Abstract: Objective　To detect the antibody levels of hantavirus in serum samples from patients suspected with hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) in Heilongjiang Province from 2019 to 2021, and to provide scientific basis for the prevention and control of disease. Methods　Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) were used to detect the IgM antibodies to hantavirus in serum samples collected from suspected patients with HFRS in the acute-phase, and IgM and IgG antibody in convalescent-phase serum samples. The positive rate of IgM antibody in acute-phase serum samples of patients in different years was analyzed with χ2 test by SPSS 19.0, and the data were sorted out and analyzed about patients' gender, occupation, age, date of onset and interval from onset to initial diagnosis by EpiData 3.1, Excel 2003 software. Results　A total of 351 acute-phase serum samples and 208 convalescent-phase serum samples were detected in patients suspected with HFRS, respectively. There were 317 positive IgM antibodies of serum samples in the acute stage, with the positive rate of 90.31%. There was no significant difference in the positive rate of IgM antibodies in the acute stage between different years (χ2=0.895, P=0.639). T The IgM antibodies and IgG antibodies were positive in 32 (15.39%) and 28 (13.46%) of the convalescent-phase serum samples, respectively. Moreover, 148 patients (71.15%) were double-positive for IgM and IgG antibodies at the convalescent stage. The ratio of male to female patients was 4.56∶1, for which male patients were much more than female patients. Occupation was dominated by farmers (253 cases, 79.81%), followed by workers (19 cases, 5.99%) and the unemployed (17 cases, 5.36%), respectively. The age of patients ranged from 10 to 88 years old, with a median age of 49 years old. Most of the patients were in the age group from 30 years old to 60 years old (209 cases, 65.93%), among which the age group from 40 years old to 50 years old (86 cases, 27.13%) had the highest proportion, and the age group from 60 years old to 90 years old had a proportion of 20.18% (19 cases). May and November were the peak periods of HFRS in Heilongjiang Province. The median interval between onset and initial diagnosis was 4 days. Conclusions　There is a gap of about 10% between the clinical diagnosis of HFRS cases and the confirmed cases detected by laboratory in Heilongjiang Province from 2019 to 2021. The virus-specific detection results are important for confirming the diagnosis of local patients with HFRS.

OBJECTIVETo investigate the protective effect of soyasaponins on acute liver injury induced by D-galactosamine (GalN) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in mice.

METHODThe mice were randomly divided into five groups: the normal control, the model group, the silymarin (positive control) group, and soyasaponins high and low-dose groups. They were administered with drugs once every day for 7 days. At the end of the experiment, GalN and LPS were injected intraperitoneally to all of the groups except for the normal group to establish the acute liver injury model. The pathological changes were detected with hematoxylin & eosin (HE) staining, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) was detected by ELISA method, and the alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione S-transferase (GST), reduced glutathione (GSH), malondialdehyde (MDA), nitric oxide (NO), and the activation of Caspase-3 and Caspase-8 were detected by the colorimetric method.

RESULTSoyasaponins could reduce the activities of serum ALT and AST, the acute hepatic injury induced by GalN/LPS, serum TNF-alpha level, hepatic NO and MDA contents, and the Caspase-3 and Caspase-8 activations of liver tissues, and increase the hepatic CAT, GPx, GST and GSH levels.

CONCLUSIONSoyasaponins shows the protective effect on acute liver injury induced by GalN and LPS in mice, which may be related to its antioxidative ability and anti-liver apoptosis.

Alanine Transaminase ; blood ; Animals ; Antioxidants ; metabolism ; Apoptosis ; drug effects ; Aspartate Aminotransferases ; blood ; Caspases ; metabolism ; Chemical and Drug Induced Liver Injury ; metabolism ; pathology ; prevention & control ; Galactosamine ; toxicity ; Lipopolysaccharides ; toxicity ; Liver ; pathology ; Male ; Mice ; Saponins ; pharmacology ; Soybeans ; chemistry

OBJECTIVETo study the influence of soybean phytochemical extract containing isoflavones and soyasaponins (SPE) on blood glucose, blood lipids, plasma lipid peroxide and platelet aggregation activity in diabetic rats.

METHODSDiabetic rats were fed with fodder containing 20 g/kg of SPE for 20 weeks. Their plasma very low density lipoprotein (VLDL), low density lipoprotein (LDL) and high density lipoprotein (HDL) were separated by sequential ultracentrifugation.

RESULTSTwenty weeks after experiment, level of blood glucose, atherosclerotic index and plasma level of lipid peroxide were (11.9 +/- 0.9) mmol/L, 0.40 +/- 0.14 and (15.7 +/- 0.5) mmol/L, respectively in diabetic rats fed with SPE, significantly lower than those in control rats not fed with it, (14.2 +/- 2.0) mmol/L, 0.58 +/- 0.22 and (20.7 +/- 3.0) mmol/L, respectively. Accordingly, platelet aggregation rates induced by ADP and collagen in the two groups were (54.1 +/- 8.8)% vs (66.6 +/- 12.4)% and (58.0 +/- 7.9)% vs (69.6 +/- 9.4)%, respectively. Changes in all these indices were significantly different between the two groups.

CONCLUSIONSPE could significantly decrease blood glucose, improve atherosclerotic index, and inhibit lipid peroxidation and platelet aggregation in diabetic rats, which might be useful in prevention and control of diabetes mellitus and diabetes-associated atherosclerosis.

Animals ; Arteriosclerosis ; blood ; prevention & control ; Cholesterol, HDL ; blood ; Cholesterol, LDL ; blood ; Cholesterol, VLDL ; blood ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 ; blood ; prevention & control ; Flavonoids ; pharmacology ; Male ; Phytotherapy ; Random Allocation ; Rats ; Saponins ; pharmacology ; Soybeans ; Triglycerides ; blood

OBJECTIVEAllogeneic bone marrow transplantation (Allo-BMT) has improved long-term survival in children patients with refractory leukemia. For patients who do not have an HLA-identical sibling, the treatment option is limited. Using related mismatch donors or parental donors for Allo-BMT was at high risk for acute severe GVHD. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of CD25 monoclonal antibody on reducing the incidence of severe acute GVHD in haploidentical bone marrow transplantation for the treatment of childhood leukemia.

METHODSTen children with leukemia received haplotype Allo-BMT from HLA two or three loci mismatched related donors. Most patients were classified as in high risk category. The donors of patients were given G-CSF (Lenograstim Chugai) 250 microg/day for seven doses prior to marrow harvest. The non-T-cell depleted haploidentical bone marrow was infused. In addition to combination of CSA, MTX, ATG (Fresenius Hemocare, Germany) and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) for GVHD prophylaxis, CD(25) monoclonal antibody (Simulect, Novartis Pharma Switzerland) was administered to prevent acute severe GVHD.A total of 40 mg Simulect was given in two doses of 20 mg each by 30 min intravenous infusion 2 h before transplantation and day 4 after transplantation. The outcomes were compared with those of 8 children patients with leukemia who received haploidentical bone marrow transplantation without CD(25) antibody for GVHD prophylaxis.

RESULTSAll patients were engrafted and sustained full donor-type engraftment. 100% donors hematopoietic cells after transplantation was determined by cytogenetic evidence analysis. The median days of granulocyte exceeding 0.5 x 10(9)/L and pallets exceeding 20 x 10(9)/L were 19 and 22 days, respectively. Patients were monitored till up to days 100 for the sign of aGVHD. None developed the grade II-IV acute GVHD. However, the incidence of the grade II-IV acute GVHD in control group was 50% (P = 0.0147). Eight patients could be evaluated for chronic GVHD. All experienced chronic GVHD confined to the skin. The median follow-up duration was 12 months (range 9 - 24 months). Two patients died from transplant related mortality, one had patient relapsed disease and died. The remaining seven patients were alive in disease-free situation.

CONCLUSIONThe use of Simulect in haploidentical bone marrow transplantation for the treatment of children patients with leukemia is effective for preventing acute severe GVHD and may reduce transplant-related mortality.

Acute Disease ; Adolescent ; Adult ; Antibodies, Monoclonal ; therapeutic use ; Bone Marrow Transplantation ; adverse effects ; methods ; Child ; Family ; Female ; Graft vs Host Disease ; blood ; etiology ; prevention & control ; Humans ; Immunosuppressive Agents ; therapeutic use ; Leukemia ; mortality ; therapy ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Receptors, Interleukin-2 ; immunology ; Tissue Donors ; Transplantation, Homologous ; Treatment Outcome

To observe normal bone marrow stromal function for supporting hematopoiesis and realize the correlation of bone marrow stromal function in patients with aplastic anemia (AA) and anisodamine therapy, normal human marrow CFU-GM was assayed on bone marrow stromal layer (SL) formed on week 3 culture, and the CFU-GM without SL as a control (100%). Results showed that the production of CFU-GM on the normal SL was significantly higher than that of the control. The production of CFU-GM on the SL of 4 AA patients, who responded to anisodamine, was < 80% of the control, and when 2 of them were reexamined for stromal function after treatment, the number of CFU-GM on SL rose up to 168.8% and 249.2% from 38.7% and 39.7% of the control respectively. While in the rest 6 patients, the number of CFU-GM was > 80% of the control, only one patient was improved by anisodamine therapy. So, normal bone marrow stromal layer can obviously support the growth of granulocyte/macrophage progenitor cells. Anisodamine therapy could be an effective agents for aplastic anemia with stromal dysfunction
Adolescent ; Adult ; Anemia, Aplastic ; drug therapy ; Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal ; therapeutic use ; Bone Marrow Cells ; cytology ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Solanaceous Alkaloids ; therapeutic use ; Statistics as Topic ; Stromal Cells ; physiology

In this study, to investigate the effect on expression of IL-2 in lymphocytes from bone marrow and peripheral blood of normal donors after they were mobilized by G-CSF in allo-BMT, 7 normal donors bone marrow and peripheral blood were harvested before and after G-CSF administration. The separated lymphocytes were measured by FCM after they were stained intracellularly by anti-IL-2, and their expressions of IL-2 were compared. The degree of aGVHD in patients after bone marrow transplantation was evaluated clinically, and it was compared with the status of aGVHD of 15 patients whose donors didn't receive G-CSF administration in our department, and 2 groups of patients are comparable in age, types of diseases and status of donors. The results showed that the expression of IL-2 in lymphocytes in 7 G-CSF mobilized donors decreased significantly after G-CSF administration and more severe aGVHD than grade II didn't develop in these recipient patients, and comparing with 15 patients received the bone marrow from donors who didn't receive G-CSF, the incidence of aGVHD decreased. It is suggested that the expression of IL-2 in lymphocytes was influenced by donors' G-CSF administration, and it is likely that thereby reduces the incidence of aGVHD in patients after BMT.
Adult ; Blood Donors ; Bone Marrow Cells ; drug effects ; metabolism ; Bone Marrow Transplantation ; adverse effects ; Female ; Flow Cytometry ; Graft vs Host Disease ; etiology ; Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor ; pharmacology ; Hematopoietic Stem Cell Mobilization ; Humans ; Interleukin-2 ; biosynthesis ; Lymphocytes ; drug effects ; metabolism ; Male

AIMTo study the effect of taurine (Tau) on rabbit cardiomyocyte apoptosis during ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury.

METHODSRabbit heart I/R injury was induced by occluding the left anterior descending coronary artery for 45 min and reperfusion for 180 min. taurine (200 mg/kg) was intravenously injected 5 min before heart ischemia. Cardiomyocyte apoptosis was measured by using terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase--mediated dUTP nick end labeling method (TUNEL), flow cytometry (FCM) and DNA agarose gel electrophoresis.

RESULTSDNA ladder pattern of DNA in myocardium was revealed by agarose gel electrophoresis in I/R group while was not found in Tau + I/R group. Apoptotic cardiomyocytes were sparse within ischemic myocardium at risk in Tau + I/ R group as compared with that in I/R group (TUNEL stain). Apoptosis rate in ischemic myocardium from I/R and Tau + I/R groups detected by flow cytometry was 17.66% +/- 1.54% and 4.86% +/- 1.23%, respectively. Fas and Bax protein expressions in ischemic myocardium of I/R group were higher than that in nonischemic myocardium group (P < 0.01), Bcl-2/Bax ratio in I/R group was lower than that in nonischemic myocardium (P < 0.01); while in Tau + I/R group, Fas and Bax protein expressions were lower than that in I/R group (P < 0.01), the Bcl-2/Bax ratio was higher than that in I/R group (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONTaurine reduced apoptosis of myocytes in I/R rabbit heart; its mechanism may involve Fas, Bax and Bcl-2 proteins expression.

Animals ; Apoptosis ; drug effects ; Apoptosis Regulatory Proteins ; metabolism ; Male ; Myocardial Ischemia ; metabolism ; pathology ; Myocytes, Cardiac ; cytology ; drug effects ; Rabbits ; Reperfusion Injury ; metabolism ; pathology ; Taurine ; pharmacology

Objective To investigate the occurrence of new cretinism cases and the prevalence of endemic goiter, and the reason of lower coverage rate of iodized salt in the iodine deficiency disorders(IDD) high-risk areas of China, so as to put forward target prevention measures for these areas. Methods A hundred and one counties from 11 provinces(autonomous regions, municipality), such as Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Sichuan, Hainan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, were chosen into the survey by simple random sampling. In the counties of high risk, typical sampling principle was used. In the selected townships, searching for new cretinism cases were carried out in the children under 10 years old, the thyroid volume of children aged 8-10 years old were determined by B-ultrasonography methods and their urinary iodine (UI) were determined by As3-Ce<'4+> catalytic spectrophotometry, the intelligence quotient(IQ) values of children aged 8-10 years old were measured by the combined Raven Test in China. In the household survey, the housewives were asked to fill in the questionnaire, the iodized salt coverage rates and the UI levels of child-bearing age women were investigated, the salt iodine content was determined using self-quantitative kit. Epi Info software was used to analyze the determination results. Results In the 101 high-risk counties, 249 were diagnosed as new cretinism cases from 4122 suspected cases searched. The goiter rate of children aged 8-10 years old by B-ultrasound was 8.28% (4434/53 541), 44 counties had goiter rates in the range of 5%-20%, 5 counties had goiter rates in the range of 20%-30%, and 3 counties had goiter rates of 30%. The mean IQ of children was 85.44, and the percentage of IQ value less than 70 was 16.52%(8713/52 745). The median urinary iodine(MUI) of children was 154.69 μg/L, the percentage of UI less than 50 μg/L was 17.26% (9069/52 558). Twenty-five counties had a MUI of children less than 100 μg/L. The MUI of housewives was 107.14 μg/L, the percentage of UI less than 50 μg/L was 27.50% (3722/13 534). MUI of housewives in 46 counties were less than 100.0 μg/L. The coverage rate of iodized salt at household level was 77.85%(13 150/16 891). The coverage rate of iodized salt was 52.80%(1585/3002), 44.72% (631/1411) and 72.82% (1850/2506) in Tibet, Hainan and Qinghai, respectively. More than 10% residents of Tibet, Sichuan, Hainan, Gansu and Qinghai complained that iodized salt was not convenient to buy. There were 71.39%(7652/10 719) of observed people ate crude salt. The average price of crude salt price(0.30-1.20 Yuan/kg) was lower than iodized salt(1.20-3.00 Yuan/kg). Conclusions In these IDD high-risk areas, the risk of endemic goiter and cretinism prevalence is threatening. The IDD monitoring should be carried out successively in these high-risk areas. The prevention measures, increasing iodized salt coverage rate and establishing the sustainable mechanism for eliminating IDD should be strengthened. Emergent iodine fortification measure for high risk region people should be implemented as soon as possible, a long term effective mechanism of eliminating IDD should be established.

OBJECTIVETo explore the feasibility of a new protocol for acute graft versus host disease (aGVHD) prophylaxis in haploidentical bone marrow transplantation.

METHODSThirty-eight high-risk leukemia patients underwent haploidentical G-CSF primed bone marrow transplantation without ex-vivo T cell depletion, the donors were given G-CSF 250 microg/d for 7 days prior to marrow harvest. All patients received a same chemo-radiation conditioning regimen, including cytarabin, cyclophosphamide and total body irradiation (TBI). GVHD prophylaxis regimen consisted of ATG, CsA, MTX, Mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) and anti-CD(25) monoclonal antibody (MoAb).

RESULTSAll patients achieved engraftment of a median of 19 and 22 days for neutrophil and platelet, respectively. Cytogenetic analysis showed 100% donor hematopoietic cells in all recipients after transplantation. One of the twenty patients (5%) experienced grades II - IV acute GVHD. The recovery of CD(3)(+)CD(8)(+) T cells, CD(19)(+) cells and CD(56)(+) cells after transplantation was within 3 approximately 12 months. Of the 20 patients, 16 were alive with minimal and limited chronic GVHD and karnofsky score over 90% in a median follow-up of 9 months. Disease free survival (DFS) rates was (80 +/- 9)%.

CONCLUSIONG-CSF priming marrow graft along with sequential immunosuppressants, especially the addition of anti-CD(25) MoAb for aGVHD prophylaxis could achieve excellent engraftment, proper immune reconstitution and very low incidence of grade II - IV GVHD. The new protocol is effective and feasible in preventing severe acute GVHD and improving DFS.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Antibodies, Monoclonal ; therapeutic use ; Bone Marrow Transplantation ; adverse effects ; methods ; Child ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Graft vs Host Disease ; etiology ; prevention & control ; Hematopoietic Stem Cell Mobilization ; methods ; Humans ; Immunosuppressive Agents ; therapeutic use ; Interleukin-2 Receptor alpha Subunit ; immunology ; Leukemia ; therapy ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Tissue Donors ; Transplantation, Homologous

Although chemotherapy can achieve a high rate of disease remission in patients with newly diagnosed acute leukemia, patients with recurrent or refractory leukemia generally have a poorer rate of response. This study was designed to assess the utility of high-dose mitoxantrone and intermediate-dose cytarabine in the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory acute leukemia. Thirty patients with relapsed or refractory acute leukemia were treated with mitoxantrone at a total dose of 40 mg/m(2) intravenously and cytarabine 1 - 1.5 g/m(2) over 3 hours once daily for five doses. Twenty-six of thirty patients achieved complete response (CR 87%) and one achieved partial response (PR 3.3%). No patient died during the induction course. The main toxic effect was hematopoietic suppression that was clinically acceptable. The median time needed for CR was around 30 days. The median disease-free and overall survival times were 3.5 and 6 months, respectively. The results demonstrate that short course high-dose mitoxantrone with cytarabine is associated with a trend toward a higher CR rate and therefore, it should be an effective antileukemic regimen for the treatment of refractory and relapsed acute leukemia.