Adrenocorticotropic Hormone ; therapeutic use ; Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor ; physiology ; Child, Preschool ; Female ; Humans ; Methyl-CpG-Binding Protein 2 ; genetics ; Mutation ; Rett Syndrome ; drug therapy ; genetics

Child ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 ; genetics ; Female ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Siblings

Objective To investigate the effects of pneumonia on gastroesophageal reflux(GER)of neonates.Methods The distal 24 h esophageal pH monitoring was performed in 30 neonates with pneumonia and 30 controls.The number of reflux episodes,the number of refluxover 5 min,the longest time of reflux,the total time of pH

Objective To investigate the percentage of Th17 cells and regulatory T cells in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) and observe the effects of methylprednisolone infusion on these cells.Methods The circulating Th17 cells and CD4+ CD25highT cells of 66 MG patients and 35 healthy controls were detected using four colour cytometry. The relationship between these cells and MGFA score in 18 MG patients and in 8 MG patients after methylprednisolone was infusion were also analyzed in this study. Results There was significant difference in the percentage of circulating Th17 cells between MG patients (2. 61% ±0. 28% ) and the healthy controls (0. 94% ± 0. 12%, Z = 4. 059, P = 0. 0001 ). Methylprednisolone therapy significantly reduced the percentage of circulating Th17 cells from 4. 72% ± 1.21% to 1.81% ± 0. 69%(Z = 1. 995,P = 0. 0460). In addition, the percentage of Th17 cells showed a positive correlation with MGFA score(r =0. 5359, P =0. 0219). Conclusions Circulating Th17 cells are elevated in MG patients.Methylprednisolone therapy can reduce such elevation, and this may be important in mediating symptomatic improvement in MG patients.

OBJECTIVETo study the effect of ethyl acetate fraction of Blumea balsamifera (BBE) residue on treating rats of adjuvant arthritis (AA) and its mechanism.

METHODThe rats were immunized with the Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA). After modeling, 28 days' treatment with BBE was performed. During the experimental process, rat mass, toe girth, arthritic index (AI), proliferation of immune organs and pathological section were measured. After treatment, blood samples were collected through fossa orbitalis vein for detection of serum SOD, MDA, GSH, NO, OH*, ALP, AST, ALT, NAG and SA content using colorimetric method and IL-1, IL-6, TNF-α content using ELISA method.

RESULTAdministration with BBE (high dose) could significantly ameliorate joint swelling and arthritis index, effectively inhibit synovial hyperplasia, down-regulate the levels of MDA, NO, OH*, ALP, AST, ALT, NAG, SA, IL-1, IL-6, TNF-α and up-regulate the SOD and GSH levels in serum.

CONCLUSIONThe results suggested BBE possesses substantial anti-arthritis and antioxidant activities.

Acetates ; Animals ; Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal ; administration & dosage ; isolation & purification ; Arthritis, Experimental ; blood ; drug therapy ; metabolism ; Asteraceae ; chemistry ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; administration & dosage ; isolation & purification ; Humans ; Interleukin-1 ; blood ; Interleukin-6 ; blood ; Male ; Malondialdehyde ; blood ; Oxidative Stress ; drug effects ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha ; blood

BACKGROUND:Clinical limb ischemia-reperfusion with no reflow phenomenon after vascular injury repair seriously affects the prognosis of patients. Therapeutic effect of hyperbaric oxygen in myocardial ischemia reperfusion is exactly confirmed, but hyperbaric oxygen is rarely reported in the treatment of limb ischemia-reperfusion.
OBJECTIVE:To detect the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor and intracellular adhesion molecule 1 and to investigate the effect of hyperbaric oxygen on the prognosis of limb ischemia-reperfusion with no reflow phenomenon.
METHODS:By clinical screening, cases of main arterial injury of the limbs were selected and subjected to vascular repair for restoring limb blood supply. After surgery, al the cases were randomly divided into two groups (Combined treatment group and surgical group), 16 cases in each group. Combined treatment group was treated with hyperbaric oxygen combined with clinical anticoagulant, antiplatelet treatment;surgical group treated with only postoperative clinical treatment. Another 16 adult healthy volunteers were selected to receive hyperbaric oxygen as hyperbaric oxygen group. Expressions of vascular endothelial growth factor and intracellular adhesion molecule 1 were detected using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay at 8, 72 hours and 7 days after surgery.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:In the combined treatment and surgical groups, patients exhibited higher expressions of vascular endothelial growth factor and intracellular adhesion molecule 1 than those in the hyperbaric oxygen group (P<0.01). After 72 hours, the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor was significantly higher in the combined
treatment group than the surgical group (P<0.01). At 8 and 72 hours, the expression of intracellular adhesion molecule 1 was lower in the combined treatment group than the surgical group (P<0.05). These findings suggest that hyperbaric oxygen can induce high expression of vascular endothelial growth factor and inhibit intracellular adhesion molecule 1, which is crucial for improving growth of blood capil ary, formation of endothelial cells, reducing no reflow phenomenon.

AIM:To establish a rat hyperlipidemia model for studying the aortic expression of heat shock protein 22 (HSP22), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and the effect of atorvasta-tin intervention.METHODS:Hyperlipidemia model was established in SD rats.Afterwards, the rats were divided into nor-mal control group, high fat group and high fat+atorvastatin intervention group.The expression of HSP22 and TNF-αin the rat aortas was detected by immunohistochemical assay and the expression of eNOS was assessed by Western blotting.RE-SULTS:No detectable expression of HSP22 and TNF-αin the normal control group was observed.However, the expression of HSP22 and TNF-αwas positive in the high fat group and the atorvastatin intervention group.The mean densities of HSP22 and TNF-αpositive particles were significant lower in the atorvastatin intervention group as compared with high fat group ( both P<0.05) .The expression of eNOS protein in the high fat group and atorvastatin intervention group was significantly lower than that in normal control group (P<0.01).However, no marked difference of eNOS protein expression between high fat group and atorvastatins intervention group was observed.CONCLUSION:The expression of HSP22 and TNF-αin the rat aortas is increased in the hyperlipidemia rat model.This effect can be restored by atorvastatin treatment.The expression of eNOS in the rat aortas is decreased in the hyperlipidemia rat model, but this tendency could not be attenuated by atorvastatin.

Objective To develop a computer-aided diagnosis(CAD)system with automatic contouring and morphologic and tex-tural analysis to aid on the classification of breast nodules on ultrasound images .Methods A modified Level Set method was pro-posed to automatically segment the breast nodules(46 malignant and 60 benign nodules) .Following ,16 morphologic features and 17 texture features from the extracted contour were calculated and principal component analysis(PCA)was applied to find the optimal feature vector dimensions .Fuzzy C-means classifier was utilized to identify the breast nodule as benign or malignant with selected principal vectors .Results The performance of morphologic features was 78 .30% for accuracy ,67 .39% for sensitivity and 86 .67%for specificity ,while the latter was 72 .64% ,58 .70% and 83 .33% ,respectively .After the combination of the two features ,the re-sult was exactly the same with the morphologic performance .Conclusion This system performs well in classifying the malignant breast nodule from the benign breast nodule .

Objective To observe the Pin1 expression pattern in skin and to establish an inducible skin specific Pin1 overexpression mouse model. Methods The mouse Pin1 gene was cloned into modified vector pTRE2 with C?terminal Myc tag. The linearized pTRE2?Pin1 DNA was micro?injected into one?cell embryos followed by implantation into foster mice to produce TRE?Pin1 transgenic mice. Results TRE?Pin1 transgenic founder mice were successfully created. These mice were crossed with transgenic tool mice K14?rtTA to create epithelial specific double transgenic progenies. Pin1 gene was induced by incorporating doxycycline into drinking water of the mice. Pin1 protein overexpression in the skin was con?firmed by Western blot and immunohistochemistry. The endogenous Pin1 protein was predominantly expressed in epidermal cells in the skin. Conclusions The inducible skin specific Pin1 overexpression mouse model is successfully established which may serve as a useful model for further study of Pin1 functions in the skin.

Objective To obtain the short peptides from phage-displayed random peptide library through screening the epitope of monoclonal antibody against tumor necrosis factor(TNF-?). Methods Anti-TNF-? was used to immunoscreen a phage random peptide library of 12 amino-acidresidues displayed as a fusion to protein Ⅲ of filamentous phage M13. The positive clones were obtained by three rounds of biopanning, and the reactivity of each clone binding to anti-TNF-? was examined by double-antibody sandwich ELISA and Dot-ELISA. Mixed positive phage clones were used to detect the serum from SLE patients and healthy persons by Dot-ELISA. Results The eluted phages were enriched nearly 100 fold through three rounds of biopanning, 7 phage clones from the third round biopanning were randomly selected and 5 clones of them could bind to the anti-TNF-?. The binding rate of mixed clones with SLE patients was significantly higher than that of healthy persons. Conclusion The phage display technique can be applied to study the anti-TNF-? antigenic peptides, and these epitopes provide the potential for developing immunodiagnostic reagents of vaccines.