Objective To observe the effect of β-amyloid42 (Aβ42) on stimulating the inflammatory factors production by BV-2 microglia, including interleukin-1β (IL-1β), IL-10 and nitric oxide (NO), and to contrast the inhibitory action of anti-Aβ42 antibody in serum of Alzheimer's patients and the artificially synthesized anti-Aβ42 antibody. Methods The anti-Aβ42 antibodies were extracted from the serum of Alzheimer's patients. And the BV-2 microglia cells in murine were cultured as in vitro cell model. The cells were stimulated by Aβ42 and the two different anti-Aβ42antibodies to analyze the impact of stimulants on the cell activity. The Aβ42 of 5 μmol/L was added to the culture separately or in mixture with each of the two different anti-Aβ42 antibodies. Each antibody was mixed with Aβ42 of 5 μmol/L at final anti-Aβ42 antibody titre of 5 μg/ml, 1 μg/ml and 0.2 μg/ml,respectively. Then clear supernatant was collected from each tube respectively at 6 h, 12 h, and 24 h after culture, and the concentrations of IL-1β, IL-10 and NO were determined. Results The Aβ42,artificially synthesized anti-Aβ42 antibody and anti-Aβ42 antibody from Alzheimer's patients had no effects on the activities of BV-2 cells, the cell survival rates were (98. 6±5.8)%, (101.9±2.8)%and (98. 4±6.0)%, with no significant differences as compared with normal control group (F=0. 407, P＞0. 05). The inflammatory factors releasing from BV-2 cells stimulated by Aβ42 reached the peak level at 12 h, the concentrations of IL-1β, IL-10 and NO were (69.0±12.7) pg/ml, (24.1 ±4. 0) pg/ml and (128. 2±8. 7) μmol/L, the concentrations of IL-1β and NO were significantly higher at 12 h than at 6 h and 24 h (F= 15. 470 and 242. 107, P＜0.05), there was no significant difference in the concentration of IL-10 among 12 h, 6 h and 24 h (F=1. 852, P＞0.05). The two different antiAβ42 antibodies of different titre remarkably inhibited Aβ42 stimulated BV-2 cells to release inflammatory factors. At high titre of 5 μg/ml, the two different antibodies showed no significant difference in the inhibitory effects (P＞0.05), while at the titre of 0. 2 μg/ml, anti-Aβ42 antibody from Alzheimer's patients showed a significantly lower inhibitory effect than artificially synthesized antibodies, the concentrations of NO were (35.4 ± 2. 5) μoml/L and ( 19. 2 ± 3.3) μoml/L,respectively (P ＜ 0.05). Conclusions The Aβ42 can stimulate BV-2 microglia cells to release inflammatory factors. Anti-Aβ42 antibody from Alzheimer's patients has a lower inhibitory effect on Aβ42 in stimulating microglia to release inflammatory factors.

Objective To analyze the course of development of chronic fatigue syndrome ( CFS) and its research hotspots and frontiers .Methods We retrieved 3723 CFS-related papers published in the Web of Science databases between 2000 and 2014, and obtained a series of mapping knowledge domains with the help of the CiteSpace Ⅲ.Results By visually analyzing the network of international cooperation , mainstream academic communities , development trends and research hotspots in the field of CFS ,the classical literature was quickly decided on and reviewed so that research frontier and development trends were accurately defined .Conclusion Our analysis shows that the academic communities in the field of CFS are mainly located in the United States ,England and other Western countries .Research hotspots shifted from case characters to influence factors ,mechanisms and therapeutic methods .Currently,research frontiers are the etiological theory of pathogen infection and the pathophysiological mechanisms of similar chronic diseases .

Objective To evaluate the safety, performability and long-term clinical efficacy of stenting angioplasty for treating symptomatic internal carotid artery (ICA) stenosis in the origin part in elderly patients. Methods Stenting angioplasty was performed on 29 patients with symptomatic ICA stenosis in the origin part. Results 29 stents were placed in 29 patients. Operations were performed 100%successfully. After an average 24 months of follow-up visits, restenoses were detected in 2cases reexamined by DSA 6 months after stenting, both presented with less than 50% stenoses. 1 case was found not regularly taking statins and antiplatelet drugs after stenting, severe restenosis occurred 6 months later, stent implantation performed again, no recurrence of transient ischemic attack (TIA) was noted during 2 years′follow-up visit. Cerebral ischemic strokes occurred in 2 cases , and both of them had balloon dilatation after stenting. 1 case was completely recovered after treatment and 1 was left with weakness in right extremities, unabling to walk. No cases of posterior circulation ischemia, death and myocardial infarction were detected. Conclusions Stenting angioplasty can be performed in treating symptomatic internal carotid artery stenosis in elderly patients. It showed a relatively good mid-long-term clinical effects and can be a secondary prevention option.

Objectives To investigate the prevalence of childhood asthma in 2000～2010,to find the changes of childhood asthma in distribution characteristics,precipitating factors,diagnosis and treatment status,and to provide scientific data for the improvement of the prevention and management of asthma in children in Kunming city,China.Methods Children were selected by random cluster sampling.Standardized preliminary questionnaire was used for screening out possible patients in the two surveys of 2000 and 2010.Diagnosis of asthma was confirmed by diagnostic criteria in suspected asthmatic children.Asthmatic children were further asked for past diagnosis and treatment with the questionnaire of asthma in children.Double entry and validation were adopted for all data and analysis was carried out using Epi-Info software.Results Compared with 2000,the total asthma incidence rate increased significantly from 0.88％ to 1.40％ (x 2=12.52,P＜0.05),the coincidence rate of final diagnosis and previous diagnosis increased from 22.8％ to 51.3％ (x2 =19.23,P ＜0.05) and the proportion of acute exacerbation of asthma reduced from 40.2％ to 19.3％ (x 2 =12.54,P＜0.05) in 2010.Compared with 2000,Antibiotics use rate reduced from 97.8％ to 80.0％ (x 2=14.28,P ＜0.05) and the proportion of inhaled corticosteroid increased from 12.0％ to 64.0％ (x 2=60.53,P＜0.05).Conclusion Compared with 10 years ago,the total asthma incidence of childhood asthma aged 0 ～ 14 year old in Kunming city was significantly increased.The coincidence rate of final diagnosis and previous diagnosis increased and the proportion of acute exacerbation of asthma reduced.Antibiotics use rate reduced and the proportion of inhaled corticosteroid increased.The treatment and management of asthma in children awaits improvement as well,especially in reducing the rate of missed diagnosis in children with asthma and regulating the use of corticosteroids and bronchodilators inhaling treatment and reduces the use of the proportion of antibiotics.

OBJECTIVETo observe the effect of Astragalus membranaceus efficacy enhancing and toxicity reducing on chemotherapy in patients of malignant tumor.

METHODSOne hundred and twenty tumor patients were randomly divided into the treated group and the control group. Both groups were treated with chemotherapy, but to the treated group, Astragalus injection was given additionally by intravenous dripping, 20 ml in 250 ml of normal saline once per day for 21 days as one course and 4 courses were given successively.

RESULTSCompared with the control group, the treated group showed a lower progressive incidence, lesser decrease of peripheral WBC and platelet count (P < 0.05), accompanied with CD8 significantly lowered (P < 0.05), CD4/CD8 ratio significantly increased (P < 0.01), IgG and IgM levels raised (P < 0.05) and Karnofsky scores elevated more than those in the control group. IgA level was unchanged in both groups.

CONCLUSIONAstragalus injection supplemented with chemotherapy could inhibit the development of tumor, decrease the toxic-adverse effect of chemotherapy, elevate the immune function of organism and improve the quality of life in patients.

Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols ; administration & dosage ; adverse effects ; therapeutic use ; Astragalus membranaceus ; chemistry ; CD4-CD8 Ratio ; Cisplatin ; administration & dosage ; Cyclophosphamide ; administration & dosage ; Doxorubicin ; administration & dosage ; Drug Therapy, Combination ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; therapeutic use ; Etoposide ; administration & dosage ; Female ; Fluorouracil ; administration & dosage ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin G ; blood ; Infusions, Intravenous ; Lung Neoplasms ; drug therapy ; immunology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Mitomycin ; administration & dosage ; Phytotherapy ; Stomach Neoplasms ; drug therapy ; immunology

Objective:To investigate the sensitivity and the specificity of scorpions amplification refractory mutation system ( ARMS) in comparing with that of direct DNA sequencing in the detection of BRAF gene mutations in patients with papillary thyroid microcarcinoma.Methods:Direct sequencing and ARMS were used simultaneously to detect BRAF mutation status in 56 patients with PTMC.Results:BRAF mutations were identified in 46 cases with a mutation rate of 82.9%by ARMS,while in 18 cases with a mutation rate of 32.1%by direct sequencing.Besides,the sensitivity of ARMS was 100%and that of direct sequencing was 39.1%.There were significant differences of both mutation rate and sensitivity between two methods ( P<0.01 ).Conclusion: Compared to direct sequencing,ARMS gains a higher sensitivity in the detection of BRAF mutations in samples with tiny lesions.

The three-dimensional (3D) structure prediction of proteins is an important task in bioinformatics. Finding energy functions that can better represent residue-residue and residue-solvent interactions is a crucial way to improve the prediction accuracy. The widely used contact energy functions mostly only consider the contact frequency between different types of residues; however, we find that the contact frequency also relates to the residue hydrophobic environment. Accordingly, we present an improved contact energy function to integrate the two factors, which can reflect the influence of hydrophobic interaction on the stabilization of protein 3D structure more effectively. Furthermore, a fold recognition (threading) approach based on this energy function is developed. The testing results obtained with 20randomly selected proteins demonstrate that, compared with common contact energy functions, the proposed energy function can improve the accuracy of the fold template prediction from 20% to 50%, and can also improve the accuracy of the sequence-template alignment from 35% to 65%.

Objective To investigate the changes in cerebral glucose metabolism induced by postoperative delirium in the elderly patients and the effects of dexmedetomidine on it.Methods Forty-two patients of both sexes aged 65-85 yr with a body mass index of 19-25 kg/m2 undergoing abdominal surgery under general anesthesia were enrolled in this study.Delirium occurred during the first 2 days after operation in 39 out of the 42 patients (29/42).The 29 patients were randomly divided into 2 groups:group delirium without any treatment (group D,n =13) and group delirium + dexmedetomidine (group Dex,n =16).The remaining 13 patients did not develop delirium after operation and served as control group (group C).In group Dex a loading dose of dexmedetomidine 1 μg/kg was administered iv over 10 min after occurrence of delirium followed by continuous infusion at 0.2-0.7μg· kg-1 · h-1.PET scan was performed within the time period in which delirium occurred.18 Fluorine-deoxyglucose was injected for observation of imaging of glucose metabolism.The standard uptake value of glucose of bilateral parietal,temporal and frontal lobes was calculated.Results Delirium was controlled within 30 min after adminnistration of dexmedetomidine.Delirium significantly reduced cerebral glucose metabolism in the bilateral parietal,temporal and frontal lobes in group D as compared with group C (P ＜ 0.05).Dexmedetomidine significantly attenuated the delirium-induced decrease in cerebral glucose metabolic rate of the 3 lobes in group Dex as compared with group D (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion Postoperative delirium reduces cerebral glucose metabolism and dexmedetomidine can significantly control pastoperative delirium in the elderly patients.

Objective:To investigate the relationships of estrogen receptor-α (ESR1) gene PvuⅡ (rs2234693, C>T) and XbaⅠ (rs9340799, A>G) polymorphisms and susceptibility of type 1 diabetes for female children (T1D) .Methods:From Jan. 2016 to Dec. 2019, 86 female children with newly diagnosed T1D who were admitted to Chongqing Three Gorges Central hospital were selected as the study subjects, and 100 healthy children who underwent physical examination in our hospital during the same period were selected as the healthy control. The height, weight and related metabolic indexes of the subjects were measured. The ESR1 gene was genotyped by capillary electrophoresis and SNaPshot. The mRNA expression of ESR1 gene was detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) .Results:Genotyping results showed that PvuII genotype distribution between T1D group and the control group was statistically significant ( χ2=11.672, P=0.003) , but XbaI genotype distribution between T1D patients and controls had no significant difference ( χ2=5.433, P=0.066) . PvuII locus T allele frequency and XbaI locus G allele frequency were significantly in T1D group higher than in the control group (PvuII T vs C: OR=1.909, 95% CI=1.261-2.892, P=0.002; XbaI G vs A: OR=1.815, 95% CI=1.112-2.961, P=0.016) . Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and total cholesterol (TC) levels in T1D patients with PvuII T allele were significantly higher than those with CC genotype (all P<0.05) . Low-density lipoproteins (LDL-C) and total cholesterol (TC) levels in T1D patients with XbaI G allele were significantly higher than those with AA genotypes (both P<0.05) . The relative expression of ESR1 gene mRNA in T1D patients was significantly lower than that in the control group (0.42±0.05 vs 1.04±0.16, t=6.227, P<0.001) . The relative expression of ESR1 gene mRNA in T1D patients with PvuII CC, CT and TT genotypes was statistically different ( F=5.823, P<0.001) , and the relative ESR1 gene mRNA in T1D patients with XbaI AA, AG and GG genotypes was also statistically different ( F=5.415, P<0.001) . Conclusion:PvuII and XbaI olymorphismsof ESR1 genes may be involved in the occurrence and development of T1D in female children by influencing gene expression.

AIM: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of intravitreal bevacizumab ( avastin ) injection in patients with exudative age related macular degeneration ( AMD) .
METHODS: The records of patients treated with intravitreal injection of 1. 75mg bevacizumab for AMD were retrospectively reviewed. All patients were evaluated by complete ophthalmic examination, optical coherence tomography and fundus fluorescein and/or indocyanine green angiography. Observation was made on the best corrected visual acuity ( BCVA) , intraocular pressure, and the changes of lens, vitreous, central retinal thickness (CFT) and total macular volume (TMV), at 1d, 3d, 7d, 1mo and 6mo after the treatment and then compared with those of pre - operation. Repeated treatment with intravitreous bevacizumab occurred if there were signs of persistent or recurrent exudation. And all cases were followed up at least 6mo. An intravitreal injection of bevacizumab (1. 75mg) was given once every 6wk.
RESULTS:All 50 eyes of 48 patients with the average of 58±20. 46 years old were included. The mean baseline of BCVA and CFT were 0. 82±0. 53, and 364. 97±151. 83μm respectively. Although there was no significant decrease in mean CFT and TMV one week after the injection, the mean BCVA had significant improvement. At the last visit of 9. 7mo follow - up, BCVA, CRT and TMV showed significant improvements over baseline values. BCVA was improved by at least two lines in 32 eyes (64%),remained stabilization in 18 eyes (36%) at the last visit. A total of 98 injections were performed and the average number of injections was 1. 98 for each eye in the group. About 50%of re - injections gained at least two lines of vision improvement one week postoperatively. There were no serious adverse events during the treatment.
CONCLUSION: Intravitreal bevacizumab ( avastin ) injection for managing CNV due to age-related macular degeneration is safe and few side effects. Intravitreal avastin associated with improvement in visual acuity ( VA ) , which can reduce macular edema and choroidal neovascularization leakage. But a prolonged treatment effect needs further observation.