BACKGROUND: What kind of traumatic changes could be observed in remote lumbar spinal cord after high-speed steel ball induced sciatic nerve injury?OBJECTIVE: To study the ultra structural changes of lumbar spinal cord motor neurons after the sciatic nerve injury due to high-speed steel ball.DESIGN: Retrospective randomized controlled study with experimental animals as subjects.SETTING: The field operation research institute of a military medical university college.MATERIALS: This study was carried out at the Ballistic Laboratory of Research Institute for Surgery from May 2001 to December 2002. Sixty-five SPF flap-eared rabbits of either gender weighing from 2.5 to 3.0 kg were provided by the Experimental Animal Center of Daping Hospital Affiliated to the Third Military Medical Univeristy of Chinese PLA. All the rabbits were divided randomly into normal control group( n = 5), firearms injury group (n = 30) and cutting injury group( n = 30) . The two latter groups were subdivided into one-day, three-day, one-week, two-week, 4-week and twelve-week groups with 5 rabbits in each group.METHODS: The rabbits in the firearms injury group were injured at the midpoint of lateral posterior body surface projection of the right sciatic nerve with 0. 38 g steel ball containing 0.65 g detonators. The right sciatic nerve was cut at the same injury level in the cutting injury group.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The following pathologic changes of the lumbar spinal cord were observed with optical and electronic microscope at posttraumatic day 1, day 3 and week 1, week 2, week 4 and week 12 respectively.RESULTS: Micro-hemorrhage, neuron swelling and vacuoles were observed in the firearms injury group and the number of motor neurons decreased significantly, but these changes were unobservable in the cutting injury group.CONCLUSION: Compared with the cutting group, the injury to the spinal cord was severer in the firearms group and the survival neurons were less.

The DNA fragment RM07 was isolated from halophilic archaea Halobacterium halobium, which can function as promoter not only in halophilic archaea, but also in Escherichia coli as eubacterial promoter. Sequencing analysis indicated that it possessed the typical consensus sequences (-35 and -10) of bacterial gene promoter, which was confirmed by further deletion analysis: With its -35 sequence deleted and -10 sequence left,DNA fragment RM07a nearly cannot initiate transcription;With its both -35 and -10 sequences,RM07b DNA fragment could be active as promoter at a level even higher than RM07. Our research also showed that the promoter function of RM07 fragment in Escherichia coli was under the control of environmental factors,especially its positive correlation with the increasing concentration of sodium chloride. Therefore, RM07 DNA fragment may be potential1 novel promoter source for constructing double-function vectors. It also has special significance in elucidating the issues of the fusing characteristics of archaea and lateral gene transfer between archaea and bacteria.

Animals ; Animals, Newborn ; Cell Hypoxia ; Cell Lineage ; Cell Proliferation ; Cells, Cultured ; Oligodendroglia ; cytology ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley

ObjectiveTo explore the effects of different health management on adults with prediabetes.MethodsA total of 1182 pre-diabetics were enrolled in this prospective observation study and assigned to one-by-one interview group,in situ education group,communicative interview group and control group.Three intervention groups received life style intervention ( including health education and risk factor control) for 2 years.Analysis ofvariance,x2 test or q test were used for data analysis.ResultsAfteryear intervention,fasting plasma glucose (FPG)and 2 h plasma glucose of the intervention groups were significantly decreased ( P ＜ 0.05 ).FPG of the one-by-one interview group and the in situ education group was significantly lower than that of the communicative interview group at 6 months ( P ＜ 0.05 ). At 24months,FPG of the one-by-one interview group was lower than that of the in situ education group (P ＜0.05).The percentage of participants who showed appropriate blood glucose control was increased in the intervention groups. In addition,blood pressure,triglyceride,cholesterol,creatinine and body weight of those in the intervened groups were significantly improved compared with the control group ( all P ＜ 0.05 ),although electrocardiogram results and arteriosclerosisshowed nosignificant changes(P ＞ 0.05 ).Conclusion Health management may contribute to life style change and hypertension control of prediabetics.Furthermore,in situ education may be the most effective life style interventions.

Adult ; Female ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Lead ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Occupational Exposure ; prevention & control ; Occupational Health ; Occupational Health Services ; Stearates ; Young Adult

AIM: To evaluate the changes in central corneal thickness (CCF) caused by mydriasis with Mydrin-P.METHODS: A total of 106 eyes of 53 patients with refractive errors were studied. Each eye had instillation of Mydrin-P to obtain mydriasis. CCT was examined before and after mydriasis using ultrasonic pachymeter.RESULTS: CCT increased significantly after mydriasis with Mydrin-P.CONCLUSION: Mydrin-P can affect the measurement of CCT.

AIM:To investigate the effects of estrogen on the expression of matrix metalloproteinases-2(MMP-2), tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-2(TIMP-2) and transforming growth factor-β1(TGF-β1) in cultured human corneal stromal cells.METHODS: Inflammatory environments of human corneal stromal cells were simulated by using 1.5ng/mL IL-1β.The cells were then treated with or without different concentrations of estrogen(0, 1×10-4, 1×10-6, 1×10-8, 1×10-10mol/L estradiol)in vitro.Cell viability was evaluated by MTT.Expression levels of MMP-2, TIMP-2 and TGF-β1 proteins were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA).RESULTS:Estrogen did not affect the viability of human corneal stromal cells.Compared with the control group, expression levels of MMP-2 and TGF-β1 proteins in E2 treatment group significantly decreased after being treated with estrogen, while the expression level of TIMP-2 significantly increased.CONCLUSION: Estrogen could, to some extent, down-regulate the expression of MMP-2 and TGF-β1 and up-regulate the expression of TIMP-2, which might contribute to protecting human cornea.

Objective To analyze retrospectively the MR features of MELAS patients,in order to improve the early diagnosis of MELAS.Methods MR data of 1 6 MELAS patients confirmed by clinical diagnose and muscle biopsy were retrospectively analyzed. MR features of plain scan(n=1 6),ASL(n=3),MRA(n=1 5),DWI(n=14)and MRS(n=3)were analyzed.Results MRI data demonstrated brain lesions mainly distributed in posterior cerebral hemisphere extending to subcortical area,which was not consistent with the vascular supply territories.The lesions were observed as low signal on Spin-echo sequence of T1 WI,while high signal on T2 WI, FLAIR and DWI.The focal lesions showed increasing Lac peak on MRS.Fifteen of 16 patients underwent MRA and one showed increased arterial branches in lesion zones.Three patients had ASL scanning demonstrating high irrigation in lesion zones which would wander once relapsed.Meanwhile,old lesions showed encephalatrophy and cerebromalacia.All patients’muscle biopsy pathology showed ragged red muscle fibers.Under electron-microscopic,bioblasts were bigger and more than average level and muscle fibers atrophied.Mitochondrial DNA sequence of 3 patients showed mtDNA A3243G transgenation.Conclusion The DWI,MRS and ASL sequences show good ability in MELAS diagnosis and differential diagnosis.

Objective To retrospectively analyze and compare the curative outcome of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) from HLA identical siblings vs intensive immunosuppression therapy (IST) for severe aplastic anemia (SAA).Methods From January 2008 to December 2010,41 patients with severe aplastic anemia were treated with related HSCT (n =14) or IST (n =27) which combined antithymocyte globulin (ATG) with cyclosporine-A (CsA) therapy.Results All the patients receiving HSCT reached complete response.Among the patients receiving IST,21 patients could be responsive to the therapy,and 2 patients died.There was significant difference in the response rate between HSCT group and IST group (100 ％ vs 77.8 ％,P＜0.01 ).Conclusion With the improvement of HSCT technology,the curative outcome of HSCT from HLA identical siblings for SAA is much better than IST.

Objective To analyze the outcome of idarubicin-intensified myeloablastive conditioning regimen in allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (allo-PBSCT) in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Methods From August 2004 to July 2009, 12 patients with MDS were treated with alIo-PBSCT following the idarubicin-intensified conditioning regimen. The conditioning regimen was idarubicin (15 mg/m~2), continuous intravenous infusion for 20 h, days-12 to-10; busulfan (0.8 mg/kg), intravenous infusion every 6 h, days-6 to-4; cyclophosphamide (1.8 g/m~2), intravenous infusion every 6 h, days-3 to-2; cyclosporine A combined with short-term methotrexate was used for the prophylaxes of acute graft versus host disease (aGVHD). Results All twelve patients achieved Trilineage engraftment, and were well tolerated to this regimen. Eight patients survived, and the overall survival was 66.7%, disease-free survival (DFS) 58.3%. Two patients relapsed. OS for neither WHO subgroups nor IPSS subgroups had statistically significant difference. Conclusion Allo-PBSCT with idarubicin-inteusified conditioning regimen is an effective treatment with reduction of the relapse rate for MDS patients.