Objective To investigate the effect of neutral amino acid on preventing Parkinson disease.Methods Mice were injected with L-Valine,L-Pheylalanine,D-Valine or L-Lysine before or after paraquat administration,by which prakinsonian mouse model was constructed.The paraquat immunoreactivity was observed within nigral cell bodies.Then neurodegeneration and ?-synuclein aggregation were observed by immunohistochemistry and Western blot.Results Paraquat immunoreactivity was abolished by the administration of L-Valine,L-Pheylalanine before paraquat exposure.Pre-treatment with these two amino acids also protected the paraquat-induced loss of nigrostriatal dopaminergic cells and formation of thioflavine S-positive aggregates.In contrast, paraquat-induced toxicity was unaffected if animals were injected with these two amino acids after paraquat exposure or pre-treated with D-Valine or L-Lysine.Conclusions L-type neutral amino acids such as L Valine and L-Pheylalanine can prevent paraquat-induced neurodegeneration and a synuclein pathology through a competitive inhibition mechanism with stereospecificity in the central nervous system (CNS).Neutral amino acid could protect the dopaminergic neuron in substantia nigra and may prevent Parkinson disease.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Cerebrospinal Fluid Rhinorrhea ; etiology ; surgery ; Child ; Endoscopy ; adverse effects ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Otorhinolaryngologic Surgical Procedures ; adverse effects ; Paranasal Sinuses ; surgery ; Postoperative Complications ; surgery ; Young Adult

To establish a LC-MS/MS method to determine the concentrations of liquiritin, glycyrrhizin, glycyrrhetinic acid, amygdalin, amygdalin prunasin, ephedrine, pseudoephedrine and methylephedrine of Maxing Shigan decoction in rat plasma, and study the differences on their pharmacokinetic process in normal rats and RSV pneumonia model rats. After normal rats and RSV pneumonia model rats were orally administered with Maxing Shigan decoction, the blood was collected from retinal vein plexus of different time points. Specifically, tetrahydropalmatine was taken as internal standard for determining ephedrine, while chloramphenicol was taken as internal standard for determining other components. After plasma samples were pre-treated as the above, the supernatant was dried with nitrogen blowing concentrator and then redissolved with methylalcohol. The chromatography was eluted with mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid solution in a gradient manner. ESI sources were adopted to scan ingredients in ephedra in a positive ion scanning mode and other ingredientsin a negative ion scanning mode. The multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) method was developed the plasma concentration of each active component. The pharmacokinetic parameters of each group were calculated by using Win-Nonlin 4.1 software and put into the statistical analysis. The result showed the plasma concentration of the eight active ingredients, i.e., liquiritin, glycyrrhizin, glycyrrhetinic acid, amygdalin, amygdalin prunasin, ephedrine, pseudoephedrine and methylephedrine within the ranges of 1.04-1040, 1.04-1040, 0.89-445, 1.05-4200, 1.25-2490, 0.3-480, 0.3-480, 0.3-480 microg x L(-1), with a good linearity and satisfactory precision, recovery and stability in the above ingredients. After modeling, except for glycyrrhetinic acid whose pharmacokinetic parameters were lacked due to the data missing, all of the rest components showed significant higher Cmax, AUC(0-1) and lower clearance rate (CL) than that of the normal group, indicating the increase in absorption in rats in the pathological state by reducing the clearance rate. The method is accurate and sensitive and so can be used to determine the plasma concentrations of the eight active ingredients in Maxing Shigan decoction. RSV pneumonia-infected rats absorbed more ingredients in Maxing Shigan decoction.
Animals ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; Disease Models, Animal ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacokinetics ; Male ; Pneumonia, Viral ; drug therapy ; metabolism ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infections ; drug therapy ; metabolism ; Tandem Mass Spectrometry

To set standards for histomorphological studies on Lysimachia fortunei, an efficacious and widely applied folk medicine in this study, in order to develop its resources. Its species were identified by observing plant morphology and herbs appearance characters, preparing slices with routine methods and defining structural characters. According to the results of morphologic observation, leaves, stamen and pistil of this plant were different from the descriptions in Flora of China. The whole herb can be used in medicines, mainly including rhizomes, stems and leaves. According to the findings in the first study on microscopic structures, its rhizomes, stems and leaves were characteristic and worth identifying. The transaction tissue structures of rhizomes and stems were under developed and contained endodermis, secretory structures; Stems had sclerenchymata of different shapes of sclereids; Leaves were bifacial and had vascular bundles under midribs, which were surrounded by parenchymal sheathes. On the surface of leaves, stomata, glandular hairs and keratin lines were morphologically different in upper and lower epidermis. The herbal power had glandular hairs, sclereids and vessels. In conclusion, herbs of L. fortunei can be identified by the above histomorphological characteristics, which lays a foundation for further development and application of L. fortunei.
Medicine, Traditional ; Plant Leaves ; anatomy & histology ; growth & development ; Plant Stems ; anatomy & histology ; growth & development ; Plants, Medicinal ; anatomy & histology ; growth & development ; Primulaceae ; anatomy & histology ; growth & development

Acupuncture Therapy ; Altitude ; Animals ; Brain Edema ; prevention & control ; Female ; Hypoxia, Brain ; therapy ; Male ; Neurons ; metabolism ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Receptor, Adenosine A1 ; metabolism

This paper proposes a one-way micro valve with a simple structure and a simulation design for the engineering capsule. We have now got its design parameter selection method and its mechanic characteristic from experiments.
Capsules ; Computer Simulation ; Drug Delivery Systems ; methods ; Equipment Design ; Infusion Pumps, Implantable ; Technology, Pharmaceutical ; instrumentation ; methods

Based on the ecological and economic problems in Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) of Chinese material medica, we introduced the origin, concept, features and operative technology of eco-agriculture worldwide, emphasizing its modes on different biological levels of landscape, ecosystem, community, population, individual and gene in China. And on this basis, we analyzed the background and current situation of eco-agriculture of Chinese materia medica, and proposed its development ideas and key tasks, including: (1) Analysis and planning of the production pattern of Chinese material medica national wide. (2) Typical features extraction of regional agriculture of Chinese materia medica. (3) Investigation of the interaction and its mechanism between typical Chinese materia medica in each region and the micro-ecology of rhizosphere soil. (4) Study on technology of eco-agriculture of Chinese materia medica. (5) Extraction and solidification of eco-agriculture modes of Chinese materia medica. (6) Study on the theory of eco-agriculture of Chinese materia medica. Also we pointed out that GAP and eco-agriculture of Chinese material medica are both different and relative, but they are not contradictory with their own features. It is an irresistible trend to promote eco-agriculture in the GAP of Chinese material medica and coordinate ecological and economic development.
Agriculture ; methods ; standards ; trends ; China ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; standards ; Ecosystem ; Humans ; Materia Medica ; chemistry ; standards ; Plants, Medicinal ; chemistry ; growth & development

Arnebia euchroma is the main source for medicinal herb Zicao. and its most important component shikonin compounds have high medicinal and industrial value. This research is aimed to build overexpression vectors and RNAi vectors for key secondary metabolism genes of A. euchroma, and bulid platform for constructions of related transgenic lines using GATEWAY technology. To build genetic material based genetic research platform is to provide a great convenience for digging and functional verification of the genes on secondary metabolic pathway, and also to fill the gaps in transgenic research of A. euchroma. This study is also important for the cultivation of shikonin high-yielding strains of A. euchroma.
Boraginaceae ; genetics ; metabolism ; Genetic Vectors ; genetics ; metabolism ; Plant Proteins ; genetics ; metabolism ; RNA Interference ; Secondary Metabolism

Twenty-seven ERF transcription factor family genes were isolated from Arnebia euchroma, with an average size of 1,010 bp, each gene encoded a 212 amino acids on average. The gene structure and expression of physicochemical properties, subcellular localization, signal peptides, senior structural domains and conservative forecasting, and analysis of A. euchroma were studied comparing with ERF gene gi261363612 of Lithospermum erythrorhizon, and phylogenetic analysis of A. euchroma ERF family was carried out. The results showed the existence of three conserved domains in this family, the senior structure based on random coil and it clustered into CBF/DREB and ERF subfamilies.
Amino Acid Motifs ; Amino Acid Sequence ; Boraginaceae ; genetics ; Cloning, Molecular ; Computational Biology ; Genome, Plant ; genetics ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Multigene Family ; Phylogeny ; Plant Proteins ; chemistry ; genetics ; Plants, Medicinal ; Protein Structure, Secondary ; Protein Structure, Tertiary ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Transcription Factors ; chemistry ; genetics ; Transcriptome

A cDNA sequence of Arnebia euchroma AP2/ERF named AeAP2/ERF was cloned by in silico cloning in this study, using ACX71873 sequence from Lithospermum erythrorhizon as the probe sequence. Some characters of the AP2/ERF gene and encoded protein sequences were predicted and analyzed by the bioinformatics methods, including general physical and chemical properties, hydrophobieity, signal peptide, secondary structure, localization sites in cells. Results showed that the 876 bp long gene included a 1 077 bp ORF and encoding 205 amino acid. The AeAP2/ERF protein had no signal peptide, it was a hydrophilic proteins located in nucleus. The function of the AP2/ERF protein was mainly involved with metabolism controlling and signal transduction.
Amino Acid Sequence ; Base Sequence ; Boraginaceae ; classification ; genetics ; Cloning, Molecular ; Computational Biology ; Computer Simulation ; Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Phylogeny ; Plant Proteins ; genetics ; Protein Structure, Secondary ; Protein Structure, Tertiary ; Transcription Factors ; chemistry ; genetics