Nuclear factor-erythroid 2 related factor 2 (Nrf2) is an ubiquitous and important transcription factor. It regulates antioxidant response elements (AREs)-mediated expression of antioxidant enzyme and cytoprotective proteins. A large body of research showed that Nrf2-Keap1 (Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1, Keap 1)-ARE signaling pathway is involved in the endogenous antioxidant defense mechanisms. Nrf2 increases the expression of a number of cytoprotective genes, protects cells and tissues from the injury of a variety of toxicants and carcinogens. As a result, Nrf2 enhances the expression of glutathione and antioxidants such as superoxide dismutase and glutathione S-transferase, and subsequently scavenging free radicals. Air pollution especially from PM2.5 particles, is associated with an increasing morbidity of inflammatory pulmonary diseases and their deterioration. More and more studies demonstrated that Nrf2 was a novel signaling molecule in the modulation of inflammatory responses in these inflammatory respiratory diseases, such as asthma, acute lung injury (ALI) and COPD. Therefore, Nrf2 targeting might be a therapeutic target, which will provide clinical benefit by reducing both oxidative stress and inflammation in asthma, acute lung injury (ALI) and COPD. This review focused on the relationship between Nrf2 and inflammatory respiratory diseases and oxidative stress.
Acute Lung Injury ; metabolism ; pathology ; Antioxidants ; metabolism ; Glutathione ; Glutathione Transferase ; metabolism ; Humans ; Inflammation ; metabolism ; pathology ; Lung ; pathology ; NF-E2-Related Factor 2 ; metabolism ; Oxidative Stress ; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive ; metabolism ; pathology ; Signal Transduction

OBJECTIVETo explore the strategy of pediatric intractable epilepsy surgery.

METHODSThe clinical data of 96 pediatric cases with intractable epilepsy and epilepsy syndromes underwent surgical treatment from April 2004 to April 2006 were retrospectively analyzed.

RESULTSThe surgical treatments were performed based on the results of comprehensive data from neurological, neurosurgical and pediatric departments. Among of them, 78 cases were performed with curative procedure, 17 cases with palliative procedure and 1 case with stereotactic damage procedure. The surgical effect was judged with Engel's standard, 58 cases had no seizure during 14 to 26 months follow-up, 26 cases had significantly improved in seizure control and the total efficiency was 87.5%. 81 cases had improvements in neuropsychological tests. 22 cases had postoperative complications such as neuro-dysfunctions and 15 cases were gradually recovered after the period of follow-up ended, 1 case died of CSF over drainage after operation 3 months.

CONCLUSIONSPediatric patients with symptomatic epilepsy and epilepsy syndromes are suitable to surgical treatment, the results are satisfactory in seizure control and neuropsychological function tests.

Adolescent ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Epilepsy ; surgery ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Retrospective Studies ; Treatment Outcome

Child ; Child, Preschool ; Female ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Intracranial Hemorrhages ; etiology ; pathology ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Prognosis ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Actins ; metabolism ; Adult ; Amputation ; Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee ; Bone Neoplasms ; diagnosis ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; Calmodulin-Binding Proteins ; metabolism ; Humans ; Leiomyosarcoma ; diagnosis ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Radiography ; Tibia ; diagnostic imaging ; surgery

Animal's numerical competence has been one of the central issues in comparative psychology, cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. A great number of studies indicate that animals have the capability to subitize small numerousness and judge relative numerousness. However, it is pendent if they have the counting ability. There is no evidence that animals can estimate numerousness. Neurophysiological studies show that the posterior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex in monkeys are involved in the neural mechanisms underlying numerical competence.
Animals ; Behavior, Animal ; Cerebral Cortex ; physiology ; Cognition ; Macaca mulatta ; Mathematics ; Mental Competency ; Pattern Recognition, Visual ; physiology ; Verbal Behavior ; physiology

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect of phosphotyrosine interaction domain containing 1 (PID1, NYGGF4) onpromotion of IR and HCC, and explore its underlying mechanisms. METHODS Lentivirus were used to mediate the knockdown of PID1 in HFD induced IR mouse model as well as ob/ob mice. Intraperitoneal glucose and insulin tolerance were performed 4 weeks after lentivirus injection. Hydrodynamics-based transfection was applied to induce the liver specific overexpression of PID1. Flow cytometry was exerted to detect the proportion and function of immune cells.qRT-PCR and Western blot were used to detect the expression of downstream pathways of PID1. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and co-immunoprecipitation (Co-IP) were conducted to identify proteins interacting with PID1.Chromatin immunoprecipitation(ChIP)was operated to measure the modification of H3K4me3 of PID1 promoter.RESULTS PID1 restriction improved insulin resistance,hyperglycemia and fatty liver. Conversely, hepatic knockdown of PID1 attenuated liver xenografted tumor growth. Moreover,PID1 liver-specific protooncogenes via hydrodynamics-based transfection established a primary hepatocellular carcinoma mouse model,induced an immunosuppressive environment,with the reduction of CD3+,CD4+,CD8+T cells,retarded maturation of dendritic cells(DCs),pronounced differentiation of regulatory T cells(Tregs),and recruitment of MDSC.In addition,PID1 overexpression activated prolifer-ation related genes, promoted anti-inflammatory genes, suppressed pro-inflammatory genes, induced glycolysis and lipid metabolism genes to facilitate tumorigenesis in liver. Importantly, PID1 exerted its tumor-promoting function through binding to epidermal growth factor receptor(EGFR)and activation of downstream KRAS/ERK pathway.As such,PID1 exist trimethylation of histone H3 at lysine 4(H3K4me3) modification and IR up-regulated the expression of PID1 by activation the H3K4me3 modification. CONCLUSION PID1 is a new gene that exerts both liver cancer-promoting and insulin resistance inducing function.IR accelerates liver cancer development and progression partially dependent on the activation of PID1.

Objective:To study the causes of misdiagnosis of patients with POEMS syndrome and to discuss the clues for its early diagnosis.Methods:The clinical and laboratory data of 26 inpatients with POEMS syndrome,who were treated in Changhai hospital over the last decade,were retrospectively analyzed.Results:The misdiagnosis rate of our group was 100%. The misdiagnosis was made in(3.31?0.97)hospitals and in(3.31?0.93)clinical departments;the misdiagnosis period was (19.42?10.86)months and it had been misdiagnosed as 18 other diseases.The initial symptoms included polyneuropathy in 21 (80.8%)cases,edema of lower extremity in 22(84.6%)cases,and body weight loss in 8(30.8%)cases.The typical clinical symptoms included polyneuropathy in 26(100%)cases and organomegaly in 24(92.3%).Two cases had newly-identified uterine hypertrophy,one had adrenal gland hypertrophy,and one had gastric wall thickening mimicking advanced gastric cancer.Hypothyroidism,impotence,skin pigmentation and sclerosis occurred in 76.9%(20/26),60%(6/10),92.3%(24/ 26)and 65.4%(17/26)cases,respectively.Monoclonal plasma cell proliferation was documented in 18(81.8%);M proteins were positive in 14(63.6%)cases by serum immunofixation,and only 2(9.1%)cases also positive by serum protein electrophoresis.One patient was positive of M protein by urine immunofixation and one had abnormal infiltration of plasma cells in the gastric wall.Lymph node biopsy were performed in 8 patients and 3 were found to have Castleman disease;the other 5 cases had lymphocyte infiltration,with 3 complicated with plasma cell proliferation.Nerve biopsy in 4 cases all revealed axonal degeneration and one patient complicated with demyelination.Bone marrow biopsy in 5 cases revealed plasmacytosis in 2 cases and myeloma in one.Excessive radioactivity resorption was found in 10 of the 16 cases(62.5%)and abnormal plasma cells were detected in 2 cases by bone aspiration guided by radioisotope bone scan.Conclusion:Misdiagnosis of POEMS syndrome is very common.Polyneuropathy,edema of lower extremity and body weight loss are the common early symptoms of POEMS syndrome. Early diagnosis can be made by having an intimate knowledge of the progression of the disease and by detecting M protein through various approaches.

Metabonomics is a new method to study on the metabolic network and the relationship between body and environment, which conforms to the way of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) research. In the study process of modernization of traditional Chinese medicine, effectively conjunction with metabonomics method will facilitate the integration of TCM with modern biological science and technology, and promote the modernization of TCM. This paper introduce the application of metabonomics in the research of toxicity mechanism of TCM, compatibility mechanism of TCM formula, pharmacology effect of TCM and processing mechanism of TCM. This paper summarize the problems in the TCM metabonomics research and prospect its bright future.
Animals ; Drug Therapy ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; adverse effects ; analysis ; metabolism ; therapeutic use ; Humans ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; methods ; trends ; Metabolomics ; methods ; trends

It is known that stimulation of the α(2A)-adrenoceptors (α(2A)-ARs) by the selective α(2A)-AR agonist guanfacine produces an important and beneficial influence on prefrontal cortical (PFC) cognitive functions such as spatial working memory and selective attention. However, it is unclear whether stimulation of the α(2A)-ARs has a similar effect on fear conditioning that involves the amygdala and hippocampus. Here, we show that systemically administered guanfacine significantly enhances spatial learning of rats in the Lashley maze: compared with controls, the rats treated with guanfacine required significantly fewer trials and made significantly fewer errors to reach learning criterion. However, guanfacine produced no effect on acquisition of contextual and auditory fear memories. The present study suggests that beneficial effect of α(2A)-AR stimulation is task-dependent: guanfacine improves spatial learning but not fear conditioning.
Adrenergic alpha-2 Receptor Agonists ; pharmacology ; Animals ; Behavior, Animal ; drug effects ; Conditioning (Psychology) ; drug effects ; Fear ; drug effects ; Guanfacine ; pharmacology ; Maze Learning ; drug effects ; Memory ; drug effects ; Rats ; Spatial Behavior ; drug effects

This paper introduces a monitor that can monitor five physiological parameters (ECG, blood pressure, spo2, respiration and temperature) based on Wireless Sensor Networks. The monitor will be applied to hyperbaric oxygen chambers. After acquisition, the signal will be displayed on the LCD screen of the monitor terminal in the cabin. At the same time, the Zigbee RF module will send the signal to the extravehicular guardianship PC terminals. This monitor equipment can realize synchronous real-time monitoring both inside and outside. What's more? A host can also display monitoring data the three monitor terminals collected. Preliminary clinical tests show that the monitors are safe and the monitoring results are satisfactory.
Equipment Design ; Hyperbaric Oxygenation ; instrumentation ; Monitoring, Physiologic ; instrumentation ; Wireless Technology ; instrumentation