Alcohol consumption leads to injury in multiple organs and systems,including the liver,brain,heart,skeletal muscle,pancreas,bone,immune system,and endocrine system.Emerging evidence indicates that alcohol also promotes adipose tissue dysfunction,which may contribute to injury progression in other organs and systems.Autophagy is a lysosomal degradation pathway that has been shown to regulate adipose tissue homeostasis and adipogenesis.Increasing evidence also demonstrates that alcohol consumption affects autophagy in multiple tissues.This review summarizes current knowledge regarding the effect of autophagy on adipose tissue and its potential roles in alcohol-induced adipose tissue atrophy as well as its contribution to alcohol-induced liver injury.

The endoplasmic reticulum(ER)is an intracellular organelle consisting of a continuous network of membranes.In the liver,the ER is highly active in protein modification,lipid metabolism,and xenobiotic detoxification.Maintaining these complicated processes requires elaborate control of the ER lumen environment as well as the ER volume.Increasing evidence suggests that autophagy plays a critical role in regulating the homeostasis of hepatic ER contents and levels of cytochrome P450(CYP)enzymes via selective ER-phagy.This review will provide an overview of ER-phagy,summarizing the possible roles of recently identified ER-phagy receptor proteins in regulating the homeostasis of hepatic ER and CYP enzymes as well as outlining the various implications of ER-phagy in ER-related liver diseases.

Objective To study antibiotic resistance phenotypes and genotypes of extended spectrum ?-lactamases (ESBLs) and AmpC ?-lactamase-producing Klebsiella oxytoca isolated from specimens of respiratory tract in children.Methods Bacterial isolates were identified by API or VITEK32. Agar dilution was used for antibiotic susceptibility test,and ESBLs and AmpC were detected by confirmatory test recommended by CLSI/NCCLS and by 3-aminophenylboronic acid (APB) disk potentiation test, respectively.Microarray was used to determine the genotypes of ESBLs and AmpC ?-lactamases.Genotypes of Klebsiella oxytoca were determined by enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC)- PCR.Results ESBLs were positive in 129 out of 165 isolates (78.2%).Both ESBLs and AmpC ?- lactamases were positive in 16 out of 165 isolates (9.7%).AmpC ?-lactamase alone producer was not detected in term of phenotype and genotype.CTX-M was the most common type of ESBLs and DHA was the only type of AmpC ?-lactamase in these isolates.Most antibiotic resistant strains of Klebsiella oxytoca possessed the same genotype by ERIC-PCR.Although all strains were susceptible to carbpenem,Klebsiella oxytoca with ?-lactamases were more resistant to other antibiotic agents than those without ?- lactamases.Conclusions There is high prevalence of ESBLs production among Klebsiella oxytoca isolated from children in Urumqi.The main genotypes of ESBLs and AmpC ?-lactamases are CTX-M and DHA.

AIM: To study apoptosis and bcl-2 mRNA gene expression of cardiomyocytes in donor hearts of immature rabbits underwent prolonged protection by 11, 12-epoxyeicosatrienoic acid (11, 12-EET), and further probe into the possible mechanisms. METHODS: 24 isolated immature rabbit hearts were performed to the model in a Langendorff perfusion apparatus and randomly assigned to normal control group,ST control group and EET group. The isolated rabbit hearts in ST control group and EET group were stored for 24 hours with 4 ℃ hypothermia, and underwent 30 minutes of reperfusion (37 ℃). TUNEL and in situ hybridization (ISH) methods were applied in the present study and apoptotic cells and bcl-2 mRNA gene expression were observed. RESULTS: The numbers of apoptotic cardiomyocytes in ST group and EET group were higher than that in normal control group, and the numbers of apoptotic cardiomyocytes were significantly decreased in EET group and bcl-2 mRNA positive expression were higher than that in ST control group, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: There were apoptosis during the prolonged protection of donor heart in our study, and we proved that: ①11,12-EET could decrease cardiomyocyte apoptosis significantly. ②Up-regulation of the bcl-2 mRNA expression in cardiomyocytes may be one of the mechanism responsible for inhibition of cardiomyocyte apoptosis by 11, 12-EET.

AIM To determine the dynamic changes of monoamine neurotransmitters and their metabolites in various brain regions of cerebral ischemia reperfusion mice. METHODS Concentrations of monoamine neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine (NE), dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT) and metabolites were determined by HPLC-ECD on d 0,1,3,5 and d 20 after cerebral ischemia reperfusion by common carotid artery occlusion. RESULTS The cerebral ischemia reperfusion mice showed decreased concentrations of NE, MHPG, DA, DOPAC, 5-HT and 5-HIAA in various brain regions, especially in hippocampus. CONCLUSION Several neuron systems play an important role in neurons damage of cerebral ischemia reperfusion, especially the NE and DA in hippocampus which is sensitive to the ischemia damage. The data offer useful guides for clinical treatments of cerebral ischemia diseases.

Simvastatin is a hypolipidemic drug that inhibits hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMGCoA) reductase to control elevated cholesterol,or hypercholesterolemia.Previous studies have shown that simvastatin may attenuate inflammation in ischemia-reperfusion injury and sepsis.Herein,we hypothesized that simvastatin may prevent rats from lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced septic shock.In our study,rats were divided into a saline group,an LPS group and an LPS plus simvastatin group.Male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were pretreated with simvastatin (1 mg/kg) for 30 min before the addition of LPS (8 mg/kg),with variations in left ventricular pressure recorded throughout.Ninety min after LPS injection,whole blood was collected from the inferior vena cava,and neutrophils were separated from the whole blood using separating medium.The neutrophils were then lysed for Western blotting to detect the levels of urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1).In addition,mesentery microcirculations of inlet diameter,outlet diameter and blood flow rate were measured in all three groups.The results indicated that simvastatin significantly promoted heart systolic function and increased the level ofuPA while simultaneously inhibited the expression of PAI-1 as compared with LPS group.Moreover,simvastatin reversed the LPS-induced inhibition of mesentery microcirculation.Taken together,it was suggested that simvastatin can effectively protect the rats from LPS-induced septic shock.

Objective To identify serum biomarkers for rheumatoid arthritis(RA)by protein finger- print pattern. Methods One hundred and forty-one serum samples of 90 RA patients, 20 systemic lupus ery- thematosus(SLE)patients, and 31 healthy individuals were randomly divided into training set(n=93, 60 RA patients, 13 SLE patients and 20 healthy individuals)and test set(n=48, 30 RA patients, 7 SLE patients and 11 healthy individuals). They were detected by surface enhanced laser desorption/ionization-time of flight- mass spectrometry(SELDI-TOF-MS). The protein fingerprint pattern obtained from SELDI-TOF was trained by a multi-layer artificial neural network(ANN)to establish a diagnostic model. Results The detective mod- el obtained by ANN was used to detect the 48 unknown serum samples. The sensitivity and specificity for RA detection was 90% and 90.9% respectively. Conclusion In comparison with traditional methods, SELDI- TOF-MS could identify new serum biomarkers in RA. Combined with ANN, it provides high sensitivity and specificity for RA diagnosis.

AIM To explore pharmacokinetics of Berberine in YL2000 in normal and febrile rats. METHODS The levels of Berberine in plasma were measured through HPLC and secondary parameters were obtained by fitting the dose time data of Berberine making use of 3P87 programme. RESULTS In normal and febrile rats, the plasma concentration of Berberine was peaked at (3 4?0 3) h vs (0 3?2 1) h( P

Background and aim:Overdose of acetaminophen(APAP)leads to liver injury,which is one of the most common causes of liver failure in the United States.We previously demonstrated that pharmacological activation of autophagy protects against APAP-induced liver injury in mice via removal of damaged mitochondria and APAP-adducts(APAP-ADs).Using an image-based high-throughput screening for autophagy modulators,we recently identified that chlorpromazine(CPZ),a dopamine inhibitor used for anti-schizophrenia,is a potent autophagy inducer in vitro.Therefore,the aim of the present study is to determine whether CPZ may protect against APAP-induced liver injury via inducing autophagy. Methods:Wild type C57BL/6J mice were injected with APAP to induce liver injury.CPZ was administrated either at the same time with APAP(co-treatment)or 2 h later after APAP administration(post-treat-ment).Hemotoxyline and eosin(H&E)staining of liver histology,terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase deoxyuridine triphosphate nick end labeling(TUNEL)staining of necrotic cell death as well as serum levels of alanine aminotransferase(ALT)were used to monitor liver injury. Results:We found that CPZ markedly protected against APAP-induced liver injury as demonstrated by decreased serum levels of ALT,liver necrotic areas as well as TUNEL-positive cells in mice that were either co-treated or post-treated with CPZ.Mechanistically,we observed that CPZ increased the number of autolysosomes and decreased APAP-induced c-Jun N-terminal kinase activation without affecting the metabolic activation of APAP.Pharmacological inhibition of autophagy by chloroquine partially weak-ened the protective effects of CPZ against APAP-induced liver injury. Conclusions:Our results indicate that CPZ ameliorates APAP-induced liver injury partially via activating hepatic autophagy and inhibiting JNK activation.

The rising incidence of alcohol-related liver disease(ALD)demands making urgent progress in under-standing the fundamental molecular basis of alcohol-related hepatocellular damage.One of the key early events accompanying chronic alcohol usage is the accumulation of lipid droplets(LDs)in the hepato-cellular cytoplasm.LDs are far from inert sites of neutral lipid storage;rather,they represent key or-ganelles that play vital roles in the metabolic state of the cell.In this review,we will examine the biology of these structures and outline recent efforts being made to understand the effects of alcohol exposure on the biogenesis,catabolism,and motility of LDs and how their dynamic nature is perturbed in the context of ALD.