Objective To study whether tissue injury could be increased by double shock wave while it improves the efficiency of lithotripsy. Methods A series of experiment study on the tissue injury in vivo pigs with double and single shock wave as well as electromagnetic shock wave has been carried out. Results Under the conditions of 8 kV and 1 000 times concussion, the trauma range of kidney is 18 mm?15 mm?3 mm with single shock wave,and 14 mm?11 mm?2 mm with double shock wave,the trauma range of ureter is 42 mm with single shock wave and 30 mm with double shock wave.Under the same energy and concussion,the injury focus induced by double shock wave is small than that induced by single shock wave.Microstructure pathology shows that the characteristics of focus on renal artery,vein,glumeruli,renal tubules and ureter are similar. Conclusions Compared with the focus induced by single or by electromagnetic shock wave,the focus on the tissue of kidney and ureter induced by the double shock wave is smaller.

Observe the difference effect of the bed upside down and the routine methods for dis charge stone. Methods: 160 cases of patients with lower calyx stone were divided randomly into tow groups: the first group (80 cases) treated by the bed upside done for discharge stone; the second group (80 cases) treated by the routine discharge stone methods. The method of bed upside down: the patient lie on the bed, adjust the bed incline to upside down, vibrating the masseur which closed to the field of kidney had stone for 25 minutes; then adjust the bed to balance, asking the patient lie lateral, the kidney had stone is on up, vibration the masseur for 5 minutes. Two times every day. The routine discharge stone methods includes:①traditional drugs,②postural upside down, ③jumping and drinking. Results:The first group:56 cases who had residual stones in lower calyx af ter ESWL, had discharged all stones in 3～6 days; Of the 24 cases with the original stones in lower calyx, 12 cases discharge the stones in 16～21 days, 12 cases had not discharged their stones over 30 days. The second group: of the 54 cases who had residual stones in lower calyx after ESWL, 28 cases discharge all stones in 18～ 30 days,26 cases had not discharged their stones over 30 days; of the 26 cases with original stones in lower calyx, 3 cases had discharged their stones in 16～30 days, the 23 cases had not discharged their stones over 30 days. Con clusions: There are marked difference in the rate and time of discharge stone for the patients of residual stone in lower calyx after ESWL ( P ＜0. 01). There are marked difference in rate of discharge stone ( P＜0. 01) ,but no difference for the original lower calyx stone in time of discharge stone.

Objective To study the expression of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and hepcidin in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and their significance in anemia. Methods 45 DLBCL patients with or without anemia were analyzed. Peripheral blood samples were collected during diagnosis, and the concentrations of IL-6, hepcidin, serum ferritin and hemoglobin (Hb) were measured. 24 healthy volunteers were collected as controls. Results The levels of plasma hepcidin and IL-6 in patients with DLBCL were (347±171)μg/L and 0.27 ng/L (0-9.61 ng/L), respectively, and compared with those [(175 ± 92)μg/L] and 0 ng/L in healthy controls, the differences were statistically significant (both P<0.001). Plasma hepcidin levels in patients with high lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (P=0.003), B symptoms (P=0.040) or age-adjusted international prognostic index (IPI)>1 (P=0.010) were increased. The levels of IL-6 in patients of male (P=0.003), stage Ⅲ-Ⅳ (P=0.008) or IPI>1 (P=0.004) were significantly higher. The level of hepcidin was highly correlated with serum ferritin (r=0.77, P<0.001), weakly correlated with IL-6 (r=0.31, P=0.030), and not correlated with Hb (r=-0.12, P=0.3). There was a negative correlation between IL-6 expression and Hb (r=-0.35, P=0.009). Multivariate analysis showed that IL-6 could predict anemia (P=0.03), whereas hepcidin could not (P=0.89). Conclusion The elevated hepcidin level is frequent in DLBCL, and the elevated IL-6 plays the major role in the development of anemia.

AIM: To explore the regulatory effects of cytokines such as EGF, bFGF on expression of neural-specific molecules in mononuclear cells (MNCs) cultured in H-DMEM medium. METHODS: The umbilical cord blood samples were collected from health puerperal natural delivery. The mononuclear cells were isolated by centrifugation over Lymphoprep and planted in T-75 flasks containing H-DMEM medium with or without addition of EGF, bFGF or EGF plus bFGF at a final concentration of 20 ?g/L, respectively. Phenotypic changes were monitored by inverse phase-contrast microscopy. Tau and MAP2 mRNA were determined by reverse-transcript polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Tau and MAP2-positive cell were determined by immunocytochemistry. RESULTS: The expression of tau protein mRNA was negative in uncultured cells, but MAP2 mRNA was positive. In cultured cells, tau protein mRNA expressed positively, MAP2 mRNA expression was upregulated by EGF+bFGF, EGF or bFGF compared with control group (no cytokines). The upregulatory capability of EGF+bFGF to MAP2 mRNA expression was stronger than that of EGF or bFGF alone. The same upregulatory tendency was noted in tau mRNA expression. In the group of control, bFGF, EGF, EGF+bFGF, the rate of MAP2-positive cells was 14.4%, 19.6%, 25.6%, 33.5%, respectively. Tau protein-positive cells were 13.5%, 15.3%, 21.4%, 29.8%, respectively. Under inverse microscopy, the freshly isolated MNCs were small and round, after culturing, the cells became larger with some big, long cytodenrites in the EGF+bFGF group, with 1 or 2 threadlike cytodenrites in the EGF group, or with some short multi-dendron like-astrocyte in the bFGF group and control group, but the number of astrocyte-like cells in the control group was less than that in bFGF group. CONCLUSION: MNCs derived from human umbilical cord blood cells express some neural specific molecules and are upregulated by cytokines, especially EGF and bFGF, which have the synergetic action. [

Objective To assess the level and trend of community acquired respiratory distress syndrome (CARDS) toxin after the infection of Mycoplasma pneumonia(MP),and evaluate the clinical characteristics,the level of immunoglobulin E (IgE) and interleukin-4 (IL-4) so as to find the association among these factors.Methods According to whether the child had wheezing symptoms,all the 63 children were divided into wheezing group (26 ca-ses) and non-wheezing group (3 cases).The levels of CARDS toxin were respectively detected in the acute stage of MP infection,3 and 6 months later after MP infection in different groups,moreover,IgE and IL-4 levels were monitored at the same time.Results (1) The mean level of IgE were (384.96 ± 316.62) × 103 IU/L and (87.32 ± 66.32) × 103 IU/L in wheezing group and non-wheezing group,respectively,and there was statistically significant difference (P ＜ 0.05).(2) The load of CARDS toxin in wheezing group and non-wheezing group were (1.87 ± 0.62) Delta Rn and (1.15 ± 0.48) Delta Rn in the stage of acute infection,respectively,and there was statistically significant difference (P ＜ 0.05).Nevertheless,differences between 2 groups after 3 months and 6 months were not significant.(3) In the acute stage,the level of CARDS toxin in the severe cases were higher than the mild cases [(2.37 ± 0.37) Delta Rn vs (1.21 ± 0.45) Delta Rn],and there was statistically significant difference (P ＜ 0.05).(4) IL-4 showed significant difference in the acute stage and 3 months later after acute infection between 2 groups,however,there were no difference between 2 groups after 6 months later.(5)The load of CARDS toxin showed no significant difference between 2 groups at 3 months [(0.96 ± 0.35) vs.(0.99 ± 0.40) Delta Rn,P =0.757] and 6 months [(0.67 ± 0.20) vs.(0.69 ±0.32) Delta Rn,P =0.641] later after MP infection.(6)The children in wheezing group coughed for (24.89 ±7.04) days after acute infection and the last time for non-wheezing group was (16.46 ± 4.79) days,and there was statistically significant difference(P =0.000).Conclusions The load of CARDS toxin decreased after acute MP infection and it was still detectable six months after onset in the blood.The level of CARDS toxin was associated with the cough and wheezing symptom and the severity of disease.

Extracellular elastase-like protease is one of the key virulence proteases of Scedosporium aurantiacum. To date, little is known about this enzyme in terms of genetic information, structure, properties and virulence mechanism due to the difficulties in purification caused by its low secretion amount, high specific activity, uncompleted genome sequencing and annotation. This work investigated the gene, structure and enzymatic properties of this enzyme. The S. aurantiacum elastase-like protease from the fungal culture supernatant was analyzed through tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) approach, illustrating its primary structure. Bioinformatics tools were employed to predict the conserved domain and tertiary structure, the enzymatic properties were also studied. It turned out that S. aurantiacum extracellular elastase-like protease demonstrated well hydrolysis towards elastin and bovine achilles tendon collagen, with V_max of 18.14 μg/s and 17.57 μg/s respectively, better than fish scale gelatin, with the lowest hydrolysis effect on casein. Its activity towards elastin was lower than that of the elastase from porcine pancreas, with values of K_cat/K_m of 3.541 (μg/s) and 4.091 (μg/s), respectively. It was an alkaline protease, with optimal pH 8.2 and temperature 37 ^oC. Zn²⁺ promoted the enzymatic activity while Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, Na⁺, elastatinal and PMSF inhibited its activity. Its sequence was similar to Paecilomyces lilacinus secreted serine protease (PDB Entry: c3f7oB_) with multiple conserved fractions each containing more than 7 amino acids, thus suitable for design of PCR primer. This study increased our knowledge on S. aurantiacum extracellular elastase-like protease in terms of structure and enzymatic properties, and may facilitate later studies on protein expression and virulence mechanism.
Animals ; Cattle ; Pancreatic Elastase/genetics* ; Elastin/genetics* ; Tandem Mass Spectrometry ; Serine Proteases/genetics*