A novel chitosan derivant, N-octyl-N-arginine chitosan (OACS) with a mimetic structure of cell-penetrating peptides was synthesized by introducing hydrophilic arginine groups and hydrophobic octyl groups to the amino-group on chitosan's side chain. Structure of the obtained polymer was characterized by FT-IR and 1H NMR. The substitution degree of octyl and arginine groups was calculated through element analysis and spectrophotometric method, separately. The critical micelle concentration of OACS was 0.12 - 0.27 mgmL(-1) tested by fluorescence spectrometry. The solubility test showed OACS could easily dissolve in pH 1 - 12 solutions and self-assemble to form a micelle solution with light blue opalescence. The OACS micelles have a mean size of 158.4 - 224.6 nm, polydisperse index of 0.038 - 0.309 and a zeta potential of +19.16 - +30.80 mV determined by malvern zetasizer. AFM images confirmed free OACS micelle has a regular sphere form with a uniform particle size. MTT test confirmed that OACS was safe in 50 - 1 000 micromol-L(-1). The result of HepG2 cell experiment showed that the cell internalization of OACS micelles enhanced with increased substitution degree of arginine by 40 folds compared to chitosan. Thus, OACS micelles were a promising nano vehicle with permeation enhancement and drug carrier capability.

OBJECTIVETo investigate the changes in whole brain gray matter volume in patients with trigeminal neuralgia using voxel-based morphometry (VBM).

METHODSTwenty-eight patients with trigeminal neuralgia and 28 healthy controls underwent magnetic resonance imaging with a Philips 1.5T MRI scanner. VBM was used to compare the structural differences in the whole brain gray matter between the two groups based on the DARTEL after data preprocessing with SPM8 software package.

RESULTSCompared with the healthy controls, the patients with trigeminal neuralgia presented with decreased gray matter volume in several brain regions including the bilateral middle temporal gyrus, bilateral superior/middle frontal gyrus, left pre-/post-central gyrus, right fusiform and anterior cingulate gyrus.

CONCLUSIONSPatients with trigeminal neuralgia had abnormal gray matter volume in some brain regions associated with perception and processing of pain sensation. These changes may provide clues for further exploration of the neuropathogenic basis of trigeminal neuralgia.

Brain Mapping ; Case-Control Studies ; Frontal Lobe ; pathology ; Gray Matter ; pathology ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Temporal Lobe ; pathology ; Trigeminal Neuralgia ; pathology

Objective To evaluate the safety and efficacy of transplantation of purified CD34 + cells (PCCs) in treatment of critical limb ischemia (CLI) caused by thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO).Methods From May 2009 to June 2015,34 TAO-induced-CLI cases underwent PCCs transplantation.None of these patients were eligible for surgical or endovascular revascularization.G-CSF was subcutaneously injected for 5 days before peripheral CD34 + cells were isolated,purified and intramuscularly injected in the limbs.Patients were regularly follow-up.Results Technical success was achieved in all cases.The mean number of transplanted cells was (7.5 ± 2.4) × 105/kg.The follow-up was accomplished in 32 cases,ranging from 6 to 79 months (mean 45 ±24 months),and two patients were lost.Wong-Baker FACES pain rating scale score significantly decreased from 8.0 ±2.0(4-10)to 2.2 ±3.1 (P ＜0.05) at 1 month.The Peak pain-free walking time improved from (4.0 ± 2.0) min to (13.5 ± 5.3) min (P ＜ 0.05) at 3 months and (19.0 ± 3.1) min (P ＜ 0.05) at 6 months.The ankle-brachial index increased from 0.42 ± 0.20 to 0.50 ± 0.10 (P ＜ 0.05) at 3 months and 0.52 ± 0.11 (P ＜ 0.05) at 6 months,respectively.Transcutaneous partial oxygen pressure rose from (25 ± 11) mmHg to (48 ± 11) mmHg(P ＜ 0.05) at 3 months and (58 ± 10) mmHg (P ＜ 0.001) at 6 months,respectively.Ulcers healed in 21 out of 22 patients at (5 ± 4) months.The overall amputation-free survival rate was 94.1％ at 6 months and 91.2％ at 48 months.No major adverse events were observed perioperatively or postoperatively.Conclusions Transplantation of PCCs could yield safe,satisfactory and durable treatment outcomes in patients with TAO-induced-CLI.

Objective To explore the regional spontaneous activity changes in patients with trigeminal neuralgia (TN) using resting-state functional MRI.Methods Resting-state functional MRI datasets were acquired from 30 patients with TN,admitted to our hospital from July 2012 to December 2013,and 20 age,gender and education level matched healthy controls.The regional homogeneity (ReHo) method and independent-sample t-test were used to compare the brain activity differences between these two groups.Results Decreased ReHo values in the left temporal,left pam-hippocampal,as well as increased ReHo values in the bilateral thalamus and left parietal lobe were noted in TN patients as compared with those in the healthy controls.Conclusions The abnormal spontaneous activity exists in TN patients,and these abnormal regions are mainly associated with the perception and processing of pain.In addition,spontaneous activity alternation might promote the exploration of mechanism of TN.

Enzyme-catalysis self-assembled oligopeptide hydrogel holds great interest in drug delivery, which has merits of biocompatibility, biodegradability and mild gelation conditions. However, its application for protein delivery is greatly limited by inevitable degradation of enzyme on the encapsulated proteins leading to loss of protein activity. Moreover, for the intracellularly acted proteins, cell membrane as a primary barrier hinders the transmembrane delivery of proteins. The internalized proteins also suffer from acidic and enzymatic degradation in endosomes and lysosomes. We herein develop a protease-manipulated hybrid nanogel/nanofiber hydrogel for localized delivery of intracellularly acted proteins. The embedded polymeric nanogels (CytoC/aNGs) preserve activity of cytochrome