Objective To study the chemical constituents in the root of Baccaurea ramiflora.Methods Various chromatographic techniques were used to separate and purify the constituents.The structures of the compounds were elucidated by physicochemical properties and spectral analyses(UV,IR,ESI-MS,1H-NMR,13C-NMR,Dept90,Dept135,1H-1H COSY,1H-1H NOESY,HMQC,HMBC).Results A new compound was isolated and idertified.Conclusion This compound is a novel compound and named as epidihydrotutin.

Environmental Microbiology is an important basic course of Environmental Engineering.Its characteristic is content broad,quick development and strong practicality,thus this curriculum's teaching has certain degree of difficulty.Some suggestions and concrete measures about teaching reform,which included curriculum's course content,teaching method,experiment teaching and assessment methods were proposed in this paper.

Objective To evaluate the efficiency of levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG-IUS) in the treatment of recurrent endometriosis after conservative surgery or conservative surgery combined with medical treatment. Methods Twenty-three patients with recurrent endometriosis after conservative surgery or conservative surgery combined with medical treatment were treated by LNG-IUS. All patients rejected further operation and had no desire of fertility. The visual analogue scale (VAS) scores of pain, menstrual model, weight and serum CA125 level and the volume of ovarian endometriotic cysts before and after 3, 6, 12, 24 and 36 months of treatment were recorded and compared. Results ( 1 ) VAS score:after 12 months of using LNG-IUS, dysmenorrheal, chronic pelvic pain or dyspareunia were relieved significantly. VAS score were dropped from 5.9 ± 2. 3,4. 3 ± 2.0 to 1.0 ± 0. 7,1.4 ± 1. 1 ( P ＜ 0. 01 ). ( 2 )Volum of cysts :after 6 months of using LNG-IUS, the volume of recurrent ovarian endometriotic cysts in 11 patients were reduced from ( 11.4 ± 6. 1 ) em3 to ( 5. 5 ± 3.4 ) em3 significantly ( P ＜ 0. 01 ). At 12 months of follow-up, it suggested that 2 patients' ovarian endometriotic cysts disappeared. At 24 months follow-up,9 patients ovarian endometriotic cysts disappeared ( 3 ) CA125: serum CA125 decreased from ( 65.5 ± 19. 6 )kU/L to (42. 1 ± 13.6) kU/L at 6 months after treatment remarkably (P ＜ 0. 01 ). Continued to decrease after 12 months and then become steady. Irregular bleeding and spotting was the main side effects, weight gain was also observed in few patients. Conclusions LNG-IUS could be used in treatment of recurrent endometriosis after conservative surgery or conservative surgery combined with medical treatment effectively. It could relieve pain, reduce the level of CA125 and decrease the size of ovarian endometriotic cysts. LNG-IUS seems to be an effective, safe, and long term treatment for endometriosis with fewer side effects and better compliance.

Objective To study the early response and acute/subacute adverse effects after particle radiation therapy for adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) of the head and neck.Methods Between May 2015 and March 2016,a total of 8 patients with ACC of the head and neck were treated using proton and/or carbon-ion radiation therapy.Three patients had early stage and 5 had locally advanced disease.Five patients had an R2 and three achieved an R1 resection.Results Seven patients received intensitymodulated proton therapy (IMPT) followed by intensity-modulated carbon-ion therapy (IMCT) boost.One patient received IMPT only.Among the five patients who had an R2 resection,2/3 patients had partial response (PR)/stable disease (SD) at the end of radiation,0/3 achieved PR/complete response (CR) at 1-month follow-up,and 1/2 achieved PR/CR at 3-months' follow-up after the completion of radiation,respectively.Two patients experienced Grade Ⅲ mucositis during radiation therapy.No patient experienced moderate or severe skin reactions.At the time of this analysis,all patients are alive and no patient had disease progression or recurrence.Conclusions The short-term outcomes indicated that particle therapy is safe and potentially efficacious in the management of head and neck ACC.However,longer follow up is needed to assess late toxicities and long-term efficacy.

Objective Androgen receptor ( AR) is extensively expressed in breast cancer and influences the proliferation of the malignant cells.Our study aimed to investigate the effect of AR on estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer. Methods ER-positive MCF-7 breast cells were exposed to various concentrations of agonist dihydrotestosterone ( DHT) or antagonist bicalutamide or left untreated .Then the proliferation and apoptosis of the cells were determined by MTT assay , cell counting , and flow cytometry , and the expressions of the proteins related to cell cycle regulation were detected by Western blot . Results The relative gray value of AR was significantly increased in the DHT group (1.055 ±0.020) but decreased in the bicalutamide group (0.705 ±0.010) as com-pared with the blank control (0.795 ±0.020) (both P<0.05).Flow cytometry showed that the early apoptosis rate of the breast cancer cells was markedly higher in the DHT group ([51.20 ±0.312]%) but lower in the bicalutamide group ([2.410 ±0.367]%) than in the blank control ([3.540 ±0.375]%) (both P<0 .01). In comparison with the control group , the expressions of the p53, p73 and p21 proteins in the MCF-7 cells were remarkably up-regulated in the DHT group but down-regulated in the bicalutamide group ( both P<0.05). Conclusion AR inhibits the proliferation of ER-posi-tive breast cancer cells , which suggests that it may be a potential ther-apeutic target for ER-positive breast cancer .

Objective To explore the effects of polymorphisms of Crohn's disease related NOD2 gene and human beta-defensin 2 (hBD-2) on transcription of hBD-2 gene and its mechanism. Methods HEK293T cells were transfected with hBD-2 gene and NOD2 eukaryotic expression plasmid, and were then stimulated with LPS, TNF-α, or BAY 11-7082 (antagonist of NF-κB), respectively. Transcriptional activity of hBD-2 was detected afterwards. Results LPS could suppress transcription of hBD-2 (P=0. 020), which was increased by TNF-α in a dose-dependent manner (P =0. 004). In the presence of LPS, there was sig-nificant difference in transcriptional activity of hBD-2 between wild-NOD2 transfected group and mutated NOD2 (P268S) transfected group (P=0. 008), but there was no significant difference between wild hBD-2 transfected group and mutated hBD-2 transfected group (P=0. 053). With the stimulation of TNF-α (5 ng/ml), there was a significant difference between mutated hBD-2 transfected group and wild hBD-2 transfected group (P=0. 006), but no significant difference between wild-NOD2 transfected and mutated NOD2 transfected group was defected (P = 0. 064). Pretreatment with BAY 11-7082 before TNF-α (5 ng/ml) significantly inhibited the transcriptional activity of hBD-2 (P < 0. 001). Conclusion The poly-morphism of NOD2 affects the innate expression of hBD-2, the polymorphism of site in hBD-2 promoter (-233) may lead to significant decline of the inducible expression of hBD-2, and NF-κB might be a key pathway that NOD2 protein mediates the expression of defensin.

Objective To investigate the association of two single nuclear peptides(SNPs)polymorphisms(rs11209026 and rs11805303)which lies in interleukin-23 receptor(IL23R)gene with susceptibility to inflammatory bowel disease(IBD).Methods The target SNPs were directly sequenced by polymerase chain reaction(PCR)and gene polymorphisms of 50 healthy and 81 patients with IBD (Crohn's disease in 41 patients and ulcerative colitis in 40 patients)were analyzed using chromassoftware.Results The geno-type frequency and allelic frequency of rs11209026 were 7.3%and 3.7%in patients with Crohn's disease respectively,15.0%and 7.5%in patients with ulcerative colitis respectively as well as 14.0%and 7.0%in normal population respectively(all P value＞0.05).The geno-type frequency and allelic frequency of rs11805303 were 22.0%and 52.4%in patients with Crohn's disease respectively,15.0% and 41.2% in patients with ulcerative colitis respectively as well as 34.0%and 59.0%in normal population respectively(all P value＞0.05).But in allelic frequency there was significant difference between ulcerative colitis patients and normal population(P=0.018).The polymorphisms of rs11805303 loci did not correlate with age,gender,disease duration.activity and site in patients with ulcerative colitis.Conclusions IL23R gene polymorphism is not associated with the susceptibility to Crohn's disease.rs11805303 allele may be related with susceptibility to ulcerative colitis.But no correlation was found between the SNP polymorphisms and the clinical characteristic of ulcerative colitis.

OBJECTIVETo study the acute toxicity of the water extracts (ERWE) and 60% ethanol extracts (EREE) from different processed products of Radix Polygalae (crude Radix Polygalae, licorice, and honey processed Radix Polygalae), thus providing scientific evidence for toxicity study of Radix Polygalae and its safe clinical application.

METHODSThe ERWE and EREE were prepared from different processed products of Radix Polygalae. Their contents of saponins were respectively determined. The poisoning condition and death of the mice administered with ERWE and EREE by gastrogavage were observed within fourteen days. The modified Karber's method was used to calculate LD50 and 95% confidence interval (CI).

RESULTSThe EREE of licorice processed Radix Polygalae had the maximum toxicity with highest content of saponins, while the ERWE of honey processed Radix Polygalae had the minimum toxicity with lowest content of saponins.

CONCLUSIONSDifferent processing methods have effects on the contents of saponins in Radix Polygalae. The experiment showed that the toxicity of Radix Polygalae is in direct proportion to the content of saponins. The higher the saponins contents, the higher the toxicity.

Animals ; Female ; Lethal Dose 50 ; Male ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred Strains ; Plant Extracts ; toxicity ; Polygala ; Saponins ; toxicity ; Toxicity Tests, Acute

In this paper, the RP-HPLC specific chromatography was adopted, with DIKMA-C18 (4.6 mm x 250 mm, 5 µm) as the chromatographic column, with a gradient elution compose of acetonitrile and 0.1% phosphoric acid at flow rate of 0.8 mL · min(-1), the detection wavelength was 220 nm. The difference of the HPLC specific chromatograms between the Lu Dangshen and other different base sources and different producing area of Codonopsis Radix was compared, involved in the similarities and differences of the number and the relative peak area of characteristic peaks in the HPLC specific chromatograms. The HPLC specific chromatograms of Lu Dangshen was established and the relative retention times of seven peaks was determined, and the peaks of codonopyrrolidium B, syringin, lobetyolin, tangshenoside I and atractylenoide III were identified; The HPLC specific chromatograms of Lu Dangshen provided a method for scientific evaluation and effective control the quality of Lu Dangshen from Shanxi famous-region.
Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; methods ; Codonopsis ; chemistry ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; analysis ; Glucosides ; analysis ; Phenylpropionates ; analysis ; Plant Roots ; chemistry ; Quality Control

Background:After deifnitive chemoradiotherapy for non-metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), more than 10% of patients will experience a local recurrence. Salvage treatments present signiifcant challenges for locally recur-rent NPC. Surgery, stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy, and brachytherapy have been used to treat locally recur-rent NPC. However, only patients with small-volume tumors can beneift from these treatments. Re-irradiation with X-ray—based intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMXT) has been more widely used for salvage treatment of locally recurrent NPC with a large tumor burden, but over-irradiation to the surrounding normal tissues has been shown to cause frequent and severe toxicities. Furthermore, locally recurrent NPC represents a clinical entity that is more radio-resistant than its primary counterpart. Due to the inherent physical advantages of heavy-particle therapy, precise dose delivery to the target volume(s), without exposing the surrounding organs at risk to extra doses, is highly feasible with carbon-ion radiotherapy (CIRT). In addition, CIRT is a high linear energy transfer (LET) radiation and provides an increased relative biological effectiveness compared with photon and proton radiotherapy. Our prior work showed that CIRT alone to 57.5 GyE (gray equivalent), at 2.5 GyE per daily fraction, was well tolerated in patients who were pre-viously treated for NPC with a deifnitive dose of IMXT. The short-term response rates at 3–6months were also accept-able. However, no patients were treated with concurrent chemotherapy. Whether the addition of concurrent chemo-therapy to CIRT can beneift locally recurrent NPC patients over CIRT alone has never been addressed. It is possible that the beneifts of high-LET CIRT may make radiosensitizing chemotherapy unnecessary. We therefore implemented a phase I/II clinical trial to address these questions and present our methodology and results. Methods and design:The maximal tolerated dose (MTD) of re-treatment using raster-scanning CIRT plus concur-rent cisplatin will be determined in the phase I, dose-escalating stage of this study. CIRT dose escalation from 52.5 to 65 GyE (2.5 GyE×21–26 fractions) will be delivered, with the primary endpoints being acute and subacute toxicities. Effcacy in terms of overall survival (OS) and local progression-free survival of patients after concurrent chemotherapy plus CIRT at the determined MTD will then be studied in the phase II stage of the trial. We hypothesize that CIRT plus chemotherapy can improve the 2-year OS rate from the historical 50% to at least 70%. Conclusions:Re-treatment of locally recurrent NPC using photon radiation techniques, including IMXT, provides moderate effcacy but causes potentially severe toxicities. Improved outcomes in terms of effcacy and toxicity proifle are expected with CIRT plus chemotherapy. However, the MTD of CIRT used concurrently with cisplatin-based chemo-therapy for locally recurrent NPC remains to be determined. In addition, whether the addition of chemotherapy to CIRT is needed remains unknown. These questions will be evaluated in the dose-escalating phase I and randomized phase II trials.