BACKGROUND: Sepsis is a tough problem in critical ill patients. This study aimed to investigate the dynamic changes of monocyte Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 expression in peripheral blood of septic rats and to determine the effects of transforming growth factor (TGF) -β1 on TLR4 expression. METHODS: Altogether 132 clean level SD rats were randomly divided into a control group (n=12), a sepsis model group (n=60), and a TGF-β1 intervention group (n=60). In the sepsis model group and TGF-β1 intervention group, the rats were subdivided into five groups (2-hour group, 6-hour group, 12-hour group, 24-hour group, and 48-hour group), with 12 rats in each group. Cecal ligation puncture (CLP) was performed in the sepsis model group and TGF-β1 intervention group to establish models of sepsis. The rats in the sepsis model group were injected with 1 mL normal saline at the caudal vein 0.5 hour after the model establishment; the rats in the TGF-β1 intervention group were injected with 20 ng/mL or 250 g TGF-β10.5 hour after the model establishment. Flow cytometry was used to detect the change of monocyte TLR4 in peripheral blood, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect the change of TNF-α level in peripheral blood. RESULTS: At 6-12 hours after CLP, the monocyte TLR4 in peripheral blood started to decrease, and reached the lowest level at 12 hours. Compared to the control group, the monocyte TLR4 expression at 6 and 12 hours was lowered significantly (P<0.05). Compared to the sepsis model group at 2, 24 and 48 hours after CLP, the monocyte TLR4 expression in the TGF-β1 intervention group decreased dramatically (P<0.05), but there were no differences between the two groups at 6 and 12 hours respectively. Compared to the control group, the concentration of NF-κB in liver tissue increased significantly 6 hours after CLP (P<0.05). After use of TGF-β1, the concentration of NF-κB was decreased significantly but still higher than that of the control group. Compared to the control group, the concentration of TNF-α in peripheral blood was increased significantly at 2-48 hours after CLP (P<0.05). After use of TGF-β1, TNF-α was further increased. CONCLUSION: During sepsis, TGF-β1 can decrease the monocyte TLR4 expression and NF-κB in liver tissue, but facilitate the formation of proinflammatory mediator TNF-α. This finding indicates that TGF-β1 may play a role in promoting inflammatory response during sepsis, but this regulation is not via direct regulation of monocyte TLR4 in peripheral blood.

Objective:To study the expression and clinical significance of GPRC5A and SOCS3 in colorectal carcinoma.Methods:SP immunochemical method was performed to detect the expression of GPRCSA and SOCS3 in 45 cases of colorectal carcinoma,25 cases of colorectal adenomas and 22 cases of normal colorectal tissues.Results:1)Expression of GPRC5A in colorectal cancinoma tissue (22.2％) was significantly lower than that in adenomas tissue (52.0％,P＞0.05).The Latter was significantly lower than that in normal colorectal tissue (81.8％,P＜0.05).GPRC5Awas closely related to lymph node metastasis,Duke's stages and the deepness of invasion (P＜0.05).2) Expression of SOCS3 in colorectal cancinoma tissue (24.4％) was significantly lower than that in adenomas tissue (56.0％,P＜0.01).The Latter was significantly lower than that in normal colorectal tissue (86.4％,P＜0.05).SOCS3 was closely related to pathological differentiation,the deepness of invasion,Duke's stages and lymph node metastasis (P＜0.05).3)The expression of GPRC5A was positive correlated with SOCS3 (P＜0.05).Conclusions:The reduced expressions of GPRC5A and SOCS3 may participate in the occurence and development of colorectal carcinorma,suggesting that GPRC5A and SOCS3 may act as biological markers for evaluating the malign degree,prognosis and therapeutic targets of colorectal carcinorma.

Objectives To understand current status of the admission and treatment for the patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in central hospitals of Shanghai area,and to evaluate the severity of patients admitted to the hospital with CAP by the criteria set in the Guidelines for Diagnosis and Treatment for CAP developed by the Chinese Medical Association in 2006 and provide evidence for its popularization and application throughout the country.Methods Medical records of 137 patients with CAP admitted to the hospital from January 1,2005 to September 30,2006 were retrospectively studied and analyzed with SPSS 10.0 software.Chi-square test and ANOVA were used to evaluate the severity of the patients with CAP by the criteria set in the Guidelines and to correlate it with pneumonia severity index (PSI).Statistical analysis was performed for the difference between length of hospitalization,cost,length of intravenous use of antibiotics,the number of risk factors,and fatality during hospitalization between three groups of patients categorized based on the severity criteria in the Guidelines.Results There existed a good relationship between the criteria for severity of CAP by the Guidelines and PSI,with a Pearson's coefficient of correlation of 0.577,P

The metabolism study of radiolabeled drugs plays an important role in the development of new drugs. It provides information on drug absorption, metabolism, tissue distribution and excretion, and plays an irreplaceable role in the metabolite safety evaluation and mass balance of new drugs. The new guidance draft on clinical trials of radiolabeled drugs recently released by the US FDA puts forward higher standards and has been widely concerned by the industry. In recent years, in the research and development of new drugs in China, ¹⁴C labeled drugs have been used to carry out clinical metabolism studies, which has overcome key technical bottlenecks and accumulated experience. This paper summarizes the above research progress, analyzes the existing problems, and preliminarily looks forward to the future technological development and application.

Objective To explore the expression profiles and their clinical significance of microRNA (miRNA) molecules in different stages of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection.Methods The miRNA molecule expressions of 12 patients with chronic hepatitis B,12 chronic HBV carriers,12 inactive hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) carriers,and 9 healthy controls were screened using miRNA microarray.The miRNA profiles were validated by the real time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR).The t-test was used for comparison between twogroups,whereas one-way ANOVA and SNK-q tests were used for multiple comparisons.Mann-Whitney and Kruskal Wallis H tests were used for comparison of two or more groups of data with skewed distribution.The receiver operation characteristic (ROC) curve was constructed to evaluate the diagnostic significance of miRNA molecules.Results Compared with the healthy controls,significant differences in the expression profiles of miRNA molecules were found in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of chronic HBV carriers (2 molecules up-regulated,and 18 down regulated) and chronic hepatitis B patients (33 molecules up-regulated and 19 down-regulated).No significant difference was found between inactive HBsAg carriers (2 molecules up regulated,and 3 down-regulated) and controls.The results of six miRNA molecules detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR were basically consistent with the results detected by microarray.The area under ROC curve of the six miRNA molecules of hsa miR-4711-3p,hsa-miR-3191 5p,hsa-miR-5704-5p,hsa-miR 548ah-5p,hsa-miR-146a-5p and hsa-miR-29b-3p in distinguishing immune tolerance and clearance of chronic HBV infection were 0.994,0.984,0.967,1.000,1.000 and 0.996,respectively.Conclusions The different expression profiles of miRNA molecules could be used to distinguish the different stages of chronic HBV infection,and are closely related with the immune tolerance and activation in chronic HBV infection.

A review of studies on the influence of impurities on protein crystallization is given.The possible sources of impurities and its effect on the protein crystallization are presented.The effects of impurities on protein crystallization,including nucleation,macroscopic morphologies,microscopic surface morphologies,growth rates,kinetics,quality,and repartitioning of impurities are reviewed.

Objective To investigate the anti-apoptosis effects of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) in a mouse model of liver ischemia-reperfusion ( IR ) injury and to analyze the possible mechanisms . Methods A cell model of hypoxia/reoxygenation injury was established after transfecting mouse liver AML12 cells with HO-1 small interfering RNA ( siRNA) . Real-time PCR and Western blot assay were performed to detect the changes of HO-1, B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl2) and caspase-3 at the cellular level. The mouse models of liver ischemia-reperfusion injury were established with/without pretreatments with cobalt proporphyrin (CoPP), CoPP+znic proporphyrin ( ZnPP) and/or ZnPP. The levels of aspartate transaminase ( AST) and alanine transaminase ( ALT) in serum samples were measured. Immunohistochemistry was used to analyze the chan-ges of caspase-3. Western blot assay was used to detect the expression of HO-1 and Bcl2 at protein level. The pathological changes of liver tissues were observed under light microscope. The apoptosis of hepatocytes was observed by using Tunel assay. Results Decreased expression of HO-1 and Bcl2 and increased expres-sion of caspase-3 were observed in the model of hypoxia/reoxygenation injury by pre-transfecting the AML12 cells with HO-1 siRNA. Compared with the IR injury group, the CoPP pretreatment group showed lower lev-els of AST and ALT (P<0. 05) and alleviated pathological damages in liver tissues. Moreover, the expres-sion of caspase-3 was inhibited, but the expression of HO-1 and Bcl2 were enhanced. Less apoptotic cells was detected by the Tunel assay (P<0. 05). However, these protective effects could be suppressed by adding ZnPP. Conclusion HO-1 has anti-apoptotic effects in the in vitro model of hypoxia/reoxygenation. CoPP can upregulate the expression of HO-1 and play the role of anti-apoptosis in a mouse model of liver is-chemia-reperfusion injury.

As the main part of the teaching activities,students play an important role in the teaching reform.The students were trained through 3 pathways,“Extending teaching activities from the classroom to the outside”,“Development from basic to clinical knoledge” and “Culturing students' innovative consciousness”,so as to allow them to give full play in teaching reform,to enhance their ability of practice and learning by themselves,to culture their innovative consciousness and to develop students' leading functions in the anatomy teaching reform.

Objective To observe the in vitro anti-Coxsackievirus B3m (CVB3m) effect of sophocarpine(SC) extracted from Sophora flavescens, a traditional Chinese herb. Methods HeLa cells were cultured and the micro-dose cytopathic effect (CPE) assays were applied to detect the toxicity of SC. CPE-inhibitory assays were used to observe the in vitro anti-CVB3m effect of SC. MTT and crystal assays were introduced to examine the anti-CVB3m effect of SC. HeLa cells were infected with CVB3m and added with SC in different concentrations 15 h later.The viability and number of survival of HeLa cells were determined by MTT and crystal violet assays, respectively. Results No toxicity was found on HeLa cells by SC with concentrations 100 ?g/mL, SC could accelerate and aggravate the CPE. SC could protect the CVB3m-infected HeLa cells with concentrations from 1.56 to 25 ?g/mL, and the viability and cell number measured by MTT and crystal violet assay in the SC-handled cells were higher and bigger than those in the virus infected ones. However, the inhibitory effect of virus was exacerbated with higher concentrations (50 and 100 ?g/mL), and the cell number and viability of the SC-handled cells were smaller and lower than those of the infected ones. Conclusion SC with a proper concentration has the in vitro anti-CVB3m effect and may protect HeLa cells from CVB3m infection.

Objective To study the relationship between the genetic polymorphism of interleukine-6 (IL-6)-174 and the response to benazepril treatment in patients with hypertensive renal damage. Methods Two hundred and eighty-four patients with hypertension were enrolled in this study. The hypertensive renal damage was defined by the measurement of urinary albumin excretion rate (UAER). One hundred and sixty healthy subjects were enrolled simultaneously as control group. Blood samples were obtained from all the subjects, and plasma levels of IL-6 and the genotype of gene IL-6-174 were detected. The patients with hypertensive renal damage were treated with benazepril for 16 weeks. The responses were evaluated by the changes of UAER level to benazepril in different genotypes. Results Genotype CC was the most common of the gene IL-6-174 in patients with hypertension, followed by GG and GC successively, with the G/C allele frequency of 47%and 53%(P<0.05), while in patients with hypertensive renal damage, GG was the most common genotype of the gene IL-6-174, followed by GC and CC successively, with the G/C allele frequency of 68%and 32%(P<0.05). After benazepril treatment, the UAER was decreased most in patients with genotype CC, followed by GC and GG successively ( P<0.05). Conclusion The G allele frequency of the gene IL-6-174 is related with hypertensive renal damage in patients in Ningxia, with GG as the most common genotype. The patients with CC genotype have the best response to benazepril treatment, with most decreased UAER.