OBJECTlVE To study the reIationship between microRNA(miRNA)-122 and Iiver injury in-duced by anti-tubercuIosis drugs,and to discover the new biomarkers for earIy diagnosis of this type of Iiver injury. METHODS mice were given 2 mL isoniazid oraIIy at 90 mg·kg-1 . BIood and Iiver tissue sampIes were coIIected at 1,3,5,7,14,21 and 28 d after administration of isoniazid. Serum gIutamic-pyruvic transaminase( GPT)and gIutamic-oxaIoacetic transaminase( GOT)IeveIs were determined using an automatic biochemicaI anaIyzer. Cu/ Zn-superoxide dismutase( Cu/ Zn-SOD ) activity and maIondiaIdehyde( mDA)content were detected by biochemicaI method. ReaI-time qPCR was used to measure the expression of miRNA-122. RESULTS GPT and GOT IeveIs were significantIy higher at 14 and 21 d(P﹤0.05)than in the controI. Cu/ Zn-SOD began to decIine whiIe mDA began to increase after 5 d(P﹤0.05). miRNA-122,which progressiveIy decreased after administration,was reduced to the mini-mum 0.58 ±0.02 at 14 d. There were good correIations between miRNA-122 and GPT,Cu/ Zn-SOD, mDA(the correIation coefficients were -0.370,0.268,and -0.298,respectiveIy),but no correIation with GOT was observed. CONCLUSlON The tissue miRNA-122 profiIe can be used as a sensitive marker for anti-tubercuIosis drug-induced Iiver injury,which couId contribute to the earIy diagnosis of Iiver injury.

OBJECTIVETo observe clinical therapeutic effect of needle-sticking method on rheumatoid arthritis (RA) of wind-cold-damp retention type.

METHODSFifty cases of such disease were divided into 2 groups in order of visiting. The treatment group (n = 30) were treated with needle-sticking method, and the control group (n = 20) with routine filiform needle therapy for 2 therapeutic courses. Total cumulative scores, numbers of both the pressure-pain joint and the swollen-distention joint, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), rheumatoid factor (RF), C reaction protein (CRP) before and after treatment were investigated.

RESULTSBoth the needle-sticking method and the filiform needle therapy had an apparent therapeutic effect on RA of wind-cold-damp retention type, and the therapeutic effect for the clinical indexes in the treatment group was better than the control group, with a very significant difference in improvement of RF, the number of pressure-pain joints and the total cumulative scores as the treatment group compared with the control group (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONNeedle-sticking method has definite therapeutic effect on RA of wind-cold-damp retention type with obvious superiority.

Acupuncture Points ; Acupuncture Therapy ; methods ; Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Arthritis, Rheumatoid ; therapy ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Needles

OBJECTIVETo explore the effects on thyroid function in patients of Hashimoto's thyroiditis treated with aconite cake-separated moxibustion and option the better therapeutic program.

METHODSEighty-five cases were randomly divided into a moxibustion group (42 cases) and a western medication group (43 cases). The moxibustion group was treated by aconite cake-separated moxibustion therapy with acupoints of two groups [(1) Danzhong (CV 17), Zhongwan (CV 12), Guanyuan (CV 4); (2) Dazhui (GV 14), Shenshu (BL 23), Mingmen (GV 4)] alternatively and oral administration of 25 microg Euthyrox everyday. The western medication group was oral administration of 25 microg Euthyrox everyday. Indices of thyroid function before and after treatment and clinical effect were compared between two groups.

RESULTSThe clinical total effective rate and effective rate of thyroid function were 25.0% (10/40), 87.5% (35/40) in moxibustion group respectively, 7.53% (3/40) and 57.5% (23/40) in western medication group, with significant differences between two groups (both P < 0.05). Content of serum free thyroxine index (FT4) increased significantly in the moxibustion group after treatment (P < 0.01); content of serum supersensitive thyrotropin (S-TSH) in the moxibustion group was lower than that of western medication group, and contents of serum FT4 and free triiodothyronine (FT3) were higher than those of western medication group, but with no significant differences (all P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONAconite cake-separated moxibustion at Guanyuan (CV 4) and Mingmen (GV 4) combined with oral administration of Euthyrox can improve clinical symptoms and thyroid function in patients of Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is better than simple oral administration of Euthyrox.

Aconitum ; chemistry ; Acupuncture Points ; Adult ; Aged ; Female ; Hashimoto Disease ; blood ; physiopathology ; therapy ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Moxibustion ; Thyroid Gland ; physiopathology ; secretion ; Thyroid Hormones ; blood ; Thyrotropin ; blood ; Young Adult

To illustrate the complex fermentation process of submerged culture of Antrodia camphorata ATCC 200183, we observed the morphology change of this filamentous fungus. Then we used two optimization models namely response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN) to model the fermentation process of Antrodia camphorata. By genetic algorithm (GA), we optimized the inoculum size and medium components for Antrodia camphorata production. The results show that fitness and prediction accuracy of ANN model was higher when compared to those of RSM model. Using GA, we optimized the input space of ANN model, and obtained maximum biomass of 6.2 g/L at the GA-optimized concentrations of spore (1.76x 10(5) /mL) and medium components (glucose, 29.1 g/L; peptone, 9.3 g/L; and soybean flour, 2.8 g/L). The biomass obtained using the ANN-GA designed medium was (6.1+/-0.2) g/L which was in good agreement with the predicted value. The same optimization process may be used to improve the production of mycelia and bioactive metabolites from potent medicinal fungi by changing the fermentation parameters.
Algorithms ; Antrodia ; genetics ; metabolism ; Culture Media ; chemistry ; metabolism ; Fermentation ; Mycelium ; metabolism ; Neural Networks (Computer)

BACKGROUND: Because of scaphoid irregular shape and the wrist joint and adjacent bones overlap, so the diagnosis and treatment of scaphoid fracture and treatment became so difficult. Which imaging methods hold highest diagnosis rate, and which kind of surgical approaches with less impact on fracture healing are still under discussion.OBJECTIVE: To review the imaging examinations of scaphoid fracture and the research advance in surgical approaches.METHODS: The first author retrieved CJFD and PubMed databases for the literature addressing the imaging examinations and surgical approaches of scaphoid fracture published from 2005 to 2015 with the keywords of "scaphodl bone, fracture, iconography, surgical approach" in Chinese and English, respectively. The old and repetitive articles were excluded, totally 3021 articles were retrieved. In accordance with inclusion and exclusion criteria, finally 24 eligible articles were included for result analysis.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: (1) The wrist joint at positions of pronation 60°, supination 45°, oblique and lateral can reveal the scaphoid from different angles on X-ray, which improves the diagnosis rate. At present, CT is the most reliable method, but there is a lack of quantization parameter for evaluating scaphoid fracture, especially for occult fracture. MRI can completely show the structure of scaphoid, even blood supply. Bone scintigraphy possesses a higher diagnosis rate than X-ray and CT examinations. (2) The surgical approaches of scaphoid fracture include volar, dorsal, radiocarpa approaches, but none is ideal. (3) The ideal surgical approach still needs a in-depth study, which can well reveal the scaphoid, achieve good reduction, reduce the damage to the remaining blood supply, confirm the position of scaphoid benifical for internal fixator implantation, and can be minimally invasive and easy to operate.

Medicinal animals are important part of Traditional Chinese medicine resources in China. Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) was selected as the standard DNA barcoding sequence for animal medical materials. In this study, the 51 animal species from 45 animal medical materials in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia were selected and the intra-specific variation and the inter-specific divergence, the barcoding gap, the identification efficiency of their COI sequences were analyzed. The results showed that the inter-specific divergence is higher than intra-specific distance. The barcoding gap existed between inter-specific sequence divergence and intra-specific dis-tance. The identification efficiencies were 100% both at the genus and species level except the Arthropoda. The cluster dendrogram exhibited that different species distinguished from others. Therefore, COI sequence as a bar-code is suitable to identify the species of animal medical materials in Chinese Pharmacopoeia.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effect of Naoxintong capsules on learning and dysmnesia and calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) about vascular dementia (VD) in rats. METHODS: The model of vascular dementia rats were built by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO), and then the rats were randomly divided into a Naoxintong group (that was traditional Chinese medicine group,TCM group), a Western medicine group, a model group, a sham operation group, and a normal group. After corresponding treatment, the rat so behaviors were detected by Morris water maze experiment to obtain their performance record of learning and memory. The changes of cell morphology were detected by Nissl stain. The expression of CGRP in the hippocampus was measured with immunohistochemical staining. RESULTS: The masculine cells about CGRP of the TCM group were more than those of the model one (P<0.05). Naoxintong capsules improved the ability of learning and memory in vascular dementia rats, prevented the pyramidal cells on CA1 field in hippocampus from decreasing, increased the number of masculine cells about CGRP, and deceased the gray scale value. CONCLUSION Naoxintong capsules can raise the number of masculine nerve cells of CGRP, protect the pyramidal cells of VD rats, and lessen their learning and dysmnesia, which may be part of the mechanism of improving learning and memory capacity of VD model in rats.
Animals ; Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide ; metabolism ; Dementia, Vascular ; metabolism ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacology ; therapeutic use ; Female ; Hippocampus ; cytology ; metabolism ; Male ; Maze Learning ; Pyramidal Cells ; metabolism ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley

OBJECTIVETo construct a rheumatoid arthritis-specific full-length fully human mammalian display antibody libraries.

METHODSPeripheral blood lymphocytes were isolated from patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The repertoires of kappa light chain (LCκ) and heavy chain variable region (VH) of the antibodies were amplified by RT-PCR. The amplified LCκ and VH genes were inserted into the vector pDGB-HC-TM separately, and the ligated libraries were transformed into competent E.coli TOPO-10 strain to construct the rheumatoid arthritis-specific antibody heavy and light chain libraries. 293T cells were co-transfected with the libraries and the full-length fully human antibody expressed on the surface of 293T cells were analyzed by flow cytometry.

RESULTSThe libraries of rheumatoid arthritis-specific antibody LCκ and heavy chain (IgG1) were constructed. The expression of full-length fully human antibody on the surface of 293T cells was confirmed by flow cytometry. With the rates of correct LCκ and heavy chain sequence insertion reaching 80% and 60%, respectively, as shown by DNA sequence analysis of the randomly selected clones, the libraries showed an expressible combinatory diversity of 6.13×10(10).

CONCLUSIONThe constructed libraries provide a useful platform for screening rheumatoid arthritis-specific antibodies.

Amino Acid Sequence ; Animals ; Antibodies ; genetics ; immunology ; Antibody Specificity ; Arthritis, Rheumatoid ; immunology ; Cell Surface Display Techniques ; Cloning, Molecular ; Escherichia coli ; genetics ; metabolism ; Genetic Vectors ; genetics ; HEK293 Cells ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin G ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Immunoglobulin kappa-Chains ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Lymphocytes ; immunology ; metabolism ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Peptide Library ; Recombinant Proteins ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; immunology ; Transfection

OBJECTIVETo explore the effects of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) on in vitro expansion potential, the adherent molecules expression of cord blood (CB) CD34(+) cells.

METHODSMSCs were obtained from human bone marrow and their differentiation function and phenotype were identified. CB CD34(+) cells were expanded in culture systems with or without MSC layer. Hematopoietic progenitor cells and adhesion molecules expression were assessed by semisolid culture assay and flow cytometry.

RESULTSThy-1, SH2, SB10, CD44, CD13, CD49e and CD29 were highly expressed on MSCs with no expressions of CD34, CD45, HLA-DR, CD14 and CD31. The MSCs could differentiate into adipocytes and osteoblasts under specific induction conditions. After culturing on MSCs layer with supplement of cytokines for 8 days, the absolute numbers of nuclear cells, CD34(+), CD34(+)CD38(-), CD34(+)CD62L(+) cells and CFU-Cs were increased by 145.57 +/- 17.89, 37.47 +/- 13.78, 69.78 +/- 50.07, 10.74 +/- 5.89 and 20.73 +/- 5.54-folds, respectively, being significantly higher than that cultured with cytokines alone. The expression of ALCAM, VLA-alpha4, VLA-alpha5, VLA-beta1, HCAM, PECAM and LFA-1 on CD34(+) cells remained unaffected. The expressions of ICAM-1 and L-selectin were downregulated during expansion, while the absolute numbers of CD34(+)CD62L(+) and CD34(+)CD54(+) cells were increased.

CONCLUSIONSMSCs layer improves expansion of CB CD34(+) cells while inhibiting their differentiation and retaining their homing ability.

Antigens, CD34 ; Cell Adhesion Molecules ; metabolism ; Cell Differentiation ; Cell Proliferation ; Cells, Cultured ; Fetal Blood ; cytology ; Hematopoietic Stem Cells ; cytology ; metabolism ; Humans ; Mesenchymal Stromal Cells