary tablets),and the remaining-floating sustained-release tablets showed a relative bioavailability of 230.71%. CONCLUSION:Pretreatment of raw herbs from compound demethylcantharidin and selection of the excipients will help to produce the herb-containing floating tablet.

Objective To investigate the transfer rate of alkaloids in extraction and purification process of Cortex Phellodendri Amurensis (CPA) and to ascertain the optimal purification technology.Methods We purified the alkaloids from Cortex Phellodendri Amurensis by AB-8 macroporous resin.With the contents of berberine hydrochloride and palmatine hydrochloride as the reference indexes,content determination of alcohol extract,sample solution and eluent from AB-8 macroporous resin were determined by HPLC.Results The optimal technology was as follows:using 8-fold 75 %(V/V) ethanol as extract,extracting for 3 times and lasting one hour for each time.The transfer rate of alkaloids was 83.75 %under the above condition.The transfer rate of alkaloids was about 80 %when the concentration of sample solution(pH value being 8 and centrifugation) was 0.1 g/mL,and the transfer rate of alkaloids in eluent was 75.14 %.Conclusion The optimum technology is stable and feasible,and the purification effect of alkaloids from Cortex Phellodendri Amurensis by AB-8 macroporus resin is good.

Objective:To solve the problems in intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) planning, such as large labor cost and high dependence on the experience of physicists and great inconsistency in the quality of plan, and to discuss an unsupervised automatic treatment planning procedure of IMRT.Methods:The eclipse scripting application programming interface (ESAPI) within the Eclipse treatment planning system (TPS) 15.6 and optimization parameters tree search algorithm (OPTSA) were used to emulate and realize the whole planning process. Interacted with the TPS through ESAPI, relevant dosimetric parameters were input and output. The OPTSA evaluated the plan qualities based on dosimetric parameters of the targets and organs at risk (OARs) and iteratively adjusted the optimization objective parameters to achieve a progressively improving IMRT plan. In order to verify the effectiveness of the automatic planning, twenty historical rectum cancer cases were selected from the clinical database, and the dose distribution and specific dosimetric parameters were compared between the plans generated by the OPTSA and the manual plans under the same constraints.Results:All the auto plans have met clinical requirements. Furthermore, 90% and 10% of the auto plans were deemed as clinically improved and equally compared with the manual plans, respectively. The average CI for the PTV was 0.88 and 0.80 for the auto and manual plans respectively. Compared with the manual plans, the mean doses of all the OARs in the auto plans were reduced by 11% in average. The average elapsed time of automatic planning and manual planning was (28.15±3.61) and (36.7±4.6) min, respectively.Conclusions:The plans created by the proposed algorithm have been shown to be at least as good as the manual plans. In addition, this method can shorten the labor time in plan designing while ensuring the plan quality and consistency of the plan.

Objective:To investigate the performance of W2 plastic scintillator in megavolt photon and electron beams.Methods:The photon and electron beam energy provided by linear accelerator was used to collect data of the W2 scintillator. The parameters include the electrometer reading stability, W2 dose and dose rate linearity, and angular response. And the dose uncertainty of the W2 correction factors was also investigated.Results:The standard deviation of the electrometer reading stability was between 0.03 and 0.47. The linear regression factors of W2 dose were all 1.0; the maximum deviation of the dose rates was 0.61%. The Cerenkov light radiation correction factor(CLR) for 6 and 10 MV were 0.741 and 0.746, respectively, and the CLR for 6, 9, 12 and 15 MeV were 0.750, 0.753, 0.757 and 0.757, respectively. The maximum deviation of dose uncertainty for 15 MeV was 3.15%.Conclusions:The signal obtained by the blue and green channel was no angular dependence, the same as the high-energy electron beam, which verified that the Cerenkov radiation correction factor has good linearity. W2 plastic scintillator can be applied to non-coplanar radiotherapy dosimetry.

Objective To evaluate vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression and micro-vascular density (MVD),and their clinicopathological significance in clear cell renal carcinoma (CCRCC).Methods Immunohistochemistry method was used to examine the expression of VEGF.CD34 staining endo-thelial cells were applied to measure the MVD.Results Sixty-six cases of CCRCC were collected.VEGF ex-pressions in 36(54.5%) cases were positive.No significant relationship was detected between VEGF expres-sion and clinicopathological parameters.The MVD value was 12-96.3.The levels of MVD were significantly lower in advanced TNM staging (P=0.000),high grading (P=0.005) and metastasized tumors (P=0.011).In larger tumors,the cases of MVD 50(26.7%) were much less than those of MVD <50 (73.3%).There was no significant relationship between the expression of VEGF and MVD,and neither of them was correlated with the renal capsule infiltration.Conclusion The overexpression of VEGF in CCRCC shows that it may be the target molecule for treatment.The value of MVD is inversely correlated with the grad-ing and staging of CCRCC,indicating its significance in the prognosis assessment of CCRCC.